Demos

‘I can’t come. I want to be alone, Kate. Tell them not to come up.’

‘But you can’t stay here all night, child!’

‘I can’t talk. I want to be alone. Perhaps I’ll come down before long.’

Kate withdrew and went to gossip with the people who were incessantly coming and going in the lower part of the house. The opening and shutting of the front door, the sound of voices, the hurrying feet upon the staircase, were audible enough to Emma. She heard, too, the crowds that kept passing along the street, their shouts, their laughter, the voices of the policemen bidding them move on. It was all a nightmare, from which she strove to awake.

At length she was able to weep. Gazing constantly at the dead face, she linked it at last with some far-off memory of tenderness, and that brought her tears. She held the cold hand against her heart and eased herself with passionate sobbing, with low wails, with loving utterance of his name. Thus it happened that she did not hear when someone knocked lightly at the door and entered. A shadow across the still features told her of another’s presence. Starting back, she saw a lady from whose pale, beautiful face a veil had just been raised. The stranger, who was regarding her with tenderly compassionate eyes, said:

‘I am Mrs. Mutimer.’

Emma rose to her feet and drew a little apart. Her face fell.

‘They told me downstairs,’ Adela pursued, ‘that I should find Miss Vine in the room. Is your name Emma Vine?’

Emma asked herself whether this lady, his wife, could know anything of her story. It seemed so, from the tone of the question. She only replied:

‘Yes, it is.’

Then she again ventured to look up at the woman whose beauty had made her life barren. There were no signs of tears on Adela’s face; to Emma she seemed cold, though so grave and gentle. Adela gazed for a while at the dead man. She, too, felt as though it were all a dream. The spectacle of Emma’s passionate grief had kept her emotion within her heart, perhaps had weakened it.

‘You have yourself been hurt,’ she said, turning again to the other.

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 assail his name? She resolved that his memory should be her care. That had nothing to do with love; simple justice demanded it. Justice and gratitude 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, noble 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 XXXVI

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 grass 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.’