SPEARS entered the shop suddenly, before Janet had quite ended her astonishing address. If his dog had offered him advice Paul could scarcely have been more surprised. He was standing at one end of the shop gazing at her, his eyes wide opened with surprise, and consternation in his mind, when her father came in. Spears was not so much astonished as Paul was. He saw his daughter standing in the doorway, her colourless face a little flushed by her earnestness, and gaining much in beauty from that heightened tint, and from the meaning in it. Spears thought within himself that it was true what all the romancers said, that there was nothing like love for embellishing a woman, and that his Janet had never looked so handsome before. But that was all. He had come in by a back way, bringing with him the Scotchman, Fraser, who was to be one of the colonists, and therefore could not make any remark upon the conjunction of these two, or upon the few words he heard her saying. What so natural as that she should be found lingering about the place where Paul was expected, or that he should take her opinion, however foolish it might be?
“Come, you two,” Spears said, good-humouredly, “no more of this—there is a time for everything;” and Janet, with a start, with one anxious look at Paul to see what effect her eloquence was having, went slowly away.
Paul had been profoundly astonished by what she said. He could not understand it. She to bid him remain at home!—she to ask him with fervour, and almost indignation, what he wanted to emigrate for!—she, her father’s daughter, to remind him of those advantages which her father denounced! Paul felt himself utterly bewildered by what she said. There was nothing in him which helped him to an understanding of Janet’s real meaning. That her severely practical mind regarded her father’s creed as simple folly and big words might have been made credible to him: but that Janet had a distinct determination, rapidly formed, but of the most absolute force, not to permit himself—him—Paul—to give up any advantages which she had the hope of sharing—that she was determined to taste the sweets which he had set his foolish heart on throwing away—no idea of this entered into his mind. Her warning look—the little gesture of leave-taking which she made as she went away, and into which she managed to convey the same warning—overwhelmed him with amazement. What did she mean? He might have thought there was some secret plan against him from which she meant to defend him, if he had not had absolute confidence in Spears. Was it an effort of generosity on her part to free him from the dilemma in which his mother’s indiscretion had placed him—to put him away from the place in which her company might be a danger to him—to restore him to the sphere to which he belonged? For the first time with this idea a warm impulse of gratitude and admiration moved him towards the demagogue’s daughter. He waved his hand to her as she went away, with a smile which made Janet’s heart jump, and in which indeed no great strain of imagination was required to see a lover’s lingering of delight and regret as the object of his affection left him. Spears laughed; he saw no deficiency.
“Come, come,” he said, “we have more serious work in hand. Leave all that to a seasonable moment.” And upon the man’s face there came a smile—soft, luminous, full of tender sympathy. In his day he too had known what love was.
Fraser was an uncouth, thick man, short of stature, with that obscuration of griminess about him which sometimes appears in the general aspect of a labouring man. He was not dirty, but he was indistinct, as seen through a certain haze of atmosphere, which, however, from his side was penetrated by two keen eyes. He gave Paul a quick look, then, with a word of salutation, took his seat at the table, on which a paraffin lamp, emitting no delightful odour, was standing. As he did so two others came in. One a lean man, with spindle limbs and a long pale face, who looked as if he had grown into exaggerated pale length, like some imprisoned plant struggling upwards to the distant light. The other was a clerk, in the decent, carefully arranged dress which distinguishes his class, very neat and respectable, and “like a gentleman,” though a world apart from a gentleman’s ease of costume. The tall man was Weaver; the clerk’s name was Short. They took their seats also with brief salutations. There was room around the table for several more, but these seemed all that were coming. Spears took his place at the head. He was by far the most living and life-like of the party.
“Are we all here?” he said. “There are some vacant places. I hope that doesn’t mean falling away. Where is Rees, Short? What has become of him? It was you that brought him here.”
“He has heard of another situation,” said the clerk. “His wife never liked it. I doubt much whether we’ll see him again. He never was a man to be calculated upon. Hot at first—very hot—but no stamina. I warned you, Spears.”
“And Layton—he was hot too—has he dropped off as well?”
“Well, you see, Spears,” said the long man, with laboured utterance, working his hand slowly up and down, “work’s mended in our trade; there’s a deal in that. When it’s bad a man’s ready for anything; as it was all the early summer—not a thing doing. There were dozens on us as would have gone anywhere to make sure of a bit o’ bread. But work’s mended, and most of us think no more on what we’ve said. Not me,” the speaker added; “I’m staunch. It’s nothing to me what the women say.”
“I suppose you have got the maps and all the details?” said the clerk. “If we’re going out in October, we’d better settle all the details without delay.”
Then there arose a discussion about the land that was offered by the emigration commissioners, which it is needless to reproduce here. It was debated between Spears, Fraser, and the clerk, all of whom threw themselves into it with heat and energy, the eyes of the grimy little Scotchman gleaming on one after another, throwing sudden light like that of a lantern; while Short talked with great volubility and readiness, and Spears, at the head of the table, held the balance between them. Fraser was for closing with the official offer, and securing land before they made their start, while the clerk held in his hand the plans of a new township and the proposals of a land company, which seemed to him the most advantageous. Spears, for his part, was opposed to both. He was for waiting until they had arrived at their destination, and choosing for themselves where they would fix their abode. He, for his part, had no money to buy land, even at the cheapest rate. To take his family out, to support them during the first probationary interval, was as much as he could hope for. The debate rose high among them. Weaver sat with his two elbows resting on the table, and his long pale head supported in his hands, looking from one to another; his mouth and eyes were open with perennial wonder and admiration. Land! he had never possessed anything all his life, and the idea inflamed him. Paul had never taken any part in these practical discussions; he was too logical. If it was wrong for him to enjoy the advantages of wealth at home, he did not see how he could carry any of these advantages away with him, to purchase other advantages on the other side of the world. What right had he to do it? He sat silent, but less patient than Weaver, less admiring, feeling the peculiarities of the men doubly, now that he had associated himself conclusively with them. The clerk’s precise little tone, cut and dry—his disquisition upon the rates of interest and the chances of making a good speculation—Fraser’s dusky hands, which he put forward in the heat of argument, beating out emphatic sentences with a short, square forefinger—gave him an impression they had never done before. Short was a little contemptuous (notwithstanding the democratical views which he shared) of the working men, and their knowledge of what ought to be done.
“With the small means at our command,” he said, “to go out into the bush would be folly. You can’t grow grain or even potatoes in a few weeks. You must have civilisation behind you, and a town where you can push along with your trades till the land begins to pay.”
“And how are you to make the land pay without the plough, and somebody to guide it?” said Fraser. “I am not one that holds with civilisation. Most land will pay that’s well solicited with a good spade and a good stout arm. We’ll take a pickle meal with us, or let’s say flour, and the time the corn’s growing we’ll build our houses and live on our porridge. I do not approve of the Government, but it makes a good offer, and land cannot run away. Make yourself sure of a slice of the land; that is what I’ll always say.”
“Land,” said Spears, with some scorn in his tone, “that may be in the middle of a marsh, or on the cold side of a hill. I put no faith in the Government offer for my part, and a little less than none in your new township, Short. Did you ever read about Eden in Mr. Dickens’s book? I object to be slaughtered with fever for the sake of a new land company. Here is my opinion: Take your money with you as you please—in your old stocking, or in bits of paper—I,” said the demagogue, “feel the superiority of a man that has no money to take. I’ve got my head and my hands, and I mean to get my farm out of them. But let’s see the place first and choose. Let’s try the forest primeval, as they call it; but let us take our choice for ourselves.”
Fraser, who had projected himself half across the table leaning upon his elbows, and with his emphatic, blunt forefinger extended in act to speak, here interposed, pointing that member at Paul, who said nothing. “What’s he going to do? Hasn’t he got an opinion on the subject! I’m keen to know what a lad will say that has the most money to spend, and the most to lose—and a young fellow forbye;” said the Scot, flashing the light of his eager eyes upon Paul, who sat half-interested, half-disgusted, holding his refined head, and white hands, and fine linen, a little apart from the group round the table. He started slightly when he heard himself appealed to.
“If it is a false position to possess more than one’s neighbours here,” he said, “I hold it a still more false position to take what ought to be valuable to the country out of the country. I have very little money either to spend or to lose, and I think with Spears.”
“Ah,” said the Scotsman, “my lad, it’s a frolic for you. You’ll go and you’ll play at what is life or death to us—and by the time you’re tired of the novelty you’ll mind upon your folk at home, and your duty to them. I’ve seen the like before. None like you for giving rash counsels: not that you mean harm: but you know well you’ve them behind you that will be too glad to have you back. That’s not our case—with us it’s life or death.”
“Hold your tongue, Fraser,” said Spears. “This young fellow,”—he laid his hand upon Paul as he spoke, with a kind, paternal air, which perhaps the young man might have liked at another time, but which made him wince now—“is in earnest—no sort of doubt that he’s in earnest. He is giving up a great deal more than any of us are doing. We—that’s the worst of it—are making no sacrifice—we’re going because it suits us; but, to show his principles, he is giving up—a great deal more than was ever within our reach.”
“A man cannot give up more than he has got,” said the clerk. “What we are sacrificing is every bit as much to us.”
Spears kept his hand on Paul’s arm. He meant it very kindly, but it was warm and heavy, and Paul had all the desire in the world to pitch it off. He did not care for the paternal character of his instructor’s kindness.
“I don’t know what you are giving up,” said Spears. “I have got nothing to sacrifice, except perhaps a little bit of a perverse liking for the old country, bad as she is. It takes away a good deal of my pride in myself, if the truth were known, to feel that after all the talk I’ve gone through in my life, it isn’t for principle that I’m going, but to better myself. I told this young fellow he oughtn’t to go—that is the truth. He has no reason to be discontented. As long as the present state of things holds out, it’s to his interest, and doubly to his interest, to stay where he is. But this isn’t the kind of fellow to stand on what’s pleasant to himself. He’s coming for the grand sake of the cause—eh, Paul?—or if there’s another little bit of motive alongside, why that’s nothing to anybody. We are not going to make a talk of that.”
To imagine anything more distasteful to Paul than this speech would be impossible. Only by the most strenuous exercise of self-control could he keep from thrusting off Spears’s hand, his intolerable approval, and still more intolerable pleasantry. He got up at last, unable to bear it any longer. “We didn’t come here to comment on each other’s motives,” he said. “Suppose you go on with the business we met for, Spears.”
It was a little relief to get out of reach of the other’s hand. He stood up against the narrow little mantelpiece behind Spears’s chair. It was heaped with picture-frames, and the drawing which Spears had been making in the morning stood there propped up against the wall; the great foxglove from which he had designed it lay in a heap along with the other flowers which he had rejected, swept up into the fireplace. A faint odour of crushed stalks and broken flowers came from them. They were swept up carelessly with the dust, their bright petals peeping from under all the refuse of the shop, dishonoured and broken. Paul thought it was symbolical. He stood and looked—more dispassionately from a distance—at the rough, forcible head of the demagogue, and the countenance all seamed and grimy of the Scotsman, who was concentrating the keen light of his eyes upon Spears. The clerk, on the other hand, clean, neat, and commonplace, did not seem to belong to the same world, while the feeble, long head of Weaver was as the ghost and shadow of the other animated and vigorous faces. The light of the mean little paraffin lamp threw a yellow glow on them, but left in darkness all the corners of the shop, the large shuttered window, full of picture-frames, and the cavernous opening of the stairs which led to Spears’s house—and filled the place with an odour which the accustomed senses of the others took no notice of, but which to Paul was almost insupportable. He had assisted at these conferences before; but however he had busied himself in the details of the meetings, however earnestly and gravely he had posed (to his own consciousness) as one of them, yet he had never been one of them. He had been a spectator not an actor in the drama, little referred to, scarcely believed in by the others; and he had taken them calmly, as it is so easy to take those with whom we have nothing to do. But now that he was entirely committed to their society, now that he had burnt his ships, and shut every door of escape behind him, a new light seemed to shine upon them. The smoky lamp, the smell of the paraffin, the grimy haze about Fraser, the feeble whiteness of the other, the little clerk, all smooth and smug, with his talk of capital and interest—Paul seemed never to have seen them before. These were to be henceforward his companions, fellow-founders of a new society.
Paul felt himself grow giddy where he stood. Their talk went on; they discussed and argued, but it was only a kind of hum in his ears. He did not care what conclusion they came to—they themselves struck him like a revelation. Perhaps if any other four men in the world had thus been separated from all others as the future sharers of his life, his feelings would have been much the same. Four Dons for instance; suppose a group out of the Common-room put in the place of these workmen, would they have been more supportable? He asked himself this question vaguely, wistfully. Could he have put his future in their hands with more confidence? or was it simply that the contemplation of any such group as representing all your society for the rest of your life was alarming? Paul put this question to himself with a curious dizziness and sense of weakness.
The stair, which has been several times referred to, went straight up like a ladder from the side of the shop opposite the door, and the upper part of it was of the most primitive description, mounting as through a large trap-door to the floor above. As he stood listening without hearing, seeing through a mist, Paul caught sight in the darkness of some one standing under the shadow of this stair watching and listening. The men at the table were closely engaged. They took no further notice of the young man whom they could not believe in as one of themselves. Even Spears, in the fervour of discussion, forgot Paul. He stood in all the freedom of a bystander, thinking his own thoughts, while his eyes rested upon the group, taking in the whole picture before him vaguely, as a picture; and it was at this moment that he became aware, not only of this vague and shadowy figure, but of a head put out round the corner of the stair, with a dart and tremble of curiosity. It was the fair head of Janet Spears, with all its frizz of loose locks. At first it was but a dart, rapid and frightened; then, as she perceived the absorption of the others, and saw that she had caught Paul’s attention, she took courage. She gave a glance at them as Paul was doing, but with a hundred times more conscious scorn, and then put all the contempt and ridicule of which eyes were capable into the look with which she turned to Paul, shrugging her shoulders at the group. Her next proceeding was to point to the door, and invite him, as plainly as signs could do it, to meet her there. Paul grew red as he received these signs, with wonder and alarm, and a curious kind of shamefacedness. Was it the strangest unpardonable liberty the girl was taking? or had she a right to do it? With a rapid gesture she gave him to understand that he must come out, and that he would find her at the door.
Janet had never been presuming; she had not been a coquette; she had done nothing to call to herself the attention of the young theorists who frequented her father’s shop. But everything was different now, and she felt herself not only at liberty to make signals to Paul, but conferring a favour on him by so doing. He was sick of the consultation in which he did not care to take any part, and weary at heart of all the strange circumstances around him. And the paraffin was very disagreeable. Why should he not obey Janet’s signs, and go and meet her outside? At least it could not be any worse than this. After a few moments of struggle with himself. Paul announced quietly that he was going. “My presence can make no difference,” he said. They scarcely heard him, so busy were they with their argument. No Rembrandt could have surpassed the curious group of heads set in the surrounding darkness, with the light of the lamp so fully upon them, and all so intent and full of living interest. Spears turned round and gave him a good-humoured nod as he went away. He was half-vexed to be deserted; yet he smiled—was it not natural? Outside, though it was a little bye-street, and not immaculate, the air was sweeter than in that atmosphere of paraffin; but it was with a curious sense of humiliation and surprise at his own position, that Paul saw Janet’s dark, slim figure stealing out at another door. That he should meet a girl under the light of a street-lamp, jostled by passers-by, remarked upon as Janet Spears’s lover, seemed something incredible. Yet he was doing it; he scarcely could tell why. She came stealing close up to him, with just the attitude and gesture he had seen in other humble pairs of love-makers, and Paul could not help wondering, with a sharp sting of self-scorn, whether he was as like the ordinary hero of such encounters as she was like the heroine. Janet came up to him however with all the fervour of a purpose. She put out her hand, and gave a touch to his arm.
“Did you hear what I said?—did you think of what I was saying?” she asked. “Father came just when he wasn’t wanted. Perhaps you’ll think me a bold girl to call you out here; but it’s for your good. Oh, Mr. Paul, don’t listen to all that nonsense! What should you go away for? You’re a deal better off here than you ever would be there. Father may have some excuse. He thinks, I suppose, as he’s getting old, and as it would be better for me and the girls to be out there. I don’t think so. I’d rather be anything at home. I’d rather take a situation. Still, father has an excuse. But you—what do you want among men like them?—you that are a gentleman. You never could put up with them. And why should you go?—think a moment—why should you go?”
“It is very good of you to interest yourself about me,” said Paul, feeling himself so much stiffer and more solemn than he had ever been before, “but I have chosen with my eyes open. I have done what I thought best.”
“Oh, of course I interest myself in you. Who should I interest myself in?” cried Janet, “above everything! And that is why I say don’t meddle with them; don’t have anything to do with them. Oh, when you have a father that will give you whatever you like; when you have your pockets full of money; when, if you just wait a little, you will have a title, and everything heart could desire—why should you go a long sea voyage, and mix yourself up with a parcel of working men?” “Why?” cried Janet, with a wonderment that was slightly mingled with scorn, yet was impassioned in its vehemence. “I would not demean myself like that, not for all the world.”
Paul stood and looked at her almost moved to laughter by the strangeness of the position. Spears’s daughter! but the laughter would not have been sweet. That strange paradox, and the still stranger one of his own meeting with his supposed love under the lamp-post, filled him with the profoundest mortification, wonder, and yet amusement. It seemed beyond the power of belief, and yet it was true.