Demos Part 102

Emma only shook her head. She suffered terribly from Adela's presence.

'I will go,' she said in a whisper.

'This is your room, I think?'

'Yes.'

'May I stay here?'

'Of course--you must.'

Emma was moving towards the door.

'You wish to go?' Adela said, uttering the words involuntarily.

'Yes, I must.'

Adela, left alone, stood gazing at the dead face. She did not kneel by her husband, as Emma had done, but a terrible anguish came upon her as she gazed; she buried her face in her hands. Her feeling was more of horror at the crime that had been committed than of individual grief.

Yet grief she knew. The last words her husband had spoken to her were good and worthy; in her memory they overcame all else. That parting when he left home had seemed to her like the beginning of a new life for him.

Could not his faults be atoned for otherwise than by this ghastly end?

She had no need to direct her thoughts to the good that was in him. Even as she had taken his part against his traducers, so she now was stirred in spirit against his murderers. She felt a solemn gladness in remembering that she had stood before that meeting in the Clerkenwell room and served him as far as it was in a woman's power to do. All her long sufferings were forgotten; this supreme calamity of death outweighed them all. His enemies had murdered him; would they not continue to a.s.sail his name? She resolved that his memory should be her care. That had nothing to do with love; simple justice demanded it.

Justice and grat.i.tude for the last words he had spoken to her.

She had as yet scarcely noticed the room in which she was. At length she surveyed it; its poverty brought tears in her eyes. There had been a fire, but the last spark was dead. She began to feel cold.

Soon there was the sound of someone ascending the stairs, and Emma, after knocking, again entered. She carried a tray with tea-things, which she placed upon the table. Then, having glanced at the fireplace, she took from a cupboard wood and paper and was beginning to make a fire when Adela stopped her, saying:

'You must not do that for me. I will light the fire myself, if you will let me.'

Emma looked up in surprise.

'It is kind of you to bring me the tea,' Adela continued. 'But let me do the rest.'

'If you wish to--yes,' the other replied, without understanding the thought which prompted Adela. She carefully held herself from glancing towards the dead man, and moved away.

Adela approached her.

'Have you a room for the night?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'Will you--will you take my hand before you leave me?' She held it forth; Emma, with eyes turned to the ground, gave her own.

'Look at me,' Adela said, under her breath.

Their eyes met, and at last Emma understood. In that grave, n.o.ble gaze was far more than sympathy and tenderness; it was a look that besought pardon.

'May I come to you in the night to see if you need anything?' Emma asked.

'I shall need nothing. Come only if you can't sleep.'

Adela lit the fire and began her night's watching.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

A deep breath of country air. It is springtime, and the valley of Wanley is bursting into green and flowery life, peacefully glad as if the foot of Demos had never come that way. Incredible that the fume of furnaces ever desecrated that fleece-sown sky of tenderest blue, that hammers clanged and engines roared where now the thrush utters his song so joyously. Hubert Eldon has been as good as his word. In all the valley no trace is left of what was called New Wanley. Once more we can climb to the top of Stanbury Hill and enjoy the sense of remoteness and security when we see that dark patch on the horizon, the cloud that hangs over Belwick.

Hubert and the vicar of Wanley stood there together one morning in late April, more than a year after the death of Richard Mutimer. Generally there was a strong breeze on this point, but to-day the west was breathing its gentlest, warm upon the cheek.

'Well, it has gone,' Hubert said. 'May will have free playing-ground.'

'In one sense,' replied the vicar, 'I fear it will never be gone. Its influence on the life of the people in Wanley and in some of the farms about has been graver than you imagine. I find discontent where it was formerly unknown. The typical case is that lad of Bolton's. They wanted him sadly at home; by this time he would have been helping his unfortunate father. Instead of that he's the revolutionary oracle of Belwick pot-houses, and appears on an average once a fortnight before the magistrates for being drunk and disorderly.'

'Yes, the march of progress has been hastened a little, doubtless,' said Hubert. 'I have to content myself with the gra.s.s and the trees. Well, I have done all I could, now other people must enjoy the results. Ah, look! there is a van of the Edgeworths' furniture coming to the Manor.

They are happy people! Something like an ideal married couple, and with nothing to do but to wander about the valley and enjoy themselves.'

'I am rather surprised you gave them so long a lease,' remarked Mr.

Wyvern.

'Why not? I shall never live here again. As long as I had work to do it was all right; but to continue to live in that house was impossible.

And in twenty years it would be no less impossible. I should fall into a monomania, and one of a very loathsome kind.'

Mr. Wyvern pondered. They walked on a few paces before Hubert again spoke.

'There was a letter from her in the "Belwick Chronicle" yesterday morning Something on the placard in Agworth station caused me to buy a copy. The Tory paper, it seems, had a leader a day or two ago on Socialism, and took occasion to sneer at Mutimer, not by name, but in an unmistakable way--the old scandal of course. She wrote a letter to the editor, and he courteously paid no attention to it. So she wrote to the "Chronicle." They print her in large type, and devote a leader to the subject--party capital, of course.'

He ceased on a bitter tone, then, before his companion could reply, added violently:

'It is hideous to see her name in such places!'

'Let us speak freely of this,' returned Mr. Wyvern. 'You seem to me to be very unjust. Your personal feeling makes you less acute in judging than I should have expected. Surely her behaviour is very admirable.'

'Oh, I am not unjust in that sense. I have never refused to believe in his innocence technically.'

'Excuse me, that has nothing to do with the matter. All we have to look at is this. She is herself convinced of his innocence, and therefore makes it her supreme duty to defend his memory. It appears to me that she acts altogether n.o.bly. In spite of all the evidence that was brought on his side, the dastardly spirit of politics has persisted in making Mutimer a sort of historical character, a type of the hypocritical demagogue, to be cited whenever occasion offers. Would it be possible to attach a more evil significance to a man's name than that which Mutimer bears, and will continue to bear, among certain sections of writing and speechifying vermin? It is a miserable destiny. If every man who achieves notoriety paid for his faults in this way, what sort of reputations would history consist of? I won't say that it isn't a good thing, speaking generally, but in the individual case it is terribly hard. Would you have his widow keep silence? That would be the easier thing to do, be sure of it--for _her_, a thousand times the easier. I regard her as the one entirely n.o.ble woman it has been my lot to know. And if you thought calmly you could not speak of her with such impatience.'

Hubert kept silence for a moment.

'It is all true. Of course it only means that I am savagely jealous. But I cannot--upon my life I cannot--understand her having given her love to such a man as that!'

Mr. Wyvern seemed to regard the landscape. There was a sad smile on his countenance.

'Let there be an end of it,' Hubert resumed. 'I didn't mean to say anything to you about the letter. Now, we'll talk of other things. Well, I am going to have a summer among the German galleries; perhaps I shall find peace there. You have let your son know that I am coming?'

The vicar nodded. They continued their walk along the top of the hill.