Demos Part 24

'Has he stayed at home often lately?'

'Not at 'ome, but I expect he doesn't always go to work.'

'Will you go and sit with Alice in the front room? I'll have a talk with him.'

'Arry came whistling at the summons. There was a nasty look on his face, the look which in his character corresponded to Richard's resoluteness.

His brother eyed him.

'Look here, 'Arry,' the elder began, 'I want this explaining. What do you mean by shirking your work?'

There was no reply. 'Arry strode to the window and leaned against the side of it, in the att.i.tude of a Sunday loafer waiting for the dram-shop to open.

'If this goes on,' Richard pursued, 'you'll find yourself in your old position again. I've gone to a good deal of trouble to give you a start, and it seems to me you ought to show a better spirit. We'd better have an understanding; do you mean to learn engineering, or don't you?'

'I don't see the use of it,' said the other.

'What do you mean? I suppose you must make your living somehow?'

'Arry laughed, and in such a way that Richard looked at him keenly, his brow gathering darkness.

'What are you laughing at?'

'Why, at you. There's no more need for me to work for a living than there is for you. As if I didn't know that!'

'Who's been putting that into your head?'

No scruple prevented the lad from breaking a promise he had made to Mr.

Keene, the journalist, when the latter explained to him the disposition of the deceased Richard Mutimer's estate; it was only that he preferred to get himself credit for acuteness.

'Why, you don't think I was to be kept in the dark about a thing like that? It's just like you to want to make a fellow sweat the flesh off his bones when all the time there's a fortune waiting for him. What have I got to work for, I'd like to know? I don't just see the fun of it, and you wouldn't neither, in my case. You've took jolly good care you don't work yourself, trust you! I ain't a-going to work no more, so there it is, plain and flat.'

Richard was not prepared for this; he could not hit at once on a new course of procedure, and probably it was the uncertainty revealed in his countenance that brought 'Arry to a pitch of boldness not altogether premeditated. The lad came from the window, thrust his hands more firmly into his pockets and stood prepared to do battle for his freeman's rights It is not every day that a youth of his stamp finds himself gloriously capable of renouncing work. There was something like a glow of conscious virtue on his face.

'You're not going to work any more, eh?' said his brother, half to himself. 'And who's going to support you?' he asked, with rather forced indignation.

'There's interest per cent. coming out of my money.'

'Arry must not be credited with conscious accuracy in his use of terms; he merely jumbled together two words which had stuck in his memory.

'Oh? And what are you going to do with your time?'

'That's my business. How do other men spend their time?'

The reply was obvious, but Richard felt the full seriousness of the situation and restrained his scornful impulses.

'Sit down, will you?' he said quietly, pointing to a chair.

His tone availed more than anger would have done.

'You tell me I take good care not to do any work myself? There you're wrong. I'm working hard every day.'

'Oh, we know what kind of work that is!'

'No, I don't think you do. Perhaps it would be as well if you were to see. I think you'd better go to Wanley with me.'

'What for?'

'I dare say I can give you a job for awhile.'

'I tell you I don't want a job.'

Richard's eye wandered rather vacantly. From the first it had been a question with him whether it would not be best to employ 'Arry at Wanley, but on the whole the scheme adopted seemed more fruitful. Had the works been fully established it would have been a different thing.

Even now he could keep the lad at work at Wanley, though not exactly in the way he desired. But if it came to a choice between a life of idleness in London and such employment as could be found for him at the works, 'Arry must clearly leave town at once. In a few days the Manor would be furnished; in a few weeks Emma would be there to keep house.

There was the difficulty of leaving his mother and sister alone.

It looked as if all would have to quit London. Yet there would be awkwardness in housing the whole family at the Manor; and besides--

What the 'besides' implied Richard did not make formal even in his own thoughts. It stood for a vague objection to having all his relatives dwelling at Wanley. Alice he would not mind; it was not impossible to picture Alice in conversation with Mrs. and Miss Waltham; indeed, he desired that for her. And yet--

Richard was at an awkward pa.s.s. Whithersoever he looked he saw stumbling-blocks, the more disagreeable in that they rather loomed in a sort of mist than declared themselves for what they were. He had not the courage to approach and examine them one by one; he had not the audacity to imagine leaps over them; yet somehow they had to be surmounted. At this moment, whilst 'Arry was waiting for the rejoinder to his last reply, Richard found himself wrestling again with the troubles which had kept him wakeful for the last two nights. He had believed them finally thrown and got rid of. Behold, they were more stubborn than ever.

He kept silence so long that his brother spoke.

'What sort of a job is it?'

To his surprise, Richard displayed sudden anger.

'If you weren't such a young fool you'd see what's best for you, and go on as I meant you to! What do you mean by saying you won't work? If you weren't such a thickhead you might go to school and be taught how to behave yourself, and how a man ought to live; but it's no use sending _you_ to any such place. Can't you understand that a man with money has to find some sort of position in the world? I suppose you'd like to spend the rest of your life in public-houses and music-halls?'

Richard was well aware that to give way to his temper was worse than useless, and could only defeat every end; but something within him just now gnawed so intolerably that there was nothing for it but an outbreak.

The difficulties of life were hedging him in--difficulties he could not have conceived till they became matter of practical experience.

And unfortunately a great many of them were not of an honest kind; they would not bear exposing. For a man of decision, Mutimer was getting strangely remote from practical roads.

'I shall live as I like,' observed 'Arry, thrusting out his legs and bending his body forward, a combination of movements which, I know not why, especially suggests dissoluteness.

Richard gave up the contest for the present, and went in silence from the room. As he joined his mother and sister they suddenly ceased talking.

'Don't cook anything for me,' he said, remaining near the door. 'I'm going out.'

'But you must have something to eat,' protested his mother. 'See'--she rose hastily--'I'll get a chop done at once.'

'I couldn't eat it if you did. I dare say you've got some cold meat.

Leave it out for me; I don't know what time I shall get back.'

'You're very unkind, d.i.c.k,' here remarked Alice, who wore a mutinous look. 'Why couldn't you let us go to the theatre?'

Her brother vouchsafed no reply, but withdrew from the room, and almost immediately left the house. He walked half a mile with his eyes turned to the ground, then noticed a hansom which was pa.s.sing empty, and had himself driven to Hoxton. He alighted near the Britannia Theatre, and thence made his way by foul streets to a public-house called the 'Warwick Castle.' Only two customers occupied the bar; the landlord stood in his shirt-sleeves, with arms crossed, musing. At the sight of Mutimer he brightened up, and extended his hand.

'How d'you do; how d'you do, sir?' he exclaimed. 'Glad to see you.'