"That have made one's country?" she repeated, pausing on the words. "And of course that house appeals to you in the same way? Famous people have lived in it—people who belong to history. But for me, the real making of one's country is done out of sight, in garrets and workshops and coalpits, by people who die every minute—forgotten—swept into heaps like autumn leaves, their lives mere soil and foothold for the generation that comes after them. All yesterday morning, for instance, I spent trying to feed a woman I know. She is a shirtmaker; she has four children, and her husband is a docker out of work. She had sewed herself sick and blind. She couldn't eat, and she couldn't sleep. But she had kept the children alive—and the man. Her life will flicker out in a month or two; but the children's lives will have taken root, and the man will be eating and earning again. What use would your Dalhousies and Lawrences be to England without her and the hundreds of thousands like her?"
"And yet it is you," cried George, unable to forbear the chance she gave him, "who would take away from this very woman the power of feeding her children and saving her husband—who would spoil all the lives in the clumsy attempt to mend one of them. How can you quote me such an instance! It amazes me."
"Not at all. I have only to use my instance for another purpose, in another way. You are thinking of the Bill, of course? But all we do is to say to some of these victims, 'Your sacrifice, as it stands, is too costly; the State in its own interest cannot go on exacting or allowing it. We will help you to serve the community in ways that shall exhaust and wound it less.'"
"And as a first step, drive you all comfortably into the workhouse!" said
George. "Don't omit that."
"Many individuals must suffer," she said steadily. "But there will be friends to help—friends that will strain every nerve to help."
All her heart showed itself in voice and emphasis. Almost for the first time in their evening's talk her natural passionateness came to sight—the Southern, impulsive temper, that so often made people laugh at or dislike her. Under the lace shawl she had thrown round her on coming out he saw the quick rise and fall of the breast, the nervous clasp of the hands lying on the stonework of the bridge. These were her prophetess airs again. To-night they still amused him, but in a gentler and more friendly way.
"And so, according to your own account, you will protect your tailoress and unmake your country. I am sorry for your dilemma," he said, laughing.
"Ah! well,"—she shrugged her shoulders with a sigh,—"don't let's talk of it. It's all too pressing—and sore—and hot. And to think of the weeks that are just coming on!"
George, hanging over the parapet beside her, felt reply a little awkward, and said nothing. For a minute or two the night made itself heard, the gentle slipping of the river, the fitful breathings from the trees. A swan passed and repassed below them, and an owl called from the distant woods.
Presently Marcella lifted a white finger and pointed to the house.