SPEARS was seated on his bench, with his tools and his glue-pot, as Sir William had seen him on the previous day, when Lady Markham entered the shop. He had never ceased to be industrious at his work, though he had so many other things to do. Indeed, the many other things he had to do made it incumbent upon him to work early and late, in order to keep, as he called it, “the pot boiling.” For he was not a paid agitator. The man was proud, as men will be in all stations; and, moreover, he was uncertain—not to be calculated upon as a supporter of all kinds of measures which might be proved good for “the trade,” and therefore not half so serviceable an implement as many who were much less powerful. Like the independent member who cannot be trusted always to vote with one party, he was looked upon with doubt even by those who took the greatest advantage of his gifts. His influence had never done himself any good. He had acquired it by exhausting labour, which had taken him away from the work by which he made his bread, without supplying any bread in the interval to nourish those who were dependent upon him; and the consequence was that he had to work at other times early and late, and was saved from all possibility of the idle life which a stump orator may be so easily led into. His shop itself was swept and clean, the boards freshly watered in large damp circles still marked upon the wood, and a great bundle of large flowers—sunflowers and dahlias—stuck into a large jug, stood in the window among the picture-frames. Some brilliant gladiolas, in the brightest tints of colour, lay neglected on the floor, and a great magnificent stalk of foxglove nodded on the table at which he was working. These floral decorations, unexpected in such a place, made the shop cheerful; and so did a stray ray of morning sun, which got in through a break in the houses opposite, and fell across it, dividing it as with a line of gold. The door stood open; the air, even though laden with varnish, retained some freshness. Lady Markham came in softly, and stood, her heart beating, not knowing well how to open this important interview, in the middle of the sunshine. Her breath came quick. Now that she had arrived at the point for which she had been aiming, a sudden alarm seized her. Might it not have been better, she asked herself, hurriedly, to remain in ignorance—not to seek to be convinced? There are things which it is better not to know.
Spears, who was whistling over his work, did not hear the light footstep coming in; but he noted, with the quick sense of a man to whom daylight is indispensable, the shadow that had come across the sunshine. He paused and looked up. A doubt—a question came over his face. Was it possible he did not know her? Then he rose and came forward, holding out to Lady Markham a hand not free from stains of the varnish which perfumed the shop.
“Is it you, my lady?” he cried. His face beamed over with a smile of welcome, but showed no surprise or alarm at the appearance of such an inquisitor. He drew forth a rough wooden seat without any back, and placed it in the centre of the vacant space.
“I am very glad to see you in my poor place,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Lady Markham. She glanced round her with a little perturbation. She did not know how to begin. “Mr. Spears!” she said, faltering a little, “I was very glad to see you in my house.”
“Were you, my lady?” He stood before her with a good-humoured smile upon his face, but slightly shook his head. “Never mind, you were as kind as if you had been glad to see me, and that says more. But your husband upbraided me for coming to his house in his absence, which you know was your son’s fault, and not mine.”
“It is of my son I want to speak to you,” said Lady Markham, seizing this easy means of introducing her subject. “Mr. Spears, you know something of what he is to me—my eldest boy, the one who should be the prop of the family: to whom his brothers and sisters will look hereafter as the head of the family.”
“Ay, that’s just it,” said the revolutionary. “Why should they look to him? What is there so creditable in being the eldest son? It was no thanks to him. He was not born first for any merit of his. Far better to teach them to depend on themselves—to give them their just share—to make no eldest sons.”
“As if that were possible,” Lady Markham said, with a soft smile at this theoretical folly. “One must be the eldest, whatever you say; and if any harm were to happen to us,” she added, after a pause, raising her beautiful head, “I have no fear that Paul would give up his position then. If we were to become poor, to lose all we have—such things have happened, Mr. Spears—my boy would not find it hard to remember to take up his duties as the eldest son!”
“Ah!” said Spears in involuntary sympathy. Then he added with again the same good-humoured smile, “There now, that is how you get the better of us, you aristocrats. You are terribly cunning in argument, my lady. You get over us by a suggestion of generosity when we are talking of justice. The thing will never happen, of course—not in our day, more’s the pity—your money and your land will never be taken from you.”
“Do you think that is a pity, Mr. Spears?”
“Well, yes,” he said, laughing, “from our point of view; but it will never happen, not in our time. And even if it did happen, don’t you think it would be far better to live each man for himself, and not a whole family casting themselves on the shoulders of your son Paul?”
“My son Paul,” said Lady Markham, in a low voice, looking at him through the tears in her eyes, “will be far away from us—will not be at hand to be of use or consolation in case anything should happen to us, if you and he have your will, Mr. Spears. He will be far away where he will be of no use to his family. Such a thing might happen, though God forbid it! as that I might be left to struggle alone for my children; and Paul, my eldest, my natural help, far away, lost to me, as if he had never been.”
Spears turned away while she was speaking, and returned to his bench. He cleared his throat; his face flushed; he was as much embarrassed as she had been at the beginning, and did not know how to reply.
“My lady,” he said, “this is too bad; I think it is too bad. After all a man has more things to think of in this world than whether his family has need of him, or if he can be of use to his mamma.”
He said the last word with a semitone of ridicule, then blushed for himself as he caught her eye. Lady Markham saw her advantage. She would not let him escape.
“Are there then many things in this world that are better than being of use to your family, and helping in a hard task your mother? Do you think so, Mr. Spears? Ah, no! I am certain you don’t. You are talking au bout des lèvres, not from your heart. If we should ever need him, Paul will be—who can tell?—thousands and thousands of miles away; and for what? Why do you want him to go with you? Why are you going? I do not know the reason. Because you are impatient, and do not like the manner in which things are arranged at home?”
“We will not enter into that, my lady,” said Spears; “we will not enter into that.”
He said this, half in contempt of her intelligence, which did not rise to his lofty view, half because (and this really meant the same thing) it was very difficult to explain why he thought it expedient to go away. Many motives were mingled in his resolution which he did not dwell upon even to himself. He was tired of poor work and poor pay, and the struggle of living; tired of having to manufacture pictures-frames for bread when he could have done something so much better: and disgusted that his higher work got no real appreciation from any one. And he was tired too even of his agitation, the speeches and popular applause which were all very well for the moment, but neither seemed to convince any one, nor to affect the world at all. All this was going on day after day, week after week, but never came to anything. Often speakers whom he knew to be much inferior to himself were more warmly applauded; and some whom he considered (as other people considered him) to be stump orators and noisy demagogues, got elevated and salaried, and swaggered about in all the importance of delegates and representatives of the people, while he received no such distinction. Though this was partly his own fault through the pride and love of independence which characterised him, yet Spears felt it. It soured him, in spite of himself. All this, however, lay in his heart undivulged, except by a bitter word now and then; and what he said to himself was that the old country was thoroughly corrupt and hopeless, but that in a new country, under better conditions, life would be more worth having. Did this fine lady, who knew nothing about it, divine what was secretly shut up in his mind? He grew half afraid of her, simple and ignorant as she had seemed to him a little while before.
“Ah, Mr. Spears, let us speak of it! You forget how important it is to me. But for you, I should not run any risk of losing my boy.”
“I did not propose that he should come with me. You will do me the justice to believe, Lady Markham, that I never attempted to bias him.”
“To bias him,” she said—“what is it then? Is it not all your doing? Why, should Paul go away, but for you? He has got these notions which you have taught him into his head—”
“On the contrary,” said the workman, “I have told him that were I in his place I should certainly stay in England. This is no place for a poor man who thinks—but for a man who is not poor, who has a position like his, why, it is the ideal place. There is no aristocracy so solid as in England. I have told him so a hundred times.”
Lady Markham’s face grew whiter and whiter. It did not occur to her that this very advice might be conveyed in a tone which would make Paul wildly indignant at the supposed immunity and privileged condition with which his friend credited him. Such an explanation did not occur to her. Dismay stole over her heart; it was then as Sir William thought—Paul was not telling them the truth. The cause of his wild project was not philosophy and foolish opinions, since even his leader disowned it. It was something else. Her heart sank within her, she lost the control of her better sense. “If it is not you,” she said, “who is it then—who is it, Mr. Spears? You have—a daughter?” This seemed to come from her in spite of herself.
“A daughter—I have three,” he said, “but what have they—” here he stopped, and getting up from his bench gave vent to a low whistle of astonishment and perplexity. He was as much surprised as she could be, and not much more pleased. He gazed at her a moment speechless. “Can that be so?” he said.
Impossible to sink lower than Lady Markham’s heart sank—it seemed to melt away altogether in humiliation and disappointment. She looked at him piteously, the tears so gathering into her eyes that she could scarcely see his face.
“Oh, Mr. Spears,” she cried, “you know what such a connection always comes to; disappointment on both sides—the woman’s as well as the man’s. Whatever his feelings may be now, he would soon find out that she was not—like the women he had been used to; and she would find herself among—habits that were not congenial to her. Oh, Mr. Spears, for both their sakes—you that Paul thinks so much of, you whose opinion he follows so meekly—oh, will you not exert your authority, and forbid it—forbid it altogether?”
Lady Markham lost control of the words she was saying. She did not think whether this was likely to be a mode of entreaty that would be grateful to him. She lost her own fine sense of what was fit and seemly, in the eagerness of the appeal which might save her boy.
He stood over her, looking at her, changed she could not tell how. His face clouded over before her eyes. At first this seemed only the effect of the tears that blinded her, but when these latter fell she became aware that the countenance which had been so good-humoured and friendly was full now of a very different sentiment. The man seemed to have expanded even in outline as he stood between her and the light.
“Forbid it, forbid it altogether!” he repeated, with a smile that seemed to freeze her. “Why?” She felt herself tremble before him as he fixed his eyes upon her. “My lady,” he said, “you forget where you are, and you forget your politeness for once. How do you know my girl is not like the women he has been used to? By God! she’s better than most he’ll meet with among your depraved and worn-out race. My girl! if it is true, and she likes him, do you think I would forbid it, to save your fine blood from pollution, and keep your Paul for some fine lady of the kind he’s been used to? No, not for a million of mothers—not for all the soft-spoken insults in the world.”
Lady Markharn made no reply; she could not, her agitation was so great; but indignation began to steady her nerves, and give back her forces. What had she said to call for this? How dared he speak of insult, the man whom she felt she had honoured by coming to him, by appealing to him? She was not an angel, though she was a good woman, and instinctively she began to call together her faculties, to range herself, as it were, on her own side.
Apparently, however, after this outburst, Spears felt ashamed of himself. A fine sense of courtesy was in the man, almost finer than her own. He began to be ashamed of having thus violated hospitality, of having so addressed her in his own house. He turned away from her to recover himself, turning his back upon her, then came back with again a changed aspect. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I ought to have more control of myself in my own place. I don’t believe it’s true what you think. No, my lady, I don’t mean you’re saying what you don’t believe—I think you’re deceived. I won’t ask who’s told you, or how it’s come into your head; I’ll put it to a better test. I’ll ask the girl herself.”
“Mr. Spears,” said Lady Markham, “you have been very rude to me; I have not insulted you, nor did I mean to do so. It never occurred to me,” she added, with a fine sting in her words which penetrated through all his armour, “that I need fear anything from you which I should not have encountered in—another rank of life. But I do not wish to make reprisals,” she said, with a faint smile, rising from her seat. “If you question your daughter on such a subject it ought not to be before me.”
“My lady,” cried Spears, his face full of passion, “unless it is to be open war between us it shall be before you. If there’s love between them there should be no shame in it. My girl is one that can hold up her head before any on the face of the earth. It is not my beginning, but it shall be settled and cleared up on the spot. Janet! come down here, I want you,” he called at the foot of the stairs.
Even in the midst of her agitation, Lady Markham had been conscious of sounds above, footsteps and young voices, one of which indeed had been persistently singing all the time, some trivial song of the moment in a clear little sweet voice, like the trill of a bird. The insignificant tune had run through all this exciting interview, and worked itself into Lady Markham’s head, and in spite of herself she stood still, not resisting any longer, turning towards the stairs involuntarily, watching for the appearance of the girl who (perhaps) was dearer to her boy than anything else, who, perhaps, was his motive for relinquishing everything else, including his mother’s happiness and the comfort of his family. What woman could remain unmoved under such circumstances? Once more her heart began to beat as she turned her face towards the dingy stairs. Was it some beautiful apparition which was to appear from it, some creature such as exists in poetry, some woman for whom it would be comprehensible that a man should give up all? Lady Markham had romance enough in her to feel that this was possible, almost to wish it, while she feared it. If it were so, it would be more easy to forgive Paul. Ah, forgive him!—that was never hard; that was not the question. Our forgiveness, like a weeping angel, is it not always hovering, forestalling even the evil to be forgiven, over our children’s wayward ways? But to get it out of her mind, out of her memory, that he had deceived her, that was not so easy. She, who had come in search of evidence to exonerate Paul, can any one wonder that she stood trembling, scarcely seeing, scarcely hearing, yet all eyes and ears, to receive the testimony of this indisputable witness, against whom there could be no appeal? But when the girl’s foot sounded on the stair it seemed to Lady Markham that she had already given up all hope that Paul was true—provided only that this woman for whom he had compromised the honour of his word, might at least afford some justification for the sacrifice.