Demos
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‘Of course I have. But what’s to happen in a week or two?’
‘I should think you might come to Wanley for a little. We shall see. If mother had only ‘Arry in the house, she might come back to her senses.’
‘Shall I tell her you’ve been to London?’
‘You can if you like,’ he replied, with a show of indifference.
Jane Vine was buried on Sunday afternoon, her sisters alone accompanying her to the grave. Alice had with difficulty obtained admission to her mother’s room, and it seemed to her that the news she brought was received with little emotion. The old woman had an air of dogged weariness; she did not look her daughter in the face, and spoke only in monosyllables. Her face was yellow, her cheeks like wrinkled parchment.
Manor Park Cemetery lies in the remote East End, and gives sleeping-places to the inhabitants of a vast district. There Jane’s parents lay, not in a grave to themselves, but buried amidst the nameless dead, in that part of the ground reserved for those who can purchase no more than a portion in the foss which is filled when its occupants reach statutable distance from the surface. The regions around were then being built upon for the first time; the familiar streets of pale, damp brick were stretching here and there, continuing London, much like the spreading of a disease. Epping Forest is near at hand, and nearer the dreary expanse of Wanstead Flats.
Not grief, but chill desolation makes this cemetery its abode. A country churchyard touches the tenderest memories, and softens the heart with longing for the eternal rest. The cemeteries of wealthy London abound in dear and great associations, or at worst preach homilies which connect themselves with human dignity and pride. Here on the waste limits of that dread East, to wander among tombs is to go hand in hand with the stark and eyeless emblem of mortality; the spirit falls beneath the cold burden of ignoble destiny. Here lie those who were born for toll; who, when toil has worn them to the uttermost, have but to yield their useless breath and pass into oblivion. For them is no day, only the brief twilight of a winter sky between the former and the latter night For them no aspiration; for them no hope of memory in the dust; their very children are wearied into forgetfulness. Indistinguishable units in the vast throng that labours but to support life, the name of each, father, mother, child, is as a dumb cry for the warmth and love of which Fate so stinted them. The wind wails above their narrow tenements; the sandy soil, soaking in the rain as soon as it has fallen, is a symbol of the great world which absorbs their toil and straightway blots their being.
It being Sunday afternoon the number of funerals was considerable; even to bury their dead the toilers cannot lose a day of the wage week. Around the chapel was a great collection of black vehicles with sham-tailed mortuary horses; several of the families present must have left themselves bare in order to clothe a coffin in the way they deemed seemly. Emma and her sister had made their own funeral garments, and the former, in consenting for the sake of poor Jane to receive the aid which Mutimer offered, had insisted through Alice that there should be no expenditure beyond the strictly needful. The carriage which conveyed her and Kate alone followed the hearse from Hoxton; it rattled along at a merry pace, for the way was lengthy, and a bitter wind urged men and horses to speed. The occupants of the box kept up a jesting colloquy.
Impossible to read the burial service over each of the dead separately; time would not allow it. Emma and Kate found themselves crowded among a number of sobbing women, just in time to seat themselves before the service began. Neither of them had moist eyes; the elder looked about the chapel with blank gaze, often shivering with cold; Emma’s face was bent downwards, deadly pale, set in unchanging woe. A world had fallen to pieces about her; she did not feel the ground upon which she trod; there seemed no way from amid the ruins. She had no strong religious faith; a wail in the darkness was all the expression her heart could attain to; in the present anguish she could not turn her thoughts to that far vision of a life hereafter. All day she had striven to realise that a box of wood contained all that was left of her sister. The voice of the clergyman struck her ear with meaningless monotony. Not immortality did she ask for, but one more whisper from the lips that could not speak, one throb of the heart she had striven so despairingly to warm against her own.
Kate was plucking at her arm, for the service was over, and unconsciously she was impeding people who wished to pass from the seats. With difficulty she rose and walked; the cold seemed to have checked the flow of her blood; she noticed the breath rising from her mouth, and wondered that she could have so much whilst those dear lips were breathless. Then she was being led over hard snow, towards a place where men stood, where there was new-turned earth, where a coffin lay upon the ground. She suffered the sound of more words which she could not follow, then heard the dull falling of clods upon hollow wood. A hand seemed to clutch her throat, she struggled convulsively and cried aloud. But the tears would not come.
No memory of the return home dwelt afterwards in her mind. The white earth, the headstones sprinkled with snow, the vast grey sky over which darkness was already creeping, the wind and the clergyman’s voice joining in woful chant, these alone remained with her to mark the day. Between it and the days which then commenced lay formless void.
On Tuesday morning Alice Mutimer came to the house. Mrs. Clay chanced to be from home; Emma received the visitor and led her down into the kitchen.
‘I am glad you have come,’ she said; ‘I wanted to see you to-day.’
‘Are you feeling better?’ Alice asked. She tried in vain to speak with the friendliness of past days; that could never be restored. Her advantages of person and dress were no help against the embarrassment caused in her by the simple dignity of the wronged and sorrowing girl.
Emma replied that she was better, then asked:
‘Have you come only to see me; or for something else?’
‘I wanted to know how you were; but I’ve brought you something as well’
She took an envelope from within her muff. Emma shook her head.
‘No, nothing more,’ she said, in a tone removed alike from resentment and from pathos; ‘I want you, please, to say that we can t take anything after this.’
‘But what are you going to do, Emma?’
‘To leave this house and live as we did before.’
‘Oh, but you can’t do that What does Kate say?’
‘I haven’t told her yet; I’m going to do so to-day.’
‘But she’ll feel it very hard with the children.’
The children were sitting together in a corner of the kitchen. Emma glanced at them, and saw that Bertie, the elder, was listening with a surprised look.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ she replied simply, ‘but we have no choice.’
Alice had an impulse of generosity.
‘Then take it from me,’ she said. ‘You won’t mind that. You know I have plenty of my own. Live here and let one or two of the rooms, and I’ll lend you what you need till the business is doing well. Now you can’t have anything to say against that?’
Emma still shook her head.
‘The business will never help us. We must go back to the old work; we can always live on that. I can’t take anything from you, Alice.’
‘Well, I think it’s very unkind, Emma.’
‘Perhaps so, but I can’t help it: It’s kind of you to offer, I feel that; but I’d rather work my fingers to the bone than touch one halfpenny now that I haven’t earned.’
Alice bridled slightly and urged no more. She left before Kate returned.
In the course of the morning Emma strung herself to the effort of letting her sister know the true state of affairs. It was only what Kate had for a long time suspected, and she freely said as much, expressing her sentiments with fluent indignation.
‘Of course I know you won’t hear of it,’ she said, ‘but if I was in your place I’d make him smart. I’d have him up and make him pay, see if I wouldn’t. Trust him, he knows you’re too soft-hearted, and he takes advantage of you. It’s girls like you as encourages men to think they can do as they like. You’ve no right, you haven’t, to let him off. I’d have him in the newspapers and show him up, see if I wouldn’t. And he shan’t have it quite so easy as he thinks neither; I’ll go about and tell everybody as I know. Only let him come a-lecturin’ hereabouts, that’s all!’
‘Kate,’ broke in the other, ‘if you do anything of the kind, I don’t know how I shall speak to you again. Its not you he’s harmed; you’ve no right to spread talk about me It’s my affair, and I must do as I think fit. It’s all over and there’s no occasion for neither you nor me to speak of him again I’m going out this afternoon to find a room for us, and we shall be no worse off than we was before. We’ve got to work, that’s all, and to earn our living like other women do.’
Her sister stared incredulously.
‘You mean to say he’s stopped sending money?’
‘I have refused to take it.’
‘You’ve done what? Well, of all the—!’ Comparisons failed her. ‘And I’ve got to take these children back again into a hole like the last? Not me! You do as you like; I suppose you know your own business. But if he doesn’t send the money as usual, I’ll find some way to make him, see if I don’t! You’re off your head, I think.’
Emma had anticipated this, and was prepared to bear the brunt of her sister’s anger. Kate was not originally blessed with much sweetness of disposition, and an unhappy marriage had made her into a sour, nagging woman. But, in spite of her wretched temper and the low moral tone induced during her years of matrimony, she was not evil-natured, and her chief safeguard was affection for her sister Emma. This seldom declared itself, for she was of those unhappily constituted people who find nothing so hard as to betray the tenderness of which they are capable, and, as often as not, are driven by a miserable perversity to words and actions which seem quite inconsistent with such feeling. For Jane she had cared far less than for Emma, yet her grief at Jane’s death was more than could be gathered from her demeanour. It had, in fact, resulted in a state of nervous irritableness; an outbreak of anger came to her as a relief, such as Emma had recently found in the shedding of tears. On her own account she felt strongly, but yet more on Emma’s; coarse methods of revenge naturally suggested themselves to her, and to be thwarted drove her to exasperation. When Emma persisted in steady opposition, exerting all the force of her character to subdue her sister’s ignoble purposes, Kate worked herself to frenzy. For more than an hour her voice was audible in the street, as she poured forth torrents of furious reproach and menace; all the time Emma stood patient and undaunted, her own anger often making terrible struggle for mastery, but ever finding itself subdued. For she, too, was of a passionate nature, but the treasures of sensibility which her heart enclosed consecrated all her being to noble ends. One invaluable aid she had in a contest such as this—her inability to grow sullen. Righteous anger might gleam in her eyes and quiver upon her lips, but the fire always burnt clear; it is smoulder that poisons the air.
She knew her sister, pitied her, always made for her the gentlest allowances. It would have been easy to stand aside, to disclaim responsibility, and let Kate do as she chose, but the easy course was never the one she chose when endurance promised better results. To resist to the uttermost, even to claim and exert the authority she derived from her suffering, was, she knew, the truest kindness to her sister. And in the end she prevailed. Kate tore her passion to tatters, then succumbed to exhaustion. But she did not fling out of the room, and this Emma knew to be a hopeful sign. The opportunity of strong, placid speech at length presented itself, and Emma used it well. She did not succeed in eliciting a promise, but when she declared her confidence in her sister’s better self, Kate made no retort, only sat in stubborn muteness.
In the afternoon Emma went forth to fulfil her intention of finding lodgings. She avoided the neighbourhood in which she had formerly lived, and after long search discovered what she wanted in a woful byway near Old Street. It was one room only, but larger than she had hoped to come upon; fortunately her own furniture had been preserved, and would now suffice.
Kate remained sullen, but proved by her actions that she had surrendered; she began to pack her possessions. Emma wrote to Alice, announcing that the house was tenantless; she took the note to Highbury herself, and left it at the door, together with the house key. The removal was effected after nightfall.
CHAPTER XVII
Movements which appeal to the reason and virtue of humanity, and are consequently doomed to remain long in the speculative stage, prove their vitality by enduring the tests of schism. A Socialistic propaganda in times such as our own, an insistence upon the principles of Christianity in a modern Christian state, the advocacy of peace and good-will in an age when falsehood is the foundation of the social structure, and internecine warfare is presupposed in every compact between man and man, might anticipate that the test would come soon, and be of a stringent nature. Accordingly it did not surprise Mr. Westlake when he discerned the beginnings of commotion in the Union of which he represented the cultured and leading elements. A comrade named Roodhouse had of late been coming into prominence by addressing himself in fiery eloquence to open-air meetings, and at length had taken upon himself to more than hint that the movement was at a standstill owing to the lukewarmness (in guise of practical moderation) of those to whom its guidance had been entrusted. The reports of Comrade Roodhouse’s lectures were of a nature that made it difficult for Mr. Westlake to print them in the ‘Fiery Cross;’ one such report arrived at length, that of a meeting held on Clerkenwell Green on the first Sunday of the new year, to which the editor refused admission. The comrade who made it his business to pen notes of the new apostle’s glowing words, had represented him as referring to the recognised leader in such very uncompromising terms, that to publish the report in the official columns would have been stultifying. In the lecture in question Roodhouse declared his adherence to the principles of assassination; he pronounced them the sole working principles; to deny to Socialists the right of assassination was to rob them of the very sinews of war. Men who affected to be revolutionists, but were in reality nothing more than rose-water romancers, would of course object to anything which looked like business; they liked to sit in their comfortable studies and pen daintily worded articles, thus earning for themselves a humanitarian reputation at a very cheap rate. That would not do; à bas all such penny-a-liner pretence! Blood and iron! that must be the revolutionists’ watchword. Was it not by blood and iron that the present damnable system was maintained? To arms, then secretly, of course. Let tyrants be made to tremble upon their thrones in more countries than Russia. Let capitalists fear to walk in the daylight. This only was the path of progress.
It was thought by the judicious that Comrade Roodhouse would, if he repeated this oration, find himself the subject of a rather ugly indictment. For the present, however, his words were ignored, save in the Socialist body. To them, of course, he had addressed himself, and doubtless he was willing to run a little risk for the sake of a most practical end, that of splitting the party, and thus establishing a sovereignty for himself; this done, he could in future be more guarded. His reporter purposely sent ‘copy’ to Mr. Westlake which could not be printed, and the rejection of the report was the signal for secession. Comrade Roodhouse printed at his own expense a considerable number of leaflets, and sowed them broadcast in the Socialist meeting-places. There were not wanting disaffected brethren, who perused these appeals with satisfaction. Schism flourished.
Comrade Roodhouse was of course a man of no means, but he numbered among his followers two extremely serviceable men, one of them a practical printer who carried on a small business in Camden Town; the other an oil merchant, who, because his profits had never exceeded a squalid two thousand a year, whereas another oil merchant of his acquaintance made at least twice as much, was embittered against things in general, and ready to assist any subversionary movement, yea, even with coin of the realm, on the one condition that he should be allowed to insert articles of his own composition in the new organ which it was proposed to establish. There was no difficulty in conceding this trifle, and the ‘Tocsin’ was the result. The name was a suggestion of the oil merchant himself, and no bad name if Socialists at large could be supposed capable of understanding it; but the oil merchant was too important a man to be thwarted, and the argument by which he supported his choice was incontestable. ‘Isn’t it our aim to educate the people? Very well, then let them begin by knowing what Tocsin means. I shouldn’t know myself if I hadn’t come across it in the newspaper and looked it up in the dictionary; so there you are!’
And there was the ‘Tocsin,’ a weekly paper like the ‘Fiery Cross.’ The first number appeared in the middle of February, so admirably prepared were the plans of Comrade Roodhouse. It appeared on Friday; the next Sunday promised to be a lively day at Commonwealth Hall and elsewhere. At the original head-quarters of the Union addresses were promised from two leading men, Comrades Westlake and Mutimer. Comrade Roodhouse would in the morning address an assembly on Clerkenwell Green; in the evening his voice would summon adherents to the meeting-place in Hoxton which had been the scene of our friend Richard’s earliest triumphs. With few exceptions the Socialists of that region had gone over to the new man and the new paper.
Richard arrived in town on the Saturday, and went to the house in Highbury, whither disagreeable business once more summoned him. Alice, who, owing to her mother’s resolute refusal to direct the household, had not as yet been able to spend more than a day or two with Richard and his wife, sent nothing but ill news to Wanley. Mrs. Mutimer seemed to be breaking down in health, and ‘Arry was undisguisedly returning to evil ways. For the former, it was suspected—a locked door prevented certainty—that she had of late kept her bed the greater part of the day; a servant who met her downstairs in the early morning reported that she ‘looked very bad indeed.’ The case of the latter was as hard to deal with. ‘Arry had long ceased to attend his classes with any regularity, and he was once more asserting the freeman’s right to immunity from day labour. Moreover, he claimed in practice the freeman’s right to get drunk four nights out of the seven. No one knew whence he got his money; Richard purposely stinted him, but the provision was useless. Mr. Keene declared with lamentations that his influence over ‘Arry was at an end; nay, the youth had so far forgotten gratitude as to frankly announce his intention of ‘knockin’ Keene’s lights out’ if he were further interfered with. To the journalist his ‘lights’ were indispensable; in no sense of the word did he possess too many of them; so it was clear that he must abdicate his tutorial functions. Alice implored her brother to come and ‘do something.’
Richard, though a married man of only six weeks’ standing, had troubles altogether in excess of his satisfactions. Things were not as they should have been in that earthly paradise called New Wanley. It was not to be expected that the profits of that undertaking would be worth speaking of for some little time to come, but it was extremely desirable that it should pay its own expenses, and it began to be doubtful whether even this moderate success was being achieved. Various members of the directing committee had visited New Wanley recently, and Richard had talked to them in a somewhat discouraging tone; his fortune was not limitless, it had to be remembered; a considerable portion of old Mutimer’s money had lain in the vast Belwick concern of which he was senior partner; the surviving members of the firm were under no specified obligation to receive Richard himself as partner, and the product of the realised capital was a very different thing from the share in the profits which the old man had enjoyed. Other capital Richard had at his command, but already he was growing chary of encroachments upon principal. He began to murmur inwardly that the entire fortune did not lie at his disposal; willingly he would have allowed Alice a handsome portion; and as for ‘Arry, the inheritance was clearly going to be his ruin. The practical difficulties at New Wanley were proving considerable; the affair was viewed with hostility by ironmasters in general, and the results of such hostility were felt. But Richard was committed to his scheme; all his ambitions based themselves thereupon. And those ambitions grew daily.
These greater troubles must to a certain extent solve themselves, but in Highbury it was evidently time, as Alice said, to ‘do something.’ His mother’s obstinacy stood in the way of almost every scheme that suggested itself. Richard was losing patience with the poor old woman, and suffered the more from his irritation because he would so gladly have behaved to her with filial kindness. One plan there was to which she might possibly agree, and even have pleasure in accepting it, but it was not easy to propose. The house in Wilton Square was still on his hands; upon the departure of Emma and her sister; a certain Mrs. Chattaway, a poor friend of old times, who somehow supported herself and a grandchild, had been put into the house as caretaker, for Richard could not sell all the furniture to which his mother was so attached, and he had waited for her return to reason before ultimately deciding how to act in that matter. Could he now ask the old woman to return to the Square, and, it might be, live there with Mrs. Chattaway? In that case both ‘Arry and Alice would have to leave London.
On Saturday afternoon he had a long talk with his sister. To Alice also it had occurred that their mother’s return to the old abode might be desirable.
‘And you may depend upon it, Dick,’ she said, ‘she’ll never rest again till she does get back. I believe you’ve only got to speak of it, and she’ll go at once.’
‘She’ll think it unkind,’ Richard objected. ‘It looks as if we wanted to get her out of the way. Why on earth does she carry on like this? As if we hadn’t bother enough!’
‘Well, we can’t help what she thinks. I believe it’ll be for her own good. She’ll be comfortable with Mrs. Chattaway, and that’s more than she’ll ever be here. But what about ‘Arry?’
‘He’ll have to come to Wanley. I shall find him work there—I wish I’d done so months ago.’
There were no longer the objections to ‘Arry’s appearance at Wanley that had existed previous to Richard’s marriage; none the less the resolution was courageous, and proved the depth of Mutimer’s anxiety for his brother. Having got the old woman to Wilton Square, and Alice to the Manor, it would have been easy enough to bid Mr. Henry Mutimer betake himself—whither his mind directed him. Richard could not adopt that rough-and-ready way out of his difficulty. Just as he suffered in the thought that he might be treating his mother unkindly, so he was constrained to undergo annoyances rather than abandon the hope of saving ‘Arry from ultimate destruction.
‘Will he live at the Manor?’ Alice asked uneasily.
Richard mused; then a most happy idea struck him.
‘I have it! He shall live with Rodman. The very thing! Rodman’s the fellow to look after him. Yes; that’s what we’ll do.’
‘And I’m to live at the Manor?’
‘Of course.’
‘You think Adela won’t mind?’
‘Mind? How the deuce can she mind it?’
As a matter of form Adela would of course be consulted, but Richard had no notion of submitting practical arrangements in his own household to his wife’s decision.
‘Now we shall have to see mother,’ he said. ‘How’s that to be managed?’
‘Will you go and speak at her door?’