Demos. George Gissing

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СКАЧАТЬ to tell her of a difficulty I was in. Yesterday afternoon I happened to meet Mr. Eldon, and when he was saying good-bye I asked him if he wouldn’t come and see you before he left Wanley. He promised to come this afternoon. At the time of course I didn’t know that Alfred had invited Mr. Mutimer. It would have been so disagreeable for Mr. Eldon to meet him here, I made up my mind to walk towards the Manor and tell Mr. Eldon what had happened.’

      ‘Why should Mr. Eldon have found the meeting with Mr. Mutimer disagreeable?’

      ‘They don’t like each other.’

      ‘I dare say not. Perhaps it was as well Mr. Eldon didn’t come. I should most likely have refused to see him.’

      ‘Refused to see him, mother?’

      Adela gazed in the utmost astonishment.

      ‘Yes, my dear. I haven’t spoken to you about Mr. Eldon, just because I took it for granted that he would never come in your way again. That he should have dared to speak to you is something beyond what I could have imagined. When I went to see Mrs. Eldon on Friday I didn’t take you with me, for fear lest that young man should show himself. It was impossible for you to be in the same room with him.’

      ‘With Mr. Hubert Eldon? My dearest mother, what are you saying?’

      ‘Of course it surprises you, Adela. I too was surprised. I thought there might be no need to speak to you of things you ought never to hear mentioned, but now I am afraid I have no choice. The sad truth is that Mr. Eldon has utterly disgraced himself. When he ought to have been here to attend Mr. Mutimer’s funeral, he was living at Paris and other such places in the most shocking dissipation. Things are reported of him which I could not breathe to you; he is a bad young man!’

      The inclusiveness of that description! Mrs. Waltham’s head quivered as she gave utterance to the words, for at least half of the feeling she expressed was genuine. To her hearer the final phrase was like a thunderstroke. In a certain profound work on the history of her country which she had been in the habit of studying, the author, discussing the character of Oliver Cromwell, achieved a most impressive climax in the words, ‘He was a bold, bad man.’ The adjective ‘bad’ derived for Adela a dark energy from her recollection of that passage; it connoted every imaginable phase of moral degradation. ‘Dissipation’ too; to her pure mind the word had a terrible sound; it sketched in lurid outlines hideous lurking places of vice and disease. ‘Paris and other such places.’ With the name of Paris she associated a feeling of reprobation; Paris was the head-quarters of sin—at all events on earth. In Paris people went to the theatre on Sunday; that fact alone shed storm-light over the iniquitous capital.

      She stood mute with misery, appalled, horrified. It did not occur to her to doubt the truth of her mother’s accusations; the strange circumstance of Hubert’s absence when every sentiment of decency would have summoned him home corroborated the charge. And she had talked familiarly with this man a few hours ago! Her head swam.

      ‘Mr. Mutimer knew it,’ proceeded her mother, noting with satisfaction the effect she was producing. ‘That was why he destroyed the will in which he had left everything to Mr. Eldon; I have no doubt the grief killed him. And one thing more I may tell you. Mr. Eldon’s illness was the result of a wound he received in some shameful quarrel; it is believed that he fought a duel.’

      The girl sank back upon her chair. She was white and breathed with difficulty.

      ‘You will understand now, my dear,’ Mrs. Waltham continued, more in her ordinary voice, ‘why it so shocked me to hear that you had been seen talking with Mr. Eldon near the Manor. I feared it was an appointment. Your explanation is all I wanted: it relieves me. The worst of it is, other people will hear of it, and of course we can’t explain to everyone.’

      ‘Why should people hear?’ Adela exclaimed, in a quivering voice. It was not that she feared to have the story known, but mingled feelings made her almost passionate. ‘Mrs. Mewling has no right to go about talking of me. It is very ill-bred, to say nothing of the unkindness.’

      ‘Ah, but it is what we have to be prepared for, Adela. That is the world, my child. You see how very careful one has to be. But never mind; it is most fortunate that the Eldons are going. I am so sorry for poor Mrs. Eldon; who could have thought that her son would turn out so badly! And to think that he would have dared to come into my house! At least he had the decency not to show himself at church.’

      Adela sat silent. The warring of her heart made outward sounds indistinct.

      ‘After all,’ pursued her mother, as if making a great concession, ‘I fear it is only too true that those old families become degenerate. One does hear such shocking stories of the aristocracy. But get to bed, dear, and don’t let this trouble you. What a very good thing that all that wealth didn’t go into such hands, isn’t it? Mr. Mutimer will at all events use it in a decent way; it won’t be scattered in vulgar dissipation.—Now kiss me, dear. I haven’t been scolding you, pet; it was only that I felt I had perhaps made a mistake in not telling you these things before, and I blamed myself rather than you.’

      Mrs. Waltham returned to her own room, and after a brief turning over of speculations and projects begotten of the new aspect of things, found her reward for conscientiousness in peaceful slumber. But Adela was late in falling asleep. She, too, had many things to revolve, not worldly calculations, but the troubled phantasies of a virgin mind which is experiencing its first shock against the barriers of fate.

      CHAPTER IX

      Richard Mutimer had strong domestic affections. The English artisan is not demonstrative in such matters, and throughout his life Richard had probably exchanged no word of endearment with any one of his kin, whereas language of the tempestuous kind was common enough from him to one and all of them; for all that he clung closely to the hearth, and nothing in truth concerned him so nearly as the well-being of his mother, his sister, and his brother. For them he had rejoiced as much as for himself in the blessing of fortune. Now that the excitement of change had had time to subside, Richard found himself realising the fact that capital creates cares as well as removes them, and just now the centre of his anxieties lay in the house at Highbury to which his family had removed from Wilton Square.

      He believed that as yet both the Princess and ‘Arry were ignorant of the true state of affairs. It had been represented to them that he had ‘come in for’ a handsome legacy from his relative in the Midlands, together with certain business responsibilities which would keep him much away from home; they were given to understand that the change in their own position and prospects was entirely of their brother’s making. If Alice Maud was allowed to give up her work, to wear more expensive gowns, even to receive lessons on the pianoforte, she had to thank Dick for it. And when ‘Arry was told that his clerkship at the drain-pipe manufactory was about to terminate, that he might enter upon a career likely to be more fruitful of distinction, again it was Dick’s brotherly kindness. Mrs. Mutimer did her best to keep up this deception.

      But Richard was well aware that the deception could not be lasting, and had the Princess alone been concerned he would probably never have commenced it. It was about his brother that he was really anxious. ‘Arry might hear the truth any day, and Richard gravely feared the result of such a discovery. Had he been destined to future statesmanship, he could not have gone through a more profitable course of experience and reasoning than that into which he was led by brotherly solicitude. For ‘Arry represented a very large section of Demos, alike in his natural characteristics and in the circumstances of his position; ‘Arry, being ‘Arry, was on the threshold of emancipation, and without the smallest likelihood that the event would change his nature. Hence the nut to crack: Given ‘Arry, by what rapid process of discipline can he be prepared for a state in which the ‘Arrian characteristics will surely prove ruinous not only to himself but to СКАЧАТЬ