Demos Part 90

'Miss Vine, I wanted you to come to Epping Forest to-morrow because I thought I should have a chance of a little talk. I don't mean that was the only reason; it's too bad you never get a holiday, and I should like it to a' done you good. But I thought I might a' found a chance o'

sayin' something, something I've thought of a long time, and that's the honest truth. I want to help you and your sister and the young 'uns, but _you_ most of all. I don't like to see you livin' such a hard life, 'cause you deserve something better, if ever anyone did. Now will you let me help you? There's only one way, and it's the way I'd like best of any. The long an' the short of it is, I want to ask you if you'll come an' live at the 'ouse, come and bring Mrs. Clay an' the children?'

Emma looked at him in surprise and felt uncertain of his meaning, though his speech had painfully prepared her with an answer.

'I'd do my right down best to make you a good 'usband, that I would, Emma!' Daniel hurried on, getting fl.u.s.tered. 'Perhaps I've been a bit too sudden? Suppose we leave it till you've had time to think over? It's no good talking to you about money an' that kind o' thing; you'd marry a poor man as soon as a rich, if only you cared in the right way for him. I won't sing my own praises, but I don't think you'd find much to complain of in me. I'd never ask you to go into the bar, 'cause I know you ain't suited for that, and, what's more, I'd rather you didn't. Will you give it a thought?'

It was modest enough, and from her knowledge of the man Emma felt that he was to be trusted for more than his word. But he asked an impossible thing. She could not imagine herself consenting to marry any man, but the reasons why she could not marry Daniel Dabbs were manifold. She felt them all, but it was only needful to think of one.

Yet it was a temptation, and the hour of it might have been chosen.

With a scarcity of food for the morrow, with dark fears for her sister, suffering incessantly on the children's account, Emma might have been pardoned if she had taken the helping hand. But the temptation, though it unsteadied her brain for a moment, could never have overcome her. She would have deemed it far less a crime to go out and steal a loaf from the baker's shop than to marry Daniel because he offered rescue from dest.i.tution.

She refused him, as gently as she could, but with firmness which left him no room for misunderstanding her. Daniel was awed by her quiet sincerity.

'But I can wait,' he stammered; 'if you'd take time to think it over?'

Useless; the answer could at no time be other.

'Well, I've no call to grumble,' he said. 'You say straight out what you mean. No woman can do fairer than that.'

His thought recurred for a moment to Alice, whose fault had been that she was ever ambiguous.

'It's hard to bear. I don't think I shall ever care to marry any other woman. But you're doin' the right thing and the honest thing; I wish all women was like you.'

At the door he turned.

'There'd be no harm if I take Mrs. Clay and the children, would there?'

'I am sure they will thank you, Mr. Dabbs.'

It did not matter now that there was a clear understanding.

At a little distance from the house door Daniel found Mrs. Clay waiting.

'No good,' he said cheerlessly.

'She won't go?'

'No. But I'll take you and the children, if you'll come.'

Kate did not immediately reply. A grave disappointment showed itself in her face.

'Can't be helped,' Daniel replied to her look. 'I did my best'

Kate accepted his invitation, and they arranged the hour of meeting. As she approached the house to enter, flow looking ill-tempered, a woman of her acquaintance met her. After a few minutes' conversation they walked away together.

Emma sat up till twelve o'clock. The thought on which she was brooding was not one to make the time go lightly; it was--how much and how various evil can be wrought by a single act of treachery. And the instance in her mind was more fruitful than her knowledge allowed her to perceive.

Kate appeared shortly after midnight. She had very red cheeks and very bright eyes, and her mood was quarrelsome. She sat down on the bed and began to talk of Daniel Dabbs, as she had often done already, in a maundering way. Emma kept silence; she was beginning to undress.

'There's a man with money,' said Kate, her voice getting louder; 'money, I tell you, and you've only to say a word. And you won't even be civil to him. You've got no feeling; you don't care for n.o.body but yourself.

I'll take the children and leave you to go your own way, that's what I'll do!'

It was hard to make no reply, but Emma succeeded in commanding herself.

The maundering talk went on for more than an hour. Then came the wretched silence of night.

Emma did not sleep. She was too wobegone to find a tear. Life stood before her in the darkness like a hideous spectre.

In the morning she told her sister that Daniel had asked her to marry him and that she had refused. It was best to have that understood. Kate heard with black brows. But even yet she knew something of shame when she remembered her return home the night before; it kept her from giving utterance to her anger.

There followed a scene such as had occurred two or three times during the past six months. Emma threw aside all her coldness, and with pa.s.sionate entreaty besought her sister to draw back from the gulf's edge whilst there was yet time. For her own sake, for the sake of Bertie and the little girl, by the memory of that dear dead one who lay in the waste cemetery!

'Pity me, too! Think a little of me, Kate dear! You are driving me to despair.'

Kate was moved, she had not else been human. The children were looking up with frightened, wondering eyes. She hid her face and muttered promises of amendment.

Emma kissed her, and strove hard to hope.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

With his five hundred pounds lodged in the bank, Mutimer felt ill at ease in the lodgings in Pentonville. He began to look bout for an abode more suitable to the dignity of his position, and shortly discovered a house in Holloway, the rent twenty-eight pounds, the situation convenient for his purposes. By way of making some amends to Adela for his less than civil behaviour, he took the house and had it modestly furnished (at the cost of one hundred and ten pounds) before saying anything to her of his plans. Then, on the pretext of going to search for pleasanter lodgings, he one day took her to Holloway and led her into her own dwelling. Adela was startled, but did her best to seem grateful.

They returned to Pentonville, settled their accounts, packed their belongings, and by evening were able to sit down to a dinner cooked by their own servant--under Adela's supervision. Mutimer purchased a couple of bottles of claret on the way home, that the first evening might be wholly cheerful. Of a sudden he had become a new man; the sullenness had pa.s.sed, and he walked from room to room with much the same air of lofty satisfaction as when he first surveyed the interior of Wanley Manor.

He made a show of reading in the hour before dinner, but could not keep still for more than a few minutes at a time; he wanted to handle the furniture, to survey the prospect from the windows, to walk out into the road and take a general view of the house. When their meal had begun, and the servant, instructed to wait at table, chanced to be out of the room, he remarked:

'We'll begin, of course, to dine at the proper time again. It's far better, don't you think so?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'And, by-the-by, you'll see that Mary has a cap.'

Adela smiled.

'Yes, I'll see she has.'

Mary herself entered. Some impulse she did not quite understand led Adela to look at the girl in her yet capless condition. She said something which would require Mary to answer, and found herself wondering at the submissive tone, the repeated 'Mum.'

'Yes,' she mused with herself, 'she is our creature. We pay her and she must attire herself to suit our ideas of propriety. She must remember her station.'

'What is it?' Mutimer asked, noticing that she had again smiled.

'Nothing.'

His pipe lit, his limbs reposing in the easy-chair, Mutimer became expansive. He requested Adela's attention whilst he rendered a full account of all the moneys he had laid out, and made a computation of the cost of living on this basis.

'The start once made,' he said, 'you see it isn't a bit dearer than the lodgings. And the fact is, I couldn't have done much in that hole. Now here, I feel able to go to work. It isn't in reality spending money on ourselves, though it may look like it. You see I must have a place where people can call to see me; we'd no room before.'