CHAPTER IV.
"I _love_ this dilapidation!" said Wharton, pausing for a moment withhis back against the door he had just shut. "Only it makes me long totake off my coat and practise some honest trade or other--plastering, orcarpentering, or painting. What useless drones we upper classes are!Neither you nor I could mend that ceiling or patch this floor--to saveour lives."
They were in the disused library. It was now the last room westwards ofthe garden front, but in reality it was part of the older house, and hadbeen only adapted and re-built by that eighteenth-century Marcella whosemoney had been so gracefully and vainly lavished on giving dignity toher English husband's birthplace. The roof had been raised and domed tomatch the "Chinese room," at the expense of some small rooms on theupper floor; and the windows and doors had been suited toeighteenth-century taste. But the old books in the old latticed shelveswhich the Puritan founder of the family had bought in the days of theLong Parliament were still there; so were the chairs in which thatworthy had sat to read a tract of Milton's or of Baxter's, or the tableat which he had penned his letters to Hampden or Fairfax, or to his oldfriend--on the wrong side--Edmund Verney the standard-bearer. Only theworm-eaten shelves were dropping from their supports, and the books layin mouldy confusion; the roofs had great holes and gaps, whence thelaths hung dismally down, and bats came flitting in the dusk; and therewere rotten places in the carpetless floor.
"I have tried my best," said Marcella, dolefully, stooping to look at ahole in the floor. "I got a bit of board and some nails, and tried tomend some of these places myself. But I only broke the rotten wood away;and papa was angry, and said I did more harm than good. I did get acarpenter to mend some of the chairs; but one doesn't know where tobegin. I have cleaned and mended some of the books, but--"
She looked sadly round the musty, forlorn place.
"But not so well, I am afraid, as any second-hand bookseller'sapprentice could have done it," said Wharton, shaking his head. "It'smaddening to think what duffers we gentlefolks are!"
"Why do you harp on that?" said Marcella, quickly. She had been takinghim over the house, and was in twenty minds again as to whether and howmuch she liked him.
"Because I have been reading some Board of Trade reports beforebreakfast," said Wharton, "on one or two of the Birmingham industries inparticular. Goodness! what an amount of knowledge and skill and resourcethese fellows have that I go about calling the 'lower orders.' I wonderhow long they are going to let me rule over them!"
"I suppose brain-power and education count for something still?" saidMarcella, half scornfully.
"I am greatly obliged to the world for thinking so," said Wharton withemphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-powerI happen to possess, which is the point. The processes by which aBirmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are,of course, mere imbecility--compared to my performances in Responsions.Lucky for _me_, at any rate, that the world has decided it so. I get agood time of it--and the Birmingham jeweller calls me 'sir.'"
"Oh! the skilled labour! that can take care of itself, and won't go oncalling you 'sir' much longer. But what about the unskilled--the peoplehere for instance--the villagers? We talk of their governing themselves;we wish it, and work for it. But which of us _really_ believes that theyare fit for it, or that they are ever going to get along without _our_brain-power?"
"No--poor souls!" said Wharton, with a peculiar vibrating emphasis."'_By their stripes we are healed, by their death we have lived_.' Doyou remember your Carlyle?"
They had entered one of the bays formed by the bookcases which on eitherside of the room projected from the wall at regular intervals, and werestanding by one of the windows which looked out on the great avenue.Beside the window on either side hung a small portrait--in the one caseof an elderly man in a wig, in the other of a young, dark-haired woman.
"Plenty in general, but nothing in particular," said Marcella, laughing."Quote."
He was leaning against the angle formed by the wall and the bookcase.The half-serious, half-provocative intensity of his blue eyes under thebrow which drooped forward contrasted with the careless, well-appointedease of his general attitude and dress.
"'_Two men I honour, and no third_,'" he said, quoting in a slightlydragging, vibrating voice: "'_First, the toil-worn craftsman that withearth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes herman's.--Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for uswere thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert ourconscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert somarred_.' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, youknow, for you and me--Venturists--to be maundering like this.Charity--benevolence--that is all Carlyle is leading up to. He merelywants the cash nexus supplemented by a few good offices. But we wantsomething much more unpleasant! 'Keep your subscriptions--hand over yourdividends--turn out of your land--and go to work!' Nowadays society istrying to get out of doing what _we_ want, by doing what Carlylewanted."
"_Do_ you want it?" said Marcella.
"I don't know," he said, laughing. "It won't come in our time."
Her lip showed her scorn.
"That's what we all think. Meanwhile you will perhaps admit that alittle charity greases the wheels."
"_You_ must, because you are a woman; and women are made forcharity--and aristocracy."
"Do you suppose you know so much about women?" she asked him, ratherhotly. "I notice it is always the assumption of the people who make mostmistakes."
"Oh! I know enough to steer by!" he said, smiling, with a littleinclination of his curly head, as though to propitiate her. "How likeyou are to that portrait!"
Marcella started, and saw that he was pointing to the woman's portraitbeside the window--looking from it to his hostess with a closeconsidering eye.
"That was an ancestress of mine," she said coldly, "an Italian lady. Shewas rich and musical. Her money built these rooms along the garden, andthese are her music books."
She showed him that the shelves against which she was leaning were fullof old music.
"Italian!" he said, lifting his eyebrows. "Ah, that explains. Do youknow--that you have all the qualities of a leader!"--and he moved away ayard from her, studying her--"mixed blood--one must always have that tofire and fuse the English paste--and then--but no! that won't do--Ishould offend you."
Her first instinct was one of annoyance--a wish to send him about hisbusiness, or rather to return him to her mother who would certainly keephim in order. Instead, however, she found herself saying, as she lookedcarelessly out of window--
"Oh! go on."
"Well, then"--he drew himself up suddenly and wheeled round uponher--"you have the gift of compromise. That is invaluable--that willtake you far."
"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you! I know what that means--from aVenturist. You think me a mean insincere person!"
He started, then recovered himself and came to lean against thebookshelves beside her.
"I mean nothing of the sort," he said, in quite a different manner, witha sort of gentle and personal emphasis. "But--may I explain myself, MissBoyce, in a room with a fire? I can see you shivering under your fur."
For the frost still reigned supreme outside, and the white grass andtrees threw chill reflected lights into the forsaken library. Marcellacontrolled a pulse of excitement that had begun to beat in her, admittedthat it was certainly cold, and led the way through a side door to alittle flagged parlour, belonging to the oldest portion of the house,where, however, a great log-fire was burning, and some chairs drawn upround it. She took one and let the fur wrap she had thrown about her fortheir promenade through the disused rooms drop from her shoulders. Itlay about her in full brown folds, giving special dignity to her slimheight and proud head. Wharton glancing about in his curious inquisitiveway, now at the neglected pictures, now on the walls, now at the old oakchairs and chests, now at her, said to himse
lf that she was a splendidand inspiring creature. She seemed to be on the verge of offence withhim too, half the time, which was stimulating. She would have liked, hethought, to play the great lady with him already, as Aldous Raeburn'sbetrothed. But he had so far managed to keep her off that plane--andintended to go on doing so.
"Well, I meant this," he said, leaning against the old stone chimneyand looking down upon her; "only _don't_ be offended with me, please.You are a Socialist, and you are going--some day--to be Lady Maxwell.Those combinations are only possible to women. They can sustain them,because they are imaginative--not logical."
She flushed.
"And you," she said, breathing quickly, "are a Socialist and a landlord.What is the difference?"
He laughed.
"Ah! but I have no gift--I can't ride the two horses, as you will beable to--quite honestly. There's the difference. And the consequence isthat with my own class I am an outcast--they all hate me. But you willhave power as Lady Maxwell--and power as a Socialist--because you willgive and take. Half your time you will act as Lady Maxwell should, theother half like a Venturist. And, as I said, it will give you power--amodified power. But men are less clever at that kind of thing."
"Do you mean to say," she asked him abruptly, "that you have given upthe luxuries and opportunities of your class?"
He shifted his position a little.
"That is a different matter," he said after a moment. "We Socialists areall agreed, I think, that no man can be a Socialist by himself.Luxuries, for the present, are something personal, individual. It isonly a man's 'public form' that matters. And there, as I said before, Ihave no gift!--I have not a relation or an old friend in the world thathas not turned his back upon me--as you might see for yourselfyesterday! My class has renounced me already--which, after all, is aweakness."
"So you pity yourself?" she said.
"By no means! We all choose the part in life that amuses us--that bringsus most _thrill_. I get most thrill out of throwing myself into theworkmen's war--much more than I could ever get, you will admit, out ofdancing attendance on my very respectable cousins. My mother taught meto see everything dramatically. We have no drama in England at thepresent moment worth a cent; so I amuse myself with this greattragi-comedy of the working-class movement. It stirs, pricks, interestsme, from morning till night. I feel the great rough elemental passionsin it, and it delights me to know that every day brings us nearer tosome great outburst, to scenes and struggles at any rate that will makeus all look alive. I am like a child with the best of its cake to come,but with plenty in hand already. Ah!--stay still a moment, Miss Boyce!"
To her amazement he stooped suddenly towards her; and she, looking down,saw that a corner of her light, black dress, which had been overhangingthe low stone fender, was in flames, and that he was putting it out withhis hands. She made a movement to rise, alarmed lest the flames shouldleap to her face--her hair. But he, releasing one hand for an instantfrom its task of twisting and rolling the skirt upon itself, held herheavily down.
"Don't move; I will have it out in a moment. You won't be burnt."
And in a second more she was looking at a ragged brown hole in herdress; and at him, standing, smiling, before the fire, and wrapping ahandkerchief round some of the fingers of his left hand.
"You have burnt yourself, Mr. Wharton?"
"A little."
"I will go and get something--what would you like?"
"A little olive oil if you have some, and a bit of lint--but don'ttrouble yourself."
She flew to find her mother's maid, calling and searching on her way forMrs. Boyce herself, but in vain. Mrs. Boyce had disappeared afterbreakfast, and was probably helping her husband to dress.
In a minute or so Marcella ran downstairs again, bearing variousmedicaments. She sped to the Stone Parlour, her cheek and eye glowing.
"Let me do it for you."
"If you please," said Wharton, meekly.
She did her best, but she was not skilful with her fingers, and thisclose contact with him somehow excited her.
"There," she said, laughing and releasing him. "Of course, if I were awork-girl I should have done it better. They are not going to be verybad, I think."
"What, the burns? Oh, no! They will have recovered, I am afraid, longbefore your dress."
"Oh, my dress! yes, it is deplorable. I will go and change it."
She turned to go, but she lingered instead, and said with an odd,introductory laugh:
"I believe you saved my life!"
"Well, I am glad I was here. You might have lost self-possession--even_you_ might, you know!--and then it would have been serious."
"Anyway"--her voice was still uncertain--"I might have beendisfigured--disfigured for life!"
"I don't know why you should dwell upon it now it's done with," hedeclared, smiling.
"It would be strange, wouldn't it, if I took it quite for granted--allin the day's work?" She held out her hand: "I am grateful--please."
He bowed over it, laughing, again with that eighteenth-century air whichmight have become a Chevalier des Grieux.
"May I exact a reward?"
"Ask it."
"Will you take me down with you to your village? I know you are going. Imust walk on afterwards and catch a midday train to Widrington. I havean appointment there at two o'clock. But perhaps you will introduce meto one or two of your poor people first?"
Marcella assented, went upstairs, changed her dress, and put on herwalking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her motherto go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by afeeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally andindecorously towards whom?--towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did notknow. But there was a curious sense of lost bloom, lost dignity,combined with an odd wish that Mr. Wharton were not going away for theday. In the end, however, she left her mother undisturbed.
By the time they were half way to the village, Marcella's uncomfortablefeelings had all passed away. Without knowing it, she was becoming toomuch absorbed in her companion to be self-critical, so long as they weretogether. It seemed to her, however, before they had gone more than afew hundred yards that he was taking advantage--presuming on what hadhappened. He offended her taste, her pride, her dignity, in a hundredways, she discovered. At the same time it was _she_ who was always onthe defensive--protecting her dreams, her acts, her opinions, againstthe constant fire of his half-ironical questions, which seemed to leaveher no time at all to carry the war into the enemy's country. He put herthrough a quick cross-examination about the village, its occupations,the incomes of the people, its local charities and institutions, whatshe hoped to do for it, what she would do if she could, what she thoughtit _possible_ to do. She answered first reluctantly, then eagerly, herpride all alive to show that she was not merely ignorant and amateurish.But it was no good. In the end he made her feel as Antony Craven hadconstantly done--that she knew nothing exactly, that she had notmastered the conditions of any one of the social problems she wastalking about; that not only was her reading of no account, but that shehad not even managed to _see_ these people, to interpret their livesunder her very eyes, with any large degree of insight.
Especially was he merciless to all the Lady Bountiful pose, which meantso much to her imagination--not in words so much as in manner. He lether see that all the doling and shepherding and advising that stillpleased her fancy looked to him the merest temporary palliative, andirretrievably tainted, even at that, with some vulgar feeling or other.All that the well-to-do could do for the poor under the present state ofsociety was but a niggardly quit-rent; as for any relation of "superior"and "inferior" in the business, or of any social desert attaching tothese precious efforts of the upper class to daub the gaps in theruinous social edifice for which they were themselves responsible, hedid not attempt to conceal his scorn. If you did not do these things, somuch the worse for you when the working class came to its own; if youdid do them, the burden of debt was h
ardly diminished, and the rope wasstill left on your neck.
Now Marcella herself had on one or two occasions taken a maliciouspleasure in flaunting these doctrines, or some of them, under MissRaeburn's eyes. But somehow, as applied to herself, they weredisagreeable. Each of us is to himself a "special case"; and she saw theother side. Hence a constant soreness of feeling; a constant recallingof the argument to the personal point of view; and through it all acurious growth of intimacy, a rubbing away of barriers. She had feltherself of no account before, intellectually, in Aldous's company, as weknow. But then how involuntary on his part, and how counter-balanced bythat passionate idealism of his love, which glorified every prettyimpulse in her to the noblest proportions! Under Wharton's Socraticmethod, she was conscious at times of the most wild and womanishdesires, worthy of her childhood--to cry, to go into a passion!--andwhen they came to the village, and every human creature, old and young,dropped its obsequious curtsey as they passed, she could first havebeaten them for so degrading her, and the next moment felt a feverishpleasure in thus parading her petty power before a man who in hisdoctrinaire pedantry had no sense of poetry, or of the dear old naturalrelations of country life.
They went first to Mrs. Jellison's, to whom Marcella wished to unfoldher workshop scheme.
"Don't let me keep you," she said to Wharton coldly, as they neared thecottage; "I know you have to catch your train."
Wharton consulted his watch. He had to be at a local station some twomiles off within an hour.
"Oh! I have time," he said. "Do take me in, Miss Boyce. I have madeacquaintance with these people so far, as my constituents--now show themto me as your subjects. Besides, I am an observer. I 'collect' peasants.They are my study."
"They are not my subjects, but my friends," she said with the samestiffness.
They found Mrs. Jellison having her dinner. The lively old woman wassitting close against her bit of fire, on her left a small deal tablewhich held her cold potatoes and cold bacon; on her right a tiny windowand window-sill whereon lay her coil of "plait" and the simplestraw-splitting machine she had just been working. When Marcella hadtaken the only other chair the hovel contained, nothing else remainedfor Wharton but to flatten himself as closely against the door as hemight.
"I'm sorry I can't bid yer take a cheer," said Mrs. Jellison to him,"but what yer han't got yer can't give, so I don't trouble my head aboutnothink."
Wharton applauded her with easy politeness, and then gave himself, withfolded arms, to examining the cottage while Marcella talked. It might beten feet broad, he thought, by six feet in one part and eight feet inanother. The roof was within little more than an inch of his head. Thestairway in the corner was falling to pieces; he wondered how the womangot up safely to her bed at night; custom, he supposed, can make evenold bones agile.
Meanwhile Marcella was unfolding the project of the straw-plaitingworkshop that she and Lady Winterbourne were about to start. Mrs.Jellison put on her spectacles apparently that she might hear thebetter, pushed away her dinner in spite of her visitors' civilities, andlistened with a bright and beady eye.
"An' yer agoin' to pay me one a sixpence a score, where I now getsninepence. And I'll not have to tramp it into town no more--you'll senda man round. And who is agoin' to pay me, miss, if you'll excuse measking?"
"Lady Winterbourne and I," said Marcella, smiling. "We're going toemploy this village and two others, and make as good business of it aswe can. But we're going to begin by giving the workers better wages, andin time we hope to teach them the higher kinds of work."
"Lor'!" said Mrs. Jellison. "But I'm not one o' them as kin do withchanges." She took up her plait and looked at it thoughtfully."Eighteen-pence a score. It wor that rate when I wor a girl. An' it ha'been dibble--dibble--iver sense; a penny off here, an' a penny offthere, an' a hard job to keep a bite ov anythink in your mouth."
"Then I may put down your name among our workers, Mrs. Jellison?" saidMarcella, rising and smiling down upon her.
"Oh, lor', no; I niver said that," said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "I don'thold wi' shilly-shallyin' wi' yer means o' livin'. I've took my plait toJimmy Gedge--'im an' 'is son, fust shop on yer right hand when yer gitinto town--twenty-five year, summer and winter--me an' three otherwomen, as give me a penny a journey for takin' theirs. If I wor to gomessin' about wi' Jimmy Gedge, Lor' bless yer, I should 'ear ov it--oh!I shoulden sleep o' nights for thinkin' o' how Jimmy ud serve me outwhen I wor least egspectin' ov it. He's a queer un. No, miss, thank yerkindly; but I think I'll bide."
Marcella, amazed, began to argue a little, to expound the manyattractions of the new scheme. Greatly to her annoyance, Wharton cameforward to her help, guaranteeing the solvency and permanence of her newpartnership in glib and pleasant phrase, wherein her angry fancysuspected at once the note of irony. But Mrs. Jellison held firm,embroidering her negative, indeed, with her usual cheerful chatter, butsticking to it all the same. At last there was no way of saving dignitybut to talk of something else and go--above all, to talk of somethingelse before going, lest the would-be benefactor should be thought apetty tyrant.
"Oh, Johnnie?--thank yer, miss--'e's an owdacious young villain as iverI seed--but _clever_--lor', you'd need 'ave eyes in yer back to lookafter _'im_. An' _coaxin'_! ''Aven't yer brought me no sweeties,Gran'ma?' 'No, my dear,' says I. 'But if you was to _look_, Gran'ma--inboth your pockets, Gran'ma--iv you was to let _me_ look?' It's a sharpun Isabella, she don't 'old wi' sweet-stuff, she says, sich a pack o'nonsense. She'd stuff herself sick when she wor 'is age. Why shouldn't_ee_ be happy, same as her? There ain't much to make a child 'appy in_that_ 'ouse. Westall, ee's that mad about them poachers over TudleyEnd; ee's like a wild bull at 'ome. I told Isabella ee'd come toknockin' ov her about _some_ day, though ee did speak so oily when eewor a courtin'. Now she knows as I kin see a thing or two," said Mrs.Jellison, significantly. Her manner, Wharton noticed, kept always thesame gay philosophy, whatever subject turned up.
"Why, that's an old story--that Tudley End business--" said Marcella,rising. "I should have thought Westall might have got over it by now."
"But bless yer, ee says it's goin' on as lively as iver. Ee says eeknows they're set on grabbin' the birds t'other side the estate, overbeyond Mellor way--ee's got wind of it--an' ee's watchin' night an' dayto see they don't do him no bad turn _this_ month, bekase o' the bigshoot they allus has in January. An' lor', ee do speak drefful bad o'_soom_ folks," said Mrs. Jellison, with an amused expression. "You knowsome on 'em, miss, don't yer?" And the old woman, who had begun toyingwith her potatoes, slanted her fork over her shoulder so as to pointtowards the Hurds' cottage, whereof the snow-laden roof could be seenconspicuously through the little lattice beside her, making sly eyes thewhile at her visitor.
"I don't believe a word of it," said Marcella, impatiently. "Hurd hasbeen in good work since October, and has no need to poach. Westall has adown on him. You may tell him I think so, if you like."
"That I will," said Mrs. Jellison, cheerfully, opening the door forthem. "There's nobody makes 'im 'ear the treuth, nobbut me. I _loves_naggin' ov 'im, ee's that masterful. But ee don't master _me_!"
"A gay old thing," said Wharton as they shut the gate behind them. "Howshe does enjoy the human spectacle. And obstinate too. But you will findthe younger ones more amenable."
"Of course," said Marcella, with dignity. "I have a great many namesalready. The old people are always difficult. But Mrs. Jellison willcome round."
"Are you going in here?"
"Please."
Wharton knocked at the Hurds' door, and Mrs. Hurd opened.
The cottage was thick with smoke. The chimney only drew when the doorwas left open. But the wind to-day was so bitter that mother andchildren preferred the smoke to the draught. Marcella soon made out thepoor little bronchitic boy, sitting coughing by the fire, and Mrs. Hurdbusied with some washing. She introduced Wharton, who, as before, stoodfor some time, hat in hand, studying the cottage. Marcella was perfectlyconscious of it, and a b
lush rose to her cheek while she talked to Mrs.Hurd. For both this and Mrs. Jellison's hovel were her father's propertyand somewhat highly rented.
Minta Hurd said eagerly that she would join the new straw-plaiting, andwent on to throw out a number of hurried, half-coherent remarks aboutthe state of the trade past and present, leaning meanwhile against thetable and endlessly drying her hands on the towel she had taken up whenher visitors came in.
Her manner was often nervous and flighty in these days. She never lookedhappy; but Marcella put it down to health or natural querulousness ofcharacter. Yet both she and the children were clearly better nourished,except Willie, in whom the tubercular tendency was fast gaining on thechild's strength.
Altogether Marcella was proud of her work, and her eager interest inthis little knot of people whose lives she had shaped was morepossessive than ever. Hurd, indeed, was often silent and secretive; butshe put down her difficulties with him to our odious system of classdifferences, against which in her own way she was struggling. One thingdelighted her--that he seemed to take more and more interest in thelabour questions she discussed with him, and in that fervid, exuberantliterature she provided him with. Moreover, he now went to all Mr.Wharton's meetings that were held within reasonable distance of Mellor;and, as she said to Aldous with a little laugh, which, however, was notunsweet, _he_ had found her man work--_she_ had robbed his candidate ofa vote.
Wharton listened a while to her talk with Minta, smiled a little,unperceived of Marcella, at the young mother's docilities of manner andphrase; then turned his attention to the little hunched and coughingobject by the fire.
"Are you very bad, little man?"
The white-faced child looked up, a dreary look, revealing a patient,melancholy soul. He tried to answer, but coughed instead.
Wharton, moving towards him, saw a bit of ragged white paper lying onthe ground, which had been torn from a grocery parcel.
"Would you like something to amuse you a bit--Ugh! this smoke! Comeround here, it won't catch us so much. _Now_, then, what do you say to adoggie,--two doggies?"
The child stared, let himself be lifted on the stranger's knee, and didhis very utmost to stop coughing. But when he had succeeded his quickpanting breaths still shook his tiny frame and Wharton's knee.
"Hm--Give him two months or thereabouts!" thought Wharton. "What abeastly hole!--one room up, and one down, like the other, only a shadelarger. Damp, insanitary, cold--bad water, bad drainage, I'll bebound--bad everything. That girl may well try her little best. And I gomaking up to that man Boyce! What for? Old spites?--newspites?--which?--or both!"
Meanwhile his rapid skilful fingers were tearing, pinching, and shaping;and in a very few minutes there, upon his free knee, stood the mostenticing doggie of pinched paper, a hound in full course, with long earsand stretching legs.
The child gazed at it with ravishment, put out a weird hand, touchedit, stroked it, and then, as he looked back at Wharton, the mostexquisite smile dawned in his saucer-blue eyes.
"What? did you like it, grasshopper?" cried Wharton, enchanted by thebeauty of the look, his own colour mounting. "Then you shall haveanother."
And he twisted and turned his piece of fresh paper, till there, besidethe first, stood a second fairy animal--a greyhound this time, witharching neck and sharp long nose.
"There's two on 'em at Westall's!" cried the child, hoarsely, clutchingat his treasures in an ecstasy.
Mrs. Hurd, at the other end of the cottage, started as she heard thename. Marcella noticed it; and with her eager sympathetic look began atonce to talk of Hurd and the works at the Court. She understood theywere doing grand things, and that the work would last all the winter.Minta answered hurriedly and with a curious choice of phrases. "Oh! hedidn't have nothing to say against it." Mr. Brown, the steward, seemedsatisfied. All that she said was somehow irrelevant; and, to Marcella'sannoyance, plaintive as usual. Wharton, with the boy inside his arm,turned his head an instant to listen.
Marcella, having thought of repeating, without names, some of Mrs.Jellison's gossip, then shrank from it. He had promised her, she thoughtto herself with a proud delicacy; and she was not going to treat theword of a working man as different from anybody else's.
So she fastened her cloak again, which she had thrown open in thestifling air of the cottage, and turned both to call her companion andgive a smile or two to the sick boy.
But, as she did so, she stood amazed at the spectacle of Wharton and thechild. Then, moving up to them, she perceived the menagerie--for it hadgrown to one--on Wharton's knee.
"You didn't guess I had such tricks," he said, smiling.
"But they are so good--so artistic!" She took up a little gallopinghorse he had just fashioned and wondered at it.
"A great-aunt taught me--she was a genius--I follow her at a longdistance. Will you let me go, young man? You may keep all of them."
But the child, with a sudden contraction of the brow, flung a tinystick-like arm round his neck, pressing hard, and looking at him. Therewas a red spot in each wasted cheek, and his eyes were wide and happy.Wharton returned the look with one of quiet scrutiny--the scrutiny ofthe doctor or the philosopher. On Marcella's quick sense the contrast ofthe two heads impressed itself--the delicate youth of Wharton's with itsclustering curls--the sunken contours and the helpless suffering of theother. Then Wharton kissed the little fellow, put his animals carefullyon to a chair beside him, and set him down.
They walked along the snowy street again, in a different relation toeach other. Marcella had been touched and charmed, and Wharton teasedher no more. As they reached the door of the almshouse where the oldPattons lived, she said to him: "I think I had rather go in here bymyself, please. I have some things to give them--old Patton has beenvery ill this last week--but I know what you think of doles--and I knowtoo what you think, what you must think, of my father's cottages. Itmakes me feel a hypocrite; yet I must do these things; we are different,you and I--I am sure you will miss your train!"
But there was no antagonism, only painful feeling in her softened look.
Wharton put out his hand.
"Yes, it is time for me to go. You say I make you feel a hypocrite! Iwonder whether you have any idea what you make me feel? Do you imagine Ishould dare to say the things I have said except to one of the _elite_?Would it be worth my while, as a social reformer? Are you not vowed togreat destinies? When one comes across one of the tools of the future,must one not try to sharpen it, out of one's poor resources, in spite ofmanners?"
Marcella, stirred--abashed--fascinated--let him press her hand. Then hewalked rapidly away towards the station, a faint smile twitching at hislip.
"An inexperienced girl," he said to himself, composedly.