Demos. George Gissing
is poisoned.’
‘Mr. Mutimer does not see that side of the question?’
‘Not he! Do you imagine the twentieth century will leave one green spot on the earth’s surface?’
‘My dear, it will always be necessary to grow grass and corn.’
‘By no means; depend upon it. Such things will be cultivated by chemical processes. There will not be one inch left to nature; the very oceans will somehow be tamed, the snow-mountains will be levelled. And with nature will perish art. What has a hungry Demos to do with the beautiful?’
Mrs. Eldon sighed gently.
‘I shall not see it.’
Her eyes dreamed upon the soft-swaying boughs of a young chestnut. Hubert was watching her face; its look and the meaning implied in her words touched him profoundly.
‘Mother!’ he said under his breath.
‘My dear?’
He drew nearer to her and just stroked with his fingers the silver lines which marked the hair on either side of her brows. He could see that she trembled and that her lips set themselves in hard self-conquest.
‘What do you wish me to do when we have left the Manor?’
His own voice was hurried between two quiverings of the throat; his mother’s only whispered in reply.
‘That is for your own consideration, Hubert.’
‘With your counsel, mother.’
‘My counsel?’
‘I ask it I will follow it. I wish to be guided by you.’
He knelt by her, and his mother pressed his head against her bosom.
Later, she asked—
‘Did you call also on the Walthams?’
He shook his head.
‘Should you not do so, dear?
‘I think that must be later.’
The subject was not pursued.
The next day was Saturday. In the afternoon Hubert took a walk which had been his favourite one ever since he could remember, every step of the way associated with recollections of childhood, boyhood, or youth. It was along the lane which began in a farmyard close by the Manor and climbed with many turnings to the top of Stanbury Hill. This was ever the first route re-examined by his brother Godfrey and himself on their return from school at holiday-time. It was a rare region for bird-nesting, so seldom was it trodden save by a few farm-labourers at early morning or when the day’s work was over. Hubert passed with a glance of recognition the bramble in which he had found his first spink’s nest, the shadowed mossy bank whence had fluttered the hapless wren just when the approach of two prowling youngsters should have bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country; but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away, was but an isolated black patch on the earth’s beauty, not, as he now understood it, a malignant cancer-spot, spreading day by day, corrupting, an augury of death. In those days it had seemed fast in the order of things that Wanley Manor should be his home through life; how otherwise? Was it not the abiding-place of the Eldons from of old? Who had ever hinted at revolution? He knew now that revolution had been at work from an earlier time than that; whilst he played and rambled with his brother the framework of their life was crumbling about them. Belwick was already throwing a shadow upon Wanley. And now behold! he stood at the old gate, rested his hands where they had been wont to rest, turned his eyes in the familiar direction; no longer a mere shadow, there was Belwick itself.
His heart was hot with outraged affection, with injured pride. On the scarcely closed grave of that passion which had flamed through so brief a life sprang up the flower of natural tenderness, infinitely sweet and precious. For the first time he was fully conscious of what it meant to quit Wanley for ever; the past revealed itself to him, lovelier and more loved because parted from him by so hopeless a gulf. Hubert was not old enough to rate experience at its true value, to acquiesce in the law which wills that the day must perish before we can enjoy to the full its light and odour. He could only feel his loss, and rebel against the fate which had ordained it.
He had climbed but half-way up the hill; from this point onwards there was no view till the summit was reached, for the lane proceeded between high banks and hedges. To gain the very highest point he had presently to quit the road by a stile and skirt the edge of a small rising meadow, at the top of which was an old cow-house with a few trees growing about it. Thence one had the finest prospect in the county.
He reached the stone shed, looked back for a moment over Wanley, then walked round to the other side. As he turned the corner of the building his eye was startled by the unexpected gleam of a white dress. A girl stood there; she was viewing the landscape through a field-glass, and thus remained unaware of his approach on the grass. He stayed his step and observed her with eyes of recognition. Her attitude, both hands raised to hold the glass, displayed to perfection the virginal outline of her white-robed form. She wore a straw hat of the plain masculine fashion; her brown hair was plaited in a great circle behind her head, not one tendril loosed from the mass; a white collar closely circled her neck; her waist was bound with a red girdle. All was grace and purity; the very folds towards the bottom of her dress hung in sculpturesque smoothness; the form of her half-seen foot bowed the herbage with lightest pressure. From the boughs above there fell upon her a dancing network of shadow.
Hubert only half smiled; he stood with his hands joined behind him, his eyes fixed upon her face, waiting for her to turn But several moments passed and she was still intent on the landscape. He spoke.
‘Will you let me look?’
Her hands fell, all but dropping the glass; still, she did not start with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only abrupt motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with a grace as spontaneous as that we see in a fawn that glances back before flight.
‘Oh, Mr. Eldon! How silently you have come!’
The wild rose of her cheeks made rivalry for an instant with the richer garden blooms, and the subsiding warmth left a pearly translucency as of a lily petal against the light.
She held her hand to him, delicately gloved, warm; the whole of it was hidden within Hubert’s clasp.
‘What were you looking at so attentively?’ he asked.
‘At Agworth station,’ replied Adela, turning her eyes again in that quarter. ‘My brother’s train ought to be in by now, I think. He comes home every Saturday.’
‘Does he?’
Hubert spoke without thought, his look resting upon the maiden’s red girdle.
‘I am glad that you are well again,’ Adela said with natural kindness. ‘You have had a long illness.’
‘Yes; it has been a tiresome affair. Is Mrs. Waltham well?’
‘Quite, thank you.’
‘And your brother?’
‘Alfred never had anything the matter with him in his life, I believe,’ she answered, with a laugh.
‘Fortunate fellow! Will you lend me the glass?’
She held it to him, and at the same moment her straying eye caught a glimpse of white smoke, far off.
‘There comes the train!’ she exclaimed. ‘You will be able to see it between these two hills.’
Hubert looked and returned the glass to her, but she did not make use of it.
‘Does he walk over from Agworth?’ was Hubert’s next question.
‘Yes. It does him good after a week of Belwick.’
‘There