Demos Part 84

'You did not? Yet you met him?'

'Unexpectedly.'

'But you talked with him?'

'How can you ask? You know that I did.'

He collected his thoughts.

'Repeat to me what you talked about.'

'That I refuse to do.'

'Of course you do!' he cried, driven to frenzy. 'And you think I shall let this rest where it is? Have you forgotten that I came to the Westlakes and found Eldon there with you? And what was he doing in this street this morning if he hadn't come to see you? I begin to understand why you were so precious eager about giving up the will. That was your fine sense of honesty, of course! You are full of fine senses, but your mistake is to think I've no sense at all. What do you take me for?'

The thin crust of refinement was shattered; the very man came to light, coa.r.s.e, violent, whipped into fury by his pa.s.sions, of which injured self-love was not the least. Whether he believed his wife guilty or not he could not have said; enough that she had kept things secret from him, and that he could not overawe her. Whensoever he had shown anger in conversation with her, she had made him sensible of her superiority; at length he fell back upon his brute force and resolved to bring her to his feet, if need be by outrage. Even his accent deteriorated as he flung out his pa.s.sionate words; he spoke like any London mechanic, with defect and excess of aspirates, with neglect of g's at the end of words, and so on. Adela could not bear it; she moved to the door. But he caught her and thrust her back; it was all but a blow. Her face half recalled him to his senses.

'Where are you going?' he stammered.

'Anywhere, anywhere, away from this house and from you!' Adela replied.

Effort to command herself was vain; his heavy hand had completed the effect of his language, and she, too, spoke as nature impelled her. 'Let me pa.s.s! I would rather die than remain here!'

'All the same, you'll stay where you are!'

'Yes, your strength is greater than mine. You can hold me by force. But you have insulted me beyond forgiveness, and we are as much strangers as if we had never met. You have broken every bond that bound me to you.

You can make me your prisoner, but like a prisoner my one thought will be of escape. I will touch no food whilst I remain here. I have no duties to you, and you no claim upon me!'

'All the same, you stay!'

Before her sobbing vehemence he had grown calm. These words were so unimaginable on her lips that he could make no reply save stubborn repet.i.tion of his refusal. And having uttered that he went from the room, changing the key to the outside and locking her in. Fear lest he might be unable to withhold himself from laying hands upon her was the cause of his retreat. The l.u.s.t of cruelty was boiling in him, as once or twice before. Her beauty in revolt made a savage of him. He went into the bedroom and there waited.

Adela sat alone, sobbing still, but tearless. Her high-spirited nature once thoroughly aroused, it was some time before she could reason on what had come to pa.s.s. The possibility of such an end to her miseries had never presented itself even in her darkest hours; endurance was all she could ever look forward to. As her blood fell into calmer flow she found it hard to believe that she had not dreamt this scene of agony.

She looked about the room. There on the table were the vegetables she had been preparing; her hands bore the traces of the work she had done this morning. It seemed as though she had only to rise and go on with her duties as usual.

Her arm was painful, just below the shoulder. Yes, that was where he had seized her with his hard hand to push her away from the door.

What had she said in her distraction? She had broken away from him, and repudiated her wifehood. Was it not well done? If he believed her unfaithful to him--

At an earlier period of her married life such a charge would have held her mute with horror. Its effect now was not quite the same; she could face the thought, interrogate herself as to its meaning, with a shudder, indeed, but a shudder which came of fear as well as loathing. Life was no longer an untried country, its difficulties and perils to be met with the sole aid of a few instincts and a few maxims; she had sounded the depths of misery and was invested with the woeful knowledge of what we poor mortals call the facts of existence. And sitting here, as on the desert bed of a river whose water had of a sudden ceased to flow, she could regard her own relation to truths, however desolating, with the mind which had rather brave all than any longer seek to deceive itself.

Of that which he imputed to her she was incapable; that such suspicion of her could enter his mind branded him with baseness. But his jealousy was justified; howsoever it had awakened in him, it was sustained by truth. Was it her duty to tell him that, and so to render it impossible for him to seek to detain her?

But would the confession have any such result? Did he not already believe her criminal, and yet forbid her to leave him? On what terms did she stand with a man whose thought was devoid of delicacy, who had again and again proved himself without understanding of the principles of honour? And could she indeed make an admission which would compel her at the same time to guard against revolting misconceptions?

The question of how he had obtained this knowledge recurred to her. It was evident that the spy had intentionally calumniated her, professing to have heard her speak incriminating words. She thought of Rodman. He had troubled her by his private request that she would appeal to Eldon on Alice's behalf, a request which was almost an insult. Could he have been led to make it in consequence of his being aware of that meeting in the wood? That might well be; she distrusted him and believed him capable even of a dastardly revenge.

What was the troublesome thought that hung darkly in her mind and would not come to consciousness? She held it at last; Mutimer had said that he met Hubert in the street below. How to explain that? Hubert so near to her, perhaps still in the neighbourhood?

Again she shrank with fear. What might it mean, if he had really come in hope of seeing her? That was unworthy of him. Had she betrayed herself in her conversation with him? Then he was worse than cruel to her.

It seemed to her that hours pa.s.sed. From time to time she heard a movement in the next room; Mutimer was still there. There sounded at the house door a loud postman's knock, and in a few minutes someone came up the stairs, doubtless to bring a letter. The bedroom door opened; she heard her husband thank the servant and again shut himself in.

The fire which she had been about to use for cooking was all but dead.

She rose and put fresh coals on. There was a small oblong mirror over the mantelpiece; it showed her so ghastly a face that she turned quickly away.

If she succeeded in escaping from her prison, whither should she go? Her mother would receive her, but it was impossible to go to Wanley, to live near the Manor. Impossible, too, to take refuge with Stella. If she fled and hid herself in some other part of London, how was life to be supported? But there were graver obstacles. Openly to flee from her husband was to subject herself to injurious suspicions--it might be, considering Mutimer's character, to involve Hubert in some intolerable public shame. Or, if that worst extremity were avoided', would it not be said that she had deserted her husband because he had suddenly become poor?

That last thought brought the blood to her cheeks.

But to live with him after this, to smear over a deadly wound and pretend it was healed, to read hourly in his face the cowardly triumph over her weakness, to submit herself--Oh, what rescue from this hideous degradation! She went to the window, as if it had been possible to escape by that way; she turned again and stood moaning, with her hands about her head. When was the worst to come in this life so long since bereft of hope, so forsaken of support from man or G.o.d? The thought of death came to her; she subdued the tumult of her agony to weigh it well Whom would she wrong by killing herself? Herself, it might be; perchance not even death would be sacred against outrage.

She heard a neighbouring clock strike five, and shortly after her husband entered the room. Had she looked at him she would have seen an inexplicable animation in his face. He paced the floor once or twice in silence, then asked in a hard voice, though the tone was quite other than before:

'Will you tell me what it was you talked of that day in the wood?'

She did not reply.

'I suppose by refusing to speak you confess that you dare not let me know?'

Physical torture could not have wrung a word from her. She felt her heart surge with hatred.

He went to the cupboard in which food was kept, took out a loaf of bread, and cut a slice. He ate it, standing before the window. Then he cleared the table and sat down to write a letter; it occupied him for hall-an-hour. When it was finished, he put it in his pocket and began again to pace the room.

'Are you going to, sit like that all night?' he asked suddenly.

She drew a deep sigh and rose from her seat. He saw that she no longer thought of escaping him. She began to make preparations for tea. As helpless in his hands as though he had purchased her in a slave market, of what avail to sit like a perverse child? The force of her hatred warned her to keep watch lest she brought herself to his level. Without defence against indignities which were bitter as death, by law his chattel, as likely as not to feel the weight of his hand if she again roused his anger, what remained but to surrender all outward things to unthinking habit, and to keep her soul apart, nourishing in silence the fire of its revolt? It was the most pity-moving of all tragedies, a n.o.ble nature overcome by sordid circ.u.mstances. She was deficient in the strength of character which will subdue all circ.u.mstances; her strength was of the kind that supports endurance rather than breaks a way to freedom. Every day, every hour, is some such tragedy played through; it is the inevitable result of our social state. Adela could have wept tears of blood; her shame was like a branding iron upon her flesh.

She was on the second floor of a lodging-house in Pentonville, making tea for her husband.

That husband appeared to have undergone a change since lie quitted her a few hours ago. He was still venomous towards her, but his countenance no longer lowered dangerously. Something distinct from his domestic troubles seemed to be occupying him, something of a pleasant nature.

He all but smiled now and then; the glances he cast at Adela were not wholly occupied with her. He plainly wished to speak, but could not bring himself to do so.

He ate and drank of what she put before him. Adela took a cup of tea, but had no appet.i.te for food. When he had satisfied himself, she removed the things.

Another half-hour pa.s.sed. Mutimer was pretending to read. Adela at length broke the silence.

'I think,' she said, 'I was wrong in refusing to tell you what pa.s.sed between Mr. Eldon and myself when I by chance met him. Someone seems to have misled you. He began by hoping that we should not think ourselves hound to leave the Manor until we had had full time to make the necessary arrangements. I thanked him for his kindness, and then asked something further. It was that, if he could by any means do so, he would continue the works at New Wanley without any change, maintaining the principles on which they had been begun. He said that was impossible, and explained to me what his intentions were, and why he had formed them. That was our conversation.'

Mutimer observed her with a smile which affected incredulity.

'Will you take your oath that that is true?' he asked.

'No. I have told you because I now see that the explanation was owing, since you have been deceived. If you disbelieve me, it is no concern of mine.'

She had taken up some sewing, and, having spoken, went on with it.

Mutimer kept his eyes fixed upon her. His suspicions never resisted a direct word from Adela's lips, though other feelings might exasperate him. What he had just heard he believed the more readily because it so surprised him; it was one of those revelations of his wife's superiority which abashed him without causing evil feeling. They always had the result of restoring to him for a moment something of the reverence with which he had approached her in the early days of their acquaintance.

Even now he could not escape the impression.

'What was Eldon doing about here to-day?' he asked after a pause.