Demos Part 95

Rodman recovered his good temper.

'How do, Clara?' he said, keeping his eye fixed on hers. 'I'll have a drop of absinthe, if you please.'

Then he pursued his conversation with the two men. The woman, having served them, disappeared. Rodman kept looking for her. In a few minutes he pretended to recollect an engagement and succeeded in going off alone. As he issued on to the pavement he found himself confronted by the barmaid, who now wore a hat and cloak.

'Well?' he said, carelessly.

'Rodman's your name, is it?' was the reply.

'To my particular friends. Let's walk on; we can't chat here very well.'

'What is to prevent me from calling that policeman and giving you in charge?' she asked, looking into his face with a strange mixture of curiosity and anger.

'Nothing, except that you have no charge to make against me. The law isn't so obliging as all that. Come, we'll take a walk.'

She moved along by his side.

'You coward!' she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately but with none of the shrieking virulence of women who like to make a scene in the street. 'You mean, contemptible, cold-blooded man! I suppose you hoped I was starved to death by this time, or in the workhouse, or--what did _you_ care where I was! I knew I should find you some day.'

'I rather supposed you would stay on the other side of the water,'

Rodman remarked, glancing at her. 'You're changed a good deal. Now it's a most extraordinary thing. Not so very long ago I was dreaming about you, and you were serving at a bar--queer thing, wasn't it?'

They were walking towards Whitehall. When they came at length into an ill-lighted and quiet spot, the woman stopped.

'Where do you live?' she asked.

'Live? Oh, just out here in Pimlico. Like to see my rooms?'

'What do you mean by talking to me like that? Do you make a joke of deserting your wife and child for seven years, leaving them without a penny, going about enjoying yourself, when, for anything you knew, they were begging their bread? You always were heartless--it was the blackest day of my life that I met you; and you ask me if I'd like to see your rooms! What thanks to you that I'm not as vile a creature as there is in London? How was I to support myself and the child? What was I to do when they turned me into the streets of New York because I couldn't pay what you owed them nor the rent of a room to sleep in? You took good care _you_ never went hungry. I'd only one thing to hold me up: I was an honest woman, and I made up my mind I'd keep honest, though I had such a man as you for my husband. I've hungered and worked, and I've made a living for myself and my child as best I could. I'm not like you: I've done nothing to disgrace myself. Now I will slave no more. You won't run away from me this time. Leave me for a single night, and I go to the nearest police-station and tell all I know about you. If I wasn't a fool I'd do it now. But I've hungered and worked for seven years, and now it's time _my husband_ did something for me.'

'You always had a head for argument, Clara,' he replied coolly. 'But I can't get over that dream of mine. Really a queer thing, wasn't it?

Who'd have thought of you turning barmaid? With your education, I should have thought you could have done something in the teaching line. Never mind. The queerest thing of all is that I'm really half glad to see you.

How's Jack?'

The extraordinary conversation went on as they walked towards the street where Clara lived. It was in a poor part of Westminster. Reaching the house, Clara opened the door with a latchkey.

Two women were standing in the pa.s.sage.

'This is my husband, Mrs. Rook,' Clara said to one of them. 'He's just got back from abroad.'

'Glad to see you, Mr. Williamson,' said the landlady, scrutinising him with unmistakable suspicion.

The pair ascended the stairs, and Mrs. Williamson--she had always used the name she received in marriage--opened a door which disclosed a dark bedroom. A voice came from within--the voice of a little lad of eight years old.

'That you, mother? Why, I've only just put myself to bed. What time is it?'

'Then you ought to have gone to bed long ago,' replied his mother whilst she was striking a light.

It was a very small room, but decent. The boy was discovered sitting up in bed--a bright-faced little fellow with black hair. Clara closed the door, then turned and looked at her husband. The light made a glistening appearance on her eyes; she had become silent, allowing facts to speak for themselves.

The child stared at the stranger in astonishment.

'Who are you?' he asked at length.

Rodman laughed as heartily as if there had been nothing disagreeable in the situation.

'I have the honour to be your father, sir,' he replied. 'You're a fine boy, Jack--a deuced fine boy.'

The child was speechless. Rodman turned to the mother. Her hands held the rail at the foot of the bed, and as the boy looked up at her for explanation she let her face fall upon them and sobbed.

'If you're father come back,' exclaimed Jack indignantly, 'why do you make mother cry?'

Rodman was still mirthful.

'I like you, Jack,' he said. 'You'll make a man some day. Do you mind if I smoke a cigar, Clara?'

To his astonishment, he felt a weakness which had to be resisted; tobacco suggested itself as a resource. When he had struck a light, his wife forced back her tears and seated herself with an unforgiving countenance.

Rodman began to chat pleasantly as he smoked.

Decidedly it was a _contretemps_. It introduced a number of difficulties into his life. If he remained away for a night, he had little doubt that his wife would denounce him; she knew of several little matters which he on the whole preferred to be reticent about. She was not a woman like Alice, to be turned round his finger. It behoved him to be exceedingly cautious.

He had three personalities. As Mr. Willis Rodman his task was comparatively a light one, at all events for the present. He merely informed Alice by letter that he was kept in town by business and would see her in the course of a week. It was very convenient that Alice had no intercourse with her relatives. Secondly, as Mr. Williamson his position was somewhat more difficult. Not only had he to present himself every night at the rooms he had taken in Brixton, but it was necessary to take precautions lest his abode should be discovered by those who might make awkward use of the knowledge. He had, moreover, to keep Clara in the dark as to his real occupations and prevent her from knowing his resorts in town. Lastly, as Mr. Robert Delancey he had to deal with matters of a very delicate nature indeed, in themselves quite enough to occupy a man's mental energy. But our friend was no ordinary man. If you are not as yet satisfied of that, it will ere long be made abundantly clear to you.

His spirits were as high as ever. When he said--with an ingenious brutality all his own--that he was more than half glad to see his wife, he, for a wonder, told the truth. But perhaps it was little Jack who gave him most pleasure, and did most to reconcile him to the difficulties of his situation. In a day or two be conquered the child's affections so completely that Jack seemed to care little for his mother in comparison; Jack could not know the hardships she had endured for his sake. Rodman--so we will continue to call him for convenience'

sake--already began to talk of what he would make the lad, who certainly gave promise of parts. The result of this was that for a week or two our friend became an exemplary family man. His wife almost dared to believe that her miseries were over. Yet she watched him with lynx eyes.

The 'Irish Dairy Company' flourished. Rodman rubbed his hands with a sinister satisfaction when he inscribed among the shareholders the name of Richard Mutimer, who invested all the money he had collected from the East-Enders, and three hundred pounds of his own--not five hundred, as he had at first thought of doing. Mutimer had the consent of his committee, whom he persuaded without much difficulty--the money was not theirs--that by this means he would increase his capital beyond all expectation. He told Adela what he had done.

'There's not the least risk. They've got the names of several lords! And it isn't a mere commercial undertaking: the first object is to benefit the Irish; so that there can be nothing against my principles in it.

They promise a dividend of thirty per cent. What a glorious day it will be when I tell the people what I have made of their money! Now confess that it isn't everyone could have hit on this idea.'

Of course he made no public announcement of his speculation: that would have been to spoil the surprise. But he could not refrain from talking a good deal about the Company to his friends. He explained with zeal the merit of the scheme; it was dealing directly with the producers, the poor small-farmers who could never get fair treatment. He saw a great deal of Mr. Hilary, who was vastly interested in his East-End work. A severe winter had begun. Threepenny bits came in now but slowly, and Mutimer exerted himself earnestly to relieve the growing want in what he called his 'parishes.' He began in truth to do some really good work, moving heaven and earth to find employment for those long out of it, and even bestowing money of his own. At night he would return to Holloway worn out, and distress Adela with descriptions of the misery he had witnessed.

'I'm not sorry for it,' he once exclaimed. 'I cannot be sorry. Let things get worse and worse the mending'll be all the nearer. Why don't they march in a body to the West End? I don't mean march in a violent sense, though that'll have to come, I expect. But why don't they make a huge procession and go about the streets in an orderly way--just to let it be seen what their numbers are--just to give the West End a hint?

I'll propose that one of these days. It'll be a risky business, but we can't think of that when thousands are half starving. I could lead them, I feel sure I could! It wants someone with authority over them, and I think I've got that. There's no telling what I may do yet. I say, Adela, bow would it sound--"Richard Mutimer, First President of the English Republic"?'

And in the meantime Alice sat in her house at Wimbledon, abandoned.

The solitude seemed to be driving her mad. Rodman came down very occasionally for a few hours in the daytime, but never pa.s.sed a night with her. He told her he had a great affair on hand, a very great affair, which was to make their fortunes ten times over. She must be patient; women couldn't understand business. If she resisted his coaxing and grumbled, he always had his threat ready. He would realise his profits and make off, leaving her in the lurch. Weeks became months.

In pique at the betrayal of her famous stratagem, Alice had wanted to dismiss her servant, but Rodman objected to this. She was driven by desperation to swallow her pride and make a companion of the girl. But she did not complain to her of her husband--partly out of self-respect, partly because she was afraid to. Indeed it was a terrible time for the poor Princess. She spent the greater part of every day in a state of apathy; for the rest she wept. Many a time she was on the point of writing to Richard, but could not quite bring herself to that. She could not leave the house, for it rained or snowed day after day; the sun seemed to have deserted the heavens as completely as joy her life. She grew feeble-minded, tried to amuse herself with childish games, played 'Beggar My Neighbour' with the servant for hours at night. She had fits of hysteria, and terrified her sole companion with senseless laughter, or with alarming screams. Reading she was no longer story. And her gla.s.s--as well as her husband--told her that equal to; after a few pages she lost her understanding of a she suffered daily in her appearance.

Her hair was falling; she one day told the servant that she would soon have to buy a wig. Poor Alice! And she had not even the resource of railing against the social state. What a pity she had never studied that subject!

So the time went on till February of the new year. Alice's release was at hand.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII