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Demos: A Story of English Socialism

<h2> CHAPTER XXIX </h2> The valley rested. On the morning of Mutimer’s departure from Wanley there was no wonted clank of machinery, no smoke from the chimneys, no roar of iron-smelting furnaces; the men and women of the colony stood idly before their houses, discussing prospects, asking each other whether it was seriously Mr. Eldon’s intention to raze New Wanley, many of them grumbling or giving vent to revolutionary threats. They had continued in work thus long since the property in fact changed hands, and to most of them it seemed unlikely, in spite of every thing, that they would have to go in search of new employments. This morning they would hear finally. The valley rested. For several days there had been constant rain; though summer was scarcely over, it had turned cold and the sky was cheerless. Over Stanbury Hill there were always heavy, dripping clouds, and the leaves of Adela’s favourite wood were already falling. At the Manor there was once more disorder; before Mutimer and his wife took their departure the removal of furniture had commenced. Over the whole scene brooded a spirit of melancholy. It needed faith in human energy to imagine the pollutions swept away, and the seasons peacefully gliding as of old between the hillsides and amid meadows and garden closes. Hubert Eldon drove over from Agworth, and was in the Public Hall at the appointed time. His business with the men was simple and brief. He had to inform them that their employment here was at an end, but that each one would receive a month’s wages and permission to inhabit their present abodes for yet a fortnight. After that they had no longer right of tenancy. He added that if any man considered himself specially aggrieved by this arrangement, he was prepared to hear and judge the individual case. There was a murmur of discontent through the room, but no one took upon himself to rise and become spokesman of the community. Disregarding the manifestation, Hubert described in a few words how and when this final business would be transacted; then he left the hall by the door which led from the platform. Then followed a busy week. Claims of all kinds were addressed to him, some reasonable, most of them not to be entertained. Mr. Yottle was constantly at the Manor; there he and Hubert held a kind of court. Hubert was not well fitted for business of this nature; he easily became impatient, and, in spite of humane intentions, often suffered from a tumult of his blood, when opposed by some dogged mechanic. ‘I can’t help it!’ he exclaimed to Mr. Wyvern one right, after a day of peculiar annoyance. ‘We are all men, it is true; but for the brotherhood—feel it who can! I am illiberal, if you like, but in the presence of those fellows I feel that I am facing enemies. It seems to me that I have nothing in common with them but the animal functions. Absurd? Yes, of course, it is absurd; but I speak of how intercourse with them affects me. They are our enemies, yours as well as mine; they are the enemies of every man who speaks the pure English tongue and does not earn a living with his hands. When they face me I understand what revolution means; some of them look at me as they would if they had muskets in their hands.’ ‘You are not conciliating,’ remarked the vicar. ‘I am not, and cannot be. They stir the worst feelings in me; I grow arrogant, autocratic. As long as I have no private dealings with them I can consider their hardships and judge their characters dispassionately; but I must not come to close quarters.’ ‘You have special causes of prejudice.’ ‘True. If I were a philosopher I should overcome all that. However, my prejudice is good in one way; it enables me thoroughly to understand the detestation with which they regard me and the like of me. If I had been born one of them I should be the most savage anarchist. The moral is, that I must hold apart. Perhaps I shall grow cooler in time.’ The special causes of prejudice were quite as strong on the side of the workmen; Hubert might have been far less aristocratic in bearing, they would have disliked him as cordially. Most of them took it as a wanton outrage that they should be driven from the homes in which they had believed themselves settled for life. The man Redgrave—he of the six feet two who had presented the address to Mutimer—was a powerful agent of ill-feeling; during the first few days he was constantly gathering impromptu meetings in New Wanley and haranguing them violently on the principles of Socialism. But in less than a week he had taken his departure, and the main trouble seemed at an end. Mrs. Eldon was so impatient to return to the Manor that a room was prepared for her as soon as possible, and she came from her house at Agworth before Mutimer had been gone a week. Through the summer her strength had failed rapidly; it was her own conviction that she could live but a short time longer. The extreme agitation caused by the discovery of the will had visibly enfeebled her; it was her one desire to find herself once more in her old home, and there to breathe her last. The journey from Agworth cost her extreme suffering; she was prostrate, almost lifeless, for three days after it. But her son’s society revived her. Knowing him established in his family possessions, she only cared to taste for a little while this unhoped-for joy. Lying on a couch in her familiar chamber, she delighted to have flowers brought to her from the garden, even leaves from the dear old trees, every one of which she knew as a friend. But she had constant thought for those upon whose disaster her own happiness was founded; of Adela she spoke often. ‘What will become of that poor child?’ she asked one evening, when Hubert had been speaking of Rodman’s impracticable attitude, and of the proceedings Mutimer was about to take. ‘Do you know anything of her life, Hubert?’ ‘I met her in the wood here a few weeks ago,’ he replied, mentioning the incident for the first time. ‘She wanted to make a Socialist of me.’ ‘Was that after the will came to light?’ ‘The day after. She pleaded for New Wanley—hoped I should keep it up.’ ‘Then she has really accepted her husband’s views?’ ‘It seems so. I am afraid she thought me an obstinate tyrant.’ He spoke carelessly. ‘But she must not suffer, dear. How can they be helped?’ ‘They can’t fall into absolute want. And I suppose his Socialist friends will do something for him. I have been as considerate as it was possible to be. I dare say he will make me a commonplace in his lectures henceforth, a type of the brutal capitalist.’ He laughed when he had said it, and led the conversation to another subject. About the workmen, too, Mrs. Eldon was kindly thoughtful. Hubert spared her his prejudices and merely described what he was doing. She urged him to be rather too easy than too exacting with them. It was the same in everything; the blessing which had fallen upon her made her full of gentleness and sweet charity. The fortnight’s grace was at an end, and it was announced to Hubert that the last family had left New Wanley. The rain still continued; as evening set in Hubert returned from an inspection of the deserted colony, his spirits weighed upon by the scene of desolation. After dinner he sat as usual with his mother for a couple of hours, then went to his own room and read till eleven o’clock. Just as he had thrown aside his book the silence of the night was riven by a terrific yell, a savage cry of many voices, which came from the garden in the front of the house, and at the same instant there sounded a great crashing of glass. The windows behind his back were broken and a couple of heavy missiles thundered near him upon the floor—stones they proved to be. He rushed from the room. All the lights in the house except his own and that in Mrs. Eldon’s room were extinguished. He reached his mother’s door. Before he could open it the yell and the shower of stones were repeated, again with ruin of windows, this time on the east side of the Manor. In a moment he was by his mother’s bed; he saw her sitting up in terror; she was speechless and unable even to stretch her arms towards him. An inner door opened and the woman who was always in attendance rushed in half dressed. At the same time there were sounds of movement in other parts of the house. Once more the furious voices and the stone-volley Hubert put his arms about his mother and tried to calm her. ‘Don’t be frightened; it’s those cowardly roughs. They have had their three shots, now they’ll take to their heels. Mrs. Winter is here, mother: she will stay with you whilst I go down and see what has to be done. I’ll be back directly if there is no more danger.’ He hastened away. The servants had collected upon the front staircase, with lamps and candles, in fright and disorder unutterable. Hubert repeated to them what he had said to his mother, and it seemed to be the truth, for the silence outside was unbroken. ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ he cried, ‘if they’ve made an attempt to set the house on fire. We must go about and examine.’ The door-bell was rung loudly. The servants rushed back up the stairs; Hubert went into the dining-room, carrying no light, and called through the shattered windows asking who had rung. It was the vicar; the shouts had brought him forth. ‘They are gone,’ he said, in his strong, deep voice, in itself reassuring. ‘I think there were only some ten or a dozen; they’ve made off up the hill. Is anybody hurt?’ ‘No, they have only broken all the windows,’ Hubert replied. ‘But I am terribly afraid for the effect upon my mother. We must have the doctor round at once.’ The vicar was admitted to the house, and a messenger forthwith despatched for the medical man, who resided halfway between Wanley and Agworth. On returning to his mother’s room Hubert found his fears only too well justified; Mrs. Eldon lay motionless, her eyes open, but seemingly without intelligence. At intervals of five minutes a sigh was audible, else she could scarcely be perceived to breathe. The attendant said that she had not spoken. It was some time before the doctor arrived. After a brief examination, he came out with Hubert; his opinion was that the sufferer would not see daybreak. She lived, however, for some twelve hours, if that could be called life which was only distinguishable from the last silence by the closest scrutiny. Hubert did not move from the bedside, and from time to time Mr. Wyvern came and sat with him. Neither of them spoke. Hubert had no thought of food or rest; the shadow of a loss, of which he only understood the meaning now that it was at hand, darkened him and all the world. Behind his voiceless misery was immeasurable hatred of those who had struck him this blow; at moments a revengeful fury all but maddened him. He held his mother’s band; if he could but feel one pressure of the slight fingers before they were impotent for ever! And this much was granted him. Shortly before midday the open eyes trembled to consciousness, the lips moved in endeavour to speak. To Hubert it seemed that his intense gaze had worked a miracle, effecting that which his will demanded. She saw him and understood. ‘Mother, can you speak? Do you know me, dear?’ She smiled, and her lips tried to shape words. He bent over her, close, close. At first the faint whisper was unintelligible, then he heard: ‘They did not know what they were doing.’ Something followed, but he could not understand it. The whisper ended in a sigh, the smiling features quivered. He held her, but was alone. A hand was laid gently upon his shoulder. Through blinding tears he discerned Mr. Wyvern’s solemn countenance. He resisted the efforts to draw him away, but was at length persuaded. Early in the evening he fell asleep, lying dressed upon his bed, and the sleep lasted till midnight. Then he left his room, and descended the stairs, for the lower part of the house was still lighted. In the hall Mr. Wyvern met him. ‘Let us go into the library,’ he said to the clergyman. ‘I want to talk to you.’ He had resumed his ordinary manner. Without mention of his mother, he began at once to speak of the rioters. ‘They were led by that man Redgrave; there can be no doubt of that. I shall go to Agworth at once and set the police at work.’ ‘I have already done that,’ replied the vicar. ‘Three fellows have been arrested in Agworth.’ ‘New Wanley men?’ ‘Yes; but Redgrave is not one of them.’ ‘He shall be caught, though!’ Hubert appeared to have forgotten everything but his desire of revenge. It supported him through the wretched days that followed—even at the funeral his face was hard-set and his eyes dry. But in spite of every effort it was impossible to adduce evidence against any but the three men who had loitered drinking in Agworth. Redgrave came forward voluntarily and proved an alibi; he was vastly indignant at the charge brought against him, declared that window-breaking was not his business, and that had he been on the spot he should have used all his influence to prevent such contemptible doings. He held a meeting in Belwick of all the New Wanleyers he could gather together: those who came repudiated the outrage as useless and unworthy. On the whole, it seemed probable that only a handful of good-for-nothings had been concerned in the affair, probably men who had been loafing in the Belwick public-houses, indisposed to look for work. The ‘Fiery Cross’ and the ‘Tocsin’ commented on the event in their respective ways. The latter organ thought that an occasional demonstration of this kind was not amiss; it was a pity that apparently innocent individuals should suffer (an allusion to the death of Mrs. Eldon); but, after all, what member of the moneyed classes was in reality innocent? An article on the subject in the ‘Fiery Cross’ was signed ‘Richard Mutimer.’ It breathed righteous indignation and called upon all true Socialists to make it known that they pursued their ends in far other ways than by the gratification of petty malice. A copy of this paper reached Wanley Manor. Hubert glanced over it. It lay by him when he received a visit from Mr. Wyvern the same evening. ‘How is it to be explained,’ he asked; ‘a man like Westlake mixing himself up with this crew?’ ‘Do you know him personally?’ the vicar inquired. ‘I have met him. But I have seen more of Mrs. Westlake. She is a tenth muse, the muse of lyrical Socialism. From which of them the impulse came I have no means of knowing, but surely it must have been from her. In her case I can understand it; she lives in an asthetic reverie; she idealises everything. Naturally she knows nothing whatever of real life. She is one of the most interesting women I ever met, but I should say that her influence on Westlake has been deplorable.’ ‘Mrs. Mutimer is greatly her friend, I believe,’ said the vicar. ‘I believe so. But let us speak of this paper. I want, if possible, to understand Westlake’s position. Have you ever read the thing?’ ‘Frequently.’ ‘Now here is an article signed by Westlake. You know his books? How has he fallen to this? His very style has abandoned him, his English smacks of the street corners, of Radical clubs. The man is ruined; it is next. to impossible that he should ever again do good work, such as we used to have from him. The man who wrote “Daphne”! Oh, it is monstrous!’ ‘It is something of a problem to me,’ Mr. Wyvern admitted. ‘Had he been a younger man, or if his writing had been of a different kind. Yet his sincerity is beyond doubt.’ ‘I doubt it,’ Hubert broke in. ‘Not his sincerity in the beginning; but he must long since have ached to free himself. It is such a common thing for a man to commit himself to some pronounced position in public life and for very shame shrink from withdrawing. He would not realise what it meant. Now in the revolutionary societies of the Continent there is something that appeals to the imagination. A Nihilist, with Siberia or death before him, fighting against a damnable tyranny—the best might sacrifice everything for that. But English Socialism! It is infused with the spirit of shopkeeping; it appeals to the vulgarest minds; it keeps one eye on personal safety, the other on the capitalist’s strong-box; it is stamped commonplace, like everything originating with the English lower classes. How does it differ from Radicalism, the most contemptible claptrap of politics, except in wanting to hurry a little the rule of the mob? Well, I am too subjective. Help me, if you can, to understand Westlake.’ Hubert was pale and sorrow-stricken; his movements were heavy with weariness, but he had all at once begun to speak with the old fire, the old scorn. He rested his chin upon his hand and waited for his companion’s reply. ‘At your age,’ said Mr. Wyvern, smiling half sadly, ‘I, too, had a habit of vehement speaking, but it was on the other side. I was a badly paid curate working in a wretched parish. I lived among the vilest and poorest of the people, and my imagination was constantly at boiling-point. I can only suppose that Westlake has been led to look below the surface of society and has been affected as I was then. He has the mind of a poet; probably he was struck with horror to find over what a pit he had been living in careless enjoyment. He is tender-hearted; of a sudden he felt himself criminal, to be playing with beautiful toys whilst a whole world lived only to sweat and starve. The appeal of the miserable seemed to be to him personally. It is what certain sects call conversion in religion, a truth addressing itself with unwonted and invincible force to the individual soul.’ ‘And you, too, were a Socialist?’ ‘At that age and under those conditions it was right and good. I should have been void of feeling and imagination otherwise. Such convictions are among relative truths. To be a social enthusiast is in itself neither right nor wrong, neither praiseworthy nor the opposite; it is a state to be judged in relation to the other facts of a man’s life. You will never know that state; if you affected it you would be purely contemptible. And I myself have outgrown it.’ ‘But you must not think that I am inhuman,’ said Hubert. ‘The sight of distress touches me deeply. To the individual poor man or woman I would give my last penny. It is when they rise against me as a class that I become pitiless.’ ‘I understand you perfectly, though I have not the same prejudices. My old zeal lingers with me in the form of tolerance. I can enter into the mind of a furious proletarian as easily as into the feeling which you represent.’ ‘But how did your zeal come to an end?’ ‘In this way; I worked under the conditions I have described to you till I was nearly thirty. Then. I broke down physically. At the same time it happened that I inherited a small competency. I went abroad, lived in Italy for a couple of years. I left England with the firm intention of getting my health and then returning to work harder than ever. But during those two years I educated myself. When I reached England again I found that it was impossible to enter again on the old path; I should have had to force myself; it would have been an instance of the kind of thing you suggest in explanation of Westlake’s persistence. Fortunately I yielded to my better sense and altogether shunned the life of towns. I was no longer of those who seek to change the world, but of those who are content that it should in substance remain as it is.’ ‘But how can you be content, if you are convinced that the majority of men live only to suffer?’ ‘It is, you who attribute the conviction to me,’ said the vicar, smiling good-naturedly. ‘My conviction is the very opposite. One of the pet theories I have developed for myself in recent years is, that happiness is very evenly distributed among all classes and conditions. It is the result of sober reflection on my experience of life. Think of it a moment. The bulk of men are neither rich nor poor, taking into consideration their habits and needs; they live in much content, despite social imperfections and injustices, despite the ills of nature. Above and below are classes of extreme characterisation; I believe the happiness assignable to those who are the lowest stratum of civilisation is, relatively speaking, no whit less than that we may attribute to the thin stratum of the surface, using the surface to mean the excessively rich. It is a paradox, but anyone capable of thinking may be assured of its truth. The life of the very poorest is a struggle to support their bodies; the richest, relieved of that one anxiety, are overwhelmed with such a mass of artificial troubles that their few moments of genuine repose do not exceed those vouchsafed to their antipodes. You would urge the sufferings of the criminal class under punishment? I balance against it the misery of the rich under the scourge of their own excesses. It is a mistake due to mere thoughtlessness, or ignorance, to imagine the labouring, or even the destitute, population as ceaselessly groaning beneath the burden of their existence. Go along the poorest street in the East End of London, and you will hear as much laughter, witness as much gaiety, as in any thoroughfare of the West. Laughter and gaiety of a miserable kind? I speak of it as relative to the habits and capabilities of the people. A being of superior intelligence regarding humanity with an eye of perfect understanding would discover that life was enjoyed every bit as much in the slum as in the palace.’ ‘You would consider it fair to balance excessive suffering of the body in one class against excessive mental suffering in another?’ ‘Undoubtedly. It is a fair application of my theory. But let me preach a little longer. It is my belief that, though this equality of distribution remains a fact, the sum total of happiness in nations is seriously diminishing. Not only on account of the growth of population; the poor have more to suffer, the rich less of true enjoyment, the mass of comfortable people fall into an ever-increasing anxiety. A Radical will tell you that this is a transitional state. Possibly, if we accept the Radical theories of progress. I held them once in a very light-hearted way; I am now far less disposed to accept them as even imaginably true. Those who are enthusiastic for the spirit of the age proceed on the principle of countenancing evil that good may some day come of it. Such a position astonishes me. Is the happiness of a man now alive of less account than that of the man who shall live two hundred. years hence? Altruism is doubtless good, but only so when it gives pure enjoyment; that is to say, when it is embraced instinctively. Shall I frown on a man because he cannot find his bliss in altruism and bid him perish to make room for a being more perfect? What right have we to live thus in the far-off future? Thinking in this way, I have a profound dislike and distrust of this same progress. Take one feature of it—universal education. That, I believe, works most patently for the growing misery I speak of. Its results affect all classes, and all for the worse. I said that I used to have a very bleeding of the heart for the half-clothed and quarter-fed hangers-on to civilisation; I think far less of them now than of another class in appearance much better off. It is a class created by the mania of education, and it consists of those unhappy men and women whom unspeakable cruelty endows with intellectual needs whilst refusing them the sustenance they are taught to crave. Another generation, and this class will be terribly extended, its existence blighting the whole social state. Every one of these poor creatures has a right to curse the work of those who clamour progress, and pose as benefactors of their race. ‘All that strikes me as very good and true,’ remarked Hubert; ‘but can it be helped? Or do you refuse to believe in the modern conception of laws ruling social development?’ ‘I wish I could do so. No; when I spoke of the right to curse, I should have said, from their point of view. In truth, I fear we must accept progress. But I cannot rejoice in it; I will even do what little I can in my own corner to support the old order of things. You may be aware that I was on very friendly terms with the Mutimers, that I even seemed to encourage them in their Socialism. Yes, and because I felt that in that way I could best discharge my duty. What I really encouraged was sympathy and humanity. When Mutimer came asking me to be present at his meetings I plainly refused. To have held apart from him and his wife would have been as wrong in me as to publicly countenance their politics.’ Mr. Wyvern was on the point of referring to his private reasons for befriending Adela, but checked himself. ‘What I made no secret of approving was their substitution of human relations between employer and employed for the detestable “nexus of cash payment,” as Carlyle calls it. That is only a return to the good old order, and it seems to me that it becomes more impossible every day. Thus far I am with the Socialists, in that I denounce the commercial class, the bourgeois, the capitalists—call them what you will—as the supremely maleficent. They hold us at their mercy, and their mercy is nought. Monstrously hypocritical, they cry for progress when they mean increased opportunities of swelling their own purses at the expense of those they employ, and of those they serve; vulgar to the core, they exalt a gross ideal of well-being, and stink in their prosperity. The very poor and the uncommercial wealthy alike suffer from them; the intellect of the country is poisoned by their influence. They it is who indeed are oppressors; they grow rich on the toil of poor girls in London garrets and of men who perish prematurely to support their children. I won’t talk of these people; I should lose my calm views of things and use language too much like this of the “Fiery Cross.”’ Hubert was thoughtful. ‘What is before us?’ he murmured. ‘Evil; of that I am but too firmly assured. Progress will have its way, and its path will be a path of bitterness. A pillar of dark cloud leads it by day, and of terrible fire by night. I do not say that the promised land may not lie ahead of its guiding, but woe is me for the desert first to be traversed! Two vices are growing among us to dread proportions—indifference and hatred: the one will let poverty anguish at its door, the other will hound on the vassal against his lord. Papers like the “Fiery Cross,” even though such a man as Westlake edit them, serve the cause of hatred; they preach, by implication at all events, the childish theory of the equality of men, and seek to make discontented a whole class which only needs regular employment on the old conditions to be perfectly satisfied.’ ‘Westlake says here that they have no right to be satisfied.’ ‘I know. It is one of the huge fallacies of the time; it comes of the worship of progress. I am content with the fact that, even in our bad day, as a class they are satisfied. No, these reforms address themselves to the wrong people; they begin at the wrong end. Let us raise our voices, if we feel impelled to do so at all, for the old simple Christian rules, and do our best to get the educated by the ears. I have my opinion about the clergy; I will leave you to guess it.’ ‘Have you any belief in the possibility of this revolution they threaten?’ ‘None whatever. Changes will come about, but not of these men’s making or devising. And for the simple reason that they are not sincere. I put aside an educated enthusiast such as Westlake. The proletarian Socialists do not believe what they say, and therefore they are so violent in saying it. They are not themselves of pure and exalted character; they cannot ennoble others. If the movement continue we shall see miserable examples of weakness led astray by popularity, of despicable qualities aping greatness.’ He paused somewhat abruptly, for he was thinking of Mutimer, and did not wish to make the application too obvious. Hubert restrained a smile. They parted shortly after, but not till Hubert had put one more question. ‘Do you, or do you not, approve of what I am doing down in the valley?’ Mr. Wyvern thought a moment, and replied gravely: ‘You being yourself, I approve it heartily. It will gladden my eyes to see the grass growing when spring comes round.’ He shook Hubert’s hand affectionately and left him. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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