Demos Part 30

Mutimer made a movement of discomfort, but laughed off the subject.

'I'll go and see the vicar, at all events,' he said. 'But must your coming depend on his?'

Mrs. Waltham hesitated.

'It really would make things easier.'

'Might I, in that case, hope that Miss Waltham would come?'

Richard seemed to exert himself to ask the question. Mrs. Waltham sank her eyes, smiled feebly, and in the end shook her head.

'On a public occasion, I'm really afraid--'

'I'm sure she would like to know Mrs. Westlake,' urged Richard, without his usual confidence. 'And if you and her brother--'

'If it were not a Socialist gathering.'

Richard uncrossed his legs and sat for a moment looking into the fire.

Then he turned suddenly.

'Mrs. Waltham, may I ask her myself?'

She was visibly agitated. There was this time no affectation in the tremulous lips and the troublous, unsteady eyes. Mrs. Waltham was not by nature the scheming mother who is indifferent to the upshot if she can once get her daughter loyally bound to a man of money. Adela's happiness was a very real care to her; she would never have opposed an un.o.bjectionable union on which she found her daughter's heart bent, but circ.u.mstances had a second time made offer of brilliant advantages, and she had grown to deem it an ordinance of the higher powers that Adela should marry possessions. She flattered herself that her study of Mutimer's character had been profound; the necessity of making such a study excused, she thought, any little excess of familiarity in which she had indulged, for it had long been clear to her that Mutimer would some day make an offer. He lacked polish, it was true, but really he was more a gentleman than a great many whose right to the name was never contested. And then he had distinctly high aims: such a man could never be brutal in the privacy of his home. There was every chance of his achieving some kind of eminence; already she had suggested to him a Parliamentary career, and the idea had not seemed altogether distasteful. Adela herself was as yet far from regarding Mutimer in the light of a future husband; it was perhaps true that she even disliked him. But then a young girl's likes and dislikes have, as a rule, small bearing on her practical content in the married state; so, at least, Mrs. Waltham's experience led her to believe. Only, it was clear that there must be no precipitancy. Let the ground be thoroughly prepared.

'May I advise you, Mr. Mutimer?' she said, in a lowered voice, bending forward. 'Let me deliver the invitation. I think it would be better, really. We shall see whether you can persuade Mr. Wyvern to be present.

I promise you to--in fact, not to interpose any obstacle if Adela thinks she can be present at the lunch.'

'Then I'll leave it so,' said Richard, more cheerfully. Mrs. Waltham could see that his nerves were in a dancing state. Really, he had much fine feeling.

CHAPTER XI

It being only midday, Richard directed his steps at once to the Vicarage, and had the good fortune to find Mr. Wyvern within.

'Be seated, Mr. Mutimer; I'm glad to see you,' was the vicar's greeting.

Their mutual intercourse had as yet been limited to an exchange of courtesies in public, and one or two casual meetings at the Walthams'

house. Richard had felt shy of the vicar, whom he perceived to be a clergyman of other than the weak-brained type, and the circ.u.mstances of the case would not allow Mr. Wyvern to make advances. The latter proceeded with friendliness of tone, speaking of the progress of New Wanley.

'That's what I've come to see you about,' said Richard, trying to put himself at ease by mentally comparing his own worldly estate with that of his interlocutor, yet failing as often as he felt the scrutiny of the vicar's dark-gleaming eye. 'We are going to open the Hall.' He added details. 'I shall have a number of friends who are interested in our undertaking to lunch with me on that day. I wish to ask if you will give us the pleasure of your company.'

Mr. Wyvern reflected for a moment.

'Why, no, sir,' he replied at length, using the Johnsonian phrase with grave courtesy. 'I'm afraid I cannot acknowledge your kindness as I should wish to. Personally, I would accept your hospitality with pleasure, but my position here, as I understand it, forbids me to join you on that particular occasion.'

'Then personally you are not hostile to me, Mr. Wyvern?'

'To you personally, by no means.'

'But you don't like the movement?'

'In so far as it has the good of men in view it interests me, and I respect its supporters.'

'But you think we go the wrong way to work?'

'That is my opinion, Mr. Mutimer.'

'What would you have us do?'

'To see faults is a much easier thing than to originate a sound scheme.

I am far from prepared with any plan of social reconstruction.'

Nor could Mr. Wyvern be moved from the negative att.i.tude, though Mutimer pressed him.

'Well, I'm sorry you won't come,' Richard said as he rose to take his leave. 'It didn't strike me that you would feel out of place.'

'Nor should I. But you will understand that my opportunities of being useful in the village depend on the existence of sympathetic feeling in my paris.h.i.+oners. It is my duty to avoid any behaviour which could be misinterpreted.'

'Then you deliberately adapt yourself to the prejudices of unintelligent people?'

'I do so, deliberately,' a.s.sented the vicar, with one of his fleeting smiles.

Richard went away feeling sorry that he had courted this rejection. He would never have thought of inviting a 'parson' but for Mrs. Waltham's suggestion. After all, it it mattered little whether Adela came to the luncheon or not. He had desired her presence because he wished her to see him as an entertainer of guests such as the Westlakes, whom she would perceive to be people of refinement; it occurred to him, too, that such an occasion might aid his snit by exciting her ambition; for he was anything but confident of immediate success with Adela, especially since recent conversations with Mrs. Waltham. But in any case she would attend the afternoon ceremony, when his glory would be proclaimed.

Mrs. Waltham was anxiously meditative of plans for bringing Adela to regard her Socialist wooer with more favourable eyes. She, too, had hopes that Mutimer's fame in the mouths of men might prove an attraction, yet she suspected a strength of principle in Adela which might well render all such hopes vain. And she thought it only too likely, though observation gave her no actual a.s.surance of this, that the girl still thought of Hubert Eldon in a way to render it doubly hard for any other man to make an impression upon her. It was dangerous, she knew, to express her abhorrence of Hubert too persistently; yet, on the other hand, she was convinced that Adela had been so deeply shocked by the revelations of Hubert's wickedness that her moral nature would be in arms against her lingering inclination. After much mental wear and tear, she decided to adopt the strong course of asking Alfred's a.s.sistance.

Alfred was sure to view the proposed match with hearty approval, and, though he might not have much influence directly, he could in all probability secure a potent ally in the person of Letty Tew. This was rather a brilliant idea; Mrs. Waltham waited impatiently for her son's return from Belwick on Sat.u.r.day.

She broached the subject to him with much delicacy.

'I am so convinced, Alfred, that it would be for your sister's happiness. There really is no harm whatever in aiding her inexperience; that is all that I wish to do. I'm sure you understand me?'

'I understand well enough,' returned the young man; 'but if you convince Adela against her will you'll do a clever thing. You've been so remarkably successful in closing her mind against all arguments of reason--'

'Now, Alfred, do not begin and talk in that way! It has nothing whatever to do with the matter. This is entirely a personal question.'

'Nothing of the kind. It's a question of religious prejudice. She hates Mutimer because he doesn't go to church, there's the long and short of it.'

'Adela very properly condemns his views, but that's quite a different thing from hating him.'

'Oh dear, no; they're one and the same thing. Look at the history of persecution. She would like to see him--and me too, I dare say--brought to the stake.'

'Well, well, of course if you won't talk sensibly I had something to propose.'

'Let me hear it, then.'