Probation

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon on which Myles took his way to Stonegate. He found Adrienne alone. She said her uncle was taking his afternoon airing in his bath-chair in the garden, and did not wish to be disturbed; his old servant, Brandon, was with him.

‘But sit down,’ she continued, ‘and we can have a talk.’

With that she picked up her knitting and began to work.

‘You will talk,’ said Myles, ‘if you keep your promise. You promised to tell me about yourself.’

‘Do you really want to hear that?’

‘I came on purpose.’

‘Well, I will tell it you, and I hope it will have the effect I intend.’

‘What effect is that?’

‘You are determined to look upon me (I have seen it, so don’t be at the trouble of denying it) as something fine and delicate, and unused to roughness and hardship.’

‘Yes, one can see plainly enough that you are that.’

‘Can one? Well, I’ll begin my story, and you shall learn how appearances may deceive.’

Adrienne related well. She did not exaggerate; there was nothing strained, no striving after effect; but there was colour, pathos, life, in her tale, and a subtle poetry thrown over all, by her way of looking at things.

Myles, in listening, felt as if he were actually wandering with her on that nomadic life she spoke of; through the great foreign capitals, and the country villages, and the towns, big and little; to be sojourning with her in the gay, feverish watering-places; to survey the distant, rose-tinted Alps. He utterly forgot where he was, and knew only her and her life.

There had been two brothers, she told him, of whom her father was the younger, and her uncle the elder. Kith and kin, they had none, and their patrimony was small. Both were gifted, but in different ways. Adrian, her father, was artist to the marrow of his bones. Richard, her uncle, had also some taste for art, but more of the analytical and critical than of the synthetic description; he had been, moreover, at one time, a practical man of business, and had made money—he was not rich, but thoroughly independent. Her father had had the gift of spending, not of making. The brothers had parted early. Adrian, as soon as he was his own master, had said farewell to home, and had gone, first to Germany, there to study the music which his soul loved, and which had beautified his otherwise weary, disappointed life.

Some time was spent in Germany; then two or three years in miscellaneous and somewhat aimless travel; then back again to Germany, to music, and to love. The fair, clever, and penniless daughter of a poor professor and man of science won his heart, as he hers, and they married.

With marriage came the feeling of an insufficiency of means, and the desire to augment them led him into business speculations of a nature which he did not in the least understand: the bubble burst, and Adrian Blisset found himself a ruined man in less than a year after his marriage. Adrienne’s mother died at her birth; the girl had never known that holy bond, however much she might have longed for it. Her father chose to lay part of the cause of his wife’s death to the anxiety induced by his extravagance and folly—moreover, he had adored her, and from the hour of her death he had been a changed man. He had his own living and that of his child to gain, but he settled nowhere. His life became nomadic. He and the little one did not sojourn long in the tents of any particular tribe. Scarce a city or a town of any importance in Europe, but had sheltered the unconscious head of the infant, or been trodden by the child’s uncertain feet, or by the sedate step of the maiden, careworn before her time, while she knew intimately many an out-of-the-way nook, unnamed by Murray, Bradshaw, or Baedeker, amongst Italian hills, deep in the sunny lands of France, Thüringian woods and slopes, or sleepy red-roofed Rhenish hamlets.

A restless ghost drove the musician with his child and his violin hither and thither, never permitting him to stay long in any one place and gather substance; but ever, so soon as the novelty had worn off, seeming to drive him forth on a fresh search after—what? Adrienne had learnt at an early age to ask herself that question, and sorrowfully to give up the answer.

Sometimes he was in funds, when he showered all kinds of presents upon her, and called her his dear child, his Herzallerliebste; but oftener they were plunged in poverty, sore, sordid, dreadful poverty. His moods varied distressingly, from kindness that had in it something fitful and sinister, up to the dark melancholy silence which was his most frequent humour. He was proud, and his pride was of a touchy and intractable kind; it offended men of business, and estranged friends and pupils.

Adrienne had had many teachers and many strange lessons, and the whole had combined into a varied and truly most unconventional education. Her father had lavished musical training upon her. At Florence, where they stayed a whole year, longer than anywhere else, she had wandered about with a kind-hearted old artist, who led her about with him to the great galleries, and showed her the grandest pictures, and made her know the beautiful buildings, till she had imbibed the undying loveliness of such masterpieces as Giotto’s Campanile, or Michael Angelo’s Duomo, and had discovered that her favourite thing in Florence was the ‘Pensiero’ Medici of the last-named artist.

‘You remind me of him,’ she added, suddenly looking at Myles. And she had sat, at thirteen years of age, for a picture of ‘Gravity.’

‘Was that what he called you?’ asked Myles.

‘Yes. Gravity, or Sedateness was his name for me—and it suited me.’

She had had to part from her good old friend, and that had cost her the pain which parting brings to those who know they will not meet again.

In Paris, Adrienne had had lessons in democracy from a young universal genius, whose talents were too vast to stoop to any ordinary walk of life. He lived in a garret, and planned schemes of a perfect republic. Adrienne had not felt much grief on parting from him.

A monstrous learned professor, who lived at Bonn, in a Schlafrock, slippers, and spectacles, had taught her a little store of Greek and Latin. But her greatest teacher had been a strange, absent-looking professor, in Berlin—a man of literature and philosophy, who had been very fond of her, and had given her freely of his very best. Her uncle, Mr. Blisset, looked upon this as a providential circumstance, for he found when she came to him, that he had no tyro to deal with, but one already instructed in philosophy and its terminology.

Two years ago her father had died; and just before his death she had learnt for the first time that they possessed any relation in the world. She had received a letter to give to her uncle. She fulfilled the behest, and that was how she first met Mr. Blisset.

‘And what did he say? How did he receive you?’ asked Myles, eagerly.

‘I was chilled,’ said she, ‘as I sat opposite to him and saw his pale, impassive face, and watched how he raised his eyes now and then from that letter. He gave me no reply that night; told me nothing; did not intimate whether he were pleased or displeased to see me, but ordered a room to be prepared for me; and the next day he told me that my father had asked him in his letter to give me a shelter until I was able to find some employment by which I could support myself. My uncle said that if I could endure to live buried alive with an old man, and work hard at a sedentary employment, he would give me a home and pay me a certain sum every year. I accepted his proposal gratefully, and have never repented it; and I trust he never will, either.’

There spoke the true Adrienne Blisset.

‘And you are happy here?’

‘As happy as I expect to be. It is a great thing not to be miserable.’

‘That’s what our rulers appear to think we working-men ought to feel,’ said Myles, sardonically, his thoughts for the moment flying off at a tangent.

‘Are you bitter against your rulers?’ asked Adrienne, tranquilly.

‘I am bitter against some of them—a pampered set of rich men, who never had a care in their lives, but don’t mind how many other people have to bear. There are some, now—Bright, and Cobden, and the like—for them I’d die. There’s that in their faces which says they have not a mean thought, nor a desire but for our good; but the most of them’—he shrugged his shoulders—‘those lily-handed politicians who call themselves Radicals in these days, and plan how to prevent a working-man from getting his beer, but have half a dozen sorts of wine at their own tables, and go mincing about at public meetings, talking lightly of trials that would make them cringe if they had to face them; talking about “supply and demand” and how to improve the conditions of the lower orders—isn’t that the phrase? Much they know about the lower orders, and how to improve them! They don’t know what ails them yet.’

He laughed sarcastically.

‘It is true, they are a somewhat emasculate type,’ said she; ‘but I don’t see what right you have to blame them much. It is the working-man’s own fault that they can do no more for him.’

‘His own fault!’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Now don’t eat me up, please! I wonder if you and I differ essentially in first principles on this subject. You have thought about it, haven’t you?’

‘Ay, I have. I’ve plenty of reason to think about it, when I see such fellows as Frederick Spenceley and young Mallory living on the fat of the land, without having lifted a finger to get it, or proved by a single act that they merited it.’

‘Mr. Mallory,’ said Adrienne, slowly, ‘you say you have seen him: has he come home?’

‘No. I meant to speak figuratively. I don’t see him; but I know it is so. If I don’t know him, I know the likes of him——’

‘But—but what about him?’ she asked, still with the same slowness and a kind of hesitation. ‘What has he done wrong?’

‘He has done nothing; that’s what he has done wrong,’ said Myles. ‘Well, he’s coming home soon; we shall see how he breasts the storm—for we are in for a storm, sooner or later. But don’t you think, Miss Blisset, it must make a man think to see these contrasts—a man who has the least bit of a power of thought?’

‘No doubt. And what conclusion have you come to in the matter?’

‘The conclusion that it’s a crying injustice.’

‘To whom?’

‘To—well, to put it broadly, we’ll say to the working-man—but I mean to those in general, who work very hard, and get very little.’

‘In what way?’

‘Miss Blisset! Where is the justice of fellows like that having that money without either rhyme or reason; and of fellows like——’

‘You,’ suggested Adrienne, demurely.

‘I don’t mean me in particular, but my class in general, earning from thirty to sixty shillings a week—the very best paid of us—in payment for hours and hours of close, hard work.’

‘I suppose it is not the work you object to?’

‘No. I like work. I should be lost without my work.’

‘The property which those young men enjoy has been earned with trouble as great, or probably, from an intellectual point of view, greater than your weekly wages.’

‘But not by them.’

‘Suppose it had been earned by you, and you wished to leave it to your only son, whom you had educated with a view to his inheriting it, and the law stepped in and said you should not, but should leave it amongst a number of working-people whom you had never seen or heard of—how would you like that?’

‘But that is an exaggerated view of the case.’

‘I don’t see it. I don’t believe you have ever considered the subject fairly. And answer me this; suppose the average working-man became possessed of that money, or of part of it—money which he had not earned—money which had become his by a lucky chance: do you think his use of it would be worse, or as good as, or better, than the use made of it by those two of whom we are speaking? Do you think it would do him a real and permanent good: increase his self-respect, lessen his self-indulgence, make him steadier, soberer, more inwardly dignified, worthy, and honourable?’

She was looking earnestly at him, and Myles frowned, the words driven back from his lips. Did he know one man amongst his fellow-workman on whom the possession of such money would have such an effect? Would it have such an effect upon himself? The generalities of the writers who cried up the working-man and his wrongs seemed suddenly to grow small, and to shrink into the background.

‘Oh,’ went on Adrienne, ‘I don’t think you working-men know in the least how noble your work intrinsically is. You only see that others are outwardly better off than you, and you clamorously demand a share of that wealth. You don’t see how disastrous to your best interests such an acquisition would be.’

Myles had started up, feeling terribly humiliated.

‘You think so ill of us!’ he exclaimed. ‘You could come and see us yesterday, and talk to my sister as if she had been your sister—and now you reproach us in this way. Good-bye!’

‘Stop!’ said she, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking earnestly into his face. ‘How wild and impatient you are! Think a moment! It is not of you I am speaking. Do you know any other working-man to whom I could speak in this way?’

She paused. It was true. Perhaps Harry Ashworth might hear those words and bear them—he knew of no other who would do so; and while he was stung and tortured by what she said, he felt a bitter consciousness that it was true. But he stood still, and waited to hear the end.

‘I am speaking to you with a purpose,’ Adrienne went on in the same tone, low and quiet, but full of vehemence. ‘Since that night when you stepped forward in my defence, I have thought much about you—very much. I have studied you, and you do not know how well-used I am to studying people. The more I have studied you, the more I have felt that you were both generous and high-minded—and terribly hot-tempered,’ she added, with a smile, which Myles thought must have charmed the temper of a ravening wolf. ‘Just think what you, a workman, might do by setting an example to your fellow-workmen. Take the right side. You are too good for the commonplace career of an ordinary “intelligent working-man,” for a blind submission to trade-union rules, and for an obstinate resistance to your masters, just because they are your masters, or because your union bids you resist them. Don’t be a tool; use your reason; consider the why and wherefore of things. Be answerable to your conscience alone for all you say and do. Help to show your fellows that all improvement in their condition must arise actively from within, not be received passively from without—you know that, and own it, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, quickly, folding his arms and leaning against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed upon her, as she stood before him, with her head a little thrown back; her eyes alight, looking beautiful in her energy and excitement.

‘I wish,’ she said, ‘I often wish that I were a working-woman, like your sister. I would show you what I meant; how toil could be ennobled.’

She paused. Myles’s heart was beating wildly. Something, whether God or devil he had no time to think, hurried quick words from his lips; in a voice as low, as vehement as her own had been, he said,

‘Do you? And suppose it ever came to the point? Suppose some day some working-man came to you, and told you he loved you; that he could see how toil might be ennobled, if you would help him to do it—there would be an end of your philosophy. You would think of the cottage to live in, the floors to scrub, the rough neighbours, the coarse common life, the children to tend, and make, and mend, and sew for; and if you could get over that, there would be the man himself—a great rough fellow—a workman, not a gentleman, a man of rough speech, like—like our sort. You would have to work for him, too; to cook, and sew, and wash for him; to obey him—you. When he said, “Do this,” you must do it, and when he called, “Come here!” you must go to him. That’s the way amongst us working-people. What about the ennobling of toil then?’

He spoke jeeringly, and hated himself for doing so; and listened for her answer in a state of wild, if silent, excitement.

Her hands had dropped, her eyes had sunk, her face was burning; she turned away. If he could have trusted himself to move or speak, he would have fallen upon his knees and begged her pardon.

‘Oh, Myles!’ said she, at last, in a very low voice. He bit his lip till the blood came, at that sound; the most maddening in its mingled sweetness and bitterness, he had ever heard. ‘I suppose I gave you the right to say that,’ she said, ‘and to demand an answer too. You put it tersely, certainly. As you speak, I can see the very life rising before me that you picture.’

‘And yourself in it!’ said he, still with a sneer, though he would have given the world to ask her to forgive him.

‘No. You forget something,’ she replied, walking to the window, while he still leaned against the mantelpiece. ‘You made it all hard and sordid. You forgot the very “ennobling” that began the discussion. I could fancy myself in such a home—a working-man’s wife—but to become that, I must love that man; and in the life you described there was no love. The man I loved, be he workman or prince, must be a gentleman—not a brute.’

‘Ah! and supposing you met this working-man—or whoever he might be?’ suggested Myles, in a calm, restrained kind of voice.

‘If I met him, and if I loved him, and he loved me, and asked me to marry him, I would say “yes;” and I would love him, and serve him faithfully to the end of my life.’

The words fell softly and gently, almost timorously, as if she hesitated to speak of such a thing; and yet with a certain gentle firmness which said that they were no sentimental verbiage, but expressed the steadfast feeling of a steadfast heart. But each word was like a drop of liquid fire in the young man’s veins. She seemed suddenly to be close beside him—a possibility, a thing he might dream of—and fifty thousand times higher and farther off, and more impossible to him than ever. How could he ever hope to bend that heart to love him? The very thought was insanity.

He mastered his emotion, and walked up to her. She turned, but did not look at him.

‘I beg your pardon, most humbly,’ said he.

‘It is granted freely. I dare say it has been good for me; it has reduced my vague theories to the language of common sense. I had no right to reproach you with the faults of your class, and expect nothing but milk and honey from your lips in return. We understand each other. Oh, but yours is a biting tongue! It cuts like a knife.’

‘It forgot itself when it turned against you. But, remember, your words had roused me. You made me blush for my own “vague theories,” as you call them. If you could not have said what you did, to any other workman, do you suppose I could have spoken so to any other young lady?’

‘No, no. I suppose not,’ said she, but her face was still downcast. The glance which he at last received wavered almost timidly. She resumed her seat and her work, saying, ‘And you will think of what I have said?’

‘I will—seriously. I believe you are right, but the thing was too wonderful for me. I could not attain unto it—all at once.’

The conversation was turned, as if by one consent, to books. Adrienne’s heart was beating unwontedly fast; her knight had not only surprised, but somewhat subdued her; delighting her at the same time. He was no tool; he could turn upon her, and he had the front of a ruler. That glance and that voice were not to be forgotten. She thrilled as she remembered them. She was glad he had not gone; the sensation that he was still there was pleasurable, with a strange potency of strength.

The door opened, and Mr. Blisset was wheeled in, and a servant brought afternoon tea. Then Mr. Blisset began to talk, and Myles to listen. Mr. Blisset had some of his niece’s conversational power. The time flew insensibly, till supper was announced. Myles rose, fearing he had intruded too long.

‘No,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘Stay, unless you are tired, and my niece will give us some music.’

He looked at her, and she said, ‘Yes, do stay!’ And Myles stayed.

That evening Adrienne sang some songs. She finished with ‘Neue Liebe neues Leben,’ and Myles went home with its last passionate words ringing in his ears:

Would it ever ‘let him loose,’ that love which had sprung up so suddenly and strongly, making every other feeling weak in the glow of its might and strength?