Demos. George Gissing
remarks of value; failing, he went off with a scowl. Mr. Cowes attempted to button-hole the popular hero; finding Richard conversing with someone else at the same time, he turned away with a covert sneer. The former of the two worthies had desired to insist upon every member of the Union becoming a teetotaller; the latter wished to say that he thought it would be well if a badge of temperance were henceforth worn by Unionists. On turning away, each glanced at the clock and hurried his step.
In a certain dark street not very far from the lecture-room Mr. Cullen rose on tip-toe at the windows of a dull little public-house. A Unionist was standing at the bar; Mr. Cullen hurried on, into a street yet darker. Again he tip-toed at a window. The glimpse reassured him; he passed quickly through the doorway, stepped to the bar, gave an order. Then he turned, and behold, on a seat just under the window sat Mr. Cowes, & short pipe in his mouth, a smoking tumbler held on his knee. The supporters of total abstinence nodded to each other, with a slight lack of spontaneity. Mr. Cullen, having secured his own tumbler, came by his comrade’s side.
‘Deal o’ fine talk to wind up with,’ he remarked tentatively.
‘He means what he says,’ returned the other gravely.
‘Oh yes,’ Mr. Cullen hastened to admit. ‘Mutimer means what he says! Only the way of saying it, I meant—I’ve got a bit of a sore throat.’
‘So have I. After that there hot room.’
They nodded at each other sympathetically. Mr. Cullen filled a little black pipe.
‘Got alight?’
Mr. Cowes offered the glowing bowl of his own clay; they put their noses together and blew a cloud.
‘Of course there’s no saying what time ‘ll do,’ observed tall Mr. Cowes, sententiously, after a gulp of warm liquor.
‘No more there is,’ assented short Mr. Cullen with half a wink.
‘It’s easy to promise.’
‘As easy as tellin’ lies.’
Another silence.
‘Don’t suppose you and me ‘ll get much of it,’ Mr. Cowes ventured to observe.
‘About as much as you can put in your eye without winkin’,’ was the other’s picturesque agreement.
They talked till closing time.
CHAPTER VII
One morning late in June, Hubert Eldon passed through the gates of Wanley Manor and walked towards the village. It was the first time since his illness that he had left the grounds on foot. He was very thin, and had an absent, troubled look; the natural cheerfulness of youth’s convalescence seemed altogether lacking in him.
From a rising point of the road, winding between the Manor and Wanley, a good view of the valley offered itself; here Hubert paused, leaning a little on his stick, and let his eyes dwell upon the prospect. A year ago he had stood here and enjoyed the sweep of meadows between Stanbury Hill and the wooded slope opposite, the orchard-patches, the flocks along the margin of the little river. To-day he viewed a very different scene. Building of various kinds was in progress in the heart of the vale; a great massive chimney was rising to completion, and about it stood a number of sheds. Beyond was to be seen the commencement of a street of small houses, promising infinite ugliness in a little space; the soil over a considerable area was torn up and trodden into mud. A number of men were at work; carts and waggons and trucks were moving about. In truth, the benighted valley was waking up and donning the true nineteenth-century livery.
The young man’s face, hitherto thoughtfully sad, changed to an expression of bitterness; he muttered what seemed to be angry and contemptuous words, then averted his eyes and walked on. He entered the village street and passed along it for some distance, his fixed gaze appearing studiously to avoid the people who stood about or walked by him. There was a spot of warm colour on his cheeks; he held himself very upright and had a painfully self-conscious air.
He stopped before a dwelling-house, rang the bell, and made inquiry whether Mr. Mutimer was at home. The reply being affirmative, he followed the servant up to the first floor. His name was announced at the door of a sitting-room, and he entered.
Two men were conversing in the room. One sat at the table with a sheet of paper before him, sketching a rough diagram and scribbling notes; this was Richard Mutimer. He was dressed in a light tweed suit; his fair moustache and beard were trimmed, and the hand which rested on the table was no longer that of a daily-grimed mechanic. His linen was admirably starched; altogether he had a very fresh and cool appearance. His companion was astride on a chair, his arms resting on the back, a pipe in his mouth. This man was somewhat older than Mutimer; his countenance indicated shrewdness and knowledge of the world. He was dark and well-featured, his glossy black hair was parted in the middle, his moustache of the cut called imperial, his beard short and peaked. He wore a canvas jacket, a white waistcoat and knickerbockers; at his throat a blue necktie fluttered loose. When Hubert’s name was announced by the servant, this gentleman stopped midway in a sentence, took his pipe from his lips, and looked to the door with curiosity.
Mutimer rose and addressed his visitor easily indeed, but not discourteously.
‘How do you do, Mr. Eldon? I’m glad to see that you are so much better. Will you sit down? I think you know Mr. Rodman, at all events by name?’
Hubert assented by gesture. He had come prepared for disagreeable things in this his first meeting with Mutimer, but the honour of an introduction to the latter’s friends had not been included in his anticipations. Mr. Rodman had risen and bowed slightly. His smile carried a disagreeable suggestion from which Mutimer’s behaviour was altogether free; he rather seemed to enjoy the situation.
For a moment there was silence and embarrassment. Richard overcame the difficulty.
‘Come and dine with me to-night, will you?’ he said to Rodman. ‘Here, take this plan with you, and think it over.’
‘Pray don’t let me interfere with your business,’ interposed Hubert, with scrupulous politeness. ‘I could see you later, Mr. Mutimer.’
‘No, no; Rodman and I have done for the present,’ said Mutimer, cheerfully. ‘By-the-by,’ he added, as his right-hand man moved to the door, ‘don’t forget to drop a line to Slater and Smith. And, I say, if Hogg turns up before two o’clock, send him here; I’ll be down with you by half-past.’
Mr. Rodman gave an ‘All right,’ nodded to Hubert, who paid no attention, and took his departure.
‘You’ve had a long pull of it,’ Richard began, as he took his chair again, and threw his legs into an easy position. ‘Shall I close the windows? Maybe you don’t like the draught.’
‘Thank you; I feel no draught.’
The working man had the advantage as yet. Hubert in vain tried to be at ease, whilst Mutimer was quite himself, and not ungraceful in his assumption of equality. For one thing, Hubert could not avoid a comparison between his own wasted frame and the other’s splendid physique; it heightened the feeling of antagonism which possessed him in advance, and provoked the haughtiness he had resolved to guard against. The very lineaments of the men foretold mutual antipathy. Hubert’s extreme delicacy of feature was the outward expression of a character so compact of subtleties and refinements, of high prejudice and jealous sensibility, of spiritual egoism and all-pervading fastidiousness, that it was impossible for him not to regard with repugnance a man who represented the combative principle, even the triumph, of the uncultured classes. He was no hidebound aristocrat; the liberal tendencies of his intellect led him to scorn the pageantry of long-descended fools as strongly as he did the blind image-breaking of the mob; but in a case of personal relations temperament carried it over judgment in a very high-handed way. Youth and disappointment weighed in the scale of unreason. Mutimer, on the other hand, though fortune helped him to forbearance, saw, or believed he saw, the very essence of all he most hated in this proud-eyed representative of a county family. His own rough-sculptured comeliness corresponded to the vigour and practicality and zeal of a nature which cared nothing for form and all for substance; the essentials of life were to him the only things in life, instead