Demos. George Gissing

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СКАЧАТЬ of us to earn money, fortunately, and we kept up the home. We put our money by for the club every week, what’s more.’

      ‘The club?’ queried Miss Waltham, to whom the word suggested Pall Mall and vague glories which dwelt in her imagination.

      ‘That’s to make provision for times when we’re ill or can’t get work,’ Mutimer explained. ‘If a wage-earner falls ill, what has he to look to? The capitalist won’t trouble himself to keep him alive; there’s plenty to take his place. Well, that’s my position, or was a few months ago. I don’t suppose any workman has had more advantages. Take it as an example of the most we can hope for, and pray say what it amounts to! Just on the right side, just keeping afloat, just screwing out an hour here and there to work your brain when you ought to be taking wholesome recreation! That’s nothing very grand, it seems to me. Yet people will point to it and ask what there is to grumble at!’

      Adela sat uneasily under Mutimer’s gaze; she kept her eyes down.

      ‘And I’m not sure that I should always have got on as easily,’ the speaker continued. ‘Only a day or two before I heard of my relative’s death, I’d just been dismissed from my employment; that was because they didn’t like my opinions. Well, I don’t say they hadn’t a right to dismiss me, just as I suppose you’ve a right to kill as many of the enemy as you can in time of war. But suppose I couldn’t have got work anywhere. I had nothing but my hands to depend upon; if I couldn’t sell my muscles I must starve, that’s all.’

      Adela looked at him for almost the first time. She had heard this story from her brother, but it came more impressively from Mutimer’s own lips. A sort of heroism was involved in it, the championship of a cause regardless of self. She remained thoughtful with troublous colours on her face.

      Mrs. Waltham was more obviously uneasy. There are certain things to which in good society one does not refer, first and foremost humiliating antecedents. The present circumstances were exceptional to be sure, but it was to be hoped that Mr. Mutimer would outgrow this habit of advertising his origin. Let him talk of the working-classes if he liked, but always in the third person. The good lady began to reflect whether she might not venture shortly to give him friendly hints on this and similar subjects.

      But it was nearly tea-time. Mrs. Waltham shortly rose and went into the house, whither Alfred followed her. Mutimer kept his seat, and Adela could not leave him to himself, though for the moment he seemed unconscious of her presence. When they had been alone together for a little while, Richard broke the silence.

      ‘I hope I didn’t speak rudely to you; Miss Waltham. I don’t think I need fear to say what I mean, but I know there are always two ways of saying things, and perhaps I chose the roughest.’

      Adela was conscious of having said a few hard things mentally, and this apology, delivered in a very honest voice, appealed to her instinct of justice. She did not like Mutimer, and consequently strove against the prejudice which the very sound of his voice aroused in her; it was her nature to aim thus at equity in her personal judgments.

      ‘To describe hard things we must use hard words,’ she replied pleasantly, ‘but you said nothing that could offend.’

      ‘I fear you haven’t much sympathy with my way of looking at the question. I seem to you to be going to work the wrong way.’

      ‘I certainly think you value too little the means of happiness that we all have within our reach, rich and poor alike.’

      ‘Ah, if you could only see into the life of the poor, you would acknowledge that those means are and can be nothing to them. Besides, my way of thinking in such things is the same as your brother’s, and I can’t expect you to see any good in it.’

      Adela shook her head slightly. She had risen and was examining the leaves upon an apple branch which she had drawn down.

      ‘But I’m sure you feel that there is need for doing something,’ he urged, quitting his seat. ‘You’re not indifferent to the hard lives of the people, as most people are who have always lived comfortable lives?’

      She let the branch spring up, and spoke more coldly.

      ‘I hope I am not indifferent; but it is not in my power to do anything.’

      ‘Will you let me say that you are mistaken in that?’ Mutimer had never before felt himself constrained to qualify and adorn his phrases; the necessity made him awkward. Not only did he aim at polite modes of speech altogether foreign to his lips, but his own voice sounded strange to him in its forced suppression. He did not as yet succeed in regarding himself from the outside and criticising the influences which had got hold upon him; he was only conscious that a young lady—the very type of young lady that a little while ago he would have held up for scorn—was subduing his nature by her mere presence and exacting homage from him to which she was wholly indifferent. ‘Everyone can give help in such a cause as this. You can work upon the minds of the people you talk with and get them to throw away their prejudices. The cause of the working classes seems so hopeless just because they’re too far away to catch the ears of those who oppress them.’

      ‘I do not oppress them, Mr. Mutimer.’

      Adela spoke with a touch of impatience. She wished to bring this conversation to an end, and the man would give her no opportunity of doing so. She was not in reality paying attention to his arguments, as was evident in her echo of his last words.

      ‘Not willingly, but none the less you do so,’ he rejoined. ‘Everyone who lives at ease and without a thought of changing the present state of society is tyrannising over the people. Every article of clothing you put on means a life worn out somewhere in a factory. What would your existence be without the toil of those men and women who live and die in want of every comfort which seems as natural to you as the air you breathe? Don’t you feel that you owe them something? It’s a debt that can very easily be forgotten, I know that, and just because the creditors are too weak to claim it. Think of it in that way, and I’m quite sure you won’t let it slip from your mind again.’

      Alfred came towards them, announcing that tea was ready, and Adela gladly moved away.

      ‘You won’t make any impression there,’ said Alfred with a shrug of good-natured contempt. ‘Argument isn’t understood by women. Now, if you were a revivalist preacher—’ Mrs. Waltham and Adela went to church. Mutimer returned to his lodgings, leaving his friend Waltham smoking in the garden.

      On the way home after service, Adela had a brief murmured conversation with Letty Tew. Her mother was walking out with Mrs. Mewling.

      ‘It was evidently pre-arranged,’ said the latter, after recounting certain details in a tone of confidence. ‘I was quite shocked. On his part such conduct is nothing less than disgraceful. Adela, of course, cannot be expected to know.’

      ‘I must tell her,’ was the reply.

      Adela was sitting rather dreamily in her bedroom a couple of hours later when her mother entered.

      ‘Little girls shouldn’t tell stories,’ Mrs. Waltham began, with playfulness which was not quite natural. ‘Who was it that wanted to go and speak a word to Letty this afternoon?’

      ‘It wasn’t altogether a story, mother,’ pleaded the girl, shamed, but with an endeavour to speak independently. ‘I did want to speak to Letty.’

      ‘And you put it off, I suppose? Really, Adela, you must remember that a girl of your age has to be mindful of her self-respect. In Wanley you can’t escape notice; besides—’

      ‘Let СКАЧАТЬ