Demos

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Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

George Gissing

Demos

CHAPTER I

Stanbury Hill, remote but two hours' walk from a region blasted with
mine and factory and furnace, shelters with its western slope a fair
green valley, a land of meadows and orchard, untouched by poisonous
breath. At its foot lies the village of Wanley. The opposite side of
the hollow is clad with native wood, skirting for more than a mile
the bank of a shallow stream, a tributary of the Severn. Wanley
consists in the main of one long street; the houses are stone-built,
with mullioned windows, here and there showing a picturesque gable
or a quaint old chimney. The oldest buildings are four cottages
which stand at the end of the street; once upon a time they formed
the country residence of the abbots of Belwick. The abbey of that
name still claims for its ruined self a portion of earth's surface;
but, as it had the misfortune to be erected above the thickest
coal-seam in England, its walls are blackened with the fume of
collieries and shaken by the strain of mighty engines. Climb
Stanbury Hill at nightfall, and, looking eastward, you behold far
off a dusky ruddiness in the sky, like the last of an angry sunset;
with a glass you can catch glimpses of little tongues of flame,
leaping and quivering on the horizon. That is Belwick. The good
abbots, who were wont to come out in the summer time to Wanley,
would be at a loss to recognise their consecrated home in those
sooty relics. Belwick, with its hundred and fifty fire-vomiting
blast-furnaces, would to their eyes more nearly resemble a certain
igneous realm of which they thought much in their sojourn upon
earth, and which, we may assure ourselves, they dream not of in the
quietness of their last long sleep.

A large house, which stands aloof from the village and a little
above it, is Wanley Manor. The county history tells us that Wanley
was given in the fifteenth century to that same religious
foundation, and that at the dissolution of monasteries the Manor
passed into the hands of Queen Catherine. The house is
half-timbered; from the height above it looks old and peaceful amid
its immemorial trees. Towards the end of the eighteenth century it
became the home of a family named Eldon, the estate including the
greater part of the valley below. But an Eldon who came into
possession when William IV. was King brought the fortunes of his
house to a low ebb, and his son, seeking to improve matters by
abandoning his prejudices and entering upon commercial speculation,
in the end left a widow and two boys with little more to live upon
than the income which arose from Mrs. Eldon's settlements. The Manor
was shortly after this purchased by a Mr. Mutimer, a Belwick
ironmaster; but Mrs. Eldon and her boys still inhabited the house,
in consequence of certain events which will shortly be narrated.
Wanley would have mourned their departure; they were the aristocracy
of the neighbourhood, and to have them ousted by a name which no one
knew, a name connected only with blast-furnaces, would have made a
distinct fall in the tone of Wanley society. Fortunately no changes
were made in the structure by its new owner. Not far from it you see
the church and the vicarage, these also unmolested in their quiet
age. Wanley, it is to be feared, lags far behind the times--painfully
so, when one knows for a certainty that the valley upon which it
looks conceals treasures of coal, of ironstone--blackband, to be
technical--and of fireclay. Some ten years ago it seemed as if
better things were in store; there was a chance that the vale
might for ever cast off its foolish greenery, and begin vomiting
smoke and flames in humble imitation of its metropolis beyond the
hills. There are men in Belwick who have an angry feeling whenever
Wanley is mentioned to them.

After the inhabitants of the Manor, the most respected of those who
dwelt in Wanley were the Walthams. At the time of which I speak,
this family consisted of a middle-aged lady; her son, of
one-and-twenty; and her daughter, just eighteen. They had resided
here for little more than two years, but a gentility which marked
their speech and demeanour, and the fact that they were well
acquainted with the Eldons, from the first caused them to be looked
up to. It was conjectured, and soon confirmed by Mrs. Waltham's own
admissions, that they had known a larger way of living than that to
which they adapted themselves in the little house on the side of
Stanbury Hill, whence they looked over the village street. Mr.
Waltham had, in fact, been a junior partner in a Belwick firm, which
came to grief. He saved enough out of the wreck to: make a modest
competency for his family, and would doubtless in time have
retrieved his fortune, but death was beforehand with him. His wife,
in the second year of her widowhood, came with her daughter Adela to
Wanley; her son Alfred had gone to commercial work in Belwick. Mrs.
Waltham was a prudent woman, and tenacious of ideas which
recommended themselves to her practical instincts; such an idea had
much to do with her settlement in the remote village, which she
would not have chosen for her abode out of love of its old-world
quietness. But at the Manor was Hubert Eldon. Hubert was four years
older than Adela. He had no fortune of his own, but it was tolerably
certain that some day he would be enormously rich, and there was
small likelihood that he would marry till that expected change in
his position came about.

On the afternoon of a certain Good Friday, Mrs. Waltham sat at her
open window, enjoying the air and busy with many thoughts, among
other things wondering who was likely to drop in for a cup of tea.
It was a late Easter, and warm spring weather had already clothed
the valley with greenness; to-day the sun was almost hot, and the
west wind brought many a sweet odour from gardens near and far. From
her sitting-room Mrs. Waltham had the best view to be obtained from
any house in Wanley; she looked, as I have said, right over the
village street, and on either hand the valley spread before her a
charming prospect. Opposite was the wooded slope, freshening now
with exquisite shades of new-born leafage; looking north, she saw
fruit-gardens, making tender harmonies; southwards spread verdure
and tillage. Yet something there was which disturbed the otherwise
perfect unity of the scene, an unaccustomed trouble to the eye. In
the very midst of the vale, perhaps a quarter of a mile to the south
of the village, one saw what looked like the beginning of some
engineering enterprise--a great throwing-up of earth, and the
commencement of a roadway on which metal rails were laid. What was
being done? The work seemed too extensive for a mere scheme of
drainage. Whatever the undertaking might be, it was now at a
standstill, seeing that old Mr. Mutimer, the owner of the land, had
been in his grave just three days, and no one as yet could say
whether his heir would or would not pursue this novel project. Mrs.
Waltham herself felt that the view was spoilt, though her
appreciation of nature was not of the keenest, and she would never
have thought of objecting to a scheme which would produce money at
the cost of the merely beautiful.

'I scarcely think Hubert will continue it,' she was musing to
herself. 'He has enough without that, and his tastes don't lie in
that direction.'

She had on her lap a local paper, at which she glanced every now and
then; but her state of mind was evidently restless. The road on
either side of which stood the houses of the village led on to the
Manor, and in that direction Mrs. Waltham gazed frequently. The
church clock chimed half-past four, and shortly after a rosy-cheeked
young girl came at a quick step up the gravelled pathway which made
the approach to the Walthams' cottage. She saw Mrs. Waltham at the
window, and, when she was near, spoke.

'Is Adela at home?'

'No, Letty; she's gone for a walk with her brother.'

'I'm so sorry!' said the girl, whose voice was as sweet as her face
was pretty. 'We wanted her to come for croquet. Yet I was half
afraid to come and ask her whilst Mr. Alfred was at home.'

She laughed, and at the same time blushed a little.

'Why should you be afraid of Alfred?' asked Mrs. Waltham graciously.

'Oh, I don't know.'

She turned it off and spoke quickly of another subject.

'How did you like Mr. Wyvern this morning?'

It was a new vicar, who had been in Wanley but a couple of days, and
had this morning officiated for the first time at the church.

'What a voice be has!' was the lady's reply.

'Hasn't he? And such a hairy man! They say he's very learned; but
his sermon was very simple--didn't you think so?'

'Yes, I liked it. Only he pronounces certain words strangely.'

'Oh, has Mr. Eldon come yet?' was the young lady's next question.

'He hadn't arrived this morning. Isn't it extraordinary? He must be
out of England.'

'But surely Mrs. Eldon knows his address, and he can't be so very
far away.'

As she spoke she looked down the pathway by which she had come, and
of a sudden her face exhibited alarm.

'Oh, Mrs. Waltham!' she whispered hurriedly. 'If Mr. Wyvern isn't
coming to see you! I'm afraid to meet him. Do let me pop in and hide
till I can get away without being seen.'

The front door stood ajar, and the girl at once ran into the house.
Mrs. Waltham came into the passage laughing.

'May I go to the top of the stairs?' asked the other nervously. 'You
know how absurdly shy I am. No, I'll run out into the garden behind;
then I can steal round as soon as he comes in.'

She escaped, and in a minute or two the new vicar presented himself
at the door. A little maid might well have some apprehension in
facing him, for Mr. Wyvern was of vast proportions and leonine in
aspect. With the exception of one ungloved hand and the scant
proportions of his face which were not hidden by hair, he was wholly
black in hue; an enormous beard, the colour of jet, concealed the
linen about his throat, and a veritable mane, dark as night, fell
upon his shoulders. His features were not ill-matched with this
sable garniture; their expression was a fixed severity; his eye
regarded you with stern scrutiny, and passed from the examination to
a melancholy reflectiveness. Yet his appearance was suggestive of
anything but ill-nature; contradictory though it may seem, the face
was a pleasant one, inviting to confidence, to respect; if be could
only have smiled, the tender humanity which lurked in the lines of
his countenance would have become evident. His age was probably a
little short of fifty.

A servant replied to his knock, and, after falling back in a
momentary alarm, introduced him to the sitting-room. He took Mrs.
Waltham's hand silently, fixed upon her the full orbs of his dark
eyes, and then, whilst still retaining her fingers, looked
thoughtfully about the room. It was a pleasant little parlour, with
many an evidence of refinement in those who occupied it. Mr. Wyvern
showed something like a look of satisfaction. He seated himself, and
the chair creaked ominously beneath him. Then he again scrutinised
Mrs. Waltham.

She was a lady of fair complexion, with a double chin. Her dress
suggested elegant tastes, and her hand was as smooth and delicate as
a lady's should be. A long gold chain descended from her neck to the
watch-pocket at her waist, and her fingers exhibited several rings.
She bore the reverend gentleman's scrutiny with modest grace. almost
as if it flattered her. And indeed there was nothing whatever of
ill-breeding in Mr. Wyvern's mode of instituting acquaintance with
his parishioner; one felt that he was a man of pronounced
originality, and that he might be trusted in his variance from the
wonted modes.

The view from the windows gave him a subject for his first remarks.
Mrs. Waltham had been in some fear of a question which would go to
the roots of her soul's history; it would have been in keeping with
his visage. But, with native acuteness, she soon discovered that Mr.
Wyvern's gaze had very little to do with the immediate subject of
his thought, or, what was much the same thing, that he seldom gave
the whole of his attention to the matter outwardly calling for it.
He was a man of profound mental absences; he could make replies,
even put queries, and all the while be brooding intensely upon a
wholly different subject. Mrs. Waltham did not altogether relish it;
she was in the habit of being heard with deference; but, to be sure,
a clergyman only talked of worldly things by way of concession. It
certainly seemed so in this clergyman's case.

'Your prospect,' Mr. Wyvern remarked presently, 'will not be
improved by the works below.'

His voice was very deep, and all his words were weighed in the
utterance. This deliberation at times led to peculiarities of
emphasis in single words. Probably he was a man of philological
crotchets; he said, for instance, 'pro-spect.'

'I scarcely think Mr. Eldon will go on with the mining,' replied
Mrs. Waltham.

'Ah! you think not?'

'I am quite sure he said that unconsciously,' the lady remarked to
herself. 'He's thinking of some quite different affair.'

'Mr. Eldon,' the clergyman resumed, fixing upon her an absent eye,
'is Mr. Mutimer's son-in-law, I understand?'

'His brother, Mr. Godfrey Eldon, was.' Mrs. Waltham corrected.

'Ah! the one that died?'

He said it questioningly; then added--

'I have a difficulty in mastering details of this kind. You would do
me a great kindness in explaining to me briefly of whom the family
at the Manor at present consists?'

Mrs. Waltham was delighted to talk on such a subject.

'Only of Mrs. Eldon and her son, Mr. Hubert Eldon. The elder son,
Godfrey, was lost in a shipwreck, on a voyage to New Zealand.'

'He was a sailor?'

'Oh, no!' said the lady, with a smile. 'He was in business at
Belwick. It was shortly after his marriage with Miss Mutimer that he
took the voyage--partly for his health, partly to examine some
property his father had had an interest in. Old Mr. Eldon engaged in
speculations--I believe it was flax-growing. The results,
unfortunately, were anything but satisfactory. It was that which led
to his son entering business--quite a new thing in their family.
Wasn't it very sad? Poor Godfrey and his young wife both drowned!
The marriage was, as you may imagine, not altogether a welcome one
to Mrs. Eldon; Mr. Mutimer was quite a self-made man, quite. I
understand he has relations in London of the very poorest
class--labouring people.'

'They probably benefit by his will?'

'I can't say. In any case, to a very small extent. It has for a long
time been understood that Hubert Eldon inherits.'

'Singular!' murmured the clergyman, still in the same absent way.

'Is it not? He took so to the young fellows; no doubt he was
flattered to be allied to them. And then he was passionately devoted
to his daughter; if only for her sake, he would have done his utmost
for the family.'

'I understand that Mr. Mutimer purchased the Manor from them?'

'That was before the marriage. Godfrey Eldon sold it; he had his
father's taste for speculation, I fancy, and wanted capital. Then
Mr. Mutimer begged them to remain in the house. He certainly was a
wonderfully kind old--old gentleman; his behaviour to Mrs. Eldon was
always the perfection of courtesy. A stranger would find it
difficult to understand how she could get on so well with him, but
their sorrows brought them together, and Mr. Mutimer's generosity
was really noble. If I had not known his origin, I should certainly
have taken him for a county gentleman.'

'Yet he proposed to mine in the valley,' observed Mr. Wyvern, half
to himself, casting a glance at the window.

Mrs. Waltham did not at first see the connection between this and
what she had been saying. Then it occurred to her that Mr. Wyvern
was aristocratic in his views.

'To be sure,' she said, 'one expects to find a little of the
original--of the money-making spirit. Of course such a thing would
never have suggested itself to the Eldons. And in fact very little
of the lands remained to them. Mr. Mutimer bought a great deal from
other people.'

As Mr. Wyvern sat brooding, Mrs. Waltham asked--

'You have seen Mrs. Eldon?'

' Not yet. She is too unwell to receive visits.'

'Yes, poor thing, she is a great invalid. I thought, perhaps, you--.
But I know she likes to be very quiet. What a strange thing about
Mr. Eldon, is it not? You know that he has never come yet; not even
to the funeral.'

'Singular!'

'An inexplicable thing! There has never been a shadow of
disagreement between them.'

'Mr. Eldon is abroad, I believe?' said the clergyman musingly.

'Abroad? Oh dear, no! At least, I--. Is there news of his being
abroad?'

Mr. Wyvern merely shook his head.

'As far as we know,' Mrs. Waltham continued, rather disturbed by the
suggestion, 'he is at Oxford.'

'A student?'

'Yes. He is quite a youth--only two-and-twenty.'

There was a knock at the door, and a maid-servant entered to ask if
she should lay the table for tea. Mrs. Waltham assented; then, to
her visitor--

'You will do us the pleasure of drinking a cup of tea, Mr. Wyvern?
we make a meal of it, in the country way. My boy and girl are sure
to be in directly.'

'I should like to make their acquaintance,' was the grave response.

'Alfred, my son,' the lady proceeded, 'is with us for his Easter
holiday. Belwick is so short a distance away, and yet too far to
allow of his living here, unfortunately.'

'His age?'

'Just one-and-twenty.'

'The same age as my own boy.'

'Oh, you have a son?'

'A youngster, studying music in Germany. I have just been spending a
fortnight with him.'

'How delightful! If only poor Alfred could have pursued some
more--more liberal occupation! Unhappily, we had small choice.
Friends were good enough to offer him exceptional advantages not
long after his father's death, and I was only too glad to accept the
opening. I believe he is a clever boy; only such a dreadful
Radical.' She laughed, with a deprecatory motion of the hands. 'Poor
Adela and he are at daggers drawn; no doubt it is some terrible
argument that detains them now on the road. I can't think how he got
his views; certainly his father never inculcated them.'

'The air, Mrs. Waltham, the air,' murmured the clergyman.

The lady was not quite sure that she understood the remark, but the
necessity of reply was obviated by the entrance of the young man in
question. Alfred was somewhat undergrown, but of solid build. He
walked in a sturdy and rather aggressive way, and his plump face
seemed to indicate an intelligence, bright, indeed, but of the less
refined order. His head was held stiffly, and his whole bearing
betrayed a desire to make the most of his defective stature. His
shake of the hand was an abrupt downward jerk, like a pull at a
bell-rope. In the smile with which he met Mr. Wyvern a supercilious
frame of mind was not altogether concealed; he seemed anxious to
have it understood that in _him_ the clerical attire inspired
nothing whatever of superstitious reverence. Reverence, in truth,
was not Mr. Waltham's failing.

Mr. Wyvern, as his habit was at introductions, spoke no words, but
held the youth's hand for a few moments and looked him in the eyes.
Alfred turned his head aside uneasily, and was a trifle ruddy in the
cheeks when at length he regained his liberty.

'By-the-by,' he remarked to his mother when he had seated himself,
with crossed legs, 'Eldon has turned up at last. He passed us in a
cab, or so Adela said. I didn't catch a glimpse of the individual.'

'Really!' exclaimed Mrs. Waltham. 'He was coming from Agworth
station?'

'I suppose so. There was a trunk on the four-wheeler. Adela says he
looked ill, though I don't see how she discovered so much.'

'I have no doubt she is right. He must have been ill.'

Mr. Wyvern, in contrast with his habit, was paying marked attention;
he leaned forward, with a hand on each knee. In the meanwhile the
preparations for tea had progressed, and as Mrs. Waltham rose at the
sight of the teapot being brought in, her daughter entered the room.
Adela was taller by half a head than her brother; she was slim and
graceful. The air had made her face bloom, and the smile which was
added as she drew near to the vicar enhanced the charm of a
countenance at all times charming. She was not less than ladylike in
self-possession, but Mr. Wyvern's towering sableness clearly awed
her a little. For an instant her eyes drooped, but at once she
raised them and met the severe gaze with unflinching orbs. Releasing
her hand, Mr. Wyvern performed a singular little ceremony: he laid
his right palm very gently on her nutbrown hair, and his lips moved.
At the same time he all but smiled.

Alfred's face was a delightful study the while; it said so clearly,
'Confound the parson's impudence!' Mrs. Waltham, on the other hand,
looked pleased as she rustled to her place at the tea-tray.

'So Mr. Eldon has come?' she said, glancing at Adela. 'Alfred says
he looks ill.'

'Mother,' interposed the young man, 'pray be accurate. I distinctly
stated that I did not even see him, and should not have known that
it was he at all. Adela is responsible for that assertion.'

'I just saw his face,' the girl said naturally. 'I thought he looked
ill.'

Mr. Wyvern addressed to her a question about her walk, and for a few
minutes they conversed together. There was a fresh simplicity in
Adela's way of speaking which harmonised well with her appearance
and with the scene in which she moved. A gentle English girl, this
dainty home, set in so fair and peaceful a corner of the world, was
just the abode one would have chosen for her. Her beauty seemed a
part of the burgeoning spring-time, She was not lavish of her
smiles; a timid seriousness marked her manner to the clergyman, and
she replied to his deliberately-posed questions with a gravity
respectful alike of herself and of him.

In front of Mr. Wyvern stood a large cake, of which a portion was
already sliced. The vicar, at Adela's invitation, accepted a piece
of the cake; having eaten this, he accepted another; then yet
another. His absence had come back upon him, and he talked he
continued to eat portions of the cake, till but a small fraction of
the original structure remained on the dish. Alfred, keenly
observant of what was going on, pursed his lips from time to time
and looked at his mother with exaggerated gravity, leading her eyes
to the vanishing cake. Even Adela could not but remark the reverend
gentleman's abnormal appetite, but she steadily discouraged her
brother's attempts to draw her into the joke. At length it came to
pass that Mr. Wyvern himself, stretching his hand mechanically to
the dish, became aware that he had. exhibited his appreciation of
the sweet food in a degree not altogether sanctioned by usage. He
fixed his eyes on the tablecloth, and was silent for a while.

As soon as the vicar had taken his departure Alfred threw himself
into a chair, thrust out his legs, and exploded in laughter.

'By Jove!' he shouted. 'If that man doesn't experience symptoms of
disorder! Why, I should be prostrate for a week if I consumed a
quarter of what he has put out of sight.'

'Alfred, you are shockingly rude,' reproved his mother, though
herself laughing. 'Mr. Wyvern is absorbed in thought.'

'Well, he has taken the best means, I should say, to remind himself
of actualities,' rejoined the youth. 'But what a man he is! How did
he behave in church this morning?'

'You should have come to see,' said Mrs. Waltham, mildly censuring
her son's disregard of the means of grace.

'I like Mr. Wyvern,' observed Adela, who was standing at the window
looking out upon the dusking valley.

'Oh, you would like any man in parsonical livery,' scoffed her
brother.

Alfred shortly betook himself to the garden, where, in spite of a
decided freshness in the atmosphere, he walked for half-an-hour
smoking a pipe. When he entered the house again, he met Adela at the
foot of the stairs.

'Mrs. Mewling has just come in,' she whispered.

'All right, I'll come up with you,' was the reply. 'Heaven defend me
from her small talk!'

They ascended to a very little room, which made a kind of boudoir
for Adela. Alfred struck a match and lit a lamp, disclosing a nest
of wonderful purity and neatness. On the table a drawing-board was
slanted; it showed a text of Scripture in process of 'illumination.'

'Still at that kind of thing!' exclaimed Alfred. 'My good child, if
you want to paint, why don't you paint in earnest? Really, Adela, I
must enter a protest! Remember that you are eighteen years of age.'

'I don't forget it, Alfred.'

'At eight-and-twenty, at eight-and-thirty, you propose still to be
at the same stage of development?'

'I don't think we'll talk of it,' said the girl quietly. 'We don't
understand each other.'

'Of course not, but we might, if only you'd read sensible books that
I could give you.'

Adela shook her head. The philosophical youth sank into his
favourite attitude--legs extended, hands in pockets, nose in air.