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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Clayhanger + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: April 28, 2007 [EBook #21249] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLAYHANGER *** + + + + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="dochead"> + +<h2 class="author">Arnold Bennett</h2> + +<h2 class="title">"Clayhanger"</h2> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_01"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter One.</h3> + +<h4>Book One — His Vocation.</h4> + +<h4>The Last of a Schoolboy.</h4> + +<p>Edwin Clayhanger stood on the steep-sloping, red-bricked canal bridge, in the valley +between Bursley and its suburb Hillport. In that neighbourhood the Knype and Mersey canal +formed the western boundary of the industrialism of the Five Towns. To the east rose +pitheads, chimneys, and kilns, tier above tier, dim in their own mists. To the west, +Hillport Fields, grimed but possessing authentic hedgerows and winding paths, mounted +broadly up to the sharp ridge on which stood Hillport Church, a landmark. Beyond the +ridge, and partly protected by it from the driving smoke of the Five Towns, lay the fine +and ancient Tory borough of Oldcastle, from whose historic Middle School Edwin Clayhanger +was now walking home. The fine and ancient Tory borough provided education for the whole +of the Five Towns, but the relentless ignorance of its prejudices had blighted the +district. A hundred years earlier the canal had only been obtained after a vicious +Parliamentary fight between industry and the fine and ancient borough, which saw in canals +a menace to its importance as a centre of traffic. Fifty years earlier the fine and +ancient borough had succeeded in forcing the greatest railway line in England to run +through unpopulated country five miles off instead of through the Five Towns, because it +loathed the mere conception of a railway. And now, people are inquiring why the Five +Towns, with a railway system special to itself, is characterised by a perhaps excessive +provincialism. These interesting details have everything to do with the history of Edwin +Clayhanger, as they have everything to do with the history of each of the two hundred +thousand souls in the Five Towns. Oldcastle guessed not the vast influences of its sublime +stupidity.</p> + +<p>It was a breezy Friday in July 1872. The canal, which ran north and south, reflected a +blue and white sky. Towards the bridge, from the north came a long narrow canal-boat +roofed with tarpaulins; and towards the bridge, from the south came a similar craft, +sluggishly creeping. The towing-path was a morass of sticky brown mud, for, in the way of +rain, that year was breaking the records of a century and a half. Thirty yards in front of +each boat an unhappy skeleton of a horse floundered its best in the quagmire. The honest +endeavour of one of the animals received a frequent tonic from a bare-legged girl of seven +who heartily curled a whip about its crooked large-jointed legs. The ragged and filthy +child danced in the rich mud round the horse’s flanks with the simple joy of one who +had been rewarded for good behaviour by the unrestricted use of a whip for the first +time.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Edwin, with his elbows on the stone parapet of the bridge, stared uninterested at the +spectacle of the child, the whip, and the skeleton. He was not insensible to the piquancy +of the pageant of life, but his mind was preoccupied with grave and heavy matters. He had +left school that day, and what his eyes saw as he leaned on the bridge was not a willing +beast and a gladdened infant, but the puzzling world and the advance guard of its problems +bearing down on him. Slim, gawky, untidy, fair, with his worn black-braided clothes, and +slung over his shoulders in a bursting satchel the last load of his schoolbooks, and on +his bright, rough hair a shapeless cap whose lining protruded behind, he had the +extraordinary wistful look of innocence and simplicity which marks most boys of sixteen. +It seemed rather a shame, it seemed even tragic, that this naïve, simple creature, +with his straightforward and friendly eyes so eager to believe appearances, this creature +immaculate of worldly experience, must soon be transformed into a man, wary, incredulous, +detracting. Older eyes might have wept at the simplicity of those eyes.</p> + +<p>This picture of Edwin as a wistful innocent would have made Edwin laugh. He had been +seven years at school, and considered himself a hardened sort of brute, free of illusions. +And he sometimes thought that he could judge the world better than most neighbouring +mortals.</p> + +<p>“Hello! The Sunday!” he murmured, without turning his eyes.</p> + +<p>Another boy, a little younger and shorter, and clothed in a superior untidiness, had +somehow got on to the bridge, and was leaning with his back against the parapet which +supported Edwin’s elbows. His eyes were franker and simpler even than the eyes of +Edwin, and his lips seemed to be permanently parted in a good-humoured smile. His name was +Charlie Orgreave, but at school he was invariably called “the +Sunday”—not “Sunday,” but “the Sunday”—and +nobody could authoritatively explain how he had come by the nickname. Its origin was lost +in the prehistoric ages of his childhood. He and Edwin had been chums for several years. +They had not sworn fearful oaths of loyalty; they did not constitute a secret society; +they had not even pricked forearms and written certain words in blood; for these rites are +only performed at Harrow, and possibly at the Oldcastle High School, which imitates +Harrow. Their fellowship meant chiefly that they spent a great deal of time together, +instinctively and unconsciously enjoying each other’s mere presence, and that in +public arguments they always reinforced each other, whatever the degree of intellectual +dishonesty thereby necessitated.</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet you mine gets to the bridge first,” said the Sunday. With +an ingenious movement of the shoulders he arranged himself so that the parapet should bear +the weight of his satchel.</p> + +<p>Edwin Clayhanger slowly turned round, and perceived that the object which the Sunday +had appropriated as “his” was the other canal-boat, advancing from the +south.</p> + +<p>“Horse or boat?” asked Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Boat’s nose, of course,” said the Sunday.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, having surveyed the unconscious competitors, and +counting on the aid of the whipping child, “I don’t mind laying you +five.”</p> + +<p>“That be damned for a tale!” protested the Sunday. “We said +we’d never bet less than ten—you know that.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but—” Edwin hesitatingly drawled.</p> + +<p>“But what?”</p> + +<p>“All right. Ten,” Edwin agreed. “But it’s not fair. +You’ve got a rare start on me.”</p> + +<p>“Rats!” said the Sunday, with finality. In the pronunciation of this word +the difference between his accent and Edwin’s came out clear. The Sunday’s +accent was less local; there was a hint of a short “e” sound in the +“a,” and a briskness about the consonants, that Edwin could never have +compassed. The Sunday’s accent was as carelessly superior as his clothes. Evidently +the Sunday had some one at home who had not learnt the art of speech in the Five +Towns.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He began to outline a scheme, in which perpendicular expectoration figured, for +accurately deciding the winner, and a complicated argument might have ensued about this, +had it not soon become apparent that Edwin’s boat was going to be handsomely beaten, +despite the joyous efforts of the little child. The horse that would die but would not +give up, was only saved from total subsidence at every step by his indomitable if aged +spirit. Edwin handed over the ten marbles even before the other boat had arrived at the +bridge.</p> + +<p>“Here,” he said. “And you may as well have these, too,” adding +five more to the ten, all he possessed. They were not the paltry marble of to-day, +plaything of infants, but the majestic “rinker,” black with white spots, the +king of marbles in an era when whole populations practised the game. Edwin looked at them +half regretfully as they lay in the Sunday’s hands. They seemed prodigious wealth in +those hands, and he felt somewhat as a condemned man might feel who bequeaths his jewels +on the scaffold. Then there was a rattle, and a tumour grew out larger on the +Sunday’s thigh.</p> + +<p>The winning boat, long preceded by its horse, crawled under the bridge and passed +northwards to the sea, laden with crates of earthenware. And then the loser, with the +little girl’s father and mother and her brothers and sisters, and her kitchen, +drawing-room, and bedroom, and her smoking chimney and her memories and all that was hers, +in the stern of it, slid beneath the boys’ down-turned faces while the whip cracked +away beyond the bridge. They could see, between the whitened tarpaulins, that the deep +belly of the craft was filled with clay.</p> + +<p>“Where does that there clay come from?” asked Edwin. For not merely was he +honestly struck by a sudden new curiosity, but it was meet for him to behave like a man +now, and to ask manly questions.</p> + +<p>“Runcorn,” said the Sunday scornfully. “Can’t you see it +painted all over the boat?”</p> + +<p>“Why do they bring clay all the way from Runcorn?”</p> + +<p>“They don’t bring it from Runcorn. They bring it from Cornwall. It comes +round by sea—see?” He laughed.</p> + +<p>“Who told you?” Edwin roughly demanded.</p> + +<p>“Anybody knows that!” said the Sunday grandly, but always maintaining his +gay smile.</p> + +<p>“Seems devilish funny to me,” Edwin murmured, after reflection, “that +they should bring clay all that roundabout way just to make crocks of it here. Why should +they choose just this place to make crocks in? I always understood—”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Come on!” the Sunday cut him short. “It’s blessed well one +o’clock and after!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>They climbed the long bank from the canal up to the Manor Farm, at which high point +their roads diverged, one path leading direct to Bleakridge where Orgreave lived, and the +other zigzagging down through neglected pasturage into Bursley proper. Usually they parted +here without a word, taking pride in such Spartan taciturnity, and they would doubtless +have done the same this morning also, though it were fifty-fold their last walk together +as two schoolboys. But an incident intervened.</p> + +<p>“Hold on!” cried the Sunday.</p> + +<p>To the south of them, a mile and a half off, in the wreathing mist of the Cauldon Bar +Ironworks, there was a yellow gleam that even the capricious sunlight could not kill, and +then two rivers of fire sprang from the gleam and ran in a thousand delicate and lovely +hues down the side of a mountain of refuse. They were emptying a few tons of molten slag +at the Cauldon Bar Ironworks. The two rivers hung slowly dying in the mists of smoke. They +reddened and faded, and you thought they had vanished, and you could see them yet, and +then they escaped the baffled eye, unless a cloud aided them for a moment against the sun; +and their ephemeral but enchanting beauty had expired for ever.</p> + +<p>“Now!” said Edwin sharply.</p> + +<p>“One minute ten seconds,” said the Sunday, who had snatched out his watch, +an inestimable contrivance with a centre-seconds hand. “By Jove! That was a good +’un.”</p> + +<p>A moment later two smaller boys, both laden with satchels, appeared over the brow from +the canal.</p> + +<p>“Let’s wait a jiff,” said the Sunday to Edwin, and as the smaller +boys showed no hurry he bawled out to them across the intervening cinder-waste: +“Run!” They ran. They were his younger brothers, Johnnie and Jimmie. +“Take this and hook it!” he commanded, passing the strap of his satchel over +his head as they came up. In fatalistic silence they obeyed the smiling tyrant.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>“I’m coming down your way a bit.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought you said you were peckish.”</p> + +<p>“I shall eat three slices of beef instead of my usual brace,” said the +Sunday carelessly.</p> + +<p>Edwin was touched. And the Sunday was touched, because he knew he had touched Edwin. +After all, this was a solemn occasion. But neither would overtly admit that its solemnity +had affected him. Hence, first one and then the other began to skim stones with vicious +force over the surface of the largest of the three ponds that gave interest to the Manor +Farm. When they had thus proved to themselves that the day differed in no manner from any +other breaking-up day, they went forward.</p> + +<p>On their left were two pitheads whose double wheels revolved rapidly in smooth silence, +and the puffing engine-house and all the trucks and gear of a large ironstone mine. On +their right was the astonishing farm, with barns and ricks and cornfields complete, +seemingly quite unaware of its forlorn oddness in that foul arena of manufacture. In +front, on a little hill in the vast valley, was spread out the Indian-red architecture of +Bursley—tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, the new scarlet market, the grey +tower of the old church, the high spire of the evangelical church, the low spire of the +church of genuflexions, and the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber +chimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping the whole. The sedate +reddish browns and reds of the composition, all netted in flowing scarves of smoke, +harmonised exquisitely with the chill blues of the chequered sky. Beauty was achieved, and +none saw it.</p> + +<p>The boys descended without a word through the brick-strewn pastures, where a horse or +two cropped the short grass. At the railway bridge, which carried a branch mineral line +over the path, they exchanged a brief volley of words with the working-lads who always +played pitch-and-toss there in the dinner-hour; and the Sunday added to the collection of +shawds and stones lodged on the under ledges of the low iron girders. A strange boy, he +had sworn to put ten thousand stones on those ledges before he died, or perish in the +attempt. Hence Edwin sometimes called him “Old Perish-in-the-attempt.” A +little farther on the open gates of a manufactory disclosed six men playing the noble game +of rinkers on a smooth patch of ground near the weighing machine. These six men were +Messieurs Ford, Carter, and Udall, the three partners owning the works, and three of their +employees. They were celebrated marble-players, and the boys stayed to watch them as, +bending with one knee almost touching the earth, they shot the rinkers from their stubby +thumbs with a canon-like force and precision that no boy could ever hope to equal. +“By gum!” mumbled Edwin involuntarily, when an impossible shot was +accomplished; and the bearded shooter, pleased by this tribute from youth, twisted his +white apron into a still narrower ring round his waist. Yet Edwin was not thinking about +the game. He was thinking about a battle that lay before him, and how he would be weakened +in the fight by the fact that in the last school examination, Charlie Orgreave, younger +than himself by a year, had ousted him from the second place in the school. The report in +his pocket said: “Position in class next term: third;” whereas he had been +second since the beginning of the year. There would of course be no “next +term” for him, but the report remained. A youth who has come to grips with that +powerful enemy, his father, cannot afford to be handicapped by even such a trifle as a +report entirely irrelevant to the struggle.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Charlie Orgreave gave a curt nod, and departed, in nonchalant good-humour, +doubtless considering that to accompany his chum any farther would be to be guilty of +girlish sentimentality. And Edwin nodded with equal curtness and made off slowly into the +maze of Bursley. The thought in his heart was: “I’m on my own, now. I’ve +got to face it now, by myself.” And he felt that not merely his father, but the +leagued universe, was against him.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_02"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Two.</h3> + +<h4>The Flame.</h4> + +<p>The various agencies which society has placed at the disposal of a parent had been at +work on Edwin in one way or another for at least a decade, in order to equip him for just +this very day when he should step into the world. The moment must therefore be regarded as +dramatic, the first crucial moment of an experiment long and elaborately prepared. +Knowledge was admittedly the armour and the weapon of one about to try conclusions with +the world, and many people for many years had been engaged in providing Edwin with +knowledge. He had received, in fact, “a good education”—or even, as some +said, “a thoroughly sound education;” assuredly as complete an equipment of +knowledge as could be obtained in the county, for the curriculum of the Oldcastle High +School was less in accord with common sense than that of the Middle School.</p> + +<p>He knew, however, nothing of natural history, and in particular of himself, of the +mechanism of the body and mind, through which his soul had to express and fulfil itself. +Not one word of information about either physiology or psychology had ever been breathed +to him, nor had it ever occurred to any one around him that such information was needful. +And as no one had tried to explain to him the mysteries which he carried about with him +inside that fair skin of his, so no one had tried to explain to him the mysteries by which +he was hemmed in, either mystically through religion, or rationally through philosophy. +Never in chapel or at Sunday school had a difficulty been genuinely faced. And as for +philosophy, he had not the slightest conception of what it meant. He imagined that a +philosopher was one who made the best of a bad job, and he had never heard the word used +in any other sense. He had great potential intellectual curiosity, but nobody had thought +to stimulate it by even casually telling him that the finest minds of humanity had been +trying to systematise the mysteries for quite twenty-five centuries. Of physical science +he had been taught nothing, save a grotesque perversion to the effect that gravity was a +force which drew things towards the centre of the earth. In the matter of chemistry it had +been practically demonstrated to him scores of times, so that he should never forget this +grand basic truth, that sodium and potassium may be relied upon to fizz flamingly about on +a surface of water. Of geology he was perfectly ignorant, though he lived in a district +whose whole livelihood depended on the scientific use of geological knowledge, and though +the existence of Oldcastle itself was due to a freak of the earth’s crust which +geologists call a “fault.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Geography had been one of his strong points. He was aware of the rivers of Asia in +their order, and of the principal products of Uruguay; and he could name the capitals of +nearly all the United States. But he had never been instructed for five minutes in the +geography of his native county, of which he knew neither the boundaries nor the rivers nor +the terrene characteristics. He could have drawn a map of the Orinoco, but he could not +have found the Trent in a day’s march; he did not even know where his drinking-water +came from. That geographical considerations are the cause of all history had never been +hinted to him, nor that history bears immediately upon modern life and bore on his own +life. For him history hung unsupported and unsupporting in the air. In the course of his +school career he had several times approached the nineteenth century, but it seemed to him +that for administrative reasons he was always being dragged back again to the Middle Ages. +Once his form had “got” as far as the infancy of his own father, and +concerning this period he had learnt that “great dissatisfaction prevailed among the +labouring classes, who were led to believe by mischievous demagogues,” etcetera. But +the next term he was recoiling round Henry the Eighth, who “was a skilful warrior +and politician,” but “unfortunate in his domestic relations;” and so to +Elizabeth, than whom “few sovereigns have been so much belied, but her character +comes out unscathed after the closest examination.” History indeed resolved itself +into a series of more or less sanguinary events arbitrarily grouped under the names of +persons who had to be identified with the assistance of numbers. Neither of the +development of national life, nor of the clash of nations, did he really know anything +that was not inessential and anecdotic. He could not remember the clauses of Magna Charta, +but he knew eternally that it was signed at a place amusingly called Runnymede. And the +one fact engraved on his memory about the battle of Waterloo was that it was fought on a +Sunday.</p> + +<p>And as he had acquired absolutely nothing about political economy or about logic, and +was therefore at the mercy of the first agreeable sophistry that might take his fancy by +storm, his unfitness to commence the business of being a citizen almost reached +perfection.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>For his personal enjoyment of the earth and air and sun and stars, and of society and +solitude, no preparation had been made, or dreamt of. The sentiment of nature had never +been encouraged in him, or even mentioned. He knew not how to look at a landscape nor at a +sky. Of plants and trees he was as exquisitely ignorant as of astronomy. It had not +occurred to him to wonder why the days are longer in summer, and he vaguely supposed that +the cold of winter was due to an increased distance of the earth from the sun. Still, he +had learnt that Saturn had a ring, and sometimes he unconsciously looked for it in the +firmament, as for a tea-tray.</p> + +<p>Of art, and the arts, he had been taught nothing. He had never seen a great picture or +statue, nor heard great orchestral or solo music; and he had no idea that architecture was +an art and emotional, though it moved him in a very peculiar fashion. Of the art of +English literature, or of any other literature, he had likewise been taught nothing. But +he knew the meaning of a few obsolete words in a few plays of Shakespeare. He had not +learnt how to express himself orally in any language, but through hard drilling he was so +genuinely erudite in accidence and syntax that he could parse and analyse with superb +assurance the most magnificent sentences of Milton, Virgil, and Racine. This skill, +together with an equal skill in utilising the elementary properties of numbers and +geometrical figures, was the most brilliant achievement of his long apprenticeship.</p> + +<p>And now his education was finished. It had cost his father twenty-eight shillings a +term, or four guineas a year, and no trouble. In younger days his father had spent more +money and far more personal attention on the upbringing of a dog. His father had enjoyed +success with dogs through treating them as individuals. But it had not happened to him, +nor to anybody in authority, to treat Edwin as an individual. Nevertheless it must not be +assumed that Edwin’s father was a callous and conscienceless brute, and Edwin a +martyr of neglect. Old Clayhanger was, on the contrary, an average upright and respectable +parent who had given his son a thoroughly sound education, and Edwin had had the good +fortune to receive that thoroughly sound education, as a preliminary to entering the +world.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>He was very far from realising the imperfections of his equipment for the grand entry; +but still he was not without uneasiness. In particular the conversation incident to the +canal-boat wager was disturbing him. It amazed him, as he reflected, that he should have +remained, to such an advanced age, in a state of ignorance concerning the origin of the +clay from which the crocks of his native district were manufactured. That the Sunday +should have been able to inform him did not cause him any shame, for he guessed from the +peculiar eager tone of voice in which the facts had been delivered, that the Sunday was +merely retailing some knowledge recently acquired by chance. He knew all the +Sunday’s tones of voice; and he also was well aware that the Sunday’s brain +was not on the whole better stored than his own. Further, the Sunday was satisfied with +his bit of accidental knowledge. Edwin was not. Edwin wanted to know why, if the clay for +making earthenware was not got in the Five Towns, the Five Towns had become the great seat +of the manufacture. Why were not pots made in the South, where the clay came from? He +could not think of any answer to this enigma, nor of any means of arriving by himself at +an answer. The feeling was that he ought to have been able to arrive at the answer as at +the answer to an equation.</p> + +<p>He did not definitely blame his education; he did not think clearly about the thing at +all. But, as a woman with a vague discomfort dimly fears cancer, so he dimly feared that +there might be something fundamentally unsound in this sound education of his. And he had +remorse for all the shirking that he had been guilty of during all his years at school. He +shook his head solemnly at the immense and nearly universal shirking that continually went +on. He could only acquit three or four boys, among the hundreds he had known, of the +shameful sin. And all that he could say in favour of himself was that there were many +worse than Edwin Clayhanger. Not merely the boys, but the masters, were sinners. Only two +masters could he unreservedly respect as having acted conscientiously up to their +pretensions, and one of these was an unpleasant brute. All the cleverness, the +ingenuities, the fakes, the insincerities, the incapacitaties, the vanities, and the +dishonesties of the rest stood revealed to him, and he judged them by the mere essential +force of character alone. A schoolmaster might as well attempt to deceive God as a boy who +is watching him every day with the inhuman eye of youth.</p> + +<p>“All this must end now!” he said to himself, meaning all that could be +included in the word “shirk.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>He was splendidly serious. He was as splendidly serious as a reformer. By a single +urgent act of thought he would have made himself a man, and changed imperfection into +perfection. He desired—and there was real passion in his desire—to do his +best, to exhaust himself in doing his best, in living according to his conscience. He did +not know of what he was capable, nor what he could achieve. Achievement was not the matter +of his desire; but endeavour, honest and terrific endeavour. He admitted to himself his +shortcomings, and he did not under-estimate the difficulties that lay before him; but he +said, thinking of his father: “Surely he’ll see I mean business! Surely +he’s bound to give in when he sees how much in earnest I am!” He was +convinced, almost, that passionate faith could move mountainous fathers.</p> + +<p>“I’ll show ’em!” he muttered.</p> + +<p>And he meant that he would show the world... He was honouring the world; he was paying +the finest homage to it. In that head of his a flame burnt that was like an altar-fire, a +miraculous and beautiful phenomenon, than which nothing is more miraculous nor more +beautiful over the whole earth. Whence had it suddenly sprung, that flame? After years of +muddy inefficiency, of contentedness with the second-rate and the dishonest, that flame +astoundingly bursts forth, from a hidden, unheeded spark that none had ever thought to +blow upon. It bursts forth out of a damp jungle of careless habits and negligence that +could not possibly have fed it. There is little to encourage it. The very architecture of +the streets shows that environment has done naught for it: ragged brickwork, walls +finished anyhow with saggars and slag; narrow uneven alleys leading to higgledy-piggledy +workshops and kilns; cottages transformed into factories and factories into cottages, +clumsily, hastily, because nothing matters so long as “it will do;” everywhere +something forced to fulfil, badly, the function of something else; in brief, the reign of +the slovenly makeshift, shameless, filthy, and picturesque. Edwin himself seemed no +tabernacle for that singular flame. He was not merely untidy and dirty—at his age +such defects might have excited in a sane observer uneasiness by their absence; but his +gestures and his gait were untidy. He did not mind how he walked. All his sprawling limbs +were saying: “What does it matter, so long as we get there?” The angle of the +slatternly bag across his shoulders was an insult to the flame. And yet the flame burned +with serene and terrible pureness.</p> + +<p>It was surprising that no one saw it passing along the mean, black, smoke-palled +streets that huddle about Saint Luke’s Church. Sundry experienced and fat old women +were standing or sitting at their cottage doors, one or two smoking cutties. But even +they, who in child-bed and at gravesides had been at the very core of life for long years, +they, who saw more than most, could only see a fresh lad passing along, with fair hair and +a clear complexion, and gawky knees and elbows, a fierce, rapt expression on his +straightforward, good-natured face. Some knew that it was “Clayhanger’s +lad,” a nice-behaved young gentleman, and the spitten image of his poor mother. They +all knew what a lad is—the feel of his young skin under his “duds,” the +capricious freedom of his movements, his sudden madnesses and shoutings and tendernesses, +and the exceeding power of his unconscious wistful charm. They could divine all that in a +glance. But they could not see the mysterious and holy flame of the desire for +self-perfection blazing within that tousled head. And if Edwin had suspected that anybody +could indeed perceive it, he would have whipped it out for shame, though the repudiation +had meant everlasting death. Such is youth in the Five Towns, if not elsewhere.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_03"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Three.</h3> + +<h4>Entry into the World.</h4> + +<p>Edwin came steeply out of the cinder-strewn back streets by Woodisun Bank (hill) into +Duck Square, nearly at the junction of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street. A few yards +down Woodisun Bank, cocks and hens were scurrying, with necks horizontal, from all +quarters, and were even flying, to the call of a little old woman who threw grain from the +top step of her porch. On the level of the narrow pavement stood an immense constable, +clad in white trousers, with a gun under his arm for the killing of mad dogs; he was +talking to the woman, and their two heads were exactly at the same height. On a pair of +small double gates near the old woman’s cottage were painted the words, “Steam +Printing Works. No admittance except on business.” And from as far as Duck Square +could be heard the puff-puff which proved the use of steam in this works to which idlers +and mere pleasure-seekers were forbidden access.</p> + +<p>Duck Square was one of the oldest, if the least imposing, of all the public places in +Bursley. It had no traffic across it, being only a sloping rectangle, like a vacant lot, +with Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street for its exterior sides, and no outlet on its inner +sides. The buildings on those inner sides were low and humble and, as it were, withdrawn +from the world, the chief of them being the ancient Duck Inn, where the hand-bell ringers +used to meet. But Duck Square looked out upon the very birth of Trafalgar Road, that wide, +straight thoroughfare, whose name dates it, which had been invented, in the lifetime of a +few then living, to unite Bursley with Hanbridge. It also looked out upon the birth of +several old pack-horse roads which Trafalgar Road had supplanted. One of these was +Woodisun Bank, that wound slowly up hill and down dale, apparently always choosing the +longest and hardest route, to Hanbridge; and another was Aboukir Street, formerly known as +Warm Lane, that reached Hanbridge in a manner equally difficult and unhurried. At the +junction of Trafalgar Road and Aboukir Street stood the Dragon Hotel, once the great +posting-house of the town, from which all roads started. Duck Square had watched coaches +and waggons stop at and start from the Dragon Hotel for hundreds of years. It had seen the +Dragon rebuilt in brick and stone, with fine bay windows on each storey, in early Georgian +times, and it had seen even the new structure become old and assume the dignity of age. +Duck Square could remember strings of pack-mules driven by women, ‘trapesing’ +in zigzags down Woodisun Bank and Warm Lane, and occasionally falling, with awful smashes +of the crockery they carried, in the deep, slippery, scarce passable mire of the first +slants into the valley. Duck Square had witnessed the slow declension of these roads into +mere streets, and slum streets at that, and the death of all mules, and the disappearance +of all coaches and all neighing and prancing and whipcracking romance; while Trafalgar +Road, simply because it was straight and broad and easily graded, flourished with +toll-bars and a couple of pair-horsed trams that ran on lines. And many people were proud +of those cushioned trams; but perhaps they had never known that coach-drivers used to tell +each other about the state of the turn at the bottom of Warm Lane (since absurdly renamed +in honour of an Egyptian battle), and that Woodisun Bank (now unnoticed save by doubtful +characters, policemen, and schoolboys) was once regularly ‘taken’ by four +horses at a canter. The history of human manners is crunched and embedded in the very +macadam of that part of the borough, and the burgesses unheedingly tread it down every day +and talk gloomily about the ugly smoky prose of industrial manufacture. And yet the Dragon +Hotel, safely surviving all revolutions by the mighty virtue and attraction of ale, stands +before them to remind them of the interestingness of existence.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>At the southern corner of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street, with Duck Square facing +it, the Dragon Hotel and Warm Lane to its right, and Woodisun Bank creeping +inconspicuously down to its left, stood a three-storey building consisting of house and +shop, the frontage being in Wedgwood Street. Over the double-windowed shop was a discreet +signboard in gilt letters, “D. Clayhanger, Printer and Stationer,” but above +the first floor was a later and much larger sign, with the single word, +“Steam-printing.” All the brickwork of the façade was painted yellow, +and had obviously been painted yellow many times; the woodwork of the plate-glass windows +was a very dark green approaching black. The upper windows were stumpy, almost square, +some dirty and some clean and curtained, with prominent sills and architraves. The line of +the projecting spouting at the base of the roof was slightly curved through subsidence; at +either end of the roof-ridge rose twin chimneys each with three salmon-coloured +chimney-pots. The gigantic word ‘Steam-printing’ could be seen from the +windows of the Dragon, from the porch of the big Wesleyan chapel higher up the slope, from +the Conservative Club and the playground at the top of the slope; and as for Duck Square +itself, it could see little else. The left-hand shop window was alluringly set out with +the lighter apparatus of writing and reading, and showed incidentally several rosy +pictures of ideal English maidens; that to the right was grim and heavy with ledgers, +inks, and variegated specimens of steam-printing.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>In the wedge-shaped doorway between the windows stood two men, one middle-aged and one +old, one bareheaded and the other with a beaver hat, engaged in conversation. They were +talking easily, pleasantly, with free gestures, the younger looking down in deferential +smiles at the elder, and the elder looking up benignantly at the younger. You could see +that, having begun with a business matter, they had quitted it for a topic of the hour. +But business none the less went forward, the shop functioned, the presses behind the shop +were being driven by steam as advertised; a customer emerged, and was curtly nodded at by +the proprietor as he squeezed past; a girl with a small flannel apron over a large cotton +apron went timidly into the shop. The trickling, calm commerce of a provincial town was +proceeding, bit being added to bit and item to item, until at the week’s end a +series of apparent nothings had swollen into the livelihood of near half a score of +people. And nobody perceived how interesting it was, this interchange of activities, this +ebb and flow of money, this sluggish rise and fall of reputations and fortunes, stretching +out of one century into another and towards a third! Printing had been done at that +corner, though not by steam, since the time of the French Revolution. Bibles and +illustrated herbals had been laboriously produced by hand at that corner, and hawked on +the backs of asses all over the county; and nobody heard romance in the puffing of the +hidden steam-engine multiplying catalogues and billheads on the self-same spot at the rate +of hundreds an hour.</p> + +<p>The younger and bigger of the two men chatting in the doorway was Darius Clayhanger, +Edwin’s father, and the first printer to introduce steam into Bursley. His age was +then under forty-five, but he looked more. He was dressed in black, with an ample +shirt-front and a narrow black cravat tied in an angular bow; the wristbands were almost +tight on the wrists, and, owing to the shortness of the alpaca coat-sleeves, they were +very visible even as Darius Clayhanger stood, with his two hands deep in the horizontal +pockets of his ‘full-fall’ trousers. They were not precisely dirty, these +wristbands, nor was the shirt-front, nor the turned-down pointed collar, but all the linen +looked as though it would scarcely be wearable the next day. Clayhanger’s linen +invariably looked like that, not dirty and not clean; and further, he appeared to wear +eternally the same suit, ever on the point of being done for and never being done for. The +trousers always had marked transverse creases; the waistcoat always showed shiningly the +outline of every article in the pockets thereof, and it always had a few stains down the +front (and never more than a few), and the lowest button insecure. The coat, faintly +discoloured round the collar and fretted at the cuffs, fitted him easily and loosely like +the character of an old crony; it was as if it had grown up with him, and had expanded +with his girth. His head was a little bald on the top, but there was still a great deal of +mixed brown and greyish hair at the back and the sides, and the moustache, hanging +straight down with an effect recalling the mouth of a seal, was plenteous and +defiant—a moustache of character, contradicting the full placidity of the badly +shaved chin. Darius Clayhanger had a habit, when reflective or fierce, of biting with his +upper teeth as far down as he could on the lower lip; this trick added emphasis to the +moustache. He stood, his feet in their clumsy boots planted firmly about sixteen inches +apart, his elbows sticking out, and his head bent sideways, listening to and answering his +companion with mien now eager, now roguish, now distinctly respectful.</p> + +<p>The older man, Mr Shushions, was apparently very old. He was one of those men of whom +one says in conclusion that they are very old. He seemed to be so fully occupied all the +time in conducting those physical operations which we perform without thinking of them, +that each in his case became a feat. He balanced himself on his legs with conscious craft; +he directed carefully his shaking and gnarled hand to his beard in order to stroke it. +When he collected his thoughts into a sentence and uttered it in his weak, quavering +voice, he did something wonderful; he listened closely, as though to an imperfectly +acquired foreign language; and when he was not otherwise employed, he gave attention to +the serious business of breathing. He wore a black silk stock, in a style even more +antique than his remarkable headgear, and his trousers were very tight. He had survived +into another and a more fortunate age than his own.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Edwin, his heavy bag on his shoulders, found the doorway blocked by these two. He +hesitated with a diffident charming smile, feeling, as he often did in front of his +father, that he ought to apologise for his existence, and yet fiercely calling himself an +ass for such a sentiment. Darius Clayhanger nodded at him carelessly, but not without a +surprising benevolence, over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“This is him,” said Darius briefly.</p> + +<p>Edwin was startled to catch a note of pride in his father’s voice.</p> + +<p>Little Mr Shushions turned slowly and looked up at Edwin’s face (for he was +shorter even than the boy), and gradually acquainted himself with the fact that Edwin was +the son of his father.</p> + +<p>“Is this thy son, Darius?” he asked; and his ancient eyes were shining.</p> + +<p>Edwin had scarcely ever heard any one address his father by his Christian name.</p> + +<p>Darius nodded; and then, seeing the old man’s hand creeping out towards him, +Edwin pulled off his cap and took the hand, and was struck by the hot smooth brittleness +of the skin and the earnest tremulous weakness of the caressing grasp. Edwin had never +seen Mr Shushions before.</p> + +<p>“Nay, nay, my boy,” trembled the old man, “don’t bare thy head +to me ... not to me! I’m one o’ th’ ould sort. Eh, I’m rare glad +to see thee!” He kept Edwin’s hand, and stared long at him, with his withered +face transfigured by solemn emotion. Slowly he turned towards Darius, and pulled himself +together. “Thou’st begotten a fine lad, Darius! ... a fine, honest +lad!”</p> + +<p>“So-so!” said Darius gruffly, whom Edwin was amazed to see in a state of +agitation similar to that of Mr Shushions.</p> + +<p>The men gazed at each other; Edwin looked at the ground and other unresponsive +objects.</p> + +<p>“Edwin,” his father said abruptly, “run and ask Big James for +th’ proof of that Primitive Methodist hymn-paper; there’s a good +lad.”</p> + +<p>And Edwin hastened through the shadowy shop as if loosed from a captivity, and in +passing threw his satchel down on a bale of goods.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>He comprehended nothing of the encounter; neither as to the origin of the old +man’s status in his father’s esteem, nor as to the cause of his father’s +strange emotion. He regarded the old man impatiently as an aged simpleton, probably over +pious, certainly connected with the Primitive Methodists. His father had said +‘There’s a good lad’ almost cajolingly. And this was odd; for, though +nobody could be more persuasively agreeable than his father when he chose, the occasions +when he cared to exert his charm, especially over his children, were infrequent, and +getting more so. Edwin also saw something symbolically ominous in his being sent direct to +the printing office. It was no affair of his to go to the printing office. He particularly +did not want to go to the printing office.</p> + +<p>However, he met Big James, with flowing beard and flowing apron, crossing the yard. Big +James was brushing crumbs from the beard.</p> + +<p>“Father wants the proof of some hymn-paper—I don’t know what,” +he said. “I was just coming—”</p> + +<p>“So was I, Mister Edwin,” replied Big James in his magnificent voice, and +with his curious humorous smile. And he held up a sheet of paper in his immense hand, and +strode majestically on towards the shop.</p> + +<p>Here was another detail that struck the boy. Always Big James had addressed him as +‘Master Edwin’ or ‘Master Clayhanger.’ Now it was +‘Mister.’ He had left school. Big James was, of course, aware of that, and Big +James had enough finesse and enough gentle malice to change instantly the +‘master’ to ‘mister.’ Edwin was scarcely sure if Big James was not +laughing at him. He could not help thinking that Big James had begun so promptly to call +him ‘mister’ because the foreman compositor expected that the son of the house +would at once begin to take a share in the business. He could not help thinking that his +father must have so informed Big James. And all this vaguely disturbed Edwin, and reminded +him of his impending battle and of the complex forces marshalled against him. And his +hand, wandering in his pockets, touched that unfortunate report which stated that he had +lost one place during the term.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>He lingered in the blue-paved yard, across which cloud-shadows swept continually, and +then Big James came back and spectacularly ascended the flight of wooden steps to the +printing office, and disappeared. Edwin knew that he must return to the shop to remove his +bag, for his father would assuredly reprimand him if he found it where it had been +untidily left. He sidled, just like an animal, to the doorway, and then slipped up to the +counter, behind the great mahogany case of ‘artists’ materials.’ His +father and the old man were within the shop now, and Edwin overheard that they were +discussing a topic that had lately been rife in religious circles, namely, Sir Henry +Thompson’s ingenious device for scientifically testing the efficacy of prayer, known +as the ‘Prayer Gauge.’ The scheme was to take certain hospitals and to pray +for the patients in particular wards, leaving other wards unprayed for, and then to +tabulate and issue the results.</p> + +<p>Mr Shushions profoundly resented the employment of such a dodge; the mere idea of it +shocked him, as being blasphemous; and Darius Clayhanger deferentially and feelingly +agreed with him, though Edwin had at least once heard his father refer to the topic with +the amused and non-committal impartiality of a man who only went to chapel when he +specially felt like going.</p> + +<p>“I’ve preached in the pulpits o’ our Connexion,” said Mr +Shushions with solemn, quavering emotion, “for over fifty year, as you know. But +I’d ne’er gi’ out another text if Primitives had ought to do wi’ +such a flouting o’ th’ Almighty. Nay, I’d go down to my grave dumb afore +God!”</p> + +<p>He had already been upset by news of a movement that was on foot for deferring +Anniversary Sermons from August to September, so that people should be more free to go +away for a holiday, and collections be more fruitful. What! Put off God’s ordinance, +to enable chapel-members to go ‘a-wakesing’! Monstrous! Yet September was +tried, in spite of Mr Shushions, and when even September would not work satisfactorily, +God’s ordinance was shifted boldly to May, in order to catch people, and their +pockets well before the demoralisation incident to holidays.</p> + +<p>Edwin thought that his father and the mysterious old man would talk for ever, and +timorously he exposed himself to obtain possession of his satchel, hoping to escape +unseen. But Mr Shushions saw him, and called him, and took his hand again.</p> + +<p>“Eh, my boy,” he said, feebly shaking the hand, “I do pray as +you’ll grow up to be worthy o’ your father. That’s all as I pray +for.”</p> + +<p>Edwin had never considered his father as an exemplar. He was a just and unmerciful +judge of his father, against whom he had a thousand grievances. And in his heart he +resentfully despised Mr Shushions, and decided again that he was a simpleton, and not a +very tactful one. But then he saw a round yellow tear slowly form in the red rim of the +old man’s eye and run crookedly down that wrinkled cheek. And his impatient scorn +expired. The mere sight of him, Edwin, had brought the old man to weeping! And the tear +was so genuine, so convincing, so majestic that it induced in Edwin a blank humility. He +was astounded, mystified; but he was also humbled. He himself was never told, and he never +learnt, the explanation of that epic tear.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_04"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Four.</h3> + +<h4>The Child-Man.</h4> + +<p>The origin of the tear on the aged cheek of Mr Shushions went back about forty years, +and was embedded in the infancy of Darius Clayhanger.</p> + +<p>The earliest memory of Darius Clayhanger had to do with the capital letters Q W and S. +Even as the first steam-printer in Bursley, even as the father of a son who had received a +thoroughly sound middle-class education, he never noticed a capital Q W or S without +recalling the Widow Susan’s school, where he had wonderingly learnt the significance +of those complicated characters. The school consisted of the entire ground floor of her +cottage, namely, one room, of which the far corner was occupied by a tiny winding +staircase that led to the ancient widow’s bedchamber. The furniture comprised a few +low forms for scholars, a table, and a chair; and there were some brilliant coloured +prints on the whitewashed walls. At this school Darius acquired a knowledge of the +alphabet, and from the alphabet passed to Reading-Made-Easy, and then to the Bible. He +made such progress that the widow soon singled him out for honour. He was allowed the high +and envied privilege of raking the ashes from under the fire-place and carrying them to +the ash-pit, which ash-pit was vast and lofty, being the joint production of many +cottages. To reach the summit of the ash-pit, and thence to fling backwards down its steep +sides all assailants who challenged your supremacy, was a precious joy. The battles of the +ash-pit, however, were not battles of giants, as no children had leisure for ash-carrying +after the age of seven. A still greater honour accorded to Darius was permission to sit, +during lessons, on the topmost visible step of the winding stair. The widow Susan, having +taught Darius to read brilliantly, taught him to knit, and he would knit stockings for his +father, mother, and sister.</p> + +<p>At the age of seven, his education being complete, he was summoned into the world. It +is true that he could neither write nor deal with the multiplication table; but there were +always night-schools which studious adults of seven and upwards might attend if business +permitted. Further, there was the Sunday school, which Darius had joyously frequented +since the age of three, and which he had no intention of leaving. As he grew older the +Sunday school became more and more enchanting to him. Sunday morning was the morning which +he lived for during six days; it was the morning when his hair was brushed and combed, and +perfumed with a delightful oil, whose particular fragrance he remembered throughout his +life. At Sunday school he was petted and caressed. His success at Sunday school was +shining. He passed over the heads of bigger boys, and at the age of six he was in a Bible +class.</p> + +<p>Upon hearing that Darius was going out into the world, the superintendent of the Sunday +school, a grave whiskered young man of perhaps thirty, led him one morning out of the body +of the Primitive Methodist Chapel which served as schoolroom before and after chapel +service, up into the deserted gallery of the chapel, and there seated him on a stair, and +knelt on the stair below him, and caressed his head, and called him a good boy, and +presented him with an old battered Bible. This volume was the most valuable thing that +Darius had ever possessed. He ran all the way home with it, half suffocated by his +triumph. Sunday school prizes had not then been invented. The young superintendent of the +Sunday school was Mr Shushions.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The man Darius was first taken to work by his mother. It was the winter of 1835, +January. They passed through the marketplace of the town of Turnhill where they lived. +Turnhill lies a couple of miles north of Bursley. One side of the market-place was +barricaded with stacks of coal, and the other with loaves of a species of rye and straw +bread. This coal and these loaves were being served out by meticulous and haughty +officials, all invisibly, braided with red-tape, to a crowd of shivering, moaning, and +weeping wretches, men, women and children—the basis of the population of Turnhill. +Although they were all endeavouring to make a noise they made scarcely any noise, from +mere lack of strength. Nothing could be heard, under the implacable bright sky, but faint +ghosts of sound, as though people were sighing and crying from within the vacuum of a huge +glass bell.</p> + +<p>The next morning, at half-past five, Darius began his career in earnest. He was +‘mould-runner’ to a ‘muffin-maker,’ a muffin being not a +comestible but a small plate, fashioned by its maker on a mould. The business of Darius +was to run as hard as he could with the mould, and a newly, created plate adhering +thereto, into the drying-stove. This ‘stove’ was a room lined with shelves, +and having a red-hot stove and stove-pipe in the middle. As no man of seven could reach +the upper shelves, a pair of steps was provided for Darius, and up these he had to +scamper. Each mould with its plate had to be leaned carefully against the wall and if the +soft clay of a new-born plate was damaged, Darius was knocked down. The atmosphere outside +the stove was chill, but owing to the heat of the stove, Darius was obliged to work half +naked. His sweat ran down his cheeks, and down his chest, and down his back, making white +channels, and lastly it soaked his hair.</p> + +<p>When there were no moulds to be sprinted into the drying-stove, and no moulds to be +carried less rapidly out, Darius was engaged in clay-wedging. That is to say, he took a +piece of raw clay weighing more than himself, cut it in two with a wire, raised one half +above his head and crashed it down with all his force upon the other half, and he repeated +the process until the clay was thoroughly soft and even in texture. At a later period it +was discovered that hydraulic machinery could perform this operation more easily and more +effectually than the brawny arms of a man of seven. At eight o’clock in the evening +Darius was told that he had done enough for that day, and that he must arrive at five +sharp the next morning to light the fire, before his master the muffin-maker began to +work. When he inquired how he was to light the fire his master kicked him jovially on the +thigh and suggested that he should ask another mould-runner. His master was not a bad man +at heart, it was said, but on Tuesdays, after Sunday, and Saint Monday, masters were apt +to be capricious.</p> + +<p>Darius reached home at a quarter to nine, having eaten nothing but bread all day. +Somehow he had lapsed into the child again. His mother took him on her knee, and wrapped +her sacking apron round his ragged clothes, and cried over him and cried into his supper +of porridge, and undressed him and put him to bed. But he could not sleep easily because +he was afraid of being late the next morning.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>And the next morning wandering about the yards of the manufactory in a storm of icy +sleet a little before five o’clock, he learnt from a more experienced companion that +nobody would provide him with kindling for his fire, that on the contrary everybody who +happened to be on the place at that hour would unite to prevent him from getting kindling, +and that he must steal it or expect to be thrashed before six o’clock. Near them a +vast kiln of ware in process of firing showed a white flaming glow at each of its mouths +in the black winter darkness. Darius’s mentor crept up to the archway of the great +hovel which protected the kiln, and pointed like a conspirator to the figure of the +guardian fireman dozing near his monster. The boy had the handle-less remains of an old +spade, and with it he crept into the hovel, dangerously abstracted fire from one of the +scorching mouths, and fled therewith, and the fireman never stirred. Then Darius, to whom +the mentor kindly lent his spade, attempted to do the same, but being inexpert woke the +fireman, who held him spellbound by his roaring voice and then flung him like a sack of +potatoes bodily into the slush of the yard, and the spade after him. Happily the mentor, +whose stove was now alight, lent fire to Darius, so that Darius’s stove too was +cheerfully burning when his master came. And Darius was too excited to feel fatigue.</p> + +<p>By six o’clock on Saturday night Darius had earned a shilling for his +week’s work. But he could only possess himself of the shilling by going to a +magnificent public-house with his master the muffin-maker. This was the first time that he +had ever been inside a public-house. The place was crowded with men, women, and children +eating the most lovely, hot rolls and drinking beer, in an atmosphere exquisitely warm. +And behind a high counter a stout jolly man was counting piles and piles and piles of +silver. Darius’s master, in company, with other boys’ masters, gave this stout +man four sovereigns to change, and it was an hour before he changed them. Meanwhile Darius +was instructed that he must eat a roll like the rest, together with cheese. Never had he +tasted anything so luscious. He had a match with his mentor, as to which of them could +spin out his roll the longer, honestly chewing all the time; and he won. Some one gave him +half a glass of beer. At half-past seven he received his shilling which consisted of a +sixpenny-piece and four pennies; and leaving the gay, public-house, pushed his way through +a crowd of tearful women with babies in their arms at the doors, and went home. And such +was the attraction of the Sunday school that he was there the next morning, with scented +hair, two minutes before the opening.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In about a year Darius’s increasing knowledge of the world enabled him to rise in +it. He became a handle-maker in another manufactory, and also he went about with the pride +of one who could form the letters of the alphabet with a pen. In his new work he had to +put a bit of clay between two moulds, and then force the top mould on to the bottom one by +means of his stomach which it was necessary to press downwards and at the same time to +wriggle with a peculiar movement. The workman to whom he was assigned, his new +‘master,’ attached these handles, with strange rapid skill, to beer-mugs. For +Darius the labour was much lighter than that of mould-running and clay-wedging, and the +pay was somewhat higher. But there were minor disadvantages. He descended by twenty steps +to his toil, and worked in a long cellar which never received any air except by way of the +steps and a passage, and never any daylight at all. Its sole illumination was a stove used +for drying. The ‘throwers’’ and the ‘turners’’ rooms +were also subterranean dungeons. When in full activity all these stinking cellars were +full of men, boys, and young women, working close together in a hot twilight. Certain boys +were trained contrabandists of beer, and beer came as steadily into the dungeons as though +it had been laid on by a main pipe. It was not honourable even on the part of a young +woman, to refuse beer, particularly when the beer happened to arrive in the late +afternoon. On such occasions young men and women would often entirely omit to go home of a +night, and seasoned men of the world aged eight, on descending into the dungeons early the +next morning, would have a full view of pandemonium, and they would witness during the day +salutary scenes of remorse, and proofs of the existence of a profound belief in the +homeopathic properties of beer.</p> + +<p>But perhaps the worst drawback of Darius’s new position was the long and +irregular hours, due partly to the influences of Saint Monday and of the scenes above +indicated but not described, and partly to the fact that the employés were on +piece-work and entirely unhampered by grandmotherly legislation. The result was that six +days’ work was generally done in four. And as the younger the workman the earlier he +had to start in the morning, Darius saw scarcely enough of his bed. It was not of course +to be expected that a self-supporting man of the world should rigorously confine himself +to an eight-hour day or even a twelve-hour day, but Darius’s day would sometimes +stretch to eighteen and nineteen hours: which on hygienic grounds could not be +unreservedly defended.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>One Tuesday evening his master, after three days of debauch, ordered him to be at work +at three o’clock the next morning. He quickly and even eagerly agreed, for he was +already intimate with his master’s rope-lash. He reached home at ten o’clock +on an autumn night, and went to bed and to sleep. He woke up with a start, in the dark. +There was no watch or clock in the house, from which nearly all the furniture had +gradually vanished, but he knew it must be already after three o’clock; and he +sprang up and rushed out. Of course he had not undressed; his life was too strenuous for +mere formalities. The stars shone above him as he ran along, wondering whether after all, +though late, he could by unprecedented effort make the ordained number of handles before +his master tumbled into the cellar at five o’clock.</p> + +<p>When he had run a mile he met some sewage men on their rounds, who in reply, to his +question told him that the hour was half after midnight. He dared not risk a return to +home and bed, for within two and a half hours he must be at work. He wandered aimlessly +over the surface of the earth until he came to a tile-works, more or less unenclosed, +whose primitive ovens showed a glare. He ventured within, and in spite of himself sat down +on the ground near one of those heavenly ovens. And then he wanted to get up again, for he +could feel the strong breath of his enemy, sleep. But he could not get up. In a state of +terror he yielded himself to his enemy. Shameful cowardice on the part of a man now aged +nine! God, however, is merciful, and sent to him an angel in the guise of a +night-watchman, who kicked him into wakefulness and off the place. He ran on limping, +beneath the stellar systems, and reached his work at half-past four o’clock.</p> + +<p>Although he had never felt so exhausted in his long life, he set to work with fury. +Useless! When his master arrived he had scarcely got through the preliminaries. He dully +faced his master in the narrow stifling cellar, lit by candles impaled on nails and +already peopled by the dim figures of boys, girls, and a few men. His master was of +taciturn habit and merely told him to kneel down. He knelt. Two bigger boys turned hastily +from their work to snatch a glimpse of the affair. The master moved to the back of the +cellar and took from a box a piece of rope an inch thick and clogged with clay. At the +same moment a companion offered him, in silence, a tin with a slim neck, out of which he +drank deep; it contained a pint of porter owing on loan from the previous day. When the +master came in due course with the rope to do justice upon the sluggard he found the lad +fallen forward and breathing heavily and regularly. Darius had gone to sleep. He was +awakened with some violence, but the public opinion of the dungeon saved him from a torn +shirt and a bloody back.</p> + +<p>This was Darius’s last day on a pot-bank. The next morning he and his went in +procession to the Bastille, as the place was called. His father, having been too prominent +and too independent in a strike, had been black-listed by every manufacturer in the +district; and Darius, though nine, could not keep the family.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_05"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Five.</h3> + +<h4>Mr Shushions’s Tear Explained.</h4> + +<p>The Bastille was on the top of a hill about a couple of miles long, and the journey +thither was much lengthened by the desire of the family to avoid the main road. They were +all intensely ashamed; Darius was ashamed to tears, and did not know why; even his little +sister wept and had to be carried, not because she was shoeless and had had nothing to +eat, but because she was going to the Ba–ba–bastille; she had no notion what +the place was. It proved to be the largest building that Darius had ever seen; and indeed +it was the largest in the district; they stood against its steep sides like flies against +a kennel. Then there was rattling of key-bunches, and the rasping voices of sour +officials, who did not inquire if they would like a meal after their stroll. And they were +put into a cellar and stripped and washed and dressed in other people’s clothes, and +then separated, amid tears. And Darius was pitched into a large crowd of other boys, all +clothed like himself. He now understood the reason for shame; it was because he could have +no distinctive clothes of his own, because he had somehow lost his identity. All the boys +had a sullen, furtive glance, and when they spoke it was in whispers.</p> + +<p>In the low room where the boys were assembled there fell a silence, and Darius heard +some one whisper that the celebrated boy who had run away and been caught would be flogged +before supper. Down the long room ran a long table. Some one brought in three candles in +tin candlesticks and set them near the end of this table. Then somebody else brought in a +pickled birch-rod, dripping with the salt water from which it had been taken, and also a +small square table. Then came some officials, and a clergyman, and then, surpassing the +rest in majesty, the governor of the Bastille, a terrible man. The governor made a speech +about the crime of running away from the Bastille, and when he had spoken for a fair time, +the clergyman talked in the same sense; and then a captured tiger, dressed like a boy, +with darting fierce eyes, was dragged in by two men, and laid face down on the square +table, and four boys were commanded to step forward and hold tightly the four members of +this tiger. And, his clothes having previously been removed as far as his waist, his +breeches were next pulled down his legs. Then the rod was raised and it descended +swishing, and blood began to flow; but far more startling than the blood were the shrill +screams of the tiger; they were so loud and deafening that the spectators could safely +converse under their shelter. The boys in charge of the victim had to cling hard and grind +their teeth in the effort to keep him prone. As the blows succeeded each other, Darius +became more and more ashamed. The physical spectacle did not sicken nor horrify him, for +he was a man of wide experience; but he had never before seen flogging by lawful +authority. Flogging in the workshop was different, a private if sanguinary affair between +free human beings. This ritualistic and cold-blooded torture was infinitely more appalling +in its humiliation. The screaming grew feebler, then ceased; then the blows ceased, and +the unconscious infant (cured of being a tiger) was carried away leaving a trail of red +drops along the floor.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>After this, supper was prepared on the long table, and the clergyman called down upon +it the blessing of God, and enjoined the boys to be thankful, and departed in company with +the governor. Darius, who had not tasted all day, could not eat. The flogging had not +nauseated him, but the bread and the skilly revolted his pampered tastes. Never had he, +with all his experience, seen nor smelt anything so foully disgusting. When supper was +completed, a minor official interceded with the Almighty in various ways for ten minutes, +and at last the boys were marched upstairs to bed. They all slept in one room. The night +also could be set down in words, but must not be, lest the setting-down should be +disastrous...</p> + +<p>Darius knew that he was ruined; he knew that he was a workhouse boy for evermore, and +that the bright freedom of sixteen hours a day in a cellar was lost to him for evermore. +He was now a prisoner, branded, hopeless. He would never be able to withstand the +influences that had closed around him and upon him. He supposed that he should become +desperate, become a tiger, and then...</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>But the following afternoon he was forcibly reclothed in his own beautiful and beloved +rags, and was pushed out of the Bastille, and there he saw his pale father and his mother, +and his little sister, and another man. And his mother was on her knees in the cold autumn +sunshine, and hysterically clasping the knees of the man, and weeping; and the man was +trying to raise her, and the man was weeping too. Darius wept. The man was Mr Shushions. +Somehow, in a way that Darius comprehended not, Mr Shushions had saved them. Mr Shushions, +in a beaver tall-hat and with an apron rolled round his waist under his coat, escorted +them back to their house, into which some fresh furniture had been brought. And Darius +knew that a situation was waiting for his father. And further, Mr Shushions, by his +immense mysterious power, found a superb situation for Darius himself as a printer’s +devil. All this because Mr Shushions, as superintendent of a Sunday school, was +emotionally interested in the queer, harsh boy who had there picked up the art of writing +so quickly.</p> + +<p>Such was the origin of the tear that ran down Mr Shushions’s cheek when he beheld +Edwin, well-nourished, well-dressed and intelligent, the son of Darius the successful +steam-printer. Mr Shushions’s tear was the tear of the creator looking upon his +creation and marvelling at it. Mr Shushions loved Darius as only the benefactor can love +the benefited. He had been out of the district for over thirty years, and, having returned +there to die, the wonder of what he had accomplished by merely saving a lad from the +certain perdition of a prolonged stay in the workhouse, struck him blindingly in the face +and dazzled him.</p> + +<p>Darius had never spoken to a soul of his night in the Bastille. All his infancy was his +own fearful secret. His life, seen whole, had been a miracle. But none knew that except +himself and Mr Shushions. Assuredly Edwin never even faintly suspected it. To Edwin Mr +Shushions was nothing but a feeble and tedious old man.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_06"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Six.</h3> + +<h4>In the House.</h4> + +<p>To return to Edwin. On that Friday afternoon of the breaking-up he was, in the local +phrase, at a loose end. That is, he had no task, no programme, and no definite desires. +Not knowing, when he started out in the morning, whether school would formally end before +or after the dinner-hour, he had taken his dinner with him, as usual, and had eaten it at +Oldcastle. Thus, though the family dinner had not begun when he reached home, he had no +share in it, partly because he was not hungry, and partly because he was shy about having +left school. The fact that he had left school affected him as he was affected by the +wearing of a new suit for the first time, or by the cutting of his hair after a prolonged +neglect of the barber. It inspired him with a wish to avoid his kind, and especially his +sisters, Maggie and Clara. Clara might make some facetious remark. Edwin could never +forget the Red Indian glee with which Clara had danced round him when for the first +time—and quite unprepared for the exquisite shock—she had seen him in long +trousers. There was also his father. He wanted to have a plain talk with his +father—he knew that he would not be at peace until he had had that talk—and +yet in spite of himself he had carefully kept out of his father’s way during all the +afternoon, save for a moment when, strolling with affected nonchalance up to +Darius’s private desk in the shop, he had dropped thereon his school report, and +strolled off again.</p> + +<p>Towards six o’clock he was in his bedroom, an attic with a floor very much more +spacious than its ceiling, and a window that commanded the slope of Trafalgar Road towards +Bleakridge. It had been his room, his castle, his sanctuary, for at least ten years, since +before his mother’s death of cancer. He did not know that he loved it, with all its +inconveniences and makeshifts; but he did love it, and he was jealous for it; no one +should lay a hand on it to rearrange what he had once arranged. His sisters knew this; the +middle-aged servant knew it; even his father, with a curt laugh, would humorously +acquiesce in the theory of the sacredness of Edwin’s bedroom. As for Edwin, he saw +nothing extraordinary in his attitude concerning his bedroom; and he could not understand, +and he somewhat resented, that the household should perceive anything comic in it. He +never went near his sisters’ bedroom, never wished to go near it, never thought +about it.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Now he sat idly on the patchwork counterpane of his bed and gazed at the sky. He was +feeling a little happier, a little less unsettled, for his stomach was empty and his mind +had begun to fix itself with pleasure on the images of hot toast and jam. He ‘wanted +his tea:’ the manner in which he glanced at his old silver watch proved that. He +wished only that before six o’clock struck he could settle upon the necessary +changes in his bedroom. A beautiful schooner, which for over a year, with all sails +spread, had awaited the breeze in a low dark corner to the right of the window, would +assuredly have to be dismissed to the small, empty attic. Once that schooner had thrilled +him; the slight rake of its masts and the knotted reality of its rigging had thrilled him; +and to navigate it had promised the most delicious sensations conceivable. Now, one moment +it was a toy as silly as a doll, and the next moment it thrilled him once more, and he +could believe again its promises of bliss—and then he knew that it was for ever a +vain toy, and he was sad, and his sadness was pleasure. He had already stacked most of his +school-books in the other attic. He would need a table and a lamp; he knew not for what +precise purpose; but a table and a lamp were necessary to the continuance of his +self-respect. The only question was, Should he remodel his bedroom, or should he demand +the other attic, and plant his flag in it and rule over it in addition to his bedroom? Had +he the initiative and the energy to carry out such an enterprise? He was not able to make +up his mind. And, moreover, he could not decide anything until after that plain talk with +his father.</p> + +<p>His sister Clara’s high voice sounded outside, on the landing, or half-way up the +attic stairs.</p> + +<p>“Ed-<i>win</i>! Ed-<i>win</i>!”</p> + +<p>“What’s up?” he called in answer, rising with a nervous start. The +door of the room was unlatched.</p> + +<p>“You’re mighty mysterious in your bedroom,” said Clara’s voice +behind the door.</p> + +<p>“Come in! Come in! Why don’t you come in?” he replied, with +good-natured impatience. But somehow he could not speak in a natural tone. The mere fact +that he had left school that day and that the world awaited him, and that everybody in the +house knew this, rendered him self-conscious.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Clara entered, with a curious sidelong movement, half-winning and half-serpentine. She +was aged fourteen, a very fair and very slight girl, with a thin face and thin lips, and +extraordinarily slender hands; in general appearance fragile. She wore a semi-circular +comb on the crown of her head, and her abundant hair hung over her shoulders in two tight +pigtails. Edwin considered that Clara was harsh and capricious; he had much fault to find +with her; but nevertheless the sight of her usually affected him pleasurably (of course +without his knowing it), and he never for long sat definitely in adverse judgement upon +her. Her gestures had a charm for him which he felt but did not realise. And this charm +was similar to his own charm. But nothing would have so surprised him as to learn that he +himself had any charm at all. He would have laughed, and been ashamed—to hear that +his gestures and the play of his features had an ingratiating, awkward, and wistful grace; +he would have tried to cure that.</p> + +<p>“Father wants you,” said Clara, her hand on the handle of the thin +attic-door hung with odd garments.</p> + +<p>Edwin’s heart fell instantly, and all the agreeable images of tea vanished from +his mind. His father must have read the school report and perceived that Edwin had been +beaten by Charlie Orgreave, a boy younger than himself!</p> + +<p>“Did he send you up for me?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Clara, frowning. “But I heard him calling out for you all +over. So Maggie told me to run up. Not that I expect any <i>thanks</i>.” She put her +head forward a little.</p> + +<p>The episode, and Clara’s tone, showed clearly the nature and force of the +paternal authority in the house. It was an authority with the gift of getting its commands +anticipated.</p> + +<p>“All right! I’m coming,” said Edwin superiorly.</p> + +<p>“I know what you want,” Clara said teasingly as she turned towards the +passage.</p> + +<p>“What do I want?”</p> + +<p>“You want the empty attic all to yourself, and a fine state it would be in in a +month, my word!”</p> + +<p>“How do you know I want the empty attic?” Edwin repelled the onslaught; but +he was considerably taken aback. It was a mystery to him how those girls, and Clara in +particular, got wind of his ideas before he had even formulated them definitely to +himself. It was also a mystery to him how they could be so tremendously interested in +matters which did not concern them.</p> + +<p>“You never mind!” Clara gibed, with a smile that was malicious, but +charmingly malicious. “I know!”</p> + +<p>She had merely seen him staring into the empty attic, and from that brief spectacle she +had by divination constructed all his plans.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>The Clayhanger sitting-room, which served as both dining-room and drawing-room, +according to the more primitive practices of those days, was over one half of the shop, +and looked on Duck Square. Owing to its northern aspect it scarcely ever saw the sun. The +furniture followed the universal fashion of horse-hair, mahogany, and wool embroidery. +There was a piano, with a high back-fretted wood over silk pleated in rays from the +centre; a bookcase whose lower part was a cupboard; a sofa; and a large leather easy-chair +which did not match the rest of the room. This easy-chair had its back to the window and +its front legs a little towards the fireplace, so that Mr Clayhanger could read his +newspaper with facility in daytime. At night the light fell a little awkwardly from the +central chandelier, and Mr Clayhanger, if he happened to be reading, would continually +shift his chair an inch or two to left or right, backwards or forwards, and would also +continually glance up at the chandelier, as if accusing it of not doing its best. A common +sight in the sitting-room was Mr Clayhanger balanced on a chair, the table having been +pushed away, screwing the newest burner into the chandelier. When he was seated in his +easy-chair the piano could not be played, because there was not sufficient space for the +stool between the piano and his chair; nor could the fire be made up without disturbing +him, because the japanned coal-box was on the same side of the hearth-rug as the chair. +Thus, when the fire languished and Mr Clayhanger neglected it, the children had either to +ask permission to step over his legs, or suggest that he should attend to the fire +himself. Occasionally, when he was in one of his gay moods, he would humorously impede the +efforts of the fire-maker with his feet, and if the fire-maker was Clara or Edwin, the +child would tickle him, which brought him to his senses and forced him to shout: +“None o’ that! None o’ that!”</p> + +<p>The position of Mr Clayhanger’s easy-chair—a detail apparently +trifling—was in reality a strongly influencing factor in the family life, for it +meant that the father’s presence obsessed the room. And it could not be altered, for +it depended on the window; the window was too small to be quite efficient. When the +children reflected upon the history of their childhood they saw one important aspect of it +as a long series of detached hours spent in the sitting-room, in a state of desire to do +something that could not be done without disturbing father, and in a state of indecision +whether or not to disturb him. If by chance, as sometimes occurred, he chose to sit on the +sofa, which was unobtrusive in the corner away from the window, between the fireplace and +the door, the room was instantly changed into something larger, freer, and less +inconvenient.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>As the hour was approaching six, Edwin, on the way downstairs, looked in at the +sitting-room for his father; but Darius was not there.</p> + +<p>“Where’s father?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Maggie, at the sewing-machine. +Maggie was aged twenty; dark, rather stout, with an expression at once benevolent and +worried. She rarely seemed to belong to the same generation as her brother and sister. She +consorted on equal terms with married women, and talked seriously of the same things as +they did. Mr Clayhanger treated her somewhat differently from the other two. Yet, though +he would often bid them accept her authority, he would now and then impair that authority +by roughly ‘dressing her down’ at the meal-table. She was a capable girl; she +had much less firmness, and much more good-nature, than she seemed to have. She could not +assert herself adequately. She ‘managed’ very well; indeed she had ‘done +wonders’ in filling the place of the mother who had died when Clara was four and +Edwin six, and she herself only ten. Responsibility, apprehension, and strained effort had +printed their marks on her features. But the majority of acquaintances were more impressed +by her good intention than by her capacity; they would call her ‘a nice +thing.’ The discerning minority, while saying with admiring conviction that she was +‘a very fine girl,’ would regret that somehow she had not the faculty of +‘making the best of herself,’ of ‘putting her best foot foremost.’ +And would they not heartily stand up for her with the superficial majority!</p> + +<p>A thin, grey-haired, dreamy-eyed woman hurried into the room, bearing a noisy tray and +followed by Clara with a white cloth. This was Mrs Nixon, the domestic staff of the +Clayhanger household for years. Clara and Mrs Nixon swept Maggie’s sewing materials +from the corner of the table on to a chair, put Maggie’s flower-glasses on to the +ledge of the bookcase, folded up the green cloth, and began rapidly to lay the tea. +Simultaneously Maggie, glancing at the clock, closed up her sewing-machine, and deposited +her work in a basket. Clara, leaving the table, stooped to pick up the bits of cotton and +white stuff that littered the carpet. The clock struck six.</p> + +<p>“Now, sharpy!” she exclaimed curtly to Edwin, who stood hesitatingly with +his hands in his pockets. “Can’t you help Maggie to push that sewing-machine +into the corner?”</p> + +<p>“What on earth’s up?” he inquired vaguely, but starting forward to +help Maggie.</p> + +<p>“<i>She’ll</i> be here in a minute,” said Maggie, almost under her +breath, as she fitted on the cover of the sewing-machine.</p> + +<p>“Who?” asked Edwin. “Oh! Auntie! I’d forgotten it was her +night.”</p> + +<p>“As if anyone could forget!” murmured Clara, with sarcastic unbelief.</p> + +<p>By this time the table was completely set.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>Edwin wondered mildly, as he often wondered, at the extremely bitter tone in which +Clara always referred to their Aunt Clara Hamps,—when Mrs Hamps was not there. Even +Maggie’s private attitude to Auntie Clara was scarcely more Christian. Mrs Hamps was +the widowed younger sister of their mother, and she had taken a certain share in the +supervision of Darius Clayhanger’s domestic affairs after the death of Mrs +Clayhanger. This latter fact might account, partially but not wholly, for the intense and +steady dislike in which she was held by Maggie, Clara, and Mrs Nixon. Clara hated her own +name because she had been ‘called after’ her auntie. Mr Clayhanger ‘got +on’ excellently with his sister-in-law. He ‘thought highly’ of her, and +was indeed proud to have her for a relative. In their father’s presence the girls +never showed their dislike of Mrs Hamps; it was a secret pleasure shared between them and +Mrs Nixon, and only disclosed to Edwin because the girls were indifferent to what Edwin +might think. They casually despised him for somehow liking his auntie, for not seeing +through her wiles; but they could count on his loyalty to themselves.</p> + +<p>“Are you ready for tea, or aren’t you?” Clara asked him. She +frequently spoke to him as if she was the elder instead of the younger.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said. “But I must find father.”</p> + +<p>He went off, but he did not find his father in the shop, and after a few futile minutes +he returned upstairs. Mrs Nixon preceded him, carrying the tea-urn, and she told him that +his father had sent word into the kitchen that they were not to ‘wait tea’ for +him.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_07"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Seven.</h3> + +<h4>Auntie Hamps.</h4> + +<p>Mrs Hamps had splendidly arrived. The atmosphere of the sitting-room was changed. +Maggie, smiling, wore her second-best black silk apron. Clara, smiling and laughing, wore +a clean long white pinafore. Mrs Nixon, with her dreamy eyes less vacant than usual, +greeted Mrs Hamps effusively, and effusively gave humble thanks for kind inquiries after +her health. A stranger might have thought that these women were strongly attached to one +another by ties of affection and respect. Edwin never understood how his sisters, +especially Maggie, could practise such vast and eternal hypocrisy with his aunt. As for +him, his aunt acted on him now, as generally, like a tonic. Some effluence from her +quickened him. He put away the worry in connection with his father, and gave himself up to +the physical pleasures of tea.</p> + +<p>Aunt Clara was a handsome woman. She had been called—but not by men whose manners +and code she would have approved—‘a damned fine woman.’ Her age was +about forty, which at that period, in a woman’s habit of mind, was the equivalent of +about fifty to-day. Her latest photograph was considered to be very successful. It showed +her standing behind a velvet chair and leaning her large but still shapely bust slightly +over the chair. Her forearms, ruffled and braceleted, lay along the fringed back of the +chair, and from one negligent hand depended a rose. A heavy curtain came downwards out of +nothing into the picture, and the end of it lay coiled and draped on the seat of the +chair. The great dress was of slate-coloured silk, with sleeves tight to the elbow, and +thence, from a ribbon-bow, broadening to a wide, triangular climax that revealed +quantities of lace at the wrists. The pointed ends of the sleeves were picked out with +squares of velvet. A short and highly ornamental fringed and looped flounce waved grandly +out behind from the waist to the level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the +ornamentation of the flounce; and both the stomacher and flounce gave contrasting value to +the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasise the quality of the silk. Round +the neck was a lace collarette to match the furniture of the wrists, and the broad ends of +the collarette were crossed on the bosom and held by a large jet brooch. Above that you +saw a fine regular face, with a firm hard mouth and a very straight nose and dark +eyebrows; small ears weighted with heavy jet ear-rings.</p> + +<p>The photograph could not render the clear perfection of Aunt Clara’s rosy skin; +she had the colour and the flashing eye of a girl. But it did justice to her really +magnificent black hair. This hair was all her own, and the coiffure seemed as ample as a +judge’s wig. From the low forehead the hair was parted exactly in the middle for +about two inches; then plaited bands crossed and recrossed the scalp in profusion, forming +behind a pattern exceedingly complicated, and down either side of the head, now behind the +ear, now hiding it, now resting on the shoulders, now hanging clear of them, fell long +multitudinous glossy curls. These curls—one of them in the photograph reached as far +as the stomacher—could not have been surpassed in Bursley.</p> + +<p>She was a woman of terrific vitality. Her dead sister had been nothing in comparison +with her. She had a glorious digestion, and was the envy of her brother-in-law—who +suffered much from biliousness—because she could eat with perfect impunity hot +buttered toast and raw celery in large quantities. Further, she had independent means, and +no children to cause anxieties. Yet she was always, as the phrase went, ‘bearing +up,’ or, as another phrase went, ‘leaning hard.’ Frances Ridley Havergal +was her favourite author, and Frances Ridley Havergal’s little book <i>Lean +Hard</i>, was kept on her dressing-table. (The girls, however, averred that she never +opened it.) Aunt Clara’s spiritual life must be imagined as a continual, almost +physical leaning on Christ. Nevertheless she never complained, and she was seldom +depressed. Her desire, and her achievement, was to be bright, to take everything +cheerfully, to look obstinately on the best side of things, and to instil this religion +into others.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Thus, when it was announced that father had been called out unexpectedly, leaving an +order that they were not to wait for him, she said gaily that they had better be obedient +and begin, though it would have been more agreeable to wait for father. And she said how +beautiful the tea was, and how beautiful the toast, and how beautiful the strawberry-jam, +and how beautiful the pikelets. She would herself pour some hot water into the slop basin, +and put a pikelet on a plate thereon, covered, to keep warm for father. She would not hear +a word about the toast being a little hard, and when Maggie in her curious quiet way +‘stuck her out’ that the toast was in fact hard, she said that that precise +degree of hardness was the degree which she, for herself, preferred. Then she talked of +jams, and mentioned gooseberry-jam, whereupon Clara privately put her tongue out, with the +quickness of a snake, to signal to Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Ours isn’t good this year,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“I told auntie we weren’t so set up with it, a fortnight ago,” said +Clara simply, like a little angel.</p> + +<p>“Did you, dear?” Mrs Hamps exclaimed, with great surprise, almost with +shocked surprise. “I’m sure it’s beautiful. I was quite looking forward +to tasting it; quite! I know what your gooseberry-jam is.”</p> + +<p>“Would you like to try it now?” Maggie suggested. “But we’ve +warned you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you <i>now</i>. We’re all so cosy here. +Any time—”</p> + +<p>“No trouble, auntie,” said Clara, with her most captivating and innocent +smile.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you talk about ‘warning’ me, of course I must insist on +having some,” said Auntie Clara.</p> + +<p>Clara jumped up, passed behind Mrs Hamps, making a contemptuous face at those curls as +she did so, and ran gracefully down to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Here,” she said crossly to Mrs Nixon. “A pot of that gooseberry, +please. A small one will do. She knows it’s short of sugar, and so she’s +determined to try it, just out of spite; and nothing will stop her.”</p> + +<p>Clara returned smiling to the tea-table, and Maggie neatly unsealed the jam; and Auntie +Clara, with a face beaming with pleasurable anticipation, helped herself circumspectly to +a spoonful.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful!” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think it’s a bit tart?” Maggie asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” protestingly.</p> + +<p>“<i>Don’t</i> you?” asked Clara, with an air of delighted deferential +astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Oh <i>no</i>!” Mrs Hamps repeated. “It’s beautiful!” She +did not smack her lips over it, because she would have considered it unladylike to smack +her lips, but by less offensive gestures she sought to convey her unbounded pleasure in +the jam. “How much sugar did you put in?” she inquired after a while. +“Half and half?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“They do say gooseberries were a tiny bit sour this year, owing to the +weather,” said Mrs Hamps reflectively.</p> + +<p>Clara kicked Edwin under the table, as it were viciously, but her delightful innocent +smile, directed vaguely upon Mrs Hamps, did not relax. Such duplicity passed Edwin’s +comprehension; it seemed to him purposeless. Yet he could not quite deny that there might +be a certain sting, a certain insinuation, in his auntie’s last remark.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Then Mr Clayhanger entered, blowing forth a long breath as if trying to repulse the +oppressive heat of the July afternoon. He came straight to the table, with a slightly +preoccupied air, quickly, his arms motionless at his sides, and slanting a little +outwards. Mr Clayhanger always walked like this, with motionless arms so that in spite of +a rather clumsy and heavy step, the upper part of him appeared to glide along. He shook +hands genially with Auntie Clara, greeting her almost as grandiosely as she greeted him, +putting on for a moment the grand manner, not without dignity. Each admired the other. +Each often said that the other was ‘wonderful.’ Each undoubtedly flattered the +other, made a fuss of the other. Mr Clayhanger’s admiration was the greater. The +bitterest thing that Edwin had ever heard Maggie say was: “It’s something to +be thankful for that she’s his deceased wife’s sister!” And she had said +the bitter thing with such quiet bitterness! Edwin had not instantly perceived the point +of it.</p> + +<p>Darius Clayhanger then sat down, with a thud, snatched at the cup of tea which Maggie +had placed before him, and drank half of it with a considerable in-drawing noise. No one +asked where or why he had been detained; it was not etiquette to do so. If father had been +‘called away,’ or had ‘had to go away,’ or was ‘kept +somewhere,’ the details were out of deference allowed to remain in mystery, +respected by curiosity ... ‘Father-business.’ ... All business was sacred. He +himself had inculcated this attitude.</p> + +<p>In a short silence the sound of the bell that the carman rang before the tram started +for Hanbridge floated in through the open window.</p> + +<p>“There’s the tram!” observed Auntie Clara, apparently with warm and +special interest in the phenomena of the tram. Then another little silence.</p> + +<p>“Auntie,” said Clara, writhing about youthfully on her chair.</p> + +<p>“Can’t ye sit still a bit?” the father asked, interrupting her +roughly, but with good humour. “Ye’ll be falling off th’ chair in a +minute.”</p> + +<p>Clara blushed swiftly, and stopped.</p> + +<p>“Yes, love?” Auntie Clara encouraged her. It was as if Auntie Clara had +said: “Your dear father is of course quite right, more than right, to insist on your +sitting properly at table. However, do not take the correction too much to heart. I +sympathise with all your difficulties.”</p> + +<p>“I was only going to ask you,” Clara went on, in a weaker, stammering +voice, “if you knew that Edwin’s left school to-day.” Her archness had +deserted her.</p> + +<p>“Mischievous little thing!” thought Edwin. “Why must she deliberately +go and draw attention to that?” And he too blushed, feeling as if he owed an apology +to the company for having left school.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” said Auntie Clara with eager benevolence. “I’ve got +something to say about that to my nephew.”</p> + +<p>Mr Clayhanger searched in a pocket of his alpaca, and drew forth an open envelope.</p> + +<p>“Here’s the lad’s report, auntie,” said he. “Happen +ye’d like to look at it.”</p> + +<p>“I should indeed!” she replied fervently. “I’m sure it’s +a very good one.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>She took the paper, and assumed her spectacles.</p> + +<p>“Conduct—Excellent,” she read, poring with enthusiasm over the +document. And she read again: “Conduct—Excellent.” Then she went down +the list of subjects, declaiming the number of marks for each; and at the end she read: +“Position in class next term: Third. Splendid, Eddy!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were second,” said Clara, in her sharp manner.</p> + +<p>Edwin blushed again, and hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Eh? What’s that? What’s that?” his father demanded. “I +didn’t notice that. Third?”</p> + +<p>“Charlie Orgreave beat me in the examination,” Edwin muttered.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s a pretty how d’ye do!” said his father. +“Going down one! Ye ought to ha’ been first instead o’ third. And would +ha’ been, happen, if ye’d pegged at it.”</p> + +<p>“Now I won’t have that! I won’t have it!” Auntie Clara +protested, laughingly showing her fine teeth and gazing first at Darius, and then at +Edwin, from under her spectacles, her head being thrown back and the curls hanging far +behind. “No one shall say that Edwin doesn’t work, not even his father, while +his auntie’s about! Because I know he does work! And besides, he hasn’t gone +down. It says, ‘position <i>next term</i>’—not this term. You were still +second to-day, weren’t you, my boy?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so. Yes,” Edwin answered, pulling himself together.</p> + +<p>“Well! There you are!” Auntie Clara’s voice rang triumphantly. She +was opening her purse. “And <i>there</i> you are!” she repeated, popping half +a sovereign down in front of him. “That’s a little present from your auntie on +your leaving school.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, auntie!” he cried feebly.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” cried Clara, genuinely startled.</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps was sometimes thus astoundingly munificent. It was she who had given the +schooner to Edwin. And her presents of elaborately enveloped and costly toilet soap on the +birthdays of the children, and at Christmas, were massive. Yet Clara always maintained +that she was the meanest old thing imaginable. And Maggie had once said that she knew that +Auntie Clara made her servant eat dripping instead of butter. To give inferior food to a +servant was to Maggie the unforgivable in parsimony.</p> + +<p>“Well,” Mr Clayhanger warningly inquired, “what do you say to your +aunt?”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, auntie,” Edwin sheepishly responded, fingering the coin.</p> + +<p>It was a princely sum. And she had stuck up for him famously in the matter of the +report. Strange that his father should not have read the report with sufficient attention +to remark the fall to third place! Anyway, that aspect of the affair was now safely over, +and it seemed to him that he had not lost much prestige by it. He would still be able to +argue with his father on terms not too unequal, he hoped.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>As the tea drew to an end, and the plates of toast, bread and butter, and tea-cake grew +emptier, and the slop-basin filled, and only Maggie’s flowers remained fresh and +immaculate amid the untidy débris of the meal; and as Edwin and Clara became +gradually indifferent to jam, and then inimical to it; and as the sounds of the street +took on the softer quality of summer evening, and the first filmy shades of twilight +gathered imperceptibly in the corners of the room, and Mr Clayhanger performed the +eructations which signified that he had had enough; so Mrs Hamps prepared herself for one +of her classic outbursts of feeling.</p> + +<p>“Well!” she said at last, putting her spoon to the left of her cup as a +final indication that seriously she would drink no more. And she gave a great sigh. +“School over! And the only son going out into the world! How time flies!” And +she gave another great sigh, implying an immense melancholy due to this vision of the +reality of things. Then she remembered her courage, and the device of leaning hard, and +all her philosophy.</p> + +<p>“But it’s all for the best!” she broke forth in a new brave tone. +“Everything is ordered for the best. We must never forget that! And I’m quite +sure that Edwin will be a very great credit to us all, with help from above.”</p> + +<p>She proceeded powerfully in this strain. She brought in God, Christ, and even the Holy +Spirit. She mentioned the dangers of the world, and the disguises of the devil, and the +unspeakable advantages of a good home, and the special goodness of Mr Clayhanger and of +Maggie, yes, and of her little Clara; and the pride which they all had in Edwin, and the +unique opportunities which he had of doing good, by example, and also, soon, by precept, +for others younger than himself would begin to look up to him; and again her personal +pride in him, and her sure faith in him; and what a solemn hour it was...</p> + +<p>Nothing could stop her. The girls loathed these exhibitions. Maggie always looked at +the table during their progress, and she felt as though she had done something wrong and +was ashamed of it. Clara not merely felt like a criminal—she felt like an +unrepentant criminal; she blushed, she glanced nervously about the room, and all the time +she repeated steadily in her heart a highly obscene word which she had heard at school. +This unspoken word, hurled soundlessly but savagely at her aunt in that innocent heart, +afforded much comfort to Clara in the affliction. Even Edwin, who was more lenient in all +ways than his sisters, profoundly deplored these moralisings of his aunt. They filled him +with a desire to run fast and far, to be alone at sea, or to be deep somewhere in the +bosom of the earth. He could not understand this side of his auntie’s individuality. +But there was no delivery from Mrs Hamps. The only person who could possibly have +delivered them seemed to enjoy the sinister thraldom. Mr Clayhanger listened with +appreciative and admiring nods; he appeared to be quite sincere. And Edwin could not +understand his father either. “How simple father must be!” he thought vaguely. +Whereas Clara fatalistically dismissed her father’s attitude as only one more of the +preposterously unreasonable phenomena which she was constantly meeting in life; and she +persevered grimly with her obscene word.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>“Eh!” said Mrs Hamps enthusiastically, after a trifling pause. “It +does me good when I think what a <i>help</i> you’ll be to your father in the +business, with that clever head of yours.”</p> + +<p>She gazed at him fondly.</p> + +<p>Now this was Edwin’s chance. He did not wish to be any help at all to his father +in the business. He had other plans for himself. He had never mentioned them before, +because his father had never talked to him about his future career, apparently assuming +that he would go into the business. He had been waiting for his father to begin. +“Surely,” he had said to himself “father’s bound to speak to me +sometime about what I’m going to do, and when he does I shall just tell him.” +But his father never had begun; and by timidity, negligence, and perhaps ill-luck, Edwin +had thus arrived at his last day at school with the supreme question not merely unsolved +but unattacked. Oh he blamed himself! Any ordinary boy (he thought) would have discussed +such a question naturally long ago. After all, it was not a crime, it was no cause for +shame, to wish not to be a printer. Yet he was ashamed! Absurd! He blamed himself. But he +also blamed his father. Now, however, in responding to his auntie’s remark, he could +remedy all the past by simply and boldly stating that he did not want to follow his +father. It would be unpleasant, of course, but the worst shock would be over in a moment, +like the drawing of a tooth. He had merely to utter certain words. He must utter them. +They were perfectly easy to say, and they were also of the greatest urgency. “I +don’t want to be a printer.” He mumbled them over in his mind. “I +don’t want to be a printer.” What could it matter to his father whether he was +a printer or not? Seconds, minutes, seemed to pass. He knew that if he was so +inconceivably craven as to remain silent, his self-respect would never recover from the +blow. Then, in response to Mrs Hamps’s prediction about his usefulness to his father +in the business, he said, with a false-jaunty, unconvinced, unconvincing air—</p> + +<p>“Well, that remains to be seen.”</p> + +<p>This was all he could accomplish. It seemed as if he had looked death itself in the +face, and drawn away.</p> + +<p>“Remains to be <i>seen</i>?” Auntie Clara repeated, with a hint of startled +pain, due to this levity.</p> + +<p>He was mute. No one suspected, as he sat there, so boyish, wistful, and uneasily +squirming, that he was agonised to the very centre of his being. All the time, in his +sweating soul, he kept trying to persuade himself: “I’ve given them a hint, +anyhow! I’ve given them a hint, anyhow!”</p> + +<p>“Them” included everybody at the table.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>Mr Clayhanger, completely ignoring Edwin’s reply to his aunt and her somewhat +shocked repetition of it, turned suddenly towards his son and said, in a manner friendly +but serious, a manner that assumed everything, a manner that begged the question, +unconscious even that there was a question—</p> + +<p>“I shall be out the better part o’ to-morrow. I want ye to be sure to be in +the shop all afternoon—I’ll tell you what for downstairs.” It was +characteristic of him thus to make a mystery of business in front of the women.</p> + +<p>Edwin felt the net closing about him. Then he thought of one of those +‘posers’ which often present themselves to youths of his age.</p> + +<p>“But to-morrow’s Saturday,” he said, perhaps perkily. “What +about the Bible class?”</p> + +<p>Six months previously a young minister of the Wesleyan Circuit, to whom Heaven had +denied both a sense of humour and a sense of honour, had committed the infamy of starting +a Bible class for big boys on Saturday afternoons. This outrage had appalled and disgusted +the boyhood of Wesleyanism in Bursley. Their afternoon for games, their only fair +afternoon in the desert of the week, to be filched from them and used against them for +such an odious purpose as a Bible class! Not only Sunday school on Sunday afternoon, but a +Bible class on Saturday afternoon! It was incredible. It was unbearable. It was gross +tyranny, and nothing else. Nevertheless the young minister had his way, by dint of meanly +calling upon parents and invoking their help. The scurvy worm actually got together a +class of twelve to fifteen boys, to the end of securing their eternal welfare. And they +had to attend the class, though they swore they never would, and they had to sing hymns, +and they had to kneel and listen to prayers, and they had to listen to the most +intolerable tedium, and to take notes of it. All this, while the sun was shining, or the +rain was raining, on fields and streets and open spaces and ponds!</p> + +<p>Edwin had been trapped in the snare. His father, after only three words from the young +minister, had yielded up his son like a burnt sacrifice—and with a casual +nonchalance that utterly confounded Edwin. In vain Edwin had pointed out to his elders +that a Saturday afternoon of confinement must be bad for his health. His attention had +been directed to his eternal health. In vain he had pointed out that on wet Saturday +afternoons he frequently worked at his home-lessons, which therefore might suffer under +the régime of a Bible class. His attention had been directed to the peace which +passeth understanding. So he had been beaten, and was secretly twitted by Clara as an +abject victim. Hence it was with a keen and peculiar feeling of triumph, of hopelessly +cornering the inscrutable generation which a few months ago had cornered him, that he +demanded, perhaps perkily: “What about the Bible class?”</p> + +<p>“There’ll be no more Bible classing,” said his father, with a mild +but slightly sardonic smile, as who should say: “I’m ready to make all +allowances for youth; but I must get you to understand, as gently as I can, that you +can’t keep on going to Bible classes for ever and ever.”</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps said—</p> + +<p>“It won’t be as if you were at school. But I do hope you won’t +neglect to study your Bible. Eh, but I do hope you’ll always find time for that, to +your dying day!”</p> + +<p>“Oh—but I say—” Edwin began, and stopped.</p> + +<p>He was beaten by the mere effrontery of the replies. His father and his aunt (the +latter of whom at any rate was a firm and confessed religionist, who had been responsible +for converting Mr Clayhanger from Primitive Methodism to Wesleyan Methodism) did not +trouble to defend their new position by argument. They made no effort to reconcile it with +their position of a few months back, when the importance of heavenly welfare far exceeded +the importance of any conceivable earthly welfare. The fact was that they had no argument. +If God took precedence of knowledge and of health, he took precedence of a peddling shop! +That was unanswerable.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Eight.</h4> + +<p>Edwin was dashed. His faith in humanity was dashed. These elders were not sincere. And +as Mrs Hamps continued to embroider the original theme of her exhortation about the Bible, +Edwin looked at her stealthily, and the doubt crossed his mind whether that majestic and +vital woman was ever sincere about anything, even to herself—whether the whole of +her daily existence, from her getting-up to her down-lying, was not a grandiose +pretence.</p> + +<p>Not that he had the least desire to cling to the Bible class, even as an alternative to +the shop! No! He was much relieved to be rid of the Bible class. What overset him was the +crude illogicality of the new decree, and the shameless tacit admission of previous +insincerity.</p> + +<p>Two hours later, as he stood idly at the window of his bedroom, watching the gas lamps +of Trafalgar Road wax brighter in the last glooms of twilight, he was still occupied with +the sham and the unreason and the lack of scruple suddenly revealed in the life of the +elder generation. Unconsciously imitating a trick of his father’s when annoyed but +calm, he nodded his head several times, and with his tongue against his teeth made the +noise which in writing is represented by ‘tut-tut.’ Yet somehow he had always +known that it would be so. At bottom, he was only pretending to himself to be shocked and +outraged.</p> + +<p>His plans were no further advanced; indeed they were put back, for this Saturday +afternoon vigil in the shop would be in some sort a symbolic temporary defeat for him. Why +had he not spoken out clearly? Why was he always like a baby in presence of his father? +The future was all askew for him. He had forgotten his tremendous serious resolves. The +touch of the half-sovereign in his pocket, however, was comforting in a universe of +discomfort.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_08"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Eight.</h3> + +<h4>In the Shop.</h4> + +<p>“Here, lad!” said his father to Edwin, as soon as he had scraped up the +last crumbs of cheese from his plate at the end of dinner on the following day.</p> + +<p>Edwin rose obediently and followed him out of the room. Having waited at the top of the +stairs until his father had reached the foot, he leaned forward as far as he could with +one hand on the rail and the other pressing against the wall, swooped down to the mat at +the bottom, without touching a single step on the way, and made a rocket-like noise with +his mouth. He had no other manner of descending the staircase, unless he happened to be in +disgrace. His father went straight to the desk in the corner behind the account-book +window, assumed his spectacles, and lifted the lid of the desk.</p> + +<p>“Here!” he said, in a low voice. “Mr Enoch Peake is stepping in this +afternoon to look at this here.” He displayed the proof—an unusually elaborate +wedding card, which announced the marriage of Mr Enoch Peake with Mrs Louisa Loggerheads. +“Ye know him as I mean?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin, “The stout man. The Cocknage Gardens +man.”</p> + +<p>“That’s him. Well ye’ll tell him I’ve been called away. Tell +him who ye are. Not but what he’ll know. Tell him I think it might be +better”—Darius’s thick finger ran along a line of print—“if +we put—‘widow of the late Simon Loggerheads Esquire,’ instead +of—‘Esq.’ See? Otherwise it’s all right. Tell him I say as +otherwise it’s all right. And ask him if he’ll have it printed in silver, and +how many he wants, and show him this sample envelope. Now, d’ye +understand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin, in a tone to convey, not disrespectfully, that there was +nothing to understand. Curious, how his father had the air of bracing all his intellect as +if to a problem!</p> + +<p>“Then ye’ll take it to Big James, and he can start Chawner on it. Th’ +job’s promised for Monday forenoon.”</p> + +<p>“Will Big James be working?” asked Edwin, for it was Saturday afternoon, +when, though the shop remained open, the printing office was closed.</p> + +<p>“They’re all on overtime,” said Mr Clayhanger; and then he added, in +a voice still lower, and with a surreptitious glance at Miss Ingamells, the shop-woman, +who was stolidly enfolding newspapers in wrappers at the opposite counter, “See to +it yourself, now. He won’t want to talk to <i>her</i> about a thing like that. Tell +him I told you specially. Just let me see how well ye can do it.”</p> + +<p>“Right!” said Edwin; and to himself, superciliously: “It might be +life and death.”</p> + +<p>“We ought to be doing a lot o’ business wi’ Enoch Peake, later +on,” Mr Clayhanger finished, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Edwin, impressed, perceiving that he had perhaps been +supercilious too soon.</p> + +<p>Mr Clayhanger returned his spectacles to their case, and taking his hat from its +customary hook behind him, over the job-files, consulted his watch and passed round the +counter to go. Then he stopped.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to Manchester,” he murmured confidentially. “To see +if I can pick up a machine as I’ve heard of.”</p> + +<p>Edwin was flattered. At the dinner-table Mr Clayhanger had only vouchsafed that he had +a train to catch, and would probably not be in till late at night.</p> + +<p>The next moment he glimpsed Darius through the window, his arms motionless by his sides +and sticking slightly out; hurrying in the sunshine along Wedgwood Street in the direction +of Shawport station.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>So this was business! It was not the business he desired and meant to have; and he was +uneasy at the extent to which he was already entangled in it; but it was rather amusing, +and his father had really been very friendly. He felt a sense of importance.</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards Clara ran into the shop to speak to Miss Ingamells. The two chatted and +giggled together.</p> + +<p>“Father’s gone to Manchester,” he found opportunity to say to Clara +as she was leaving.</p> + +<p>“Why aren’t you doing those prizes he told you to do?” retorted +Clara, and vanished, She wanted none of Edwin’s superior airs.</p> + +<p>During dinner Mr Clayhanger had instructed his son to go through the Sunday school +prize stock and make an in<i>ven</i>tory of it.</p> + +<p>This injunction from the child Clara, which Miss Ingamells had certainly overheard, +prevented him, as an independent man, from beginning his work for at least ten minutes. He +whistled, opened his father’s desk and stared vacantly into it, examined the pen-nib +case in detail, and tore off two leaves from the date calendar so that it should be ready +for Monday. He had a great scorn for Miss Ingamells, who was a personable if somewhat +heavy creature of twenty-eight, because she kept company with a young man. He had caught +them arm-in-arm and practically hugging each other, one Sunday afternoon in the street. He +could see naught but silliness in that kind of thing.</p> + +<p>The entrance of a customer caused him to turn abruptly to the high shelves where the +books were kept. He was glad that the customer was not Mr Enoch Peake, the expectation of +whose arrival made him curiously nervous. He placed the step-ladder against the shelves, +climbed up, and began to finger volumes and parcels of volumes. The dust was incredible. +The disorder filled him with contempt. It was astounding that his father could tolerate +such disorder; no doubt the whole shop was in the same condition. “Thirteen +Archie’s Old Desk,” he read on a parcel, but when he opened the parcel he +found seven “From Jest to Earnest.” Hence he had to undo every parcel. +However, the work was easy. He first wrote the inventory in pencil, then he copied it in +ink; then he folded it, and wrote very carefully on the back, because his father had a +mania for endorsing documents in the legal manner: “Inventory of Sunday school prize +stock.” And after an instant’s hesitation he added his own initials. Then he +began to tie up and restore the parcels and the single volumes. None of all this +literature had any charm for him. He possessed five or six such books, all gilt and +chromatic, which had been awarded to him at Sunday school, ‘suitably +inscribed,’ for doing nothing in particular; and he regarded them without exception +as frauds upon boyhood. However, Clara had always enjoyed reading them. But lying flat on +one of the top shelves he discovered, nearly at the end of his task, an oblong tome which +did interest him: “Cazenove’s Architectural Views of European Capitals, with +descriptive letterpress.” It had an old-fashioned look, and was probably some relic +of his father’s predecessor in the establishment. Another example of the lack of +order which prevailed!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He took the volume to the retreat of the desk, and there turned over its pages of +coloured illustrations. At first his interest in them, and in the letterpress, was less +instinctive than deliberate. He said to himself: “Now, if there is anything in me, I +ought really to be interested in this, and I must be interested in it.” And he was. +He glanced carelessly at the clock, which was hung above the shelves of exercise-books and +notebooks, exactly opposite the door. A quarter past four. The afternoon was quietly +passing, and he had not found it too tedious. In the background of the task which (he +considered) he had accomplished with extraordinary efficiency, his senses noted faintly +the continual trickle of customers, all of whom were infallibly drawn to Miss +Ingamells’s counter by her mere watchful and receptive appearance. He had heard +phrases and ends of phrases, such as: “No, we haven’t anything smaller,” +“A camel-hair brush,” “Gum but not glue,” “Very sorry, sir. +I’ll speak firmly to the paper boy,” and the sound of coins dragged along the +counter, the sound of the testing of half a sovereign, the opening and shutting of the +till-drawer; and occasionally Miss Ingamells exclaiming to herself upon the stupidity of +customers after a customer had gone; and once Miss Ingamells crossing angrily to fix the +door ajar which some heedless customer had closed: “Did they suppose that people +didn’t want air like other people?” And now it was a quarter past four. +Undoubtedly he had a peculiar, and pleasant, feeling of importance. In another half-minute +he glanced at the clock again, and it was a quarter to five.</p> + +<p>What hypnotism attracted him towards the artists’ materials cabinet which stood +magnificent, complicated, and complete in the middle of the shop, like a monument? His +father, after one infantile disastrous raid, had absolutely forbidden any visitation of +that cabinet, with its glass case of assorted paints, crayons, brushes and pencils, and +its innumerable long drawers full of paper and cards and wondrous perfectly equipped +boxes, and T-squares and set-squares, with a hundred other contrivances. But of course the +order had now ceased to have force. Edwin had left school; and, if he was not a man, he +was certainly not a boy. He began to open the drawers, at first gingerly, then boldly; +after all it was no business of Miss Ingamells’s! And, to be just, Miss Ingamells +made no sort of pretence that it was any business of hers. She proceeded with her own +business. Edwin opened a rather large wooden water-colour box. It was marked five and +sixpence. It seemed to comprise everything needed for the production of the most +entrancing and majestic architectural views, and as Edwin took out its upper case and +discovered still further marvellous devices and apparatus in its basement beneath, he +dimly but passionately saw, in his heart, bright masterpieces that ought to be the fruit +of that box. There was a key to it. He must have it. He would have given all that he +possessed for it, if necessary.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“Miss Ingamells,” he said: and, as she did not look up immediately, +“I say, Miss Ingamells! How much does father take off in the shilling to auntie when +she buys anything?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask <i>me</i>, Master Edwin,” said Miss Ingamells; +“<i>I</i> don’t know. How should I know?”</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” he muttered, “I shall pay full price for +it—that’s all.” He could not wait, and he wanted to be on the safe +side.</p> + +<p>Miss Ingamells gave him change for his half-sovereign in a strictly impartial manner, +to indicate that she accepted no responsibility. And the squaring of Edwin’s +shoulders conveyed to Miss Ingamells that he advised her to keep carefully within her own +sphere, and not to make impertinent inquiries about the origin of the half-sovereign, +which he could see intrigued her acutely. He now owned the box; it was not a box of +colours, but a box of enchantment. He had had colour-boxes before, but nothing to compare +with this, nothing that could have seemed magical to anybody wiser than a very small boy. +Then he bought some cartridge-paper; he considered that cartridge-paper would be good +enough for preliminary experiments.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>It was while he was paying for the cartridge-paper—he being, as was indeed +proper, on the customers’ side of the counter—that a heavy loutish boy in an +apron entered the shop, blushing. Edwin turned away. This was Miss Ingamells’s +affair.</p> + +<p>“If ye please, Mester Peake’s sent me. He canna come in this +afternoon—he’s got a bit o’ ratting on—and will Mester Clayhanger +step across to th’ Dragon to-night after eight, with that there peeper (paper) as he +knows on?”</p> + +<p>At the name of Peake, Edwin started. He had utterly forgotten the matter.</p> + +<p>“Master Edwin,” said Miss Ingamells drily. “You know all about that, +don’t you?” Clearly she resented that he knew all about that while she +didn’t.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Yes,” Edwin stammered. “What did you say?” It was his +first piece of real business.</p> + +<p>“If you please, Mester Peake sent me.” The messenger blundered through his +message again word for word.</p> + +<p>“Very well. I’ll attend to it,” said Edwin, as nonchalantly as he +could.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he was at a loss what to do, simple though the situation might have seemed +to a person with an experience of business longer than Edwin’s. Just as three hours +previously his father had appeared to be bracing all his intellect to a problem that +struck Edwin as entirely simple, so now Edwin seemed to be bracing all his intellect to +another aspect of the same problem. Time, revenging his father! ... What! Go across to the +Dragon and in cold blood demand Mr Enoch Peake, and then parley with Mr Enoch Peake as one +man with another! He had never been inside the Dragon. He had been brought up in the +belief that the Dragon was a place of sin. The Dragon was included in the generic +term—‘gin-palace,’ and quite probably in the Siamese-twin +term—‘gaming-saloon.’ Moreover, to discuss business with Mr Enoch +Peake... Mr Enoch Peake was as mysterious to Edwin as, say, a Chinese mandarin! Still, +business was business, and something would have to be done. He did not know what. Ought he +to go to the Dragon? His father had not foreseen the possibility of this development. He +instantly decided one fundamental: he would not consult Miss Ingamells; no, nor even +Maggie! There remained only Big James. He went across to see Big James, who was calmly +smoking a pipe on the little landing at the top of the steps leading to the printing +office.</p> + +<p>Big James showed no astonishment.</p> + +<p>“You come along o’ me to the Dragon to-night, young sir, at eight +o’clock, or as soon after as makes no matter, and I’ll see as you see Mr Enoch +Peake. I shall be coming up Woodisun Bank at eight o’clock, or as soon after as +makes no matter. You be waiting for me at the back gates there, and I’ll see as you +see Mr Enoch Peake.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going to the Dragon?”</p> + +<p>“Am I going to the Dragon, young sir!” exclaimed Big James, in his majestic +voice.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_09"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Nine.</h3> + +<h4>The Town.</h4> + +<p>James Yarlett was worthy of his nickname. He stood six feet four and a half inches in +height, and his girth was proportionate; he had enormous hands and feet, large features, +and a magnificent long dark brown beard; owing to this beard his necktie was never seen. +But the most magnificent thing about him was his bass voice, acknowledged to be the finest +bass in the town, and one of the finest even in Hanbridge, where, in his earlier prime, +James had lived as a ‘news comp’ on the “Staffordshire Signal.” He +was now a ‘jobbing comp’ in Bursley, because Bursley was his native town and +because he preferred jobbing. He made the fourth and heaviest member of the celebrated +Bursley Male Glee Party, the other three being Arthur Smallrice, an old man with a +striking falsetto voice, Abraham Harracles, and Jos Rawnpike (pronounced Rampick). These +men were accustomed to fame, and Big James was the king of them, though the mildest. They +sang at dinners, free-and-easies, concerts, and Martinmas tea-meetings. They sang for the +glory, and when there was no demand for their services, they sang to themselves, for the +sake of singing. Each of them was a star in some church or chapel choir. And except Arthur +Smallrice, they all shared a certain elasticity of religious opinion. Big James, for +example, had varied in ten years from Wesleyan, through Old Church, to Roman Catholic up +at Bleakridge. It all depended on niceties in the treatment accorded to him, and on the +choice of anthems. Moreover, he liked a change.</p> + +<p>He was what his superiors called ‘a very superior man.’ Owing to the more +careful enunciation required in singing, he had lost a great deal of the Five Towns +accent, and one cannot be a compositor for a quarter of a century without insensibly +acquiring an education and a store of knowledge far excelling the ordinary. His manner was +gentle, and perhaps somewhat pompous, as is common with very big men; but you could never +be sure whether an extremely subdued humour did not underlie his pomposity. He was a +bachelor, aged forty-five, and lived quietly with a married sister at the bottom of +Woodisun Bank, near the National Schools. The wonder was that, with all his advantages, he +had not more deeply impressed himself upon Bursley as an individuality, and not merely as +a voice. But he seemed never to seek to do so. He was without ambition; and, though +curiously careful sometimes about preserving his own dignity, and beyond question +sensitive by temperament, he showed marked respect, and even humility, to the +worldly-successful. Despite his bigness and simplicity there was something small about him +which came out in odd trifling details. Thus it was characteristic of Big James to ask +Edwin to be waiting for him at the back gates in Woodisun Bank when he might just as +easily have met him at the side door by the closed shop in Wedgwood Street.</p> + +<p>Edwin, who from mere pride had said nothing to his sisters about the impending visit to +the Dragon, was a little surprised and dashed to see Big James in broadcloth and a high +hat; for he had not dreamed of changing his own everyday suit, nor had it occurred to him +that the Dragon was a temple of ceremoniousness. Big James looked enormous. The wide lapel +of his shining frock-coat was buttoned high up under his beard and curved downwards for a +distance of considerably more than a yard to his knees: it was a heroic frock-coat. The +sleeves were wide, but narrowing at the wrists, and the white wristbands were very tight. +The trousers fell in ample folds on the uppers of the gigantic boots. Big James had a way +of sticking out his chest and throwing his head back which would have projected the tip of +his beard ten inches forth from his body, had the beard been stiff; but the soft silkiness +of the beard frustrated this spectacular phenomenon, which would have been very interesting +to witness.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The pair stepped across Trafalgar Road together, Edwin, though he tried to be sedate, +nothing but a frisking morsel by the side of the vast monument. Compared with the +architectural grandeur of Mr Varlett, his thin, supple, free-moving limbs had an almost +pathetic appearance of ephemeral fragility.</p> + +<p>Big James directed himself to the archway leading to the Dragon stables, and there he +saw an ostler or oddman. Edwin, feeling the imminence of an ordeal, surreptitiously +explored a pocket to be sure that the proof of the wedding-card was safely there.</p> + +<p>The ostler raised his reddish eyebrows to Big James. Big James jerked his head to one +side, indicating apparently the entire Dragon, and simultaneously conveying a query. The +ostler paused immobile an instant and then shook his insignificant turnip-pate. Big James +turned away. No word had been spoken; nevertheless, the men had exchanged a dialogue which +might be thus put into words—</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t thinking to see ye so soon,” from the ostler.</p> + +<p>“Then nobody of any importance has yet gone into the assembly room?” from +Big James.</p> + +<p>“Nobody worth speaking of, and won’t, for a while,” from the +other.</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll take a turn,” from Big James.</p> + +<p>The latter now looked down at Edwin, and addressed him in words—</p> + +<p>“Seemingly we’re too soon, Mr Edwin. What do you say to a turn round the +town—playground way? I doubted we should be too soon.”</p> + +<p>Edwin showed alacrity. As a schoolboy it had been definitely forbidden to him to go out +at night; and unless sent on a special and hurried errand, he had scarcely seen the +physiognomy of the streets after eight o’clock. He had never seen the playground in +the evening. And this evening the town did not seem like the same town; it had become a +new and mysterious town of adventure. And yet Edwin was not fifty yards away from his own +bedroom.</p> + +<p>They ascended Duck Bank together, Edwin proud to be with a celebrity of the calibre of +Big James, and Big James calmly satisfied to show himself thus formally with his +master’s son. It appeared almost incredible that those two immortals, so diverse, +had issued from the womb practically alike; that a few brief years on the earth had given +Big James such a tremendous physical advantage. Several hours’ daily submission to +the exact regularities of lines of type and to the unvarying demands of minutely adjusted +machines in motion had stamped Big James’s body and mind with the delicate and +quasi-finicking preciseness which characterises all compositors and printers; and the +continual monotonous performance of similar tasks that employed his faculties while never +absorbing or straining them, had soothed and dulled the fever of life in him to a +beneficent calm, a calm refined and beautified by the pleasurable exercise of song. Big +James had seldom known a violent emotion. He had craved nothing, sought for nothing, and +lost nothing.</p> + +<p>Edwin, like Big James in progress from everlasting to everlasting, was all inchoate, +unformed, undisciplined, and burning with capricious fires; all expectant, eager, +reluctant, tingling, timid, innocently and wistfully audacious. By taking the boy’s +hand, Big James might have poetically symbolised their relation.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“Are you going to sing to-night at the Dragon, Mr Yarlett?” asked Edwin. He +lengthened his step to Big James’s, controlled his ardent body, and tried to +remember that he was a man with a man.</p> + +<p>“I am, young sir,” said Big James. “There is a party of +us.”</p> + +<p>“Is it the Male Glee Party?” Edwin pursued.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr Edwin.”</p> + +<p>“Then Mr Smallrice will be there?”</p> + +<p>“He will, Mr Edwin.”</p> + +<p>“Why can Mr Smallrice sing such high notes?”</p> + +<p>Big James slowly shook his head, as Edwin looked up at him. “I tell you what it +is, young sir. It’s a gift, that’s what it is, same as I can sing +low.”</p> + +<p>“But Mr Smallrice is very old, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a parrot in a cage over at the Duck, there, as is eighty-five +years old, and that’s proved by record kept, young sir.”</p> + +<p>“No!” protested Edwin’s incredulity politely.</p> + +<p>“By record kept,” said Big James.</p> + +<p>“Do you often sing at the Dragon, Mr Yarlett?”</p> + +<p>“Time was,” said Big James, “when some of us used to sing there every +night, Sundays excepted, and concerts and whatnot excepted. Aye! For hours and hours every +night. And still do sometimes.”</p> + +<p>“After your work?”</p> + +<p>“After our work. Aye! And often till dawn in summer. One o’clock, two +o’clock, half-past two o’clock, every night. But now they say that this new +Licensing Act will close every public-house in this town at eleven o’clock, and a +straight-up eleven at that!”</p> + +<p>“But what do you do it for?”</p> + +<p>“What do we do it for? We do it to pass the time and the glass, young sir. Not as +I should like you to think as I ever drank, Mr Edwin. One quart of ale I take every night, +and have ever done; no more, no less.”</p> + +<p>“But”—Edwin’s rapid, breaking voice interrupted eagerly the +deep majestic tones—“aren’t you tired the next day? <i>I</i> should +be!”</p> + +<p>“Never,” said Big James. “I get up from my bed as fresh as a daisy at +six sharp. And I’ve known the nights when my bed ne’er saw me.”</p> + +<p>“You must be strong, Mr Yarlett, my word!” Edwin exclaimed. These +revelations of the habits and prowess of Big James astounded him. He had never suspected +that such things went on in the town.</p> + +<p>“Aye! Middling!”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s a free-and-easy at the Dragon, to-night, Mr +Yarlett?”</p> + +<p>“In a manner of speaking,” said Big James.</p> + +<p>“I wish I could stay for it.”</p> + +<p>“And why not?” Big James suggested, and looked down at Edwin with +half-humorous incertitude.</p> + +<p>Edwin shrugged his shoulders superiorly, indicating by instinct, in spite of himself, +that possibly Big James was trespassing over the social line that divided them. And yet +Big James’s father would have condescended to Edwin’s grandfather. Only, Edwin +now belonged to the employing class, whilst Big James belonged to the employed. Already +Edwin, whose father had been thrashed by workmen whom a compositor would hesitate to call +skilled—already Edwin had the mien natural to a ruler, and Big James, with dignified +deference, would submit unresentingly to his attitude. It was the subtlest thing. It was +not that Edwin obscurely objected to the suggestion of his being present at the +free-and-easy; it was that he objected (but nicely, and with good nature) to any +assumption of Big James’s right to influence him towards an act that his father +would not approve. Instead of saying, “Why not?” Big James ought to have said: +“Nobody but you can decide that, as your father’s away.” James ought to +have been strictly impartial.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“Well,” said Big James, when they arrived at the playground, which lay +north of the covered Meat Market or Shambles, “it looks as if they hadn’t been +able to make a start yet at the Blood Tub.” His tone was marked by a calm, grand +disdain, as of one entertainer talking about another.</p> + +<p>The Blood Tub, otherwise known as Snaggs’s, was the centre of nocturnal pleasure +in Bursley. It stood almost on the very spot where the jawbone of a whale had once lain, +as a supreme natural curiosity. It represented the softened manners which had developed +out of the old medievalism of the century. It had supplanted the bear-pit and the +cock-pit. It corresponded somewhat with the ideals symbolised by the new Town Hall. In the +tiny odorous beer-houses of all the undulating, twisting, reddish streets that surrounded +the contiguous open spaces of Duck Bank, the playground, the market-place, and Saint +Luke’s Square, the folk no longer discussed eagerly what chance on Sunday morning +the municipal bear would have against five dogs. They had progressed as far as a free +library, boxing-gloves, rabbit-coursing, and the Blood Tub.</p> + +<p>This last was a theatre with wooden sides and a canvas roof, and it would hold quite a +crowd of people. In front of it was a platform, and an orchestra, lighted by oil flares +that, as Big James and Edwin approached, were gaining strength in the twilight. Leaning +against the platform was a blackboard on which was chalked the announcement of two plays: +“The Forty Thieves” (author unstated) and Cruikshank’s “The +Bottle.” The orchestra, after terrific concussions, fell silent, and then a troupe +of players in costume, cramped on the narrow trestle boards, performed a sample scene from +“The Forty Thieves,” just to give the crowd in front an idea of the wonders of +this powerful work. And four thieves passed and repassed behind the screen hiding the +doors, and reappeared nine times as four fresh thieves until the tale of forty was +complete. And then old Hammerad, the beloved clown who played the drum (and whose wife +kept a barber’s shop in Buck Row and shaved for a penny), left his drum and did two +minutes’ stiff clowning, and then the orchestra burst forth again, and the brazen +voice of old Snaggs (in his moleskin waistcoat) easily rode the storm, adjuring the folk +to walk up and walk up: which some of the folk did do. And lastly the band played +“God Save the Queen,” and the players, followed by old Snaggs, processionally +entered the booth.</p> + +<p>“I lay they come out again,” said Big James, with grim blandness.</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Edwin. He was absolutely new to the scene.</p> + +<p>“I lay they haven’t got twenty couple inside,” said Big James.</p> + +<p>And in less than a minute the troupe did indeed emerge, and old Snaggs expostulated +with a dilatory public, respectfully but firmly. It had been a queer year for Mr Snaggs. +Rain had ruined the Wakes; rain had ruined everything; rain had nearly ruined him. July +was obviously not a month in which a self-respecting theatre ought to be open, but Mr +Snaggs had got to the point of catching at straws. He stated that in order to prove his +absolute <i>bona fides</i> the troupe would now give a scene from that world-renowned and +unique drama, “The Bottle,” after which the performance really would commence, +since he could not as a gentleman keep his kind patrons within waiting any longer. His +habit, which emphasised itself as he grew older, was to treat the staring crowd in front +of his booth like a family of nephews and nieces. The device was quite useless, for the +public’s stolidity was impregnable. It touched the heroic. No more granitic and +crass stolidity could have been discovered in England. The crowd stood; it exercised no +other function of existence. It just stood, and there it would stand until convinced that +the gratis part of the spectacle was positively at an end.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>With a ceremonious gesture signifying that he assumed the young sir’s consent, +Big James turned away. He had displayed to Edwin the poverty and the futility of the Blood +Tub. Edwin would perhaps have liked to stay. The scenes enacted on the outer platform were +certainly tinged with the ridiculous, but they were the first histrionics that he had ever +witnessed; and he could not help thinking, hoping, in spite of his common sense, that +within the booth all was different, miraculously transformed into the grand and the +impressive. Left to himself, he would surely have preferred an evening at the Blood Tub to +a business interview with Mr Enoch Peake at the Dragon. But naturally he had to scorn the +Blood Tub with a scorn equal to the massive and silent scorn of Big James. And on the +whole he considered that he was behaving as a man with another man rather well. He sought +by depreciatory remarks to keep the conversation at its proper adult level.</p> + +<p>Big James led him through the market-place, where a few vegetable, tripe, and +gingerbread stalls—relics of the day’s market—were still attracting +customers in the twilight. These slatternly and picturesque groups, beneath their +flickering yellow flares, were encamped at the gigantic foot of the Town Hall porch as at +the foot of a precipice. The monstrous black walls of the Town Hall rose and were merged +in gloom; and the spire of the Town Hall, on whose summit stood a gold angel holding a +gold crown, rose right into the heavens and was there lost. It was marvellous that this +town, by adding stone to stone, had upreared this monument which, in expressing the secret +nobility of its ideals, dwarfed the town. On every side of it the beer-houses, full of a +dulled, savage ecstasy of life, gleamed brighter than the shops. Big James led Edwin down +through the mysteries of the Cock Yard and up along Bugg’s Gutter, and so back to +the Dragon.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_10"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Ten.</h3> + +<h4>Free and Easy.</h4> + +<p>When Edwin, shyly, followed Big James into the assembly room of the Dragon, it already +held a fair sprinkling of men, and newcomers continued to drop in. They were soberly and +respectably clothed, though a few had knotted handkerchiefs round their necks instead of +collars and ties. The occasion was a jollity of the Bursley Mutual Burial Club. This Club, +a singular example of that dogged private co-operative enterprise which so sharply +distinguishes English corporate life from the corporate life of other European countries, +had lustily survived from a period when men were far less sure of a decent burial than +they were then, in the very prosperous early seventies. It had helped to maintain the +barbaric fashion of ostentatiously expensive funerals, out of which undertakers and +beer-sellers made vast sums; but it had also provided a basis of common endeavour and of +fellowship. And its respectability was intense, and at the same time broad-minded. To be +an established subscriber to the Burial Club was evidence of good character and of social +spirit. The periodic jollities of this company of men whose professed aim was to bury each +other, had a high reputation for excellence. Up till a year previously they had always +been held at the Duck, in Duck Square, opposite; but Mr Enoch Peake, Chairman of the Club, +had by persistent and relentless chicane, triumphing over immense influences, changed +their venue to the Dragon, whose landlady, Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, he was then courting. +(It must be stated that Mrs Louisa’s name contained no slur of cantankerousness; it +is merely the local word for a harmless plant, the knapweed.) He had now won Mrs +Loggerheads, after being a widower thrice, and with her the second best +‘house’ in the town.</p> + +<p>There were long benches down the room, with forms on either side of them. Big James, +not without pomp, escorted a blushing Edwin to the end of one of these tables, near a +small raised platform that occupied the extremity of the room. Over this platform was +printed a legend: “As a bird is known by its note—”; and over the legend +was a full-rigged ship in a glass case, and a pair of antlers. The walls of the room were +dark brown, the ceiling grey with soot of various sorts, and the floor tiled red-and-black +and sanded. Smoke rose in spirals from about a score of churchwarden pipes and as many +cutties, which were charged from tin pouches, and lighted by spills of newspaper from the +three double gas-jets that hung down over the benches. Two middle-aged women, one in black +and the other checked, served beer, porter, and stout in mugs, and gin in glasses, passing +in and out through a side door. The company talked little, and it had not yet begun +seriously to drink; but, sprawled about in attitudes of restful abeyance, it was smoking +religiously, and the flat noise of solemn expectorations punctuated the minutes. Edwin was +easily the youngest person present—the average age appeared to be about +fifty—but nobody’s curiosity seemed to be much stirred by his odd arrival, and +he ceased gradually to blush. When, however, one of the women paused before him in silent +question, and he had to explain that he required no drink because he had only called for a +moment about a matter of business, he blushed again vigorously.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Then Mr Enoch Peake appeared. He was a short, stout old man, with fat hands, a red, +minutely wrinkled face, and very small eyes. Greeted with the respect due to the owner of +Cocknage Gardens, a sporting resort where all the best foot-racing and rabbit-coursing +took place, he accepted it in somnolent indifference, and immediately took off his coat +and sat down in cotton shirt-sleeves. Then he pulled out a red handkerchief and his +tobacco-box, and set them on the table. Big James motioned to Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Evening, Mr Peake,” said Big James, crossing the floor, “and +here’s a young gent wishful for two words with you.”</p> + +<p>Mr Peake stared vacantly.</p> + +<p>“Young Mr Clayhanger,” explained Big James.</p> + +<p>“It’s about this card,” Edwin began, in a whisper, drawing the +wedding-card sheepishly from his pocket. “Father had to go to Manchester,” he +added, when he had finished.</p> + +<p>Mr Enoch Peake seized the card in both hands, and examined it; and Edwin could hear his +heavy breathing.</p> + +<p>Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, a comfortable, smiling administrative woman of fifty, showed +herself at the service-door, and nodded with dignity to a few of the habitués.</p> + +<p>“Missis is at door,” said Big James to Mr Peake.</p> + +<p>“Is her?” muttered Mr Peake, not interrupting his examination of the +card.</p> + +<p>One of the serving-women, having removed Mr Peake’s coat, brought a new church +warden, filled it, and carefully directed the tip towards his tight little mouth: the lips +closed on it. Then she lighted a spill and applied it to the distant bowl, and the mouth +puffed; and then the woman deposited the bowl cautiously on the bench. Lastly, she came +with a small glass of sloe gin. Mr Peake did not move.</p> + +<p>At length Mr Peake withdrew the pipe from his mouth, and after an interval +said—</p> + +<p>“Aye!”</p> + +<p>He continued to stare at the card, now held in one hand.</p> + +<p>“And is it to be printed in silver?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>Mr Peake took a few more puffs.</p> + +<p>“Aye!”</p> + +<p>When he had stared further for a long time at the card, his hand moved slowly with it +towards Edwin, and Edwin resumed possession of it.</p> + +<p>Mrs Louisa Loggerheads had now vanished.</p> + +<p>“Missis has gone,” said Big James.</p> + +<p>“Has her?” muttered Mr Peake.</p> + +<p>Edwin rose to leave, though unwillingly; but Big James asked him in polite reproach +whether he should not stay for the first song. He nodded, encouraged; and sat down. He did +not know that the uppermost idea in Big James’s mind for an hour past had been that +Edwin would hear him sing.</p> + +<p>Mr Peake lifted his glass, held it from him, approached his lips towards it, and +emptied it at a draught. He then glanced round and said thickly—</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen all, Mester Smallrice, Mester Harracles, Mester Rampick, and Mester +Yarlett will now oblige with one o’ th’ ould favourites.”</p> + +<p>There was some applause, a few coats were removed, and Mr Peake fixed himself in a +contemplative attitude.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Messrs Arthur Smallrice, Abraham Harracles, Jos Rawnpike, and James Yarlett rose, +stepped heavily on to the little platform, and stood in a line with their hands in their +pockets. “As a bird is known by its note—” was hidden by the rampart of +their shoulders. They had no music. They knew the music; they had sung it a thousand +times. They knew precisely the effects which they wished to produce, and the means of +production. They worked together like an inspired machine. Mr Arthur Smallrice gave a +rapid glance into a corner, and from that corner a concertina spoke—one short note. +Then began, with no hesitating shuffling preliminaries nor mute consultations, the singing +of that classic quartet, justly celebrated from Hull to Wigan and from Northallerton to +Lichfield, “Loud Ocean’s Roar.” The thing was performed with absolute +assurance and perfection. Mr Arthur Smallrice did the yapping of the short waves on the +foam-veiled rocks, and Big James in fullest grandeur did the long and mighty rolling of +the deep. It was majestic, terrific, and overwhelming. Many bars before the close Edwin +was thrilled, as by an exquisite and vast revelation. He tingled from head to foot. He had +never heard any singing like it, or any singing in any way comparable to it. He had never +guessed that song held such possibilities of emotion. The pure and fine essential +qualities of the voices, the dizzying harmonies, the fugal calls and responses, the +strange relief of the unisons, and above all the free, natural mien of the singers, +proudly aware that they were producing something beautiful that could not be produced more +beautifully, conscious of unchallenged supremacy,—all this enfevered him to an +unprecedented and self-astonished enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>He murmured under his breath, as “Loud Ocean’s Roar” died away and +the little voices of the street supervened: “By Gad! By Gad!”</p> + +<p>The applause was generous. Edwin stamped and clapped with childlike violence and fury. +Mr Peake slowly and regularly thumped one fist on the bench, puffing the while. Glasses +and mugs could be seen, but not heard, dancing. Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, +Mr Jos Rawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, entirely inattentive to the acclamations, stepped +heavily from the platform and sat down. When Edwin caught Big James’s eye he clapped +again, reanimating the general approval, and Big James gazed at him with bland +satisfaction. Mr Enoch Peake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as +immobile and brooding as an Indian god.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Edwin did not depart. He reflected that, even if his father should come home earlier +than the last train and prove curious, it would be impossible for him to know the exact +moment at which his son had been able to have speech with Mr Enoch Peake on the important +matter of business. For aught his father could ever guess he might have been prevented +from obtaining the attention of the chairman of the proceedings until, say, eleven +o’clock. Also, he meant to present his conduct to his father in the light of an +enterprising and fearless action showing a marked aptitude for affairs. Mr Enoch Peake, +whom his father was anxious to flatter, had desired his father’s company at the +Dragon, and, to save the situation, Edwin had courageously gone instead: that was it.</p> + +<p>Besides, he would have stayed in any case. His mind was elevated above the fear of +consequences.</p> + +<p>There was some concertina-playing, with a realistic imitation of church bells borne on +the wind from a distance; and then the Bursley Prize Handbell Ringers (or Campanologists) +produced a whole family of real bells from under a form, and the ostler and the two women +arranged a special table, and the campanologists fixed their bells on it and themselves +round it, and performed a selection of Scotch and Irish airs, without once deceiving +themselves as to the precise note which a chosen bell would emit when duly shaken.</p> + +<p>Singular as was this feat, it was far less so than a young man’s performance of +the ophicleide, a serpentine instrument that coiled round and about its player, and when +breathed into persuasively gave forth prodigious brassy sounds that resembled the +night-noises of beasts of prey. This item roused the Indian god from his umbilical +contemplations, and as the young ophicleide player, somewhat breathless, passed down the +room with his brazen creature in his arms, Mr Enoch Peake pulled him by the +jacket-tail.</p> + +<p>“Eh!” said Mr Enoch Peake. “Is that the ophicleide as thy father used +to play at th’ owd church?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr Peake,” said the young man, with bright respect.</p> + +<p>Mr Peake dropped his eyes again, and when the young man had gone, he murmured, to his +stomach—</p> + +<p>“I well knowed it were th’ ophicleide as his father used to play at +th’ owd church!” And suddenly starting up, he continued hoarsely, +“Gentlemen all, Mr James Yarlett will now kindly oblige with ‘The Miller of +the Dee.’” And one of the women relighted his pipe and served him with +beer.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>Big James’s rendering of “The Miller of the Dee” had been renowned in +the Five Towns since 1852. It was classical, hallowed. It was the only possible rendering +of “The Miller of the Dee.” If the greatest bass in the world had come +incognito to Bursley and sung “The Miller of the Dee,” people would have said, +“Ah! But ye should hear Big James sing it!” It suited Big James. The +sentiments of the song were his sentiments; he expressed them with natural simplicity; but +at the same time they underwent a certain refinement at his hands; for even when he sang +at his loudest Big James was refined, natty, and restrained. His instinctive +gentlemanliness was invincible and all-pervading. And the real beauty and enormous power +of his magnificent voice saved him by its mere distinction from the charge of being +finicking. The simple sound of the voice gave pleasure. And the simple production of that +sound was Big James’s deepest joy. Amid all the expected loud applause the giant +looked naïvely for Edwin’s boyish mad enthusiasm, and felt it; and was +thrilled, and very glad that he had brought Edwin. As for Edwin, Edwin was humbled that he +should have been so blind to what Big James was. He had always regarded Big James as a +dull, decent, somewhat peculiar fellow in a dirty apron, who was his father’s +foreman. He had actually talked once to Big James of the wonderful way in which Maggie and +Clara sang, and Big James had been properly respectful. But the singing of Maggie and +Clara was less than nothing, the crudest amateurism, compared to these public performances +of Big James’s. Even the accompanying concertina was far more cleverly handled than +the Clayhanger piano had ever been handled. Yes, Edwin was humbled. And he had a great +wish to be able to do something brilliantly himself—he knew not what. The +intoxication of the desire for glory was upon him as he sat amid those shirt-sleeved men, +near the brooding Indian god, under a crawling bluish canopy of smoke, gazing absently at +the legend: “As a bird is known by its note—”</p> + +<p>After an interval, during which Mr Enoch Peake was roused more than once, a man with a +Lancashire accent recited a poem entitled “The Patent Hairbrushing Machine,” +the rotary hairbrush being at that time an exceedingly piquant novelty that had only been +heard of in the barbers’ shops of the Five Towns, though travellers to Manchester +could boast that they had sat under it. As the principle of the new machine was easily +grasped, and the sensations induced by it easily imagined, the recitation had a success +which was indicated by slappings of thighs and great blowings-off of mirth. But Mr Enoch +Peake preserved his tranquillity throughout it, and immediately it was over he announced +with haste—</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen all, Miss Florence Simcox—or shall us say Mrs Offlow, wife of +the gentleman who has just obliged—the champion female clog-dancer of the Midlands, +will now oblige.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>These words put every man whom they surprised into a state of unusual animation; and +they surprised most of the company. It may be doubted whether a female clog-dancer had +ever footed it in Bursley. Several public-houses possessed local champions—of a +street, of a village—but these were emphatically not women. Enoch Peake had arranged +this daring item in the course of his afternoon’s business at Cocknage Gardens, Mr +Offlow being an expert in ratting terriers, and Mrs Offlow happening to be on a tour with +her husband through the realms of her championship, a tour which mingled the varying +advantages derivable from terriers, recitations, and clogs. The affair was therefore +respectable beyond cavil.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless when Florence shone suddenly at the service-door, the shortness of her +red-and-black velvet skirts, and the undeniable complete visibility of her rounded calves +produced an uneasy and agreeable impression that Enoch Peake, for a chairman of the Mutual +Burial Club, had gone rather far, superbly far, and that his moral ascendancy over Louisa +Loggerheads must indeed be truly astonishing. Louisa now stood gravely behind the dancer, +in the shadow of the doorway, and the contrast between her and Florence was in every way +striking enough to prove what a wonderful and mysterious man Enoch Peake was. Florence was +accustomed to audiences. She was a pretty, doll-like woman, if inclined to amplitude; but +the smile between those shaking golden ringlets had neither the modesty nor the false +modesty nor the docility that Bursley was accustomed to think proper to the face of woman. +It could have stared down any man in the place, except perhaps Mr Peake.</p> + +<p>The gestures of Mr Offlow, and her gestures, as he arranged and prepared the surface of +the little square dancing-board that was her throne, showed that he was the husband of +Florence Simcox rather than she the wife of Offlow the reciter and dog-fancier. Further, +it was his rôle to play the concertina to her: he had had to learn the +concertina—possibly a secret humiliation for one whose judgement in terriers was not +excelled in many public-houses.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>She danced; and the service-doorway showed a vista of open-mouthed scullions. There was +no sound in the room, save the concertina and the champion clogs. Every eye was fixed on +those clogs; even the little eyes of Mr Peake quitted the button of his waistcoat and +burned like diamond points on those clogs. Florence herself chiefly gazed on those clogs, +but occasionally her nonchalant petulant gaze would wander up and down her bare arms and +across her bosom. At intervals, with her ringed fingers she would lift the short +skirt—a nothing, an imperceptibility, half an inch, with glance downcast; and the +effect was profound, recondite, inexplicable. Her style was not that of a male +clog-dancer, but it was indubitably clog-dancing, full of marvels to the connoisseur, and +to the profane naught but a highly complicated series of wooden noises. Florence’s +face began to perspire. Then the concertina ceased playing, so that an undistracted +attention might be given to the supremely difficult final figures of the dance.</p> + +<p>And thus was rendered back to the people in the charming form of beauty that which the +instinct of the artist had taken from the sordid ugliness of the people. The clog, the +very emblem of the servitude and the squalor of brutalised populations, was changed, on +the light feet of this favourite, into the medium of grace. Few of these men but at some +time of their lives had worn the clog, had clattered in it through winter’s slush, +and through the freezing darkness before dawn, to the manufactory and the mill and the +mine, whence after a day of labour under discipline more than military, they had clattered +back to their little candle-lighted homes. One of the slatterns behind the doorway +actually stood in clogs to watch the dancer. The clog meant everything that was harsh, +foul, and desolating; it summoned images of misery and disgust. Yet on those feet that had +never worn it seriously, it became the magic instrument of pleasure, waking dulled wits +and forgotten aspirations, putting upon everybody an enchantment... And then, suddenly, +the dancer threw up one foot as high as her head and brought two clogs down together like +a double mallet on the board, and stood still. It was over.</p> + +<p>Mrs Louisa Loggerheads turned nervously away, pushing her servants in front of her. And +when the society of mutual buriers had recovered from the startling shameless insolence of +that last high kick, it gave the rein to its panting excitement, and roared and stamped. +Edwin was staggered. The blood swept into his face, a hot tide. He was ravished, but he +was also staggered. He did not know what to think of Florence, the champion female +clog-dancer. He felt that she was wondrous; he felt that he could have gazed at her all +night; but he felt that she had put him under the necessity of reconsidering some of his +fundamental opinions. For example, he was obliged to admit within himself a lessening of +scorn for the attitude toward each other of Miss Ingamells and her young man. He saw those +things in a new light. And he reflected, dazzled by the unforeseen chances of existence: +“Yesterday I was at school—and to-day I see this!” He was so preoccupied +by his own intimate sensations that the idea of applauding never occurred to him, until he +perceived his conspicuousness in not applauding, whereupon he clapped +self-consciously.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Eight.</h4> + +<p>Miss Florence Simcox, somewhat breathless, tripped away, with simulated coyness and +many curtseys. She had done her task, and as a woman she had to go: this was a gathering +of members of the Mutual Burial Club, a masculine company, and not meet for females. The +men pulled themselves together, remembering that their proudest quality was a stoic +callousness that nothing could overthrow. They refilled pipes, ordered more beer, and +resumed the mask of invulnerable solemnity.</p> + +<p>“Aye!” muttered Mr Enoch Peake.</p> + +<p>Edwin, with a great effort, rose and walked out. He would have liked to say good night +to Big James; he did not deny that he ought to have done so; but he dared not complicate +his exit. On the pavement outside, in the warm damp night, a few loitering listeners stood +doggedly before an open window, hearkening, their hands deep in their pockets, motionless. +And Edwin could hear Mr Enoch Peake: “Gentlemen all, Mester Arthur Smallrice, Mester +Abraham Harracles, Mester Jos Rampick, and Mester James Yarlett—”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_11"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Eleven.</h3> + +<h4>Son and Father.</h4> + +<p>Later that evening, Edwin sat at a small deal table in the embrasure of the dormer +window of the empty attic next to his bedroom. During the interval between tea and the +rendezvous with Big James he had formally planted his flag in that room. He had swept it +out with a long-brush, while Clara stood at the door giggling at the spectacle and telling +him that he had no right thus to annex territory in the absence of the overlord. He had +mounted a pair of steps, and put a lot of lumber through a trap at the head of the stairs +into the loft. And he had got a table, a lamp, and a chair. That was all that he needed +for the moment. He had gone out to meet Big James with his head quite half-full of this +vague attic-project, but the night sights of Bursley, and especially the music at the +Dragon, and still more especially the dancing at the Dragon, had almost expelled the +attic-project from his head. When he returned unobtrusively into the house and learnt from +a disturbed Mrs Nixon, who was sewing in the kitchen, that he was understood to be in his +new attic, and that his sisters had gone to bed, the enchantment of the attic had +instantly resumed much of its power over him, and he had hurried upstairs fortified with a +slice of bread and half a cold sausage. He had eaten the food absently in gulps while +staring at the cover of “Cazenove’s Architectural Views of European +Capitals,” abstracted from the shop without payment. Then he had pinned part of a +sheet of cartridge-paper on an old drawing-board which he possessed, and had sat down. For +his purpose the paper ought to have been soaked and stretched on the board with paste, but +that would have meant a delay of seven or eight hours, and he was not willing to wait. +Though he could not concentrate his mind to begin, his mind could not be reconciled to +waiting. So he had decided to draw his picture in pencil outline, and then stretch the +paper early on Sunday morning; it would dry during chapel. His new box of paints, a +cracked T-square, and some india-rubber also lay on the table.</p> + +<p>He had chosen “View of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame Paris, from the Pont des +Arts.” It pleased him by the coloration of the old houses in front of Notre-Dame, +and the reflections in the water of the Seine, and the elusive blueness of the twin towers +amid the pale grey clouds of a Parisian sky. A romantic scene! He wanted to copy it +exactly, to recreate it from beginning to end, to feel the thrill of producing each +wonderful effect himself. Yet he sat inactive. He sat and vaguely gazed at the slope of +Trafalgar Road with its double row of yellow jewels, beautifully ascending in fire to the +ridge of the horizon and there losing itself in the deep and solemn purple of the summer +night; and he thought how ugly and commonplace all that was, and how different from all +that were the noble capitals of Europe. Scarcely a sound came through the open window; +song doubtless still gushed forth at the Dragon, and revellers would not for hours awake +the street on their way to the exacerbating atmosphere of home.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>He had no resolution to take up the pencil. Yet after the Male Glee Party had sung +“Loud Ocean’s Roar,” he remembered that he had had a most clear and +distinct impulse to begin drawing architecture at once, and to do something grand and +fine, as grand and fine as the singing, something that would thrill people as the singing +thrilled. If he had not rushed home instantly it was solely because he had been held back +by the stronger desire to hear more music and by the hope of further novel and exciting +sensations. But Florence the clog-dancer had easily diverted the seeming-powerful current +of his mind. He wanted as much as ever to do wondrous things, and to do them soon, but it +appeared to him that he must think out first the enigmatic subject of Florence. Never had +he seen any female creature as he saw her, and ephemeral images of her were continually +forming and dissolving before him. He could come to no conclusion at all about the subject +of Florence. Only his boyish pride was gradually being beaten back by an oncoming idea +that up to that very evening he had been a sort of rather silly kid with no eyes in his +head.</p> + +<p>It was in order to ignore for a time this unsettling and humiliating idea that, +finally, he began to copy the outlines of the Parisian scene on his cartridge-paper. He +was in no way a skilled draughtsman, but he had dabbled in pencils and colours, and he had +lately picked up from a handbook the hint that in blocking out a drawing the first thing +to do was to observe what points were vertically under what points, and what points +horizontal with what points. He seemed to see the whole secret of draughtsmanship in this +priceless counsel, which, indeed, with an elementary knowledge of geometry acquired at +school, and the familiarity of his fingers with a pencil, constituted the whole of his +technical equipment. All the rest was mere desire. Happily the architectural nature of the +subject made it more amenable than, say, a rural landscape to the use of a T-square and +common sense. And Edwin considered that he was doing rather well until, quitting +measurements and rulings, he arrived at the stage of drawing the detail of the towers. +Then at once the dream of perfect accomplishment began to fade at the edges, and the crust +of faith to yield ominously. Each stroke was a falling-away from the ideal, a blow to +hope.</p> + +<p>And suddenly a yawn surprised him, and recalled him to the existence of his body. He +thought: “I can’t really be tired. It would be absurd to go to bed.” For +his theory had long been that the notions of parents about bedtime were indeed absurd, and +that he would be just as thoroughly reposed after three hours sleep as after ten. And now +that he was a man he meant to practise his theory so far as circumstances allowed. He +looked at his watch. It was turned half-past eleven. A delicious wave of joy and of +satisfaction animated him. He had never been up so late, within his recollection, save on +a few occasions when even infants were allowed to be up late. He was alone, secreted, +master of his time and his activity, his mind charged with novel impressions, and a +congenial work in progress. Alone? ... It was as if he was spiritually alone in the vast +solitude of the night. It was as if he could behold the unconscious forms of all humanity, +sleeping. This feeling that only he had preserved consciousness and energy, that he was +the sole active possessor of the mysterious night, affected him in the most exquisite +manner. He had not been so nobly happy in his life. And at the same time he was proud, in +a childlike way, of being up so late.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He heard the door being pushed open, and he gave a jump and turned his head. His father +stood in the entrance to the attic.</p> + +<p>“Hello, father!” he said weakly, ingratiatingly.</p> + +<p>“What art doing at this time o’ night, lad?” Darius Clayhanger +demanded.</p> + +<p>Strange to say, the autocrat was not angered by the remarkable sight in front of him. +Edwin knew that his father would probably come home from Manchester on the mail train, +which would stop to set down a passenger at Shawport by suitable arrangement. And he had +expected that his father would go to bed, as usual on such evenings, after having eaten +the supper left for him in the sitting-room. His father’s bedroom was next door to +the sitting-room. Save for Mrs Nixon in a distant nook, Edwin had the attic floor to +himself. He ought to have been as safe from intrusion there as in the farthest capital of +Europe. His father did not climb the attic stairs once in six months. So that he had +regarded himself as secure. Still, he must have positively forgotten the very existence of +his father; he must have been ‘lost,’ otherwise he could not but have heard +the footsteps on the stairs.</p> + +<p>“I was just drawing,” said Edwin, with a little more confidence.</p> + +<p>He looked at his father and saw an old man, a man who for him had always been old, +generally harsh, often truculent, and seldom indulgent. He saw an ugly, undistinguished, +and somewhat vulgar man (far less dignified, for instance, than Big James); a man who had +his way by force and scarcely ever by argument; a man whose arguments for or against a +given course were simply pitiable, if not despicable. He sometimes indeed thought that +there must be a peculiar twist in his father’s brain which prevented him from +appreciating an adverse point in a debate; he had ceased to expect that his father would +listen to reason. Latterly he was always surprised when, as to-night, he caught a glance +of mild benevolence on that face; yet he would never fail to respond to such a mood +eagerly, without resentment. It might be said that he regarded his father as he regarded +the weather, fatalistically. No more than against the weather would he have dreamed of +bearing malice against his father, even had such a plan not been unwise and dangerous. He +was convinced that his father’s interest in him was about the same as the +sun’s interest in him. His father was nearly always wrapped in business affairs, and +seemed to come to the trifling affairs of Edwin with difficulty, as out of an absorbing +engrossment.</p> + +<p>Assuredly he would have been amazed to know that his father had been thinking of him +all the afternoon and evening. But it was so. Darius Clayhanger had been nervous as to the +manner in which the boy would acquit himself in the bit of business which had been +confided to him. It was the boy’s first bit of business. Straightforward as it was, +the boy might muddle it, might omit a portion of it, might say the wrong thing, might +forget. Darius hoped for the best, but he was afraid. He saw in his son an amiable +irresponsible fool. He compared Edwin at sixteen with himself at the same age. Edwin had +never had a care, never suffered a privation, never been forced to think for himself. +(Darius might more justly have put it—never been allowed to think for himself.) +Edwin had lived in cotton-wool, and knew less of the world than his father had known at +half his years; much less. Darius was sure that Edwin had never even come near suspecting +the miracles which his father had accomplished: this was true, and not merely was Edwin +stupendously ignorant, and even pettily scornful, of realities, but he was ignorant of his +own ignorance. Education! ... Darius snorted. To Darius it seemed that Edwin’s +education was like lying down in an orchard in lovely summer and having ripe fruit dropped +into your mouth... A cocky infant! A girl! And yet there was something about Edwin that +his father admired, even respected and envied ... an occasional gesture, an attitude in +walking, an intonation, a smile. Edwin, his own son, had a personal distinction that he +himself could never compass. Edwin talked more correctly than his father. He thought +differently from his father. He had an original grace. In the essence of his being he was +superior to both his father and his sisters. Sometimes when his father saw him walking +along the street, or coming into a room, or uttering some simple phrase, or shrugging his +shoulders, Darius was aware of a faint thrill. Pride? Perhaps; but he would never have +admitted it. An agreeable perplexity rather—a state of being puzzled how he, so +common, had begotten a creature so subtly aristocratic ... aristocratic was the word. And +Edwin seemed so young, fragile, innocent, and defenceless!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Darius advanced into the attic.</p> + +<p>“What about that matter of Enoch Peake’s?” he asked, hoping and +fearing, really anxious for his son. He defended himself against probable disappointment +by preparing to lapse into savage paternal pessimism and disgust at the futility of an +offspring nursed in luxury.</p> + +<p>“Oh! It’s all right,” said Edwin eagerly. “Mr Peake sent word +he couldn’t come, and he wanted you to go across to the Dragon this evening. So I +went instead.” It sounded dashingly capable.</p> + +<p>He finished the recital, and added that of course Big James had not been able to +proceed with the job.</p> + +<p>“And where’s the proof?” demanded Darius. His relief expressed itself +in a superficial surliness; but Edwin was not deceived. As his father gazed mechanically +at the proof that Edwin produced hurriedly from his pocket, he added with a negligent +air—</p> + +<p>“There was a free-and-easy on at the Dragon, father.”</p> + +<p>“Was there?” muttered Darius.</p> + +<p>Edwin saw that whatever danger had existed was now over.</p> + +<p>“And I suppose,” said Darius, with assumed grimness, “if I +hadn’t happened to ha’ seen a light from th’ bottom o’ th’ +attic stairs I should never have known aught about all this here?” He indicated the +cleansed attic, the table, the lamp, and the apparatus of art.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, you would, father!” Edwin reassured him.</p> + +<p>Darius came nearer. They were close together, Edwin twisted on the cane-chair, and his +father almost over him. The lamp smelt, and gave off a stuffy warmth; the open window, +through which came a wandering air, was a black oblong; the triangular side walls of the +dormer shut them intimately in; the house slept.</p> + +<p>“What art up to?”</p> + +<p>The tone was benignant. Edwin had not been ordered abruptly off to bed, with a +reprimand for late hours and silly proceedings generally. He sought the reason in vain. +One reason was that Darius Clayhanger had made a grand bargain at Manchester in the +purchase of a second-hand printing machine.</p> + +<p>“I’m copying this,” he replied slowly, and then all the details +tumbled rashly out of his mouth, one after the other. “Oh, father! I found this book +in the shop, packed away on a top shelf, and I want to borrow it. I only want to borrow +it. And I’ve bought this paint-box, out of auntie’s half-sovereign. I paid +Miss Ingamells the full price... I thought I’d have a go at some of these +architecture things.”</p> + +<p>Darius glared at the copy.</p> + +<p>“Humph!”</p> + +<p>“It’s only just started, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Them prize books—have ye done all that?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, father.”</p> + +<p>“And put all the prices down, as I told ye?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, father.”</p> + +<p>Then a pause. Edwin’s heart was beating hard.</p> + +<p>“I want to do some of these architecture things,” he repeated. No remark +from his father. Then he said, fastening his gaze intensely on the table: “You know, +father, what I should really like to be—I should like to be an architect.”</p> + +<p>It was out. He had said it.</p> + +<p>“Should ye?” said his father, who attached no importance of any kind to +this avowal of a preference. “Well, what you want is a bit o’ business +training for a start, I’m thinking.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course!” Edwin concurred, with pathetic eagerness, and added a +piece of information for his father: “I’m only sixteen, aren’t +I?”</p> + +<p>“Sixteen ought to ha’ been in bed this two hours and more. Off with +ye!”</p> + +<p>Edwin retired in an extraordinary state of relief and happiness.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_12"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Twelve.</h3> + +<h4>Machinery.</h4> + +<p>Rather more than a week later, Edwin had so far entered into the life of his +father’s business that he could fully share the excitement caused by an impending +solemnity in the printing office. He was somewhat pleased with himself, and especially +with his seriousness. The memory of school was slipping away from him in the most +extraordinary manner. His only school-friend, Charlie Orgreave, had departed, with all the +multitudinous Orgreaves, for a month in Wales. He might have written to the Sunday; the +Sunday might have written to him: but the idea of writing did not occur to either of them; +they were both still sufficiently childlike to accept with fatalism all the consequences +of parental caprice. Orgreave senior had taken his family to Wales; the boys were thus +separated, and there was an end of it. Edwin regretted this, because Orgreave senior +happened to be a very successful architect, and hence there were possibilities of getting +into an architectural atmosphere. He had never been inside the home of the Sunday, nor the +Sunday in his—a schoolboy friendship can flourish in perfect independence of +home—but he nervously hoped that on the return of the Orgreave regiment from Wales, +something favourable to his ambitions—he knew not what—would come to pass. In +the meantime he was conscientiously doing his best to acquire a business training, as his +father had suggested. He gave himself with an enthusiasm almost religious to the study of +business methods. All the force of his resolve to perfect himself went for the moment into +this immediate enterprise, and he was sorry that business methods were not more complex, +mysterious, and original than they seemed to be: he was also sorry that his father did not +show a greater interest in his industry and progress.</p> + +<p>He no longer wanted to ‘play’ now. He despised play. His unique wish was to +work. It struck him as curious and delightful that he really enjoyed work. Work had indeed +become play. He could not do enough work to satisfy his appetite. And after the work of +the day, scorning all silly notions about exercise and relaxation, he would spend the +evening in his beautiful new attic, copying designs, which he would sometimes rise early +to finish. He thought he had conquered the gross body, and that it was of no account. Even +the desolating failures which his copies invariably proved did not much discourage him; +besides, one of them had impressed both Maggie and Clara. He copied with laborious ardour +undiminished. And further, he masterfully appropriated Maggie’s ticket for the Free +Library, pending the preliminaries to the possession of a ticket of his own, to procure a +volume on architecture. From timidity, from a singular false shame, he kept this volume in +the attic, like a crime; nobody knew what the volume was. Evidence of a strange trait in +his character; a trait perhaps not defensible! He argued with himself that having told his +father plainly that he wanted to be an architect, he need do nothing else aggressive for +the present. He had agreed to the suggestion about business training, and he must be loyal +to his agreement. He pointed out to himself how right his father was. At sixteen one could +scarcely begin to be an architect; it was too soon; and a good business training would not +be out of place in any career or profession.</p> + +<p>He was so wrapped up in his days and his nights that he forgot to inquire why +earthenware was made in just the Five Towns. He had grown too serious for +trifles—and all in about a week! True, he was feeling the temporary excitement of +the printing office, which was perhaps expressed boyishly by the printing staff; but he +reckoned that his share of it was quite adult, frowningly superior, and in a strictly +business sense justifiable and even proper.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Darius Clayhanger’s printing office was a fine example of the policy of makeshift +which governed and still governs the commercial activity of the Five Towns. It consisted +of the first floor of a nondescript building which stood at the bottom of the irregularly +shaped yard behind the house and shop, and which formed the southern boundary of the +Clayhanger premises. The antique building had once been part of an old-fashioned +pot-works, but that must have been in the eighteenth century. Kilns and chimneys of all +ages, sizes, and tints rose behind it to prove that this part of the town was one of the +old manufacturing quarters. The ground-floor of the building, entirely inaccessible from +Clayhanger’s yard, had a separate entrance of its own in an alley that branched off +from Woodisun Bank, ran parallel to Wedgwood Street, and stopped abruptly at the back gate +of a saddler’s workshop. In the narrow entry you were like a creeping animal amid +the undergrowth of a forest of chimneys, ovens, and high blank walls. This ground-floor +had been a stable for many years; it was now, however, a baker’s storeroom. Once +there had been an interior staircase leading from the ground-floor to the first-floor, but +it had been suppressed in order to save floor space, and an exterior staircase constructed +with its foot in Clayhanger’s yard. To meet the requirement of the staircase, one of +the first-floor windows had been transformed into a door. Further, as the staircase came +against one of the ground-floor windows, and as Clayhanger’s predecessor had +objected to those alien windows overlooking his yard, and as numerous windows were anyhow +unnecessary to a stable, all the ground-floor windows had been closed up with oddments of +brick and tile, giving to the wall a very variegated and chequered appearance. Thus the +ground-floor and the first-floor were absolutely divorced, the former having its entrance +and light from the public alley, the latter from the private yard.</p> + +<p>The first-floor had been a printing office for over seventy years. All the machinery in +it had had to be manoeuvred up the rickety stairs, or put through one of the windows on +either side of the window that had been turned into a door. When Darius Clayhanger, in his +audacity, decided to print by steam, many people imagined that he would at last be +compelled to rent the ground-floor or to take other premises. But no! The elasticity of +the makeshift policy was not yet fully stretched. Darius, in consultation with a jobbing +builder, came happily to the conclusion that he could ‘manage,’ that he could +‘make things do,’ by adding to the top of his stairs a little landing for an +engine-shed. This was done, and the engine and boiler perched in the air; the shaft of the +engine went through the wall; the chimney-pipe of the boiler ran up straight to the level +of the roof-ridge, and was stayed with pieces of wire. A new chimney had also been pierced +in the middle of the roof, for the uses of a heating stove. The original chimneys had been +allowed to fall into decay. Finally, a new large skylight added interest to the roof. In a +general way, the building resembled a suit of clothes that had been worn, during four of +the seven ages of man, by an untidy husband with a tidy and economical wife, and then +given by the wife to a poor relation of a somewhat different figure to finish. All that +could be said of it was that it survived and served.</p> + +<p>But these considerations occurred to nobody.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Edwin, quite unaware that he was an instrument in the hands of his Auntie Clara’s +Providence, left the shop without due excuse and passed down the long blue-paved yard +towards the printing office. He imagined that he was being drawn thither simply by his own +curiosity—a curiosity, however, which he considered to be justifiable, and even +laudable. The yard showed signs that the unusual had lately been happening there. Its +brick pavement, in the narrow branch of it that led to the double gates in Woodisun Bank +(those gates which said to the casual visitor, ‘No Admittance except on +Business’), was muddy, littered, and damaged, as though a Juggernaut had passed that +way. Ladders reclined against the walls. Moreover, one of the windows of the office had +been taken out of its frame, leaving naught but an oblong aperture. Through this aperture +Edwin could see the busy, eager forms of his father, Big James, and Chawner. Through this +aperture had been lifted, in parts and by the employment of every possible combination of +lever and pulley, the printing machine which Darius Clayhanger had so successfully +purchased in Manchester on the day of the free-and-easy at the Dragon.</p> + +<p>At the top of the flight of steps two apprentices, one nearly ‘out of his +time,’ were ministering to the engine, which that morning did not happen to be +running. The engine, giving glory to the entire establishment by virtue of the imposing +word ‘steam’, was a crotchety and capricious thing, constant only in its +tendency to break down. No more reliance could be placed on it than on a pampered donkey. +Sometimes it would run, and sometimes it would not run, but nobody could safely prophesy +its moods. Of the several machines it drove but one, the grand cylinder, the last triumph +of the ingenuity of man, and even that had to be started by hand before the engine would +consent to work it. The staff hated the engine, except during those rare hours when one of +its willing moods coincided with a pressure of business. Then, when the steam was +sputtering and the smoke smoking and the piston throbbing, and the leathern belt +travelling round and round and the complete building a-tremble and a-clatter, and an +attendant with clean hands was feeding the sheets at one end of the machine and another +attendant with clean hands taking them off at the other, all at the rate of twenty copies +per sixty seconds—then the staff loved the engine and meditated upon the wonders of +their modern civilisation. The engine had been known to do its five thousand in an +afternoon, and its horse-power was only one.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Edwin could not keep out of the printing office. He went inconspicuously and, as it +were, by accident up the stone steps, and disappeared into the interior. When you entered +the office you were first of all impressed by the multiplicity of odours competing for +your attention, the chief among them being those of ink, oil, and paraffin. Despite the +fact that the door was open and one window gone, the smell and heat in the office on that +warm morning were notable. Old sheets of the “Manchester Examiner” had been +pinned over the skylight to keep out the sun, but, as these were torn and rent, the sun +was not kept out. Nobody, however, seemed to suffer inconvenience. After the odours, the +remarkable feature of the place was the quantity of machinery on its uneven floor. Timid +employés had occasionally suggested to Darius that the floor might yield one day +and add themselves and all the machinery to the baker’s stores below; but Darius +knew that floors never did yield.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the floor was a huge and heavy heating stove, whose pipe ran straight +upwards to the visible roof. The mighty cylinder machine stood to the left hand. Behind +was a small rough-and-ready binding department with a guillotine cutting machine, a +cardboard-cutting machine, and a perforating machine, trifles by the side of the cylinder, +but still each of them formidable masses of metal heavy enough to crush a horse; the +cutting machines might have served to illustrate the French Revolution, and the +perforating machine the Holy Inquisition.</p> + +<p>Then there was what was called in the office the ‘old machine,’ a relic of +Clayhanger’s predecessor, and at least eighty years old. It was one of those +machines whose worn physiognomies, full of character, show at once that they have a +history. In construction it carried solidity to an absurd degree. Its pillars were like +the piles of a pier. Once, in a historic rat-catching, a rat had got up one of them, and a +piece of smouldering brown paper had done what a terrier could not do. The machine at one +period of its career had been enlarged, and the neat seaming of the metal was an ecstasy +to the eye of a good workman. Long ago, it was known, this machine had printed a Reform +newspaper at Stockport. Now, after thus participating in the violent politics of an age +heroic and unhappy, it had been put to printing small posters of auctions and +tea-meetings. Its movement was double: first that of a handle to bring the bed under the +platen, and second, a lever pulled over to make contact between the type and the paper. It +still worked perfectly. It was so solid, and it had been so honestly made, that it could +never get out of order nor wear away. And, indeed, the conscientiousness and skill of +artificers in the eighteenth century are still, through that resistless machine, producing +their effect in the twentieth. But it needed a strong hand to bestir its smooth +plum-coloured limbs of metal, and a speed of a hundred an hour meant gentle perspiration. +The machine was loved like an animal.</p> + +<p>Near this honourable and lumbering survival stood pertly an Empire treadle-machine for +printing envelopes and similar trifles. It was new, and full of natty little devices. It +worked with the lightness of something unsubstantial. A child could actuate it, and it +would print delicately a thousand envelopes an hour. This machine, with the latest +purchase, which was away at the other end of the room near the large double-pointed +case-rack, completed the tale of machines. That case-rack alone held fifty different +founts of type, and there were other case-racks. The lead-rack was nearly as large, and +beneath the lead-rack was a rack containing all those “furnitures” which help +to hold a forme of type together without betraying themselves to the reader of the printed +sheet. And under the furniture rack was the ‘random,’ full of galleys. Then +there was a table with a top of solid stone, upon which the formes were bolted up. And +there was the ink-slab, another solidity, upon which the ink-rollers were inked. Rollers +of various weightiness lay about, and large heavy cans, and many bottles, and metal +galleys, and nameless fragments of metal. Everything contributed to the impression of +immense ponderosity exceeding the imagination. The fancy of being pinned down by even the +lightest of these constructions was excruciating. You moved about in narrow alleys among +upstanding, unyielding metallic enormities, and you felt fragile and perilously soft.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>The only unintimidating phenomena in the crowded place were the lye-brushes, the dusty +job-files that hung from the great transverse beams, and the proof-sheets that were +scattered about. These printed things showed to what extent Darius Clayhanger’s +establishment was a channel through which the life of the town had somehow to pass. +Auctions, meetings, concerts, sermons, improving lectures, miscellaneous entertainments, +programmes, catalogues, deaths, births, marriages, specifications, municipal notices, +summonses, demands, receipts, subscription-lists, accounts, rate-forms, lists of voters, +jury-lists, inaugurations, closures, bill-heads, handbills, addresses, visiting-cards, +society rules, bargain-sales, lost and found notices: traces of all these matters, and +more, were to be found in that office; it was impregnated with the human interest; it was +dusty with the human interest; its hot smell seemed to you to come off life itself, if the +real sentiment and love of life were sufficiently in you. A grand, stuffy, living, +seething place, with all its metallic immobility!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>Edwin sidled towards the centre of interest, the new machine, which, however, was not a +new machine. Darius Clayhanger did not buy more new things than he could help. His delight +was to ‘pick up’ articles that were supposed to be ‘as good as +new’; occasionally he would even assert that an object bought second-hand was +‘better than new,’ because it had been ‘broken in,’ as if it were +a horse. Nevertheless, the latest machine was, for a printing machine, nearly new: its age +was four years only. It was a Demy Columbian Press, similar in conception and movement to +the historic ‘old machine’ that had been through the Reform agitation; but how +much lighter, how much handier, how much more ingenious and precise in the detail of its +working! A beautiful edifice, as it stood there, gazed on admiringly by the expert eyes of +Darius, in his shirt-sleeves, Big James, in his royally flowing apron, and Chawner, the +journeyman compositor, who, with the two apprentices outside, completed the staff! Aided +by no mechanic more skilled than a day-labourer, those men had got the machine piecemeal +into the office, and had duly erected it. At that day a foreman had to be equal to +anything.</p> + +<p>The machine appeared so majestic there, so solid and immovable, that it might ever have +existed where it then was. Who could credit that, less than a fortnight earlier, it had +stood equally majestic, solid, and immovable in Manchester? There remained nothing to show +how the miracle had been accomplished, except a bandage of ropes round the lower pillars +and some pulley-tackle hanging from one of the transverse beams exactly overhead. The +situation of the machine in the workshop had been fixed partly by that beam above and +partly by the run of the beams that supported the floor. The stout roof-beam enabled the +artificers to handle the great masses by means of the tackle; and as for the floor-beams, +Darius had so far listened to warnings as to take them into account.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>“Take another impress, James,” said Darius. And when he saw Edwin, instead +of asking the youth what he was wasting his time there for, he good-humouredly added: +“Just watch this, my lad.” Darius was pleased with himself, his men, and his +acquisition. He was in one of his moods when he could charm; he was jolly, and he held up +his chin. Two days before, so interested had he been in the Demy Columbian, he had +actually gone through a bilious attack while scarcely noticing it! And now the whole +complex operation had been brought to a triumphant conclusion.</p> + +<p>Big James inserted the sheet of paper, with gentle and fine movements. The journeyman +turned the handle, and the bed of the machine slid horizontally forward in frictionless, +stately silence. And then Big James seized the lever with his hairy arm bared to the +elbow, and pulled it over. The delicate process was done with minute and level exactitude; +adjusted to the thirty-second of an inch, the great masses of metal had brought the paper +and the type together and separated them again. In another moment Big James drew out the +sheet, and the three men inspected it, each leaning over it. A perfect impression!</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Darius, glowing, “we’ve had a bit o’ luck in +getting that up! Never had less trouble! Shows we can do better without those Foundry +chaps than with ’em! James, ye can have a quart brought in, if ye’n a mind, +but I won’t have them apprentices drinking! No, I won’t! Mrs Nixon’ll +give ’em some nettle-beer if they fancy it.”</p> + +<p>He was benignant. The inauguration of a new machine deserved solemn recognition, +especially on a hot day. It was an event.</p> + +<p>“An infant in arms could turn this here,” murmured the journeyman, toying +with the handle that moved the bed. It was an exaggeration, but an excusable, poetical +exaggeration.</p> + +<p>Big James wiped his wrists on his apron.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Eight.</h4> + +<p>Then there was a queer sound of cracking somewhere, vague, faint, and yet formidable. +Darius was standing between the machines and the dismantled window, his back to the +latter. Big James and the journeyman rushed instinctively from the centre of the floor +towards him. In a second the journeyman was on the window sill.</p> + +<p>“What art doing?” Darius demanded roughly; but there was no sincerity in +his voice.</p> + +<p>“Th’ floor!” the journeyman excitedly exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Big James stood close to the wall.</p> + +<p>“And what about th’ floor?” Darius challenged him obstinately.</p> + +<p>“One o’ them beams is a-going,” stammered the journeyman.</p> + +<p>“Rubbish!” shouted Darius. But simultaneously he motioned to Edwin to move +from the middle of the room, and Edwin obeyed. All four listened, with nerves stretched to +the tightest. Darius was biting his lower lip with his upper teeth. His humour had swiftly +changed to the savage. Every warning that had been uttered for years past concerning that +floor was remembered with startling distinctness. Every impatient reassurance offered by +Darius for years past suddenly seemed fatuous and perverse. How could any man in his +senses expect the old floor to withstand such a terrific strain as that to which Darius +had at last dared to subject it? The floor ought by rights to have given way years ago! +His men ought to have declined to obey instructions that were obviously insane. These and +similar thoughts visited the minds of Big James and the journeyman.</p> + +<p>As for Edwin, his excitement was, on balance, pleasurable. In truth, he could not kill +in his mind the hope that the floor would yield. The greatness of the resulting +catastrophe fascinated him. He knew that he should be disappointed if the catastrophe did +not occur. That it would mean ruinous damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds, and +enormous worry, did not influence him. His reason did not influence him, nor his personal +danger. He saw a large hook in the wall to which he could cling when the exquisite crash +came, and pictured a welter of broken machinery and timber ten feet below him, and the +immense pother that the affair would create in the town.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Nine.</h4> + +<p>Darius would not loose his belief in his floor. He hugged it in mute fury. He would not +climb on to the window sill, nor tell Big James to do so, nor even Edwin. On the subject +of the floor he was religious; he was above the appeal of the intelligence. He had always +held passionately that the floor was immovable, and he always would. He had finally +convinced himself of its omnipotent strength by the long process of assertion and +reassertion. When a voice within him murmured that his belief in the floor had no +scientific basis, he strangled the voice. So he remained, motionless, between the window +and the machine.</p> + +<p>No sound! No slightest sound! No tremor of the machine! But Darius’s breathing +could be heard after a moment.</p> + +<p>He guffawed sneeringly.</p> + +<p>“And what next?” he defiantly asked, scowling. “What’s amiss +wi’ ye all?” He put his hands in his pockets. “Dun ye mean to tell me +as—”</p> + +<p>The younger apprentice entered from the engine-shed.</p> + +<p>“Get back there!” rolled and thundered the voice of Big James. It was the +first word he had spoken, and he did not speak it in frantic, hysteric command, but with a +terrible and convincing mildness. The phrase fell on the apprentice like a sandbag, and he +vanished.</p> + +<p>Darius said nothing. There was another cracking sound, louder, and unmistakably beneath +the bed of the machine. And at the same instant a flake of grimy plaster detached itself +from the opposite wall and dropped into pale dust on the floor. And still Darius +religiously did not move, and Big James would not move. They might have been under a +spell. The journeyman jumped down incautiously into the yard.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Ten.</h4> + +<p>And then Edwin, hardly knowing what he did, and certainly not knowing why he did it, +walked quickly out on to the floor, seized the huge hook attached to the lower pulley of +the tackle that hung from the roof-beam, pulled up the slack of the rope-bandage on the +hind part of the machine, and stuck the hook into it, then walked quickly back. The +hauling-rope of the tackle had been carried to the iron ring of a trap-door in the corner +near Big James; this trap-door, once the outlet of the interior staircase from the ground +floor, had been nailed down many years previously. Big James dropped to his knees and +tightened and knotted the rope. Another and much louder noise of cracking followed, the +floor visibly yielded, and the hindpart of the machine visibly sank about a quarter of an +inch. But no more. The tackle held. The strain was distributed between the beam above and +the beam below, and equilibrium established.</p> + +<p>“Out! Lad! Out!” cried Darius feebly, in the wreck, not of his workshop, +but of his religion. And Edwin fled down the steps, pushing the mystified apprentices +before him, and followed by the men. In the yard the journeyman, entirely self-centred, +was hopping about on one leg and cursing.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Eleven.</h4> + +<p>Darius, Big James, and Edwin stared in the morning sunshine at the aperture of the +window and listened.</p> + +<p>“Nay!” said Big James, after an eternity. “He’s saved it! +He’s saved th’ old shop! But by gum—by gum—”</p> + +<p>Darius turned to Edwin, and tried to say something; and then Edwin saw his +father’s face working into monstrous angular shapes, and saw the tears spurt out of +his eyes, and was clutched convulsively in his father’s shirt-sleeved arms. He was +very proud, very pleased, but he did not like this embrace; it made him feel ashamed. He +thought how Clara would have sniggered about it and caricatured it afterwards, had she +witnessed it. And although he had incontestably done something which was very wonderful +and very heroic, and which proved in him the most extraordinary presence of mind, he could +not honestly glorify himself in his own heart, because it appeared to him that he had +acted exactly like an automaton. He blankly marvelled, and thought the situation agreeably +thrilling, if somewhat awkward. His father let him go. Then all Edwin’s feelings +gave place to an immense stupefaction at his father’s truly remarkable behaviour. +What! His father emotional! He had to begin to revise again his settled views.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_13"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Thirteen.</h3> + +<h4>One Result of Courage.</h4> + +<p>By the next morning a certain tranquillity was restored.</p> + +<p>It was only in this relative calm that the Clayhanger family and its dependants began +to realise the intensity of the experience through which they had passed, and, in +particular, the strain of waiting for events after the printing office had been abandoned +by its denizens. The rumour of what had happened, and of what might have happened, had +spread about the premises in an instant, and in another instant all the women had +collected in the yard; even Miss Ingamells had betrayed the sacred charge of the shop. Ten +people were in the yard, staring at the window aperture on the first-floor and listening +for ruin. Some time had elapsed before Darius would allow anybody even to mount the steps. +Then the baker, the tenant of the ground-floor, had had to be fetched. A pleasant, bland +man, he had consented in advance to every suggestion; he had practically made Darius a +present of the ground-floor, if Darius possessed the courage to go into it, or to send +others into it. The seat of deliberation had then been transferred to the alley behind. +And the jobbing builder and carpenters had been fetched, and there was a palaver of +tremendous length and solemnity. For hours nothing definite seemed to happen; no one ate +or drank, and the current of life at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street +ceased to flow. Boys and men who had heard of the affair, and who had the divine gift of +curiosity, gazed in rapture at the ‘No Admittance’ notice on the ramshackle +double gates in Woodisun Bank. It seemed that they might never be rewarded, but their +great faith was justified when a hand-cart, bearing several beams three yards long, halted +at the gates and was, after a pause, laboriously pushed past them and round the corner +into the alley and up the alley. The alley had been crammed to witness the taking of the +beams into the baker’s storeroom. If the floor above had decided to yield, the +noble, negligent carpenters would have been crushed beneath tons of machinery. At length a +forest of pillars stood planted on the ground-floor amid the baker’s lumber; every +beam was duly supported, and the experts pronounced that calamity was now inconceivable. +Lastly, the tackle on the Demy Columbian had been loosed, and the machine, slightly askew, +permitted gently to sink to full rest on the floor: and the result justified the +experts.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>By this time people had started to eat, but informally, as it were +apologetically—Passover meals. Evening was at hand. The Clayhangers, later, had met +at table. A strange repast! A strange father! The children had difficulty in speaking +naturally. And then Mrs Hamps had come, ebulliently thanking God, and conveying the fact +that the town was thrilled and standing utterly amazed in admiration before her heroical +nephew. And yet she had said ardently that she was in no way amazed at her nephew’s +coolness; she would have been surprised if he had shown himself even one degree less cool. +From a long study of his character she had foreknown infallibly that in such a crisis as +had supervened he would behave precisely as he had behaved. This attitude of Auntie Hamps, +however, though it reduced the miraculous to the ordinary-expected, did not diminish +Clara’s ingenuous awe of Edwin. From a mocker, the child had been temporarily +transformed into an unwilling hero-worshipper. Mrs Hamps having departed, all the family, +including Darius, had retired earlier than usual.</p> + +<p>And now, on meeting his father and Big James and Miss Ingamells in the queer peace of +the morning, in the relaxation after tension, and in the complete realisation of the +occurrence, Edwin perceived from the demeanour of all that, by an instinctive action +extending over perhaps five seconds of time, he had procured for himself a wondrous and +apparently permanent respect. Miss Ingamells, when he went vaguely into the freshly +watered shop before breakfast, greeted him in a new tone, and with startling deference +asked him what he thought she had better do in regard to the addressing of a certain +parcel. Edwin considered this odd; he considered it illogical; and one consequence of Miss +Ingamells’s quite sincere attitude was that he despised Miss Ingamells for a moral +weakling. He knew that he himself was a moral weakling, but he was sure that he could +never bend, never crouch, to such a posture as Miss Ingamells’s; that she was +obviously sincere only increased his secret scorn.</p> + +<p>But his father resembled Miss Ingamells. Edwin had not dreamt that mankind, and +especially his father, was characterised by such simplicity. And yet, on reflection, had +he not always found in his father a peculiar ingenuousness, which he could not but look +down upon? His father, whom he met crossing the yard, spoke to him almost as he might have +spoken to a junior partner. It was more than odd; it was against nature, as Edwin had +conceived nature.</p> + +<p>He was so superior and lofty, yet without intending it, that he made no attempt to put +himself in his father’s place. He, in the exciting moments between the first +cracking sound and the second, had had a vision of wrecked machinery and timber in an +abyss at his feet. His father had had a vision far more realistic and terrifying. His +father had seen the whole course of his printing business brought to a standstill, and all +his savings dragged out of him to pay for reconstruction and for new machinery. His father +had seen loss of life which might be accounted to his negligence. His father had seen, +with that pessimism which may overtake anybody in a crisis, the ruin of a career, the +final frustration of his lifelong daring and obstinacy, and the end of everything. And +then he had seen his son suddenly walk forth and save the frightful situation. He had +always looked down upon that son as helpless, coddled, incapable of initiative or of +boldness. He believed himself to be a highly remarkable man, and existence had taught him +that remarkable men seldom or never have remarkable sons. Again and again had he noted the +tendency of remarkable men to beget gaping and idle fools. Nevertheless, he had intensely +desired to be able to be proud of his son. He had intensely desired to be able, when +acquaintances should be sincerely enthusiastic about the merits of his son, to pretend, +insincerely and with pride only half concealed, that his son was quite an ordinary +youth.</p> + +<p>Now his desire had been fulfilled; it had been more than fulfilled. The town would +chatter about Edwin’s presence of mind for a week. Edwin’s act would become +historic; it already was historic. And not only was the act in itself wonderful and +admirable and epoch-making; but it proved that Edwin, despite his blondness, his +finickingness, his hesitations, had grit. That was the point: the lad had grit; there was +material in the lad of which much could be made. Add to this, the father’s mere +instinctive gratitude—a gratitude of such unguessed depth that it had prevented him +even from being ashamed of having publicly and impulsively embraced his son on the +previous morning.</p> + +<p>Edwin, in his unconscious egoism, ignored all that.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“I’ve just seen Barlow,” said Darius confidentially to Edwin. Barlow +was the baker. “He’s been here afore his rounds. He’s willing to sublet +me his storeroom—so that’ll be all right! Eh?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin, seeing that his approval was being sought for.</p> + +<p>“We must fix that machine plumb again.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose the floor’s as firm as rocks now?” Edwin suggested.</p> + +<p>“Eh! Bless ye! Yes!” said his father, with a trace of kindly +impatience.</p> + +<p>The policy of makeshift was to continue. The floor having been stayed with oak, the +easiest thing and the least immediately expensive thing was to leave matters as they were. +When the baker’s stores were cleared from his warehouse, Darius could use the spaces +between the pillars for lumber of his own; and he could either knock an entrance-way +through the wall in the yard, or he could open the nailed-down trap door and patch the +ancient stairway within; or he could do nothing—it would only mean walking out into +Woodisun Bank and up the alley each time he wanted access to his lumber!</p> + +<p>And yet, after the second cracking sound on the previous day, he had been ready to vow +to rent an entirely new and common-sense printing office somewhere else—if only he +should be saved from disaster that once! But he had not quite vowed. And, in any case, a +vow to oneself is not a vow to the Virgin. He had escaped from a danger, and the +recurrence of the particular danger was impossible. Why then commit follies of prudence, +when the existing arrangement of things ‘would do’?</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>That afternoon Darius Clayhanger, with his most mysterious air of business, told Edwin +to follow him into the shop. Several hours of miscellaneous consultative pottering had +passed between Darius and his compositors round and about the new printing machine, which +was once more plumb and ready for action. For considerably over a week Edwin had been on +his father’s general staff without any definite task or occupation having been +assigned to him. His father had been too excitedly preoccupied with the arrival and +erection of the machine to bestow due thought upon the activities proper to Edwin in the +complex dailiness of the business. Now he meant at any rate to begin to put the boy into a +suitable niche. The boy had deserved at least that.</p> + +<p>At the desk he opened before him the daily and weekly newspaper-book, and explained its +system.</p> + +<p>“Let’s take the ‘British Mechanic,’” he said.</p> + +<p>And he turned to the page where the title ‘British Mechanic’ was written in +red ink. Underneath that title were written the names and addresses of fifteen subscribers +to the paper. To the right of the names were thirteen columns, representing a quarter of +the year. With his customary laboriousness, Darius described the entire process of +distribution. The parcel of papers arrived and was counted, and the name of a subscriber +scribbled in an abbreviated form on each copy. Some copies had to be delivered by the +errand boy; these were handed to the errand boy, and a tick made against each subscriber +in the column for the week: other copies were called for by the subscriber, and as each of +these was taken away, similarly a tick had to be made against the name of its subscriber. +Some copies were paid for in cash in the shop, some were paid in cash to the office boy, +some were paid for monthly, some were paid for quarterly, and some, as Darius said grimly, +were never paid for at all. No matter what the method of paying, when a copy was paid for, +or thirteen copies were paid for, a crossing tick had to be made in the book for each +copy. Thus, for a single quarter of “British Mechanic” nearly two hundred +ticks and nearly two hundred crossing ticks had to be made in the book, if the work was +properly done. However, it was never properly done—Miss Ingamells being short of +leisure and the errand boy utterly unreliable—and Darius wanted it properly done. +The total gross profit on a quarter of “British Mechanics” was less than five +shillings, and no customers were more exigent and cantankerous than those who bought one +pennyworth of goods per week, and had them delivered free, and received three +months’ credit. Still, that could not be helped. A printer and stationer was +compelled by usage to supply papers; and besides, paper subscribers served a purpose as a +nucleus of general business.</p> + +<p>As with the “British Mechanics,” so with seventeen other weeklies. The +daily papers were fewer, but the accountancy they caused was even more elaborate. For +monthly magazines there was a separate book with a separate system; here the sums involved +were vaster, ranging as high as half a crown.</p> + +<p>Darius led Edwin with patient minuteness through the whole labyrinth.</p> + +<p>“Now,” he said, “you’re going to have sole charge of all +this.”</p> + +<p>And he said it benevolently, in the conviction that he was awarding a deserved +recompense, with the mien of one who was giving dominion to a faithful steward over ten +cities.</p> + +<p>“Just look into it carefully yerself, lad,” he said at last, and left Edwin +with a mixed parcel of journals upon which to practise.</p> + +<p>Before Edwin’s eyes flickered hundreds of names, thousands of figures, and tens +of thousands of ticks. His heart protested; it protested with loathing. The prospect +stretching far in front of him made him feel sick. But something weak and good-natured in +him forced him to smile, and to simulate a subdued ecstasy at receiving this overwhelming +proof of his father’s confidence in him. As for Darius, Darius was delighted with +himself and with his son, and he felt that he was behaving as a benignant father should. +Edwin had proved his grit, proved that he had that uncommunicable quality, +‘character,’ and had well deserved encouragement.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>The next morning, in the printing office, Edwin came upon Big James giving a lesson in +composing to the younger apprentice, who in theory had ‘learned his cases.’ +Big James held the composing stick in his great left hand, like a match-box, and with his +great right thumb and index picked letter after letter from the case, very slowly in order +to display the movement, and dropped them into the stick. In his mild, resonant tones he +explained that each letter must be picked up unfalteringly in a particular way, so that it +would drop face upward into the stick without any intermediate manipulation. And he +explained also that the left hand must be held so that the right hand would have to travel +to and fro as little as possible. He was revealing the basic mysteries of his craft, and +was happy, making the while the broad series of stock pleasantries which have probably +been current in composing rooms since printing was invented. Then he was silent, working +more and more quickly, till his right hand could scarcely be followed in its twinklings, +and the face of the apprentice duly spread in marvel, When the line was finished he drew +out the rule, clapped it down on the top of the last row of letters, and gave the +composing stick to the apprentice to essay.</p> + +<p>The apprentice began to compose with his feet, his shoulders, his mouth, his +eyebrows—with all his body except his hands, which nevertheless travelled spaciously +far and wide.</p> + +<p>“It’s not in seven year, nor in seventy, as you’ll learn, young son +of a gun!” said Big James.</p> + +<p>And, having unsettled the youth to his foundations with a bland thwack across the head, +he resumed the composing stick and began again the exposition of the unique smooth +movement which is the root of rapid type-setting.</p> + +<p>“Here!” said Big James, when the apprentice had behaved worse than ever. +“Us’ll ask Mr Edwin to have a go. Us’ll see what <i>he</i>’ll +do.”</p> + +<p>And Edwin, sheepish, had to comply. He was in pride bound to surpass the apprentice, +and did so.</p> + +<p>“There!” said Big James. “What did I tell ye?” He seemed to +imply a prophecy that, because Edwin had saved the printing office from destruction two +days previously, he would necessarily prove to be a born compositor.</p> + +<p>The apprentice deferentially sniggered, and Edwin smiled modestly and awkwardly and +departed without having accomplished what he had come to do.</p> + +<p>By his own act of cool, nonchalant, unconsidered courage in a crisis, he had, it +seemed, definitely proved himself to possess a special aptitude in all branches of the +business of printer and stationer. Everybody assumed it. Everybody was pleased. Everybody +saw that Providence had been kind to Darius and to his son. The fathers of the town, and +the mothers, who liked Edwin’s complexion and fair hair, told each other that not +every parent was so fortunate as Mr Clayhanger, and what a blessing it was that the old +breed was not after all dying out in those newfangled days. Edwin could not escape from +the universal assumption. He felt it round him as a net which somehow he had to cut.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_14"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Fourteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Architect.</h4> + +<p>One morning Edwin was busy in the shop with his own private minion, the paper boy, who +went in awe of him. But this was not the same Edwin, though people who could only judge by +features, and by the length of trousers and sleeves on legs and arms, might have thought +that it was the same Edwin enlarged and corrected. Half a year had passed. The month was +February, cold. Mr Enoch Peake had not merely married Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, but had died +of an apoplexy, leaving behind him Cocknage Gardens, a widow, and his name painted in +large letters over the word ‘Loggerheads’ on the lintel of the Dragon. The +steam-printer had done the funeral cards, and had gone to the burial of his hopes of +business in that quarter. Many funeral cards had come out of the same printing office +during the winter, including that of Mr Udall, the great marble-player. It seemed uncanny +to Edwin that a marble-player whom he had actually seen playing marbles should do anything +so solemn as expire. However, Edwin had perfectly lost all interest in marbles; only once +in six months had he thought of them, and that once through a funeral card. Also he was +growing used to funeral cards. He would enter an order for funeral cards as nonchalantly +as an order for butterscotch labels. But it was not deaths and the spectacle of life as +seen from the shop that had made another Edwin of him.</p> + +<p>What had changed him was the slow daily influence of a large number of trifling +habitual duties none of which fully strained his faculties, and the monotony of them, and +the constant watchful conventionality of his deportment with customers. He was still a +youth, very youthful, but you had to keep an eye open for his youthfulness if you wished +to find it beneath the little man that he had been transformed into. He now took his watch +out of his pocket with an absent gesture and look exactly like his father’s; and his +tones would be a reflection of those of the last important full-sized man with whom he had +happened to have been in contact. And though he had not developed into a dandy (finance +forbidding), he kept his hair unnaturally straight, and amiably grumbled to Maggie about +his collars every fortnight or so. Yes, another Edwin! Yet it must not be assumed that he +was growing in discontent, either chronic or acute. On the contrary, the malady of +discontent troubled him less and less.</p> + +<p>To the paper boy he was a real man. The paper boy accepted him with unreserved +fatalism, as Edwin accepted his father. Thus the boy stood passive while Edwin brought +business to a standstill by privately perusing the “Manchester Examiner.” It +was Saturday morning, the morning on which the “Examiner” published its +renowned Literary Supplement. All the children read eagerly the Literary Supplement; but +Edwin, in virtue of his office, got it first. On the first and second pages was the serial +story, by George MacDonald, W. Clark Russell, or Mrs Lynn Linton; then followed readable +extracts from new books, and on the fourth page were selected jokes from +“Punch.” Edwin somehow always began with the jokes, and in so doing was rather +ashamed of his levity. He would skim the jokes, glance at the titles of the new books, and +look at the dialogue parts of the serial, while business and the boy waited. There was no +hurry then, even though the year had reached 1873 and people were saying that they would +soon be at the middle of the seventies; even though the Licensing Act had come into force +and publicans were predicting the end of the world. Morning papers were not delivered till +ten, eleven, or twelve o’clock in Bursley, and on Saturdays, owing to Edwin’s +laudable interest in the best periodical literature, they were apt to be delivered later +than usual.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>On this particular morning Edwin was disturbed in his studies by a greater than the +paper boy, a greater even than his father. Mr Osmond Orgreave came stamping his cold feet +into the shop, the floor of which was still a little damp from the watering that preceded +its sweeping. Mr Orgreave, though as far as Edwin knew he had never been in the shop +before, went straight to the coke-stove, bent his knees, and began to warm his hands. In +this position he opened an interview with Edwin, who dropped the Literary Supplement. Miss +Ingamells was momentarily absent.</p> + +<p>“Father in?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>Edwin did not say where his father was, because he had received general instructions +never to ‘volunteer information’ on that point.</p> + +<p>“Where is he?”</p> + +<p>“He’s out, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Well! Has he left any instructions about those specifications for the +Shawport Board School?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir. I’m afraid he hasn’t. But I can ask in the printing +office.”</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave approached the counter, smiling. His face was angular, rather stout, and +harsh, with a grey moustache and a short grey beard, and yet his demeanour and his voice +had a jocular, youthful quality. And this was not the only contradiction about him. His +clothes were extremely elegant and nice in detail—the whiteness of his linen would +have struck the most casual observer—but he seemed to be perfectly oblivious of his +clothes, indeed, to show carelessness concerning them. His finger-nails were marvellously +tended. But he scribbled in pencil on his cuff, and apparently was not offended by a grey +mark on his hand due to touching the top of the stove. The idea in Edwin’s head was +that Mr Orgreave must put on a new suit of clothes once a week, and new linen every day, +and take a bath about once an hour. The man had no ceremoniousness. Thus, though he had +never previously spoken to Edwin, he made no preliminary pretence of not being sure who +Edwin was; he chatted with him as though they were old friends and had parted only the day +before; he also chatted with him as though they were equals in age, eminence, and wealth. +A strange man!</p> + +<p>“Now look here!” he said, as the conversation proceeded, “those +specifications are at the Sytch Chapel. If you could come along with me now—I mean +<i>now</i>—I could give them to you and point out one or two things to you, and +perhaps Big James could make a start on them this morning. You see it’s +urgent.”</p> + +<p>So he was familiar with Big James.</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” said Edwin, excited.</p> + +<p>And when he had curtly told the paper boy to do portions of the newspaper job which he +had always held the paper boy was absolutely incapable of doing, he sent the boy to find +Miss Ingamells, informed her where he was going, and followed Mr Orgreave out of the +shop.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“Of course you know Charlie’s at school in France,” said Mr Orgreave, +as they passed along Wedgwood Street in the direction of Saint Luke’s Square. He was +really very companionable.</p> + +<p>“Er—yes!” Edwin replied, nervously explosive, and buttoning up his +tight overcoat with an important business air.</p> + +<p>“At least it isn’t a school—it’s a university. Besançon, +you know. They take university students much younger there. Oh! He has a rare time—a +rare time. Never writes to you, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“No.” Edwin gave a short laugh.</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave laughed aloud. “And he wouldn’t to us either, if his mother +didn’t make a fuss about it. But when he does write, we gather there’s no +place like Besançon.”</p> + +<p>“It must be splendid,” Edwin said thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“You and he were great chums, weren’t you? I know we used to hear about you +every day. His mother used to say that we had Clayhanger with every meal.” Mr +Orgreave again laughed heartily.</p> + +<p>Edwin blushed. He was quite startled, and immensely flattered. What on earth could the +Sunday have found to tell them every day about <i>him</i>? He, Edwin Clayhanger, a subject +of conversation in the household of the Orgreaves, that mysterious household which he had +never entered but which he had always pictured to himself as being so finely superior! +Less than a year ago Charlie Orgreave had been ‘the Sunday,’ had been +‘old Perish-in-the-attempt,’ and now he was a student in Besançon +University, unapproachable, extraordinarily romantic; and he, Edwin, remained in his +father’s shop! He had been aware that Charlie had gone to Besançon +University, but he had not realised it effectively till this moment. The realisation blew +discontent into a flame, which fed on the further perception that evidently the Orgreave +family were a gay, jolly crowd of cronies together, not in the least like parents and +children; their home life must be something fundamentally different from his.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>When they had crossed the windy space of Saint Luke’s Square and reached the top +of the Sytch Bank, Mr Orgreave stopped an instant in front of the Sytch Pottery, and +pointed to a large window at the south end that was in process of being boarded up.</p> + +<p>“At last!” he murmured with disgust. Then he said: “That’s the +most beautiful window in Bursley, and perhaps in the Five Towns; and you see what’s +happening to it.”</p> + +<p>Edwin had never heard the word ‘beautiful’ uttered in quite that tone, +except by women, such as Auntie Hamps, about a baby or a valentine or a sermon. But Mr +Orgreave was not a woman; he was a man of the world, he was almost <i>the</i> man of the +world; and the subject of his adjective was a window!</p> + +<p>“Why are they boarding it up, Mr Orgreave?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Ancient lights! Ancient lights!”</p> + +<p>Edwin began to snigger. He thought for an instant that Mr Orgreave was being jocular +over his head, for he could only connect the phrase ‘ancient lights’ with the +meaner organs of a dead animal, exposed, for example, in tripe shops. However, he saw his +ineptitude almost simultaneously with the commission of it, and smothered the snigger in +becoming gravity. It was clear that he had something to learn in the phraseology employed +by architects.</p> + +<p>“I should think,” said Mr Orgreave, “I should think they’ve +been at law about that window for thirty years, if not more. Well, it’s over now, +seemingly.” He gazed at the disappearing window. “What a shame!”</p> + +<p>“It is,” said Edwin politely.</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave crossed the road and then stood still to gaze at the façade of the +Sytch Pottery. It was a long two-storey building, purest Georgian, of red brick with very +elaborate stone facings which contrasted admirably with the austere simplicity of the +walls. The porch was lofty, with a majestic flight of steps narrowing to the doors. The +ironwork of the basement railings was unusually rich and impressive.</p> + +<p>“Ever seen another pot-works like that?” demanded Mr Orgreave, +enthusiastically musing.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin. Now that the question was put to him, he never <i>had</i> +seen another pot-works like that.</p> + +<p>“There are one or two pretty fine works in the Five Towns,” said Mr +Orgreave. “But there’s nothing elsewhere to touch this. I nearly always stop +and look at it if I’m passing. Just look at the pointing! The pointing +alone—”</p> + +<p>Edwin had to readjust his ideas. It had never occurred to him to search for anything +fine in Bursley. The fact was, he had never opened his eyes at Bursley. Dozens of times he +must have passed the Sytch Pottery, and yet not noticed, not suspected, that it differed +from any other pot-works: he who dreamed of being an architect!</p> + +<p>“You don’t think much of it?” said Mr Orgreave, moving on. +“People don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes! I <i>do</i>!” Edwin protested, and with such an air of eager +sincerity that Mr Orgreave turned to glance at him. And in truth he did think that the +Sytch Pottery was beautiful. He never would have thought so but for the accident of the +walk with Mr Orgreave; he might have spent his whole life in the town, and never troubled +himself a moment about the Sytch Pottery. Nevertheless he now, by an act of sheer faith, +suddenly, miraculously and genuinely regarded it as an exquisitely beautiful edifice, on a +plane with the edifices of the capitals of Europe, and as a feast for discerning eyes. +“I like architecture very much,” he added. And this too was said with such +feverish conviction that Mr Orgreave was quite moved.</p> + +<p>“I must show you my new Sytch Chapel,” said Mr Orgreave gaily.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I should like you to show it me,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>But he was exceedingly perturbed by misgivings. Here was he wanting to be an architect, +and he had never observed the Sytch Pottery! Surely that was an absolute proof that he had +no vocation for architecture! And yet now he did most passionately admire the Sytch +Pottery. And he was proud to be sharing the admiration of the fine, joyous, superior, +luxurious, companionable man, Mr Orgreave.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>They went down the Sytch Bank to the new chapel of which Mr Orgreave, though a +churchman, was the architect, in that vague quarter of the world between Bursley and +Turnhill. The roof was not on; the scaffolding was extraordinarily interesting and +confusing; they bent their heads to pass under low portals; Edwin had the delicious smell +of new mortar; they stumbled through sand, mud, cinders and little pools; they climbed a +ladder and stepped over a large block of dressed stone, and Mr Orgreave said—</p> + +<p>“This is the gallery we’re in, here. You see the scheme of the place now... +That hole—only a flue. Now you see what that arch carries—they didn’t +like it in the plans because they thought it might be mistaken for a +church—”</p> + +<p>Edwin was receptive.</p> + +<p>“Of course it’s a very small affair, but it’ll cost less per sitting +than any other chapel in your circuit, and I fancy it’ll look less like a box of +bricks.” Mr Orgreave subtly smiled, and Edwin tried to equal his subtlety. “I +must show you the elevation some other time—a bit later. What I’ve been after +in it, is to keep it in character with the street... Hi! Dan, there!” Now, Mr +Orgreave was calling across the hollow of the chapel to a fat man in corduroys. +“Have you remembered about those blue bricks?”</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most captivating phenomenon of all was a little lean-to shed with a real +door evidently taken from somewhere else, and a little stove, and a table and a chair. +Here Mr Orgreave had a confabulation with the corduroyed man, who was the builder, and +they pored over immense sheets of coloured plans that lay on the table, and Mr Orgreave +made marks and even sketches on the plans, and the fat man objected to his instructions, +and Mr Orgreave insisted, “Yes, <i>yes</i>!” And it seemed to Edwin as though +the building of the chapel stood still while Mr Orgreave cogitated and explained; it +seemed to Edwin that he was in the creating-chamber. The atmosphere of the shed was +inexpressibly romantic to him. After the fat man had gone Mr Orgreave took a clothes-brush +off a plank that had been roughly nailed on two brackets to the wall, and brushed +Edwin’s clothes, and Edwin brushed Mr Orgreave, and then Mr Orgreave, having run his +hand through the brush, lightly brushed his hair with it. All this was part of +Edwin’s joy.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I think the idea of that arch is +splendid.”</p> + +<p>“You do?” said Mr Orgreave quite simply and ingenuously pleased and +interested. “You see—with the lie of the ground as it is—”</p> + +<p>That was another point that Edwin ought to have thought of by himself—the lie of +the ground—but he had not thought of it. Mr Orgreave went on talking. In the shop he +had conveyed the idea that he was tremendously pressed for time; now he had apparently +forgotten time.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I shall have to be off,” said Edwin timidly. And he made +a preliminary movement as if to depart.</p> + +<p>“And what about those specifications, young man?” asked Mr Orgreave, drily +twinkling. He unlocked a drawer in the rickety table. Edwin had forgotten the +specifications as successfully as Mr Orgreave had forgotten time. Throughout the remainder +of the day he smelt imaginary mortar.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_15"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Fifteen.</h3> + +<h4>A Decision.</h4> + +<p>The next day being the day of rest, Mrs Nixon arose from her nook at 5:30 a.m. and woke +Edwin. She did this from good-nature, and because she could refuse him nothing, and not +under any sort of compulsion. Edwin got up at the first call, though he was in no way +remarkable for his triumphs over the pillow. Twenty-five minutes later he was crossing +Trafalgar Road and entering the school-yard of the Wesleyan Chapel. And from various +quarters of the town, other young men, of ages varying from sixteen to fifty, were +converging upon the same point. Black night still reigned above the lamplights that +flickered in the wind which precedes the dawn, and the mud was frozen. Not merely had +these young men to be afoot and abroad, but they had to be ceremoniously dressed. They +could not issue forth in flannels and sweater, with a towel round the neck, as for a +morning plunge in the river. The day was Sunday, though Sunday had not dawned, and the +plunge was into the river of intellectual life. Moreover, they were bound by conscience to +be prompt. To have arrived late, even five minutes late, would have spoilt the whole +effect. It had to be six o’clock or nothing.</p> + +<p>The Young Men’s Debating Society was a newly formed branch of the multifarous +activity of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. It met on Sunday because Sunday was the only +day that would suit everybody; and at six in the morning for two reasons. The obvious +reason was that at any other hour its meetings would clash either with other activities or +with the solemnity of Sabbath meals. This obvious reason could not have stood by itself; +it was secretly supported by the recondite reason that the preposterous hour of 6 a.m. +appealed powerfully to something youthful, perverse, silly, fanatical, and fine in the +youths. They discovered the ascetic’s joy in robbing themselves of sleep and in +catching chills, and in disturbing households and chapel-keepers. They thought it was a +great thing to be discussing intellectual topics at an hour when a town that ignorantly +scorned intellectuality was snoring in all its heavy brutishness. And it was a great +thing. They considered themselves the salt of the earth, or of that part of the earth. And +I have an idea that they were.</p> + +<p>Edwin had joined this Society partly because he did not possess the art of refusing, +partly because the notion of it appealed spectacularly to the martyr in him, and partly +because it gave him an excuse for ceasing to attend the afternoon Sunday school, which he +loathed. Without such an excuse he could never have told his father that he meant to give +up Sunday school. He could never have dared to do so. His father had what Edwin deemed to +be a superstitious and hypocritical regard for the Sunday school. Darius never went near +the Sunday school, and assuredly in business and in home life he did not practise the +precepts inculcated at the Sunday school, and yet he always spoke of the Sunday school +with what was to Edwin a ridiculous reverence. Another of those problems in his +father’s character which Edwin gave up in disgust!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The Society met in a small classroom. The secretary, arch ascetic, arrived at 5:45 and +lit the fire which the chapel-keeper (a man with no enthusiasm whatever for flagellation, +the hairshirt, or intellectuality) had laid but would not get up to light. The chairman of +the Society, a little Welshman named Llewelyn Roberts, aged fifty, but a youth because a +bachelor, sat on a chair at one side of the incipient fire, and some dozen members sat +round the room on forms. A single gas jet flamed from the ceiling. Everybody wore his +overcoat, and within the collars of overcoats could be seen glimpses of rich neckties; the +hats, some glossy, dotted the hat-rack which ran along two walls. A hymn was sung, and +then all knelt, some spreading handkerchiefs on the dusty floor to protect fine trousers, +and the chairman invoked the blessing of God on their discussions. The proper mental and +emotional atmosphere was now established. The secretary read the minutes of the last +meeting, while the chairman surreptitiously poked the fire with a piece of wood from the +lower works of a chair, and then the chairman, as he signed the minutes with a pen dipped +in an excise ink-bottle that stood on the narrow mantelpiece, said in his dry +voice—</p> + +<p>“I call upon our young friend, Mr Edwin Clayhanger, to open the debate, ‘Is +Bishop Colenso, considered as a Biblical commentator, a force for good?’”</p> + +<p>“I’m a damned fool!” said Edwin to himself savagely, as he stood on +his feet. But to look at his wistful and nervously smiling face, no one would have guessed +that he was thus blasphemously swearing in the privacy of his own brain.</p> + +<p>He had been entrapped into the situation in which he found himself. It was not until +after he had joined the Society that he had learnt of a rule which made it compulsory for +every member to speak at every meeting attended, and for every member to open a debate at +least once in a year. And this was not all; the use of notes while the orator was +‘up’ was absolutely forbidden. A drastic Society! It had commended itself to +elders by claiming to be a nursery for ready speakers.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Edwin had chosen the subject of Bishop Colenso—the ultimate wording of the +resolution was not his—because he had been reading about the intellectually +adventurous Bishop in the “Manchester Examiner.” And, although eleven years +had passed since the publication of the first part of “The Pentateuch and the Book +of Joshua Critically Examined,” the Colenso question was only just filtering down to +the thinking classes of the Five Towns; it was an actuality in the Five Towns, if in +abeyance in London. Even Hugh Miller’s “The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in +an Old Field,” then over thirty years old, was still being looked upon as +dangerously original in the Five Towns in 1873. However, the effect of its disturbing +geological evidence that the earth could scarcely have been begun and finished in a little +under a week, was happily nullified by the suicide of its author; that pistol-shot had +been a striking proof of the literal inspiration of the Bible.</p> + +<p>Bishop Colenso had, in Edwin, an ingenuous admirer. Edwin stammeringly and hesitatingly +gave a preliminary sketch of his life; how he had been censured by Convocation and deposed +from his See by his Metropolitan; how the Privy Council had decided that the deposition +was null and void; how the ecclesiastical authorities had then circumvented the Privy +Council by refusing to pay his salary to the Bishop (which Edwin considered mean); how the +Bishop had circumvented the ecclesiastical authorities by appealing to the Master of the +Rolls, who ordered the ecclesiastical authorities to pay him his arrears of income with +interest thereon, unless they were ready to bring him to trial for heresy; how the said +authorities would not bring him to trial for heresy (which Edwin considered to be +miserable cowardice on their part); how the Bishop had then been publicly excommunicated, +without authority; and how his friends, among whom were some very respectable and powerful +people, had made him a present of over three thousand pounds. After this graphic +historical survey, Edwin proceeded to the Pentateuchal puzzles, and, without pronouncing +an opinion thereon, argued that any commentator who was both learned and sincere must be a +force for good, as the Bible had nothing to fear from honest inquiry, etcetera, etcetera. +Five-sixths of his speech was coloured by phrases and modes of thought which he had picked +up in the Wesleyan community, and the other sixth belonged to himself. The speech was +moderately bad, but not inferior to many other speeches. It was received in absolute +silence. This rather surprised Edwin, because the tone in which the leading members of the +Society usually spoke to him indicated that (for reasons which he knew not) they regarded +him as a very superior intellect indeed; and Edwin was not entirely ashamed of the quality +of his speech; in fact, he had feared worse from himself, especially as, since his walk +with Mr Orgreave, he had been quite unable to concentrate his thoughts on Bishop Colenso +at all, and had been exceedingly unhappy and apprehensive concerning an affair that bore +no kind of relation to the Pentateuch.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>The chairman began to speak at once. His function was to call upon the speakers in the +order arranged, and to sum up before putting the resolution to the vote. But now he +produced surprisingly a speech of his own. He reminded the meeting that in 1860 Bishop +Colenso had memorialised the Archbishop of Canterbury against compelling natives who had +already more than one wife to renounce polygamy as a condition to baptism in the Christian +religion; he stated that, though there were young men present who were almost infants in +arms at that period, he for his part could well remember all the episode, and in +particular Bishop Colenso’s amazing allegation that he could find no disapproval of +polygamy either in the Bible or in the writings of the Ancient Church. He also pointed out +that in 1861 Bishop Colenso had argued against the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. He +warned the meeting to beware of youthful indiscretions. Every one there assembled of +course meant well, and believed what it was a duty to believe, but at the same time...</p> + +<p>“I shall write father a letter!” said Edwin to himself. The idea came to +him in a flash like a divine succour; and it seemed to solve all his +difficulties—difficulties unconnected with the subject of debate.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>The chairman went on crossing t’s and dotting i’s. And soon even Edwin +perceived that the chairman was diplomatically and tactfully, yet very firmly, bent upon +saving the meeting from any possibility of scandalising itself and the Wesleyan community. +Bishop Colenso must not be approved beneath those roofs. Evidently Edwin had been more +persuasive than he dreamt of; and daring beyond precedent. He had meant to carry his +resolution if he could, whereas, it appeared, he ought to have meant to be defeated, in +the true interests of revealed religion. The chairman kept referring to his young friend +the proposer’s brilliant brains, and to the grave danger that lurked in brilliant +brains, and the inability of brilliant brains to atone for lack of experience. The meeting +had its cue. Young man after young man arose to snub Bishop Colenso, to hope charitably +that Bishop Colenso was sincere, and to insist that no Bishop Colenso should lead +<i>him</i> to the awful abyss of polygamy, and that no Bishop Colenso should deprive +<i>him</i> of that unique incentive to righteousness—the doctrine of an everlasting +burning hell. Moses was put on his legs again as a serious historian, and the subject of +the resolution utterly lost to view. The Chairman then remarked that his impartial +rôle forbade him to support either side, and the voting showed fourteen against one. +They all sang the Doxology, and the Chairman pronounced a benediction. The fourteen +forgave the one, as one who knew not what he did; but their demeanour rather too patently +showed that they were forgiving under difficulty; and that it would be as well that this +kind of youthful temerariousness was not practised too often. Edwin, in the language of +the district, was ‘sneaped.’ Wondering what on earth he after all <i>had</i> +said to raise such an alarm, he nevertheless did not feel resentful, only very +depressed—about the debate and about other things. He knew in his heart that for him +attendance at the meetings of the Young Men’s Debating Society was ridiculous.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>He allowed all the rest to precede him from the room. When he was alone he smiled +sheepishly, and also disdainfully; he knew that the chasm between himself and the others +was a real chasm, and not a figment of his childish diffidence, as he had sometimes +suspected it to be. Then he turned the gas out. A beautiful faint silver surged through +the window. While the debate was in progress, the sun had been going about its business of +the dawn, unperceived.</p> + +<p>“I shall write a letter!” he kept saying to himself. “He’ll +never let me explain myself properly if I start talking. I shall write a letter. I can +write a very good letter, and he’ll be bound to take notice of it. He’ll never +be able to get over my letter.”</p> + +<p>In the school-yard daylight reigned. The debaters had already disappeared. Trafalgar +Road and Duck Bank were empty and silent under rosy clouds. Instead of going straight home +Edwin went past the Town Hall and through the Market Place to the Sytch Pottery. +Astounding that he had never noticed for himself how beautiful the building was! It was a +simply lovely building!</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I shall write him a letter, and this very day, too! +May I be hung, drawn, and quartered if he doesn’t have to read my letter to-morrow +morning!”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_16"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Sixteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Letter.</h4> + +<p>Then there was roast goose for dinner, and Clara amused herself by making silly +facetious faces, furtively, dangerously, under her father’s very eyes. The children +feared goose for their father, whose digestion was usually unequal to this particular +bird. Like many fathers of families in the Five Towns, he had the habit of going forth on +Saturday mornings to the butcher’s or the poulterer’s and buying +Sunday’s dinner. He was a fairly good judge of a joint, but Maggie considered +herself to be his superior in this respect. However, Darius was not prepared to learn from +Maggie, and his purchases had to be accepted without criticism. At a given meal Darius +would never admit that anything chosen and bought by him was not perfect; but a week +afterwards, if the fact was so, he would of his own accord recall imperfections in that +which he had asserted to be perfect; and he would do this without any shame, without any +apparent sense of inconsistency or weakness. Edwin noticed a similar trait in other +grown-up persons, and it astonished him. It astonished him especially in his father, who, +despite the faults and vulgarities which his fastidious son could find in him, always +impressed Edwin as a strong man, a man with the heroic quality of not caring too much what +other people thought.</p> + +<p>When Edwin saw his father take a second plateful of goose, with the deadly stuffing +thereof—Darius simply could not resist it, like most dyspeptics he was somewhat +greedy—he foresaw an indisposed and perilous father for the morrow. Which prevision +was supported by Clara’s pantomimic antics, and even by Maggie’s grave and +restrained sigh. Still, he had sworn to write and send the letter, and he should do so. A +career, a lifetime, was not to be at the mercy of a bilious attack, surely! Such a notion +offended logic and proportion, and he scorned it away.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The meal proceeded in silence. Darius, as in duty bound, mentioned the sermon, but +neither Clara nor Edwin would have anything to do with the sermon, and Maggie had not been +to chapel. Clara and Edwin felt themselves free of piety till six o’clock at least, +and they doggedly would not respond. And Darius from prudence did not insist, for he had +arrived at chapel unthinkably late—during the second chant—and Clara was +capable of audacious remarks upon occasions. The silence grew stolid.</p> + +<p>And Edwin wondered what the dinner-table of the Orgreaves was like. And he could smell +fresh mortar. And he dreamed of a romantic life—he knew not what kind of life, but +something different fundamentally from his own. He suddenly understood, understood with +sympathy, the impulse which had made boys run away to sea. He could feel the open sea; he +could feel the breath of freedom on his cheek.</p> + +<p>He said to himself—</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t I break this ghastly silence by telling father out loud here +that he mustn’t forget what I told him that night in the attic? I’m going to +be an architect. I’m not going to be any blooming printer. I’m going to be an +architect. Why haven’t I mentioned it before? Why haven’t I talked about it +all the time? Because I am an ass! Because there is no word for what I am! Damn it! I +suppose I’m the person to choose what I’m going to be! I suppose it’s my +business more than his. Besides, he can’t possibly refuse me. If I say flatly that I +won’t be a printer—he’s done. This idea of writing a letter is just like +me! Coward! Coward! What’s my tongue for? Can’t I talk? Isn’t he bound +to listen? All I have to do is to open my mouth. He’s sitting there. I’m +sitting here. He can’t eat me. I’m in my rights. Now suppose I start on it as +soon as Mrs Nixon has brought the pudding and pie in?”</p> + +<p>And he waited anxiously to see whether he indeed would be able to make a start after +the departure of Mrs Nixon.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Hopeless! He could not bring himself to do it. It was strange! It was disgusting! ... +No, he would be compelled to write the letter. Besides, the letter would be more +effective. His father could not interrupt a letter by some loud illogical remark. Thus he +salved his self-conceit. He also sought relief in reflecting savagely upon the speeches +that had been made against him in the debate. He went through them all in his mind. There +was the slimy idiot from Baines’s (it was in such terms that his thoughts ran) who +gloried in never having read a word of Colenso, and called the assembled company to +witness that nothing should ever induce him to read such a godless author, going about in +the mask of a so-called Bishop. But had any of them read Colenso, except possibly +Llewellyn Roberts, who in his Welsh way would pretend ignorance and then come out with a +quotation and refer you to the exact page? Edwin himself had read very little of +Colenso—and that little only because a customer had ordered the second part of the +“Pentateuch” and he had stolen it for a night. Colenso was not in the Free +Library... What a world! What a debate! Still, he could not help dwelling with pleasure on +Mr Roberts’s insistence on the brilliant quality of his brains. Astute as Mr Roberts +was, the man was clearly in awe of Edwin’s brains! Why? To be honest, Edwin had +never been deeply struck by his own brain power. And yet there must be something in +it!</p> + +<p>“Of course,” he reflected sardonically, “father doesn’t show +the faintest interest in the debate. Yet he knew all about it, and that I had to open +it.” But he was glad that his father showed no interest in the debate. Clara had +mentioned it in the presence of Maggie, with her usual ironic intent, and Edwin had +quickly shut her up.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In the afternoon, the sitting-room being made uninhabitable by his father’s +goose-ridden dozes, he went out for a walk; the weather was cold and fine. When he +returned his father also had gone out; the two girls were lolling in the sitting-room. An +immense fire, built up by Darius, was just ripe for the beginning of decay, and the room +very warm. Clara was at the window, Maggie in Darius’s chair reading a novel of +Charlotte M. Yonge’s. On the table, open, was a bound volume of “The Family +Treasury of Sunday Reading,” in which Clara had been perusing “The Chronicles +of the Schönberg-Cotta Family” with feverish interest. Edwin had laughed at her +ingenuous absorption in the adventures of the Schönberg-Cotta family, but the fact +was that he had found them rather interesting, in spite of himself, while pretending the +contrary. There was an atmosphere of high obstinate effort and heroical foreign-ness about +the story which stimulated something secret in him that seldom responded to the +provocation of a book; more easily would this secret something respond to a calm evening +or a distant prospect, or the silence of early morning when by chance he looked out of his +window.</p> + +<p>The volume of “The Family Treasury,” though five years old, was a recent +acquisition. It had come into the house through the total disappearance of a customer who +had left the loose numbers to be bound in 1869. Edwin dropped sideways on to a chair at +the table, spread out his feet to the right, pitched his left elbow a long distance to the +left, and, his head resting on his left hand, turned over the pages with his right hand +idly. His eye caught titles such as: “The Door was Shut,” “My +Mother’s Voice,” “The Heather Mother,” “The Only +Treasure,” “Religion and Business,” “Hope to the End,” +“The Child of our Sunday School,” “Satan’s Devices,” and +“Studies of Christian Life and Character, Hannah More.” Then he saw an article +about some architecture in Rome, and he read: “In the Sistine picture there is the +struggle of a great mind to reduce within the possibilities of art a subject that +transcends it. That mind would have shown itself to be greater, truer, at least, in its +judgement of the capabilities of art, and more reverent to have let it alone.” The +seriousness of the whole magazine intimidated him into accepting this pronouncement for a +moment, though his brief studies in various encyclopaedias had led him to believe that the +Sistine Chapel (shown in an illustration in Cazenove) was high beyond any human criticism. +His elbow slid on the surface of the table, and in recovering himself he sent “The +Family Treasury” on the floor, wrong side up, with a great noise. Maggie did not +move. Clara turned and protested sharply against this sacrilege, and Edwin, out of mere +caprice, informed her that her precious magazine was the most stinking silly +‘pi’ (pious) thing that ever was. With haughty and shocked gestures she +gathered up the volume and took it out of the room.</p> + +<p>“I say, Mag,” Edwin muttered, still leaning his head on his hand, and +staring blankly at the wall.</p> + +<p>The fire dropped a little in the grate.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” asked Maggie, without stirring or looking up.</p> + +<p>“Has father said anything to you about me wanting to be an architect?” He +spoke with an affectation of dreaminess.</p> + +<p>“About you wanting to be an architect?” repeated Maggie in surprise.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin. He knew perfectly well that his father would never have +spoken to Maggie on such a subject. But he wanted to open a conversation.</p> + +<p>“No fear!” said Maggie. And added in her kindest, most encouraging, +elder-sisterly tone: “Why?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” He hesitated, drawling, and then he told her a great deal of what was +in his mind. And she carefully put the wool-marker in her book and shut it, and listened +to him. And the fire dropped and dropped, comfortably. She did not understand him; +obviously she thought his desire to be an architect exceedingly odd; but she sympathised. +Her attitude was soothing and fortifying. After all (he reflected) Maggie’s all +right—there’s some sense in Maggie. He could ‘get on’ with Maggie. +For a few moments he was happy and hopeful.</p> + +<p>“I thought I’d write him a letter,” he said. “You know how he +is to talk to.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>“What d’ye think?” he questioned.</p> + +<p>“I should,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Then I shall!” he exclaimed. “How d’ye think he’ll take +it?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Maggie, “I don’t see how he can do aught but take +it all right... Depends how you put it, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you leave that to me!” said Edwin, with eager confidence. “I +shall put it all right. You trust me for that!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>Clara danced into the room, flowing over with infantile joy. She had been listening to +part of the conversation behind the door.</p> + +<p>“So he wants to be an architect! Arch-i-tect! Arch-i-tect!” She half-sang +the word in a frenzy of ridicule. She really did dance, and waved her arms. Her eyes +glittered, as if in rapture. These singular manifestations of her temperament were caused +solely by the strangeness of the idea of Edwin wanting to be an architect. The strange +sight of him with his hair cut short or in a new neck-tie affected her in a similar +manner.</p> + +<p>“Clara, go and put your pinafore on this <i>instant</i>!” said Maggie. +“You know you oughtn’t to leave it off.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be so hoity-toity, miss,” Clara retorted. But she moved +to obey. When she reached the door she turned again and gleefully taunted Edwin. +“And it’s all because he went for a walk yesterday with Mr Orgreave! I know! I +know! You needn’t think I didn’t see you, because I did! Arch-i-tect! +Arch-i-tect!”</p> + +<p>She vanished, on all her springs, spitefully graceful.</p> + +<p>“You might almost think that infernal kid was right bang off her head,” +Edwin muttered crossly. (Still, it was extraordinary how that infernal kid hit on the +truth.)</p> + +<p>Maggie began to mend the fire.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well!” murmured Maggie, conveying to Edwin that no importance must be +attached to the chit’s chittishness.</p> + +<p>He went up to the next flight of stairs to his attic. Dust on the table of his +work-attic! Shameful dust! He had not used that attic since Christmas, on the miserable +plea that winter was cold and there was no fireplace! He blamed himself for his +effeminacy. Where had flown his seriousness, his elaborate plans, his high purposes? A +touch of winter had frightened them away. Yes, he blamed himself mercilessly. True it +was—as that infernal kid had chanted—a casual half-hour with Mr Orgreave was +alone responsible for his awakening—at any rate, for his awakening at this +particular moment. Still, he was awake—that was the great fact. He was tremendously +awake. He had not been asleep; he had only been half-asleep. His intention of becoming an +architect had never left him. But, through weakness before his father, through a cowardly +desire to avoid disturbance and postpone a crisis, he had let the weeks slide by. Now he +was in a groove, in a canyon. He had to get out, and the sooner the better.</p> + +<p>A piece of paper, soiled, was pinned on his drawing-board; one or two sketches lay +about. He turned the drawing-board over, so that he might use it for a desk on which to +write the letter. But he had no habit of writing letters. In the attic was to be found +neither ink, pen, paper, nor envelope. He remembered a broken quire of sermon paper in his +bedroom; he had used a few sheets of it for notes on Bishop Colenso. These notes had been +written in the privacy and warmth of bed, in pencil. But the letter must be done in ink; +the letter was too important for pencil; assuredly his father would take exception to +pencil. He descended to his sister’s room and borrowed Maggie’s ink and a pen, +and took an envelope, tripping like a thief. Then he sat down to the composition of the +letter; but he was obliged to stop almost immediately in order to light the lamp.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>This is what he wrote:</p> + +<p>“Dear Father,—I dare say you will think it queer me writing you a letter +like this, but it is the best thing I can do, and I hope you will excuse me. I dare say +you will remember I told you that night when you came home late from Manchester here in +the attic that I wanted to be an architect. You replied that what I wanted was business +experience. If you say that I have not had enough business experience yet, I agree to +that, but I want it to be understood that later on, when it is the proper time, I am to be +an architect. You know I am very fond of architecture, and I feel that I must be an +architect. I feel I shall not be happy in the printing business because I want to be an +architect. I am now nearly seventeen. Perhaps it is too soon yet for me to be apprenticed +to an architect, and so I can go on learning business habits. But I just want it to be +understood. I am quite sure you wish me to be happy in life, and I shan’t be happy +if I am always regretting that I have not gone in for being an architect. I know I shall +like architecture.—Your affectionate son, Edwin Clayhanger.”</p> + +<p>Then, as an afterthought, he put the date and his address at the top. He meditated a +postscript asking for a reply, but decided that this was unnecessary. As he was addressing +the envelope Mrs Nixon called out to him from below to come to tea. He was surprised to +find that he had spent over an hour on the letter. He shivered and sneezed.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>During tea he felt himself absurdly self-conscious, but nobody seemed to notice his +condition. The whole family went to chapel. The letter lay in his pocket, and he might +easily have slipped away to the post-office with it, but he had had no opportunity to +possess himself of a stamp. There was no need to send the letter through the post. He +might get up early and put it among the morning’s letters. He had decided, however, +that it must arrive formally by the postman, and he would not alter his decision. Hence, +after chapel, he took a match, and, creeping into the shop, procured a crimson stamp from +his father’s desk. Then he went forth, by the back way, alone into the streets. The +adventure was not so hazardous as it seemed and as it felt. Darius was incurious by +nature, though he had brief fevers of curiosity. Thus the life of the children was a +demoralising mixture of rigid discipline and freedom. They were permitted nothing, but, as +the years passed, they might take nearly anything. There was small chance of Darius +discovering his son’s excursion.</p> + +<p>In crossing the road from chapel Edwin had opined to his father that the frost was +breaking. He was now sure of it. The mud, no longer brittle, yielded to pressure, and +there was a trace of dampness in the interstices of the pavement bricks. A thin raw mist +was visible in huge spheres round the street lamps. The sky was dark. The few people whom +he encountered seemed to be out upon mysterious errands, seemed to emerge strangely from +one gloom and strangely to vanish into another. In the blind, black façades of the +streets the public-houses blazed invitingly with gas; they alone were alive in the weekly +death of the town; and they gleamed everywhere, at every corner; the town appeared to +consist chiefly of public-houses. He dropped the letter into the box in the market-place; +he heard it fall. His heart beat. The deed was now irrevocable. He wondered what Monday +held for him. The quiescent melancholy of the town invaded his spirit, and mingled with +his own remorseful sorrow for the unstrenuous past, and his apprehensive solicitude about +the future. It was not unpleasant, this brooding sadness, half-despondency and half-hope. +A man and a woman, arm-in-arm, went by him as he stood unconscious of his conspicuousness +under the gas-lamp that lit the post-office. They laughed the smothered laugh of intimacy +to see a tall boy standing alone there, with no overcoat, gazing at naught. Edwin turned +to go home. It occurred to him that nearly all the people he met were couples, arm-in-arm. +And he suddenly thought of Florence, the clog-dancer. He had scarcely thought of her for +months. The complexity of the interests of life, and the interweaving of its moods, +fatigued his mind into an agreeably grave vacuity.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_1_chap_17"></a> +<h3>Volume One--Chapter Seventeen.</h3> + +<h4>End of a Struggle.</h4> + +<p>It was not one of his official bilious attacks that Darius had on the following day; he +only yielded himself up in the complete grand manner when nature absolutely compelled. The +goose had not formally beaten him, but neither had he formally beaten the goose. The +battle was drawn, and this meant that Darius had a slight headache, a feeling of heavy +disgust with the entire polity of the universe, and a disinclination for food. The first +and third symptoms he hid as far as possible, from pride: at breakfast he toyed with +bacon, from pride, hating bacon. The children knew from his eyes and his guilty gestures +that he was not well, but they dared not refer to his condition; they were bound to +pretend that the health of their father flourished in the highest perfection. And they +were glad that things were no worse.</p> + +<p>On the other hand Edwin had a sneezing cold which he could not conceal, and Darius +inimically inquired what foolishness he had committed to have brought this on himself. +Edwin replied that he knew of no cause for it. A deliberate lie! He knew that he had +contracted a chill while writing a letter to his father in an unwarmed attic, and had +intensified the chill by going forth to post the letter without his overcoat in a raw +evening mist. Obviously, however, he could not have stated the truth. He was uncomfortable +at the breakfast-table, but, after the first few moments, less so than during the +disturbed night he had feared to be. His father had neither eaten him, nor jumped down his +throat, nor performed any of those unpleasant miraculous feats which fathers usually do +perform when infuriated by filial foolishness. The letter therefore had not been utterly +disastrous; sometimes a letter would ruin a breakfast, for Mr Clayhanger, with no +consideration for the success of meals, always opened his post before bite or sup. He had +had the letter, and still he was ready to talk to his son in the ordinary grim tone of a +goose-morrow. Which was to the good. Edwin was now convinced that he had done well to +write the letter.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>But as the day passed, Edwin began to ask himself: “Has he had the letter?” +There was no sign of the letter in his father’s demeanour, which, while not such as +to make it credible that he ever had moods of positive gay roguishness, was almost +tolerable, considering his headache and his nausea. Letters occasionally were lost in the +post, or delayed. Edwin thought it would be just his usual bad luck if that particular +letter, that letter of all letters, should be lost. And the strange thing is that he could +not prevent himself from hoping that it indeed was lost. He would prefer it to be lost +rather than delayed. He felt that if the postman brought it by the afternoon delivery +while he and his father were in the shop together, he should drop down dead. The day +continued to pass, and did pass. And the shop was closed. “He’ll speak to me +after supper,” said Edwin. But Darius did not speak to him after supper. Darius put +on his hat and overcoat and went out, saying no word except to advise the children to be +getting to bed, all of them.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was gone Edwin took a candle and returned to the shop. He was convinced +now that the letter had not been delivered, but he wished to make conviction sure. He +opened the desk. His letter was nearly the first document he saw. It looked affrighting, +awful. He dared not read it, to see whether its wording was fortunate or unfortunate. He +departed, mystified. Upstairs in his bedroom he had a new copy of an English translation +of Victor Hugo’s “Notre Dame,” which had been ordered by Lawyer Lawton, +but would not be called for till the following week, because Lawyer Lawton only called +once a fortnight. He had meant to read that book, with due precautions, in bed. But he +could not fix attention on it. Impossible for him to follow a single paragraph. He +extinguished the candle. Then he heard his father come home. He thought that he scarcely +slept all night.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>The next morning, Tuesday, the girls, between whom and their whispering friend Miss +Ingamells something feminine was evidently afoot, left the breakfast-table sooner than +usual, not without stifled giggles: upon occasion Maggie would surprisingly meet Clara and +Miss Ingamells on their own plane; since Sunday afternoon she had shown no further +interest in Edwin’s important crisis; she seemed, so far as he could judge, to have +fallen back into her customary state of busy apathy.</p> + +<p>The man and the young man were alone together. Darius, in his satisfaction at having +been delivered so easily from the goose, had taken an extra slice of bacon. Edwin’s +cold was now fully developed; and Maggie had told him to feed it.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you got that letter I wrote you, father, about me going in for +architecture,” said Edwin. Then he blew his nose to hide his confusion. He was +rather startled to hear himself saying those bold words. He thought that he was quite calm +and in control of his impulses; but it was not so; his nerves were stretched to the +utmost.</p> + +<p>Darius said nothing. But Edwin could see his face darkening, and his lower lip heavily +falling. He glowered, though not at Edwin. With eyes fixed on the window he glowered into +vacancy. The pride went out of Edwin’s heart.</p> + +<p>“So ye’d leave the printing?” muttered Darius, when he had finished +masticating. He spoke in a menacing voice thick with ferocious emotion.</p> + +<p>“Well—” said Edwin, quaking.</p> + +<p>He thought he had never seen his father so ominously intimidating. He was terrorised as +he looked at that ugly and dark countenance. He could not say any more. His voice left +him. Thus his fear was physical as well as moral. He reflected: “Well, I expected a +row, but I didn’t expect it would be as bad as this!” And once more he was +completely puzzled and baffled by the enigma of his father.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>He did not hold the key, and even had he held it he was too young, too inexperienced, +to have used it. As with gathering passion the eyes of Darius assaulted the window-pane, +Darius had a painful intense vision of that miracle, his own career. Edwin’s grand +misfortune was that he was blind to the miracle. Edwin had never seen the little boy in +the Bastille. But Darius saw him always, the infant who had begun life at a +rope’s-end. Every hour of Darius’s present existence was really an astounding +marvel to Darius. He could not read the newspaper without thinking how wonderful it was +that he should be able to read the newspaper. And it was wonderful! It was wonderful that +he had three different suits of clothes, none of them with a single hole. It was wonderful +that he had three children, all with complete outfits of good clothes. It was wonderful +that he never had to think twice about buying coal, and that he could have more food than +he needed. It was wonderful that he was not living in a two-roomed cottage. He never came +into his house by the side entrance without feeling proud that the door gave on to a +preliminary passage and not direct into a living-room; he would never lose the idea that a +lobby, however narrow, was the great distinguishing mark of wealth. It was wonderful that +he had a piano, and that his girls could play it and could sing. It was wonderful that he +had paid twenty-eight shillings a term for his son’s schooling, in addition to +book-money. Twenty-eight shillings a term! And once a penny a week was considered enough, +and twopence generous! Through sheer splendid wilful pride he had kept his son at school +till the lad was sixteen, going on seventeen! Seventeen, not seven! He had had the sort of +pride in his son that a man may have in an idle, elegant, and absurdly expensive woman. It +even tickled him to hear his son called ‘Master Edwin,’ and then ‘Mister +Edwin’; just as the fine ceremonious manners of his sister-in-law Mrs Hamps tickled +him. His marriage! With all its inevitable disillusions it had been wonderful, incredible. +He looked back on it as a miracle. For he had married far above him, and had proved equal +to the enormously difficult situation. Never had he made a fool of himself. He often took +keen pleasure in speculating upon the demeanour of his father, his mother, his little +sister, could they have seen him in his purple and in his grandeur. They were all dead. +And those days were fading, fading, gone, with their unutterable, intolerable shame and +sadness, intolerable even in memory. And his wife dead too! All that remained was Mr +Shushions.</p> + +<p>And then his business? Darius’s pride in the achievement of his business was +simply indescribable. If he had not built up that particular connexion he had built up +another one whose sale had enabled him to buy it. And he was waxing yearly. His supremacy +as a printer could not be challenged in Bursley. Steam! A double-windowed shop! A foreman +to whom alone he paid thirty shillings a week! Four other employees! (Not to mention a +domestic servant.) ... How had he done it? He did not know. Certainly he did not credit +himself with brilliant faculties. He knew he was not brilliant; he knew that once or twice +he had had luck. But he had the greatest confidence in his rough-hewing common sense. The +large curves of his career were correctly drawn. His common sense, his slow shrewdness, +had been richly justified by events. They had been pitted against foes—and look now +at the little boy from the Bastille!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>To Darius there was no business quite like his own. He admitted that there were +businesses much bigger, but they lacked the miraculous quality that his own had. They were +not sacred. His was, genuinely. Once, in his triumphant and vain early manhood he had had +a fancy for bulldogs; he had bred bulldogs; and one day he had sacrificed even that great +delight at the call of his business; and now no one could guess that he knew the +difference between a setter and a mastiff!</p> + +<p>It was this sacred business (perpetually adored at the secret altar in Darius’s +heart), this miraculous business, and not another, that Edwin wanted to abandon, with +scarcely a word; just casually!</p> + +<p>True, Edwin had told him one night that he would like to be an architect. But Darius +had attached no importance to the boyish remark. Darius had never even dreamed that Edwin +would not go into the business. It would not have occurred to him to conceive such a +possibility. And the boy had shown great aptitude. The boy had saved the printing office +from disaster. And Darius had proved his satisfaction therein, not by words certainly, but +beyond mistaking in his general demeanour towards Edwin. And after all that, a +letter—mind you, a letter!—proposing with the most damnable insolent audacity +that he should be an architect, because he would not be ‘happy’ in the +printing business! ... An architect! Why an architect, specially? What in the name of God +was there to attract in bricks and mortar? He thought the boy had gone off his head for a +space. He could not think of any other explanation. He had not allowed the letter to upset +him. By his armour of thick callousness, he had protected the tender places in his soul +from being wounded. He had not decided how to phrase his answer to Edwin. He had not even +decided whether he would say anything at all, whether it would not be more dignified and +impressive to make no remark whatever to Edwin, to let him slowly perceive, by silence, +what a lamentable error he had committed.</p> + +<p>And here was the boy lightly, cheekily, talking at breakfast about ‘going in for +architecture’! The armour of callousness was pierced. Darius felt the full force of +the letter; and as he suffered, so he became terrible and tyrannic in his suffering. He +meant to save his business, to put his business before anything. And he would have his own +way. He would impose his will. And he would have treated argument as a final insult. All +the heavy, obstinate, relentless force of his individuality was now channelled in one +tremendous instinct.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>“Well, what?” he growled savagely, as Edwin halted.</p> + +<p>In spite of his advanced age Edwin began to cry. Yes, the tears came out of his +eyes.</p> + +<p>“And now you begin blubbing!” said his father.</p> + +<p>“You say naught for six months—and then you start writing letters!” +said his father.</p> + +<p>“And what’s made ye settle on architecting, I’d like to be +knowing?” Darius went on.</p> + +<p>Edwin was not able to answer this question. He had never put it to himself. Assuredly +he could not, at the pistol’s point, explain <i>why</i> he wanted to be an +architect. He did not know. He announced this truth ingenuously—</p> + +<p>“I don’t know—I—”</p> + +<p>“I sh’d think not!” said his father. “D’ye think +architecting’ll be any better than this?” ‘This’ meant +printing.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know—”</p> + +<p>“Ye don’t know! Ye don’t know!” Darius repeated testily. His +testiness was only like foam on the great wave of his resentment.</p> + +<p>“Mr Orgreave—” Edwin began. It was unfortunate, because Darius had +had a difficulty with Mr Orgreave, who was notoriously somewhat exacting in the matter of +prices.</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk to me about Mester Orgreave!” Darius almost shouted.</p> + +<p>Edwin didn’t. He said to himself: “I am lost.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this business o’ mine for, if it isna’ for you?” +asked his father. “Architecting! There’s neither sense nor reason in it! +Neither sense nor reason!”</p> + +<p>He rose and walked out. Edwin was now sobbing. In a moment his father returned, and +stood in the doorway.</p> + +<p>“Ye’ve been doing well, I’ll say that, and I’ve shown it! I was +beginning to have hopes of ye!” It was a great deal to say.</p> + +<p>He departed.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps if I hadn’t stopped his damned old machine from going through the +floor, he’d have let me off!” Edwin muttered bitterly. “I’ve been +too good, that’s what’s the matter with me!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>He saw how fantastic was the whole structure of his hopes. He wondered that he had ever +conceived it even wildly possible that his father would consent to architecture as a +career! To ask it was to ask absurdly too much of fate. He demolished, with a violent and +resentful impulse, the structure of his hopes; stamped on it angrily. He was beaten. What +could he do? He could do nothing against his father. He could no more change his father +than the course of a river. He was beaten. He saw his case in its true light.</p> + +<p>Mrs Nixon entered to clear the table. He turned away to hide his face, and strode +passionately off. Two hours elapsed before he appeared in the shop. Nobody asked for him, +but Mrs Nixon knew he was in the attic. At noon, Maggie, with a peculiar look, told him +that Auntie Hamps had called and that he was to go and have dinner with her at one +o’clock, and that his father consented. Obviously, Maggie knew the facts of the day. +He was perturbed at the prospect of the visit. But he was glad; he thought he could not +have lived through a dinner at the same table as Clara. He guessed that his auntie had +been made aware of the situation and wished to talk to him.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Eight.</h4> + +<p>“Your father came to see me in such a state last night!” said Auntie Hamps, +after she had dealt with his frightful cold.</p> + +<p>Edwin was astonished by the news. Then after all his father had been afraid! ... After +all perhaps he had yielded too soon! If he had held out... If he had not been a baby! ... +But it was too late. The incident was now closed.</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps was kind, but unusually firm in her tone; which reached a sort of benevolent +severity.</p> + +<p>“Your father had such high hopes of you. <i>Has</i>—I should say. He +couldn’t imagine what on earth possessed you to write such a letter. And I’m +sure I can’t. I hope you’re sorry. If you’d seen your father last night +you would be, I’m sure.”</p> + +<p>“But look here, auntie,” Edwin defended himself, sneezing and wiping his +nose; and he spoke of his desire. Surely he was entitled to ask, to suggest! A son could +not be expected to be exactly like his father. And so on.</p> + +<p>No! no! She brushed all that aside. She scarcely listened to it.</p> + +<p>“But think of the business! And just think of your father’s +feelings!”</p> + +<p>Edwin spoke no more. He saw that she was absolutely incapable of putting herself in his +place. He could not have explained her attitude by saying that she had the vast +unconscious cruelty which always goes with a perfect lack of imagination; but this was the +explanation. He left her, saddened by the obvious conclusion that his auntie, whom he had +always supported against his sisters, was part author of his undoing. She had undoubtedly +much strengthened his father against him. He had a gleam of suspicion that his sisters had +been right, and he wrong, about Mrs Hamps. Wonderful, the cruel ruthless insight of +girls—into some things!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Nine.</h4> + +<p>Not till Saturday did the atmosphere of the Clayhanger household resume the normal. But +earlier than that Edwin had already lost his resentment. It disappeared with his cold. He +could not continue to bear ill-will. He accepted his destiny of immense disappointment. He +shouldered it. You may call him weak or you may call him strong. Maggie said nothing to +him of the great affair. What could she have said? And the affair was so great that even +Clara did not dare to exercise upon it her peculiar faculties of ridicule. It abashed her +by its magnitude.</p> + +<p>On Saturday Darius said to his son, good-humouredly—</p> + +<p>“Canst be trusted to pay wages?”</p> + +<p>Edwin smiled.</p> + +<p>At one o’clock he went across the yard to the printing office with a little bag +of money. The younger apprentice was near the door scrubbing type with potash to cleanse +it. The backs of his hands were horribly raw and bleeding with chaps, due to the frequent +necessity of washing them in order to serve the machines, and the impossibility of drying +them properly. Still, winter was ending now, and he only worked eleven hours a day, in an +airy room, instead of nineteen hours in a cellar, like the little boy from the Bastille. +He was a fortunate youth. The journeyman stood idle; as often, on Saturdays, the length of +the journeyman’s apron had been reduced by deliberate tearing during the week from +three feet to about a foot—so imperious and sudden was the need for rags in the +processes of printing. Big James was folding up his apron. They all saw that Edwin had the +bag, and their faces relaxed.</p> + +<p>“You’re as good as the master now, Mr Edwin,” said Big James with +ceremonious politeness and a fine gesture, when Edwin had finished paying.</p> + +<p>“Am I?” he rejoined simply.</p> + +<p>Everybody knew of the great affair. Big James’s words were his gentle intimation +to Edwin that every one knew the great affair was now settled.</p> + +<p>That night, for the first time, Edwin could read “Notre Dame” with +understanding and pleasure. He plunged with soft joy into the river of the gigantic and +formidable narrative. He reflected that after all the sources of happiness were not +exhausted.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_01"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter One.</h3> + +<h4>Book Two — His Love.</h4> + +<h4>The Visit.</h4> + +<p>We now approach the more picturesque part of Edwin’s career. Seven years passed. +Towards the end of April 1880, on a Saturday morning, Janet Orgreave, second daughter of +Osmond Orgreave, the architect, entered the Clayhanger shop.</p> + +<p>All night an April shower lasting ten hours had beaten with persistent impetuosity +against the window-panes of Bursley, and hence half the town had slept ill. But at +breakfast-time the clouds had been mysteriously drawn away, the winds had expired, and +those drenched streets began to dry under the caressing peace of bright soft sunshine; the +sky was pale blue of a delicacy unknown to the intemperate climes of the south. Janet +Orgreave, entering the Clayhanger shop, brought into it with her the new morning weather. +She also brought into it Edwin’s fate, or part of it, but not precisely in the sense +commonly understood when the word ‘fate’ is mentioned between a young man and +a young woman.</p> + +<p>A youth stood at the left-hand or ‘fancy’ counter, very nervous. Miss +Ingamells (that was) was married and the mother of three children, and had probably +forgotten the difference between ‘demy’ and ‘post’ octavos; and +this youth had taken her place and the place of two unsatisfactory maids in black who had +succeeded her. None but males were now employed in the Clayhanger business, and everybody +breathed more freely; round, sound oaths were heard where never oaths had been heard +before. The young man’s name was Stifford, and he was addressed as +‘Stiff.’ He was a proof of the indiscretion of prophesying about human nature. +He had been the paper boy, the minion of Edwin, and universally regarded as unreliable and +almost worthless. But at sixteen a change had come over him; he parted his hair in the +middle instead of at the side, arrived in the morning at 7:59 instead of at 8:05, and +seemed to see the earnestness of life. Every one was glad and relieved, but every one took +the change as a matter of course; the attitude of every one to the youth was: “Well, +it’s not too soon!” No one saw a romantic miracle.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you haven’t got ‘The Light of Asia’ in stock?” +began Janet Orgreave, after she had greeted the youth kindly.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid we haven’t, miss,” said Stifford. This was an +understatement. He knew beyond fear that “The Light of Asia” was not in +stock.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” murmured Janet.</p> + +<p>“I think you said ‘The Light of Asia’?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. ‘The Light of Asia,’ by Edwin Arnold.” Janet had a +persuasive humane smile.</p> + +<p>Stifford was anxious to have the air of obliging this smile, and he turned round to +examine a shelf of prize books behind him, well aware that “The Light of Asia” +was not among them. He knew “The Light of Asia,” and was proud of his +knowledge; that is to say, he knew by visible and tactual evidence that such a book +existed, for it had been ordered and supplied as a Christmas present four months +previously, soon after its dazzling apparition in the world.</p> + +<p>“Yes, by Edwin Arnold—Edwin Arnold,” he muttered learnedly, running +his finger along gilded backs.</p> + +<p>“It’s being talked about a great deal,” said Janet as if to encourage +him.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is... No, I’m very sorry, we haven’t it in stock.” +Stifford faced her again, and leaned his hands wide apart on the counter.</p> + +<p>“I should like you to order it for me,” said Janet Orgreave in a low +voice.</p> + +<p>She asked this exactly as though she were asking a personal favour from Stifford the +private individual. Such was Janet’s way. She could not help it. People often said +that her desire to please, and her methods of pleasing, were unconscious. These people +were wrong. She was perfectly conscious and even deliberate in her actions. She liked to +please. She could please easily and she could please keenly. Therefore she strove always +to please. Sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, and saw that charming, good-natured +face with its rich vermilion lips eager to part in a nice, warm, sympathetic smile, she +could accuse herself of being too fond of the art of pleasing. For she was a conscientious +girl, and her age being twenty-five her soul was at its prime, full, bursting with +beautiful impulses towards perfection. Yes, she would accuse herself of being too happy, +too content, and would wonder whether she ought not to seek heaven by some austerity of +scowling. Janet had everything: a kind disposition, some brains, some beauty, considerable +elegance and luxury for her station, fine shoulders at a ball, universal love and +esteem.</p> + +<p>Stifford, as he gazed diffidently at this fashionable, superior, and yet exquisitely +beseeching woman on the other side of the counter, was in a very unpleasant quandary. She +had by her magic transformed him into a private individual, and he acutely wanted to earn +that smile which she was giving him. But he could not. He was under the obligation to say +‘No’ to her innocent and delightful request; and yet could he say +‘No’? Could he bring himself to desolate her by a refusal? (She had produced +in him the illusion that a refusal would indeed desolate her, though she would of course +bear it with sweet fortitude.) Business was a barbaric thing at times.</p> + +<p>“The fact is, miss,” he said at length, in his best manner, “Mr +Clayhanger has decided to give up the new book business. I’m very sorry.”</p> + +<p>Had it been another than Janet he would have assuredly said with pride: “We have +decided—”</p> + +<p>“Really!” said Janet. “I see!”</p> + +<p>Then Stifford directed his eyes upon a square glazed structure of ebonised wood that +had been insinuated and inserted into the opposite corner of the shop, behind the +ledger-window. And Janet’s eyes followed his.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know if—” he hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Is Mr Clayhanger in?” she demanded, as if wishful to help him in the +formulation of his idea, and she added: “Or Mr Edwin?” Deliciously +persuasive!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The wooden structure was a lair. It had been constructed to hold Darius Clayhanger; but +in practice it generally held Edwin, as his father’s schemes for the enlargement of +the business carried him abroad more and more. It was a device of Edwin’s for +privacy; Edwin had planned it and seen the plan executed. The theory was that a person +concealed in the structure (called ‘the office’) was not technically in the +shop and must not be disturbed by anyone in the shop. Only persons of +authority—Darius and Edwin—had the privilege of the office, and since its +occupant could hear every whisper in the shop, it was always for the occupant to decide +when events demanded that he should emerge.</p> + +<p>On Janet’s entrance, Edwin was writing in the daybook: “April 11th. +Turnhill Oddfellows. 400 Contrib. Cards—” He stopped writing. He held himself +still like a startled mouse. With satisfaction he observed that the door of the fortress +was closed. By putting his nose near the crystal wall he could see, through the minute +transparent portions of the patterned glass, without being seen. He watched Janet’s +graceful gestures, and examined with pleasure the beauties of her half-season toilet; he +discerned the modishness of her umbrella handle. His sensations were agreeable and yet +disagreeable, for he wished both to remain where he was and to go forth and engage her in +brilliant small talk. He had no small talk, except that of the salesman and the tradesman; +his tongue knew not freedom; but his fancy dreamed of light, intellectual conversations +with fine girls. These dreams of fancy had of late become almost habitual, for the sole +reason that he had raised his hat several times to Janet, and once had shaken hands with +her and said, “How d’you do, Miss Orgreave?” in response to her +“How d’you do, Mr Clayhanger?” Osmond Orgreave, in whom had originated +their encounter, had cut across the duologue at that point and spoilt it. But +Edwin’s fancy had continued it, when he was alone late at night, in a very diverting +and witty manner. And now, he had her at his disposal; he had only to emerge, and Stiff +would deferentially recede, and he could chat with her at ease, starting comfortably from +“The Light of Asia.” And yet he dared not; his faint heart told him in loud +beats that he could only chat cleverly with a fine girl when absolutely alone in his room, +in the dark.</p> + +<p>Still, he surveyed her; he added her up; he pronounced, with a touch of conventional +male patronage (caught possibly from the Liberal Club), that Janet was indubitably a nice +girl and a fine girl. He would not admit that he was afraid of her, and that despite all +theoretical argufying, he deemed her above him in rank.</p> + +<p>And if he had known the full truth, he might have regretted that he had not caused the +lair to be furnished with a trap-door by means of which the timid could sink into the +earth.</p> + +<p>The truth was that Janet had called purposely to inspect Edwin at leisure. “The +Light of Asia” was a mere poetical pretext. “The Light of Asia” might as +easily have been ordered at Hanbridge, where her father and brothers ordered all their +books—in fact, more easily. Janet, with all her niceness, with all the reality of +her immense good-nature, loved as well as anybody a bit of chicane where a man was +concerned. Janet’s eyes could twinkle as mischievously as her quiet mother’s. +Mr Orgreave having in the last eight months been in professional relations with Darius and +Edwin, the Orgreave household had begun discussing Edwin again. Mr Orgreave spoke of him +favourably. Mrs Orgreave said that he looked the right sort of youth, but that he had a +peculiar manner. Janet said that she should not be surprised if there was something in +him. Janet said also that his sister Clara was an impossible piece of goods, and that his +sister Maggie was born an old maid. One of her brothers then said that that was just what +was the matter with Edwin too! Mr Orgreave protested that he wasn’t so sure of that, +and that occasionally Edwin would say things that were really rather good. This stimulated +Mrs Orgreave’s curiosity, and she suggested that her husband should invite the young +man to their house. Whereupon Mr Orgreave pessimistically admitted that he did not think +Edwin could be enticed. And Janet, piqued, said, “If that’s all, I’ll +have him here in a week.” They were an adventurous family, always ready for +anything, always on the look-out for new sources of pleasure, full of zest in life. They +liked novelties, and hospitality was their chief hobby. They made fun of nearly every +body, but it was not mean fun.</p> + +<p>Such, and not “The Light of Asia,” was the cause of Janet’s +visit.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Be it said to Edwin’s shame that she would have got no further with the family +plot that morning, had it not been for the chivalry of Stifford. Having allowed his eyes +to rest on the lair, Stifford allowed his memory to forget the rule of the shop, and left +the counter for the door of the lair, determined that Miss Orgreave should see the +genuineness of his anxiety to do his utmost for so sympathetic a woman. Edwin, perceiving +the intention from his lair, had to choose whether he would go out or be fetched out. Of +course he preferred to go out. But he would never have gone out on his own initiative; he +would have hesitated until Janet had departed, and he would then have called himself a +fool. He regretted, and I too regret, that he was like that; but like that he was.</p> + +<p>He emerged with nervous abruptness.</p> + +<p>“Oh, how d’you do, Miss Orgreave?” he said; “I thought it was +your voice.” After this he gave a little laugh, which meant nothing, certainly not +amusement; it was merely a gawky habit that he had unconsciously adopted. Then he took his +handkerchief out of his pocket and put it back again. Stifford fell back and had to +pretend that nothing interested him less than the interview which he had precipitated.</p> + +<p>“How d’you do, Mr Clayhanger?” said Janet.</p> + +<p>They shook hands. Edwin wrung Janet’s hand; another gawky habit.</p> + +<p>“I was just going to order a book,” said Janet.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes! ‘The Light of Asia,’” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Have you read it?” Janet asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes—that is, a lot of it.”</p> + +<p>“Have you?” exclaimed Janet. She was impressed, because really the perusal +of verse was not customary in the town. And her delightful features showed generously the +full extent to which she was impressed: an honest, ungrudging appreciation of +Edwin’s studiousness. She said to herself: “Oh! I must certainly get him to +the house.” And Edwin said to himself, “No mistake, there’s something +very genuine about this girl.”</p> + +<p>Edwin said aloud quickly, from an exaggerated apprehensiveness lest she should be +rating him too high—</p> + +<p>“It was quite an accident that I saw it. I never read that sort of +thing—not as a rule.” He laughed again.</p> + +<p>“Is it worth buying?” Now she appealed to him as an authority. She could +not help doing so, and in doing so she was quite honest, for her good-nature had +momentarily persuaded her that he was an authority.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know,” Edwin answered, moving his neck as though his +collar was not comfortable; but it was comfortable, being at least a size too large. +“It depends, you know. If you read a lot of poetry, it’s worth buying. But if +you don’t, it isn’t. It’s not Tennyson, you know. See what I +mean?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, quite!” said Janet, smiling with continued and growing appreciation. +The reply struck her as very sagacious. She suddenly saw in a new light her father’s +hints that there was something in this young man not visible to everybody. She had a +tremendous respect for her father’s opinion, and now she reproached herself in that +she had not attached due importance to what he had said about Edwin. “How right +father always is!” she thought. Her attitude of respect for Edwin was now more +securely based upon impartial intelligence than before; it owed less to her weakness for +seeing the best in people. As for Edwin, he was saying to himself: “I wish to the +devil I could talk to her without spluttering! Why can’t I be natural? Why +can’t I be glib? Some chaps could.” And Edwin could be, with some chaps.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>They were standing close together in the shop, Janet and Edwin, near the cabinet of +artists’ materials. Janet, after her manner at once frank and reassuring, examined +Edwin; she had come on purpose to examine him. She had never been able to decide whether +or not he was good-looking, and she could not decide now. But she liked the appeal in his +eyes. She did not say to herself that there was an appeal in his eyes; she said that there +was ‘something in his eyes.’ Also he was moderately tall and he was slim. She +said to herself that he must be very well shaped. Beginning at the bottom, his boots were +clumsy, his trousers were baggy and even shiny, and they had transverse creases, not to be +seen in the trousers of her own menkind; his waistcoat showed plainly the forms of every +article in the pockets thereof—watch, penknife, pencil, etcetera, it was obvious +that he never emptied his pockets at night; his collar was bluish-white instead of white, +and its size was monstrous; his jacket had ‘worked up’ at the back of his +neck, completely hiding his collar there; the side-pockets of his jacket were weighted and +bulged with mysterious goods; his fair hair was rough but not curly; he had a moustache so +trifling that one could not be sure whether it was a moustache or whether he had been too +busy to think of shaving. Janet received all these facts into her brain, and then +carelessly let them all slip out again, in her preoccupation with his eyes. She said they +were sad eyes. The mouth, too, was somewhat sad (she thought), but there was a drawing +down of the corners of it that seemed to make gentle fun of its sadness. Janet, perhaps +out of her good-nature, liked his restless, awkward movements and the gesture of his +hands, of which the articulations were too prominent, and the finger-nails too short.</p> + +<p>“Tom reads rather a lot of poetry,” said Janet. “That’s my +eldest brother.”</p> + +<p>“That <i>might</i> justify you,” said Edwin doubtfully.</p> + +<p>They both laughed. And as with Janet, so with Edwin, when he laughed, all the kindest +and honestest part of him seemed to rise into his face.</p> + +<p>“But if you don’t supply new books any more?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin stuttered, blushing slightly. “That’s nothing. I +shall be very pleased to get it for you specially, Miss Orgreave. It’s father that +decided—only last month—that the new book business was more trouble than +it’s worth. It was—in a way; but I’m sorry, myself, we’ve given it +up, poor as it was. Of course there <i>are</i> no book-buyers in this town, especially now +old Lawton’s dead. But still, what with one thing or another, there was generally +some book on order, and I used to see them. Of course there’s no money in it. But +still... Father says that people buy less books than they used to—but he’s +wrong there.” Edwin spoke with calm certainty. “I’ve shown him +he’s wrong by our order-book, but he wouldn’t see it.” Edwin smiled, +with a general mild indulgence for fathers.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Janet, “I’ll ask Tom first.”</p> + +<p>“No trouble whatever to us to order it for you, I assure you. I can get it down +by return of post.”</p> + +<p>“It’s very good of you,” said Janet, genuinely persuading herself for +the moment that Edwin was quite exceeding the usual bounds of complaisance.</p> + +<p>She moved to depart.</p> + +<p>“Father told me to tell you if I saw you that the glazing will be all finished +this morning,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Up yonder?” Edwin jerked his head to indicate the south.</p> + +<p>And Janet delicately confirmed his assumption with a slight declension of her waving +hat.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Good!” Edwin murmured.</p> + +<p>Janet held out her hand, to be wrung again, and assured him of her gratitude for his +offer of taking trouble about the book; and he assured her that it would not be trouble +but pleasure. He accompanied her to the doorway.</p> + +<p>“I think I must come up and have a look at that glazing this afternoon,” he +said, as she stood on the pavement.</p> + +<p>She nodded, smiling benevolence and appreciation, and departed round the corner in the +soft sunshine.</p> + +<p>Edwin put on a stern, casual expression for the benefit of Stifford, as who should say: +“What a trial these frivolous girls are to a man immersed in affairs!” But +Stifford was not deceived. Safe within his lair, Edwin was conscious of quite a disturbing +glow. He smiled to himself—a little self-consciously, though alone. Then he +scribbled down in pencil “Light of Asia. Miss J. Orgreave.”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_02"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Two.</h3> + +<h4>Father and Son after Seven Years.</h4> + +<p>Darius came heavily, and breathing heavily, into the little office.</p> + +<p>“Now as all this racketing’s over,” he said crossly—he meant by +‘racketing’ the general election which had just put the Liberal party into +power—“I’ll thank ye to see as all that red and blue ink is cleaned off +the rollers and slabs, and the types cleaned too. I’ve told ’em ten times if +I’ve told ’em once, but as far as I can make out, they’ve done naught to +it yet.”</p> + +<p>Edwin grunted without looking up.</p> + +<p>His father was now a fattish man, and he had aged quite as much as Edwin. Some of his +scanty hair was white; the rest was grey. White hair sprouted about his ears; gold gleamed +in his mouth; and a pair of spectacles hung insecurely balanced half-way down his nose; +his waistcoat seemed to be stretched tightly over a perfectly smooth hemisphere. He had an +air of somewhat gross and prosperous untidiness. Except for the teeth, his bodily frame +appeared to have fallen into disrepair, as though he had ceased to be interested in it, as +though he had been using it for a long time as a mere makeshift lodging. And this +impression was more marked at table; he ate exactly as if throwing food to a wild animal +concealed somewhere within the hemisphere, an animal which was never seen, but which +rumbled threateningly from time to time in its dark dungeon.</p> + +<p>Of all this, Edwin had definitely noticed nothing save that his father was +‘getting stouter.’ To Edwin, Darius was exactly the same father, and for +Darius, Edwin was still aged sixteen. They both of them went on living on the assumption +that the world had stood still in those seven years between 1873 and 1880. If they had +been asked what had happened during those seven years, they would have answered: +“Oh, nothing particular!”</p> + +<p>But the world had been whizzing ceaselessly from one miracle into another. Board +schools had been opened in Bursley, wondrous affairs, with ventilation; indeed ventilation +had been discovered. A Jew had been made Master of the Rolls: a spectacle at which England +shivered, and then, perceiving no sign of disaster, shrugged its shoulders. Irish members +had taught the House of Commons how to talk for twenty-four hours without a pause. The +wages of the agricultural labourer had sprung into the air and leaped over the twelve +shilling bar into regions of opulence. Moody and Sankey had found and conquered England +for Christ. Landseer and Livingstone had died, and the provinces could not decide whether +“Dignity and Impudence” or the penetration of Africa was the more interesting +feat. Herbert Spencer had published his “Study of Sociology”; Matthew Arnold +his “Literature and Dogma”; and Frederic Farrar his Life of his Lord; but here +the provinces had no difficulty in deciding, for they had only heard of the last. Every +effort had been made to explain by persuasion and by force to the working man that trade +unions were inimical to his true welfare, and none had succeeded, so stupid was he. The +British Army had been employed to put reason into the noddle of a town called Northampton +which was furious because an atheist had not been elected to Parliament. Pullman cars, +“The Pirates of Penzance,” Henry Irving’s “Hamlet,” +spelling-bees, and Captain Webb’s channel swim had all proved that there were +novelties under the sun. Bishops, archbishops, and dissenting ministers had met at Lambeth +to inspect the progress of irreligious thought, with intent to arrest it. Princes and +dukes had conspired to inaugurate the most singular scheme that ever was, the Kyrle +Society,—for bringing beauty home to the people by means of decorative art, +gardening, and music. The Bulgarian Atrocities had served to give new life to all penny +gaffs and blood-tubs. The “Eurydice” and the “Princess Alice” had +foundered in order to demonstrate the uncertainty of existence and the courage of the +island-race. The “Nineteenth Century” had been started, a little late in the +day, and the “Referee.” Ireland had all but died of hunger, but had happily +been saved to enjoy the benefits of Coercion. The Young Men’s Christian Association +had been born again in the splendour of Exeter Hall. Bursley itself had entered on a new +career as a chartered borough, with Mayor, alderman, and councillors, all in chains of +silver. And among the latest miracles were Northampton’s success in sending the +atheist to Parliament, the infidelity of the Tay Bridge three days after Christmas, the +catastrophe of Majuba Hill, and the discovery that soldiers objected to being flogged into +insensibility for a peccadillo.</p> + +<p>But, in spite of numerous attempts, nobody had contrived to make England see that her +very existence would not be threatened if museums were opened on Sunday, or that +Nonconformists might be buried according to their own rites without endangering the +constitution.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Darius was possibly a little uneasy in his mind about the world. Possibly there had +just now begun to form in his mind the conviction, in which most men die, that all was not +quite well with the world, and that in particular his native country had contracted a +fatal malady since he was a boy.</p> + +<p>He was a printer, and yet the General Election had not put sunshine in his heart. And +this was strange, for a general election is the brief millennium of printers, especially +of steam-printers who for dispatch can beat all rivals. During a general election the +question put by a customer to a printer is not, “How much will it be?” but +“How soon can I have it?” There was no time for haggling about price; and +indeed to haggle about price would have been unworthy, seeing that every customer +(ordinary business being at a standstill), was engaged in the salvation of England. Darius +was a Liberal, but a quiet one, and he was patronised by both political parties—blue +and red. As a fact, neither party could have done without him. His printing office had +clattered and thundered early and late, and more than once had joined the end of one +day’s work to the beginning of another; and more than once had Big James with his +men and his boy (a regiment increased since 1873), stood like plotters muttering in the +yard at five minutes to twelve on Sunday evening, waiting for midnight to sound, and Big +James had unlocked the door of the office on the new-born Monday, and work had instantly +commenced to continue till Monday was nearly dead of old age.</p> + +<p>Once only had work been interrupted, and that was on a day when, a lot of ‘blue +jobs’ being about, a squad of red fire-eaters had come up the back alley with intent +to answer arguments by thwackings and wreckings; but the obstinacy of an oak door had +fatigued them. The staff had enjoyed that episode. Every member of it was well paid for +overtime. Darius could afford to pay conscientiously. In the printing trade, prices were +steadier then than they are now. But already the discovery of competition was following +upon the discovery of ventilation. Perhaps Darius sniffed it from a distance, and was +disturbed thereby.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>For though he was a Liberal in addition to being a printer, and he had voted Liberal, +and his party had won, yet the General Election had not put sunshine in his heart. No! The +tendencies of England worried him. When he read in a paper about the heretical tendencies +of Robertson Smith’s Biblical articles in the “Encyclopaedia +Britannica,” he said to himself that they were of a piece with the rest, and that +such things were to be expected in those modern days, and that matters must have come to a +pretty pass when even the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” was infected. (Still, he +had sold a copy of the new edition.) He was exceedingly bitter against Ireland; and also, +in secret, behind Big James’s back, against trade unions. When Edwin came home one +night and announced that he had joined the Bursley Liberal Club, Darius lost his temper. +Yet he was a member of the club himself. He gave no reason for his fury, except that it +was foolish for a tradesman to mix himself up with politics. Edwin, however, had developed +a sudden interest in politics, and had made certain promises of clerical aid, which +promises he kept, saying nothing more to his father. Darius’s hero was Sir Robert +Peel, simply because Sir Robert Peel had done away with the Corn Laws. Darius had known +England before and after the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the difference between the two +Englands was so strikingly dramatic to him that he desired no further change. He had only +one date—1846. His cup had been filled then. Never would he forget the scenes of +anguishing joy that occurred at midnight of the day before the new Act became operative. +From that moment he had finished with progress... If Edwin could only have seen those +memories, shining in layers deep in his father’s heart, and hidden now by all sorts +of Pliocene deposits, he would have understood his father better. But Edwin did not see +into his father’s heart at all, nor even into his head. When he looked at his father +he saw nothing but an ugly, stertorous old man (old, that is, to Edwin), with a peculiar +and incalculable way of regarding things and a temper of growing capriciousness.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Darius was breathing and fidgeting all over him as he sat bent at the desk. His +presence overwhelmed every other physical phenomenon.</p> + +<p>“What’s this?” asked Darius, picking up the bit of paper on which +Edwin had written the memorandum about “The Light of Asia.”</p> + +<p>Edwin explained, self-consciously, lamely.</p> + +<p>When the barometer of Darius’s temper was falling rapidly, there was a sign: a +small spot midway on the bridge of his nose turned ivory-white. Edwin glanced upwards now +to see if the sign was there, and it was. He flushed slightly and resumed his work.</p> + +<p>Then Darius began.</p> + +<p>“What did I tell ye?” he shouted. “What in the name of God’s +the use o’ me telling ye things? Have I told ye not to take any more orders for +books, or haven’t I? Haven’t I said over and over again that I want this shop +to be known for wholesale?” He raved.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>Stifford could hear. Any person who might chance to come into the shop would hear. But +Darius cared neither for his own dignity nor for that of his son. He was in a passion. The +real truth was that this celibate man, who never took alcohol, enjoyed losing his temper; +it was his one outlet; he gave himself up almost luxuriously to a passion; he looked +forward to it as some men look forward to brandy. And Edwin had never stopped him by some +drastic step. At first, years before, Edwin had said to himself, trembling with resentment +in his bedroom, “The next time, the very next time, he humiliates me like that in +front of other people, I’ll walk out of his damned house and shop, and I swear I +won’t come back until he’s apologised. I’ll bring him to his senses. He +can’t do without me. Once for all I’ll stop it. What! He forces me into his +business, and then insults me!”</p> + +<p>But Edwin had never done it. Always, it was ‘the very next time’! Edwin was +not capable of doing it. His father had a sort of moral brute-force, against which he +could not stand firm. He soon recognised this, with his intellectual candour. Then he had +tried to argue with Darius, to ‘make him see’! Worse than futile! Argument +simply put Darius beside himself. So that in the end Edwin employed silence and secret +scorn, as a weapon and as a defence. And somehow without a word he conveyed to Stifford +and to Big James precisely what his attitude in these crises was, so that he retained +their respect and avoided their pity. The outbursts still wounded him, but he was +wonderfully inured.</p> + +<p>As he sat writing under the onslaught, he said to himself, “By God! If ever I get +the chance, I’ll pay you out for this some day!” And he meant it. A peep into +his mind, then, would have startled Janet Orgreave, Mrs Nixon, and other persons who had a +cult for the wistfulness of his appealing eyes.</p> + +<p>He steadily maintained silence, and the conflagration burnt itself out.</p> + +<p>“Are you going to look after the printing shop, or aren’t you?” +Darius growled at length.</p> + +<p>Edwin rose and went. As he passed through the shop, Stifford, who had in him the raw +material of fine manners, glanced down, but not too ostentatiously, at a drawer under the +counter.</p> + +<p>The printing office was more crowded than ever with men and matter. Some of the +composing was now done on the ground-floor. The whole organism functioned, but under such +difficulties as could not be allowed to continue, even by Darius Clayhanger. Darius had +finally recognised that.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Edwin, in a tone of confidential intimacy to Big James, “I +see they’re getting on with the cleaning! Good. Father’s beginning to get +impatient, you know. It’s the bigger cases that had better be done first.”</p> + +<p>“Right it is, Mr Edwin!” said Big James. The giant was unchanged. No sign +of grey in his hair; and his cheek was smooth, apparently his philosophy put him beyond +the touch of time.</p> + +<p>“I say, Mr Edwin,” he inquired in his majestic voice. “When are we +going to rearrange all this?” He gazed around.</p> + +<p>Edwin laughed. “Soon,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Won’t be too soon,” said Big James.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_03"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Three.</h3> + +<h4>The New House.</h4> + +<p>A house stood on a hill. And that hill was Bleakridge, the summit of the little billow +of land between Bursley and Hanbridge. Trafalgar Road passed over the crest of the billow. +Bleakridge was certainly not more than a hundred feet higher than Bursley; yet people were +now talking a lot about the advantages of living ‘up’ at Bleakridge, +‘above’ the smoke, and ‘out’ of the town, though it was not more +than five minutes from the Duck Bank. To hear them talking, one might have fancied that +Bleakridge was away in the mountains somewhere. The new steam-cars would pull you up there +in three minutes or so, every quarter of an hour. It was really the new steam-cars that +were to be the making of Bleakridge as a residential suburb. It had also been predicted +that even Hanbridge men would come to live at Bleakridge now. Land was changing owners at +Bleakridge, and rising in price. Complete streets of lobbied cottages grew at angles from +the main road with the rapidity of that plant which pushes out strangling branches more +quickly than a man can run. And these lobbied cottages were at once occupied. +Cottage-property in the centre of the town depreciated.</p> + +<p>The land fronting the main road was destined not for cottages, but for residences, +semi-detached or detached. Osmond Orgreave had a good deal of this land under his control. +He did not own it, he hawked it. Like all provincial, and most London, architects, he was +a land-broker in addition to being an architect. Before obtaining a commission to build a +house, he frequently had to create the commission himself by selling a convenient plot, +and then persuading the purchaser that if he wished to retain the respect of the community +he must put on the plot a house worthy of the plot. The Orgreave family all had expensive +tastes, and it was Osmond Orgreave’s task to find most of the money needed for the +satisfaction of those tastes. He always did find it, because the necessity was upon him, +but he did not always find it easily. Janet would say sometimes, “We mustn’t +be so hard on father this month; really, lately we’ve never seen him with his +cheque-book out of his hand.” Undoubtedly the clothes on Janet’s back were +partly responsible for the celerity with which building land at Bleakridge was +‘developed,’ just after the installation of steam-cars in Trafalgar Road.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Mr Orgreave sold a corner plot to Darius. He had had his eye on Darius for a long time +before he actually shot him down; but difficulties connected with the paring of estimates +for printing had somewhat estranged them. Orgreave had had to smooth out these +difficulties, offer to provide a portion of the purchase money on mortgage from another +client, produce a plan for a new house that surpassed all records of cheapness, produce a +plan for the transforming of Darius’s present residence into business premises, talk +poetically about the future of printing in the Five Towns, and lastly, demonstrate by +digits that Darius would actually save money by becoming a property-owner—he had had +to do all this, and more, before Darius would buy.</p> + +<p>The two were regular cronies for about a couple of months—that is to say, between +the payment of the preliminary deposit and the signing of the contract for building the +house. But, the contract signed, their relations were once more troubled. Orgreave had +nothing to fear, then, and besides, he was using his diplomacy elsewhere. The house went +up to an accompaniment of scenes in which only the proprietor was irate. Osmond Orgreave +could not be ruffled; he could not be deprived of his air of having done a favour to +Darius Clayhanger; his social and moral superiority, his real aloofness, remained +absolutely unimpaired. The clear image of him as a fine gentleman was never dulled nor +distorted even in the mind of Darius. Nevertheless Darius ‘hated the sight’ of +the house ere the house was roofed in. But this did not diminish his pride in the house. +He wished he had never ‘set eyes on’ Osmond Orgreave. Yes! But the little boy +from the Bastille was immensely content at the consequences of having set eyes on Osmond +Orgreave. The little boy from the Bastille was achieving the supreme peak of +greatness—he was about to live away from business. Soon he would be ‘going +down to business’ of a morning. Soon he would be receiving two separate demand-notes +for rates. Soon he would be on a plane with the vainest earthenware manufacturer of them +all. Ages ago he had got as far as a house with a lobby to it. Now, it would be a matter +of two establishments. Beneath all his discontents, moodiness, temper, and biliousness, +lay this profound satisfaction of the little boy from the Bastille.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in any case, he would have been obliged to do something heroic, if only to +find the room more and more imperiously demanded by his printing business.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>On the Saturday afternoon of Janet Orgreave’s visit to the shop, Edwin went up to +Bleakridge to inspect the house, and in particular the coloured ‘lights’ in +the upper squares of the drawing-room and dining-room windows. He had a key to the +unpainted front door, and having climbed over various obstacles and ascended an inclined +bending plank, he entered and stood in the square hall of the deserted, damp, and inchoate +structure.</p> + +<p>The house was his father’s only in name. In emotional fact it was Edwin’s +house, because he alone was capable of possessing it by enjoying it. To Darius, to Bursley +in general, it was just a nice house, of red brick with terra-cotta facings and red tiles, +in the second-Victorian Style, the style that had broken away from Georgian austerity and +first-Victorian stucco and smugness, and wandered off vaguely into nothing in particular. +To the plebeian in Darius it was of course grandiose, and vast; to Edwin also, in a less +degree. But to Edwin it was not a house, it was a work of art, it was an epic poem, it was +an emanation of the soul. He did not realise this. He did not realise how the house had +informed his daily existence. All that he knew about himself in relation to the house was +that he could not keep away from it. He went and had a look at it, nearly every morning +before breakfast, when the workmen were fresh and lyrical.</p> + +<p>When the news came down to the younger generation that Darius had bought land and meant +to build on the land, Edwin had been profoundly moved between apprehension and hope; his +condition had been one of simple but intense expectant excitement. He wondered what his +own status would be in the great enterprise of house-building. All depended on Mr +Orgreave. Would Mr Orgreave, of whom he had seen scarcely anything in seven years, +remember that he was intelligently interested in architecture? Or would Mr Orgreave walk +right over him and talk exclusively to his father? He had feared, he had had a suspicion, +that Mr Orgreave was an inconstant man.</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave had remembered in the handsomest way. When the plans were being discussed, +Mr Orgreave with one word, a tone, a glance, had raised Edwin to the consultative level of +his father. He had let Darius see that Edwin was in his opinion worthy to take part in +discussions, and quite privately he had let Edwin see that Darius must not be treated too +seriously. Darius, who really had no interest in ten thousand exquisitely absorbing +details, had sometimes even said, with impatience, “Oh! Settle it how you like, with +Edwin.”</p> + +<p>Edwin’s own suggestions never seemed very brilliant, and Mr Orgreave was always +able to prove to him that they were inadvisable; but they were never silly, like most of +his father’s. And he acquired leading ideas that transformed his whole attitude +towards architecture. For example, he had always looked on a house as a front-wall +diversified by doors and windows, with rooms behind it. But when Mr Orgreave produced his +first notions for the new house Edwin was surprised to find that he had not even sketched +the front. He had said, “We shall be able to see what the elevation looks like when +we’ve decided the plan a bit.” And Edwin saw in a flash that the front of a +house was merely the expression of the inside of it, merely a result, almost accidental. +And he was astounded and disgusted that he, with his professed love of architecture and +his intermittent study of it, had not perceived this obvious truth for himself. He never +again looked at a house in the old irrational way.</p> + +<p>Then, when examining the preliminary sketch-plan, he had put his finger on a square +space and asked what room that was. “That isn’t a room; that’s the +hall,” said Mr Orgreave. “But it’s square!” Edwin exclaimed. He +thought that in houses (houses to be lived in) the hall or lobby must necessarily be long +and narrow. Now suddenly he saw no reason why a hall should not be square. Mr Orgreave had +made no further remark about halls at the time, but another day, without any preface, he +re-opened the subject to Edwin, in a tone good-naturedly informing, and when he had done +Edwin could see that the shape of the hall depended on the shape of the house, and that +halls had only been crushed and pulled into something long and narrow because the +disposition of houses absolutely demanded this ugly negation of the very idea of a hall. +Again, he had to begin to think afresh, to see afresh. He conceived a real admiration for +Osmond Orgreave; not more for his original and yet common-sense manner of regarding +things, than for his aristocratic deportment, his equality to every situation, and his +extraordinary skill in keeping his dignity and his distance during encounters with Darius. +(At the same time, when Darius would grumble savagely that Osmond Orgreave ‘was too +clever by half,’ Edwin could not deny that.) Edwin’s sisters got a good deal +of Mr Orgreave, through Edwin; he could never keep Mr Orgreave very long to himself. He +gave away a great deal of Mr Orgreave’s wisdom without mentioning the origin of the +gift. Thus occasionally Clara would say cuttingly, “I know where you’ve picked +that up. You’ve picked that up from Mr Orgreave.” The young man Benbow to whom +the infant Clara had been so queerly engaged, also received from Edwin considerable +quantities of Mr Orgreave. But the fellow was only a decent, dull, pushing, successful +ass, and quite unable to assimilate Mr Orgreave; Edwin could never comprehend how Clara, +so extremely difficult to please, so carping and captious, could mate herself to a fellow +like Benbow. She had done so, however; they were recently married. Edwin was glad that +that was over; for it had disturbed him in his attentions to the house.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>When the house began to ‘go up,’ Edwin lived in an ecstasy of +contemplation. I say with deliberateness an ‘ecstasy.’ He had seen houses go +up before; he knew that houses were constructed brick by brick, beam by beam, lath by +lath, tile by tile; he knew that they did not build themselves. And yet, in the vagueness +of his mind, he had never imaginatively realised that a house was made with hands, and +hands that could err. With its exact perpendiculars and horizontals, its geometric +regularities, and its Chinese preciseness of fitting, a house had always seemed to +him—again in the vagueness of his mind—as something superhuman. The commonest +cornice, the most ordinary pillar of a staircase-balustrade—could that have been +accomplished in its awful perfection of line and contour by a human being? How easy to +believe that it was ‘not made with hands’!</p> + +<p>But now he saw. He had to see. He saw a hole in the ground, with water at the bottom, +and the next moment that hole was a cellar; not an amateur cellar, a hole that would do at +a pinch for a cellar, but a professional cellar. He appreciated the brains necessary to +put a brick on another brick, with just the right quantity of mortar in between. He +thought the house would never get itself done—one brick at a time—and each +brick cost a farthing—slow, careful; yes, and even finicking. But soon the +bricklayers had to stand on plank-platforms in order to reach the raw top of the wall that +was ever rising above them. The measurements, the rulings, the plumbings, the checkings! +He was humbled and he was enlightened. He understood that a miracle is only the result of +miraculous patience, miraculous nicety, miraculous honesty, miraculous perseverance. He +understood that there was no golden and magic secret of building. It was just putting one +brick on another and against another—but to a hair’s breadth. It was just like +anything else. For instance, printing! He saw even printing in a new light.</p> + +<p>And when the first beams were bridged across two walls...</p> + +<p>The funny thing was that the men’s fingers were thicky and clumsy. Never could +such fingers pick up a pin! And still they would manoeuvre a hundredweight of timber to a +pin’s point.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>He stood at the drawing-room bay-window (of which each large pane had been marked with +the mystic sign of a white circle by triumphant glaziers), and looked across the enclosed +fragment of clayey field that ultimately would be the garden. The house was at the corner +of Trafalgar Road and a side-street that had lobbied cottages down its slope. The garden +was oblong, with its length parallel to Trafalgar Road, and separated from the pavement +only by a high wall. The upper end of the garden was blocked by the first of three new +houses which Osmond Orgreave was building in a terrace. These houses had their main fronts +on the street; they were quite as commodious as the Clayhangers’, but much inferior +in garden-space; their bits of flower-plots lay behind them. And away behind their +flower-plots, with double entrance-gates in another side street, stretched the grounds of +Osmond Orgreave, his house in the sheltered middle thereof. He had got, cheaply, one of +the older residential properties of the district, Georgian, of a recognisable style, relic +of the days when manufacturers formed a class entirely apart from their operatives; even +as far back as 1880 any operative might with luck become an employer. The south-east +corner of the Clayhanger garden touched the north-west corner of the domains of Orgreave; +for a few feet the two gardens were actually contiguous, with naught but an old untidy +thorn hedge between them; this hedge was to be replaced by a wall that would match the +topmost of the lobbied cottages which bounded the view of the Clayhangers to the east.</p> + +<p>From the bay-window Edwin could see over the hedge, and also through it, on to the +croquet lawn of the Orgreaves. Croquet was then in its first avatar; nothing was more +dashing than croquet. With rag-balls and home-made mallets the Clayhanger children had +imitated croquet in their yard in the seventies. The Orgreaves played real croquet; one of +them had shone in a tournament at Buxton. Edwin noticed a figure on the gravel between the +lawn and the hedge. He knew it to be Janet, by the crimson frock. But he had no notion +that Janet had stationed herself in that quarter with intent to waylay him. He could not +have credited her with such a purpose. Nor could his modesty have believed that he was +important enough to employ the talent of the Orgreaves for agreeable chicane. The fact was +that Janet had been espying him for a quarter of an hour. When at length she waved her +hand to him, it did not occur to him to suppose that she was waving her hand to him; he +merely wondered what peculiar thing she was doing. Then he blushed as she waved again, and +he knew first from the blood in his face that Janet was making a signal, and that it was +to himself that the signal was directed: his body had told his mind; this was very +odd.</p> + +<p>Of course he was obliged to go out; and he went, muttering to himself.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_04"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Four.</h3> + +<h4>The Two Gardens.</h4> + +<p>In the full beauty of the afternoon they stood together, only the scraggy hedge between +them, he on grass-tufted clay, and she on orderly gravel.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Janet, earnestly looking at him, “how do you like the +effect of that window, now it’s done?”</p> + +<p>“Very nice!” he laughed nervously. “Very nice indeed!”</p> + +<p>“Father said it was,” she remarked. “I do hope Mr Clayhanger will +like it too!” And her voice really was charged with sympathetic hope. It was as if +she would be saddened and cast down if Darius did not approve the window. It was as if she +fervently wished that Darius should not be disappointed with the window. The unskilled +spectator might have assumed that anxiety for the success of the window would endanger her +sleep at nights. She was perfectly sincere. Her power of emotional sympathy was +all-embracing and inexhaustible. If she heard that an acquaintance of one of her +acquaintances had lost a relative or broken a limb, she would express genuine deep +concern, with a tremor of her honest and kindly voice. And if she heard the next moment +that an acquaintance of one of her acquaintances had come into five thousand pounds or +affianced himself to a sister-spirit, her eyes would sparkle with heartfelt joy and her +hands clasp each other in sheer delight.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Edwin, touched. “It’ll be all right for the dad. No +fear!”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t seen it yet,” she proceeded. “In fact I +haven’t been in your house for such a long time. But I do think it’s going to +be very nice. All father’s houses are so nice, aren’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin, with that sideways shake of the head that in the +vocabulary of his gesture signified, not dissent, but emphatic assent. “You ought to +come and have a look at it.” He could not say less.</p> + +<p>“Do you think I could scramble through here?” she indicated the sparse +hedge.</p> + +<p>“I— I—”</p> + +<p>“I know what I’ll do. I’ll get the steps.” She walked off +sedately, and came back with a small pair of steps, which she opened out on the narrow +flower-bed under the hedge. Then she picked up her skirt and delicately ascended the +rocking ladder till her feet were on a level with the top of the hedge. She smiled +charmingly, savouring the harmless escapade, and gazing at Edwin. She put out her free +hand, Edwin took it, and she jumped. The steps fell backwards, but she was safe.</p> + +<p>“What a good thing mother didn’t see me!” she laughed. Her grave, +sympathetic, almost handsome face was now alive everywhere with a sort of challenging +merriment. She was only pretending that it was a good thing her mother had not seen her: a +delicious make-believe. Why, she was as motherly as her mother! In an instant her feet +were choosing their way and carrying her with grace and stateliness across the mire of the +unformed garden. She was the woman of the world, and Edwin the raw boy. The harmony and +dignity of her movements charmed and intimidated Edwin. Compare her to Maggie... That she +was hatless added piquancy.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>They went into the echoing bare house, crunching gravel and dry clay on the dirty, new +floors. They were alone together in the house. And all the time Edwin was thinking: +“I’ve never been through anything like this before. Never been through +anything like this!” And he recalled for a second the figure of Florence Simcox, the +clog-dancer.</p> + +<p>And below these images and reflections in his mind was the thought: “I +haven’t known what life <i>is</i>! I’ve been asleep. This is life!”</p> + +<p>The upper squares of the drawing-room window were filled with small leaded +diamond-shaped panes of many colours. It was the latest fashion in domestic glazing. The +effect was at once rich and gorgeous. She liked it.</p> + +<p>“It will be beautiful on this side in the late afternoon,” she murmured. +“What a nice room!”</p> + +<p>Their eyes met, and she transmitted to him her joy in his joy at the admirableness of +the house.</p> + +<p>He nodded. “By Jove!” he thought. “She’s a splendid girl. There +can’t be many girls knocking about as fine as she is!”</p> + +<p>“And when the garden’s full of flowers!” she breathed in rapture. She +was thinking, “Strange, nice boy! He’s so romantic. All he wants is bringing +out.”</p> + +<p>They wandered to and fro. They went upstairs. They saw the bathroom. They stood on the +landing, and the unseen spaces of the house were busy with their echoes. They then entered +the room that was to be Edwin’s.</p> + +<p>“Mine!” he said self-consciously.</p> + +<p>“And I see you’re having shelves fixed on both sides of the mantelpiece! +You’re very fond of books, aren’t you?” she appealed to him.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said judicially.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t they wonderful things?” Her glowing eyes seemed to be +expressing gratitude to Shakespeare and all his successors in the dynasty of +literature.</p> + +<p>“That shelving is between your father and me,” said Edwin. “The dad +doesn’t know. It’ll go in with the house-fittings. I don’t expect the +dad will ever notice it.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” She laughed, eager to join the innocent conspiracy. “Father +invented an excellent dodge for shelving in the hall at our house,” she added. +“I’m sure he’d like you to come and see it. The dear thing’s most +absurdly proud of it.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to,” Edwin answered diffidently.</p> + +<p>“Would you come in some evening and see us? Mother would be delighted. We all +should.”</p> + +<p>“Very kind of you.” In his diffidence he was now standing on one leg.</p> + +<p>“Could you come to-night? ... Or to-morrow night?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I couldn’t come to-night, <i>or</i> to-morrow +night,” he answered with firmness. A statement entirely untrue! He had no +engagement; he never did have an engagement. But he was frightened, and his spirit sprang +away from the idea, like a fawn at a sudden noise in the brake, and stood still.</p> + +<p>He did not suspect that the unconscious gruffness of his tone had repulsed her. She +blamed herself for a too brusque advance.</p> + +<p>“Well, I hope some other time,” she said, mild and benignant.</p> + +<p>“Thanks! I’d like to,” he replied more boldly, reassured now that he +had heard again the same noise but indefinitely farther off.</p> + +<p>She departed, but by the front door, and hatless and dignified up Trafalgar Road in the +delicate sunshine to the next turning. She was less vivacious.</p> + +<p>He hoped he had not offended her, because he wanted very much—not to go in cold +blood to the famed mansion of the Orgreaves—but by some magic to find himself within +it one night, at his ease, sharing in brilliant conversation. “Oh no!” he said +to himself. “She’s not offended. A fine girl like that isn’t offended +for nothing at all!” He had been invited to visit the Orgreaves! He wondered what +his father would say, or think. The unexpressed basic idea of the Clayhangers was that the +Clayhangers were as good as other folks, be they <i>who</i> they might. Still, the +Orgreaves were the Orgreaves... In sheer absence of mind he remounted the muddy +stairs.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He regarded the shabbiness of his clothes; he had been preoccupied by their defects for +about a quarter of an hour; now he examined them in detail, and said to himself disgusted, +that really it was ridiculous for a man about to occupy a house like that to be wearing +garments like those. Could he call on the Orgreaves in garments like those? His Sunday +suit was not, he felt, in fact much better. It was newer, less tumbled, but scarcely +better. His suits did not cost enough. Finance was at the root of the crying scandal of +his career as a dandy. The financial question must be reopened and settled anew. He should +attack his father. His father was extremely dependent on him now, and must be brought to +see reason. (His father who had never seen reason!) But the attack must not be made with +the weapon of clothes, for on that subject Darius was utterly unapproachable. Whenever +Darius found himself in a conversation about clothes, he gave forth the antique and +well-tried witticism that as for him he didn’t mind what he wore, because if he was +at home everybody knew him and it didn’t matter, and if he was away from home nobody +knew him and it didn’t matter. And he always repeated the saying with gusto, as if +it was brand-new and none could possibly have heard it before.</p> + +<p>No, Edwin decided that he would have to found his attack on the principle of abstract +justice; he would never be able to persuade his father that he lacked any detail truly +needful to his happiness. To go into details would be to invite defeat.</p> + +<p>Of course it would be a bad season in which to raise the financial question. His father +would talk savagely in reply about the enormous expenses of house-building, +house-furnishing, and removing,—and architects’ and lawyers’ fees; he +would be sure to mention the rapacity of architects and lawyers. Nevertheless Edwin felt +that at just this season, and no other, must the attack be offered.</p> + +<p>Because the inauguration of the new house was to be for Edwin, in a very deep and +spiritual sense, the beginning of the new life! He had settled that. The new house +inspired him. It was not paradise. But it was a temple.</p> + +<p>You of the younger generation cannot understand that—without imagination. I say +that the hot-water system of the new house, simple and primitive as it was, affected and +inspired Edwin like a poem. There was a cistern-room, actually a room devoted to nothing +but cisterns, and the main cistern was so big that the builders had had to install it +before the roof was put on, for it would never have gone through a door. This cistern, by +means of a ball-tap, filled itself from the main nearly as quickly as it was emptied. Out +of it grew pipes, creeping in secret downwards between inner walls of the house, +penetrating everywhere. One went down to a boiler behind the kitchen-range and filled it, +and as the fire that was roasting the joint heated the boiler, the water mounted again +magically to the cistern-room and filled another cistern, spherical and sealed, and thence +descended, on a third journeying, to the bath and to the lavatory basin in the bathroom. +All this was marvellous to Edwin; it was romantic. What! A room solely for baths! And a +huge painted zinc bath! Edwin had never seen such a thing. And a vast porcelain basin, +with tiles all round it, in which you could splash! An endless supply of water on the +first floor!</p> + +<p>At the shop-house, every drop of water on the first floor had to be carried upstairs in +jugs and buckets; and every drop of it had to be carried down again. No hot water could be +obtained until it had been boiled in a vessel on the fire. Hot water had the value of +champagne. To take a warm hip-bath was an immense enterprise of heating, fetching, +decanting, and general derangement of the entire house; and at best the bath was not hot; +it always lost its virtue on the stairs and landing. And to splash—one of the most +voluptuous pleasures in life—was forbidden by the code. Mrs Nixon would actually +weep at a splashing. Splashing was immoral. It was as wicked as amorous dalliance in a +monastery. In the shop-house godliness was child’s play compared to cleanliness.</p> + +<p>And the shop-house was so dark! Edwin had never noticed how dark it was until the new +house approached completion. The new house was radiant with light. It had always, for +Edwin, the somewhat blinding brilliance which filled the sitting-room of the shop-house +only when Duck Bank happened to be covered with fresh snow. And there was a dining-room, +solely for eating, and a drawing-room. Both these names seemed ‘grand’ to +Edwin, who had never sat in any but a sitting-room. Edwin had never dined; he had merely +had dinner. And, having dined, to walk ceremoniously into another room! (Odd! After all, +his father was a man of tremendous initiative.) Would he and Maggie be able to do the +thing naturally? Then there was the square hall—positively a room! That alone +impelled him to a new life. When he thought of it all, the reception-rooms, the scientific +kitchen, the vast scullery, the four large bedrooms, the bathroom, the three attics, the +cistern-room murmurous with water, and the water tirelessly, inexhaustibly coursing up and +down behind walls—he thrilled to fine impulses.</p> + +<p>He took courage. He braced himself. The seriousness which he had felt on the day of +leaving school revisited him. He looked back across the seven years of his life in the +world, and condemned them unsparingly. He blamed no one but Edwin. He had forgiven his +father for having thwarted his supreme ambition; long ago he had forgiven his father; +though, curiously, he had never quite forgiven Mrs Hamps for her share in the catastrophe. +He honestly thought he had recovered from the catastrophe undisfigured, even unmarked. He +knew not that he would never be the same man again, and that his lightest gesture and his +lightest glance were touched with the wistfulness of resignation. He had frankly accepted +the fate of a printer. And in business he was convinced, despite his father’s +capricious complaints, that he had acquitted himself well. In all the details of the +business he considered himself superior to his father. And Big James would invariably act +on his secret instructions given afterwards to counteract some misguided hasty order of +the old man’s.</p> + +<p>It was the emptiness of the record of his private life that he condemned. What had he +done for himself? Nothing large! Nothing heroic and imposing! He had meant to pursue +certain definite courses of study, to become the possessor of certain definite groups of +books, to continue his drawing and painting, to practise this, that and the other, to map +out all his spare time, to make rules and to keep them,—all to the great end of +self-perfecting. He had said: “What does it matter whether I am an architect or a +printer, so long as I improve myself to the best of my powers?” He hated young men +who talked about improving themselves. He spurned the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement +Society (which had succeeded the Debating Society—defunct through over-indulgence in +early rising). Nevertheless in his heart he was far more enamoured of the idea of +improvement than the worst prig of them all. He could never for long escape from the +dominance of the idea. He might violently push it away, arguing that it could lead to +nothing and was futile and tedious; back it would come! It had always worried him.</p> + +<p>And yet he had accomplished nothing. His systems of reading never worked for more than +a month at a time. And for several months at a time he simply squandered his spare hours, +the hours that were his very own, in a sort of coma of crass stupidity, in which he seemed +to be thinking of nothing whatever. He had not made any friends whom he could esteem. He +had not won any sort of notice. He was remarkable for nothing. He was not happy. He was +not content. He had the consciousness of being a spendthrift of time and of years... A +fair quantity of miscellaneous reading—that was all he had done. He was not a +student. He knew nothing about anything. He had stood still.</p> + +<p>Thus he upbraided himself. And against this futility was his courage now braced by the +inspiration of the new house, and tightened to a smarting tension by the brief interview +with Janet Orgreave. He was going to do several feats at once: tackle his father, develop +into a right expert on <i>some</i> subject, pursue his painting, and—for the moment +this had the chief importance—‘come out of his shell.’ He meant to be +social, to impress himself on others, to move about, to form connections, to be Edwin +Clayhanger, an individuality in the town,—to live. Why had he refused Janet’s +invitation? Mere silliness. The old self nauseated the new. But the next instant he sought +excuses for the old self... Wait a bit! There was time yet.</p> + +<p>He was happy in the stress of one immense and complex resolve.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_05"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Five.</h3> + +<h4>Clothes.</h4> + +<p>He heard voices below. And his soul seemed to shrink back, as if into the recesses of +the shell from which it had been peeping. His soul was tremendous, in solitude; but even +the rumour of society intimidated it. His father and another were walking about the ground +floor; the rough voice of his father echoed upwards in all its crudity. He listened for +the other voice; it was his Auntie Clara’s. Darius too had taken his Saturday +afternoon for a leisurely visit to the house, and somehow he must have encountered Mrs +Hamps, and brought her with him to view.</p> + +<p>Without giving himself time to dissipate his courage in reflection, he walked to the +landing, and called down the stairs, “Hello, Auntie!”</p> + +<p>Why should his tone have been self-conscious, forced? He was engaged in no crime. He +had told his father where he was going, and his father had not contradicted his remark +that even if both of them happened to be out together, the shop would take no harm under +the sole care of Stifford for an hour in the quiet of Saturday afternoon.</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps replied, in her coaxing, sweet manner.</p> + +<p>“What did ye leave th’ front door open for?” his father demanded +curtly, and every room in the house heard the question.</p> + +<p>“Was it open?” he said lamely.</p> + +<p>“Was it open! All Trafalgar Road could have walked in and made themselves at +home.”</p> + +<p>Edwin stood leaning with his arms on the rail of the landing. Presently the visitors +appeared at the foot of the stairs, and Darius climbed carefully, having first shaken the +balustrade to make sure that it was genuine, stout, and well-founded. Mrs Hamps followed, +the fripperies of her elegant bonnet trembling, and her black gown rustling. Edwin smiled +at her, and she returned his smile with usurious interest. There was now a mist of grey in +her fine hair.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Edwin!” she began, breathing relief on the top stair. “What a +beautiful house! Beautiful! Quite perfect! The latest of everything! Do you know what +I’ve been thinking while your dear father has been showing me all this. So +that’s the bathroom! Bless us! Hot! Cold! Waste! That cupboard under the lavatory is +very handy, but what a snare for a careless servant! Maggie will have to look at it every +day, or it’ll be used for anything and everything. You tell her what her auntie +says... I was thinking—if but your mother could have seen it all!”</p> + +<p>Father and son said nothing. Auntie Hamps sighed. She was the only person who ever +referred to the late Mrs Clayhanger.</p> + +<p>The procession moved on from room to room, Darius fingering and grunting, Mrs Hamps +discovering in each detail the fine flower of utter perfection, and Edwin strolling +loosely in the wake of her curls, her mantle, and her abundant black petticoats. He could +detect the odour of her kid gloves; it was a peculiar odour that never escaped him, and it +reminded him inevitably of his mother’s funeral.</p> + +<p>He was glad that they had not arrived during the visit of Janet Orgreave.</p> + +<p>In due course Edwin’s bedroom was reached, and here Auntie Clara’s ecstasy +was redoubled.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you’re very grateful to your father, aren’t you, +Edwin?” she majestically assumed, when she had admired passionately the window, the +door, the pattern of the hearth-tiles, and the spaciousness.</p> + +<p>Edwin could not speak. Inquiries of this nature from Mrs Hamps paralysed the tongues of +the children. They left nothing to be said. A sheepish grin, preceded by an inward mute +curse, was all that Edwin could accomplish. How in heaven’s name could the woman +talk in that strain? His attitude towards his auntie was assuredly hardening with +years.</p> + +<p>“What’s all this?” questioned his father suddenly, pointing to +upright boards that had been fastened to the walls on either side of the mantelpiece, to a +height of about three feet.</p> + +<p>Then Edwin perceived the clumsiness of his tactics in remaining upstairs. He ought to +have gone downstairs to meet his father and auntie, and left them to go up alone. His +father was in an inquisitive mood.</p> + +<p>“It’s for shelves,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Shelves?”</p> + +<p>“For my books. It’s Mr Orgreave’s idea. He says it’ll cost +less.”</p> + +<p>“Cost less! Mr Orgreave’s got too many ideas—that’s +what’s the matter with him. He’ll idea me into the bankruptcy court if he +keeps on.”</p> + +<p>Edwin would have liked to protest against the savagery of the tone, to inquire firmly +why, since shelves were necessary for books and he had books, there need be such a display +of ill-temper about a few feet of deal plank. The words were ready, the sentences framed +in his mind. But he was silent. The door was locked on these words, but it was not Edwin +who had turned the key; it was some force within him, over which he had no control.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“Now, now, father!” intervened Mrs Hamps. “You know you’ve said +over and over again how glad you are he’s so fond of books, and never goes out. +There isn’t a better boy in Bursley. That I will say, and to his face.” She +smiled like an angel at both of them.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> say! <i>You</i> say!” Darius remarked curtly, trying to control +himself. A few years ago he would never have used such violent demeanour in her +presence.</p> + +<p>“And how much easier these shelves will be to keep clean than a bookcase! No +polishing. Just a rub, and a wipe with a damp cloth now and then. And no dirt underneath. +They will do away with four corners, anyhow. That’s what I think of—eh, poor +Maggie! Keeping all this clean. There’ll be work for two women night and day, early +and late, and even then—But it’s a great blessing to have water on every +floor, that it is! And people aren’t so particular nowadays as they used to be, I +fancy. I fancy that more and more.” Mrs Hamps sighed, cheerfully bearing up.</p> + +<p>Without a pause she stepped quickly across to Edwin. He wondered what she was at. She +merely straightened down the collar of his coat, which, unknown to him, had treacherously +allowed itself to remain turned up behind. It had probably been thus misbehaving itself +since before dinner, when he had washed.</p> + +<p>“Now, I do like my nephew to be tidy,” said Mrs Hamps affectionately. +“I’m very jealous for my nephew.” She caressed the shoulders of the +coat, and Edwin had to stand still and submit. “Let me see, it’s your birthday +next month, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, auntie.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I know he hasn’t got a lot of money. And I know his father +hasn’t any money to spare just now—what with all these expenses—the +house—”</p> + +<p>“Ye may well say it, sister!” Darius growled.</p> + +<p>“I saw you the day before yesterday. My nephew didn’t see me, but his +auntie saw him. Oh, never mind where. And I said to myself; ‘I should like my only +nephew to have a suit a little better than that when he goes up and down on his +father’s business. What a change it would be if his old auntie gave him a new suit +for a birthday present this year!’”</p> + +<p>“Oh, auntie.”</p> + +<p>She spoke in a lower voice. “You come and see me to-morrow, and I shall have a +little piece of paper in an envelope waiting for you. And you must choose something really +good. You’ve got excellent taste, we all know that. And this will be a new start for +you. A new year, and a new start, and we shall see how neat and spruce you’ll keep +yourself in future, eh?”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>It was insufferable. But it was fine. Who could deny that Auntie Clara was not an +extraordinary, an original, and a generous woman? What a masterly reproof to both father +and son! Perhaps not delicately administered. Yet Auntie Clara had lavished all the +delicacy of her nature on the administering!</p> + +<p>To Edwin, it seemed like an act of God in his favour. It seemed to set a divine seal on +his resolutions. It was the most astonishing and apposite piece of luck that had ever +happened to him. When he had lamely thanked the benefactor, he slipped away as soon as he +could. Already he could feel the crinkling of the five-pound note in his hand. Five +pounds! He had never had a suit that cost more than fifty shillings. He slipped away. A +great resolve was upon him. Shillitoe closed at four o’clock on Saturday afternoons. +There was just time. He hurried down Trafalgar Road in a dream. And when he had climbed +Duck Bank he turned to the left, and without stopping he burst into Shillitoe’s. Not +from eagerness to enter Shillitoe’s, but because if he had hesitated he might never +have entered at all: he might have slunk away to the old undistinguished tailor in Saint +Luke’s Square. Shillitoe was the stylish tailor. Shillitoe made no display of goods, +scorning such paltry devices. Shillitoe had wire blinds across the lower part of his +window, and on the blinds, in gold, “Gentlemen’s tailor and outfitter. +Breeches-maker.” Above the blind could be seen a few green cardboard boxes. +Shillitoe made breeches for men who hunted. Shillitoe’s lowest price for a suit was +notoriously four guineas. Shillitoe’s was the resort of the fashionable youth of the +town and district. It was a terrific adventure for Edwin to enter Shillitoe’s. His +nervousness was painful. He seemed to have a vague idea that Shillitoe might sneer at him. +However, he went in. The shop was empty. He closed the door, as he might have closed the +door of a dentist’s. He said to himself; “Well, I’m here!” He +wondered what his father would say on hearing that he had been to Shillitoe’s. And +what would Clara have said, had she been at home? Then Shillitoe in person came forward +from the cutting-out room and Shillitoe’s tone and demeanour reassured him.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_06"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Six.</h3> + +<h4>Janet Loses her Bet.</h4> + +<p>Accident—that is to say, a chance somewhat more fortuitous than the common +hazards which we group together and call existence—pushed Edwin into the next stage +of his career. As, on one afternoon in late June, he was turning the corner of Trafalgar +Road to enter the shop, he surprisingly encountered Charlie Orgreave, whom he had not seen +for several years. And when he saw this figure, at once fashionably and carelessly +dressed, his first thought was one of deep satisfaction that he was wearing his new +Shillitoe suit of clothes. He had scarcely worn the suit at all, but that afternoon his +father had sent him over to Hanbridge about a large order from Bostocks, the recently +established drapers there whose extravagant advertising had shocked and pained the +commerce of the Five Towns. Darius had told him to ‘titivate himself,’ a most +startling injunction from Darius, and thus the new costly suit had been, as it were, +officially blessed and henceforth could not be condemned.</p> + +<p>“How do, Teddy?” Charlie greeted him. “I’ve just been in to see +you at your shop.”</p> + +<p>Edwin paused.</p> + +<p>“Hello! The Sunday!” he said quietly. And he kept thinking, as his eyes +noted details of Charlie’s raiment, “It’s a bit of luck I’ve got +these clothes on.” And he was in fact rather sorry that Charlie probably paid no +real attention to clothes. The new suit had caused Edwin to look at everybody’s +clothes, had caused him to walk differently, and to put his shoulders back, and to change +the style of his collars; had made a different man of Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Come in, will you?” Edwin suggested.</p> + +<p>They went into the shop together. Stifford smiled at them both, as if to felicitate +them on the chance which had brought them together.</p> + +<p>“Come in here,” said Edwin, indicating the small office.</p> + +<p>“The lion’s den, eh?” observed the Sunday.</p> + +<p>He, as much as Edwin, was a little tongue-tied and nervous.</p> + +<p>“Sit down, will you?” said Edwin, shutting the door. “No, take the +arm-chair. I’ll absquatulate on the desk. I’d no idea you were down. When did +you come?”</p> + +<p>“Last night, last train. Just a freak, you know.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>They were within a foot of each other in the ebonised cubicle. Edwin’s legs were +swinging a few inches away from the arm-chair. His hat was at the back of his head, and +Charlie’s hat was at the back of Charlie’s head. This was their sole point of +resemblance. As Edwin surreptitiously examined the youth who had once been his intimate +friend, he experienced the half-sneering awe of the provincial for the provincial who has +become a Londoner. Charlie was changed; even his accent was changed. He and Edwin belonged +to utterly different worlds now. They seldom saw the same scenes or thought the same +things. But of course they were obliged by loyalty to the past to pretend that nothing was +changed.</p> + +<p>“You’ve not altered much,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>And indeed, when Charlie smiled, he was almost precisely the old Sunday, despite his +metropolitan mannerisms. And there was nothing whatever in his figure or deportment to +show that he had lived for several years in France and could chatter in a language whose +verbs had four conjugations. After all, he was less formidable than Edwin might have +anticipated.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> have, anyhow,” said Charlie.</p> + +<p>Edwin grinned self-consciously.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ve got this place practically in your own hands now,” +said Charlie. “I wish <i>I</i> was on my own, I can tell you that.”</p> + +<p>An instinctive gesture from Edwin made Charlie lower his voice in the middle of a +sentence. The cubicle had the appearance, but not the reality, of being private.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you make any mistake,” Edwin murmured. He, who depended on his +aunt’s generosity for clothes, the practical ruler of the place! Still he was glad +that Charlie supposed that he ruled, even though the supposition might be mere small-talk. +“You’re in that hospital, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Bart’s.”</p> + +<p>“Bart’s, is it? Yes, I remember. I expect you aren’t thinking of +settling down here?”</p> + +<p>Charlie was about to reply in accents of disdain: “Not me!” But his natural +politeness stayed his tongue. “I hardly think so,” he said. “Too much +competition here. So there is everywhere, for the matter of that.” The disillusions +of the young doctor were already upon Charlie. And yet people may be found who will assert +that in those days there was no competition, that competition has been invented during the +past ten years.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> needn’t worry about competition,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Why not, man! Nothing could ever stop you from getting patients—with that +smile! You’ll simply walk straight into anything you want.”</p> + +<p>“You think so?” Charlie affected an ironic incredulity, but he was pleased. +He had met the same theory in London.</p> + +<p>“Well, you didn’t suppose degrees and things had anything to do with it, +did you?” said Edwin, smiling a little superiorly. He felt, with pleasure, that he +was still older than the Sunday; and it pleased him also to be able thus to utilise ideas +which he had formed from observation but which by diffidence and lack of opportunity he +had never expressed. “All a patient wants is to be smiled at in the right +way,” he continued, growing bolder. “Just look at ’em!”</p> + +<p>“Look at who?”</p> + +<p>“The doctors here.” He dropped his voice further. “Do you know why +the dad’s gone to Heve?”</p> + +<p>“Gone to Heve, has he? Left old Who-is-it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I don’t say Heve isn’t clever, but it’s his look that +does the trick for him.”</p> + +<p>“You seem to go about noticing things. Any charge?”</p> + +<p>Edwin blushed and laughed. Their nervousness was dissipated. Each was reassured of the +old basis of ‘decency’ in the other.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“Look here,” said Charlie. “I can’t stop now.”</p> + +<p>“Hold on a bit.”</p> + +<p>“I only called to tell you that you’ve simply <i>got</i> to come up +to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Come up where?”</p> + +<p>“To our place. You’ve simply <i>got</i> to.”</p> + +<p>The secret fact was that Edwin had once more been under discussion in the house of the +Orgreaves. And Osmond Orgreave had lent Janet a shilling so that she might bet Charlie a +shilling that he would not succeed in bringing Edwin to the house. The understanding was +that if Janet won, her father was to take sixpence of the gain. Janet herself had failed +to lure Edwin into the house. He was so easy to approach and so difficult to catch. Janet +was slightly piqued.</p> + +<p>As for Edwin, he was postponing the execution of all his good resolutions until he +should be installed in the new house. He could not achieve highly difficult tasks under +conditions of expectancy and derangement. The whole Clayhanger premises were in a +suppressed state of being packed up. In a week the removal would occur. Until the removal +was over and the new order was established Edwin felt that he could still conscientiously +allow his timidity to govern him, and so he had remained in his shell. The sole herald of +the new order was the new suit.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I can’t come—not to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“We’re so busy.”</p> + +<p>“Bosh to that!”</p> + +<p>“Some other night.”</p> + +<p>“No. I’m going back to-morrow. Must. Now look here, old man, come on. I +shall be very disappointed if you don’t.”</p> + +<p>Edwin wondered why he could not accept and be done with it, instead of persisting in a +sequence of insincere and even lying hesitations. But he could not.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said Charlie, as if clinching the affair. Then he +lowered his voice to a scarce audible confidential whisper. “Fine girl staying up +there just now!” His eyes sparkled.</p> + +<p>“Oh! At your place?” Edwin adopted the same cautious tone. Stifford, +outside, strained his ears—in vain. The magic word ‘girl’ had in an +instant thrown the shop into agitation. The shop was no longer provincial; it became a +part of the universal.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Haven’t you seen her about?”</p> + +<p>“No. Who is she?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Friend of Janet’s. Hilda Lessways, her name is. I don’t know +much of her myself.”</p> + +<p>“Bit of all right, is she?” Edwin tried in a whisper to be a man of vast +experience and settled views. He tried to whisper as though he whispered about women every +day of his life. He thought that these Londoners were terrific on the subject of women, +and he did his best to reach their level. He succeeded so well that Charlie, who, as a +man, knew more of London than of the provinces, thought that after all London was nothing +in comparison to the seeming-quiet provinces. Charlie leaned back in his chair, drew down +the corners of his mouth, nodded his head knowingly, and then quite spoiled the desired +effect of doggishness by his delightfully candid smile. Neither of them had the least +intention of disrespect towards the fine girl who was on their lips.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Edwin said to himself: “Is it possible that he has come down specially to see +this Hilda?” He thought enviously of Charlie as a free bird of the air.</p> + +<p>“What’s she like?” Edwin inquired.</p> + +<p>“You come up and see,” Charlie retorted.</p> + +<p>“Not to-night,” said the fawn, in spite of Edwin.</p> + +<p>“You come to-night, or I perish in the attempt,” said Charlie, in his +natural voice. This phrase from their school-days made them both laugh again. They were +now apparently as intimate as ever they had been.</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Edwin. “I’ll come.”</p> + +<p>“Sure?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Come for a sort of supper at eight.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin drew back. “Supper? I didn’t—Suppose I come +after supper for a bit?”</p> + +<p>“Suppose you don’t!” Charlie snorted, sticking his chin out. +“I’m off now. Must.”</p> + +<p>They stood a moment together at the door of the shop, in the declining warmth of the +summer afternoon, mutually satisfied.</p> + +<p>“So-long!”</p> + +<p>“So-long!”</p> + +<p>The Sunday elegantly departed. Edwin had given his word, and he felt as he might have +felt had surgeons just tied him to the operating-table. Nevertheless he was not +ill-pleased with his own demeanour in front of Charlie. And he liked Charlie as much as +ever. He should rely on Charlie as a support during this adventure into the worldly +regions peopled by fine girls. He pictured this Hilda as being more romantic and strange +than Janet Orgreave; he pictured her as mysteriously superior. And he was afraid of his +own image of her.</p> + +<p>At tea in the dismantled sitting-room, though he was going out to supper, he ate quite +as much tea as usual, from sheer poltroonery. He said as casually as he could—</p> + +<p>“By the way, Charlie Orgreave called this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Did he?” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“He’s off back to London to-morrow. He would have me slip up there to-night +to see him.”</p> + +<p>“And shall you?”</p> + +<p>“I think so,” said Edwin, with an appearance of indecision. “I may as +well.”</p> + +<p>It was the first time that there had ever been question of him visiting a private +house, except his aunt’s, at night. To him the moment marked an epoch, the inception +of freedom; but the phlegmatic Maggie showed no sign of excitement—(“Clara +would have gone into a fit!” he reflected)—and his father only asked a casual +question about Charlie.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_07"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Seven.</h3> + +<h4>Lane End House.</h4> + +<p>Here was another of those impressive square halls, on the other side of the suddenly +opened door of Lane End House. But Edwin was now getting accustomed to square halls. +Nevertheless he quaked as he stood on the threshold. An absurd young man! He wondered +whether he would ever experience the sensation of feeling authentically grown-up. Behind +him in the summer twilight lay the large oval lawn, and the gates which once had doubtless +marked the end of Manor Lane—now Oak Street. And actually he had an impulse to rush +back upon his steps, and bring on himself eternal shame. The servant, however, primly held +him with her eyes alone, and he submitted to her sway.</p> + +<p>“Mr Charles in?” he inquired glumly, affecting nonchalance.</p> + +<p>The servant bowed her head with a certain condescending deference, as who should say: +“Do not let us pretend that they are not expecting you.”</p> + +<p>A door to the right opened. Janet was revealed, and, behind her, Charlie. Both were +laughing. There was a sound of a piano. As soon as Charlie caught sight of Edwin he +exclaimed to Janet—</p> + +<p>“Where’s my bob?”</p> + +<p>“Charlie!” she protested, checking her laughter.</p> + +<p>“Why! What have I said?” Charlie inquired, with mock innocence, perceiving +that he had been indiscreet, and trying to remedy his rash mistake. “Surely I can +say ‘bob’!”</p> + +<p>Edwin understood nothing of this brief passage. Janet, ignoring Charlie and dismissing +the servant with an imperceptible sign, advanced to the visitor. She was dressed in white, +and Edwin considered her to be extraordinarily graceful, dignified, sweet, and welcoming. +There was a peculiar charm in the way in which her skirts half-reluctantly followed her +along the carpet, causing beautiful curves of drapery from the waist. And her smile was so +warm and so sincere! For the moment she really felt that Edwin’s presence in the +house satisfied the keenest of her desires, and of course her face generously expressed +what she felt.</p> + +<p>“Well, Miss Orgreave,” Edwin grinned. “Here I am, you see!”</p> + +<p>“And we’re delighted,” said Janet simply, taking his hand. She might +have amiably teased him about the protracted difficulties of getting him. She might have +hinted an agreeable petulance against the fact that the brother had succeeded where the +sister had failed. Her sisterly manner to Charlie a little earlier had perhaps shown +flashes of such thoughts in her mind. But no. In the presence of Edwin, Janet’s +extreme good-nature forgot everything save that he was there, a stranger to be received +and cherished.</p> + +<p>“Here! Give us that tile,” said Charlie.</p> + +<p>“Beautiful evening,” Edwin observed.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Isn’t it!” breathed Janet, in ecstasy, and gazed from the front +door into the western sky. “We were out on the lawn, but mother said it was damp. It +wasn’t,” she laughed. “But if you think it’s damp, it is damp, +isn’t it? Will you come and see mother? Charlie, you can leave the front door +open.”</p> + +<p>Edwin said to himself that she had all the attractiveness of a girl and of a woman. She +preceded him towards the door to the right. Charlie hovered behind, on springs. Edwin, +nervously pulling out his handkerchief and putting it back, had a confused vision of the +hall full of little pictures, plates, stools, rugs, and old sword-sheaths. There seemed to +him to be far more knick-knacks in that hall than in the whole of his father’s +house; Mr Orgreave’s ingeniously contrived bookshelves were simply overlaid and +smothered in knick-knacks. Janet pushed at the door, and the sound of the piano suddenly +increased in volume.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>There was no cessation of the music as the three entered. As it were beneath the music, +Mrs Orgreave, a stout and faded calm lady, greeted him kindly: “Mr Edwin!” She +was shorter than Janet, but Edwin could see Janet in her movements and in her full lips. +“Well, Edwin!” said Osmond Orgreave with lazy and distinguished good-nature, +shaking hands. Jimmie and Johnnie, now aged nineteen and eighteen respectively, were in +the room; Johnnie was reading; their blushing awkwardness in salutation and comic efforts +to be curtly benevolent in the manner of clubmen somewhat eased the tension in Edwin. They +addressed him as ‘Clayhanger.’ The eldest and the youngest child of the family +sat at the piano in the act of performing a duet. Tom, pale, slight, near-sighted and +wearing spectacles, had reached the age of thirty-two, and was junior partner in a firm of +solicitors at Hanbridge; Bursley seldom saw him. Alicia had the delightful gawkiness of +twelve years. One only of the seven children was missing. Marian, aged thirty, and married +in London, with two little babies; Marian was adored by all her brothers and sisters, and +most by Janet, who, during visits of the married sister, fell back with worshipping joy +into her original situation of second daughter.</p> + +<p>Edwin, Charles, and Janet sat down on a sofa. It was not until after a moment that +Edwin noticed an ugly young woman who sat behind the players and turned over the pages of +music for them. “Surely that can’t be his wonderful Hilda!” Edwin +thought. In the excitement of arrival he had forgotten the advertised Hilda. Was that she? +The girl could be no other. Edwin made the reflection that all men make: “Well, +it’s astonishing what other fellows like!” And, having put down Charlie +several points in his esteem, he forgot Hilda.</p> + +<p>Evidently loud and sustained conversation was not expected nor desired while the music +lasted. And Edwin was glad of this. It enabled him to get his breath and his bearings in +what was to him really a tremendous ordeal. And in fact he was much more agitated than +even he imagined. The room itself abashed him.</p> + +<p>Everybody, including Mr Orgreave, had said that the Clayhanger drawing-room with its +bay-window was a fine apartment. But the Orgreave drawing-room had a bay-window and +another large window; it was twice as big as the Clayhangers’ and of an interesting +irregular shape. Although there were in it two unoccupied expanses of carpet, it +nevertheless contained what seemed to Edwin immense quantities of furniture of all sorts. +Easy-chairs were common, and everywhere. Several bookcases rose to the low ceiling; dozens +and dozens of pictures hid the walls; each corner had its little society of objects; +cushions and candlesticks abounded; the piano was a grand, and Edwin was astounded to see +another piano, a small upright, in the farther distance; there were even two fireplaces, +with two mirrors, two clocks, two sets of ornaments, and two embroidered screens. The +general effect was of extraordinary lavish profusion—of wilful, splendid, careless +extravagance.</p> + +<p>Yet the arm of the sofa on which Edwin leaned was threadbare in two different places. +The room was faded and worn, like its mistress. Like its mistress it seemed to exhale a +silent and calm authority, based on historic tradition.</p> + +<p>And the room was historic; it had been the theatre of history. For twenty-five +years—ever since Tom was seven—it had witnessed the adventurous domestic +career of the Orgreaves, so quiet superficially, so exciting in reality. It was the +drawing-room of a man who had consistently used immense powers of industry for the +satisfaction of his prodigal instincts; it was the drawing-room of a woman whose placidity +no danger could disturb, and who cared for nothing if only her husband was amused. Spend +and gain! And, for a change, gain and spend! That was the method. Work till sheer +exhaustion beat you. Plan, scheme, devise! Satisfy your curiosity and your other +instincts! Experiment! Accept risks! Buy first, order first, pledge yourself first; and +then split your head in order to pay and to redeem! When chance aids you to accumulate, +let the pile grow, out of mere perversity, and then scatter it royally! Play heartily! +Play with the same intentness as you work! Live to the uttermost instant and to the last +flicker of energy! Such was the spirit of Osmond Orgreave, and the spirit which reigned in +the house generally, if not in every room of the house.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>For each child had its room—except Jimmie and Johnnie, who shared one. And each +room was the fortress of an egoism, the theatre of a separate drama, mysterious, and +sacred from the others. Jimmie could not remember having been in Janet’s +room—it was forbidden by Alicia, who was jealous of her sole right of +entrée—and nobody would have dreamed of violating the chamber of Jimmie and +Johnnie to discover the origin of peculiar noises that puzzled the household at seven +o’clock in the morning. As for Tom’s castle—it was a legend to the +younger children; it was supposed to be wondrous.</p> + +<p>All the children had always cost money, and a great deal of money, until Marian had +left the family in deep gloom for her absence, and Tom, with a final wrench of a vast sum +from the willing but wincing father, had settled into a remunerative profession. Tom was +now keeping himself and repaying the weakened parent. The rest cost more and more every +year as their minds and bodies budded and flowered. It was endless, it was staggering, it +would not bear thinking about. The long and varied chronicle of it was somehow written on +the drawing-room as well as on the faces of the father and mother—on the +drawing-room which had the same dignified, childlike, indefatigable, invincible, jolly +expression as its owners. Threadbare in places? And why not? The very identical Turkey +carpet at which Edwin gazed in his self-consciousness—on that carpet Janet the +queenly and mature had sprawled as an infant while her mother, a fresh previous Janet of +less than thirty, had cooed and said incomprehensible foolishness to her. Tom was +patriarchal because he had vague memories of an earlier drawing-room, misted in far +antiquity. Threadbare? By heaven, its mere survival was magnificent! I say that it was a +miraculous drawing-room. Its chairs were humanised. Its little cottage piano that nobody +ever opened now unless Tom had gone mad on something for two pianos, because it was so +impossibly tinny—the cottage piano could humanly recall the touch of a perfect baby +when Marian the wife sat down to it. Marian was one of your silly sentimental nice things; +on account of its associations, she really preferred the cottage piano to the grand. The +two carpets were both resigned, grim old humanities, used to dirty heels, and not caring, +or pretending not to care. What did the curtains know of history? Naught. They were always +new; they could not last. But even the newest curtains would at once submit to the +influence of the room, and take on something of its physiognomy, and help to express its +comfortableness. You could not hang a week in front of one of those windows without being +subtly informed by the tradition of adventurous happiness that presided over the room. It +was that: a drawing-room in which a man and a woman, and boys and girls, had been on the +whole happy, if often apprehensive.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>The music began to engage Edwin’s attention. It was music of a kind quite novel +to him. Most of it had no meaning for him, but at intervals some fragment detached itself +from the mass, and stood out beautiful. It was as if he were gazing at a stage in gloom, +but lighted momentarily by fleeting rays that revealed a lovely detail and were bafflingly +cut off. Occasionally he thought he noticed a recurrence of the same fragment. Murmurs +came from behind the piano. He looked cautiously. Alicia was making faces of alarm and +annoyance. She whispered: “Oh dear! ... It’s no use! ... We’re all +wrong, I’m sure!” Tom kept his eyes on the page in front of him, doggedly +playing. Then Edwin was conscious of dissonances. And then the music stopped.</p> + +<p>“Now, Alicia,” her father protested mildly, “you mustn’t be +nervous.”</p> + +<p>“Nervous!” exclaimed Alicia. “Tom’s just as nervous as I am! So +<i>he</i> needn’t talk.” She was as red as a cock’s crest.</p> + +<p>Tom was not talking. He pointed several times violently to a place on Alicia’s +half of the open book—she was playing the bass part. “There! There!” The +music recommenced.</p> + +<p>“She’s always nervous like that,” Janet whispered kindly, “when +any one’s here. But she doesn’t like to be told.”</p> + +<p>“She plays splendidly,” Edwin responded. “Do you play?”</p> + +<p>Janet shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she does,” Charlie whispered.</p> + +<p>“Keep on, darling. You’re at the end now.” Edwin heard a low, stern +voice. That must be the voice of Hilda. A second later, he looked across, and surprised +her glance, which was intensely fixed on himself. She dropped her eyes quickly; he +also.</p> + +<p>Then he felt by the nature of the chords that the piece was closing. The music ceased. +Mr Orgreave clapped his hands. “Bravo! Bravo!”</p> + +<p>“Why,” cried Charlie to the performers, “you weren’t within ten +bars of each other!” And Edwin wondered how Charlie could tell that. As for him, he +did not know enough of music to be able to turn over the pages for others. He felt himself +to be an ignoramus among a company of brilliant experts.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr Orgreave, “I suppose we may talk a bit now. +It’s more than our place is worth to breathe aloud while these Rubinsteins are doing +Beethoven!” He looked at Edwin, who grinned.</p> + +<p>“Oh! My word!” smiled Mrs Orgreave, supporting her hand.</p> + +<p>“Beethoven, is it?” Edwin muttered. He was acquainted only with the name, +and had never heard it pronounced as Mr Orgreave pronounced it.</p> + +<p>“One symphony a night!” Mr Orgreave said, with irony. “And +we’re only at the second, it seems. Seven more to come. What do you think of that, +Edwin?”</p> + +<p>“Very fine!”</p> + +<p>“Let’s have the ‘Lost Chord,’ Janet,” Mr Orgreave +suggested.</p> + +<p>There was a protesting chorus of “Oh, dad!”</p> + +<p>“Very well! Very well!” the father murmured, acting humility. +“I’m snubbed!”</p> + +<p>Tom had now strolled across the room, smiling to himself, and looking at the carpet, in +an effort to behave as one who had done nothing in particular.</p> + +<p>“How d’ye do, Clayhanger?” He greeted Edwin, and grasped his hand in +a feverish clutch. “You must excuse us. We aren’t used to audiences. +That’s the worst of being rotten amateurs.”</p> + +<p>Edwin rose. “Oh!” he deprecated. He had never spoken to Tom Orgreave +before, but Tom seemed ready to treat him at once as an established acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Then Alicia had to come forward and shake hands. She could not get a word out.</p> + +<p>“Now, baby!” Charlie teased her.</p> + +<p>She tossed her mane, and found refuge by her mother’s side. Mrs Orgreave caressed +the mane into order.</p> + +<p>“This is Miss Lessways. Hilda—Mr Edwin Clayhanger.” Janet drew the +dark girl towards her as the latter hovered uncertainly in the middle of the room, her +face forced into the look of elaborate negligence conventionally assumed by every +self-respecting person who waits to be introduced. She took Edwin’s hand limply, and +failed to meet his glance. Her features did not soften. Edwin was confirmed in the +impression of her obdurate ugliness. He just noticed her olive skin and black eyes and +hair. She was absolutely different in type from any of the Clayhangers. The next instant +she and Charlie were talking together.</p> + +<p>Edwin felt the surprised relief of one who has plunged into the sea and discovers +himself fairly buoyant on the threatening waves.</p> + +<p>“Janet,” asked Mrs Orgreave, “will supper be ready?”</p> + +<p>In the obscurer corners of the room grey shadows gathered furtively, waiting their +time.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>“Seen my latest, Charlie?” asked Tom, in his thin voice.</p> + +<p>“No, what is it?” Charlie replied. The younger brother was flattered by +this proof of esteem from the elder, but he did his best by casualness of tone to prevent +the fact from transpiring.</p> + +<p>All the youths were now standing in a group in the middle of the drawing-room. Their +faces showed pale and more distinct than their bodies in the darkening twilight. Mrs +Orgreave, her husband, and the girls had gone into the dining-room.</p> + +<p>Tom Orgreave, with the gestures of a precisian, drew a bunch of keys from his pocket, +and unlocked a rosewood bookcase that stood between the two windows. Jimmie winked to +Johnnie, and included Edwin in the fellowship of the wink, which meant that Tom was more +comic than Tom thought, with his locked bookcases and his simple vanities of a collector. +Tom collected books. As Edwin gazed at the bookcase he perceived that it was filled mainly +with rich bindings. And suddenly all his own book-buying seemed to him petty and pitiful. +He saw books in a new aspect. He had need of no instruction, of no explanation. The +amorous care with which Tom drew a volume from the bookcase was enough in itself to +enlighten Edwin completely. He saw that a book might be more than reading matter, might be +a bibelot, a curious jewel, to satisfy the lust of the eye and of the hand. He instantly +condemned his own few books as being naught; he was ashamed of them. Each book in that +bookcase was a separate treasure.</p> + +<p>“See this, my boy?” said Tom, handing to Charlie a calf-bound volume, with +a crest on the sides. “Six volumes. Picked them up at Stafford—Assizes, you +know. It’s the Wilbraham crest. I never knew they’d been selling their +library.”</p> + +<p>Charlie accepted the book with respect. Its edges were gilt, and the paper thin and +soft. Edwin looked over his shoulder, and saw the title-page of Victor Hugo’s +“Notre-Dame de Paris,” in French. The volume had a most romantic, foreign, +even exotic air. Edwin desired it fervently, or something that might rank equal with +it.</p> + +<p>“How much did they stick you for this lot?” asked Charlie.</p> + +<p>Tom held up one finger.</p> + +<p>“Quid?” Charlie wanted to be sure. Tom nodded.</p> + +<p>“Cheap as dirt, of course!” said Tom. “Binding’s worth more +than that. Look at the other volumes. Look at them!”</p> + +<p>“Pity it’s only a second edition,” said Charlie.</p> + +<p>“Well, damn it, man! One can’t have everything.”</p> + +<p>Charlie passed the volume to Edwin, who fingered it with the strangest delight. Was it +possible that this exquisitely delicate and uncustomary treasure, which seemed to exhale +all the charm of France and the savour of her history, had been found at Stafford? He had +been to Stafford himself. He had read “Notre-Dame” himself, but in English, +out of a common book like any common book—not out of a bibelot.</p> + +<p>“You’ve read it, of course, Clayhanger?” Tom said.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin answered humbly. “Only in a translation.” Yet there +was a certain falseness in his humility, for he was proud of having read the work. What +sort of a duffer would he have appeared had he been obliged to reply ‘No’?</p> + +<p>“You ought to read French <i>in</i> French,” said Tom, kindly +authoritative.</p> + +<p>“Can’t,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Bosh!” Charlie cried. “You were always spiffing in French. You could +simply knock spots off me.”</p> + +<p>“And do you read French in French, the Sunday?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Charlie, “I must say it was Thomas put me up to it. You +simply begin to read, that’s all. What you don’t understand, you miss. But you +soon understand. You can always look at a dictionary if you feel like it. I usually +don’t.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure <i>you</i> could read French easily in a month,” said Tom. +“They always gave a good grounding at Oldcastle. There’s simply nothing in +it.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” Edwin murmured, relinquishing the book. “I must have a +shot, I never thought of it.” And he never thought of reading French for pleasure. +He had construed Xavier de Maistre’s “Voyage autour de ma Chambre” for +marks, assuredly not for pleasure. “Are there any books in this style to be got on +that bookstall in Hanbridge Market?” he inquired of Tom.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes,” said Tom, wiping his spectacles. “Oh yes!”</p> + +<p>It was astounding to Edwin how blind he had been to the romance of existence in the +Five Towns.</p> + +<p>“It’s all very well,” observed Charlie reflectively, fingering one or +two of the other volumes—“it’s all very well, and Victor Hugo is Victor +Hugo; but you can say what you like—there’s a lot of this that’ll bear +skipping, your worships.”</p> + +<p>“Not a line!” said a passionate, vibrating voice.</p> + +<p>The voice so startled and thrilled Edwin that he almost jumped, as he looked round. To +Edwin it was dramatic; it was even dangerous and threatening. He had never heard a quiet +voice so charged with intense emotion. Hilda Lessways had come back to the room, and she +stood near the door, her face gleaming in the dusk. She stood like an Amazonian defender +of the aged poet. Edwin asked himself, “Can any one be so excited as that about a +book?” The eyes, lips, and nostrils were a revelation to him. He could feel his +heart beating. But the girl strongly repelled him. Nobody else appeared to be conscious +that anything singular had occurred. Jimmie and Johnnie sidled out of the room.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Indeed!” Charlie directed his candid and yet faintly ironic smile upon +Hilda Lessways. “Don’t <i>you</i> think that some of it’s dullish, +Teddy?”</p> + +<p>Edwin blushed. “Well, ye–es,” he answered, honestly judicial.</p> + +<p>“Mrs Orgreave wants to know when you’re coming to supper,” said +Hilda, and left.</p> + +<p>Tom was relocking the bookcase.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_08"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Eight.</h3> + +<h4>The Family Supper.</h4> + +<p>“Now father, let’s have a bottle of wine, eh?” Charlie vociferously +suggested.</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave hesitated: “You’d better ask your mother.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Charlie—” Mrs Orgreave began.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” Charlie cut her short. “Right you are, Martha!”</p> + +<p>The servant, who had stood waiting for a definite command during this brief conflict of +wills, glanced interrogatively at Mrs Orgreave and, perceiving no clear prohibition in her +face, departed with a smile to get the wine. She was a servant of sound prestige, and had +the inexpressible privilege of smiling on duty. In her time she had fought lively battles +of repartee with all the children from Charlie downwards. Janet humoured Martha, and +Martha humoured Mrs Orgreave.</p> + +<p>The whole family (save absent Marian) was now gathered in the dining-room, another +apartment on whose physiognomy were written in cipher the annals of the vivacious tribe. +Here the curtains were drawn, and all the interest of the room centred on the large white +gleaming table, about which the members stood or sat under the downward radiance of a +chandelier. Beyond the circle illuminated by the shaded chandelier could be discerned dim +forms of furniture and of pictures, with a glint of high light here and there burning on +the corner of some gold frame. Mr and Mrs Orgreave sat at either end of the table. Alicia +stood by her father, with one arm half round his neck. Tom sat near his mother. Janet and +Hilda sat together, flanked by Jimmie and Johnnie, who stood, having pushed chairs away. +Charlie and Edwin stood opposite. The table seemed to Edwin to be heaped with food: cold +and yet rich remains of bird and beast; a large fruit pie, opened; another intact; some +puddings; cheese; sandwiches; raw fruit; at Janet’s elbow were cups and saucers and +a pot of coffee; a large glass jug of lemonade shone near by; plates, glasses, and cutlery +were strewn about irregularly. The effect upon Edwin was one of immense and careless +prodigality; it intoxicated him; it made him feel that a grand profuseness was the finest +thing in life. In his own home the supper consisted of cheese, bread, and water, save on +Sundays, when cold sausages were generally added, to make a feast. But the idea of the +price of living as the Orgreaves lived seriously startled the prudence in him. Imagine +that expense always persisting, day after day, night after night! There were certainly at +least four in the family who bought clothes at Shillitoe’s, and everybody looked +elaborately costly, except Hilda Lessways, who did not flatter the eye. But equally, they +all seemed quite unconscious of their costliness.</p> + +<p>“Now, Charlie darling, you must look after Mr Edwin,” said Mrs +Orgreave.</p> + +<p>“She never calls <i>us</i> darling,” said Johnnie, affecting disgust.</p> + +<p>“She will, as soon as you’ve left home,” said Janet, ironically +soothing.</p> + +<p>“I <i>do</i>, I often do!” Mrs Orgreave asserted. “Much oftener than +you deserve.”</p> + +<p>“Sit down, Teddy,” Charlie enjoined.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’m all right, thanks,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Sit <i>down</i>!” Charlie insisted, using force.</p> + +<p>“Do you talk to your poor patients in that tone?” Alicia inquired, from the +shelter of her father.</p> + +<p>“Here I come down specially to see them,” Charlie mused aloud, as he +twisted the corkscrew into the cork of the bottle, unceremoniously handed to him by +Martha, “and not only they don’t offer to pay my fares, but they grudge me a +drop of claret! Plupp!” He grimaced as the cork came out. “And my last night, +too! Hilda, this is better than coffee, as Saint Paul remarked on a famous occasion. Pass +your glass.”</p> + +<p>“Charlie!” his mother protested. “I’ll thank you to leave Saint +Paul out.”</p> + +<p>“Charlie! Your mother will be boxing your ears if you don’t mind,” +his father warned him.</p> + +<p>“I’ll not have it!” said his mother, shaking her head in a fashion +that she imagined to be harsh and forbidding.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Towards the close of the meal, Mr Orgreave said—</p> + +<p>“Well, Edwin, what does your father say about Bradlaugh?”</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t say much,” Edwin replied.</p> + +<p>“Let me see, does he call himself a Liberal?”</p> + +<p>“He calls himself a Liberal,” said Edwin, shifting on his chair. +“Yes, he calls himself a Liberal. But I’m afraid he’s a regular old +Tory.”</p> + +<p>Edwin blushed, laughing, as half the family gave way to more or less violent mirth.</p> + +<p>“Father’s a regular old Tory too,” Charlie grinned.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’m sorry,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Yes, father’s a regular old Tory,” agreed Mr Orgreave. +“Don’t apologise! Don’t apologise! I’m used to these attacks. +I’ve been nearly kicked out of my own house once. But some one has to keep the flag +flying.”</p> + +<p>It was plain that Mr Orgreave enjoyed the unloosing of the hurricane which he had +brought about. Mrs Orgreave used to say that he employed that particular tone from a +naughty love of mischief. In a moment all the boys were upon him, except Jimmie, who, out +of sheer intellectual snobbery, as the rest averred, supported his father. Atheistical +Bradlaugh had been exciting the British public to disputation for a long time, and the +Bradlaugh question happened then to be acute. In that very week the Northampton member had +been committed to custody for outraging Parliament, and released. And it was known that +Gladstone meant immediately to bring in a resolution for permitting members to affirm, +instead of taking oath by appealing to a God. Than this complication of theology and +politics nothing could have been better devised to impassion an electorate which had but +two genuine interests—theology and politics. The rumour of the feverish affair had +spread to the most isolated communities. People talked theology, and people talked +politics, who had till then only felt silently on these subjects. In loquacious families +Bradlaugh caused dissension and division, more real perhaps than apparent, for not all +Bradlaugh’s supporters had the courage to avow themselves such. It was not easy, at +any rate it was not easy in the Five Towns, for a timid man in reply to the question, +“Are you in favour of a professed Freethinker sitting in the House of +Commons?” to reply, “Yes, I am.” There was something shameless in that +word ‘professed.’ If the Freethinker had been ashamed of his freethinking, if +he had sought to conceal it in phrases,—the implication was that the case might not +have been so bad. This was what astonished Edwin: the candour with which Bradlaugh’s +position was upheld in the dining-room of the Orgreaves. It was as if he were witnessing +deeds of wilful perilous daring.</p> + +<p>But the conversation was not confined to Bradlaugh, for Bradlaugh was not a perfect +test for separating Liberals and Tories. Nobody in the room, for example, was quite +convinced that Mr Orgreave was anti-Bradlaugh. To satisfy their instincts for +father-baiting, the boys had to include other topics, such as Ireland and the proposal for +Home Rule. As for Mr Orgreave, he could and did always infuriate them by refusing to +answer seriously. The fact was that this was his device for maintaining his prestige among +the turbulent mob. Dignified and brilliantly clever as Osmond Orgreave had the reputation +of being in the town, he was somehow outshone in cleverness at home, and he never put the +bar of his dignity between himself and his children. Thus he could only keep the upper +hand by allowing hints to escape from him of the secret amusement roused in him by the +comicality of the spectacle of his filial enemies. He had one great phrase, which he would +drawl out at them with the accents of a man who is trying politely to hide his contempt: +“You’ll learn better as you get older.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Edwin, who said little, thought the relationship between father and sons utterly +delightful. He had not conceived that parents and children ever were or could be on such +terms.</p> + +<p>“Now what do you say, Edwin?” Mr Orgreave asked. “Are you +a—Charlie, pass me that bottle.”</p> + +<p>Charlie was helping himself to another glass of wine. The father, the two elder sons, +and Edwin alone had drunk of the wine. Edwin had never tasted wine in his life, and the +effect of half a glass on him was very agreeable and strange.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dad! I just want a—” Charlie objected, holding the bottle in the +air above his glass.</p> + +<p>“Charlie,” said his mother, “do you hear your father?”</p> + +<p>“Pass me that bottle,” Mr Orgreave repeated.</p> + +<p>Charlie obeyed, proclaiming himself a martyr. Mr Orgreave filled his own glass, +emptying the bottle, and began to sip.</p> + +<p>“This will do me more good than you, young man,” he said. Then turning +again to Edwin: “Are you a Bradlaugh man?”</p> + +<p>And Edwin, uplifted, said: “All I say is—you can’t help what you +believe. You can’t make yourself believe anything. And I don’t see why you +should, either. There’s no virtue in believing.”</p> + +<p>“Hooray,” cried the sedate Tom.</p> + +<p>“No virtue in believing! Eh, Mr Edwin! Mr Edwin!”</p> + +<p>This sad expostulation came from Mrs Orgreave.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you see what I mean?” he persisted vivaciously, reddening. But +he could not express himself further.</p> + +<p>“Hooray!” repeated Tom.</p> + +<p>Mrs Orgreave shook her head, with grieved good-nature.</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t take mother too seriously,” said Janet, smiling. +“She only puts on that expression to keep worse things from being said. She’s +only pretending to be upset. Nothing could upset her, really. She’s past being +upset—she’s been through so much—haven’t you, you poor +dear?”</p> + +<p>In looking at Janet, Edwin caught the eyes of Hilda blazing on him fixedly. Her head +seemed to tremble, and he glanced away. She had added nothing to the discussion. And +indeed Janet herself had taken no part in the politics, content merely to advise the +combatants upon their demeanour.</p> + +<p>“So you’re against me too, Edwin!” Mr Orgreave sighed with mock +melancholy. “Well, this is no place for me.” He rose, lifted Alicia and put +her into his arm-chair, and then went towards the door.</p> + +<p>“You aren’t going to work, are you, Osmond?” his wife asked, turning +her head.</p> + +<p>“I am,” said he.</p> + +<p>He disappeared amid a wailing chorus of “Oh, dad!”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_09"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Nine.</h3> + +<h4>In The Porch.</h4> + +<p>When the front door of the Orgreaves interposed itself that night between Edwin and a +little group of gas-lit faces, he turned away towards the warm gloom of the garden in a +state of happy excitement. He had left fairly early, despite protests, because he wished +to give his father no excuse for a spectacular display of wrath; Edwin’s desire for +a tranquil existence was growing steadily. But now that he was in the open air, he did not +want to go home. He wanted to be in full possession of himself, at leisure and in freedom, +and to examine the treasure of his sensations. “It’s been rather quiet,” +the Orgreaves had said. “We generally have people dropping in.” Quiet! It was +the least quiet evening he had ever spent.</p> + +<p>He was intoxicated; not with wine, though he had drunk wine. A group of +well-intentioned philanthropists, organised into a powerful society for combating the +fearful evils of alcoholism, had seized Edwin at the age of twelve and made him bind +himself with solemn childish signature and ceremonies never to taste alcohol save by +doctor’s orders. He thought of this pledge in the garden of the Orgreaves. +“Damned rot!” he murmured, and dismissed the pledge from his mind as utterly +unimportant, if not indeed fatuous. No remorse! The whole philosophy of asceticism +inspired him, at that moment, with impatient scorn. It was the hope of pleasure that +intoxicated him, the vision which he had had of the possibilities of being really +interested in life. He saw new avenues toward joy, and the sight thereof made him tingle, +less with the desire to be immediately at them than with the present ecstasy of +contemplating them. He was conscious of actual physical tremors and agreeable smartings in +his head; electric disturbances. But he did not reason; he felt. He was passive, not +active. He would not even, just then, attempt to make new plans. He was in a beatitude, +his mouth unaware that it was smiling.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Behind him was the lighted house; in front the gloom of the lawn ending in shrubberies +and gates, with a street-lamp beyond. And there was silence, save for the vast +furnace-breathings, coming over undulating miles, which the people of the Five Towns, +hearing them always, never hear. A great deal of diffused light filtered through the +cloudy sky. The warm wandering airs were humid on the cheek. He must return home. He could +not stand dreaming all the night in the garden of the Orgreaves. To his right uprose the +great rectangular mass of his father’s new house, entirely free of scaffolding, +having all the aspect of a house inhabited. It looked enormous. He was proud of it. In +such an abode, and so close to the Orgreaves, what could he not do?</p> + +<p>Why go to gaze on it again? There was no common sense in doing so. And yet he felt: +“I must have another glance at it before I go home.” From his attitude towards +it, he might have been the creator of that house. That house was like one of his more +successful drawings. When he had done a drawing that he esteemed, he was always looking at +it. He would look at it before running down to breakfast; and after breakfast, instead of +going straight to the shop, he would rush upstairs to have still another look at it. The +act of inspection gave him pleasure. So with the house. Strange, superficially; but the +simple explanation was that for some things he had the eyes of love... Yes, in his dancing +and happy brain the impulse to revisit the house was not to be conquered.</p> + +<p>The few battered yards of hedge between his father’s land and that of Mr Orgreave +seemed more passable in the night. He crunched along the gravel, stepped carefully with +noiseless foot on the flower-bed, and then pushed himself right through the frail bushes, +forgetting the respect due to his suit. The beginning of summer had dried the sticky clay +of the new garden; paths had already been traced on it, and trenches cut for the draining +of the lawn that was to be. Edwin in the night saw the new garden finished, mellow, +blooming with such blossoms as were sold in Saint Luke’s Market; he had scarcely +ever seen flowers growing in the mass. He saw himself reclining in the garden with a rare +and beautiful book in his hand, while the sound of Beethoven’s music came to him +through the open window of the drawing-room. In so far as he saw Maggie at all, he saw her +somehow mysteriously elegant and vivacious. He did not see his father. His fancy had little +relation to reality. But this did not mar his pleasure... Then he saw himself talking over +the hedge, wittily, to amiable and witty persons in the garden of the Orgreaves.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He had not his key to the new house, but he knew a way of getting into it through the +cellar. No reason in doing so; nevertheless he must get into it, must localise his dream +in it! He crouched down under the blank east wall, and, feet foremost, disappeared slowly, +as though the house were swallowing him. He stood on the stillage of the cellar, and +struck a match. Immense and weird, the cellar; and the doorless doorway, leading to the +cellar steps, seemed to lead to affrighting matters. He was in the earth, in it, with the +smells of damp mortar and of bricks and of the earth itself about him, and above him rose +the house, a room over him, and a room over that and another over that, and then the +chimney-cowl up in the sky. He jumped from the stillage, and went quickly to the doorway +and saw the cellar steps. His heart was beating. He trembled, he was afraid, exquisitely +afraid, acutely conscious of himself amid the fundamental mysteries of the universe. He +reached the top of the steps as the match expired. After a moment he could distinguish the +forms of things in the hall, even the main features of the pattern of the tiles. The small +panes in the glazed front door, whose varied tints repeated those of the drawing-room +window in daytime, now showed a uniform dull grey, lifeless. The cellar was formidable +below, and the stairs curved upwards into the formidable. But he climbed them. The house +seemed full of inexplicable noises. When he stopped to listen he could hear scores of +different infinitesimal sounds. His spine thrilled, as if a hand delicate and terrible had +run down it in a caress. All the unknown of the night and of the universe was pressing +upon him, but it was he alone who had created the night and the universe. He reached his +room, the room in which he meant to inaugurate the new life and the endeavour towards +perfection. Already, after his manner, he had precisely settled where the bed was to be, +and where the table, and all the other objects of his world. There he would sit and read +rare and beautiful books in the original French! And there he would sit to draw! And to +the right of the hearth over bookshelves would be such and such a picture, and to the left +of the hearth over bookshelves such and such another picture... Only, now, he could not +dream in the room as he had meant to dream; because beyond the open door was the empty +landing and the well of the stairs and all the terror of the house. The terror came and +mingled with the delicious sensations that had seized him in the solitude of the garden of +the Orgreaves. No! Never had he been so intensely alive as then!</p> + +<p>He went cautiously to the window and looked forth. Instantly the terror of the house +was annihilated. It fell away, was gone. He was not alone in his fancy-created universe. +The reassuring illusion of reality came back like a clap of thunder. He could see a girl +insinuating herself through the gap in the hedge which he had made ten minutes +earlier.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“What the deuce is she after?” he muttered. He wondered whether, if she +happened to glance upwards, she would be able to see him. He stood away a little from the +window, but as in the safer position he could no longer distinguish her he came again +close to the glass. After all, there could be no risk of her seeing him. And if she did +see him,—the fright would be hers, not his.</p> + +<p>Having passed through the hedge, she stopped, bent down, leaning backward and to one +side, and lifted the hem of her skirt to examine it; possibly it was torn; then she +dropped it. By that black, tight skirt and by something in her walk he knew she was Hilda; +he could not decipher her features. She moved towards the new house, very slowly, as if +she had emerged for an aimless nocturnal stroll. Strange and disquieting creature! He +peered as far as he could leftwards, to see the west wall of Lane End House. In a window +of the upper floor a light burned. The family had doubtless gone to bed, or were going... +And she had wandered forth solitary and was trespassing in his garden. +“Cheek!” If ever he got an opportunity he should mysteriously tease her on the +subject of illegal night excursions! Yes, he should be very witty and ironic. +“Nothing but cheek!” He was confirmed in his hostility to her. She had no +charm, and yet the entire Orgreave family was apparently infatuated about her. Her +interruption on behalf of Victor Hugo seemed to be savage. Girls ought not to use that +ruthless tone. And her eyes were hard, even cruel. She was less feminine than masculine. +Her hair was not like a girl’s hair.</p> + +<p>She still came on, until the projecting roof of the bay-window beneath him hid her from +sight. He would have opened his window and leaned out to glimpse her, could he have done +so without noise. Where was she? In the garden porch? She did not reappear. She might be +capable of getting into the house! She might even then actually be getting into the house! +She was queer, incalculable. Supposing that she was in the habit of surreptitiously +visiting the house, and had found a key to fit one of the doors, or supposing that she +could push up a window,—she would doubtless mount the stairs and trap him! Absurd, +these speculations; as absurd as a nightmare! But they influenced his conduct. He felt +himself forced to provide against the wildest hazards. Abruptly he departed from the +bedroom and descended the stairs, stamping, clumping, with all possible noise; in addition +he whistled. This was to warn her to fly. He stopped in the hall until she had had time to +fly, and then he lit a match as a signal which surely no carelessness could miss. He could +have gone direct by the front door into the street, so leaving her to her odd self; but, +instead, he drew back the slip-catch of the garden door and opened it, self-consciously +humming a tune.</p> + +<p>She was within the porch. She turned deliberately to look at him. He could feel his +heart-beats. His cheeks burned, and yet he was chilled.</p> + +<p>“Who’s there?” he asked. But he did not succeed to his own +satisfaction in acting alarmed surprise.</p> + +<p>“Me!” said Hilda, challengingly, rudely.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” he murmured, at a loss. “Did you want me? Did any one want +me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said. “I just wanted to ask you something,” she +paused. He could not see her scowling, but it seemed to him that she must be. He +remembered that she had rather thick eyebrows, and that when she brought them nearer +together by a frown, they made almost one continuous line, the effect of which was not +attractive.</p> + +<p>“Did you know I was in here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. That’s my bedroom window over there—I’ve left the gas +up—and I saw you get through the hedge. So I came down. They’d all gone off to +bed except Tom, and I told him I was just going a walk in the garden for a bit. They never +worry me, you know. They let me alone. I knew you’d got into the house, by the +light.”</p> + +<p>“But I only struck a match a second ago,” he protested.</p> + +<p>“Excuse me,” she said coldly; “I saw a light quite five minutes +ago.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” he apologised. “I remember. When I came up the cellar +steps.”</p> + +<p>“I dare say you think it’s very queer of me,” she continued.</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” he said quickly.</p> + +<p>“Yes you do,” she bitterly insisted. “But I want to know. Did you +mean it when you said—you know, at supper—that there’s no virtue in +believing?”</p> + +<p>“Did I say there was no virtue in believing?” he stammeringly demanded.</p> + +<p>“Of course you did!” she remonstrated. “Do you mean to say you can +say a thing like that and then forget about it? If it’s true, it’s one of the +most wonderful things that were ever said. And that’s why I wanted to know if you +meant it or whether you were only saying it because it sounded clever. That’s what +they’re always doing in that house, you know, being clever!” Her tone was +invariably harsh.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said simply, “I meant it. Why?”</p> + +<p>“You did?” Her voice seemed to search for insincerity. “Well, thank +you. That’s all. It may mean a new life to me. I’m always trying to believe; +always! Aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “How do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Well—you know!” she said, as if impatiently smashing his pretence of +not understanding her. “But perhaps you do believe?”</p> + +<p>He thought he detected scorn for a facile believer. “No,” he said, “I +don’t.”</p> + +<p>“And it doesn’t worry you? Honestly? Don’t be clever! I hate +that!”</p> + +<p>“No,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you ever think about it?”</p> + +<p>“No. Not often.”</p> + +<p>“Charlie does.”</p> + +<p>“Has he told you?” (“So she talks to the Sunday too!” he +reflected.)</p> + +<p>“Yes; but of course I quite see why it doesn’t worry you—if you +honestly think there’s no virtue in believing.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin. “<i>Is</i> there?” The more he looked at it +through her eyes, the more wonderful profundities he discovered in that remark of his, +which at the time of uttering it had appeared to him a simple platitude. It went +exceedingly deep in many directions.</p> + +<p>“I hope you are right,” she replied. Her voice shook.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>There was silence. To ease the strain of his self-consciousness Edwin stepped down from +the stone floor of the porch to the garden. He felt rain. And he noticed that the sky was +very much darker.</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” he said. “It’s beginning to rain, I do +believe.”</p> + +<p>“I thought it would,” she answered.</p> + +<p>A squall of wind suddenly surged rustling through the high trees in the garden of the +Orgreaves, and the next instant threw a handful of wild raindrops on his cheek.</p> + +<p>“You’d better stand against the other wall,” he suggested. +“You’ll catch it there, if it keeps on.”</p> + +<p>She obeyed. He returned to the porch, but remained in the exposed portion of it.</p> + +<p>“Better come here,” she said, indicating somehow her side.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’m all right.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be afraid of me,” she snapped.</p> + +<p>He grinned awkwardly, but said nothing, for he could not express his secret resentment. +He considered the girl to be of exceedingly unpleasant manners.</p> + +<p>“Would you mind telling me the time?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He took out his watch, but peer as he might, he could not discern the position of the +hands.</p> + +<p>“Half a second,” he said, and struck a match. The match was blown out +before he could look at the dial, but by its momentary flash he saw Hilda, pressed against +the wall. Her lips were tight, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched. She frowned; she was +pale, and especially pale by contrast with the black of her plain austere dress.</p> + +<p>“If you’ll come into the house,” he said, “I can get a light +there.” The door was ajar.</p> + +<p>“No thanks,” she declined. “It doesn’t really matter what time +it is, does it? Good night!”</p> + +<p>He divined that she was offering her hand. He clasped it blindly in the dark. He could +not refuse to shake hands. Her hand gave his a feverish and lingering squeeze, which was +like a contradicting message in the dark night; as though she were sending through her +hand a secret denial of her spoken accents and her frown. He forgot to answer her +‘good night.’ A trap rattled furiously up the road. (Yes; only six yards off, +on the other side of the boundary wall, was the public road! And he standing hidden there +in the porch with this girl whom he had seen for the first time that evening!) It was the +mail-cart, rushing to Knype.</p> + +<p>She did not move. She had said ‘good night’ and shaken hands; and yet she +remained. They stood speechless.</p> + +<p>Then without warning, after perhaps a minute that seemed like ten minutes, she walked +away, slowly, into the rain. And as she did so, Edwin could just see her straightening her +spine and throwing back her shoulders with a proud gesture.</p> + +<p>“I say, Miss Lessways!” he called in a low voice. But he had no notion of +what he wanted to say. Only her departure had unlocked his throat.</p> + +<p>She made no sign. Again he grinned awkwardly, a little ashamed of her and a little +ashamed of himself, because neither had behaved as woman or man of the world.</p> + +<p>After a short interval he followed in her steps as far as the gap in the hedge, which +he did not find easily. There was no sign of her. The gas burned serenely in her bedroom, +and the window was open. Then he saw the window close up a little, and an arm in front of +the drawn blind. The rain had apparently ceased.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>“Well, that’s an eye-opener, that is!” he murmured, and thereby +expressed the situation. “Of all the damned impudence!” He somewhat overstated +his feelings, because he was posing a little to himself: an accident that sooner or later +happens to every man! “And she’ll go back and make out to Master Tom that +she’s just had a stroll in the garden! Garden, indeed! And yet they’re all so +fearfully stuck on her.”</p> + +<p>He nodded his head several times reflectively, as if saying, “Well, well! What +next?” And he murmured aloud: “So that’s how they carry on, is +it!” He meant, of course, women... He was very genuinely astounded.</p> + +<p>But the chief of all his acute sensations in that moment was pride: sheer pride. He +thought, what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have thought in such circumstances: +“She’s taken a fancy to me!” Useless to call him a conceited coxcomb, +from disgust that he did not conform to a sentimentally idealistic standard! He thought: +“She’s taken a fancy to me!” And he was not a conceited coxcomb. He +exulted in the thought. Nothing had ever before so startled and uplifted him. It +constituted the supreme experience of his career as a human being. The delightful and +stimulating experience of his evening in the house of the Orgreaves sank into unimportance +by the side of it. The new avenues towards joy which had been revealed to him appeared now +to be quite unexciting paths; he took them for granted. And he forgot the high and serious +mood of complex emotion in which he had entered the new house. Music and the exotic +flavours of a foreign language seemed a little thing, in comparison with the feverish +hand-clasp of the girl whom he so peculiarly disliked. The lifeless hand which he had +taken in the drawing-room of the Orgreaves could not be the same hand as that which had +closed intimately on his under the porch. She must have two right hands!</p> + +<p>And, even more base than his coxcombry, he despised her because it was he, Edwin, to +whom she had taken a fancy. He had not sufficient self-confidence to justify her fancy in +his own eyes. His argument actually was that no girl worth having could have taken a fancy +to him at sight. Thus he condemned her for her faith in him. As for his historic remark +about belief,—well, there might or might not be something in that; perhaps there was +something in it. One instant he admired it, and the next he judged it glib and +superficial. Moreover, he had conceivably absorbed it from a book. But even if it were an +original epigrammatic pearl—was that an adequate reason for her following him to an +empty house at dead of night? Of course, an overwhelming passion <i>might</i> justify such +behaviour! He could recall cases in literature... Yes, he had got so far as to envisage +the possibility of overwhelming passion... Then all these speculations disconcertingly +vanished, and Hilda presented herself to his mind as a girl intensely religious, who would +shrink from no unconventionality in the pursuit of truth. He did not much care for this +theory of Hilda, nor did it convince him.</p> + +<p>“Imagine marrying a girl like that!” he said to himself disdainfully. And +he made a catalogue of her defects of person and of character. She was severe, satiric, +merciless. “And I suppose—if I were to put my finger up!” Thus ran on +his despicable ideas. “Janet Orgreave, now!” Janet had every quality that he +could desire, that he could even think of. Janet was balm.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be afraid,” that unpleasant girl had said. And he had +only been able to grin in reply!</p> + +<p>Still, pride! Intense masculine pride!</p> + +<p>There was one thing he had liked about her: that straightening of the spine and setting +back of the shoulders as she left him. She had in her some tinge of the heroic.</p> + +<p>He quitted the garden, and as soon as he was in the street he remembered that he had +not pulled-to the garden door of the house. “Dash the confounded thing!” he +exploded, returning. But he was not really annoyed. He would not have been really annoyed +even if he had had to return from half-way down Trafalgar Road. Everything was a trifle +save that a girl had run after him under such romantic circumstances. The circumstances +were not strictly romantic, but they so seemed to him.</p> + +<p>Going home, he did not meet a soul; only in the middle distance of one of the lower +side streets he espied a policeman. Trafalgar Road was a solitude of bright and forlorn +gas lamps and dark, excluding façades.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he came to the corner of Wedgwood Street. He had started from Bleakridge; he +had arrived at home: the interval between these two events was a perfect blank, save for +the policeman. He could not recall having walked all the way down the road. And as he put +the key into the door he was not in the least disturbed by the thought that his father +might not have gone to bed. He went upstairs with a certain swaggering clatter, as who +should say to all sleepers and bullies: “You be damned! I don’t care for any +of you! Something’s happened to me.”</p> + +<p>And he mused: “If anybody had told me this afternoon that before midnight I +should—”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_10"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Ten.</h3> + +<h4>The Centenary.</h4> + +<p>It was immediately after this that the “Centenary”—mispronounced in +every manner conceivable—began to obsess the town. Superior and aloof persons, like +the Orgreaves, had for weeks heard a good deal of vague talk about the Centenary from +people whom intellectually they despised, and had condescended to the Centenary as an +amiable and excusable affair which lacked interest for them. They were wrong. Edwin had +gone further, and had sniffed at the Centenary, to everybody except his father. And Edwin +was especially wrong. On the antepenultimate day of June he first uneasily suspected that +he had committed a fault of appraisement. That was when his father brusquely announced +that by request of the Mayor all places of business in the town would be closed in honour +of the Centenary. It was the Centenary of the establishment of Sunday schools.</p> + +<p>Edwin hated Sunday schools. Nay, he venomously resented them, though they had long +ceased to incommode him. They were connected in his memory with atrocious tedium, +pietistic insincerity, and humiliating contacts. At the bottom of his mind he still +regarded them as a malicious device of parents for wilfully harassing and persecuting +inoffensive, helpless children. And he had a particular grudge against them because he +alone of his father’s offspring had been chosen for the nauseating infliction. Why +should his sisters have been spared and he doomed? He became really impatient when Sunday +schools were under discussion, and from mere irrational annoyance he would not admit that +Sunday schools had any good qualities whatever. He knew nothing of their history, and +wished to know nothing.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when the day of the Centenary dawned—and dawned in +splendour—he was compelled, even within himself, to treat Sunday schools with more +consideration. And, in fact, for two or three days previously the gathering force of +public opinion had been changing his attitude from stern hatred to a sort of half-hearted +derision. Now, the derision was mysteriously transformed into an inimical respect. By +what? By he knew not what. By something without a name in the air which the mind breathes. +He felt it at six o’clock, ere he arose. Lying in bed he felt it. The day was to be +a festival. The shop would not open, nor the printing office. The work of preparing for +the removal would be suspended. The way of daily life would be quite changed. He was +free—that was, nearly free. He said to himself that of course his excited father +would expect him to witness the celebrations and to wear his best clothes, and that was a +bore. But therein he was not quite honest. For he secretly wanted to witness the +celebrations and to wear his best clothes. His curiosity was hungry. He admitted, what +many had been asserting for weeks, that the Centenary was going to be a big thing; and his +social instinct wished him to share in the pride of it.</p> + +<p>“It’s a grand day!” exclaimed his father, cheerful and all glossy as +he looked out upon Duck Square before breakfast. “It’ll be rare and +hot!” And it was a grand day; one of the dazzling spectacular blue-and-gold days of +early summer. And Maggie was in finery. And Edwin too! Useless for him to pretend that a +big thing was not afoot—and his father in a white waistcoat! Breakfast was +positively talkative, though the conversation was naught but a repeating and repeating of +what the arrangements were, and of what everybody had decided to do. The three lingered +over breakfast, because there was no reason to hurry. And then even Maggie left the +sitting-room without a care, for though Clara was coming for dinner Mrs Nixon could be +trusted. Mrs Nixon, if she had time, would snatch half an hour in the afternoon to see +what remained to be seen of the show. Families must eat. And if Mrs Nixon was stopped by +duty from assisting at this Centenary, she must hope to be more at liberty for the +next.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>At nine o’clock, in a most delicious mood of idleness, Edwin strolled into the +shop. His father had taken down one shutter from the doorway, and slanted it carelessly +against another on the pavement. A blind man or a drunkard might have stumbled against it +and knocked it over. The letters had been hastily opened. Edwin could see them lying in +disorder on the desk in the little office. The dust-sheets thought the day was Sunday. He +stood in the narrow aperture and looked forth. Duck Square was a shimmer of sunshine. The +Dragon and the Duck and the other public-house at the top corner seemed as usual, stolidly +confident in the thirst of populations. But the Borough Dining Rooms, next door but one to +the corner of Duck Square and Wedgwood Street, were not as usual. The cart of Doy, the +butcher, had halted laden in front of the Borough Dining Rooms, and the anxious +proprietor, attended by his two little daughters (aproned and sleeved for hard work in +imitation of their stout, perspiring mother), was accepting unusual joints from it. +Ticklish weather for meat—you could see that from the man’s gestures. Even on +ordinary days those low-ceiled dining-rooms, stretching far back from the street in a +complicated vista of interiors, were apt to be crowded; for the quality of the eightpenny +dinner could be relied upon. Edwin imagined what a stifling, deafening inferno of culinary +odours and clatter they would be at one o’clock, at two o’clock.</p> + +<p>Three hokey-pokey ice-cream hand-carts, one after another, turned the corner of +Trafalgar Road and passed in front of him along Wedgwood Street. Three! The men pushing +them, one an Italian, seemed to wear nothing but shirt and trousers, with a straw hat +above and vague slippers below. The steam-car lumbered up out of the valley of the road +and climbed Duck Bank, throwing its enormous shadow to the left. It was half full of +bright frocks and suits. An irregular current of finery was setting in to the gates of the +Wesleyan School yard at the top of the Bank. And ceremoniously bedecked individuals of all +ages hurried in this direction and in that, some with white handkerchiefs over flowered +hats, a few beneath parasols. All the town’s store of Sunday clothes was in use. The +humblest was crudely gay. Pawnbrokers had full tills and empty shops, for twenty-four +hours.</p> + +<p>Then a procession appeared, out of Moorthorne Road, from behind the Wesleyan +Chapel-keeper’s house. And as it appeared it burst into music. First a purple +banner, upheld on crimson poles with gilded lance-points; then a brass band in full note; +and then children, children, children—little, middling, and big. As the procession +curved down into Trafalgar Road, it grew in stature, until, towards the end of it, the +children were as tall as the adults who walked fussily as hens, proudly as peacocks, on +its flank. And last came a railway lorry on which dozens of tiny infants had been penned; +and the horses of the lorry were ribboned and their manes and tails tightly plaited; on +that grand day they could not be allowed to protect themselves against flies; they were +sacrificial animals.</p> + +<p>A power not himself drew Edwin to the edge of the pavement. He could read on the +immense banner: “Moorthorne Saint John’s Sunday School.” These, then, +were church folk. And indeed the next moment he descried a curate among the peacocks. The +procession made another curve into Wedgwood Street, on its way to the supreme rendezvous +in Saint Luke’s Square. The band blared; the crimson cheeks of the trumpeters sucked +in and out; the drummer leaned backwards to balance his burden, and banged. Every soul of +the variegated company, big and little, was in a perspiration. The staggering bearers of +the purple banner, who held the great poles in leathern sockets slung from the shoulders, +and their acolytes before and behind who kept the banner upright by straining at crimson +halyards, sweated most of all. Every foot was grey with dust, and the dark trousers of +boys and men showed dust. The steamy whiff of humanity struck Edwin’s nostrils. Up +hill and down dale the procession had already walked over two miles. Yet it was alert, +joyous, and expectant: a chattering procession. From the lorry rose a continuous faint +shriek of infantile voices. Edwin was saddened as by pathos. I believe that as he gazed at +the procession waggling away along Wedgwood Street he saw Sunday schools in a new +light.</p> + +<p>And that was the opening of the day. There were to be dozens of such processions. Some +would start only in the town itself; but others were coming from the villages like Red +Cow, five sultry miles off.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>A young woman under a sunshade came slowly along Wedgwood Street. She was wearing a +certain discreet amount of finery, but her clothes did not fit well, and a thin mantle was +arranged so as to lessen as much as possible the obviousness of the fact that she was +about to become a mother. The expression of her face was discontented and captious. Edwin +did not see her until she was close upon him, and then he immediately became +self-conscious and awkward.</p> + +<p>“Hello, Clara!” he greeted her, with his instinctive warm, transient smile, +holding out his hand sheepishly. It was a most extraordinary and amazing thing that he +could never regard the ceremony of shaking hands with a relative as other than an +affectation of punctilio. Happily he was not wearing his hat; had it been on his head he +would never have taken it off, and yet would have cursed himself for not doing so.</p> + +<p>“We <i>are</i> grand!” exclaimed Clara, limply taking his hand and dropping +it as an article of no interest. In her voice there was still some echo of former +sprightliness. The old Clara in her had not till that moment beheld the smart and novel +curves of Edwin’s Shillitoe suit, and the satiric cry came unbidden from her +heart.</p> + +<p>Edwin gave an uneasy laugh, which was merely the outlet for his disgust. Not that he +was specially disgusted with Clara, for indeed marriage had assuaged a little the +tediousness of some of her mannerisms, even if it had taken away from her charm. He was +disgusted more comprehensively by the tradition, universal in his class and in most +classes, according to which relatives could not be formally polite to one another. He +obeyed the tradition as slavishly as anyone, but often said to himself that he would +violate the sacred rule if only he could count on a suitable response; he knew that he +could not count on a suitable response; and he had no mind to be in the excruciating +position of one who, having started “God save the Queen” at a meeting, finds +himself alone in the song. Why could not he and Clara behave together as, for instance, he +and Janet Orgreave would behave together, with dignity, with worldliness, with mutual +deference? But no! It was impossible, and would ever be so. They had been too brutally +intimate, and the result was irremediable.</p> + +<p>“<i>She’s</i> got no room to talk about personal appearance, anyway!” +he thought sardonically.</p> + +<p>There was another extraordinary and amazing thing. He was ashamed of her condition! He +could not help the feeling. In vain he said to himself that her condition was natural and +proper. In vain he remembered the remark of the sage that a young woman in her condition +was the most beautiful sight in the world. He was ashamed of it. And he did not think it +beautiful; he thought it ugly. It worried him. What,—his sister? Other men’s +sisters, yes; but his! He forgot that he himself had been born. He could scarcely bear to +look at Clara. Her face was thin, and changed in colour; her eyes were unnaturally +lustrous and large, bold and fatigued; she looked ill, really ill; and she was incredibly +unornamental. And this was she whom he could remember as a graceful child! And it was all +perfectly correct and even laudable! So much so that young Clara undoubtedly looked down, +now, as from a superior height, upon both himself and Maggie!</p> + +<p>“Where’s father?” she asked. “Just shut my sunshade.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Somewhere about. I expect he’ll be along in a minute. Albert +coming?” He followed her into the shop.</p> + +<p>“Albert!” she protested, shocked. “Albert can’t possibly come +till one o’clock. Didn’t you know he’s one of the principal stewards in +Saint Luke’s Square? He says we aren’t to wait dinner for him if he +isn’t prompt.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin replied, and put the sunshade on the counter.</p> + +<p>Clara sat down heavily on a chair, and began to fan herself with a handkerchief. In +spite of the heat of exercise her face was of a pallid yellow.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’re going to stay here all morning?” Edwin +inquired.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Clara, “you don’t see me walking up and down the +streets all morning, do you? Albert said I was to be sure and go upstairs at once and not +move. He said there’d be plenty to see for a long time yet from the sitting-room +window, and then afterwards I could lie down.”</p> + +<p>Albert said! Albert said! Clara’s intonation of this frequent phrase always +jarred on Edwin. It implied that Albert was the supreme fount of wisdom and authority in +Bursley. Whereas to Edwin, Albert was in fact a mere tedious, self-important manufacturer +in a small way, with whom he had no ideas in common. “A decent fellow at +bottom,” the fastidious Edwin was bound to admit to himself by reason of slight +glimpses which he had had of Albert’s uncouth good-nature; but pietistic, +overbearing, and without humour.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Maggie?” Clara demanded.</p> + +<p>“I think she’s putting her things on,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“But didn’t she understand I was coming early?” Clara’s voice +was querulous, and she frowned.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>He felt that if they remained together for hours, he and Clara would never rise above +this plane of conversation—personal, factual, perfectly devoid of wide interest. +They would never reach an exchange of general ideas; they never had done. He did not think +that Clara had any general ideas.</p> + +<p>“I hear you’re getting frightfully thick with the Orgreaves,” Clara +observed, with a malicious accent and smile, as if to imply that he was getting +frightfully above himself, and—simultaneously—that the Orgreaves were after +all no better than other people.</p> + +<p>“Who told you that?” He walked towards the doorway uneasily. The worst was +that he could not successfully pretend that these sisterly attacks were lost on him.</p> + +<p>“Never mind who told me,” said Clara.</p> + +<p>Her voice took on a sudden charming roguish quality, and he could hear again the girl +of fourteen. His heart at once softened to her. The impartial and unmoved spectator that +sat somewhere in Edwin, as in everybody who possesses artistic sensibility, watching his +secret life as from a conning tower, thought how strange this was. He stared out into the +street. And then a face appeared at the aperture left by the removed shutter. It was Janet +Orgreave’s, and it hesitated. Edwin gave a nervous start.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Janet was all in white again, and her sunshade was white, with regular circular holes +in it to let through spots of sunlight which flecked her face. Edwin had not recovered +from the blow of her apparition just at that moment, when he saw Hilda Lessways beyond +her. Hilda was slate-coloured, and had a black sunshade. His heart began to thump; it +might have been a dramatic and dangerous crisis that had suddenly come about. And to Edwin +the situation did in fact present itself as critical: his sister behind, and these two so +different girls in front. Yet there was nothing critical in it whatsoever. He shook hands +as in a dream, wondering what he should do, trying to summon out of himself the man of the +world.</p> + +<p>“Do come in,” he urged them, hoping they would refuse.</p> + +<p>“Oh no. We mustn’t come in,” said Janet, smiling gratefully. Hilda +did not smile; she had not even smiled in shaking hands; and she had shaken hands without +conviction.</p> + +<p>Edwin heard a hurried step in the shop, and then the voice of Maggie, maternal and +protective, in a low exclamation of surprise: “You, dear!” And then the sound +of a smacking kiss, and Clara’s voice, thin, weak, and confiding: “Yes, +I’ve come.” “Come upstairs, do!” said Maggie imploringly. +“Come and be comfortable.” Then steps, ceasing to be heard as the sisters left +the shop at the back. The solicitude of Maggie for Clara during the last few months had +seemed wonderful to Edwin, as also Clara’s occasional childlike acceptance of +it.</p> + +<p>“But you must come in!” he said more boldly to the visitors, asking himself +whether either Janet or Hilda had caught sight of his sisters in the gloom of the +shop.</p> + +<p>They entered, Hilda stiffly. Each with the same gesture closed her parasol before +passing through the slit between the shutters into the deep shade. But whereas Janet +smiled with pleasant anticipation as though she was going into heaven, Hilda wrinkled her +forehead when her parasol would not subside at the first touch.</p> + +<p>Janet talked of the Centenary; said they had decided only that morning to come down +into the town and see whatever was to be seen; said with an angelic air of apologising to +the Centenary that up at Lane End House they had certainly been under-estimating its +importance and its interest as a spectacle; said that it was most astonishing to see all +the shops closed. And Edwin interjected vague replies, pulling the chair out of the little +ebonised cubicle so that they could both sit down. And Hilda remained silent. And +Edwin’s thoughts were diving darkly beneath Janet’s chatter as in a deep sea +beneath light waves. He heard and answered Janet with a minor part of his being that +functioned automatically.</p> + +<p>“She’s a caution!” reflected the main Edwin, obsessed in secret by +Hilda Lessways. Who could have guessed, by looking at her, that only three evenings before +she had followed him in the night to question him, to squeeze his hand, and to be rude to +him? Did Janet know? Did anyone? No! He felt sure that he and she had the knowledge of +that interview to themselves. She sat down glum, almost glowering. She was no more worldly +than Maggie and Clara were worldly. Than they, she had no more skill to be sociable. And +in appearance she was scarcely more stylish. But she was not as they, and it was useless +vindictively to disparage her by pretending that she was. She could be passionate +concerning Victor Hugo. She was capable of disturbing herself about the abstract question +of belief. He had not heard her utter a single word in the way of common girlish +conversation.</p> + +<p>The doubt again entered his mind whether indeed her visit to the porch of the new house +had been due to a genuine interest in abstract questions and not to a fancy for himself. +“Yes,” he reflected, “that must have been it.”</p> + +<p>In two days his pride in the affair had lost its first acuteness, though it had +continued to brighten every moment of his life, and though he had not ceased to regret +that he had no intimate friend to whom he could recount it in solemn and delicious +intimacy. Now, philosophically, he stamped on his pride as on a fire. And he affected to +be relieved at the decision that the girl had been moved by naught but a sort of +fanaticism. But he was not relieved by the decision. The decision itself was not genuine. +He still clung to the notion that she had followed him for himself. He preferred that she +should have taken a fancy to him, even though he discovered no charm in her, no beauty, no +solace, nothing but matter for repulsion. He wanted her to think of him, in spite of his +distaste for her; to think of him hopelessly. “You are an ass!” murmured the +impartial watcher in the conning tower. And he was. But he did not care. It was agreeable +thus to be an ass... His pride flared up again, and instead of stamping he blew on it.</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” he thought, eyeing her slyly, “I’ll make you show +your hand—you see if I don’t! You think you can play with me, but you +can’t!” He was as violent against her as if she had done him an injury instead +of having squeezed his hand in the dark. Was it not injurious to have snapped at him, when +he refused her invitation to stand by her against the wall in the porch, “You +needn’t be afraid”? Janet would never have said such a thing. If only she +resembled Janet! ...</p> + +<p>During all this private soliloquising, Edwin’s mien of mild nervousness never +hardened to betray his ferocity, and he said nothing that might not have been said by an +innocuous idiot.</p> + +<p>The paper boy, arrayed richly, slipped apologetically into the shop. He had certain +packets to take out for delivery, and he was late. Edwin nodded to him distantly. The +conversation languished.</p> + +<p>Then the head of Mr Orgreave appeared in the aperture. The architect seemed amused. +Edwin could not understand how he had ever stood in awe of Mr Orgreave, who, with all his +distinction and expensiveness, was the most companionable person in the world.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Father!” cried Janet. “What a deceitful thing you are! Do you +know, Mr Edwin, he pooh-poohed us coming down: he said he was far too busy for such +childish things as Centenaries! And look at him!”</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave, whose suit, hat, and necktie were a harmony of elegant greys, smiled with +paternal ease, and swung his cane. “Come along now! Don’t let’s miss +anything. Come along. Now, Edwin, you’re coming, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Did you ever see such a child?” murmured Janet, adoring him.</p> + +<p>Edwin turned to the paper boy. “Just find my father before you go,” he +commanded. “Tell him I’ve gone, and ask him if you are to put the shutter +up.” The paper boy respectfully promised obedience. And Edwin was glad that the +forbidding Hilda was there to witness his authority.</p> + +<p>Janet went out first. Hilda hesitated; and Edwin, having taken his hat from its hook in +the cubicle, stood attending her at the aperture. He was sorry that he could not run +upstairs for a walking-stick. At last she seemed to decide to leave, yet left with +apparent reluctance. Edwin followed, giving a final glance at the boy, who was tying a +parcel hurriedly. Mr Orgreave and his daughter were ten yards off, arm-in-arm. Edwin fell +into step with Hilda Lessways. Janet looked round, and smiled and beckoned. “I +wonder,” said Edwin to himself, “what the devil’s going to happen now? +I’ll take my oath she stayed behind on purpose! Well—” This swaggering +audacity was within. Without, even a skilled observer could have seen nothing but a faint, +sheepish smile. And his heart was thumping again.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_11"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Eleven.</h3> + +<h4>The Bottom of the Square.</h4> + +<p>Another procession—that of the Old Church Sunday school—came up, with +standards floating and drums beating, out of the steepness of Woodisun Bank, and turned +into Wedgwood Street, which thenceforward was loosely thronged by procession and +sightseers. The importance of the festival was now quite manifest, for at the end of the +street could be seen Saint Luke’s Square, massed with human beings in movement. +Osmond Orgreave and his daughter were lost to view in the brave crowd; but after a little, +Edwin distinctly saw Janet’s sunshade leave Wedgwood Street at the corner of the +Wedgwood Institution and bob slowly into the Cock Yard, which was a narrow thoroughfare +leading to the market-place and the Town Hall, and so to the top of Saint Luke’s +Square. He said nothing, and kept straight on along Wedgwood Street past the Covered +Market.</p> + +<p>“I hope you didn’t catch cold in the rain the other night,” he +remarked—grimly, as he thought.</p> + +<p>“I should have thought it would have been you who were more likely to catch +cold,” Hilda replied, in her curt manner. She looked in front of her. The words seem +to him to carry a double meaning. Suddenly she moved her head, glanced full at him for an +instant, and glanced behind her. “Where are they?” she inquired.</p> + +<p>“The others? Aren’t they in front? They must be some where +about.”</p> + +<p>Unless she also had marked their deviation into the Cock Yard, why had she glanced +behind her in asking where they were? She knew as well as he that they had started in +front. He could only deduce that she had been as willing as himself to lose Mr Orgreave +and Janet. Just then an acquaintance raised his hat to Edwin in acknowledgement of the +lady’s presence, and he responded with pride. Whatever his private attitude to +Hilda, he was undeniably proud to be seen in the streets with a disdainful, aloof girl +unknown to the town. It was an experience entirely new to him, and it flattered him. He +desired to look long at her face, to examine her expression, to make up his mind about +her; but he could not, because they were walking side by side. The sole manifestation of +her that he could judge was her voice. It was a remarkable voice, rather deep, with a sort +of chiselled intonation. The cadences of it fell on the ear softly and yet ruthlessly, and +when she had finished speaking you became aware of silence, as after a solemn utterance of +destiny. What she happened to have been saying seemed to be immaterial to the effect, +which was physical, vibratory.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>At the border of Saint Luke’s Square, junction of eight streets, true centre of +the town’s traffic, and the sole rectangular open space enclosed completely by +shops, they found a line of constables which yielded only to processions and to the +bearers of special rosettes. ‘The Square,’ as it was called by those who +inhabited it, had been chosen for the historic scene of the day because of its pre-eminent +claim and suitability; the least of its advantages—its slope, from the top of which +it could be easily dominated by a speaker on a platform—would alone have secured for +it the honours of the Centenary.</p> + +<p>As the police cordon closed on the procession from the Old Church, definitely dividing +the spectators from the spectacle, it grew clear that the spectators were in the main a +shabby lot; persons without any social standing: unkempt idlers, good-for-nothings, +wastrels, clay-whitened pot-girls who had to work even on that day, and who had run out +for a few moments in their flannel aprons to stare, and a few score ragamuffins, whose +parents were too poor or too careless to make them superficially presentable enough to +figure in a procession. Nearly the whole respectability of the town was either fussily +marshalling processions or gazing down at them in comfort from the multitudinous open +windows of the Square. The ‘leads’ over the projecting windows of +Baines’s, the chief draper’s, were crowded with members of the ruling +caste.</p> + +<p>And even within the Square, it could be seen, between the towering backs of constables, +that the spectacle itself was chiefly made up of indigence bedecked. The thousands of +perspiring children, penned like sheep, and driven to and fro like sheep by anxious and +officious rosettes, nearly all had the air of poverty decently putting the best face on +itself; they were nearly all, beneath their vague sense of importance, wistful with the +resigned fatalism of the young and of the governed. They knew not precisely why they were +there; but merely that they had been commanded to be there, and that they were hot and +thirsty, and that for weeks they had been learning hymns by heart for this occasion, and +that the occasion was glorious. Many of the rosettes themselves had a poor, driven look. +None of these bought suits at Shillitoe’s, nor millinery at Baines’s. None of +them gave orders for printing, nor had preferences in the form of ledgers, nor held views +on Victor Hugo, nor drank wine, nor yearned for perfection in the art of social +intercourse. To Edwin, who was just beginning to touch the planes of worldliness and of +dilettantism in art, to Edwin, with the mysterious and haughty creature at his elbow, they +seemed to have no more in common with himself and her than animals had. And he wondered by +virtue of what decree he, in the Shillitoe suit, and the grand house waiting for him up at +Bleakridge, had been lifted up to splendid ease above the squalid and pitiful human +welter.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Such musings were scarcely more than subconscious in him. He stood now a few inches +behind Hilda, and, above these thoughts, and beneath the stir and strident glitter and +noise of the crawling ant-heap, his mind was intensely occupied with Hilda’s ear and +her nostril. He could watch her now at leisure, for the changeful interest of the scene +made conversation unnecessary and even inept. What a lobe! What a nostril! Every curve of +her features seemed to express a fine arrogant acrimony and harsh truculence. At any rate +she was not half alive; she was alive in every particle of herself. She gave off +antipathies as a liquid gives off vapour. Moods passed across her intent face like a wind +over a field. Apparently she was so rapt as to be unaware that her sunshade was not +screening her. Sadness prevailed among her moods.</p> + +<p>The mild Edwin said secretly:</p> + +<p>“By Jove! If I had you to myself, my lady, I’d soon teach you a thing or +two!” He was quite sincere, too.</p> + +<p>His glance, roving, discovered Mrs Hamps above him, ten feet over his head, at the +corner of the Baines balcony. He flushed, for he perceived that she must have been waiting +to catch him. She was at her most stately and most radiant, wonderful in lavender, and she +poured out on him the full opulence of a proud recognition.</p> + +<p>Everybody should be made aware that Mrs Hamps was greeting her adored nephew, who was +with a lady friend of the Orgreaves.</p> + +<p>She leaned slightly from her cane chair.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it a beautiful sight?” she cried. Her voice sounded thin and +weak against the complex din of the Square.</p> + +<p>He nodded, smiling.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I think it’s a beautiful sight!” she cried once more, ecstatic. +People turned to see whom she was addressing.</p> + +<p>But though he nodded again he did not think it was a beautiful sight. He thought it was +a disconcerting sight, a sight vexatious and troublesome. And he was in no way +tranquillised by the reflection that every town in England had the same sight to show at +that hour.</p> + +<p>And moreover, anticipating their next interview, he could, in fancy, plainly hear his +Aunt Clara saying, with hopeless, longing benignancy: “Oh, Edwin, how I <i>do</i> +wish I could have seen you in the Square, bearing your part!”</p> + +<p>Hilda seemed to be oblivious of Mrs Hamps’s ejaculations, but immediately +afterwards she straightened her back, with a gesture that Edwin knew, and staring into his +eyes said, as it were resentfully—</p> + +<p>“Well, they evidently aren’t here!”</p> + +<p>And looked with scorn among the sightseers. It was clear that the crowd contained +nobody of the rank and stamp of the Orgreaves.</p> + +<p>“They may have gone up the Cock Yard—if you know where that is,” said +Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t you think we’d better find them somehow?”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_12"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Twelve.</h3> + +<h4>The Top of the Square.</h4> + +<p>In making the detour through the Cock Yard to reach Saint Luke’s Square again at +the top of it, the only members of the Orgreave clan whom they encountered were Jimmie and +Johnnie, who, on hearing of the disappearance of their father and Janet, merely pointed +out that their father and Janet were notoriously always getting themselves lost, owing to +gross carelessness about whatever they happened to be doing. The youths then departed, +saying that the Bursley show was nothing, and that they were going to Hanbridge; they +conveyed the idea that Hanbridge was the only place in the world for self-respecting men +of fashion. But before leaving they informed Edwin that a fellow at the corner of the +Square was letting out rather useful barrels on lease. This fellow proved to be an +odd-jobman who had been discharged from the Duke of Wellington Vaults in the market-place +for consistently intemperate language, but whose tongue was such that he had persuaded the +landlord on this occasion to let him borrow a dozen stout empty barrels, and the police to +let him dispose them on the pavement. Every barrel was occupied, and, perceiving this, +Edwin at once became bold with the barrel-man. He did not comfortably fancy himself +perched prominent on a barrel with Hilda Lessways by his side, but he could enjoy talking +about it, and he wished to show Hilda that he could be as dashing as those young sparks, +Jimmie and Johnnie.</p> + +<p>“Now, mester!” shouted the barrel-man thickly, in response to Edwin’s +airy remark, “these ’ere two chaps’ll shunt off for th’ price of a +quart!” He indicated a couple of barrel-tenants of his own tribe, who instantly +jumped down, touching their soiled caps. They were part of the barrel-man’s +machinery for increasing profits. Edwin could not withdraw. His very cowardice forced him +to be audacious. By the time he had satisfied the clawing greed of three dirty hands, the +two barrels had cost him a shilling. Hilda’s only observation was, as Edwin helped +her to the plateau of the barrel: “I do wish they wouldn’t spit on their +money.” All barrels being now let to <i>bona fide</i> tenants and paid for, the +three men sidled hastily away in order to drink luck to Sunday schools in the Duke of +Wellington’s Entire. And Edwin, mounting the barrel next to Hilda’s, was +thinking: “I’ve been done over that job. I ought to have got them for +sixpence.” He saw how expensive it was, going about with delicately nurtured women. +Never would he have offered a barrel to Maggie, and even had he done so Maggie would +assuredly have said that she could make shift well enough without one.</p> + +<p>“It’s simply perfect for seeing,” exclaimed Hilda, as he achieved her +altitude. Her tone was almost cordial. He felt surprisingly at ease.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The whole Square was now suddenly revealed as a swarming mass of heads, out of which +rose banners and pennons that were cruder in tint even than the frocks and hats of the +little girls and the dresses and bonnets of their teachers; the men, too, by their +neckties, scarves, and rosettes, added colour to colour. All the windows were chromatic +with the hues of bright costumes, and from many windows and from every roof that had a +flagstaff flags waved heavily against the gorgeous sky. At the bottom of the Square the +lorries with infants had been arranged, and each looked like a bank of variegated flowers. +The principal bands—that is to say, all the bands that could be trusted—were +collected round the red baize platform at the top of the Square, and the vast +sun-reflecting euphoniums, trumpets, and comets made a glittering circle about the +officials and ministers and their wives and women. All denominations, for one day only, +fraternised effusively together on that platform; for princes of the royal house, and the +Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London had urged that it should be so. The +Primitive Methodists’ parson discovered himself next but one to Father Milton, who +on any other day would have been a Popish priest, and whose wooden substitute for a wife +was the queen on a chessboard. And on all these the sun blazed torridly.</p> + +<p>And almost in the middle of the Square an immense purple banner bellied in the dusty +breeze, saying in large gold letters, “The Blood of the Lamb,” together with +the name of some Sunday school, which Edwin from his barrel could not decipher.</p> + +<p>Then a hoary white-tied notability on the platform raised his might arm very high, and +a bugle called, and a voice that had filled fields in exciting times of religious revival +floated in thunder across the enclosed Square, easily dominating it—</p> + +<p>“Let us sing.”</p> + +<p>And the conductor of the eager massed bands set them free with a gesture, and after +they had played a stave, a small stentorian choir at the back of the platform broke forth, +and in a moment the entire multitude, at first raggedly, but soon in good unison, was +singing—</p> +<blockquote> + +<p> +Rock of Ages, cleft for me,<br></br> + Let me hide myself in Thee;<br></br> +Let the water and the blood,<br></br> + From Thy riven side which flowed,<br></br> +Be of sin the double cure:<br></br> + Cleanse from guilt and make me pure.<br></br> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The volume of sound was overwhelming. Its crashing force was enough to sweep people +from barrels. Edwin could feel moisture in his eyes, and he dared not look at Hilda. +“Why the deuce do I want to cry?” he asked himself angrily, and was ashamed. +And at the beginning of the second verse, when the glittering instruments blared forth +anew, and the innumerable voices, high and loud, infantile and aged, flooded swiftly over +their brassy notes, subduing them, the effect on Edwin was the same again: a tightening of +the throat, and a squeezing down of the eyelids. Why was it? Through a mist he read the +words “The Blood of the Lamb,” and he could picture the riven trunk of a man +dying, and a torrent of blood flowing therefrom, and people like his Auntie Clara and his +brother-in-law Albert plunging ecstatically into the liquid in order to be white. The +picture came again in the third verse,—the red fountains and the frantic +bathers.</p> + +<p>Then the notability raised his arm once more, and took off his hat, and all the males +on the platform took off their hats, and presently every boy and man in the Square had +uncovered his head to the strong sunshine; and at last Edwin had to do the same, and only +the policemen, by virtue of their high office, could dare to affront the majesty of God. +And the reverberating voice cried—</p> + +<p>“Oh, most merciful Lord! Have pity upon us. We are brands plucked from the +burning.” And continued for several minutes to descant upon the theme of everlasting +torture by incandescence and thirst. Nominally addressing a deity, but in fact preaching +to his audience, he announced that, even for the veriest infant on a lorry, there was no +escape from the eternal fires save by complete immersion in the blood. And he was so +convinced and convincing that an imaginative nose could have detected the odour of burnt +flesh. And all the while the great purple banner waved insistently: “The Blood of +the Lamb.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>When the prayer was finished for the benefit of the little ones, another old and +favourite hymn had to be sung. (None but the classical lyrics of British Christianity had +found a place in the programme of the great day.) Guided by the orchestra, the youth of +Bursley and the maturity thereof chanted with gusto—</p> +<blockquote> + +<p> +There is a fountain filled with blood<br></br> +Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;<br></br> +And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,<br></br> +Lose all their guilty stains.<br></br> +...<br></br> +Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood—<br></br> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Edwin, like everybody, knew every line of the poem. With the purple banner waving there +a bloody motto, he foresaw each sanguinary detail of the verse ere it came to him from the +shrill childish throats. And a phrase from another hymn jumped from somewhere in his mind +just as William Cowper’s ended and a speech commenced. The phrase was +‘India’s coral strand.’ In thinking upon it he forgot to listen to the +speech. He saw the flags, banners, and pennons floating in the sunshine and in the heavy +breeze; he felt the reverberation of the tropic sun on his head; he saw the crowded +humanity of the Square attired in its crude, primary colours; he saw the great brass +serpentine instruments gleaming; he saw the red daïs; he saw, bursting with infancy, +the immense cams to which were attached the fantastically plaited horses; he saw the +venerable zealots on the daïs raving lest after all the institutions whose centenary +they had met to honour should not save these children from hopeless and excruciating +torture for ever and ever; he saw those majestic purple folds in the centre embroidered +with the legend of the blood of the mystic Paschal Lamb; he saw the meek, stupid, and +superstitious faces, all turned one way, all for the moment under the empire of one +horrible idea, all convinced that the consequences of sins could be prevented by an act of +belief, all gloating over inexhaustible tides of blood. And it seemed to him that he was +not in England any longer. It seemed to him that in the dim cellars under the shambles +behind the Town Hall, where he had once been, there dwelt, squatting, a strange and savage +god who would blast all those who did not enter his presence dripping with gore, be they +child or grandfather. It seemed to him that the drums were tom-toms, and Baines’s a +bazaar. He could fit every detail of the scene to harmonise with a vision of India’s +coral strand.</p> + +<p>There was no mist before his eyes now. His sight was so clear that he could distinguish +his father at a window of the Bank, at the other top corner of the Square. Part of his +mind was so idle that he could wonder how his father had contrived to get there, and +whether Maggie was staying at home with Clara. But the visualisation of India’s +coral strand in Saint Luke’s Square persisted. A phrase in the speech loosed some +catch in him and he turned suddenly to Hilda, and in an intimate half-whisper +murmured—</p> + +<p>“More blood!”</p> + +<p>“What?” she harshly questioned. But he knew that she understood.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said audaciously, “look at it! It only wants the Ganges at +the bottom of the Square!”</p> + +<p>No one heard save she. But she put her hand on his arm protestingly. “Even if we +don’t believe,” said she—not harshly, but imploringly, “we +needn’t make fun.”</p> + +<p>“<i>We</i> don’t believe!” And that new tone of entreaty! She had +comprehended without explanation. She was a weird woman. Was there another creature, male +or female, to whom he would have dared to say what he had said to her? He had chosen to +say it to her because he despised her, because he wished to trample on her feelings. She +roused the brute in him, and perhaps no one was more astonished than himself to witness +the brute stirring. Imagine saying to the gentle and sensitive Janet: “It only wants +the Ganges at the bottom of the Square—” He could not.</p> + +<p>They stood silent, gazing and listening. And the sun went higher in the sky and blazed +down more cruelly. And then the speech ended, and the speaker wiped his head with an +enormous handkerchief. And the multitude, led by the brazen instruments, which in a moment +it overpowered, was singing to a solemn air—</p> +<blockquote> + +<p> +When I survey the wondrous cross<br></br> + On which the Prince of Glory died,<br></br> +My richest gain I count but loss,<br></br> + And pour contempt on all my pride.<br></br> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Hilda shook her head.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” he asked, leaning towards her from his +barrel.</p> + +<p>“That’s the most splendid religious verse ever written!” she said +passionately. “You can say what you like. It’s worth while believing anything, +if you can sing words like that and mean them!”</p> + +<p>She had an air of restrained fury.</p> + +<p>But fancy exciting herself over a hymn!</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is fine, that is!” he agreed.</p> + +<p>“Do you know who wrote it?” she demanded menacingly.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I don’t remember,” he said. The hymn was one of his +earliest recollections, but it had never occurred to him to be curious as to its +authorship.</p> + +<p>Her lips sneered. “Dr Watts, of course!” she snapped.</p> + +<p>He could hear her, beneath the tremendous chanting from the Square, repeating the words +to herself with her precise and impressive articulation.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_13"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Thirteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Oldest Sunday-School Teacher.</h4> + +<p>From the elevation of his barrel Edwin could survey, in the lordly and negligent manner +of people on a height, all the detail of his immediate surroundings. Presently, in common +with Hilda and the other aristocrats of barrels, he became aware of the increased vivacity +of a scene which was passing at a little distance, near a hokey-pokey barrow. The chief +actors in the affair appeared to be a young policeman, the owner of the hokey-pokey +barrow, and an old man. It speedily grew into one of those episodes which, occurring on +the outskirts of some episode immensely greater, draw too much attention to themselves and +thereby outrage the sense of proportion residing in most plain men, and especially in most +policemen.</p> + +<p>“Give him a ha’porth o’ hokey,” said a derisive voice. +“He hasn’t got a tooth in his head, but it wants no chewing, hokey does +na’.” There was a general guffaw from the little rabble about the barrow.</p> + +<p>“Aye! Give us some o’ that!” said the piping, silly voice of the old +man. “But I mun’ get to that there platform, I’m telling ye. I’m +telling all of ye.” He made a senile plunge against the body of the policeman, as +against a moveless barricade, and then his hat was awry and it fell off, and somebody +lifted it into the air with a neat kick so that it dropped on the barrow. All laughed. The +old man laughed.</p> + +<p>“Now, old sodger,” said the hot policeman curtly. “None o’ +this! None o’ this! I advise ye civilly to be quiet; that’s what I advise ye. +You can’t go on th’ platform without a ticket.”</p> + +<p>“Nay!” piped the old man. “Don’t I tell ye I lost it down +th’ Sytch!”</p> + +<p>“And where’s yer rosette?”</p> + +<p>“Never had any rosette,” the old man replied. “I’m th’ +oldest Sunday-schoo’ teacher i’ th’ Five Towns. Aye! Fifty years and +more since I was Super at Turnhill Primitive Sunday schoo’, and all Turnhill knows +on it. And I’ve got to get on that there platform. I’m th’ oldest Sunday +schoo’ teacher i’ th’ Five Towns. And I was Super—”</p> + +<p>Two ribald youngsters intoned ‘Super, Super,’ and another person +unceremoniously jammed the felt hat on the old man’s head.</p> + +<p>“It’s nowt to me if ye was forty Supers,” said the policeman, with +menacing disdain. “I’ve got my orders, and I’m not here to be knocked +about. Where did ye have yer last drink?”</p> + +<p>“No wine, no beer, nor spirituous liquors have I tasted for sixty-one years come +Martinmas,” whimpered the old man. And he gave another lurch against the policeman. +“My name’s Shushions!” And he repeated in a frantic treble, “My +name’s Shushions!”</p> + +<p>“Go and bury thysen, owd gaffer!” a Herculean young collier advised +him.</p> + +<p>“Why,” murmured Hilda, with a sharp frown, “that must be poor old Mr +Shushions from Turnhill, and they’re guying him! You must stop it. Something must be +done at once.”</p> + +<p>She jumped down feverishly, and Edwin had to do likewise. He wondered how he should +conduct himself so as to emerge creditably from the situation. He felt himself, and had +always felt himself, to be the last man in the world capable of figuring with authority in +a public altercation. He loathed public altercations. The name of Shushions meant nothing +to him; he had forgotten it, if indeed he had ever wittingly heard it. And he did not at +first recognise the old man. Descended from the barrel, he was merely an item in the +loose-packed crowd. As, in the wake of Hilda, he pushed with false eagerness between +stubborn shoulders, he heard the bands striking up again.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Approaching, he saw that the old man was very old. And then memory stirred. He began to +surmise that he had met the wizened face before, that he knew something about it. And the +face brought up a picture of the shop door and of his father standing beside it, a long +time ago. He recalled his last day at school. Yes, of course! This was the old man named +Shushions, some sort of an acquaintance of his father’s. This was the old man who +had wept a surprising tear at sight of him, Edwin. The incident was so far off that it +might have been recorded in history books. He had never seen Mr Shushions since. And the +old man was changed, nearly out of recognition. The old man had lived too long; he had +survived his dignity; he was now nothing but a bundle of capricious and obstinate +instincts set in motion by ancient souvenirs remembered at hazard. The front of his face +seemed to have given way in general collapse. The lips were in a hollow; the cheeks were +concave; the eyes had receded; and there were pits in the forehead. The pale silvery +straggling hairs might have been counted. The wrinkled skin was of a curious brown yellow, +and the veins, instead of being blue, were outlined in Indian red. The impression given +was that the flesh would be unpleasant and uncanny to the touch. The body was bent, and +the neck eternally cricked backward in the effort of the eyes to look up. Moreover the old +man was in a state of neglect. His beard alone proved that. His clothes were dirty and had +the air of concealing dirt. And he was dressed with striking oddness. He wore boots that +were not a pair. His collar was only fastened by one button, behind; the ends oscillated +like wings; he had forgotten to fasten them in front; he had forgotten to put on a +necktie; he had forgotten the use of buttons on all his garments. He had grown down into a +child again, but Providence had not provided him with a nurse.</p> + +<p>Worse than these merely material phenomena, was the mumbling toothless gibber of his +shrill protesting; the glassy look of idiocy from his fatigued eyes; and the inane smile +and impotent frown that alternated on his features. He was a horrible and offensive old +man. He was Time’s obscene victim. Edwin was revolted by the spectacle of the +younger men baiting him. He was astonished that they were so short-sighted as not to be +able to see the image of themselves in the old man, so imprudent as not to think of their +own future, so utterly brutalised. He wanted, by the simple force of desire, to seclude +and shelter the old man, to protect the old man not only from the insults of stupid and +crass bullies, but from the old man himself, from his own fatuous senility. He wanted to +restore to him, by a benevolent system of pretences, the dignity and the self-respect +which he had innocently lost, and so to keep him decent to the eye, if not to the ear, +until death came to repair its omission. And it was for his own sake, for the sake of his +own image, as much as for the sake of the old man, that he wanted to do this.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>All that flashed through his mind and heart in a second.</p> + +<p>“I know this old gentleman, at least I know him by sight,” Hilda was saying +to the policeman. “He’s very well known in Turnhill as an old Sunday school +teacher, and I’m sure he ought to be on that platform.”</p> + +<p>Before her eye, and her precise and haughty voice, which had no trace of the local +accent, the young policeman was secretly abashed, and the louts fell back sheepishly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he’s a friend of my father’s,—Mr Clayhanger, +printer,” said Edwin, behind her.</p> + +<p>The old man stood blinking in the glare.</p> + +<p>The policeman, ignoring Hilda, glanced at Edwin, and touched his cap.</p> + +<p>“His friends hadn’t ought to let him out like this, sir. Just look at +him.” He sneered, and added: “I’m on point duty. If you ask me, I should +say his friends ought to take him home.” He said this with a peculiar mysterious +emphasis, and looked furtively at the louts for moral support in sarcasm. They encouraged +him with grins.</p> + +<p>“He must be got on to the platform, somehow,” said Hilda, and glanced at +Edwin as if counting absolutely on Edwin. “That’s what he’s come for. +I’m sure it means everything to him.”</p> + +<p>“Aye!” the old man droned. “I was Super when we had to teach +’em their alphabet and give ’em a crust to start with. Many’s the man +walking about in these towns i’ purple and fine raiment as I taught his letters to, +and his spellings, aye, and his multiplication table,—in them days!”</p> + +<p>“That’s all very well, miss,” said the policeman, “but +who’s going to get him to the platform? He’ll be dropping in a sunstroke afore +ye can say knife.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t <i>we</i>?” She gazed at Edwin appealingly.</p> + +<p>“Tak’ him into a pub!” growled the collier, audacious.</p> + +<p>At the same moment two rosettes bustled up authoritatively. One of them was the burly +Albert Benbow. For the first time Edwin was conscious of genuine pleasure at the sight of +his brother-in-law. Albert was a born rosette.</p> + +<p>“What’s all this? What’s this? What is it?” he asked sharply. +“Hello! What? Mr Shushions!” He bent down and looked close at the old man. +“Where you been, old gentleman?” He spoke loud in his ear. +“Everybody’s been asking for you. Service is well-nigh over, but ye must come +up.”</p> + +<p>The old man did not appear to grasp the significance of Albert’s patronage. +Albert turned to Edwin and winked, not only for Edwin’s benefit but for that of the +policeman, who smiled in a manner that infuriated Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Queer old stick!” Albert murmured. “No doing anything with him. +He’s quarrelled with everybody at Turnhill. That’s why he wanted to come to +us. And of course we weren’t going to refuse the oldest Sunday school teacher in +th’ Five Towns. He’s a catch... Come along, old gentleman!”</p> + +<p>Mr Shushions did not stir.</p> + +<p>“Now, Mr Shushions,” Hilda persuaded him in a voice exquisitely mild, and +with a lovely gesture she bent over him. “Let these gentlemen take you up to the +platform. That’s what you’ve come for, you know.”</p> + +<p>The transformation in her amazed Edwin, who could see the tears in her eyes. The +tableau of the little, silly old man looking up, and Hilda looking down at him, with her +lips parted in a heavenly invitation, and one gloved hand caressing his greenish-black +shoulder and the other mechanically holding the parasol aloft,—this tableau was +imprinted for ever on Edwin’s mind. It was a vision blended in an instant and in an +instant dissolved, but for Edwin it remained one of the epochal things of his +experience.</p> + +<p>Hilda gave Edwin her parasol and quickly fastened Mr Shushions’s collar, and the +old man consented to be led off between the two rosettes. The bands were playing the +Austrian hymn.</p> + +<p>“Like to come up with your young lady friend?” Albert whispered to Edwin +importantly as he went.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, thanks.” Edwin hurriedly smiled.</p> + +<p>“Now, old gentleman,” he could hear Albert adjuring Mr Shushions, and he +could see him broadly winking to the other rosettes and embracing the yielding crowd in +his wink.</p> + +<p>Thus was the doddering old fool who had given his youth to Sunday schools when Sunday +schools were not patronised by princes, archbishops, and lord mayors, when Sunday schools +were the scorn of the intelligent, and had sometimes to be held in public-houses for lack +of better accommodation,—thus was he taken off for a show and a museum curiosity by +indulgent and shallow Samaritans who had not even the wit to guess that he had sown what +they were reaping. And Darius Clayhanger stood oblivious at a high window of the sacred +Bank. And Edwin, who, all unconscious, owed the very fact of his existence to the doting +imbecile, regarded him chiefly as a figure in a tableau, as the chance instrument of a +woman’s beautiful revelation. Mr Shushions’s sole crime against society was +that he had forgotten to die.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Hilda Lessways would not return to the barrels. She was taciturn, and the only remark +which she made bore upon the advisability of discovering Janet and Mr Orgreave. They +threaded themselves out of the moving crowd and away from the hokey-pokey stall and the +barrels into the tranquillity of the market-place, where the shadow of the gold angel at +the top of the Town Hall spire was a mere squat shapeless stain on the irregular +paving-stones. The sound of the Festival came diminished from the Square.</p> + +<p>“You’re very fond of poetry, aren’t you?” Edwin asked her, +thinking, among many other things, of her observation upon the verse of Isaac Watts.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” she replied disagreeably. “I can’t imagine anybody +wanting to read anything else.” She seemed to be ashamed of her kindness to Mr +Shushions, and to wish to efface any impression of amiability that she might have made on +Edwin. But she could not have done so.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said to himself, “there’s no getting over it. +You’re the biggest caution I’ve ever come across!” His condition was one +of various agitation.</p> + +<p>Then, just as they were passing the upper end of the Cock Yard, which was an archway, +Mr Orgreave and Janet appeared in the archway.</p> + +<p>“We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”</p> + +<p>“And so have we.”</p> + +<p>“What have you been doing?”</p> + +<p>“What have <i>you</i> been doing?”</p> + +<p>Father and daughter were gay. They had not seen much, but they were gay. Hilda Lessways +and Edwin were not gay, and Hilda would characteristically make no effort to seem that +which she was not. Edwin, therefore, was driven by his own diffidence into a nervous light +loquacity. He began the tale of Mr Shushions, and Hilda punctuated it with stabs of +phrases.</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave laughed. Janet listened with eager sympathy.</p> + +<p>“Poor old thing! What a shame!” said Janet.</p> + +<p>But to Edwin, with the vision of Hilda’s mercifulness in his mind, even the +sympathy of Janet for Mr Shushions had a quality of uncomprehending, facile condescension +which slightly jarred on him.</p> + +<p>The steam-car loitered into view, discharged two passengers, and began to manoeuvre for +the return journey.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Do let’s go home by car, father!” cried Janet. “It’s +too hot for anything!”</p> + +<p>Edwin took leave of them at the car steps. Janet was the smiling incarnation of +loving-kindness. Hilda shook hands grudgingly. Through the windows of the car he saw her +sternly staring at the advertisements of the interior. He went down the Cock Yard into +Wedgwood Street, whence he could hear the bands again and see the pennons. He thought, +“This is a funny way of spending a morning!” and wondered what he should do +with himself till dinner-time. It was not yet a quarter past twelve. Still, the hours had +passed with extraordinary speed. He stood aimless at the corner of the pavement, and +people who, having had their fill of the sun and the spectacle in the Square, were +strolling slowly away, saw a fair young man, in a stylish suit, evidently belonging to the +aloof classes, gazing at nothing whatever, with his hands elegantly in his pockets.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_14"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Fourteen.</h3> + +<h4>Money.</h4> + +<p>Things sometimes fall out in a surprising way, and the removal of the Clayhanger +household from the corner of Duck Square to the heights of Bleakridge was diversified by a +circumstance which Edwin, the person whom alone it concerned, had not in the least +anticipated.</p> + +<p>It was the Monday morning after the Centenary. Foster’s largest furniture-van, +painted all over with fine pictures of the van itself travelling by road, rail, and sea, +stood loaded in front of the shop. One van had already departed, and this second one, in +its crammed interior, on its crowded roof, on a swinging platform beneath its floor, and +on a posterior ledge supported by rusty chains, contained all that was left of the +furniture and domestic goods which Darius Clayhanger had collected in half a century of +ownership. The moral effect of Foster’s activity was always salutary, in that Foster +would prove to any man how small a space the acquisitions of a lifetime could be made to +occupy when the object was not to display but to pack them. Foster could put all your +pride on to four wheels, and Foster’s driver would crack a whip and be off with the +lot of it as though it were no more than a load of coal.</p> + +<p>The pavement and the road were littered with straw, and the straw straggled into the +shop, and heaped itself at the open side door. One large brass saucepan lay lorn near the +doorstep, a proof that Foster was human. For everything except that saucepan a place had +been found. That saucepan had witnessed sundry ineffectual efforts to lodge it, and had +also suffered frequent forgetfulness. A tin candlestick had taken refuge within it, and +was trusting for safety to the might of the obstinate vessel. In the sequel, the +candlestick was pitched by Edwin on to the roof of the van, and Darius Clayhanger, coming +fussily out of the shop, threw a question at Edwin and then picked up the saucepan and +went off to Bleakridge with it, thus making sure that it would not be forgotten, and +demonstrating to the town that he, Darius, was at last ‘flitting’ into his +grand new house. Even weighted by the saucepan, in which Mrs Nixon had boiled +hundredweights of jam, he still managed to keep his arms slanted outwards and motionless, +retaining his appearance of a rigid body that swam smoothly along on mechanical legs. +Darius, though putting control upon himself, was in a state of high complex emotion, +partly due to apprehensiveness about the violent changing of the habits of a quarter of a +century, and partly due to nervous pride.</p> + +<p>Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to the new house half an hour earlier, to devise +encampments therein for the night; for the Clayhangers would definitely sleep no more at +the corner of Duck Square; the rooms in which they had eaten and slept and lain awake, and +learnt what life and what death was, were to be transformed into workshops and stores for +an increasing business. The premises were not abandoned empty. The shop had to function as +usual on that formidable day, and the printing had to proceed. This had complicated the +affair of the removal; but it had helped everybody to pretend, in an adult and sedate +manner, that nothing in the least unusual was afoot.</p> + +<p>Edwin loitered on the pavement, with his brain all tingling, and excitedly incapable of +any consecutive thought whatever. It was his duty to wait. Two of Foster’s men were +across in the vaults of the Dragon; the rest were at Bleakridge with the first and smaller +van. Only one of Foster’s horses was in the dropped double-shafts, and even he had +his nose towards the van, and in a nosebag; two others were to come down soon from +Bleakridge to assist.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>A tall, thin, grey-bearded man crossed Trafalgar Road from Aboukir Street. He was very +tall and very thin, and the peculiarity of his walk was that the knees were never quite +straightened, so that his height was really greater even than it seemed. His dark suit and +his boots and hat were extraordinarily neat. You could be sure at once that he was a +person of immutable habits. He stopped when, out of the corner of his eye, whose gaze was +always precisely parallel to the direction of his feet, he glimpsed Edwin. Deflecting his +course, he went close to Edwin, and, addressing the vacant air immediately over +Edwin’s pate, he said in a mysterious, confidential whisper—“when are +you coming in for that money?”</p> + +<p>He spoke as though he was anxious to avoid, by a perfect air of nonchalance, arousing +the suspicions of some concealed emissary of the Russian secret police.</p> + +<p>Edwin started. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Is it ready?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Waiting.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going to your office now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Edwin hesitated. “It won’t take a minute, I suppose. I’ll slip along +in two jiffs. I’ll be there almost as soon as you are.”</p> + +<p>“Bring a receipt stamp,” said the man, and resumed his way.</p> + +<p>He was the secretary of the Bursley and Turnhill Permanent 50 pounds Benefit Building +Society, one of the most solid institutions of the district. And he had been its secretary +for decades. No stories of the defalcation of other secretaries of societies, no rumours +as to the perils of the system of the more famous Starr-Bowkett Building Societies, ever +bred a doubt in Bursley or Turnhill of the eternal soundness of the Bursley and Turnhill +Permanent 50 pounds Benefit Building Society. You could acquire a share in it by an +entrance fee of one shilling, and then you paid eighteen-pence per week for ten years, +making something less than 40 pounds, and then, after an inactive period of three months, +the Society gave you 50 pounds, and you began therewith to build a house, if you wanted a +house, and, if you were prudent, you instantly took out another share. You could have as +many shares as you chose. Though the Society was chiefly nourished by respectable artisans +with stiff chins, nobody in the district would have considered membership to be beneath +him. The Society was an admirable device for strengthening an impulse towards thrift, +because, once you had put yourself into its machinery, it would stand no nonsense. +Prosperous tradesmen would push their children into it, and even themselves. This was what +had happened to Edwin in the dark past, before he had left school. Edwin had regarded the +trick with indifference at first, because, except the opening half crown, his father had +paid the subscriptions for him until he left school and became a wage-earner. Thereafter +he had regarded it as simple parental madness.</p> + +<p>His whole life seemed to be nothing but a vista of Friday evenings on which he went to +the Society’s office, between seven and nine, to ‘pay the Club.’ The +social origin of any family in Bursley might have been decided by the detail whether it +referred to the Society as the ‘Building Society’ or as ‘the +Club.’ Artisans called it the Club, because it did resemble an old-fashioned benefit +club. Edwin had invariably heard it called ‘Club’ at home, and he called it +‘Club,’ and he did not know why.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>On ten thousand Friday evenings, as it seemed to him, he had gone into the gas-lit +office with the wire-blinds, in the Cock Yard. And the procedure never varied. Behind a +large table sat two gentlemen, the secretary and a subordinate, who was, however, older +than the secretary. They had enormous ledgers in front of them, and at the lower corners +of the immense pages was a transverse crease, like a mountain range on the left and like a +valley on the right, caused by secretarial thumbs in turning over. On the table were also +large metal inkstands and wooden money-coffers. The two officials both wore spectacles, +and they both looked above their spectacles when they talked to members across the table. +They spoke in low tones; they smiled with the most scrupulous politeness; they never +wasted words. They counted money with prim and efficient gestures, ringing gold with the +mien of judges inaccessible to human emotions. They wrote in the ledgers, and on the +membership-cards, in a hand astoundingly regular and discreetly flourished; the pages of +the ledgers had the mystic charm of ancient manuscripts, and the finality of decrees of +fate. Apparently the scribes never made mistakes, but sometimes they would whisper in +colloquy, and one, without leaning his body, would run a finger across the ledger of the +other; their fingers knew intimately the geography of the ledgers, and moved as though +they could have found a desired name, date, or number, in the dark. The whole ceremony was +impressive. It really did impress Edwin, as he would wait his turn among the three or four +proud and respectable members that the going and coming seemed always to leave in the +room. The modest blue-yellow gas, the vast table and ledgers, and the two sober heads +behind; the polite murmurings, the rustle of leaves, the chink of money, the smooth sound +of elegant pens: all this made something not merely impressive, but beautiful; something +that had a true if narrow dignity; something that ministered to an ideal if a low one.</p> + +<p>But Edwin had regarded the operation as a complete loss of the money whose payment it +involved. Ten years! It was an eternity! And even then his father would have some +preposterous suggestion for rendering useless the unimaginable fifty pounds! Meanwhile the +weekly deduction of eighteenpence from his miserable income was an exasperating strain. +And then one night the secretary had told him that he was entering on his last month. If +he had possessed any genuine interest in money, he would have known for himself; but he +did not. And then the payments had ceased. He had said nothing to his father.</p> + +<p>And now the share had matured, and there was the unimaginable sum waiting for him! He +got his hat and a stamp, and hurried to the Cock Yard. The secretary, in his private room +now, gave him five notes as though the notes had been naught but tissue paper, and he +accepted them in the same inhuman manner. The secretary asked him if he meant to take out +another share, and from sheer moral cowardice he said that he did mean to do so; and he +did so, on the spot. And in less than ten minutes he was back at the shop. Nothing had +happened there. The other horses had not come down from Bleakridge, and the men had not +come out of the Dragon. But he had fifty pounds in his pocket, and it was lawfully his. A +quarter of an hour earlier he positively could not have conceived the miracle.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Two days later, on the Wednesday evening, Edwin was in his new bedroom, overlooking his +father’s garden, with a glimpse of the garden of Lane End House. His chamber, for +him, was palatial, and it was at once the symbol and the scene of his new life. A stranger +entering would have beheld a fair-sized room, a narrow bed, two chairs, an old-fashioned +table, a new wardrobe, an old dressing-table, a curious carpet and hearthrug, low +bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and a few prints and drawings, not all of +them framed, on the distempered walls. A stranger might have said in its praise that it +was light and airy. But a stranger could not have had the divine vision that Edwin had. +Edwin looked at it and saw clearly, and with the surest conviction, that it was wonderful. +He stood on the hearthrug, with his back to the hearth, bending his body concavely and +then convexly with the idle easy sinuousness of youth, and he saw that it was wonderful. +As an organic whole it was wonderful. Its defects were qualities. For instance, it had no +convenience for washing; but with a bathroom a few yards off, who would encumber his study +(it was a study) with washing apparatus? He had actually presented his old ramshackle +washstand to the attic which was to be occupied by Mrs Nixon’s niece, a girl engaged +to aid her aunt in the terrible work of keeping clean a vast mansion.</p> + +<p>And the bedroom could show one or two details that in a bedroom were luxurious. Chief +of these were the carpet, the hearthrug, and the table. Edwin owed them to a marvellous +piece of good fortune. He had feared, and even Maggie had feared, that their father would +impair the practical value and the charm of the new house by parsimony in the matter of +furniture. The furniture in the domestic portion of the old dwelling was quite inadequate +for the new one, and scarcely fit for it either. Happily Darius had heard of a houseful of +furniture for sale at Oldcastle by private treaty, and in a wild, adventurous hour he had +purchased it, exceedingly cheap. Edwin had been amazed at his luck (he accepted the +windfall as his own private luck) when he first saw the bought furniture in the new house, +before the removal. Out of it he had selected the table, the carpet, and the rug for his +bedroom, and none had demurred. He noticed that his father listened to him, in affairs of +the new house, as to an individuality whose views demanded some trifle of respect. Beyond +question his father was proving himself to possess a mind equal to the grand situation. +What with the second servant and the furniture, Edwin felt that he would not have to blush +for the house, no matter who might enter it to spy it out. As for his own room, he would +not object to the Sunday seeing it. Indeed he would rather like the Sunday to see it, on +his next visit. Already it was in nearly complete order, for he had shown a singular, +callous disregard for the progress of the rest of the house: against which surprising +display of selfishness both Maggie and Mrs Nixon had glumly protested. The truth was that +he was entirely obsessed by his room; it had disabled his conscience.</p> + +<p>When he had oscillated on his heels and toes for a few moments with his gaze on the +table, he faced about, and stared in a sort of vacant beatitude at the bookshelves to the +left hand; those to the right hand were as yet empty. Twilight was deepening.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>He heard his father’s heavy and clumsy footstep on the landing. The old man +seemed to wander uncertainly a little, and then he pushed open Edwin’s door with a +brusque movement and entered the room. The two exchanged a look. They seldom addressed +each other, save for an immediate practical purpose, and they did not address each other +now. But Darius ejaculated “Um!” as he glanced around. They had no intimacy. +Darius never showed any interest in his son as an independent human being with a +developing personality, though he might have felt such an interest; and Edwin was never +conscious of a desire to share any of his ideas or ideals with his father, whom he was +content to accept as a creature of inscrutable motives. Now, he resented his +father’s incursion. He considered his room as his castle, whereof his rightful +exclusive dominion ran as far as the door-mat; and to placate his pride Darius should have +indicated by some gesture or word that he admitted being a visitor on sufferance. It was +nothing to Edwin that Darius owned the room and nearly everything in it. He was generally +nervous in his father’s presence, and his submissiveness only hid a spiritual +independence that was not less fierce for being restrained. He thought Darius a gross +fleshly organism, as he indeed was, and he privately objected to many paternal mannerisms, +of eating, drinking, breathing, eructation, speech, deportment, and garb. Further, he had +noted, and felt, the increasing moroseness of his father’s demeanour. He could +remember a period when Darius had moods of grim gaiety, displaying rough humour; these +moods had long ceased to occur.</p> + +<p>“So this is how ye’ve fixed yerself up!” Darius observed.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Edwin smiled, not moving from the hearthrug, and not ceasing to +oscillate on heels and toes.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll say this. Ye’ve got a goodish notion of looking after +yerself. When ye can spare a few minutes to do a bit downstairs—” This +sentence was sarcastic and required no finishing.</p> + +<p>“I was just coming,” said Edwin. And to himself, “What on earth does +he want here, making his noises?”</p> + +<p>With youthful lack of imagination and of sympathy, he quite failed to perceive the +patent fact that his father had been drawn into the room by the very same instinct which +had caused Edwin to stand on the hearthrug in an idle bliss of contemplation. It did not +cross his mind that his father too was during those days going through wondrous mental +experiences, that his father too had begun a new life, that his father too was intensely +proud of the house and found pleasure in merely looking at it, and looking at it again, +and at every corner of it.</p> + +<p>A glint of gold attracted the eye of Darius to the second shelf of the left-hand +bookcase, and he went towards it with the arrogance of an autocrat whose authority +recognises no limit. Fourteen fine calf-backed volumes stood on that shelf in a row; +twelve of them were uniform, the other two odd. These books were taller and more +distinguished than any of their neighbours. Their sole possible rivals were half a dozen +garishly bound Middle School prizes, machine-tooled, and to be mistaken for treasures only +at a distance of several yards.</p> + +<p>Edwin trembled, and loathed himself for trembling. He walked to the window.</p> + +<p>“What be these?” Darius inquired.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Some books I’ve been picking up.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>That same morning Edwin had been to the Saint Luke’s Covered Market to buy some +apples for Maggie, who had not yet perfected the organisation necessary to a +house-mistress who does not live within half a minute of a large central source of +supplies. And, to his astonishment, he had observed that one of the interior shops was +occupied by a second-hand bookseller with an address at Hanbridge. He had never noticed +the shop before, or, if he had noticed it, he had despised it. But the chat with Tom +Orgreave had awakened in him the alertness of a hunter. The shop was not formally +open—Wednesday’s market being only half a market. The shopkeeper, however, was +busy within. Edwin loitered. Behind the piles of negligible sermons, pietisms, keepsakes, +schoolbooks, and ‘Aristotles’ (tied up in red twine, these last), he could +descry, in the farther gloom, actual folios and quartos. It was like seeing the gleam of +nuggets on the familiar slopes of Mow Cop, which is the Five Towns’ mountain. The +proprietor, an extraordinarily grimy man, invited him to examine. He could not refuse. He +found Byron’s “Childe Harold” in one volume and “Don Juan” +in another, both royal octavo editions, slightly stained, but bound in full calf. He +bought them. He knew that to keep his resolutions he must read a lot of poetry. Then he +saw Voltaire’s prose tales in four volumes, in French,—an enchanting Didot +edition, with ink as black as Hades and paper as white as snow; also bound in full calf. +He bought them. And then the proprietor showed him, in eight similar volumes, +Voltaire’s “Dictionnaire Philosophique.” He did not want it; but it +matched the tales and it was impressive to the eye. And so he bought the other eight +volumes. The total cost was seventeen shillings. He was intoxicated and he was frightened. +What a nucleus for a collection of real books, of treasures! Those volumes would do no +shame even to Tom Orgreave’s bookcase. And they had been lying in the Covered +Market, of all places in the universe... Blind! How blind he had been to the possibilities +of existence! Laden with a bag of apples in one hand and a heavy parcel of books in the +other, he had had to go up to dinner in the car. It was no matter; he possessed riches. +The car stopped specially for him at the portals of the new house. He had introduced the +books into the new house surreptitiously, because he was in fear, despite his acute joy. +He had pushed the parcel under the bed. After tea, he had passed half an hour in gazing at +the volumes, as at precious contraband. Then he had ranged them on the shelf, and had +gazed at them for perhaps another quarter of an hour. And now his father, with the +infallible nose of fathers for that which is no concern of theirs, had lighted upon them +and was peering into them, and fingering them with his careless, brutal hands,—hands +that could not differentiate between a ready reckoner and a treasure. As the light failed, +he brought one of them and then another to the window.</p> + +<p>“Um!” he muttered. “Voltaire!”</p> + +<p>“Um! Byron!”</p> + +<p>And: “How much did they ask ye for these?”</p> + +<p>“Fifteen shillings,” said Edwin, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>“Here! Take it!” said his father, relinquishing a volume to him. He spoke +in a queer, hard voice; and instantly left the room. Edwin followed him shortly, and +assisted Maggie to hang pictures in that wilderness, the drawing-room. Supper was eaten in +silence; and Maggie looked askance from her father to her brother, both of whom had a +strained demeanour.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_15"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Fifteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Insult.</h4> + +<p>The cold bath, the early excursion into the oblong of meadow that was beginning to be a +garden, the brisk stimulating walk down Trafalgar Road to business,—all these novel +experiences, which for a year Edwin had been anticipating with joyous eagerness as bliss +final and sure, had lost their savour on the following morning. He had been ingenuous +enough to believe that he would be happy in the new house—that the new house somehow +meant the rebirth of himself and his family. Strange delusion! The bath-splashings and the +other things gave him no pleasure, because he was saying to himself all the time, +“There’s going to be a row this morning. There’s going to be a regular +shindy this morning!” Yet he was accustomed to his father’s scenes... Not a +word at breakfast, for which indeed Darius was very late. But a thick cloud over the +breakfast-table! Maggie showed that she felt the cloud. So did even Mrs Nixon. The niece +alone, unskilled in the science of meteorology, did not notice it, and was pertly bright. +Edwin departed before his father, hurrying. He knew that his father, starting from the +luxurious books, would ask him brutally what he meant by daring to draw out his share from +the Club without mentioning the affair, and particularly without confiding to his safe +custody the whole sum withdrawn. He knew that his father would persist in regarding the +fifty pounds as sacred, as the ark of the covenant, and on the basis of the alleged +outrage would build one of those cold furies that seemed to give him so perverse a +delight. On the other hand, despite his father’s peculiar intonation of the names of +Edwin’s authors—Voltaire and Byron—he did not fear to be upbraided for +possessing himself of loose and poisonous literature. It was a point to his father’s +credit that he never attempted any kind of censorship. Edwin never knew whether this +attitude was the result of indifference or due to a grim sporting instinct.</p> + +<p>There was no sign of trouble in the shop until noon. Darius was very busy +superintending the transformation of the former living-rooms upstairs into supplementary +workshops, and also the jobbing builder was at work according to the plans of Osmond +Orgreave. But at five minutes past twelve—just before Stifford went out to his +dinner—Darius entered the ebonised cubicle, and said curtly to Edwin, who was +writing there—</p> + +<p>“Show me your book.”</p> + +<p>This demand surprised Edwin. ‘His’ book was the shop-sales book. He was +responsible for it, and for the petty cash-book, and for the shop till. His father’s +private cash-book was utterly unknown to him, and he had no trustworthy idea of the +financial totality of the business; but the management of the shop till gave him the air +of being in his father’s confidence accustomed him to the discipline of anxiety, and +also somewhat flattered him.</p> + +<p>He produced the book. The last complete page had not been added up.</p> + +<p>“Add this,” said his father.</p> + +<p>Darius himself added up the few lines on the incomplete page.</p> + +<p>“Stiff;” he shouted, “bring me the sales-slip.”</p> + +<p>The amounts of sales conducted by Stifford himself were written on a slip of paper from +which Edwin transferred the items at frequent intervals to the book.</p> + +<p>“Go to yer dinner,” said Darius to Stifford, when he appeared at the door +of the cubicle with the slip.</p> + +<p>“It’s not quite time yet, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Go to yer dinner, I tell ye.”</p> + +<p>Stifford had three-quarters of an hour for his dinner.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Darius combined the slip with the book and made a total.</p> + +<p>“Petty cash,” he muttered shortly.</p> + +<p>Edwin produced the petty cash-book, a volume of very trifling importance.</p> + +<p>“Now bring me the till.”</p> + +<p>Edwin went out of the cubicle and brought the till, which was a large and battered +japanned cash-box with a lid in two independent parts, from its well-concealed drawer +behind the fancy-counter. Darius counted the coins in it and made calculations on +blotting-paper, breathing stertorously all the time.</p> + +<p>“What on earth are you trying to get at?” Edwin asked, with innocent +familiarity. He thought that the Club-share crisis had been postponed by one of his +father’s swift strange caprices.</p> + +<p>Darius turned on him glaring: “I’m trying to get at where ye got the brass +from to buy them there books as I saw last night. Where <i>did</i> ye get it from? +There’s nowt wrong here, unless ye’re a mighty lot cleverer than I take ye +for. Where did ye get it from? Ye don’t mean to tell me as ye saved it +up!”</p> + +<p>Edwin had had some shocks in his life. This was the greatest. He could feel his cheeks +and his hands growing dully hot, and his eyes smarting; and he was suddenly animated by an +almost murderous hatred and an inexpressible disgust for his father, who in the grossness +of his perceptions and his notions had imagined his son to be a thief. “Loathsome +beast!” he thought savagely.</p> + +<p>“I’m waiting,” said his father.</p> + +<p>“I’ve drawn my Club money,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>For an instant the old man was at a loss; then he understood. He had entirely forgotten +the maturing of the Club share, and assuredly he had not dreamed that Edwin would accept +and secrete so vast a sum as fifty pounds without uttering a word. Darius had made a +mistake, and a bad one; but in those days fathers were never wrong; above all they never +apologised. In Edwin’s wicked act of concealment Darius could choose new and +effective ground, and he did so.</p> + +<p>“And what dost mean by doing that and saying nowt? Sneaking—”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by calling me a thief?” Edwin and Darius were equally +startled by this speech. Edwin knew not what had come over him, and Darius, never having +been addressed in such a dangerous tone by his son, was at a loss.</p> + +<p>“I never called ye a thief.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you did! Yes, you did!” Edwin nearly shouted now. “You starve +me for money, until I haven’t got sixpence to bless myself with. You couldn’t +get a man to do what I do for twice what you pay me. And then you call me a thief. And +then you jump down my throat because I spend a bit of money of my own.” He snorted. +He knew that he was quite mad, but there was a strange drunken pleasure in this +madness.</p> + +<p>“Hold yer tongue, lad!” said Darius, as stiffly as he could. But Darius, +having been unprepared, was intimidated. Darius vaguely comprehended that a new and +disturbing factor had come into his life. “Make a less row!” he went on more +strongly. “D’ye want all th’ street to hear ye?”</p> + +<p>“I won’t make a less row. You make as much noise as you want, and +I’ll make as much noise as I want!” Edwin cried louder and louder. And then in +bitter scorn, “Thief, indeed!”</p> + +<p>“I never called ye a—”</p> + +<p>“Let me come out!” Edwin shouted. They were very close together. Darius saw +that his son’s face was all drawn. Edwin snatched his hat off its hook, pushed +violently past his father and, sticking his hands deep in his pockets, strode into the +street.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>In four minutes he was hammering on the front door of the new house. Maggie opened, in +alarm. Edwin did not see how alarmed she was by his appearance.</p> + +<p>“What—”</p> + +<p>“Father thinks I’ve been stealing his damned money!” Edwin snapped, +in a breaking voice. The statement was not quite accurate, but it suited his boiling anger +to put it in the present tense instead of in the past. He hesitated an instant in the +hall, throwing a look behind at Maggie, who stood entranced with her hand on the latch of +the open door. Then he bounded upstairs, and shut himself in his room with a tremendous +bang that shook the house. He wanted to cry, but he would not.</p> + +<p>Nobody disturbed him till about two o’clock, when Maggie knocked at the door, and +opened it, without entering.</p> + +<p>“Edwin, I’ve kept your dinner hot.”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks.” He was standing with his legs wide apart on the hearth +rug.</p> + +<p>“Father’s had his dinner and gone.”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks.”</p> + +<p>She closed the door again.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_16"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Sixteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Sequel.</h4> + +<p>“I say, Edwin,” Maggie called through the door.</p> + +<p>“Well, come in, come in,” he replied gruffly. And as he spoke he sped from +the window, where he was drumming on the pane, to the hearthrug, so that he should have +the air of not having moved since Maggie’s previous visit. He knew not why he made +this manoeuvre, unless it was that he thought vaguely that Maggie’s impression of +the seriousness of the crisis might thereby be intensified.</p> + +<p>She stood in the doorway, evidently placatory and sympathetic, and behind her stood Mrs +Nixon, in a condition of great mental turmoil.</p> + +<p>“I think you’d better come and have your tea,” said Maggie firmly, +and yet gently. She was soft and stout, and incapable of asserting herself with dignity; +but she was his elder, and there were moments when an unusual, scarce-perceptible quality +in her voice would demand from him a particular attention.</p> + +<p>He shook his head, and looked sternly at his watch, in the manner of one who could be +adamant. He was astonished to see that the hour was a quarter past six.</p> + +<p>“Where is he?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Father? He’s had his tea and gone back to the shop. Come along.”</p> + +<p>“I must wash myself first,” said Edwin gloomily. He did not wish to yield, +but he was undeniably very hungry indeed.</p> + +<p>Mrs Nixon could not leave him alone at tea, worrying him with offers of specialities to +tempt him. He wondered who had told the old thing about the affair. Then he reflected that +she had probably heard his outburst when he entered the house. Possibly the pert, nice +niece also had heard it. Maggie remained sewing at the bow-window of the dining-room while +he ate a plenteous tea.</p> + +<p>“Father said I could tell you that you could pay yourself an extra half-crown a +week wages from next Saturday,” said Maggie suddenly, when she saw he had finished. +It was always Edwin who paid wages in the Clayhanger establishment.</p> + +<p>He was extremely startled by this news, with all that it implied of surrender and of +pacific intentions. But he endeavoured to hide what he felt, and only snorted.</p> + +<p>“He’s been talking, then? What did he say?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Not much! He told me I could tell you if I liked.”</p> + +<p>“It would have looked better of him, if he’d told me himself,” said +Edwin, determined to be ruthless. Maggie offered no response.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>After about a quarter of an hour he went into the garden, and kicked stones in front of +him. He could not classify his thoughts. He considered himself to be perfectly +tranquillised now, but he was mistaken. As he idled in the beautiful August twilight near +the garden-front of the house, catching faintly the conversation of Mrs Nixon and her +niece as it floated through the open window of the kitchen, round the corner, together +with quiet soothing sounds of washing-up, he heard a sudden noise in the garden-porch, and +turned swiftly. His father stood there. Both of them were off guard. Their eyes met.</p> + +<p>“Had your tea?” Darius asked, in an unnatural tone.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>Darius, having saved his face, hurried into the house, and Edwin moved down the garden, +with heart sensibly beating. The encounter renewed his agitation.</p> + +<p>And at the corner of the garden, over the hedge, which had been repaired, Janet +entrapped him. She seemed to have sprung out of the ground. He could not avoid greeting +her, and in order to do so he had to dominate himself by force. She was in white. She +appeared always to wear white on fine summer days. Her smile was exquisitely +benignant.</p> + +<p>“So you’re installed?” she began.</p> + +<p>They talked of the removal, she asking questions and commenting, and he giving brief +replies.</p> + +<p>“I’m all alone to-night,” she said, in a pause, “except for +Alicia. Father and mother and the boys are gone to a fête at Longshaw.”</p> + +<p>“And Miss Lessways?” he inquired self-consciously.</p> + +<p>“Oh! She’s gone,” said Janet. “She’s gone back to London. +Went yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“Rather sudden, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, she had to go.”</p> + +<p>“Does she live in London?” Edwin asked, with an air of indifference.</p> + +<p>“She does just now.”</p> + +<p>“I only ask because I thought from something she said she came from Turnhill +way.”</p> + +<p>“Her people do,” said Janet. “Yes, you may say she’s a Turnhill +girl.”</p> + +<p>“She seems very fond of poetry,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“You’ve noticed it!” Janet’s face illuminated the dark. +“You should hear her recite!”</p> + +<p>“Recites, does she?”</p> + +<p>“You’d have heard her that night you were here. But when she knew you were +coming, she made us all promise not to ask her.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” said Edwin. “But why? She didn’t know me. She’d +never seen me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! She might have just seen you in the street. In fact I believe she had. But +that wasn’t the reason,” Janet laughed. “It was just that you were a +stranger. She’s very sensitive, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Ye–es,” he admitted.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He took leave of Janet, somehow, and went for a walk up to Toft End, where the wind +blows. His thoughts were more complex than ever in the darkness. So she had made them all +promise not to ask her to recite while he was at the Orgreaves’! She had seen him, +previous to that, in the street, and had obviously discussed him with Janet... And then, +at nearly midnight, she had followed him to the new house! And on the day of the Centenary +she had manoeuvred to let Janet and Mr Orgreave go in front... He did not like her. She +was too changeable, too dark, and too light... But it was exciting. It was flattering. He +saw again and again her gesture as she bent to Mr Shushions; and the straightening of her +spine as she left the garden-porch on the night of his visit to the Orgreaves... Yet he +did not like her. Her sudden departure, however, was a disappointment; it was certainly +too abrupt... Probably very characteristic of her... Strange day! He had been suspected of +theft. He had stood up to his father. He had remained away from the shop. And his +father’s only retort was to give him a rise of half a crown a week!</p> + +<p>“The old man must have had a bit of a shock!” he said to himself, grimly +vain. “I lay I don’t hear another word about that fifty pounds.”</p> + +<p>Yes, amid his profound resentment, there was some ingenuous vanity at the turn which +things had taken. And he was particularly content about the rise of half a crown a week, +because that relieved him from the most difficult of all the resolutions the carrying out +of which was to mark the beginning of the new life. It settled the financial question, for +the present at any rate. It was not enough, but it was a great deal—from his father. +He was ashamed that he could not keep his righteous resentment pure from this gross +satisfaction at an increase of income. The fineness of his nature was thereby hurt. But +the gross satisfaction would well up in his mind.</p> + +<p>And in the night, with the breeze on his cheek, and the lamps of the Five Towns curving +out below him, he was not unhappy, despite what he had suffered and was still suffering. +He had a tingling consciousness of being unusually alive.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Later, in his bedroom, shut in, and safe and independent, with the new blind drawn, and +the gas fizzing in its opaline globe, he tried to read “Don Juan.” He could +not. He was incapable of fixity of mind. He could not follow the sense of a single stanza. +Images of his father and of Hilda Lessways mingled with reveries of the insult he had +received and the triumph he had won, and all the confused wonder of the day and evening +engaged his thoughts. He dwelt lovingly on the supreme disappointment of his career. He +fancied what he would have been doing, and where he would have been then, if his appalling +father had not made it impossible for him to be an architect. He pitied himself. But he +saw the material of happiness ahead, in the faithful execution of his resolves for +self-perfecting. And Hilda had flattered him. Hilda had given him a new conception of +himself... A tiny idea arose in his brain that there was perhaps some slight excuse for +his father’s suspicion of him. After all, he had been secretive. He trampled on that +idea, and it arose again.</p> + +<p>He slept very heavily, and woke with a headache. A week elapsed before his agitation +entirely disappeared, and hence before he could realise how extreme that agitation had +been. He was ashamed of having so madly and wildly abandoned himself to passion.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_17"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Seventeen.</h3> + +<h4>Challenge and Response.</h4> + +<p>Time passed, like a ship across a distant horizon, which moves but which does not seem +to move. One Monday evening Edwin said that he was going round to Lane End House. He had +been saying so for weeks, and hesitating. He thoroughly enjoyed going to Lane End House; +there was no reason why he should not go frequently and regularly, and there were several +reasons why he should. Yet his visitings were capricious because his nature was +irresolute. That night he went, sticking a hat carelessly on his head, and his hands deep +into his pockets. Down the slope of Trafalgar Road, in the biting November mist, between +the two rows of gas-lamps that flickered feebly into the pale gloom, came a long +straggling band of men who also, to compensate for the absence of overcoats, stuck hands +deep into pockets, and strode quickly. With reluctance they divided for the passage of the +steam-car, and closed growling together again on its rear. The potters were on strike, and +a Bursley contingent was returning in embittered silence from a mass meeting at Hanbridge. +When the sound of the steam-car subsided, as the car dipped over the hill-top on its +descent towards Hanbridge, nothing could be heard but the tramp-tramp of the procession on +the road.</p> + +<p>Edwin hurried down the side street, and in a moment rang at the front door of the +Orgreaves’. He nodded familiarly to the servant who opened, stepped on to the mat, +and began contorting his legs in order to wipe the edge of his boot-soles.</p> + +<p>“Quite a stranger, sir!” said Martha, bridling, and respectfully aware of +her attractiveness for this friend of the house.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he laughed. “Anybody in?”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, I’m afraid Miss Janet and Miss Alicia are out.”</p> + +<p>“And Mr Tom?”</p> + +<p>“Mr Tom’s out, sir. He pretty nearly always is now, sir.” The fact +was that Tom was engaged to be married, and the servant indicated, by a scarcely +perceptible motion of the chin, that fiancés were and ever would be all the same. +“And Mr John and Mr James are out too, sir.” They also were usually out. They +were both assisting their father in business, and sought relief from his gigantic +conception of a day’s work by evening diversions at Hanbridge. These two former +noisy Liberals had joined the Hanbridge Conservative Club because it was a club, and had a +billiard-table that could only be equalled at the Five Towns Hotel at Knype.</p> + +<p>“And Mr Orgreave?”</p> + +<p>“He’s working upstairs, sir. Mrs Orgreave’s got her asthma, and so +he’s working upstairs.”</p> + +<p>“Well, tell them I’ve called.” Edwin turned to depart.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure Mr Orgreave would like to know you’re here, sir,” +said the maid firmly. “If you’ll just step into the breakfast-room.” +That maid did as she chose with visitors for whom she had a fancy.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>She conducted him to the so-called breakfast-room and shut the door on him. It was a +small chamber behind the drawing-room, and shabbier than the drawing-room. In earlier days +the children had used it for their lessons and hobbies. And now it was used as a +sitting-room when mere cosiness was demanded by a decimated family. Edwin stooped down and +mended the fire. Then he went to the wall and examined a framed water-colour of the old +Sytch Pottery, which was signed with his initials. He had done it, aided by a photograph, +and by Johnnie Orgreave in details of perspective, and by dint of preprandial frequentings +of the Sytch, as a gift for Mrs Orgreave. It always seemed to him to be rather good.</p> + +<p>Then he bent to examine bookshelves. Like the hall, the drawing-room, and the +dining-room, this apartment too was plenteously full of everything, and littered over with +the apparatus of various personalities. Only from habit did Edwin glance at the books. He +knew their backs by heart. And books in quantity no longer intimidated him. Despite his +grave defects as a keeper of resolves, despite his paltry trick of picking up a newspaper +or periodical and reading it all through, out of sheer vacillation and mental sloth, +before starting serious perusals, despite the human disinclination which he had to bracing +himself, and keeping up the tension, in a manner necessary for the reading of long and +difficult works, and despite sundry ignominious backslidings into original +sluggishness—still he had accomplished certain literary adventures. He could not +enjoy “Don Juan.” Expecting from it a voluptuous and daring grandeur, he had +found in it nothing whatever that even roughly fitted into his idea of what poetry was. +But he had had a passion for “Childe Harold,” many stanzas of which thrilled +him again and again, bringing back to his mind what Hilda Lessways had said about poetry. +And further, he had a passion for Voltaire. In Voltaire, also, he had been deceived, as in +Byron. He had expected something violent, arid, closely argumentative; and he found +gaiety, grace, and really the funniest jokes. He could read “Candide” almost +without a dictionary, and he had intense pride in doing so, and for some time afterwards +“Candide” and “La Princesse de Babylone,” and a few similar witty +trifles, were the greatest stories in the world for him. Only a faint reserve in Tom +Orgreave’s responsive enthusiasm made him cautiously reflect.</p> + +<p>He could never be intimate with Tom, because Tom somehow never came out from behind his +spectacles. But he had learnt much from him, and in especial a familiarity with the less +difficult of Bach’s preludes and fugues, which Tom loved to play. Edwin knew not +even the notes of music, and he was not sure that Bach gave him pleasure. Bach affected +him strangely. He would ask for Bach out of a continually renewed curiosity, so that he +could examine once more and yet again the sensations which the music produced; and the +habit grew. As regards the fugues, there could be no doubt that, the fugue begun, a desire +was thereby set up in him for the resolution of the confusing problem created in the first +few bars, and that he waited, with a pleasant and yet a trying anxiety, for the +indications of that resolution, and that the final reassuring and utterly tranquillising +chords gave him deep joy. When he innocently said that he was ‘glad when the end +came of a fugue,’ all the Orgreaves laughed heartily, but after laughing, Tom said +that he knew what Edwin meant and quite agreed.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>It was while he was glancing along the untidy and crowded shelves with sophisticated +eye that the door brusquely opened. He looked up mildly, expecting a face familiar, and +saw one that startled him, and heard a voice that aroused disconcerting vibrations in +himself. It was Hilda Lessways. She had in her hand a copy of the “Signal.” +Over fifteen months had gone since their last meeting, but not since he had last thought +of her. Her features seemed strange. His memory of them had not been reliable. He had +formed an image of her in his mind, and had often looked at it, and he now saw that it did +not correspond with the reality. The souvenir of their brief intimacy swept back upon him. +Incredible that she should be there, in front of him; and yet there she was! More than +once, after reflecting on her, he had laughed, and said lightly to himself: “Well, +the chances are I shall never see <i>her</i> again! Funny girl!” But the +recollection of her gesture with Mr Shushions prevented him from dismissing her out of his +head with quite that lightness...</p> + +<p>“I’m ordered to tell you that Mr Orgreave will be down in a few +minutes,” she said.</p> + +<p>“<i>Hello!</i>” he exclaimed. “I’d no idea you were in +Bursley!”</p> + +<p>“Came to-day!” she replied.</p> + +<p>“How odd,” he thought, “that I should call like this on the very day +she comes!” But he pushed away that instinctive thought with the rational thought +that such a coincidence could not be regarded as in any way significant.</p> + +<p>They shook hands in the middle of the room, and she pressed his hand, while looking +downwards with a smile. And his mind was suddenly filled with the idea that during all +those months she had been existing somewhere, under the eye of some one, intimate with +some one, and constantly conducting herself with a familiar freedom that doubtless she +would not use to him. And so she was invested, for him, with mysteriousness. His interest +in her was renewed in a moment, and in a form much more acute than its first form. +Moreover, she presented herself to his judgement in a different aspect. He could scarcely +comprehend how he had ever deemed her habitual expression to be forbidding. In fact, he +could persuade himself now that she was beautiful, and even nobly beautiful. From one +extreme he flew to the other. She sat down on an old sofa; he remained standing. And in +the midst of a little conversation about Mrs Orgreave’s indisposition, and the +absence of the members of the family (she said she had refused an invitation to go with +Janet and Alicia to Hillport), she broke the thread, and remarked—</p> + +<p>“You would have known I was coming if you’d been calling here +recently.” She pushed her feet near the fender, and gazed into the fire.</p> + +<p>“Ah! But you see I haven’t been calling recently.”</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes to his. “I suppose you’ve never thought about me once +since I left!” she fired at him. An audacious and discomposing girl!</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, I have,” he said weakly. What could you reply to such speeches? +Nevertheless he was flattered.</p> + +<p>“Really? But you’ve never inquired about me.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have.”</p> + +<p>“Only once.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know?”</p> + +<p>“I asked Janet.”</p> + +<p>“Damn her!” he said to himself, but pleased with her. And aloud, in a tone +suddenly firm, “That’s nothing to go by.”</p> + +<p>“What isn’t?”</p> + +<p>“The number of <i>times</i> I’ve inquired.” He was blushing.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In the smallness of the room, sitting as it were at his feet on the sofa, surrounded +and encaged by a hundred domestic objects and by the glow of the fire and the radiance of +the gas, she certainly did seem to Edwin to be an organism exceedingly mysterious. He +could follow with his eye every fold of her black dress, he could trace the waving of her +hair, and watch the play of light in her eyes. He might have physically hurt her, he might +have killed her, she was beneath his hand—and yet she was most bafflingly withdrawn, +and the essence of her could not be touched nor got at. Why did she challenge him by her +singular attitude? Why was she always saying such queer things to him? No other girl (he +thought, in the simplicity of his inexperience) would ever talk as she talked. He wanted +to test her by being rude to her. “Damn her!” he said to himself again. +“Supposing I took hold of her and kissed her—I wonder what sort of a face +she’d pull then!” (And a moment ago he had been appraising her as nobly +beautiful! A moment ago he had been dwelling on the lovely compassion of her gesture with +Mr Shushions!) This quality of daring and naughty enterprise had never before shown itself +in Edwin, and he was surprised to discover in himself such impulses. But then the girl was +so provocative. And somehow the sight of the girl delivered him from an excessive fear of +consequences. He said to himself, “I’ll do something or I’ll say +something, before I leave her to-night, just to show her!” He screwed up his +resolution to the point of registering a private oath that he would indeed do or say +something. Without a solemn oath he could not rely upon his valour. He knew that whatever +he said or did in the nature of a bold advance would be accomplished clumsily. He knew +that it would be unpleasant. He knew that inaction suited much better his instinct for +tranquillity. No matter! All that was naught. She had challenged, and he had to respond. +Besides, she allured... And, after her scene with him in the porch of the new house, had +he not the right? ... A girl who had behaved as she did that night cannot effectively +contradict herself!</p> + +<p>“I was just reading about this strike,” she said, rustling the +newspaper.</p> + +<p>“You’ve soon got into local politics.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, “I saw a lot of the men as we were driving from the +station. I should think I saw two thousand of them. So of course I was interested. I made +Mr Orgreave tell me all about it. Will they win?”</p> + +<p>“It depends on the weather.” He smiled.</p> + +<p>She remained silent, and grave. “I see!” she said, leaning her chin on her +hand. At her tone he ceased smiling. She said “I see,” and she actually had +seen.</p> + +<p>“You see,” he repeated. “If it was June instead of November! But then +it isn’t June. Wages are settled every year in November. So if there is to be a +strike it can only begin in November.”</p> + +<p>“But didn’t the men ask for the time of year to be changed?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said. “But you don’t suppose the masters were going +to agree to that, do you?” He sneered masculinely.</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Because it gives them such a pull.”</p> + +<p>“What a shame!” Hilda exclaimed passionately. “And what a shame it is +that the masters want to make the wages depend on selling prices! Can’t they see +that selling prices ought to depend on wages?”</p> + +<p>Edwin said nothing. She had knocked suddenly out of his head all ideas of flirting, and +he was trying to reassemble them.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’re like all the rest?” she questioned gloomily.</p> + +<p>“How like all the rest?”</p> + +<p>“Against the men. Mr Orgreave is, and he says your father is very strongly +against them.”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” said Edwin, with an air of resentment as to which he himself +could not have decided whether it was assumed or genuine, “what earthly right have +you to suppose that I’m like all the rest?”</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry,” she surrendered. “I knew all the time you +weren’t.” With her face still bent downwards, she looked up at him, smiling +sadly, smiling roguishly.</p> + +<p>“Father’s against them,” he proceeded, somewhat deflated. And he +thought of all his father’s violent invective, and of Maggie’s bland +acceptance of the assumption that workmen on strike were rascals—how different the +excellent simple Maggie from this feverish creature on the sofa! “Father’s +against them, and most people are, because they broke the last arbitration award. But +I’m not my father. If you ask me, I’ll tell you what I think—workmen on +strike are always in the right; at bottom I mean. You’ve only got to look at them in +a crowd together. They don’t starve themselves for fun.”</p> + +<p>He was not sure if he was convinced of the truth of these statements; but she drew them +out of him by her strange power. And when he had uttered them, they appeared fine to +him.</p> + +<p>“What does your father say to that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Edwin uneasily. “Him—and me—we don’t +argue about these things.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Well, we don’t.”</p> + +<p>“You aren’t ashamed of your own opinions, are you?” she demanded, +with a hint in her voice that she was ready to be scornful.</p> + +<p>“You know all the time I’m not.” He repeated the phrase of her +previous confession with a certain acrimonious emphasis. “Don’t you?” he +added curtly.</p> + +<p>She remained silent.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you?” he said more loudly. And as she offered no reply, he +went on, marvelling at what was coming out of his mouth. “I’ll tell you what I +am ashamed of. I’m ashamed of seeing my father lose his temper. So you +know!”</p> + +<p>She said—</p> + +<p>“I never met anybody like you before. No, never!”</p> + +<p>At this he really was astounded, and most exquisitely flattered.</p> + +<p>“I might say the same of you,” he replied, sticking his chin out.</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” she said. “I’m nothing.”</p> + +<p>The fact was that he could not foretell their conversation even ten seconds in advance. +It was full of the completely unexpected. He thought to himself, “You never know +what a girl like that will say next.” But what would <i>he</i> say next?</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>They were interrupted by Osmond Orgreave, with his, “Well, Edwin,” jolly, +welcoming, and yet slightly quizzical. Edwin could not look him in the face without +feeling self-conscious. Nor dared he glance at Hilda to see what her demeanour was like +under the good-natured scrutiny of her friend’s father.</p> + +<p>“We thought you’d forgotten us,” said Mr Orgreave. “But +that’s always the way with neighbours.” He turned to Hilda. “It’s +true,” he continued, jerking his head at Edwin. “He scarcely ever comes to see +us, except when you’re here.”</p> + +<p>“Steady on!” Edwin murmured. “Steady on, Mr Orgreave!” And +hastily he asked a question about Mrs Orgreave’s asthma; and from that the +conversation passed to the doings of the various absent members of the family.</p> + +<p>“You’ve been working, as usual, I suppose,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Working!” laughed Mr Orgreave. “I’ve done what I could, with +Hilda there! Instead of going up to Hillport with Janet, she would stop here and chatter +about strikes.”</p> + +<p>Hilda smiled at him benevolently as at one to whom she permitted everything.</p> + +<p>“Mr Clayhanger agrees with me,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Oh! You needn’t tell me!” protested Mr Orgreave. “I could see +you were as thick as thieves over it.” He looked at Edwin. “Has she told you +she wants to go over a printing works?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin. “But I shall be very pleased to show her over ours, +any time.”</p> + +<p>She made no observation.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” said Edwin suddenly, “I must be off. I only slipped in +for a minute, really.” He did not know why he said this, for his greatest wish was +to probe more deeply into the tantalising psychology of Hilda Lessways. His tongue, +however, had said it, and his tongue reiterated it when Mr Orgreave urged that Janet and +Alicia would be back soon and that food would then be partaken of. He would not stay. +Desiring to stay, he would not. He wished to be alone, to think. Clearly Hilda had been +talking about him to Mr Orgreave, and to Janet. Did she discuss him and his affairs with +everybody?</p> + +<p>Nor would he, in response to Mr Orgreave’s suggestion, promise definitely to call +again on the next evening. He said he would try. Hilda took leave of him nonchalantly. He +departed.</p> + +<p>And as he made the half-circuit of the misty lawn, on his way to the gates, he muttered +in his heart, where even he himself could scarcely hear: “I swore I’d do +something, and I haven’t. Well, of course, when she talked seriously like that, what +could I do?” But he was disgusted with himself and ashamed of his +namby-pambiness.</p> + +<p>He strolled thoughtfully up Oak Street, and down Trafalgar Road; and when he was near +home, another wayfarer saw him face right about and go up Trafalgar Road and disappear at +the corner of Oak Street.</p> + +<p>The Orgreave servant was surprised to see him at the front door again when she answered +a discreet ring.</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d tell Miss Lessways I want to speak to her a moment, will +you?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Lessways?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” What an adventure!</p> + +<p>“Certainly, sir. Will you come in?” She shut the door.</p> + +<p>“Ask her to come here,” he said, smiling with deliberate confidential +persuasiveness. She nodded, with a brighter smile.</p> + +<p>The servant vanished, and Hilda came. She was as red as fire. He began hurriedly.</p> + +<p>“When will you come to look over our works? To-morrow? I should like you to +come.” He used a tone that said: “Now don’t let’s have any +nonsense! You know you want to come.”</p> + +<p>She frowned frankly. There they were in the hall, like a couple of conspirators, but +she was frowning; she would not meet him half-way. He wished he had not permitted himself +this caprice. What importance had a private oath? He felt ridiculous.</p> + +<p>“What time?” she demanded, and in an instant transformed his disgust into +delight.</p> + +<p>“Any time.” His heart was beating with expectation.</p> + +<p>“Oh no! You must fix the time.”</p> + +<p>“Well, after tea. Say between half-past six and a quarter to seven. That +do?”</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>“Good,” he murmured. “That’s all! Thanks. +Good-night!”</p> + +<p>He hastened away, with a delicate photograph of the palm of her hand printed in minute +sensations on the palm of his.</p> + +<p>“I did it, anyhow!” he muttered loudly, in his heart. At any rate he was +not shamed. At any rate he was a man. The man’s face was burning, and the damp +noxious chill of the night only caressed him agreeably.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_18"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Eighteen.</h3> + +<h4>Curiosity.</h4> + +<p>He was afraid that, from some obscure motive of propriety or self-protection, she would +bring Janet with her, or perhaps Alicia. On the other hand, he was afraid that she would +come alone. That she should come alone seemed to him, in spite of his reason, too brazen. +Moreover, if she came alone would he be equal to the situation? Would he be able to carry +the thing off in a manner adequate? He lacked confidence. He desired the moment of her +arrival, and yet he feared it. His heart and his brain were all confused together in a +turmoil of emotion which he could not analyse nor define.</p> + +<p>He was in love. Love had caught him, and had affected his vision so that he no longer +saw any phenomenon as it actually was; neither himself, nor Hilda, nor the circumstances +which were uniting them. He could not follow a train of thought. He could not remain of +one opinion nor in one mind. Within himself he was perpetually discussing Hilda, and her +attitude. She was marvellous! But was she? She admired him! But did she? She had shown +cunning! But was it not simplicity? He did not even feel sure whether he liked her. He +tried to remember what she looked like, and he positively could not. The one matter upon +which he could be sure was that his curiosity was hotly engaged. If he had had to state +the case in words to another he would not have gone further than the word +‘curiosity.’ He had no notion that he was in love. He did not know what love +was; he had not had sufficient opportunity of learning. Nevertheless the processes of love +were at work within him. Silently and magically, by the force of desire and of pride, the +refracting glass was being specially ground which would enable him, which would compel +him, to see an ideal Hilda when he gazed at the real Hilda. He would not see the real +Hilda any more unless some cataclysm should shatter the glass. And he might be likened to +a prisoner on whom the gate of freedom is shut for ever, or to a stricken sufferer of whom +it is known that he can never rise again and go forth into the fields. He was as somebody +to whom the irrevocable had happened. And he knew it not. None knew. None guessed. All day +he went his ways, striving to conceal the whirring preoccupation of his curiosity (a +curiosity which he thought showed a fine masculine dash), and succeeded fairly well. The +excellent, simple Maggie alone remarked in secret that he was slightly nervous and +unnatural. But even she, with all her excellent simplicity, did not divine his +victimhood.</p> + +<p>At six o’clock he was back at the shop from his tea. It was a wet, chill night. +On the previous evening he had caught cold, and he was beginning to sneeze. He said to +himself that Hilda could not be expected to come on such a night. But he expected her. +When the shop clock showed half-past six, he glanced at his watch, which also showed +half-past six. Now at any instant she might arrive. The shop door opened, and +simultaneously his heart ceased to beat. But the person who came in, puffing and snorting, +was his father, who stood within the shop while shaking his soaked umbrella over the +exterior porch. The draught from the shiny dark street and square struck cold, and Edwin +responsively sneezed; and Darius Clayhanger upbraided him for not having worn his +overcoat, and he replied with foolish unconvincingness that he had got a cold, that it was +nothing. Darius grunted his way into the cubicle. Edwin remained in busy idleness at the +right-hand counter; Stifford was tidying the contents of drawers behind the fancy-counter. +And the fizzing gas-burners, inevitable accompaniment of night at the period, kept watch +above. Under the heat of the stove, the damp marks of Darius Clayhanger’s entrance +disappeared more quickly than the minutes ran. It grew almost impossible for Edwin to pass +the time. At moments when his father was not stirring in the cubicle, and Stifford +happened to be in repose, he could hear the ticking of the clock, which he could not +remember ever having heard before, except when he mounted the steps to wind it.</p> + +<p>At a quarter to seven he said to himself that he gave up hope, while pretending that he +never had hoped, and that Hilda’s presence was indifferent to him. If she came not +that day she would probably come some other day. What could it matter? He was very +unhappy. He said to himself that he should have a long night’s reading, but the +prospect of reading had no savour. He said: “No, I shan’t go in to see them +to-night, I shall stay in and nurse my cold, and read.” This was mere futile +bravado, for the impartial spectator in him, though far less clear-sighted and judicial +now than formerly, foresaw with certainty that if Hilda did not come he would call at the +Orgreaves’. At five minutes to seven he was miserable: he had decided to hope until +five minutes to seven. He made it seven in despair. Then there were signs of a figure +behind the misty glass of the door. The door opened. It could not be she! Impossible that +it should be she! But it was she; she had the air of being a miracle.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>His feelings were complex and contradictory, flitting about and crossing each other in +his mind with astounding rapidity. He wished she had not come, because his father was +there, and the thought of his father would intensify his self-consciousness. He wondered +why he should care whether she came or not; after all she was only a young woman who +wanted to see a printing works; at best she was not so agreeable as Janet, at worst she +was appalling, and moreover he knew nothing about her. He had a glimpse of her face as, +with a little tightening of the lips, she shut her umbrella. What was there in that face +judged impartially? Why should he be to so absurd a degree curious about her? He thought +how exquisitely delicious it would be to be walking with her by the shore of a lovely lake +on a summer evening, pale hills in the distance. He had this momentary vision by reason of +a coloured print of the “Silver Strand” of a Scottish loch which was leaning +in a gilt frame against the artists’ materials cabinet and was marked +twelve-and-six. During the day he had imagined himself with her in all kinds of beautiful +spots and situations. But the chief of his sensations was one of exquisite relief... She +had come. He could wreak his hungry curiosity upon her.</p> + +<p>Yes, she was alone. No Janet! No Alicia! How had she managed it? What had she said to +the Orgreaves? That she should have come alone, and through the November rain, in the +night, affected him deeply. It gave her the quality of a heroine of high adventure. It was +as though she had set sail unaided, in a frail skiff, on a formidable ocean, to meet him. +It was inexpressibly romantic and touching. She came towards him, her face sedately +composed. She wore a small hat, a veil, and a mackintosh, and black gloves that were +splashed with wet. Certainly she was a practical woman. She had said she would come, and +she had come, sensibly, but how charmingly, protected against the shocking conditions of +the journey. There is naught charming in a mackintosh. And yet there was, in this +mackintosh! ... Something in the contrast between its harshness and her fragility... The +veil was supremely charming. She had half lifted it, exposing her mouth; the upper part of +her flushed face was caged behind the bars of the veil; behind those bars her eyes +mysteriously gleamed... Spanish! ... No exaggeration in all this! He felt every bit of it +honestly, as he stood at the counter in thrilled expectancy. By virtue of his impassioned +curiosity, the terraces of Granada and the mantillas of <i>señoritas</i> were not +more romantic than he had made his father’s shop and her dripping mackintosh. He +tried to see her afresh; he tried to see her as though he had never seen her before; he +tried desperately once again to comprehend what it was in her that piqued him. And he +could not. He fell back from the attempt. Was she the most wondrous? Or was she +commonplace? Was she deceiving him? Or did he alone possess the true insight? ... Useless! +He was baffled. Far from piercing her soul, he could scarcely even see her at all; that +is, with intelligence. And it was always so when he was with her: he was in a dream, a +vapour; he had no helm, his faculties were not under control. She robbed him of +judgement.</p> + +<p>And then the clear tones of her voice fell on the listening shop: “Good evening, +Mr Clayhanger. What a night, isn’t it? I hope I’m not too late.”</p> + +<p>Firm, business-like syllables... And she straightened her shoulders. He suffered. He +was not happy. Whatever his feelings, he was not happy in that instant. He was not happy +because he was wrung between hope and fear, alike divine. But he would not have exchanged +his sensations for the extremest felicity of any other person.</p> + +<p>They shook hands. He suggested that she should remove her mackintosh. She consented. He +had no idea that the effect of the removal of the mackintosh would be so startling as it +was. She stood intimately revealed in her frock. The mackintosh was formal and defensive; +the frock was intimate and acquiescent.</p> + +<p>Darius blundered out of the cubicle and Edwin had a dreadful moment introducing her to +Darius and explaining their purpose. Why had he not prepared the ground in advance? His +pusillanimous cowardice again! However, the directing finger of God sent a customer into +the shop, and Edwin escaped with his Hilda through the aperture in the counter.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>The rickety building at the back of the premises, which was still the main theatre of +printing activities, was empty save for Big James, the hour of seven being past. Big James +was just beginning to roll his apron round his waist, in preparation for departure. This +happened to be one of the habits of his advancing age. Up till a year or two previously he +would have taken off his apron and left it in the workshop; but now he could not confide +it to the workshop; he must carry it about him until he reached home and a place of safety +for it. When he saw Edwin and a young lady appear in the doorway, he let the apron fall +over his knees again. As the day was only the second of the industrial week, the apron was +almost clean; and even the office towel, which hung on a roller somewhat conspicuously +near the door, was not offensive. A single gas jet burned. The workshop was in the languor +of repose after toil which had officially commenced at 8 a.m.</p> + +<p>The perfection of Big James’s attitude, an attitude symbolised by the letting +down of his apron, helped to put Edwin at ease in the original and difficult +circumstances. “Good evening, Mr Edwin. Good evening, miss,” was all that the +man actually said with his tongue, but the formality of his majestic gestures indicated in +the most dignified way his recognition of a sharp difference of class and his exact +comprehension of his own rôle in the affair. He stood waiting: he had been about to +depart, but he was entirely at the disposal of the company.</p> + +<p>“This is Mr Yarlett, our foreman,” said Edwin, and to Big James: +“Miss Lessways has just come to look round.”</p> + +<p>Hilda smiled. Big James suavely nodded his head.</p> + +<p>“Here are some of the types,” said Edwin, because a big case was the object +nearest him, and he glanced at Big James.</p> + +<p>In a moment the foreman was explaining to Hilda, in his superb voice, the use of the +composing-stick, and he accompanied the theory by a beautiful exposition of the practice; +Edwin could stand aside and watch. Hilda listened and looked with an extraordinary air of +sympathetic interest. And she was so serious, so adult. But it was the quality of +sympathy, he thought, that was her finest, her most attractive. It was either that or her +proud independence, as of a person not accustomed to bend to the will of others or to go +to others for advice. He could not be sure... No! Her finest quality was her mystery. Even +now, as he gazed at her comfortably, she baffled him; all her exquisite little movements +and intonations baffled him. Of one thing, however, he was convinced: that she was +fundamentally different from other women. There was she, and there was the rest of the +sex.</p> + +<p>For appearance’s sake he threw in short phrases now and then, to which Big James, +by his mere deportment, gave the importance of the words of a master.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you printers did something special among yourselves to celebrate the +four-hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing?” said Hilda suddenly, +glancing from Edwin to Big James. And Big James and Edwin glanced at one another. Neither +had ever heard of the four-hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing. In a couple +of seconds Big James’s downcast eye had made it clear that he regarded this portion +of the episode as master’s business.</p> + +<p>“When was that?—let me see,” Edwin foolishly blurted out.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Some years ago. Two or three—perhaps four.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid we didn’t,” said Edwin, smiling.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Hilda slowly. “I think they made a great fuss of it in +London.” She relented somewhat. “I don’t really know much about it. But +the other day I happened to be reading the new history of printing, you +know—Cranswick’s, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” Edwin concurred, though he had never heard of Cranswick’s +new history of printing either.</p> + +<p>He knew that he was not emerging creditably from this portion of the episode. But he +did not care. The whole of his body went hot and then cold as his mind presented the +simple question: “Why had she been reading the history of printing?” Could the +reason be any other than her interest in himself? Or was she a prodigy among young women, +who read histories of everything in addition to being passionate about verse? He said that +it was ridiculous to suppose that she would read a history of printing solely from +interest in himself. Nevertheless he was madly happy for a few moments, and as it were +staggered with joy. He decided to read a history of printing at once.</p> + +<p>Big James came to the end of his expositions of the craft. The stove was dying out, and +the steam-boiler cold. Big James regretted that the larger machines could not be seen in +action, and that the place was getting chilly. Edwin began to name various objects that +were lying about, with their functions, but it was evident that the interest of the +workshop was now nearly exhausted. Big James suggested that if Miss could make it +convenient to call, say, on the next afternoon, she could see the large new Columbia in +motion. Edwin seized the idea and beautified it. And on this he wavered towards the door, +and she followed, and Big James in dignity bowed them forth to the elevated porch, and +began to rewind his flowing apron once more. They pattered down the dark steps (now +protected with felt roofing) and ran across six feet of exposed yard into what had once +been Mrs Nixon’s holy kitchen.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>After glancing at sundry minor workshops in delicious propinquity and solitude, they +mounted to the first floor, where there was an account-book ruling and binding shop: the +site of the old sitting-room and the girls’ bedroom. In each chamber Edwin had to +light a gas, and the corridors and stairways were traversed by the ray of matches. It was +excitingly intricate. Then they went to the attics, because Edwin was determined that she +should see all. There he found a forgotten candle.</p> + +<p>“I used to work here,” he said, holding high the candle. “There was +no other place for me to work in.”</p> + +<p>They were in his old work attic, now piled with stocks of paper wrapped up in +posters.</p> + +<p>“Work? What sort of work?”</p> + +<p>“Well—reading, drawing, you know... At that very table.” To be sure, +there the very table was, thick with dust! It had been too rickety to deserve removal to +the heights of Bleakridge. He was touched by the sight of the table now, though he saw it +at least once every week. His existence at the corner of Duck Square seemed now to have +been beautiful and sad, seemed to be far off and historic. And the attic seemed unhappy in +its present humiliation.</p> + +<p>“But there’s no fireplace,” murmured Hilda.</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“But how did you do in winter?”</p> + +<p>“I did without.”</p> + +<p>He had in fact been less of a martyr than those three telling words would indicate. +Nevertheless it appeared to him that he really had been a martyr; and he was glad. He +could feel her sympathy and her quiet admiration vibrating through the air towards him. +Had she not said that she had never met anybody like him? He turned and looked at her. Her +eyes glittered in the candle-light with tears too proud to fall. Solemn and exquisite +bliss! Profound anxiety and apprehension! He was an arena where all the sensations of +which a human being is capable struggled in blind confusion.</p> + +<p>Afterwards, he could recall her visit only in fragments. The next fragment that he +recollected was the last. She stood outside the door in her mackintosh. The rain had +ceased. She was going. Behind them he could feel his father in the cubicle, and Stifford +arranging the toilette of the shop for the night.</p> + +<p>“Please don’t come out here,” she enjoined, half in entreaty, half in +command. Her solicitude thrilled him. He was on the step, she was on the pavement: so that +he looked down at her, with the sodden, light-reflecting slope of Duck Square for a +background to her.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’m all right. Well, you’ll come to-morrow afternoon?”</p> + +<p>“No, you aren’t all right. You’ve got a cold and you’ll make it +worse, and this isn’t the end of winter, it’s the beginning; I think +you’re very liable to colds.”</p> + +<p>“N–no!” he said, enchanted, beside himself in an ecstasy of pleasure. +“I shall expect you to-morrow about three.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” she said simply. “I’ll come.”</p> + +<p>They shook hands.</p> + +<p>“Now do go in!”</p> + +<p>She vanished round the corner.</p> + +<p>All the evening he neither read nor spoke.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_19"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Nineteen.</h3> + +<h4>A Catastrophe.</h4> + +<p>At half-past two on the following afternoon he was waiting for the future in order to +recommence living. During this period, to a greater extent even than the average +individual in average circumstances, he was incapable of living in the present. +Continually he looked either forward or back. All that he had achieved, or that had been +achieved for him—the new house with its brightness and its apparatus of luxury, his +books, his learning, his friends, his experience: not long since regarded by him as the +precious materials of happiness—all had become negligible trifles, nothings, devoid +of import. The sole condition precedent to a tolerable existence was now to have sight and +speech of Hilda Lessways. He was intensely unhappy in the long stretches of time which +separated one contact with her from the next. And in the brief moments of their +companionship he was far too distraught, too apprehensive, too desirous, too puzzled, to +be able to call himself happy. Seeing her apparently did naught to assuage the pain of his +curiosity about her—not his curiosity concerning the details of her life and of her +person, for these scarcely interested him, but his curiosity concerning the very essence +of her being. At seven o’clock on the previous day, he had esteemed her visit as +possessing a decisive importance which covered the whole field of his wishes. The visit +had occurred, and he was not a whit advanced; indeed he had retrograded, for he was less +content and more confused, and more preoccupied. The medicine had aggravated the disease. +Nevertheless, he awaited a second dose of it in the undestroyed illusion of its curative +property.</p> + +<p>In the interval he had behaved like a very sensible man. Without appetite, he had still +forced himself to eat, lest his relatives should suspect. Short of sleep, he had been +careful to avoid yawning at breakfast, and had spoken in a casual tone of Hilda’s +visit. He had even said to his father: “I suppose the big Columbia will be running +off those overseer notices this afternoon?” And on the old man asking why he was +thus interested, he had answered: “Because that girl, Miss Lessways, thought of +coming down to see it. For some reason or other she’s very keen on printing, and as +she’s such a friend of the Orgreaves—”</p> + +<p>Nobody, he considered, could have done that better than he had done it.</p> + +<p>And now that girl, Miss Lessways, was nearly due. He stood behind the counter again, +waiting, waiting. He could not apply himself to anything; he could scarcely wait. He was +in a state that approached fever, if not agony. To exist from half-past two to three +o’clock equalled in anguish the dreadful inquietude that comes before a surgical +operation.</p> + +<p>He said to himself: “If I keep on like this I shall be in love with her one of +these days.” He would not and could not believe that he already was in love with +her, though the possibility presented itself to him. “No,” he said, “you +don’t fall in love in a couple of days. You mustn’t tell me—” in a +wise, superior, slightly scornful manner. “I dare say there’s nothing in it at +all,” he said uncertainly, after having strongly denied throughout that there was +anything in it.</p> + +<p>The recollection of his original antipathy to Hilda troubled him. She was the same +girl. She was the same girl who had followed him at night into his father’s garden +and merited his disdain. She was the same girl who had been so unpleasant, so sharp, so +rudely disconcerting in her behaviour. And he dared not say that she had altered. And yet +now he could not get her out of his head. And although he would not admit that he +constantly admired her, he did admit that there were moments when he admired her +passionately and deemed her unique and above all women. Whence the change in himself? How +to justify it? The problem was insoluble, for he was intellectually too honest to say +lightly that originally he had been mistaken.</p> + +<p>He did not pretend to solve the problem. He looked at it with perturbation, and left +it. The consoling thing was that the Orgreaves had always expressed high esteem for Hilda. +He leaned on the Orgreaves.</p> + +<p>He wondered how the affair would end? It could not indefinitely continue on its present +footing. How indeed would it end? Marriage... He apologised to himself for the thought... +But just for the sake of argument ... supposing... well, supposing the affair went so far +that one day he told her ... men did such things, young men! No! ... Besides, she +wouldn’t... It was absurd... No such idea really! ... And then the frightful worry +there would be with his father about money, and so on... And the telling of Clara, and of +everybody. No! He simply could not imagine himself married, or about to be married. +Marriage might happen to other young men, but not to him. His case was special, somehow... +He shrank from such formidable enterprises. The mere notion of them made him tremble.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>He brushed all that away impatiently, pettishly. The intense and terrible longing for +her arrival persisted. It was now twenty-five to three. His father would be down soon from +his after-dinner nap. Suddenly the door opened, and he saw the Orgreaves’ servant, +with a cloak over her white apron, and hands red with cold. And also he saw disaster like +a ghostly figure following her. His heart sickeningly sank. Martha smiled and gave him a +note, which he smilingly accepted. “Miss Lessways asked me to come down with +this,” she said confidentially. She was a little breathless, and she had absolutely +the manner of a singing chambermaid in light opera. He opened the note, which said: +“Dear Mr Clayhanger, so sorry I can’t come to-day.—Yours, H.L.” +Nothing else. It was scrawled. “It’s all right, thanks,” he said, with +an even brighter smile to the messenger, who nodded and departed.</p> + +<p>It all occurred in an instant.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>A catastrophe! He suffered then as he had never suffered.</p> + +<p>His was no state approaching agony; it was agony itself, black and awful. She was not +coming. She had not troubled herself to give a reason, nor to offer an excuse. She merely +was not coming. She had showed no consideration for his feelings. It had not happened to +her to reflect that she would be causing him disappointment. Disappointment was too mild a +word. He had been building a marvellously beautiful castle, and with a thoughtless, +careless stroke of the pen she had annihilated all his labour; she had almost annihilated +him. Surely she owed him some reason, some explanation! Had she the right to play fast and +loose with him like that? “What a shame!” he sobbed violently in his heart, +with an excessive and righteous resentment. He was innocent; he was blameless; and she +tortured him thus! He supposed that all women were like her... “What a shame!” +He pitied himself for a victim. And there was no glint of hope anywhere. In half an hour +he would have been near her, with her, guiding her to the workshop, discussing the machine +with her; and savouring her uniqueness; feasting on her delicious and adorable +personality! ... ‘So sorry I can’t come to-day!’ “She +doesn’t understand. She can’t understand!” he said to himself. “No +woman, however cruel, would ever knowingly be so cruel as she has been. It isn’t +possible!” Then he sought excuse for her, and then he cast the excuse away angrily. +She was not coming. There was no ground beneath his feet. He was so exquisitely miserable +that he could not face a future of even ten hours ahead. He could not look at what his +existence would be till bedtime. The blow had deprived him of all force, all courage. It +was a wanton blow. He wished savagely that he had never seen her... No! no! He could not +call on the Orgreaves that night. He could not do it. She might be out. And then...</p> + +<p>His father entered, and began to grumble. Both Edwin and Maggie had known since the +beginning of dinner that Darius was quaking on the precipice of a bad bilious attack. +Edwin listened to the rising storm of words. He had to resume the thread of his daily +life. He knew what affliction was.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_20"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Twenty.</h3> + +<h4>The Man.</h4> + +<p>But he was young. Indeed to men of fifty, men just twice his age, he seemed a mere boy +and incapable of grief. He was so slim, and his limbs were so loose, and his hair so fair, +and his gestures often so naïve, that few of the mature people who saw him daily +striding up and down Trafalgar Road could have believed him to be acquainted with sorrow +like their sorrows. The next morning, as it were in justification of these maturer people, +his youth arose and fought with the malady in him, and, if it did not conquer, it was not +defeated. On the previous night, after hours of hesitation, he had suddenly walked forth +and gone down Oak Street, and pushed open the garden gates of the Orgreaves, and gazed at +the façade of the house—not at her window, because that was at the +side—and it was all dark. The Orgreaves had gone to bed: he had expected it. Even +this perfectly futile reconnaissance had calmed him. While dressing in the bleak sunrise +he had looked at the oval lawn of the Orgreaves’ garden, and had seen Johnnie idly +kicking a football on it. Johnnie had probably spent the evening with her; and it was +nothing to Johnnie! She was there, somewhere between him and Johnnie, within fifty yards +of both of them, mysterious and withdrawn as ever, busy at something or other. And it was +naught to Johnnie! By the thought of all this the woe in him was strengthened and +embittered. Nevertheless his youth, aided by the astringent quality of the clear dawn, +still struggled sturdily against it. And he ate six times more breakfast than his +suffering and insupportable father.</p> + +<p>At half-past one—it was Thursday, and the shop closed at two +o’clock—he had put on courage like a garment, and decided that he would see +her that afternoon or night, ‘or perish in the attempt.’ And as the remembered +phrase of the Sunday passed through his mind, he inwardly smiled and thought of school; +and felt old and sure.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>At five minutes to two, as he stood behind the eternal counter in his eternal dream, he +had the inexpressible and delectable shock of seeing her. He was shot by the vision of her +as by a bullet. She came in, hurried and preoccupied, apparently full of purpose.</p> + +<p>“Have you got a Bradshaw?” she inquired, after the briefest greeting, +gazing at him across the counter through her veil, as though imploring him for +Bradshaw.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid we haven’t one left,” he said. “You see +it’s getting on for the end of the month. I could— No, I suppose you want it +at once?”</p> + +<p>“I want it now,” she replied. “I’m going to London by the six +express, and what I want to know is whether I can get on to Brighton to-night. They +actually haven’t a Bradshaw up there,” half in scorn and half in levity, +“and they said you’d probably have one here. So I ran down.”</p> + +<p>“They’d be certain to have one at the Tiger,” he murmured, +reflecting.</p> + +<p>“The Tiger!” Evidently she did not care for the idea of the Tiger. +“What about the railway station?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, or the railway station. I’ll go up there with you now if you like, +and find out for you. I know the head porter. We’re just closing. Father’s at +home. He’s not very well.”</p> + +<p>She thanked him, relief in her voice.</p> + +<p>In a minute he had put his hat and coat on and given instructions to Stifford, and he +was climbing Duck Bank with Hilda at his side. He had forgiven her. Nay, he had forgotten +her crime. The disaster, with all its despair, was sponged clean from his mind like +writing off a slate, and as rapidly. It was effaced. He tried to collect his faculties and +savour the new sensations. But he could not. Within him all was incoherent, wild, and +distracting. Five minutes earlier, and he could not have conceived the bliss of walking +with her to the station. Now he was walking with her to the station; and assuredly it was +bliss, and yet he did not fully taste it. Though he would not have loosed her for a +million pounds, her presence gave an even crueller edge to his anxiety and apprehension. +London! Brighton! Would she be that night in Brighton? He felt helpless, and desperate. +And beneath all this was the throbbing of a strange, bitter joy. She asked about his cold +and about his father’s indisposition. She said nothing of her failure to appear on +the previous day, and he knew not how to introduce it neatly: he was not in control of his +intelligence.</p> + +<p>They passed Snaggs’ Theatre, and from its green, wooden walls came the obscure +sound of humanity in emotion. Before the mean and shabby portals stood a small crowd of +ragged urchins. Posters printed by Darius Clayhanger made white squares on the front.</p> + +<p>“It’s a meeting of the men,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“They’re losing, aren’t they?”</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. “I expect they are.”</p> + +<p>She asked what the building was, and he explained.</p> + +<p>“They used to call it the Blood Tub,” he said.</p> + +<p>She shivered. “The Blood Tub?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Melodrama and murder and gore—you know.”</p> + +<p>“How horrible!” she exclaimed. “Why are people like that in the Five +Towns?”</p> + +<p>“It’s our form of poetry, I suppose,” he muttered, smiling at the +pavement, which was surprisingly dry and clean in the feeble sunshine.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it <i>is!</i>” she agreed heartily, after a pause.</p> + +<p>“But you belong to the Five Towns, don’t you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes! I used to.”</p> + +<p>At the station the name of Bradshaw appeared to be quite unknown. But Hilda’s +urgency impelled them upwards from the head porter to the ticket clerk, and from the +ticket clerk to the stationmaster; and at length they discovered, in a stuffy stove-heated +room with a fine view of a shawd-ruck and a pithead, that on Thursday evenings there was a +train from Victoria to Brighton at eleven-thirty. Hilda seemed to sigh relief, and her +demeanour changed. But Edwin’s uneasiness was only intensified. Brighton, which he +had never seen, was in another hemisphere for him. It was mysterious, like her. It was +part of her mystery. What could he do? His curse was that he had no initiative. Without +her relentless force, he would never have penetrated even as far as the stuffy room where +the unique Bradshaw lay. It was she who had taken him to the station, not he her. How +could he hold her back from Brighton?</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>When they came again to the Blood Tub, she said—</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t we just go and look in? I’ve got plenty of time, now I know +exactly how I stand.”</p> + +<p>She halted, and glanced across the road. He could only agree to the proposition. For +himself, a peculiar sense of delicacy would have made it impossible for him to intrude his +prosperity upon the deliberations of starving artisans on strike and stricken; and he +wondered what the potters might think or say about the invasion by a woman. But he had to +traverse the street with her and enter, and he had to do so with an air of masculine +protectiveness. The urchins stood apart to let them in.</p> + +<p>Snaggs’, dimly lit by a few glazed apertures in the roof, was nearly crammed by +men who sat on the low benches and leaned standing against the sidewalls. In the small and +tawdry proscenium, behind a worn picture of the Bay of Naples, were silhouetted the +figures of the men’s leader and of several other officials. The leader was speaking +in a quiet, mild voice, the other officials were seated on Windsor chairs. The smell of +the place was nauseating, and yet the atmosphere was bitingly cold. The warm-wrapped +visitors could see rows and rows of discoloured backs and elbows, and caps, and stringy +kerchiefs. They could almost feel the contraction of thousands of muscles in an +involuntary effort to squeeze out the chill from all these bodies; not a score of +overcoats could be discerned in the whole theatre, and many of the jackets were thin and +ragged; but the officials had overcoats. And the visitors could almost see, as it were in +rays, the intense fixed glances darting from every part of the interior, and piercing the +upright figure in the centre of the stage.</p> + +<p>“Some method of compromise,” the leader was saying in his persuasive +tones.</p> + +<p>A young man sprang up furiously from the middle benches.</p> + +<p>“To hell wi’ compromise!” he shouted in a tigerish passion. +“Haven’t us had forty pound from Ameriky?”</p> + +<p>“Order! Order!” some protested fiercely. But one voice cried: “Pitch +the bastard awt, neck and crop!”</p> + +<p>Hands clawed at the interrupter and dragged him with extreme violence to the level of +the bench, where he muttered like a dying volcano. Angry growls shot up here and there, +snappish, menacing, and bestial.</p> + +<p>“It is quite true,” said the leader soothingly, “that our comrades at +Trenton have collected forty pounds for us. But forty pounds would scarcely pay for a loaf +of bread for one man in every ten on strike.”</p> + +<p>There was more interruption. The dangerous growls continued in running explosions along +the benches. The leader, ignoring them, turned to consult with his neighbour, and then +faced his audience and called out more loudly—</p> + +<p>“The business of the meeting is at an end.”</p> + +<p>The entire multitude jumped up, and there was stretching of arms and stamping of feet. +The men nearest to the door now perceived Edwin and Hilda, who moved backwards as before a +flood. Edwin seized Hilda’s arm to hasten her.</p> + +<p>“Lads,” bawled an old man’s voice from near the stage, +“Let’s sing ‘Rock of Ages.’”</p> + +<p>A frowning and hirsute fellow near the door, with the veins prominent on his red +forehead, shouted hoarsely, “‘Rock of Ages’ be buggered!” and +shifting his hands into his pockets he plunged for the street, head foremost and chin +sticking out murderously. Edwin and Hilda escaped at speed and recrossed the road. The +crowd came surging out of the narrow neck of the building and spread over the pavements +like a sinister liquid. But from within the building came the lusty song of “Rock of +Ages.”</p> + +<p>“It’s terrible!” Hilda murmured, after a silence. “Just to see +them is enough. I shall never forget what you said.”</p> + +<p>“What was that?” he inquired. He knew what it was, but he wished to prolong +the taste of her appreciation.</p> + +<p>“That you’ve only got to see the poor things to know they’re in the +right! Oh! I’ve lost my handkerchief, unless I’ve left it in your shop. It +must have dropped out of my muff.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>The shop was closed. As with his latchkey he opened the private door and then stood on +one side for her to precede him into the corridor that led to the back of the shop, he +watched the stream of operatives scattering across Duck Bank and descending towards the +Square. It was as if he and Hilda, being pursued, were escaping. And as Hilda, stopping an +instant on the step, saw what he saw, her face took a troubled expression. They both went +in and he shut the door.</p> + +<p>“Turn to the left,” he said, wondering whether the big Columbia machine +would be running, for her to see if she chose.</p> + +<p>“Oh! This takes you to the shop, does it? How funny to be behind the +counter!”</p> + +<p>He thought she spoke self-consciously, in the way of small talk: which was contrary to +her habit.</p> + +<p>“Here’s my handkerchief!” she cried, with pleasure. It was on the +counter, a little white wisp in the grey-sheeted gloom. Stifford must have found it on the +floor and picked it up.</p> + +<p>The idea flashed through Edwin’s head: “Did she leave her handkerchief on +purpose, so that we should have to come back here?”</p> + +<p>The only illumination of the shop was from three or four diamond-shaped holes in the +upper part of as many shutters. No object was at first quite distinct. The corners were +very dark. All merchandise not in drawers or on shelves was hidden in pale dust cloths. A +chair wrong side up was on the fancy-counter, its back hanging over the front of the +counter. Hilda had wandered behind the other counter, and Edwin was in the middle of the +shop. Her face in the twilight had become more mysterious than ever. He was in a state of +emotion, but he did not know to what category the emotion belonged. They were alone. +Stifford had gone for the half-holiday. Darius, sickly, would certainly not come near. The +printers were working as usual in their place, and the clanking whirr of a treadle-machine +overhead agitated the ceiling. But nobody would enter the shop. His excitement increased, +but did not define itself. There was a sudden roar in Duck Square, and then cries.</p> + +<p>“What can that be?” Hilda asked, low.</p> + +<p>“Some of the strikers,” he answered, and went through the doors to the +letter-hole in the central shutter, lifted the flap, and looked through.</p> + +<p>A struggle was in progress at the entrance to the Duck Inn. One man was apparently +drunk; others were jeering on the skirts of the lean crowd.</p> + +<p>“It’s some sort of a fight among them,” said Edwin loudly, so that +she could hear in the shop. But at the same instant he felt the wind of the door swinging +behind him, and Hilda was silently at his elbow.</p> + +<p>“Let me look,” she said.</p> + +<p>Assuredly her voice was trembling. He moved, as little as possible, and held the flap +up for her. She bent and gazed. He could hear various noises in the Square, but she +described nothing to him. After a long while she withdrew from the hole.</p> + +<p>“A lot of them have gone into the public-house,” she said. “The +others seem to be moving away. There’s a policeman. What a shame,” she burst +out passionately, “that they have to drink to forget their trouble!” She made +no remark upon the strangeness of starving workmen being able to pay for beer sufficient +to intoxicate themselves. Nor did she comment, as a woman, on the misery of the wives and +children at home in the slums and the cheap cottage-rows. She merely compassionated the +men in that they were driven to brutishness. Her features showed painful pity masking +disgust.</p> + +<p>She stepped back into the shop.</p> + +<p>“Do you know,” she began, in a new tone, “you’ve quite altered +my notion of poetry—what you said as we were going up to the station.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” He smiled nervously. He was very pleased. He would have been +astounded by this speech from her, a professed devotee of poetry, if in those instants the +capacity for astonishment had remained to him.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, and continued, frowning and picking at her muff: +“But you <i>do</i> alter my notions, I don’t know how it is... So this is your +little office!”</p> + +<p>The door of the cubicle was open.</p> + +<p>“Yes, go in and have a look at it.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I?” She went in.</p> + +<p>He followed her.</p> + +<p>And no sooner was she in than she muttered, “I must hurry off now.” Yet a +moment before she seemed to have infinite leisure.</p> + +<p>“Shall you be at Brighton long?” he demanded, and scarcely recognised his +own accents.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I can’t tell! I’ve no idea. It depends.”</p> + +<p>“How soon shall you be down our way again?”</p> + +<p>She only shook her head.</p> + +<p>“I say—you know—” he protested.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” she said, quavering. “Thanks very much.” She held +out her hand.</p> + +<p>“But—” He took her hand.</p> + +<p>His suffering was intolerable. It was torture of the most exquisite kind. Her hand +pressed his. Something snapped in him. His left hand hovered shaking over her shoulder, +and then touched her shoulder, and he could feel her left hand on his arm. The embrace was +clumsy in its instinctive and unskilled violence, but its clumsiness was redeemed by all +his sincerity and all hers. His eyes were within six inches of her eyes, full of delicious +shame, anxiety, and surrender. They kissed... He had amorously kissed a woman. All his +past life sank away, and he began a new life on the impetus of that supreme and final +emotion. It was an emotion that in its freshness, agitating and divine, could never be +renewed. He had felt the virgin answer of her lips on his. She had told him everything, +she had yielded up her mystery, in a second of time. Her courage in responding to his +caress ravished and amazed him. She was so unaffected, so simple, so heroic. And the cool, +delicate purity of those lips! And the faint feminine odour of her flesh and even of her +stuffs! Dreams and visions were surpassed. He said to himself, in the flood-tide of +masculinity—</p> + +<p>“My God! She’s mine.”</p> + +<p>And it seemed incredible.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>She was sitting in the office chair; he on the desk. She said in a trembling +voice—</p> + +<p>“I should never have come to the Five Towns again, if you +hadn’t—”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t have stood it. I couldn’t.” She spoke almost +bitterly, with a peculiar smile on her twitching lips.</p> + +<p>To him it seemed that she had resumed her mystery, that he had only really known her +for one instant, that he was bound to a woman entrancing, noble, but impenetrable. And +this, in spite of the fact that he was close to her, touching her, tingling to her in the +confined, crepuscular intimacy of the cubicle. He could trace every movement of her breast +as she breathed, and yet she escaped the inward searching of his gaze. But he was happy. +He was happy enough to repel all anxieties and inquietudes about the future. He was +steeped in the bliss of the miracle. This was but the fourth day, and they were vowed.</p> + +<p>“It was only Monday,” he began.</p> + +<p>“Monday!” she exclaimed. “I have thought of you for over a +year.” She leaned towards him. “Didn’t you know? Of course you did! ... +You couldn’t bear me at first.”</p> + +<p>He denied this, blushing, but she insisted.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know how awful it was for me yesterday when you didn’t +come!” he murmured.</p> + +<p>“Was it?” she said, under her breath. “I had some very important +letters to write.” She clasped his hand.</p> + +<p>There it was again! She spoke just like a man of business, immersed in secret +schemes.</p> + +<p>“It’s awfully funny,” he said. “I scarcely know anything about +you, and yet—”</p> + +<p>“I’m Janet’s friend!” she answered. Perhaps it was the +delicatest reproof of imagined distrust.</p> + +<p>“And I don’t want to,” he went on. “How old are you?”</p> + +<p>“Twenty-four,” she answered sweetly, acknowledging his right to put such +questions.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you know I’ve got no relatives,” she said, as if relenting +from her attitude of reproof. “Fortunately, father left just enough money for me to +live on.”</p> + +<p>“Must you go to Brighton?”</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>“Where can I write to?”</p> + +<p>“It will depend,” she said. “But I shall send you the address +to-morrow. I shall write you before I go to bed whether it’s to-night or to-morrow +morning.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder what people will say!”</p> + +<p>“Please tell no one, yet,” she pleaded. “Really, I should prefer not! +Later on, it won’t seem so sudden; people are so silly.”</p> + +<p>“But shan’t you tell Janet?”</p> + +<p>She hesitated. “No! Let’s keep it to ourselves till I come back.”</p> + +<p>“When shall you come back?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Very soon. I hope in a few days, now. But I must go to this friend at +Brighton. She’s relying on me.”</p> + +<p>It was enough for him, and indeed he liked the idea of a secret. “Yes, +yes,” he agreed eagerly.</p> + +<p>There was the sound of another uproar in Duck Square. It appeared to roll to and fro +thunderously.</p> + +<p>She shivered. The fire was dead out in the stove, and the chill of night crept in from +the street.</p> + +<p>“It’s nearly dark,” she said. “I must go! I have to pack... Oh +dear, dear—those poor men! Somebody will be hurt!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll walk up with you,” he whispered, holding her, in owner +ship.</p> + +<p>“No. It will be better not. Let me out.”</p> + +<p>“Really?”</p> + +<p>“Really!”</p> + +<p>“But who’ll take you to Knype Station?”</p> + +<p>“Janet will go with me.”</p> + +<p>She rose reluctantly. In the darkness they were now only dim forms to each other. He +struck a match, that blinded them and expired as they reached the passage...</p> + +<p>When she had gone, he stood hatless at the open side door. Right at the top of Duck +Bank, he could discern, under the big lamp there, a knot of gesticulating and shouting +strikers, menacing two policemen; and farther off, in the direction of Moorthorne Road, +other strikers were running. The yellow-lit blinds of the Duck Inn across the Square +seemed to screen a house of impenetrable conspiracies and debaucheries. And all that grim, +perilous background only gave to his emotions a further intensity, troubling them to still +stranger ecstasy. He thought: “It has happened to me, too, now—this thing that +is at the bottom of everybody’s mind! I’ve kissed her! I’ve got her! +She’s marvellous, marvellous! I couldn’t have believed it. But is it true? Has +it happened?” It passed his credence... “By Jove! I absolutely forgot about +the ring! That’s a nice how d’ye do!” ... He saw himself married. He +thought of Clara’s grotesque antics with her tedious babe. And he thought of his +father and of vexations. But that night he was a man. She, Hilda, with her independence +and her mystery, had inspired him with a full pride of manhood. And he discovered that one +of the chief attributes of a man is an immense tenderness.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_2_chap_21"></a> +<h3>Volume Two--Chapter Twenty One.</h3> + +<h4>The Marriage.</h4> + +<p>He was more proud and agitated than happy. The romance of the affair, and its secrecy, +made him proud; the splendid qualities of Hilda made him proud. It was her mysteriousness +that agitated him, and her absence rendered him unhappy in his triumph. During the whole +of Friday he was thinking: “To-morrow is Saturday and I shall have her address and a +letter from her.” He decided that there was no hope of a letter by the last post on +Friday, but as the hour of the last post drew nigh he grew excited, and was quite +appreciably disappointed when it brought nothing. The fear, which had always existed in +little, then waxed into enormous dread, that Saturday’s post also would bring +nothing. His manoeuvres in the early twilight of Saturday morning were complicated by the +fact that it had not been arranged whether she should write to the shop or to the house. +However, he prepared for either event by having his breakfast at seven o’clock, on +the plea of special work in the shop. He had finished it at half-past seven, and was +waiting for the postman, whose route he commanded from the dining-room window. The postman +arrived. Edwin with false calm walked into the hall, saying to himself that if the letter +was not in the box it would be at the shop. But the letter was in the box. He recognised +her sprawling hand on the envelope through the wirework. He snatched the letter and +slipped upstairs with it like a fox with a chicken. It had come, then! The letter safely +in his hands he admitted more frankly that he had been very doubtful of its +promptitude.</p> + +<p>“59 Preston Street, Brighton, 1 a.m.</p> + +<p>“Dearest, — This is my address. I love you. Every bit of me is absolutely +yours. Write me.—H.L.”</p> + +<p>That was all. It was enough. Its tone enchanted him. Also it startled him. But it +reminded him of her lips. He had begun a letter to her. He saw now that what he had +written was too cold in the expression of his feelings. Hilda’s note suddenly and +completely altered his views upon the composition of love-letters. “Every bit of me +is absolutely yours.” How fine, how untrammelled, how like Hilda! What other girl +could or would have written such a phrase? More than ever was he convinced that she was +unique. The thrill divine quickened in him again, and he rose eagerly to her level of +passion. The romance, the secrecy, the mystery, the fever! He walked down Trafalgar Road +with the letter in his pocket, and once he pulled it out to read it in the street. His +discretion objected to this act, but Edwin was not his own master. Stifford, hurrying in +exactly at eight, was somewhat perturbed to find his employer’s son already +installed in the cubicle, writing by the light of gas, as the shutters were not removed. +Edwin had finished and stamped his first love-letter just as his father entered the +cubicle. Owing to dyspeptic accidents Darius had not set foot in the cubicle since it had +been sanctified by Hilda. Edwin, leaving it, glanced at the old man’s back and +thought disdainfully: “Ah! You little know, you rhinoceros, that less than two days +ago, she and I, on that very spot—”</p> + +<p>As soon as his father had gone to pay the morning visit to the printing shops, he ran +out to post the letter himself. He could not be contented until it was in the post. Now, +when he saw men of about his own class and age in the street, he would speculate upon +their experiences in the romance of women. And it did genuinely seem to him impossible +that anybody else in a town like Bursley could have passed through an episode so +exquisitely strange and beautiful as that through which he was passing. Yet his reason +told him that he must be wrong there. His reason, however, left him tranquil in the +assurance that no girl in Bursley had ever written to her affianced: “I love you. +Every bit of me is absolutely yours.”</p> + +<p>Hilda’s second letter did not arrive till the following Tuesday, by which time he +had become distracted by fears and doubts. Yes, doubts! No rational being could have been +more loyal than Edwin, but these little doubts would keep shooting up and withering away. +He could not control them. The second letter was nearly as short as the first. It told him +nothing save her love and that she was very worried by her friend’s situation, and +that his letters were a joy. She had had a letter from him each day. In his reply to her +second he gently implied, between two lines, that her letters lacked quantity and +frequency. She answered: “I simply cannot write letters. It isn’t in me. +Can’t you tell that from my handwriting? Not even to you! You must take me as I +am.” She wrote each day for three days. Edwin was one of those who learn quickly, by +the acceptance of facts. And he now learnt that profound lesson that an individual must be +taken or left in entirety, and that you cannot change an object merely because you love +it. Indeed he saw in her phrase, “You must take me as I am,” the accents of +original and fundamental wisdom, springing from the very roots of life. And he submitted. +At intervals he would say resentfully: “But surely she could find five minutes each +day to drop me a line! What’s five minutes?” But he submitted. Submission was +made easier when he co-ordinated with Hilda’s idiosyncrasy the fact that Maggie, his +own unromantic sister, could never begin to write a letter with less than from twelve to +twenty-four hours’ bracing of herself to the task. Maggie would be saying and +saying: “I really must write that letter... Dear me! I haven’t written that +letter yet.”</p> + +<p>His whole life seemed to be lived in the post, and postmen were the angels of the +creative spirit. His unhappiness increased with the deepening of the impression that the +loved creature was treating him with cruelty. Time dragged. At length he had been engaged +a fortnight. On Thursday a letter should have come. It came not. Nor on Friday nor +Saturday. On Sunday it must come. But it did not come on Sunday. He determined to +telegraph to her on the Monday morning. His loyalty, though valorous, needed aid against +all those pricking battalions of ephemeral doubts. On the Sunday evening he suddenly had +the idea of strengthening himself by a process that resembled boat-burning. He would speak +to his father. His father’s mentality was the core of a difficulty that troubled him +exceedingly, and he took it into his head to attack the difficulty at once, on the +spot.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>For years past Darius Clayhanger had not gone to chapel on Sunday evening. In the +morning he still went fairly regularly, but in the evening he would now sit in the +drawing-room, generally alone, to read. On weekdays he never used the drawing-room, where +indeed there was seldom a fire. He had been accustomed to only one living-room, and save +on Sunday, when he cared to bend the major part of his mind to the matter, he scorned to +complicate existence by utilising all the resources of the house which he had built. His +children might do so; but not he. He was proud enough to see to it that his house had a +drawing-room, and too proud to employ the drawing-room except on the ceremonious day. +After tea, at about a quarter to six, when chapel-goers were hurriedly pulling gloves on, +he would begin to establish himself in a saddle-backed, ear-flapped easy-chair with +“The Christian News” and an ivory paper-knife as long and nearly as deadly as +a scimitar. “The Christian News” was a religious weekly of a new type. It +belonged to a Mr James Bott, and it gave to God and to the mysteries of religious +experience a bright and breezy actuality. Darius’s children had damned it for ever +on its first issue, in which Clara had found, in a report of a very important charitable +meeting, the following words: “Among those present were the Prince of Wales and Mr +James Bott.” Such is the hasty and unjudicial nature of children that this single +sentence finished the career of “The Christian News” with the younger +generation. But Darius liked it, and continued to like it. He enjoyed it. He would spend +an hour and a half in reading it. And further, he enjoyed cutting open the morsel. Once +when Edwin, in hope of more laughter, had cut the pages on a Saturday afternoon, and his +father had found himself unable to use the paper-knife on Sunday evening, there had been a +formidable inquiry: “Who’s been meddling with my paper?” Darius saved +the paper even from himself until Sunday evening; not till then would he touch it. This +habit had flourished for several years. It appeared never to lose its charm. And Edwin did +not cease to marvel at his father’s pleasure in a tedious monotony.</p> + +<p>It was the hallowed rite of reading “The Christian News” that Edwin +disturbed in his sudden and capricious resolve. Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to chapel, +for Mrs Nixon, by reason of her years, bearing, mantle, and reputation, could walk down +Trafalgar Road by the side of her mistress on a Sunday night without offence to the +delicate instincts of the town. The niece, engaged to be married at an age absurdly +youthful, had been permitted by Mrs Nixon the joy of attending evensong at the Bleakridge +Church on the arm of a male, but under promise to be back at a quarter to eight to set +supper. The house was perfectly still when Edwin came all on fire out of his bedroom and +slid down the stairs. The gas burnt economically low within its stained-glass cage in the +hall. The drawing-room door was unlatched. He hesitated a moment on the mat, and he could +hear the calm ticking of the clock in the kitchen and see the red glint of the kitchen +fire against the wall. Then he entered, looking and feeling apologetic.</p> + +<p>His father was all curtained in; his slippered feet on the fender of the blazing +hearth, his head cushioned to a nicety, the long paper-knife across his knees. And the +room was really hot and in a glow of light. Darius turned and, lowering his face, gazed at +Edwin over the top of his new gold-rimmed spectacles.</p> + +<p>“Not gone to chapel?” he frowned.</p> + +<p>“No! ... I say, father, I just wanted to speak to you.”</p> + +<p>Darius made no reply, but shifted his glance from Edwin to the fire, and maintained his +frown. He was displeased at the interruption. Edwin failed to shut the door at the first +attempt, and then banged it in his nervousness. In spite of himself he felt like a +criminal. Coming forward, he leaned his loose, slim frame against a corner of the old +piano.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“Well?” Darius growled impatiently, even savagely. They saw each other, not +once a week, but at nearly every hour of every day, and they were surfeited of the +companionship.</p> + +<p>“Supposing I wanted to get married?” This sentence shot out of +Edwin’s mouth like a bolt. And as it flew, he blushed very red. In the privacy of +his mind he was horribly swearing.</p> + +<p>“So that’s it, is it?” Darius growled again. And he leaned forward +and picked up the poker, not as a menace, but because he too was nervous. As an opposer of +his son he had never had quite the same confidence in himself since Edwin’s historic +fury at being suspected of theft, though apparently their relations had resumed the old +basis of bullying and submission.</p> + +<p>“Well—” Edwin hesitated. He thought, “After all, people do get +married. It won’t be a crime.”</p> + +<p>“Who’st been running after?” Darius demanded inimically. Instead of +being softened by this rumour of love, by this hint that his son had been passing through +wondrous secret hours, he instinctively and without any reason hardened himself and +transformed the news into an offence. He felt no sympathy, and it did not occur to him to +recall that he too had once thought of marrying. He was a man whom life had brutalised +about half a century earlier.</p> + +<p>“I was only thinking,” said Edwin clumsily—the fool had not sense +enough even to sit down—“I was only thinking, suppose <i>I did</i> want to get +married.”</p> + +<p>“Who’st been running after?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t rightly say there’s anything—what you may call +settled. In fact, nothing was to be said about it at all at present. But it’s Miss +Lessways, father—Hilda Lessways, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Her as came in the shop the other day?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“How long’s this been going on?”</p> + +<p>Edwin thought of what Hilda had said. “Oh! Over a year.” He could not +possibly have said “four days.” “Mind you this is strictly q.t.! Nobody +knows a word about it, nobody! But of course I thought I’d better tell you. +You’ll say nothing.” He tried wistfully to appeal as one loyal man to another. +But he failed. There was no ray of response on his father’s gloomy features, and he +slipped back insensibly into the boy whose right to an individual existence had never been +formally admitted.</p> + +<p>Something base in him—something of that baseness which occasionally actuates the +oppressed—made him add: “She’s got an income of her own. Her father left +money.” He conceived that this would placate Darius.</p> + +<p>“I know all about her father,” Darius sneered, with a short laugh. +“And her father’s father! ... Well, lad, ye’ll go your own road.” +He appeared to have no further interest in the affair. Edwin was not surprised, for Darius +was seemingly never interested in anything except his business; but he thought how +strange, how nigh to the incredible, the old man’s demeanour was.</p> + +<p>“But about money, I was thinking,” he said, uneasily shifting his pose.</p> + +<p>“What about money?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, endeavouring, and failing, to find courage to put a +little sharpness into his tone, “I couldn’t marry on seventeen-and-six a week, +could I?”</p> + +<p>At the age of twenty-five, at the end of nine years’ experience in the management +and the accountancy of a general printing and stationery business, Edwin was receiving +seventeen shillings and sixpence for a sixty-five-hour week’s work, the explanation +being that on his father’s death the whole enterprise would be his, and that all +money saved was saved for him. Out of this sum he had to pay ten shillings a week to +Maggie towards the cost of board and lodging, so that three half-crowns remained for his +person and his soul. Thus he could expect no independence of any kind until his +father’s death, and he had a direct and powerful interest in his father’s +death. Moreover, all his future, and all unpaid reward of his labours in the past, hung +hazardous on his father’s goodwill. If he quarrelled with him, he might lose +everything. Edwin was one of a few odd-minded persons who did not regard this arrangement +as perfectly just, proper, and in accordance with sound precedent. But he was helpless. +His father would tell him, and did tell him, that he had fought no struggles, suffered no +hardship, had no responsibility, and that he was simply coddled from head to foot in +cotton-wool.</p> + +<p>“I say you must go your own road,” said his father.</p> + +<p>“But at this rate I should never be able to marry!”</p> + +<p>“Do you reckon,” asked Darius, with mild cold scorn, “as you getting +married will make your services worth one penny more to my business?” And he waited +an answer with the august calm of one who is aware that he is unanswerable. But he might +with equal propriety have tied his son’s hands behind him and then diverted himself +by punching his head.</p> + +<p>“I do all I can,” said Edwin meekly.</p> + +<p>“And what about getting orders?” Darius questioned grimly. +“Didn’t I offer you two and a half per cent on all new customers you got +yourself? And how many have you got? Not one. I give you a chance to make extra money and +you don’t take it. Ye’d sooner go running about after girls.”</p> + +<p>This was a particular grievance of the father against the son: that the son brought no +grist to the mill in the shape of new orders.</p> + +<p>“But how can I get orders?” Edwin protested.</p> + +<p>“How did I get ’em? How do I get ’em? Somebody has to get +’em.” The old man’s lips were pressed together, and he waved “The +Christian News” slightly in his left hand.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In a few minutes both their voices had risen. Darius, savage, stooped to replace with +the shovel a large burning coal that had dropped on the tiles and was sending up a column +of brown smoke.</p> + +<p>“I tell you what I shall do,” he said, controlling himself bitterly. +“It’s against my judgement, but I shall put you up to a pound a week at the +New Year, if all goes well, of course. And it’s good money, let me add.”</p> + +<p>He was entirely serious, and almost sincere. He loathed paying money over to his son. +He was convinced that in an ideal world sons would toil gratis for their fathers who +lodged and fed them and gifted them with the reversion of excellent businesses.</p> + +<p>“But what good’s a pound a week?” Edwin demanded, with the +querulousness of one who is losing hope.</p> + +<p>“What good’s a pound a week!” Darius repeated, hurt and genuinely +hurt. “Let me tell you that in my time young men married on a pound a week, and glad +to! A pound a week!” He finished with a sardonic exclamation.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t marry Miss Lessways on a pound a week,” Edwin murmured, +in despair, his lower lip hanging. “I thought you might perhaps be offering me a +partnership by this time!” Possibly in some mad hour a thought so wild had indeed +flitted through his brain.</p> + +<p>“Did you?” rejoined Darius. And in the fearful grimness of the man’s +accents was concealed all his intense and egoistic sense of possessing in absolute +ownership the business which the little boy out of the Bastille had practically created. +Edwin did not and could not understand the fierce strength of his father’s emotion +concerning the business. Already in tacitly agreeing to leave Edwin the business after his +own death, Darius imagined himself to be superbly benevolent.</p> + +<p>“And then there would be house-furnishing, and so on,” Edwin continued.</p> + +<p>“What about that fifty pounds?” Darius curtly inquired.</p> + +<p>Edwin was startled. Never since the historic scene had Darius made the slightest +reference to the proceeds of the Building Society share.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t spent all of it,” Edwin muttered.</p> + +<p>Do what he would with his brain, the project of marriage and house-tenancy and a +separate existence obstinately presented itself to him as fantastic and preposterous. Who +was he to ask so much from destiny? He could not feel that he was a man. In his +father’s presence he never could feel that he was a man. He remained a boy, with no +rights, moral or material.</p> + +<p>“And if as ye say she’s got money of her own—” Darius remarked, +and was considerably astonished when the boy walked straight out of the room and closed +the door.</p> + +<p>It was his last grain of common sense that took Edwin in silence out of the room.</p> + +<p>Miserable, despicable baseness! Did the old devil suppose that he would be capable of +asking his wife to find the resources which he himself could not bring? He was to say to +his wife: “I can only supply a pound a week, but as you’ve got money it +won’t matter.” The mere notion outraged him so awfully that if he had stayed +in the room there would have been an altercation and perhaps a permanent estrangement.</p> + +<p>As he stood furious and impotent in the hall, he thought, with his imagination +quickened by the memory of Mr Shushions: “When you’re old, and I’ve +<i>got</i> you”—he clenched his fists and his teeth—“when +I’ve <i>got</i> you and you can’t help yourself, by God it’ll be my +turn!”</p> + +<p>And he meant it.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>He seized his overcoat and hat, and putting them on anyhow, strode out. The kitchen +clock struck half-past seven as he left. Chapel-goers would soon be returning in a thin +procession of twos and threes up Trafalgar Road. To avoid meeting acquaintances he turned +down the side street, towards the old road which was a continuation of Aboukir Street. +There he would be safe. Letting his overcoat fly open, he thrust his hands into the +pockets of his trousers. It was a cold night of mist. Humanity was separated from him by +the semi-transparent blinds of the cottage windows, bright squares in the dark and +enigmatic façades of the street. He was alone.</p> + +<p>All along he had felt and known that this disgusting crisis would come to pass. He had +hoped against it, but not with faith. And he had no remedy for it. What could he +immediately and effectively do? He was convinced that his father would not yield. There +were frequent occasions when his father was proof against reason, when his father seemed +genuinely unable to admit the claim of justice, and this occasion was one of them. He +could tell by certain peculiarities of tone and gesture. A pound a week! Assuming that he +cut loose from his father, in a formal and confessed separation, he might not for a long +time be in a position to earn more than a pound a week. A clerk was worth no more. And, +except as responsible manager of a business, he could only go into the market as a clerk. +In the Five Towns how many printing offices were there that might at some time or another +be in need of a manager? Probably not one. They were all of modest importance, and +directed personally by their proprietary heads. His father’s was one of the +largest... No! His father had nurtured and trained, in him, a helpless slave.</p> + +<p>And how could he discuss such a humiliating question with Hilda? Could he say to Hilda: +“See here, my father won’t allow me more than a pound a week. What are we to +do?” In what terms should he telegraph to her to-morrow?</p> + +<p>He heard the rapid firm footsteps of a wayfarer overtaking him. He had no apprehension +of being disturbed in his bitter rage. But a hand was slapped on his shoulder, and a jolly +voice said—</p> + +<p>“Now, Edwin, where’s this road leading you to on a Sunday night?”</p> + +<p>It was Osmond Orgreave who, having been tramping for exercise in the high regions +beyond the Loop railway line, was just going home.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Nowhere particular,” said Edwin feebly.</p> + +<p>“Working off Sunday dinner, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” And Edwin added casually, to prove that there was nothing singular +in his mood: “Nasty night!”</p> + +<p>“You must come in a bit,” said Mr Orgreave.</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” He shrank away.</p> + +<p>“Now, now!” said Mr Orgreave masterfully. “You’ve got to come +in, so you may as well give up first as last. Janet’s in. She’s like you and +me, she’s a bad lot,—hasn’t been to church.” He took Edwin by the +arm, and they turned into Oak Street at the lower end.</p> + +<p>Edwin continued to object, but Mr Orgreave, unable to scrutinise his face in the +darkness, and not dreaming of an indiscretion, rode over his weak negatives, horse and +foot, and drew him by force into the garden; and in the hall took his hat away from him +and slid his overcoat from his shoulders. Mr Orgreave, having accomplished a lot of +forbidden labour on that Sabbath, was playful in his hospitality.</p> + +<p>“Prisoner! Take charge of him!” exclaimed Mr Orgreave shortly, as he pushed +Edwin into the breakfast-room and shut the door from the outside. Janet was there, +exquisitely welcoming, unconsciously pouring balm from her eyes. But he thought she looked +graver than usual. Edwin had to enact the part of a man to whom nothing has happened. He +had to behave as though his father was the kindest and most reasonable of fathers, as +though Hilda wrote fully to him every day, as though he were not even engaged to Hilda. He +must talk, and he scarcely knew what he was saying.</p> + +<p>“Heard lately from Miss Lessways?” he asked lightly, or as lightly as he +could. It was a splendid effort. Impossible to expect him to start upon the weather or the +strike! He did the best he could.</p> + +<p>Janet’s eyes became troubled. Speaking in a low voice she said, with a glance at +the door—</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ve not heard. She’s married.”</p> + +<p>He did not move.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>“Married?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. It is rather sudden, isn’t it?” Janet tried to smile, but she +was exceedingly self-conscious. “To a Mr Cannon. She’s known him for a very +long time, I think.”</p> + +<p>“When?”</p> + +<p>“Yesterday. I had a note this morning. It’s quite a secret yet. I +haven’t told father and mother. But she asked me to tell you if I saw +you.”</p> + +<p>He thought her eyes were compassionate.</p> + +<p>Mrs Orgreave came smiling into the room.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr Edwin, it seems we can only get you in here by main force.”</p> + +<p>“Are you quite better, Mrs Orgreave?” he rose to greet her.</p> + +<p>He had by some means or other to get out.</p> + +<p>“I must just run in home a second,” he said, after a moment. +“I’ll be back in three minutes.”</p> + +<p>But he had no intention of coming back. He would have told any lie in order to be +free.</p> + +<p>In his bedroom, looking at himself in the glass, he could detect on his face no sign +whatever of suffering or of agitation. It seemed just an ordinary mild, unmoved face.</p> + +<p>And this, too, he had always felt and known would come to pass: that Hilda would not be +his. All that romance was unreal; it was not true; it had never happened. Such a thing +could not happen to such as he was... He could not reflect. When he tried to reflect, the +top of his head seemed as though it would fly off... Cannon! She was with Cannon somewhere +at that very instant... She had specially asked that he should be told. And indeed he had +been told before even Mr and Mrs Orgreave... Cannon! She might at that very instant be in +Cannon’s arms.</p> + +<p>It could be said of Edwin that he fully lived that night. Fate had at any rate roused +him from the coma which most men called existence.</p> + +<p>Simple Maggie was upset because, from Edwin’s absence and her father’s +demeanour at supper, she knew that her menfolk had had another terrible discussion. And +since her father offered no remark as to it, she guessed that this one must be even more +serious that the last.</p> + +<p>There was one thing that Edwin could not fit into any of his theories of the disaster +which had overtaken him, and that was his memory of Hilda’s divine gesture as she +bent over Mr Shushions on the morning of the Centenary.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_01"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter One.</h3> + +<h4>Book Three — His Freedom.</h4> + +<h4>After a Funeral.</h4> + +<p>Four and a half years later, on a Tuesday night in April 1886, Edwin was reading in an +easy-chair in his bedroom. He made a very image of solitary comfort. The easy-chair had +been taken from the dining-room, silently, without permission, and Darius had apparently +not noticed its removal. A deep chair designed by some one learned in the poses natural to +the mortal body, it was firm where it ought to be firm, and where it ought to yield, there +it yielded. By its own angles it threw the head slightly back, and the knees slightly up. +Edwin’s slippered feet rested on a hassock, and in front of the hassock was a +red-glowing gas-stove. That stove, like the easy-chair, had been acquired by Edwin at his +father’s expense without his father’s cognisance. It consumed gas whose price +swelled the quarterly bill three times a year, and Darius observed nothing. He had not +even entered his son’s bedroom for several years. Each month seemed to limit further +his interest in surrounding phenomena, and to centralise more completely all his faculties +in his business. Over Edwin’s head the gas jet flamed through one of Darius’s +special private burners, lighting the page of a little book, one of Cassell’s +“National Library,” a new series of sixpenny reprints which had considerably +excited the book-selling and the book-reading worlds, but which Darius had apparently +quite ignored, though confronted in his house and in his shop by multitudinous examples of +it. Sometimes Edwin would almost be persuaded to think that he might safely indulge any +caprice whatever under his father’s nose, and then the old man would notice some +unusual trifle, of no conceivable importance, and go into a passion about it, and Maggie +would say quietly, “I told you what would be happening one of these days,” +which would annoy Edwin. His annoyance was caused less by Maggie’s ‘I told you +so,’ than by her lack of logic. If his father had ever overtaken him in some large +and desperate caprice, such as the purchase of the gas-stove on the paternal account, he +would have submitted in meekness to Maggie’s triumphant reminder; but his father +never did. It was always upon some perfectly innocent nothing, which the timidest son +might have permitted himself, that the wrath of Darius overwhelmingly burst.</p> + +<p>Maggie and Edwin understood each other on the whole very well. Only in minor points did +their sympathy fail. And as Edwin would be exasperated because Maggie’s attitude +towards argument was that of a woman, so would Maggie resent a certain mulishness in him +characteristic of the unfathomable stupid sex. Once a week, for example, when his room was +‘done out,’ there was invariably a skirmish between them, because Edwin really +did hate anybody to ‘meddle among his things.’ The derangement of even a brush +on the dressing-table would rankle in his mind. Also he was very ‘crotchety about +his meals,’ and on the subject of fresh air. Unless he was sitting in a perceptible +draught, he thought he was being poisoned by nitrogen: but when he could see the curtain +or blind trembling in the wind he was hygienically at ease. His existence was a series of +catarrhal colds, which, however, as he would learnedly explain to Maggie, could not be +connected, in the brain of a reasonable person, with currents of fresh air. Maggie mutely +disdained his science. This, too, fretted him. Occasionally she would somewhat tartly +assert that he was a regular old maid. The accusation made no impression on him at all. +But when, more than ordinarily exacerbated, she sang out that he was ‘exactly like +his father,’ he felt wounded.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The appearance of his bedroom, and the fact that he enjoyed being in it alone, gave +some ground for Maggie’s first accusation. A screen hid the bed, and this screen was +half covered with written papers of memoranda; roughly, it divided the room into dormitory +and study. The whole chamber was occupied by Edwin’s personal goods, great and +small, ranged in the most careful order; it was full; in the occupation of a young man who +was not precociously an old maid, it would have been littered. It was a complex and yet +practical apparatus for daily use, completely organised for the production of comfort. +Edwin would move about in it with the loving and assured gestures of a creator; and always +he was improving its perfection. His bedroom was his passion.</p> + +<p>Often, during the wilderness of the day, he would think of his bedroom as of a refuge, +to which in the evening he should hasten. Ascending the stairs after the meal, his heart +would run on in advance of his legs, and be within the room before his hand had opened the +door. And then he would close the door, as upon the whole tedious world, and turn up the +gas, and light the stove with an explosive <i>plop</i>, and settle himself. And in the +first few minutes of reading he would with distinct, conscious pleasure, allow his +attention to circle the room, dwelling upon piled and serried volumes, and delighting in +orderliness and in convenience. And he would reflect: “This is my life. This is what +I shall always live for. This is the best. And why not?” It seemed to him when he +was alone in his bedroom and in the night, that he had respectably well solved the problem +offered to him by destiny. He insisted to himself sharply that he was not made for +marriage, that he had always known marriage to be impossible for him, that what had +happened was bound to have happened. For a few weeks he had lived in a fool’s +paradise: that was all... Fantastic scheme, mad self-deception! In such wise he thought of +his love-affair. His profound satisfaction was that none except his father knew of it, and +even his father did not know how far it had gone. He felt that if the town had been aware +of his jilting, he could not have borne the humiliation. To himself he had been horribly +humiliated; but he had recovered in his own esteem.</p> + +<p>It was only by very slow processes, by insensible degrees, that he had arrived at the +stage of being able to say to his mirror, “I’ve got over that!” And who +could judge better than he? He could trace no mark of the episode in his face. Save for +the detail of a moustache, it seemed to him that he had looked on precisely the same +unchangeable face for a dozen years. Strange, that suffering had left no sign! Strange, +that, in the months just after Hilda’s marriage, no acquaintance had taken him on +one side and said, “What is the tragedy I can read on your features?”</p> + +<p>And indeed the truth was that no one suspected. The vision of his face would remain +with people long after he had passed them in the street, or spoken to them in the shop. +The charm of his sadness persisted in their memory. But they would easily explain it to +themselves by saying that his face had a naturally melancholy cast—a sort of +accident that had happened to him in the beginning! He had a considerable reputation, of +which he was imperfectly aware, for secretiveness, timidity, gentleness, and intellectual +superiority. Sundry young women thought of him wistfully when smiling upon quite other +young men, and would even kiss him while kissing them, according to the notorious +perversity of love.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He was reading Swift’s “Tale of a Tub” eagerly, tasting with a palate +consciously fastidious and yet catholic, the fine savour of a masterpiece. By his secret +enthusiasm, which would escape from him at rare intervals in a word to a friend, he was +continuing the reputation of the “Tale of a Tub” from one century towards the +next. A classic remains a classic only because a few hundred Edwins up and down England +enjoy it so heartily that their pleasure becomes religious. Edwin, according to his +programme, had no right to be amusing himself with Swift at that hour. The portly Hallam, +whom he found tedious, ought to have been in his hands. But Swift had caught him and would +not let him go. Herein was one of the consequences of the pocketableness of +Cassell’s new series. Edwin had been obliged to agree with Tom Orgreave (now a +married man) that the books were not volumes for a collector; but they were so cheap, and +they came from the press so often—once a week, and they could be carried so +comfortably over the heart, that he could not resist most of them. His professed idea was +that by their aid he could read smaller works in odd moments, at any time, thus surpassing +his programme. He had not foreseen that Swift would make a breach in his programme, which +was already in a bad way.</p> + +<p>But he went on reading tranquilly, despite the damage to it; for in the immediate +future shone the hope of the new life, when programmes would never be neglected. In less +than a month he would be thirty years of age. At twenty, it had seemed a great age, an age +of absolute maturity. Now, he felt as young and as boyish as ever, especially before his +father, and he perceived that his vague early notion about the finality of such an age as +thirty had been infantile. Nevertheless, the entry into another decade presented itself to +him as solemn, and he meant to signalise it by new and mightier resolutions to execute +vaster programmes. He was intermittently engaged, during these weeks, in the delicious, +the enchanting business of constructing the ideal programme and scheming the spare hours +to ensure its achievement. He lived in a dream and illusion of ultimate perfection.</p> + +<p>Several times, despite the spell of Swift, he glanced at his watch. The hand went from +nine to ten minutes past ten. And then he thought he heard the sound for which he had been +listening. He jumped up, abandoned the book with its marker, opened the window wide, and +lifting the blind by its rod, put his head out. Yes, he could hear the yelling afar off, +over the hill, softened by distance into something gentle and attractive.</p> + +<p>“‘Signal!’ ‘Signal!’ Special edition! +‘Signal!’” And then words incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>It came nearer in the night.</p> + +<p>He drew down the window, and left the room. The mere distant sound of the +newsboys’ voices had roused him to a pleasing excitement. He fumbled in his pockets. +He had neither a halfpenny nor a penny—it was just like him—and those newsboys +with their valuable tidings would not care to halt and weigh out change with a +balance.</p> + +<p>“Got a halfpenny? Quick!” he cried, running into the kitchen, where Maggie +and Mrs Nixon were engaged in some calm and endless domestic occupation amid linen that +hung down whitely.</p> + +<p>“What for?” Maggie mechanically asked, feeling the while under her +apron.</p> + +<p>“Paper,” he said.</p> + +<p>“At this time of night? You’ll never get one at this time of night!” +she said, in her simplicity.</p> + +<p>“Come <i>on!</i>”</p> + +<p>He stamped his foot with impatience. It was absolutely astonishing, the ignorance in +which Maggie lived, and lived efficiently and in content. Edwin filled the house with +newspapers, and she never looked at them, never had the idea of looking at them, unless +occasionally at the ‘Signal’ for an account of a wedding or a bazaar. In which +case she would glance at the world for an instant with mild <i>naïveté</i>, +shocked by the horrible things that were apparently going on there, and in five minutes +would forget all about it again. Here the whole of England, Ireland, and Scotland was at +its front doors that night waiting for newsboys, and to her the night was like any other +night! Yet she read many books.</p> + +<p>“Here’s a penny,” she said. “Don’t forget to give it me +back.”</p> + +<p>He ran out bareheaded. At the corner of the street somebody else was expectant. He +could distinguish all the words now—</p> + +<p>“‘Signal!’ Special edition! Mester Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill. +Full report. Gladstone’s speech. Special!”</p> + +<p>The dark running figures approached, stopping at frequent gates, and their hoarse +voices split the night. The next moment they had gone by, in a flying column, and Edwin +and the other man found themselves with fluttering paper in their hands, they knew not +how! It was the most unceremonious snatch-and-thrust transaction that could be imagined. +Bleakridge was silent again, and its gates closed, and the shouts were descending +violently into Bursley.</p> + +<p>“Where’s father?” Maggie called out when she heard Edwin in the +hall.</p> + +<p>“Hasn’t he come in yet?” Edwin replied negligently, as he mounted the +stairs with his desire.</p> + +<p>In his room he settled himself once more under the gas, and opened the flimsy newspaper +with joy. Yes, there it was—columns, columns, in small type! An hour or two +previously Gladstone had been speaking in Parliament, and by magic the whole of his +speech, with all the little convolutions of his intricate sentences, had got into +Edwin’s bedroom. Edwin began to read, as it were voluptuously. Not that he had a +peculiar interest in Irish politics! What he had was a passion for great news, for news +long expected. He could thrill responsively to a fine event. I say that his pleasure had +the voluptuousness of an artistic sensation.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the attraction of politics in general was increasing for him. Politics +occupied his mind, often obsessing it. And this was so in spite of the fact that he had +done almost nothing in the last election, and that the pillars of the Liberal Club were +beginning to suspect him of being a weakling who might follow his father into the +wilderness between two frontiers.</p> + +<p>As he read the speech, slowly disengaging its significance from the thicket of words, +it seemed incredible. A parliament in Dublin! The Irish taxing themselves according to +their own caprices! The Irish controlling the Royal Irish Constabulary! The Irish members +withdrawn from Westminster! A separate nation! Surely Gladstone could not mean it! The +project had the same air of unreality as that of his marriage with Hilda. It did not +convince. It was too good to be true. It could not materialise itself. And yet, as his +glance, flitting from left to right and right to left, eagerly, reached the bottom of one +column and jumped with a crinkling of paper to the top of the next, and then to the next +after that, the sense of unreality did depart. He agreed with the principles of the Bill, +and with all its details. Whatever Gladstone had proposed would have received his +sympathy. He was persuaded in advance; he concurred in advance. All he lacked was faith. +And those sentences, helped by his image of the aged legislator dominating the House, and +by the wondrous legend of the orator’s divine power—those long stretching, +majestic, misty sentences gave him faith. Henceforward he was an ardent Home Ruler. Reason +might or might not have entered into the affair had the circumstances of it been other; +but in fact reason did not. Faith alone sufficed. For ever afterwards argument about Home +Rule was merely tedious to him, and he had difficulty in crediting that opponents of it +were neither stupid nor insincere. Home Rule was part of his religion, beyond and above +argument.</p> + +<p>He wondered what they were saying at the Liberal Club, and smiled disdainfully at the +thought of the unseemly language that would animate the luxurious heaviness of the +Conservative Club, where prominent publicans gathered after eleven o’clock to uphold +the State and arrange a few bets with sporting clients. He admitted, as the supreme +importance of the night leaped out at him from the printed page, that, if only for +form’s sake, he ought to have been at the Liberal Club that evening. He had been +requested to go, but had refused, because on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he always +spent the evening in study or in the semblance of study. He would not break that rule even +in honour of the culmination of the dazzling career of his political idol. Perhaps another +proof of the justice of Maggie’s assertion that he was a regular old maid!</p> + +<p>He knew what his father would say. His father would be furious. His father in his +uncontrolled fury would destroy Gladstone. And such was his father’s empire over him +that he was almost ready on Gladstone’s behalf to adopt an apologetic and slightly +shamed attitude to his father concerning this madness of Home Rule—to admit by his +self-conscious blushes that it was madness. He well knew that at breakfast the next +morning, in spite of any effort to the contrary, he would have a guilty air when his +father began to storm. The conception of a separate parliament in Dublin, and of separate +taxation, could not stand before his father’s anger...</p> + +<p>Beneath his window, in the garden, he suddenly heard a faint sound as of somebody in +distress.</p> + +<p>“What the deuce—!” he exclaimed. “If that isn’t the old +man I’m—” Startled, he looked at his watch. It was after midnight.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>As he opened the garden door, he saw, in the porch where had passed his first secret +interview with Hilda, the figure of his father as it were awkwardly rising from the step. +The gas had not been turned out in the hall, and it gave a feeble but sufficient +illumination to the porch and the nearest parts of the garden. Darius stood silent and +apparently irresolute, with a mournful and even despairing face. He wore his best black +suit, and a new silk hat and new black gloves, and in one hand he carried a copy of +“The Signal” that was very crumpled. He ignored Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Hello, father!” said Edwin persuasively. “Anything wrong?”</p> + +<p>The heavy figure moved itself into the house without a word, and Edwin shut and bolted +the door.</p> + +<p>“Funeral go off all right?” Edwin inquired with as much nonchalance as he +could. (The thought crossed his mind: “I suppose he hasn’t been having a drop +too much, for once in a way? Why did he come round into the garden?”)</p> + +<p>Darius loosed a really terrible sigh. “Yes,” he answered, expressing with a +single word the most profound melancholy.</p> + +<p>Four days previously Edwin and Maggie had seen their father considerably agitated by an +item of gossip, casually received, to which it seemed to them he attached an excessive +importance. Namely, that old Shushions, having been found straying and destitute by the +authorities appointed to deal with such matters, had been taken to the workhouse and was +dying there. Darius had heard the news as though it had been a message brought on +horseback in a melodrama. “The Bastille!” he exclaimed, in a whisper, and had +left the house on the instant. Edwin, while the name of Shushions reminded him of moments +when he had most intensely lived, was disposed to regard the case of Mr Shushions +philosophically. Of course it was a pity that Mr Shushions should be in the workhouse; but +after all, from what Edwin remembered and could surmise, the workhouse would be very much +the same as any other house to that senile mentality. Thus Edwin had sagely argued, and +Maggie had agreed with him. But to them the workhouse was absolutely nothing but a name. +They were no more afraid of the workhouse than of the Russian secret police; and of their +father’s early history they knew naught.</p> + +<p>Mr Shushions had died in the workhouse, and Darius had taken his body out of the +workhouse, and had organised for it a funeral which was to be rendered impressive by a +procession of Turnhill Sunday school teachers. Edwin’s activity in connexion with +the funeral had been limited to the funeral cards, in the preparation of which his father +had shown an irritability more than usually offensive. And now the funeral was over. +Darius had devoted to it the whole of Home Rule Tuesday, and had returned to his house at +a singular hour and in a singular condition.</p> + +<p>And Edwin, loathing sentimentality and full of the wisdom of nearly thirty years, +sedately pitied his father for looking ridiculous and grotesque. He knew for a fact that +his father did not see Mr Shushions from one year’s end to the next: hence they +could not have been intimate friends, or even friends: hence his father’s emotion +was throughout exaggerated and sentimental. His acquaintance with history and with +biography told him that tyrants often carried sentimentality to the absurd, and he was +rather pleased with himself for being able thus to correlate the general past and the +particular present. What he did not suspect was the existence of circumstances which made +the death of Mr Shushions in the workhouse the most distressing tragedy that could by any +possibility have happened to Darius Clayhanger.</p> + +<p>“Shall I put the gas out, or will you?” he asked, with kindly secret +superiority, unaware, with all his omniscience, that the being in front of him was not a +successful steam-printer and tyrannical father, but a tiny ragged boy who could still +taste the Bastille skilly and still see his mother weeping round the knees of a powerful +god named Shushions.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know,” said Darius, with another sigh.</p> + +<p>The next instant he sat down heavily on the stairs and began openly to blubber. His hat +fell off and rolled about undecidedly.</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” said Edwin to himself, “I shall have to treat this man +like a blooming child!” He was rather startled, and interested. He picked up the +hat.</p> + +<p>“Better not sit there,” he advised. “Come into the dining-room a +bit.”</p> + +<p>“What?” Darius asked feebly.</p> + +<p>“Is he deaf?” Edwin thought, and half shouted: “Better not sit there. +It’s chilly. Come into the dining-room a bit. Come on.”</p> + +<p>Darius held out a hand, with a gesture inexpressibly sad; and Edwin, almost before he +realised what he was doing, took it and assisted his father to his feet and helped him to +the twilit dining-room, where Darius fell into a chair. Some bread and cheese had been +laid for him on a napkin, and there was a gleam of red in the grate. Edwin turned up the +gas, and Darius blinked. His coarse cheeks were all wet.</p> + +<p>“Better have your overcoat off, hadn’t you?”</p> + +<p>Darius shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Well, will you eat something?”</p> + +<p>Darius shook his head again; then hid his face and violently sobbed.</p> + +<p>Edwin was not equal to this situation. It alarmed him, and yet he did not see why it +should alarm him. He left the room very quietly, went upstairs, and knocked at +Maggie’s door. He had to knock several times.</p> + +<p>“Who’s there?”</p> + +<p>“I say, Mag!”</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Open the door,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You can come in.”</p> + +<p>He opened the door, and within the darkness of the room he could vaguely distinguish a +white bed.</p> + +<p>“Father’s come. He’s in a funny state.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s crying all over the place, and he won’t eat, or do +anything!”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Maggie—and a figure sat up in the bed. +“Perhaps I’d better come down.”</p> + +<p>She descended immediately in an ulster and loose slippers. Edwin waited for her in the +hall.</p> + +<p>“Now, father,” she said brusquely, entering the dining-room, +“what’s amiss?”</p> + +<p>Darius gazed at her stupidly. “Nothing,” he muttered.</p> + +<p>“You’re very late, I think. When did you have your last meal?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“Shall I make you some nice hot tea?”</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she said comfortingly.</p> + +<p>Soon with her hair hanging about her face and hiding it, she was bending over the gleam +of fire, and insinuating a small saucepan into the middle of it, and encouraging the gleam +with a pair of bellows. Meanwhile Edwin uneasily ranged the room, and Darius sat +motionless.</p> + +<p>“Seen Gladstone’s speech, I suppose?” Edwin said, daring a fearful +topic in the extraordinary circumstances.</p> + +<p>Darius paid no heed. Edwin and Maggie exchanged a glance. Maggie made the tea direct +into a large cup, which she had previously warmed by putting it upside down on the +saucepan lid. When it was infused and sweetened, she tasted it, as for a baby, and blew on +it, and gave the cup to her father, who, by degrees, emptied it, though not exclusively +into his mouth.</p> + +<p>“Will you eat something now?” she suggested.</p> + +<p>He would not.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then, Edwin will help you upstairs.”</p> + +<p>From her manner Darius might have been a helpless and half-daft invalid for years.</p> + +<p>The ascent to bed was processional; Maggie hovered behind. But at the dining-room door +Darius, giving no explanation, insisted on turning back: apparently he tried to speak but +could not. He had forgotten his “Signal.” Snatching at it, he held it like a +treasure. All three of them went into the father’s bedroom. Maggie turned up the +gas. Darius sat on the bed, looking dully at the carpet.</p> + +<p>“Better see him into bed,” Maggie murmured quickly to Edwin, and Edwin +nodded—the nod of capability—as who should say, “Leave all that to +me!” But in fact he was exceedingly diffident about seeing his father into bed.</p> + +<p>Maggie departed.</p> + +<p>“Now then,” Edwin began the business. “Let’s get that overcoat +off, eh?” To his surprise Darius was most pliant. When the great clumsy figure, with +its wet cheeks, stood in trousers, shirt, and socks, Edwin said, “You’re all +right now, aren’t you?” And the figure nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, good-night.”</p> + +<p>Edwin came out on to the landing, shut the door, and walked about a little in his own +room. Then he went back to his father’s room. Maggie’s door was closed. Darius +was already in bed, but the gas was blazing at full.</p> + +<p>“You’ve forgotten the gas,” he said lightly and pleasantly, and +turned it down to a blue point.</p> + +<p>“I say, lad,” the old man stopped him, as he was finally leaving.</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“What about that Home Rule?”</p> + +<p>The voice was weak, infantile. Edwin hesitated. The “Signal” made a patch +of white on the ottoman.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” he answered soothingly, and yet with condescension, “it’s +much about what everybody expected. Better leave that till to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>He shut the door. The landing received light through the open door of his bedroom and +from the hall below. He went downstairs, bolted the front door, and extinguished the hall +gas. Then he came softly up, and listened at his father’s door. Not a sound! He +entered his own room and began to undress, and then, half clothed, crept back to his +father’s door. Now he could hear a heavy, irregular snoring.</p> + +<p>“Devilish odd, all this!” he reflected, as he got into bed. Assuredly he +had disconcerting thoughts, not all unpleasant. His excitement had even an agreeable, +zestful quality.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_02"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Two.</h3> + +<h4>The Conclave.</h4> + +<p>The next morning Edwin overslept himself. He seldom rose easily from his bed, and his +first passage down Trafalgar Road to business was notoriously hurried; the whole +thoroughfare was acquainted with its special character. Often his father arrived at the +shop before him, but Edwin’s conscience would say that of course if Darius went down +early for his own passion and pleasure, that was Darius’s affair. Edwin’s +official time for beginning work was half-past eight. And at half-past eight, on this +morning, he was barely out of the bath. His lateness, however, did not disturb him; there +was an excuse for it. He hoped that his father would be in bed, and decided that he must +go and see, and, if the old man was still sufficiently pliant, advise him to stay where he +was until he had had some food.</p> + +<p>But, looking out of the window over a half-buttoned collar, he saw his father dressed +and in the garden. Darius had resumed the suit of broadcloth, for some strange reason, and +was dragging his feet with painful, heavy slowness along the gravel at the south end of +the garden. He carried in his left hand the “Signal,” crumpled. A cloth cap, +surmounting the ceremonious suit, gave to his head a ridiculous appearance. He was gazing +at the earth with an expression of absorbed and acute melancholy. When he reached the end +of the path, he looked round, at a loss, then turned, as if on an inefficient pivot, and +set himself in motion again. Edwin was troubled by this singular episode. And yet his +reason argued with his instinct to the effect that he ought not to be troubled. Evidently +the sturdy Darius was not ill. Nothing serious could be the matter. He had been harrowed +and fatigued by the funeral; no more. In another day, doubtless, he would be again the +harsh employer astoundingly concentrated in affairs and impervious to the emotional appeal +of aught else. Nevertheless he made a strange sight, parading his excessive sadness there +in the garden.</p> + +<p>A knock at Edwin’s door! He was startled. “Hold on!” he cried, went +to the door, and cautiously opened it. Maggie was on the mat.</p> + +<p>“Here’s Auntie Clara!” she said in a whisper, perturbed. +“She’s come about father. Shall you be long?”</p> + +<p>“About father? What about father?”</p> + +<p>“It seems she saw him last night. He called there. And she was +anxious.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! I see!” Edwin affected to be relieved. Maggie nodded, also affecting, +somewhat eagerly, to be relieved. But neither of them was relieved. Auntie Clara calling +at half-past eight! Auntie Clara neglecting that which she never neglected—the +unalterable and divinely appointed rites for the daily cleansing and ordering of her +abode!</p> + +<p>“I shall be down in ten secs,” said he. “Father’s in the +garden,” he added, almost kindly. “Seems all right.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maggie, with cheerfulness, and went. He closed the door.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Mrs Hamps was in the drawing-room. She had gone into the drawing-room because it was +more secret, better suited to conversation of an exquisite privacy than the +dining-room—a public resort at that hour. Edwin perceived at once that she was +savouring intensely the strangeness of the occasion, inflating its import and its +importance to the largest possible.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, dear,” she greeted him in a low and significant tone. +“I felt I must come up at once. I couldn’t fancy any breakfast till I’d +been up, so I put on my bonnet and mantle and just came. It’s no use fighting +against what you feel you must do.”</p> + +<p>“But—”</p> + +<p>“Hasn’t Maggie told you? Your father called to see me last night just after +I’d gone upstairs. In fact I’d begun to get ready for bed. I heard the +knocking and I came down and lit the gas in the lobby. ‘Who’s there?’ I +said. There wasn’t any answer, but I made sure I heard some one crying. And when I +opened the door, there was your father. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Happen +you’ve gone to bed, Clara?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Come in, +do!’ But he wouldn’t. And he looked so queer. I never saw him look like that +before. He’s such a strong self-controlled man. I knew he’d been to poor Mr +Shushions’s funeral. ‘I suppose you’ve been to the funeral, +Darius,’ I said. And as soon as I said that he burst out crying, and half tumbled +down the steps, and off he went! I couldn’t go after him, as I was. I didn’t +know <i>what</i> to do. If anything happened to your father, I don’t know +<i>what</i> I should do.”</p> + +<p>“What time was that?” Edwin asked, wondering what on earth she +meant—“if anything happened to your father!”</p> + +<p>“Half-past ten or hardly. What time did he come home? Very, very late, +wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“A little after twelve,” he said carelessly. He was sorry that he had +inquired as to the hour of the visit to his aunt. Obviously she was ready to build vast +and terrible conjectures upon the mysterious interval between half-past ten and +midnight.</p> + +<p>“You’ve cut yourself, my dear,” she said, indicating with her gloved +hand Edwin’s chin. “And I’m not surprised. How upsetting it is for you! +Of course Maggie’s the eldest, and we think a great deal of her, but you’re +the son—the only son!”</p> + +<p>“I know,” he said, meaning that he knew he had cut himself, and he pressed +his handkerchief to his chin. Within, he was blasphemously fuming. The sentimental accent +with which she had finally murmured ‘the only son’ irritated him extremely. +What in the name of God was she driving at? The fact was that, enjoying a domestic crisis +with positive sensuality, she was trying to manufacture one! That was it! He knew her. +There were times when he could share all Maggie’s hatred of Mrs Hamps, and this was +one of those times. The infernal woman, with her shaking plumes and her odour of black +kid, was enjoying herself! In the thousandth part of a second he invented horrible and +grotesque punishments for her, as that all the clothes should suddenly fall off that prim, +widowed, odious modesty. Yet, amid the multitude of his sensations—the smarting of +his chin, the tingling of all his body after the bath, the fresh vivacity of the morning, +the increased consciousness of his own ego, due to insufficient sleep, the queerness of +being in the drawing-room at such an hour in conspiratorial talk, the vague disquiet +caused at midnight, and now intensified despite his angry efforts to avoid the contagion +of Mrs Hamps’s mood, and above all the thought of his father gloomily wandering in +the garden—amid these confusing sensations, it was precisely an idea communicated to +him by his annoying aunt, an obvious idea, an idea not worth uttering, that emerged clear +and dramatic: he was the only son.</p> + +<p>“There’s no need to worry,” he said as firmly as he could “The +funeral got on his nerves, that’s all. He certainly did seem a bit knocked about +last night, and I shouldn’t have been surprised if he’d stayed in bed to-day. +But you see he’s up and about.” Both of them glanced at the window, which gave +on the garden.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” murmured Mrs Hamps, unconvinced. “But what about his crying? +Maggie tells me he was—”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin interrupted her almost roughly. “That’s nothing. +I’ve known him cry before.”</p> + +<p>“Have you?” She seemed taken aback.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Years ago. That’s nothing fresh.”</p> + +<p>“It’s true he’s very sensitive,” Mrs Hamps reflected. +“That’s what we don’t realise, maybe, sometimes. Of course if you think +he’s all right—”</p> + +<p>She approached the window, and, leaning over the tripod which held a flower-pot +enveloped in pink paper, she drew the white curtain aside, and gazed forth in silence. +Darius was still pacing up and down the short path at the extremity of the garden; his +eyes were still on the ground, and his features expressive of mournful despair, and at the +end of the path he still turned his body round with slow and tedious hesitations. Edwin +also could see him through the window. They both watched him; it was as if they were +spying on him.</p> + +<p>Maggie entered, and said, in an unusual flutter—</p> + +<p>“Here’s Clara and Albert!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Clara and her husband came immediately into the drawing-room. The wife, dressed with a +certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, +and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; +and despite the asperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures +and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, +clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works for +half an hour. Both of them were electrically charged with importance.</p> + +<p>Amid the general self-consciousness Maggie took the baby, and Clara and Mrs Hamps +kissed each other tenderly, as though saying, “Affliction is upon us.” It was +impossible, in the circumstances, to proceed to minute inquiry about the health of the +children, but Mrs Hamps expressed all her solicitude in a look, a tone, a lingering of lip +on lip. The years were drawing together Mrs Hamps and her namesake. Edwin was often +astonished at the increasing resemblance of Clara to her aunt, with whom, thanks to the +unconscious intermediacy of babies, she was even indeed quite intimate. The two would +discuss with indefatigable gusto all the most minute physical details of motherhood and +infancy: and Auntie Clara’s presents were worthy of her reputation.</p> + +<p>As soon as the kiss was accomplished—no other greeting of any kind +occurred—Clara turned sharply to Edwin—</p> + +<p>“What’s this about father?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! He’s had a bit of a shock. He’s pretty much all right +to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Because Albert’s just heard—” She looked at Albert.</p> + +<p>Edwin was thunderstruck. Was the tale of his father’s indisposition spread all +over the Five Towns? He had thought that the arrival of Clara and her husband must be due +to Auntie Hamps having called at their house on her way up to Bleakridge. But now he could +see, even from his auntie’s affrighted demeanour alone, that the Benbows’ +visit was an independent affair.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure he’s all right?” Albert questioned, in his superiorly +sagacious manner, which mingled honest bullying with a little good-nature.</p> + +<p>“Because Albert just heard—” Clara put in again.</p> + +<p>The company then heard what Albert had just heard. At his works before breakfast an old +hollow-ware-presser, who lived at Turnhill, had casually mentioned that his father-in-law, +Mr Clayhanger, had been cutting a very peculiar figure on the previous evening at +Turnhill. The hollow-ware-presser had seen nothing personally; he had only been told. He +could not or would not particularise. Apparently he possessed in a high degree the local +talent for rousing an apprehension by the offer of food, and then under ingenious pretexts +refusing the food. At any rate, Albert had been startled, and had communicated his alarm +to Clara. Clara had meant to come up a little later in the morning, but she wanted Albert +to come with her, and Albert, being exceedingly busy, had only the breakfast half-hour of +liberty. Hence they had set out instantly, although the baby required sustenance; Albert +having suggested that Clara could feed the baby just as well at her father’s as at +home.</p> + +<p>Before the Benbow story was quite finished it became entangled with the story of Mrs +Hamps, and then with Edwin’s story. They were all speaking at once, except Maggie, +who was trying to soothe the baby.</p> + +<p>Holding forth her arms, Clara, without ceasing to talk rapidly and anxiously to Mrs +Hamps, without even regarding what she did, took the infant from her sister, held it with +one hand, and with the other loosed her tight bodice, and boldly exposed to the greedy +mouth the magnificent source of life. As the infant gurgled itself into silence, she +glanced with a fleeting ecstatic smile at Maggie, who smiled back. It was strange how +Maggie, now midway between thirty and forty, a tall, large-boned, plump, mature woman, +efficient, kindly, and full of common sense—it was strange how she always failed to +assert herself. She listened now, not seeking notice and assuredly not receiving it.</p> + +<p>Edwin felt again the implication, first rendered by his aunt, and now emphasised by +Clara and Albert, that the responsibility of the situation was upon him, and that +everybody would look to him to discharge it. He was expected to act, somehow, on his own +initiative, and to do something.</p> + +<p>“But what is there to do?” he exclaimed, in answer to a question.</p> + +<p>“Well, hadn’t he better see a doctor?” Clara asked, as if saying +ironically, “Hasn’t it occurred to you even yet that a doctor ought to be +fetched?”</p> + +<p>Edwin protested with a movement of impatience—</p> + +<p>“What on earth for? He’s walking about all right.”</p> + +<p>They had all been surreptitiously watching Darius from behind the curtains.</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t seem to be much the matter with him now! That I must say!” +agreed Albert, turning from the window.</p> + +<p>Edwin perceived that his brother-in-law was ready to execute one of those changes of +front which lent variety to his positiveness, and he addressed himself particularly to +Albert, with the persuasive tone and gesture of a man to another man in a company of +women—</p> + +<p>“Of course there doesn’t! No doubt he was upset last night. But he’s +getting over it. <i>You</i> don’t think there’s anything in it, do you, +Maggie?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t,” said Maggie calmly.</p> + +<p>These two words had a great effect.</p> + +<p>“Of course if we’re going to listen to every tale that’s flying about +a potbank,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“You’re right there, Teddy!” the brother-in-law heartily concurred. +“But Clary thought we’d better—”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” said Edwin pacifically, admitting the entire propriety of the +visit.</p> + +<p>“Why’s he wearing his best clothes?” Clara demanded suddenly. And Mrs +Hamps showed a sympathetic appreciation of the importance of the question.</p> + +<p>“Ask me another!” said Edwin. “But you can’t send for a doctor +because a man’s wearing his best clothes.”</p> + +<p>Maggie smiled, scarce perceptibly. Albert gave a guffaw. Clara was slightly +irritated.</p> + +<p>“Poor little dear!” murmured Mrs Hamps, caressing the baby. “Well, I +must be going,” she sighed.</p> + +<p>“We shall see how he goes on,” said Edwin, in his rôle of responsible +person.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it will be as well if you say nothing about us calling,” whispered +Mrs Hamps. “We’ll just go quietly away. You can give a hint to Mrs Nixon. Much +better he shouldn’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! much better!” said Clara.</p> + +<p>Edwin could not deny this. Yet he hated the chicane. He hated to observe on the face of +the young woman and of the old their instinctive impulses towards chicane, and their +pleasure in it. The whole double visit was subtly offensive to him. Why should they gather +like this at the first hint that his father was not well? A natural affectionate +anxiety... Yes, of course, that motive could not be denied. Nevertheless, he did not like +the tones and the gestures and the whisperings and oblique glances of their gathering.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In the middle of a final miscellaneous conversation, Albert said—</p> + +<p>“We’ll better be off.”</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment,” said Clara, with a nod to indicate the still busy +infant.</p> + +<p>Then the door opened, very slowly and cautiously, and as they all observed the movement +of the door, they all fell into silence. Darius himself appeared. Unobserved, he had left +the garden and come into the house. He stood in the doorway, motionless, astounded, +acutely apprehensive, and with an expression of the most poignant sadness on his harsh, +coarse, pimpled face. He still wore the ridiculous cap and held the newspaper. The +broadcloth suit was soiled. His eye wandered among his family, and it said, terrorised, +and yet feebly defiant, “What are they plotting against me? Why are they all here +like this?”</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps spoke first—</p> + +<p>“Well, father, we just popped in to see how you were after all that dreadful +business yesterday. Of course I quite understand you didn’t want to come in last +night. You weren’t equal to it.” The guilty crude sweetness of her cajoling +voice grated excruciatingly on both Edwin and Maggie. It would not have deceived even a +monarch.</p> + +<p>Darius screwed himself round, and silently went forth again.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going, father?” asked Clara.</p> + +<p>He stopped, but his features did not relax.</p> + +<p>“To the shop,” he muttered. His accents were of the most dreadful +melancholy.</p> + +<p>Everybody was profoundly alarmed by his mere tone and look. This was not the old +Darius. Edwin felt intensely the futility and the hollowness of all those reassurances +which he had just been offering.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t had your breakfast, father,” said Maggie quietly.</p> + +<p>“Please, father! Please don’t go like that. You aren’t fit,” +Clara entreated, and rushed towards him, the baby in her arms, and with one hand took his +sleeve. Mrs Hamps followed, adding persuasions. Albert said bluffly, “Now, dad! Now, +dad!”</p> + +<p>Edwin and Maggie were silent in the background.</p> + +<p>Darius gazed at Clara’s face, and then his glance fell, and fixed itself on her +breast and on the head of the powerfully sucking infant, and then it rose to the plumes of +Mrs Hamps. His expression of tragic sorrow did not alter in the slightest degree under the +rain of sugared remonstrances and cajoleries that the two women directed upon him. And +then, without any warning, he burst into terrible tears, and, staggering, leaned against +the wall. He was half carried to the sofa, and sat there, ineffably humiliated. One after +another looked reproachfully at Edwin, who had made light of his father’s condition. +And Edwin was abashed and frightened.</p> + +<p>“You or I had better fetch th’ doctor,” Albert muttered.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_03"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Three.</h3> + +<h4>The Name.</h4> + +<p>“He mustn’t go near business,” said Mr Alfred Heve, the doctor, +coming to Edwin, who was waiting in the drawing-room, after a long examination of +Darius.</p> + +<p>Mr Heve was not wearing that gentle and refined smile which was so important a factor +in the treatment of his patients and their families, and which he seemed to have caught +from his elder brother, the vicar of Saint Peter’s. He was a youngish man, only a +few years older than Edwin himself, and Edwin’s respect for his ability had limits. +There were two other doctors in the town whom Edwin would have preferred, but Mr Heve was +his father’s choice, notable in the successful soothing of querulous stomachs, and +it was inevitably Mr Heve who had been summoned. He had arrived with an apprehensive, +anxious air. There had been a most distinct nervousness in his voice when, in replying to +Edwin’s question, he had said, “Perhaps I’d better see him quite +alone.” Edwin had somehow got it into his head that he would be present at the +interview. In shutting the dining-room door upon Edwin, Mr Heve had nodded timidly in a +curious way, highly self-conscious. And that dining-room door had remained shut for half +an hour. And now Mr Heve had emerged with the same embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“Whether he wants to or not?” Edwin suggested, with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>“On no account whatever!” said the doctor, not answering the smile, which +died.</p> + +<p>They were standing together near the door. Edwin had his fingers on the handle. He +wondered how he would prevent his father from going to business, if his father should +decide to go.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t think he’ll be very keen on business,” the doctor +added.</p> + +<p>“You don’t?”</p> + +<p>Mr Heve slowly shook his head. One of Mr Heve’s qualities that slightly annoyed +Edwin was his extraordinary discretion. But then Edwin had always regarded the +discreetness of doctors as exaggerated. Why could not Heve tell him at once fully and +candidly what was in his mind? He had surely the right to be told! ... Curious! And yet +far more curious than Mr Heve’s unwillingness to tell, was Edwin’s +unwillingness to ask. He could not bring himself to demand bluntly of Heve: “Well, +what’s the matter with him?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s shock,” Edwin adventured.</p> + +<p>Mr Heve lifted his chin. “Shock may have had a little to do with it,” he +answered doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“And how long must he be kept off business?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid there’s not much chance of him doing any more +business,” said Mr Heve.</p> + +<p>“Really!” Edwin murmured. “Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“Quite.”</p> + +<p>Edwin did not feel the full impact of this prophecy at the moment. Indeed, it appeared +to him that he had known since the previous midnight of his father’s sudden doom; it +appeared to him that the first glimpse of his father after the funeral had informed him of +it positively. What impressed him at the moment was the unusual dignity which +characterised Mr Heve’s embarrassment. He was beginning to respect Mr Heve.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t care to give him more than two years,” said Mr Heve, +gazing at the carpet, and then lifting his eyes to Edwin’s.</p> + +<p>Edwin flushed. And this time his ‘Really!’ was startled.</p> + +<p>“Of course you may care to get other advice,” the doctor went on. “I +shall be delighted to meet a specialist. But I tell you at once my opinion.” This +with a gesture of candour.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Edwin. “If you’re sure—”</p> + +<p>Strange that the doctor would not give a name to the disease! Most strange that Edwin +even now could not demand the name.</p> + +<p>“I suppose he’s in his right <i>mind?</i>” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the doctor. “He’s in his right <i>mind</i>.” +But he gave the reply in a tone so peculiar that the affirmative was almost as +disconcerting as a negative would have been.</p> + +<p>“Just rest he wants?” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Just rest. And looking after. I’ll send up some medicine. He’ll like +it.” Mr Heve glanced absently at his watch. “I must be going.”</p> + +<p>“Well—” Edwin opened the door.</p> + +<p>Then with a sudden movement Mr Heve put out his hand.</p> + +<p>“You’ll come in again soon?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes.”</p> + +<p>In the hall they saw Maggie about to enter the dining-room with a steaming basin.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to give him this,” she said simply in a low voice. +“It’s so long to dinner-time.”</p> + +<p>“By all means,” said Mr Heve, with his little formal bow.</p> + +<p>“You’ve finished seeing him then, doctor?”</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“I’ll be back soon,” said Edwin to Maggie, taking his hat from the +rack. “Tell father if he asks I’ve run down to the shop.”</p> + +<p>She nodded and disappeared.</p> + +<p>“I’ll walk down a bit of the way with you,” said Mr Heve.</p> + +<p>His trap, which was waiting at the corner, followed them down the road. Edwin could not +begin to talk. And Mr Heve kept silence. Behind him, Edwin could hear the jingling of +metal on Mr Heve’s sprightly horse. After a couple of hundred yards the doctor +stopped at a house-door.</p> + +<p>“Well—” He shook hands again, and at last smiled with sad +sweetness.</p> + +<p>“He’ll be a bit difficult to manage, you know,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think so,” said the doctor.</p> + +<p>“I’ll let you know about the specialist. But if you’re +sure—”</p> + +<p>The doctor waved a deprecating hand. It might have been the hand of his brother, the +Vicar.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Edwin proceeded towards the town, absorbed in a vision of his father seated in the +dining-room, inexpressibly melancholy, and Maggie with her white apron bending over him to +offer some nice soup. It was a desolating vision—and yet he wondered why it should +be! Whenever he reasoned he was always inimical to his father. His reason asked harshly +why he should be desolated, as he undoubtedly was. The prospect of freedom, of release +from a horrible and humiliating servitude—this prospect ought to have dazzled and +uplifted him, in the safe, inviolable privacy of his own heart. But it did not... What a +chump the doctor was, to be so uncommunicative! And he himself! ... By the way, he had not +told Maggie. It was like her to manifest no immediate curiosity, to be content to wait... +He supposed he must call at his aunt’s, and even at Clara’s. But what should +he say when they asked him why he had not asked the doctor for a name?</p> + +<p>Suddenly an approaching man whose face was vaguely familiar but with whom he had no +acquaintance whatever, swerved across the footpath and stopped him.</p> + +<p>“What’s amiss with th’ old gentleman?” It was astounding how +news flew in the town!</p> + +<p>“He’s not very well. Doctor’s ordered him a rest.”</p> + +<p>“Not in bed, is he?”</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” Edwin lightly scorned the suggestion.</p> + +<p>“Well, I do hope it’s nothing serious. Good morning.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Edwin was detained a long time in the shop by a sub-manager from Bostocks in Hanbridge +who was waiting, and who had come about an estimate for a rather considerable order. This +man desired a decrease of the estimate and an increased speed in execution. He was curt. +He was one business firm offering an ultimatum to another business firm. He asked Edwin +whether Edwin could decide at once. Edwin said ‘Certainly,’ using a tone that +he had never used before. He decided. The man departed, and Edwin saw him spring on to the +Hanbridge car as it swept down the hill. The man would not have been interested in the +news that Darius Clayhanger had been to business for the last time. Edwin was glad of the +incident because it had preserved him from embarrassed conversation with Stifford. Two +hours earlier he had called for a few moments at the shop, and even then, ere Edwin had +spoken, Stifford’s face showed that he knew something sinister had occurred. With a +few words of instruction to Stifford, he now went through towards the workshops to speak +with Big James about the Bostock order.</p> + +<p>All the workmen and apprentices were self-conscious. And Edwin could not speak +naturally to Big James. When he had come to an agreement with Big James as to the +execution of the order, the latter said—</p> + +<p>“Would you step below a minute, Mr Edwin?”</p> + +<p>Edwin shuffled. But Big James’s majestic politeness gave to his expressed wish +the force of a command. Edwin preceded Big James down the rough wooden stair to the ground +floor, which was still pillared with supporting beams. Big James, with deliberate, careful +movements, drew the trap-door horizontal as he descended.</p> + +<p>“Might I ask, sir, if Master’s in a bad way?” he inquired, with +solemn and delicate calm. But he would have inquired about the weather in the same +fashion.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid he is,” said Edwin, glancing nervously about at the +litter, and the cobwebs, and the naked wood, and the naked earth. The vibration of a +treadle-machine above them put the place in a throb.</p> + +<p>Astounding! Everybody knew or guessed everything! How?</p> + +<p>Big James wagged his head and his grandiose beard, now more grey than black, and he +fingered his apron.</p> + +<p>“I believe in herbs myself,” said Big James. “But this here softening +of the brain—well—”</p> + +<p>That was it! Softening of the brain! What the doctor had not told him he had learned +from Big James. How it happened that Big James was in a position to tell him he could not +comprehend. But he was ready now to believe that the whole town had acquired by magic the +information which fate or original stupidity had kept from him alone... Softening of the +brain!</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I’m making too bold, sir,” Big James went on. “Perhaps +it’s not so bad as that. But I did hear—”</p> + +<p>Edwin nodded confirmingly.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t talk about it,” he murmured, indicating the first floor +by an upward movement of the head.</p> + +<p>“That I shall not, sir,” Big James smoothly replied, and proceeded in the +same bland tone: “And what’s more, never will I raise my voice in song again! +James Yarlett has sung his last song.”</p> + +<p>There was silence. Edwin, accustomed though he was to the mildness of Big James’s +deportment, did not on the instant grasp that the man was seriously announcing a solemn +resolve made under deep emotion. But as he understood, tears came into Edwin’s eyes, +and he thrilled at the swift and dramatic revelation of the compositor’s feeling for +his employer. Its impressiveness was overwhelming and it was humbling. Why this excess of +devotion?</p> + +<p>“I don’t say but what he had his faults like other folk,” said Big +James. “And far be it from me to say that you, Mr Edwin, will not be a better master +than your esteemed father. But for over twenty years I’ve worked for him, and now +he’s gone, never will I lift my voice in song again!”</p> + +<p>Edwin could not reply.</p> + +<p>“I know what it is,” said Big James, after a pause.</p> + +<p>“What what is?”</p> + +<p>“This ce-re-bral softening. You’ll have trouble, Mr Edwin.”</p> + +<p>“The doctor says not.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll have trouble, if you’ll excuse me saying so. But it’s a +good thing he’s got you. It’s a good thing for Miss Maggie as she isn’t +alone with him. It’s a providence, Mr Edwin, as you’re not a married +man.”</p> + +<p>“I very nearly <i>was</i> married once!” Edwin cried, with a sudden +uncontrollable outburst of feeling which staggered while it satisfied him. Why should he +make such a confidence to Big James? Between his pleasure in the relief, and his extreme +astonishment at the confession, he felt as it were lost and desperate, as if he did not +care what might occur.</p> + +<p>“Were you now!” Big James commented, with an ever intensified blandness. +“Well, sir, I thank you.”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_04"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Four.</h3> + +<h4>The Victim of Sympathy.</h4> + +<p>On the same evening, Edwin, Albert Benbow, and Darius were smoking Albert’s +cigarettes in the dining-room. Edwin sat at the end of a disordered supper-table, Albert +was standing, hat in hand, near the sideboard, and Darius leaned against the mantelpiece. +Nobody could have supposed from his appearance that a doctor had responsibly prophesied +this man’s death within two years. Except for a shade of sadness upon his face, he +looked the same as he had looked for a decade. Though regarded by his children as an old +man, he was not old, being in fact still under sixty. His grey hair was sparse; his +spectacles were set upon his nose with the negligence characteristic of age; but the +down-pointing moustache, which, abetted by his irregular teeth, gave him that curious +facial resemblance to a seal, showed great force, and the whole of his stiff and sturdy +frame showed force. His voice, if not his mouth, had largely recovered from the weakness +of the morning. Moreover, the fashion in which he smoked a cigarette had somehow the +effect of rejuvenating him. It was Albert who had induced him to smoke cigarettes +occasionally. He was not an habitual smoker, consuming perhaps half an ounce a week of +pipe-tobacco: and assuredly he would never of his own accord have tried a cigarette. For +Darius cigarettes were aristocratic and finicking; they were an affectation. He smoked a +cigarette with the self-consciousness which usually marks the consumption of champagne in +certain strata of society. His gestures, as he examined from time to time the end of the +cigarette, or audibly blew forth spreading clouds, seemed to signify that in his opinion +he was going the pace, cutting a dash, and seeing life. This <i>naïveté</i> +had its charm.</p> + +<p>The three men, left alone by their women, were discussing politics, which then meant +nothing but the subject of Home Rule. Darius agreed almost eagerly with everything that +Albert Benbow said. Albert was a calm and utterly sound Conservative. He was one of those +politicians whose conviction of rightness is so strong that they cannot help condescending +towards an opponent. Albert would say persuasively to Liberal acquaintances: “Now +just <i>think</i> a moment!” apparently sure that the only explanation of their +misguided views was that they never had thought for a moment. Or he would say: +“Surely all patriotic Liberals—” But one day when Edwin had said to him +with a peculiar accent: “Surely all patriotic Conservatives—” he had +been politely offended for the rest of the evening, and Edwin and he had not mentioned +politics to each other for a long time. Albert had had much influence over his +father-in-law. And now Albert said, after Darius had concurred and concurred—</p> + +<p>“You’re one of the right sort, after all, old gentleman.”</p> + +<p>Throughout the evening he had spoken to Darius in an unusually loud voice, as though it +was necessary to shout to a man who had only two years to live.</p> + +<p>“All I say is,” said Darius, “country before party!”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course!” Albert smiled, confident and superior. +“Haven’t I been telling you for years you’re one of us?”</p> + +<p>Edwin, too, smiled, as superiorly as he could, but unhappily not with sufficient +superiority to wither Albert’s smile. He said nothing, partly from timid discretion, +but partly because he was preoccupied with the thought of the malignant and subtle power +working secretly in his father’s brain. How could the doctor tell? What was the +process of softening? Did his father know, in that sick brain of his, that he was +condemned; or did he hope to recover? Now, as he leaned against the mantelpiece, +protruding his body in an easy posture, he might have been any ordinary man, and not a +victim; he might have been a man of business relaxing after a long day of hard and +successful cerebral activity.</p> + +<p>It seemed strange to Edwin that Albert could talk as he did to one whom destiny had set +apart, to one whose being was the theatre of a drama so mysterious and tragic. Yet it was +the proper thing for Albert to do, and Albert did it perfectly, better than anybody, +except possibly Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Those women take a deuce of a time putting their bonnets on!” Albert +exclaimed.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The women came downstairs at last. At last, to Edwin’s intense relief, every one +was going. Albert went into the hall to meet the women. Edwin rose and followed him. And +Darius came as far as the door of the dining-room. Less than twenty-four hours had passed +since Edwin had begun even to suspect any sort of disaster to his father. But the previous +night seemed an age away. The day had been interminable, and the evening exasperating in +the highest degree. What an evening! Why had Albert and Clara and Auntie Hamps all of them +come up just at supper-time? At first they would not be persuaded! No! They had just +called—sheer accident!—nothing abnormal! And yet the whole of the demeanour of +Auntie Hamps and Clara was abnormal. Maggie herself, catching the infection, had +transformed the meal into a kind of abnormal horrible feast by serving cold beef and +pickles—flesh-meat being unknown to the suppers of the Clayhangers save occasionally +on Sundays.</p> + +<p>Edwin could not comprehend why the visitors had come. That is to say, he understood the +reason quite well, but hated to admit it. They had come from a mere gluttony of curiosity. +They knew all that could be known—but still they must come and gaze and indulge +their lamentable hearts, and repeat the same things again and again, ten million times! +Auntie Hamps, indeed, probably knew more than Edwin did, for she had thought fit to summon +Dr Heve that very afternoon for an ailment of her own, and Clara, with an infant or so, +had by a remarkable coincidence called at Mrs Hamps’s house just after the doctor +left. “Odious,” thought Edwin.</p> + +<p>These two had openly treated Darius as a martyr, speaking to him in soft and pitiful +voices, urging him to eat, urging him to drink, caressing him, soothing him, humouring +him; pretending to be brave and cheerful and optimistic, but with a pretence so poor, so +wilfully poor, that it became an insult. When they said fulsomely, “You’ll be +perfectly all right soon if only you’ll take care and do as the doctor says,” +Edwin could have risen and killed them both with hearty pleasure. They might just as well +have said, “You’re practically in your grave.” And assuredly they were +not without influence on Maggie’s deportment. The curious thing was that it was +impossible to decide whether Darius loathed, or whether he liked, to be so treated. His +face was an enigma. However, he was less gloomy.</p> + +<p>Then also the evening had necessarily been full of secret conferences. What would you? +Each had to relate privately the things that he or she knew or had heard or had imagined. +And there were questions of urgency to be discussed. For example the question of the +specialist. They were all positively agreed, Edwin found, that a specialist was +unnecessary. Darius was condemned beyond hope or argument. There he sat, eating and +talking, in the large, fine house that he had created out of naught, looking not at all +like a corpse; but he was condemned. The doctor had convinced them. Besides, did not +everybody know what softening of the brain was? “Of course, if he thinks he would +prefer to have a specialist, if he has the slightest wish—” This from Auntie +Hamps. There was the question, further, of domestic service. Mrs Nixon’s niece had +committed the folly of marriage, and for many months Maggie and the old servant had been +‘managing;’ but with a crotchety invalid always in the house, more help would +be indispensable. And still further—should Darius be taken away for a period to the +sea, or Buxton, or somewhere? Maggie said that nothing would make him go, and Clara agreed +with her. All these matters, and others, had to be kept away from the central figure; they +were all full of passionate interest, and they had to be debated, in tones hushed but +excited, in the hall, in the kitchen, upstairs, or anywhere except in the dining-room. The +excuses invented by the conspiring women for quitting and entering the dining-room, their +fatuous air of innocent simplicity, disgusted Edwin. And he became curter and curter, as +he noticed the new deference which even Clara practised towards him.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>The adieux were distressing. Clara, with her pale sharp face and troubled eyes, clasped +Darius round the neck, and almost hung on it. And Edwin thought: “Why doesn’t +she tell him straight out he’s done for?” Then she retired and sought her +husband’s arm with the conscious pride of a wife fruitful up to the limits set by +nature. And then Auntie Hamps shook hands with the victim. These two of course did not +kiss. Auntie Hamps bore herself bravely. “Now <i>do</i> do as the doctor +advises!” she said, patting Darius on the shoulder. “And <i>do</i> be guided +by these dear children!”</p> + +<p>Edwin caught Maggie’s eye, and held it grimly.</p> + +<p>“And you, my pet,” said Auntie Hamps, turning to Clara, who with Albert was +now at the door. “You must be getting back to your babies! It’s a wonder how +you manage to get away! But you’re a wonderful arranger! ... Only don’t overdo +it. Don’t overdo it!”</p> + +<p>Clara gave a fatigued smile, as of one whom circumstances often forced to overdo +it.</p> + +<p>They departed, Albert whistling to the night. Edwin observed again, in their final +glances, the queer, new, ingratiating deference for himself. He bolted the door +savagely.</p> + +<p>Darius was still standing at the entrance to the dining-room. And as he looked at him +Edwin thought of Big James’s vow never to lift his voice in song again. Strange! It +was the idea of the secret strangeness of life that was uppermost in his mind: not grief, +not expectancy. In the afternoon he had been talking again to Big James, who, it appeared, +had known intimately a case of softening of the brain. He did not identify the +case—it was characteristic of him to name no names—but clearly he was familiar +with the course of the disease.</p> + +<p>He had begun revelations which disconcerted Edwin, and had then stopped. And now as +Edwin furtively examined his father, he asked himself: “Will <i>that</i> happen to +him, and <i>that</i>, and those still worse things that Big James did not reveal?” +Incredible! There he was, smoking a cigarette, and the clock striking ten in its daily, +matter-of-fact way.</p> + +<p>Darius let fall the cigarette, which Edwin picked up from the mat, and offered to +him.</p> + +<p>“Throw it away,” said Darius, with a deep sigh.</p> + +<p>“Going to bed?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>Darius shook his head, and Edwin debated what he should do. A moment later, Maggie came +from the kitchen and asked—</p> + +<p>“Going to bed, father?”</p> + +<p>Again Darius shook his head. He then went slowly into the drawing-room and lit the gas +there.</p> + +<p>“What shall you do? Leave him?” Maggie whispered to Edwin in the +dining-room, as she helped Mrs Nixon to clear the table.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Edwin. “I shall see.”</p> + +<p>In ten minutes both Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to bed. Edwin hesitated in the +dining-room. Then he extinguished the gas there, and went into the drawing-room. Darius, +not having lowered the blinds, was gazing out of the black window.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t wait down here for me,” said he, a little sharply. And +his tone was so sane, controlled, firm, and ordinary that Edwin could do nothing but +submit to it.</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to,” he answered quietly.</p> + +<p>Impossible to treat a man of such demeanour like a child.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_05"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Five.</h3> + +<h4>The Slave’s Fear.</h4> + +<p>Edwin closed the door of his bedroom with a sense of relief and of pleasure far greater +than he would have admitted; or indeed could honestly have admitted, for it surpassed his +consciousness. The feeling recurred that he was separated from the previous evening by a +tremendous expanse of time. He had been flung out of his daily habits. He had forgotten to +worry over the execution of his private programmes. He had forgotten even that the solemn +thirtieth birthday was close upon him. It seemed to him as if his own egoism was lying +about in scattered pieces, which he must collect in the calm of this cloister, and +reconstruct. He wanted to resume possession of himself, very slowly, without violent +effort. He wound up his watch; the hour was not yet half-past ten. The whole exquisite +night was his.</p> + +<p>He had brought with him from the shop, almost mechanically, a copy of +“Harper’s Magazine,” not the copy which regularly once a month he kept +from a customer during the space of twenty-four hours for his own uses, but a second copy +which had been sent down by the wholesale agents in mistake, and which he could return +when he chose. He had already seen the number, but he could not miss the chance of +carefully going through it at leisure. Despite his genuine aspirations, despite his taste +which was growing more and more fastidious, he found it exceedingly difficult to proceed +with his regular plan of reading while there was an illustrated magazine unexplored. +Besides, the name of “Harper’s” was august. To read +“Harper’s” was to acquire merit; even the pictures in +“Harper’s” were too subtle for the uncultivated.</p> + +<p>He turned over the pages, and they all appeared to promise new and strange joys. Such +preliminary moments were the most ecstatic in his life, as in the lives of many readers. +He had not lost sight of the situation created by his father’s illness, but he could +only see it very dimly through the semi-transparent pages.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The latch clicked and the door opened slightly. He jumped, supposing that his father +had crept upstairs. And the first thought of the slave in him was that his father had +never seen the gas-stove and would now infallibly notice it. But Maggie’s face +showed. She came in very quietly—she too had caught the conspiratorial manner.</p> + +<p>“I thought you wouldn’t be ready for bed just yet,” she said, in mild +excuse of her entry. “I didn’t knock, for fear he might be wandering about and +hear.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” muttered Edwin. “What’s up?” Instinctively he +resented the invasion, and was alarmed for the privacy of his sacred room, although he +knew that Maggie, and Mrs Nixon also, had it at their mercy every day. Nobody ever came +into that room while he was in it.</p> + +<p>Maggie approached the hearth.</p> + +<p>“I think I ought to have a stove too,” she said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>“Well, why don’t you?” he replied. “I can get it for you any +time.” If Clara had envied his stove, she would have envied it with scoffing +rancour, and he would have used sarcasm in response.</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” said Maggie quickly. “I don’t really want +one.”</p> + +<p>“What’s up?” he repeated. He could see she was hesitating.</p> + +<p>“Do you know what Clara and auntie are saying?”</p> + +<p>“No! What now? I should have thought they’d both said enough to last them +for a few days at any rate.”</p> + +<p>“Did Albert say anything to you?”</p> + +<p>“What about?”</p> + +<p>“Well—both Clara and auntie said I must tell you. Albert says he ought to +make his will—they all think so.”</p> + +<p>Edwin’s lips curled.</p> + +<p>“How do they know he hasn’t made it?”</p> + +<p>“Has he made it?”</p> + +<p>“How do I know? You don’t suppose he ever talks to me about his affairs, do +you? Not much!”</p> + +<p>“Well—they meant he ought to be asked.”</p> + +<p>“Well, let ’em ask him, then. I shan’t.”</p> + +<p>“Of course what they say is—you’re the—”</p> + +<p>“What do I care for that?” he interrupted her. “So that’s what +you were yarning so long about in your room!”</p> + +<p>“I can tell you,” said Maggie, “they’re both of them very +serious about it. So’s Albert, it seems.”</p> + +<p>“They disgust me,” he said briefly. “Here the thing isn’t a day +old, and they begin worrying about his will! They go slobbering all over him downstairs, +and upstairs it’s nothing but his will they think about... You can’t rush at a +man and talk to him about his will like that. At least, I can’t—it’s +altogether too thick! I expect some people could. But I can’t. Damn it, you must +have some sense of decency!”</p> + +<p>Maggie remained calm and benevolent. After a pause she said—</p> + +<p>“You see—their point is that later on he mayn’t be able to make a +will.”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” he questioned amicably, meeting her eyes, “what do you +think? What do you think yourself?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she said, “I should never dream of bothering about it. +I’m only telling you what—”</p> + +<p>“Of course you wouldn’t!” he exclaimed. “No decent person +would. Later on, perhaps, if one could put in a word casually! But not now! ... If he +doesn’t make a will he doesn’t make one—that’s all.”</p> + +<p>Maggie leaned against the mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>“Mind your skirt doesn’t catch fire,” he warned her, in a murmur.</p> + +<p>“I told them what you’d say,” she answered his outburst, perfectly +unmoved. “I knew what you’d say. But what they say is—it’s all +very well for <i>you</i>. You’re the son, and it seems that if there isn’t a +will, if it’s left too late—”</p> + +<p>This aspect of the case had absolutely not presented itself to Edwin.</p> + +<p>“If they think,” he muttered, with cold acrimony—“if they think +I’m the sort of person to take the slightest advantage of being the son—well, +they must think it—that’s all! Besides, they can always talk to him +themselves—if they’re so desperately anxious.”</p> + +<p>“You have charge of everything.”</p> + +<p>“Have I! ... And I should like to know what it’s got to do with +auntie!”</p> + +<p>Maggie lifted her head. “Oh, auntie and Clara, you know—you can’t +separate them... Well, I’ve told you.”</p> + +<p>She moved to leave.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he stopped her, with a confidential appeal. “Don’t you +agree with me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she replied simply. “I think it ought to be left for a bit. +Perhaps he’s made it, after all. Let’s hope so. I’m sure it will save a +lot of trouble if he has.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally it ought to be left for a bit! Why—just look at him! ... He +might be on his blooming dying bed, to hear the way some people talk! Let ’em +mention it to me, and I’ll tell ’em a thing or two!”</p> + +<p>Maggie raised her eyebrows. She scarcely recognised Edwin.</p> + +<p>“I suppose he’ll be all right, downstairs?”</p> + +<p>“Right? Of course he’ll be all right!” Then he added, in a tone less +pugnacious—for, after all, it was not Maggie who had outraged his delicacy, +“Don’t latch the door. Pull it to. I’ll listen out.”</p> + +<p>She went silently away.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Searching with his body for the most comfortable deeps of the easy-chair, he set +himself to savour “Harper’s.” This monthly reassurance that nearly all +was well with the world, and that what was wrong was not seriously wrong, waited on his +knees to be accepted and to do its office. Unlike the magazines of his youth, its aim was +to soothe and flatter, not to disconcert and impeach. He looked at the refined +illustrations of South American capitals and of picturesque corners in Provence, and at +the smooth or the rugged portraits of great statesmen and great bridges; all just as true +to reality as the brilliant letterpress; and he tried to slip into the rectified and +softened world offered by the magazine. He did not criticise the presentment. He did +nothing so subtle as to ask himself whether if he encountered the reality he would +recognise it from the presentment. He wanted the illusions of +“Harper’s.” He desired the comfort, the distraction, and the pleasant +ideal longings which they aroused. But they were a medicine which he discovered he was not +in a condition to absorb, a medicine therefore useless. There was no effective medicine +for his trouble.</p> + +<p>His trouble was that he objected to being disturbed. At first he had been pleasantly +excited, but now he shrank away at the call to freedom, to action, to responsibility. All +the slave in him protested against the knocking off of irons, and the imperative kick into +the open air. He saw suddenly that in the calm of regular habit and of subjection, he had +arrived at something that closely resembled happiness. He wished not to lose it, knowing +that it was already gone. Actually, for his own sake, and quite apart from his father, he +would have been ready, were it possible, to cancel the previous twenty-four hours. +Everything was ominous, and he wandering about, lost, amid menaces... Why, even his +cherished programmes of reading were smashed... Hallam! ... True, to-night was not a night +appointed for reading, but to-morrow night was. And would he be able to read to-morrow +night? No, a hundred new complications would have arisen to harass him and to dispossess +him of his tranquillity!</p> + +<p>Destiny was demanding from him a huge effort, unexpected and formidable, and the whole +of his being weakly complained, asking to be exempted, but asking without any hope of +success; for all his faculties and his desires knew that his conscience was ultimately +their master.</p> + +<p>Talk to his father about making a will, eh! Besides being disgusting, it was laughable. +Those people did not know his father as he did. He foresaw that, even in conducting the +routine of business, he would have difficulties with his father over the simplest details. +In particular there was one indispensable preliminary to the old man’s complete +repose, and his first duty on the morrow would be to endeavour to arrange this preliminary +with his father; but he scarcely hoped to succeed.</p> + +<p>On the portion of the mantelpiece reserved for books in actual use lay the “Tale +of a Tub,” last night so enchanting. And now he had positively forgotten it. He +yawned, and prepared for bed. If he could not read “Harper’s,” perhaps +he could read Swift.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>He lay in bed. The gas was out, the stove was out, and according to his custom he was +reading himself to sleep by the light of a candle in a sconce attached to the bed’s +head. His eyes ran along line after line and down page after page, and transmitted nothing +coherent to his brain.</p> + +<p>Then there were steps on the stair. His father was at last coming to bed. He was a +little relieved, though he had been quite prepared to go to sleep and leave his father +below. Why not? The steps died at the top of the stair, but an irregular creaking +continued. After a pause the door was pushed open; and after another pause the figure of +his father came into view, breathing loudly.</p> + +<p>“Edwin, are you asleep?” Darius asked anxiously. Edwin wondered what could +be the matter, but he answered with lightness, “Nearly.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve not put th’ light out down yon! Happen you’d better put +it out.” There was in his father’s voice a note of dependence upon him, of +appeal to him.</p> + +<p>“Funny!” he thought, and said aloud, “All right.”</p> + +<p>He jumped up. His father thudded off deliberately to his own room, apparently relieved +of a fearful oppression, but still fixed in sadness.</p> + +<p>On the previous night Edwin had extinguished the hall-gas and come last to bed; and +again to-night. But to-night with what a different sentiment of genuine, permanent +responsibility! The appealing feebleness of his father’s attitude seemed to give him +strength. Surely a man so weak and fallen from tyranny could not cause much trouble! Edwin +now had some hope that the unavoidable preliminary to the invalid’s retirement might +be achieved without too much difficulty. He braced himself.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_06"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Six.</h3> + +<h4>Keys and Cheques.</h4> + +<p>Coming up Trafalgar Road at twenty minutes past nine in the bright, astringent morning, +Edwin carried by a string a little round parcel which for him contained the inspiring +symbol of his new life. By mere accident he had wakened and had risen early, arriving at +the shop before half-past seven. He had deliberately lifted on to his shoulders the whole +burden of the shop and the printing business, and as soon as he felt its weight securely +lodged he became extraordinarily animated and vigorous; even gay. He had worked with a +most agreeable sense of energy until nearly nine o’clock; and then, having first +called at the ironmonger’s, had stepped into the bank at the top of Saint +Luke’s Square a moment after its doors opened, and had five minutes’ exciting +conversation with the manager. After which, with righteous hunger in his belly and the +symbol in his hand, he had come home to breakfast. The symbol was such as could be +obtained at any ironmonger’s: an alarm clock. Mrs Nixon had grown less reliable than +formerly as an alarm clock; machinery was now supplanting her.</p> + +<p>Dr Heve came out of the house, and Dr Heve too seemed gay with fine resolutions. The +two met on the doorstep, each full of a justifiable self-satisfaction. The doctor +explained that he had come thus early because Mr Clayhanger was one of those cases upon +which he could look in casually at any time. In the sunshine they talked under the porch +of early rising, as men who understood the value of that art. Edwin could see that Dr +Heve’s life was a series of little habits which would never allow themselves to be +interfered with by any large interest, and he despised the man’s womanish smile. +Nevertheless his new respect for him did not weaken; he decided that he was a very decent +fellow in his way, and he was more impressed than he would admit by the amount of work +that the doctor had for years been doing in the morning before his intellectual superiors +had sat up in bed. And he imagined that it might be even more agreeable to read in the +fresh stillness of the morning than in the solitary night.</p> + +<p>Then they returned to the case of Darius. The doctor was more communicative, and they +were both cheerfully matter-of-fact concerning it. There it was, to be made the best of! +And that Darius could never handle business again, and that in about two years his doom +would be accomplished—these were basic facts, axiomatic. The doctor had seen his +patient in the garden, and he suggested that if Darius could be persuaded to interest +himself in gardening... They discussed his medicine, his meals, his digestion, and the +great, impossible dream of ‘taking him away,’ ‘out of it all.’ And +every now and then Dr Heve dropped some little hint as to the management of Darius.</p> + +<p>The ticking parcel drew the discreet attention of the doctor. The machine was one +guaranteed to go in any position, and was much more difficult to stop than to start.</p> + +<p>“It’s only an alarm,” said Edwin, not without self-consciousness.</p> + +<p>The doctor went, tripping neatly and optimistically, off towards his own breakfast. He +got up earlier than his horse.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Darius was still in the garden when Edwin went to him. He had put on his daily suit, +and was leisurely digging in an uncultivated patch of ground. He stuck the spade into the +earth perpendicularly and deep, and when he tried to prise it up and it would not yield +because of a concealed half-brick, he put his tongue between his teeth and then bit his +lower lip, controlling himself, determined to get the better of the spade and the brick by +persuasively humouring them. He took no notice whatever of Edwin.</p> + +<p>“I see you aren’t losing any time,” said Edwin, who felt as though he +were engaging in small-talk with a stranger.</p> + +<p>“Are <i>you</i>?” Darius replied, without turning his head.</p> + +<p>“I’ve just come up for a bit of breakfast. Everything’s all +right,” he said. He would have liked to add: “I was in the shop before +seven-thirty,” but he was too proud.</p> + +<p>After a pause, he ventured, essaying the casual—</p> + +<p>“I say, father, I shall want the keys of the desk, and all that.”</p> + +<p>“Keys o’ th’ desk!” Darius muttered, leaning on the spade, as +though demanding in stupefaction, “What on earth can you want the keys +for?”</p> + +<p>“Well—” Edwin stammered.</p> + +<p>But the proposition was too obvious to be denied. Darius left the spade to stand up by +itself, and stared.</p> + +<p>“Got ’em in your pocket?” Edwin inquired.</p> + +<p>Slowly Darius drew forth a heavy, glittering bunch of keys, one of the chief insignia +of his dominion, and began to fumble at it.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t take any of them off. I expect I know which is which,” +said Edwin, holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>Darius hesitated, and then yielded up the bunch.</p> + +<p>“Thanks,” said Edwin lightly.</p> + +<p>But the old man’s reluctance to perform this simple and absolutely necessary act +of surrender, the old man’s air of having done something tremendous—these +signs frightened Edwin and shook his courage for the demand compared to which the demand +for the keys was naught. Still, the affair had to be carried through.</p> + +<p>“And I say,” he proceeded, jingling the keys, “about signing and +endorsing cheques. They tell me at the Bank that if you sign a general authority to me to +do it for you, that will be enough.”</p> + +<p>He could not avoid looking guilty. He almost felt guilty, almost felt as if he were +plotting against his father’s welfare. And as he spoke his words seemed unreal and +his suggestion fantastic. At the Bank the plan had been simple, easy, and perfectly +natural. But there could be no doubt, that as he had walked up Trafalgar Road, receding +from the Bank and approaching his father, the plan had gradually lost those attractive +qualities. And now in the garden it was merely monstrous.</p> + +<p>Silent, Darius resumed the spade.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin desperately. “What about it?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think”—Darius glowered upon him with heavy, desolating +scorn—“do you think as I’m going to let you sign my cheques for me? +You’re taking too much on yourself, my lad.”</p> + +<p>“But—”</p> + +<p>“I tell ye you’re taking too much on yourself!” he began to shout +menacingly. “Get about your business and don’t act the fool! You needn’t +think you’re going to be God A’mighty because you’ve got up a bit +earlier for once in a way and been down to th’ shop before breakfast.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>In all his demeanour there was not the least indication of weakness. He might never +have sat down on the stairs and cried! He might never have submitted feebly and perhaps +gladly to the caresses of Clara and the soothings of Auntie Hamps! Impossible to convince +him that he was cut off from the world! Impossible even to believe it! Was this the man +that Edwin and the Bank manager and the doctor and all the others had been disposing of as +though he were an automaton accurately responsive to external suggestion?</p> + +<p>“Look here,” Edwin knew that he ought to say. “Let it be clearly +understood once for all—I’m the boss now! I have the authority in my pocket +and you must sign it, and quick too! I shall do my best for you, but I don’t mean to +be bullied while I’m doing it!”</p> + +<p>But he could not say it. Nor could his heart emotionally feel it.</p> + +<p>He turned away sheepishly, and then he faced his father again, with a distressed, +apologetic smile.</p> + +<p>“Well then,” he asked, “who <i>is</i> going to sign +cheques?”</p> + +<p>“I am,” said Darius.</p> + +<p>“But you know what the doctor said! You know what you promised him!”</p> + +<p>“What did the doctor say?”</p> + +<p>“He said you weren’t to do anything at all. And you said you +wouldn’t. What’s more, you said you didn’t want to.”</p> + +<p>Darius sneered.</p> + +<p>“I reckon I can sign cheques,” he said. “And I reckon I can endorse +cheques... So it’s got to that! I can’t sign my own name now. I shall show +some of you whether I can’t sign my own name!”</p> + +<p>“You know it isn’t simply signing them. You know if I bring cheques up for +you to sign you’ll begin worrying about them at once, and—and there’ll +be no end to it. You’d much better—”</p> + +<p>“Shut up!” It was like a clap of thunder.</p> + +<p>Edwin hesitated an instant and then went towards the house. He could hear his father +muttering “Whipper-snapper!”</p> + +<p>“And I’ll tell you another thing,” Darius bawled across the +garden—assuredly his voice would reach the street. “It was like your impudence +to go to the Bank like that without asking me first! ‘They tell you at the +Bank!’ ‘They tell you at the Bank!’ Anything else they told you at the +Bank?” Then a snort.</p> + +<p>Edwin was humiliated and baffled. He knew not what he could do. The situation became +impossible immediately it was faced. He felt also very resentful, and resentment was +capturing him, when suddenly an idea seemed to pull him by the sleeve: “All this is +part of his disease. It’s part of his disease that he can’t see the point of a +thing.” And the idea was insistent, and under its insistence Edwin’s +resentment changed to melancholy. He said to himself that he must think of his father as a +child. He blamed himself, in a sort of pleasurable luxury of remorse, for all the anger +which during all his life he had felt against his father. His father’s +unreasonableness had not been a fault, but a misfortune. His father had been not a tyrant, +but a victim. His brain must always have been wrong! And now he was doomed, and the worst +part of his doom was that he was unaware of it. And in the thought of Darius ignorantly +blustering within the walled garden, in the spring sunshine, condemned, cut off, helpless +at the last, pitiable at the last, there was something inexpressibly poignant. And the +sunshine seemed a shame; and Edwin’s youth and mental vigour seemed a shame.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless Edwin knew not what to do.</p> + +<p>“Master Edwin,” said Mrs Nixon, who was rubbing the balustrade of the +stairs, “you munna’ cross him like that.” She jerked her head in the +direction of the garden. The garden door stood open.</p> + +<p>If he had not felt solemn and superior, he could have snapped off that head of +hers.</p> + +<p>“Is my breakfast ready?” he asked. He hung up his hat, and absently took +the little parcel which he had left on the marble ledge of the umbrella-stand.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_07"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Seven.</h3> + +<h4>Laid Aside.</h4> + +<p>The safe, since the abandonment of the business premises by the family, had stood in a +corner of a small nondescript room, sometimes vaguely called the safe-room, between the +shop and what had once been the kitchen. It was a considerable safe, and it had the room +practically to itself. As Edwin unlocked it, and the prodigious door swung with silent +smoothness to his pull, he was aware of a very romantic feeling of exploration. He had +seen the inside of the safe before; he had even opened the safe, and taken something from +it, under his father’s orders. But he had never had leisure, nor licence, to inspect +its interior. From his boyhood had survived the notion that it must contain many marvels. +In spite of himself his attitude was one of awe.</p> + +<p>The first thing that met his eye was his father’s large, black-bound private +cash-book, which constituted the most sacred and mysterious document in the accountancy of +the business. Edwin handled, and kept, all the books save that. At the beginning of the +previous week he and Stifford had achieved the task of sending out the quarterly accounts, +and of one sort or another there were some seven hundred quarterly accounts. Edwin was +familiar with every detail of the printer’s work-book, the daybook, the combined +book colloquially called ‘invoice and ledger,’ the ‘bought’ +ledger, and the shop cash-book. But he could form no sure idea of the total dimensions and +results of the business, because his father always kept the ultimate castings to himself, +and never displayed his private cash-book under any circumstances. By ingenuity and +perseverance Edwin might have triumphed over Darius’s mania for secrecy; but he did +not care to do so; perhaps pride even more than honour caused him to refrain.</p> + +<p>Now he held the book, and saw that only a portion of it was in the nature of a +cash-book; the rest comprised summaries and general statements. The statement for the year +1885, so far as he could hastily decipher its meaning, showed a profit of 821 pounds. He +was not surprised, and yet the sight of the figures in his father’s heavy, scratchy +hand was curiously impressive.</p> + +<p>His father could keep nothing from him now. The interior of the safe was like a city +that had capitulated; no law ran in it but his law, and he was absolute; he could commit +infamies in the city and none might criticise. He turned over piles of dusty +cheque-counterfoils, and old pass-books and other old books of account. He saw a linen bag +crammed with four-shilling pieces (whenever Darius obtained a double florin he put it +aside), and one or two old watches of no value. Also the title-deeds of the house at +Bleakridge, their latest parchment still white with pounce; the mortgage, then, had been +repaid, a fact which Darius had managed on principle to conceal from his son. Then he came +to the four drawers, and in some of these he discovered a number of miscellaneous +share-certificates with their big seals. He knew that his father had investments—it +was impossible to inhabit the shop-cubicle with his father and not know that—but he +had no conception of their extent or their value. Always he had regarded all those matters +as foreign to himself, refusing to allow curiosity in regard to them to awake. Now he was +differently minded, owing to the mere physical weight in his pocket of a bunch of keys! In +a hasty examination he gathered that the stock was chiefly in railways and shipping, and +that it amounted to large sums—anyhow quite a number of thousands. He was frankly +astonished. How had his father’s clumsy, slow intellect been able to cope with the +dangerous intricacies of the Stock Exchange? It seemed incredible; and yet he had known +quite well that his father was an investor!</p> + +<p>“Of course he isn’t keen on giving it all up!” Edwin exclaimed aloud +suddenly. “I wonder he even forked out the keys as easily as he did!”</p> + +<p>The view of the safe enabled him to perform a feat which very few children ever +achieve; he put himself in his father’s place. And it was with benevolence, not with +exasperation, that he puzzled his head to invent some device for defeating the old +man’s obstinacy about cheque-signing.</p> + +<p>One drawer was evidently not in regular use. Often, in a series of drawers, one of them +falls into the idle habit of being overlooked, slipping gradually by custom into +desuetude, though other drawers may overflow. This drawer held merely a few scraps of +sample paper, and a map, all dusty. He drew forth the map. It was coloured, and in shaky +Roman characters underneath it ran the legend, “The County of Staffordshire.” +He seemed to recognise the map. On the back he read, in his father’s handwriting: +“Drawn and coloured without help by my son Edwin, aged nine.”</p> + +<p>He had utterly forgotten it. He could in no detail recall the circumstances in which he +had produced the wonderful map. A childish, rude effort! ... Still, rather remarkable that +at the age of nine (perhaps even before he had begun to attend the Oldcastle Middle +School) he should have chosen to do a county map instead of a map of that country beloved +by all juvenile map-drawers, Ireland! He must have copied it from the map in Lewis’s +Gazetteer of England and Wales... Twenty-one years ago, nearly! He might, from the +peculiar effect on him, have just discovered the mummy of the boy that once had been +Edwin... And his father had kept the map for over twenty years. The old cock must have +been deuced proud of it once! Not that he ever said so—Edwin was sure of that!</p> + +<p>“Now you needn’t get sentimental!” he told himself. Like Maggie he +had a fearful, an almost morbid, horror of sentimentality. But he could not arrest the +softening of his heart, as he smiled at the <i>naïveté</i> of the map and at +his father’s parental simplicity.</p> + +<p>As he was closing the safe, Stifford, agitated, hurried into the room.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, Mr Clayhanger’s in the Square. I thought I’d better +tell you.”</p> + +<p>“What? Father?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. He’s standing opposite the chapel and he keeps looking this way. +I thought you’d like—”</p> + +<p>Edwin turned the key, and ran forth, stumbling, as he entered the shop, against the +step-ladder which, with the paper-boy at the summit of it, overtopped the doorway. He +wondered why he should run, and why Stifford’s face was so obviously +apprehensive.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Darius Clayhanger was standing at the north-east corner of the little Square, half-way +up Duck Bank, at the edge of the pavement. And his gaze, hesitant and feeble, seemed to be +upon the shop. He merely stood there, moveless, and yet the sight of him was most +strangely disconcerting. Edwin, who kept within the shelter of the doorway, comprehended +now the look on Stifford’s face. His father had the air of ranging round about the +shop in a reconnaissance, like an Indian or a wild animal, or like a domestic animal +violently expelled. Edwin almost expected him to creep round by the Town Hall into Saint +Luke’s Square, and then to reappear stealthily at the other end of Wedgwood Street, +and from a western ambush stare again at his own premises.</p> + +<p>A man coming down Duck Bank paused an instant near Darius, and with a smile spoke to +him, holding out his hand. Darius gave a slight nod. The man, snubbed and confused, walked +on, the smile still on his face, but meaningless now, and foolish.</p> + +<p>At length Darius walked up the hill, his arms stiff and out-pointing, as of old. Edwin +got his hat and ran after him. Instead of turning to the left along the market-place, +Darius kept on farther up the hill, past the Shambles, towards the old playground and the +vague cinder-wastes where the town ended in a few ancient cottages. It was at the +playground that Edwin, going slowly and cautiously, overtook him.</p> + +<p>“Hello, father!” he began nervously. “Where are you off +to?”</p> + +<p>Darius did not seem to be at all startled to see him at his side. Nevertheless he +behaved in a queer fashion. Without saying a word he suddenly turned at right-angles and +apparently aimed himself towards the market-place, by the back of the Town Hall. When he +had walked a few paces, he stopped and looked round at Edwin, who could not decide what +ought to be done.</p> + +<p>“If ye want to know,” said Darius, with overwhelming sadness and embittered +disgust, “I’m going to th’ Bank to sign that authority about +cheques.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin responded. “Good! I’ll go with you if you +like.”</p> + +<p>“Happen it’ll be as well,” said Darius, resigning himself.</p> + +<p>They walked together in silence.</p> + +<p>The old man was beaten. The old man had surrendered, unconditionally. Edwin’s +heart lightened as he perceived more and more clearly what this surprising victory meant. +It meant that always in the future he would have the upper hand. He knew now, and Darius +knew, that his father had no strength to fight, and that any semblance of fighting could +be treated as bluster. Probably nobody realised as profoundly as Darius himself, his real +and yet mysterious inability to assert his will against the will of another. The force of +his individuality was gone. He, who had meant to govern tyrannically to his final hour, to +die with a powerful and grim gesture of command, had to accept the ignominy of submission. +Edwin had not even insisted, had used no kind of threat. He had merely announced his will, +and when the first fury had waned Darius had found his son’s will working like a +chemical agent in his defenceless mind, and had yielded. It was astounding. And always it +would be thus, until the time when Edwin would say ‘Do this’ and Darius would +do it, and ‘Do that’ and Darius would do it, meekly, unreasoningly, +anxiously.</p> + +<p>Edwin’s relief was so great that it might have been mistaken for positive +ecstatic happiness. His mind ranged exultingly over the future of the business. In a few +years, if he chose, he could sell the business and spend the whole treasure of his time +upon programmes. The entire world would be his, and he could gather the fruits of every +art. He would utterly belong to himself. It was a formidable thought. The atmosphere of +the marketplace contained too much oxygen to be quite grateful to his lungs... In the +meantime there were things he would do. He would raise Stifford’s wages. Long ago +they ought to have been raised. And he would see that Stifford had for his dinner a full +hour; which in practice Stifford had never had. And he would completely give up the sale +and delivery of newspapers and weeklies, and would train the paper-boy to the shop, and +put Stifford in his own place and perhaps get another clerk. It struck him hopefully that +Stifford might go forth for orders. Assuredly he himself had not one quality of a +commercial traveller. And, most inviting prospect of all, he would stock new books. He +cared not whether new books were unremunerative. It should be known throughout the Five +Towns that at Clayhanger’s in Bursley a selection of new books could always be seen. +And if people would not buy them people must leave them. But he would have them. And so +his thoughts flew.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>And at the same time he was extremely sad, only less sad than his father. When he +allowed his thoughts to rest for an instant on his father he was so moved that he could +almost have burst into a sob—just one terrific sob. And he would say in his mind, +“What a damned shame! What a damned shame!” Meaning that destiny had behaved +ignobly to his father, after all. Destiny had no right to deal with a man so faithlessly. +Destiny should do either one thing or the other. It seemed to him that he was leading his +father by a string to his humiliation. And he was ashamed: ashamed of his own dominance +and of his father’s craven submissiveness. Twice they were stopped by hearty and +curious burgesses, and at each encounter Edwin, far more than Darius, was anxious to +pretend that the harsh hand of Darius still firmly held the sceptre.</p> + +<p>When they entered the shining mahogany interior of the richest Bank in the Five Towns, +hushed save for a discreet shovelling of coins, Edwin waited for his father to speak, and +Darius said not a word, but stood glumly quiescent, like a victim in a halter. The little +wiry dancing cashier looked; every clerk in the place looked; from behind the third +counter, in the far recesses of the Bank, clerks looked over their ledgers; and they all +looked in the same annoying way, as at a victim in a halter; in their glance was all the +pitiful gloating baseness of human nature, mingled with a little of its compassion.</p> + +<p>Everybody of course knew that ‘something had happened’ to the successful +steam-printer.</p> + +<p>“Can we see Mr Lovatt?” Edwin demanded curtly. He was abashed and he was +resentful.</p> + +<p>The cashier jumped on all his springs into a sudden activity of deference.</p> + +<p>Presently the manager emerged from the glazed door of his room, pulling his long +whiskers.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr Lovatt,” Edwin began nervously. “Father’s just come +along—”</p> + +<p>They were swallowed up into the manager’s parlour. It might have been a court of +justice, or a dentist’s surgery, or the cabinet of an insurance doctor, or the room +at Fontainebleau where Napoleon signed his abdication—anything but the thing it was. +Happily Mr Lovatt had a manner which never varied; he had only one manner for all men and +all occasions. So that Edwin was not distressed either by the deficiencies of amateur +acting or by the exhibition of another’s self-conscious awkwardness. Nevertheless +when his father took the pen to write he was obliged to look studiously at the window and +inaudibly hum an air. Had he not done so, that threatening sob might have burst its way +out of him.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“I’m going this road,” said Darius, when they were safely out of the +Bank, pointing towards the Sytch.</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“I’m going this road,” he repeated, gloomily obstinate.</p> + +<p>“All right,” said Edwin cheerfully. “I’ll trot round with +you.”</p> + +<p>He did not know whether he could safely leave his father. The old man’s eyes +resented his assiduity and accepted it.</p> + +<p>They passed the Old Sytch Pottery, the smoke of whose kilns now no longer darkened the +sky. The senior partner of the firm which leased it had died, and his sons had immediately +taken advantage of his absence to build a new and efficient works down by the canal-side +at Shawport—a marvel of everything save architectural dignity. Times changed. Edwin +remarked on the desolation of the place and received no reply. Then the idea occurred to +him that his father was bound for the Liberal Club. It was so. They both entered. In the +large room two young men were amusing themselves at the billiard-table which formed the +chief attraction of the naked interior, and on the ledges of the table were two glasses. +The steward in an apron watched them.</p> + +<p>“Aye!” grumbled Darius, eyeing the group. “That’s Rad, that is! +That’s Rad! Not twelve o’clock yet!”</p> + +<p>If Edwin with his father had surprised two young men drinking and playing billiards +before noon in the Conservative Club, he would have been grimly pleased. He would have +taken it for a further proof of the hollowness of the opposition to the great Home Rule +Bill; but the spectacle of a couple of wastrels in the Liberal Club annoyed and shamed +him. His vague notion was that at such a moment of high crisis the two wastrels ought to +have had the decency to refrain from wasting.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr Clayhanger,” said the steward, in his absurd boniface way, +“you’re quite a stranger.”</p> + +<p>“I want my name taken off this Club,” said Darius shortly. “Ye +understand me! And I reckon I’m not the only one, these days.”</p> + +<p>The steward did in fact understand. He protested in a low, amiable voice, while the +billiard-players affected not to hear; but he perfectly understood. The epidemic of +resignations had already set in, and there had been talk of a Liberal-Unionist Club. The +steward saw that the grand folly of a senile statesman was threatening his own future +prospects. He smiled. But at Edwin, as they were leaving, he smiled in a quite peculiar +way, and that smile clearly meant: “Your father goes dotty, and the first thing he +does is to change his politics.” This was the steward’s justifiable +revenge.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> aren’t leaving us?” the steward questioned Edwin in a +half-whisper.</p> + +<p>Edwin shook his head. But he could have killed the steward for that nauseating +suggestive smile. The outer door swung to, cutting off the delicate click of billiard +balls.</p> + +<p>At the top of Duck Bank, Darius silently and without warning mounted the steps of the +Conservative Club. Doubtless he knew how to lay his hand instantly on a proposer and +seconder. Edwin did not follow him.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>That evening, conscious of responsibility and of virtue, Edwin walked up Trafalgar Road +with a less gawky and more dignified mien than ever he had managed to assume before. He +had not only dismissed programmes of culture, he had forgotten them. After twelve hours as +head of a business, they had temporarily ceased to interest him. And when he passed, or +was overtaken by, other men of affairs, he thought to himself naïvely in the dark, +“I am the equal of these men.” And the image of Florence Simcox, the +clog-dancer, floated through his mind.</p> + +<p>He found Darius alone in the drawing-room, in front of an uncustomary fire, garden-clay +still on his boots, and “The Christian News” under his spectacles. The Sunday +before the funeral of Mr Shushions had been so unusual and so distressing that Darius had +fallen into arrear with his perusals. True, he had never been known to read “The +Christian News” on any day but Sunday, but now every day was Sunday.</p> + +<p>Edwin nodded to him and approached the fire, rubbing his hands.</p> + +<p>“What’s this as I hear?” Darius began, with melancholy softness.</p> + +<p>“Eh?”</p> + +<p>“About Albert wanting to borrow a thousand pounds?” Darius gazed at him +over his spectacles.</p> + +<p>“Albert wanting to borrow a thousand pounds!” Edwin repeated, +astounded.</p> + +<p>“Aye! Have they said naught to you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin. “What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Clara and your aunt have both been at me since tea. Some tale as Albert can +amalgamate into partnership with Hope and Carters if he can put down a thousand. Then +Albert’s said naught to ye?”</p> + +<p>“No, he hasn’t!” Edwin exclaimed, emphasising each word with a +peculiar fierceness. It was as if he had said, “I should like to catch him saying +anything to me about it!”</p> + +<p>He was extremely indignant. It seemed to him monstrous that those two women should thus +try to snatch an advantage from his father’s weakness, pitifully mean and base. He +could not understand how people could bring themselves to do such things, nor how, having +done them, they could ever look their fellows in the face again. Had they no shame? They +would not let a day pass; but they must settle on the old man instantly, like flies on a +carcass! He could imagine the plottings, the hushed chatterings; the acting-for-the-best +demeanour of that cursed woman Auntie Hamps (yes, he now cursed her), and the candid greed +of his sister.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t do it, would ye?” Darius asked, in a tone that expected +a negative answer; but also with a rather plaintive appeal, as though he were depending on +Edwin for moral support against the formidable forces of attack.</p> + +<p>“I should not,” said Edwin stoutly, touched by the strange wistful note and +by the glance. “Unless of course you really want to.”</p> + +<p>He did not care in the least whether the money would or would not be really useful and +reasonably safe. He did not care whose enmity he was risking. His sense of fair play was +outraged, and he would salve it at any cost. He knew that had his father not been struck +down and defenceless, these despicable people would never have dared to demand money from +him. That was the only point that mattered.</p> + +<p>The relief of Darius at Edwin’s attitude in the affair was painful. Hoping for +sympathy from Edwin, he yet had feared in him another enemy. Now he was reassured, and he +could hide his feelings no better than a child.</p> + +<p>“Seemingly they can’t wait till my will’s opened!” he murmured, +with a scarcely successful affectation of grimness.</p> + +<p>“Made a will, have you?” Edwin remarked, with an elaborate casualness to +imply that he had never till then given a thought to his father’s will, but that, +having thought of the question, he was perhaps a very little surprised that his father had +indeed made a will.</p> + +<p>Darius nodded, quite benevolently. He seemed to have forgotten his deep grievance +against Edwin in the matter of cheque-signing.</p> + +<p>“Duncalf’s got it,” he murmured after a moment. Duncalf was the town +clerk and a solicitor.</p> + +<p>So the will was made! And he had submissively signed away all control over all monetary +transactions. What more could he do, except expire with the minimum of fuss? Truly Darius, +in the local phrase, was now ‘laid aside’! And of all the symptoms of his +decay the most striking and the most tragic, to Edwin, was that he showed no curiosity +whatever about business. Not one single word of inquiry had he uttered.</p> + +<p>“You’ll want shaving,” said Edwin, in a friendly way.</p> + +<p>Darius passed a hand over his face. He had ceased years ago to shave himself, and had a +subscription at Dick Jones’s in Aboukir Street, close by the shop.</p> + +<p>“Aye!”</p> + +<p>“Shall I send the barber up, or shall you let it grow?”</p> + +<p>“What do you think?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin drawled, characteristically hesitating. Then he remembered that +he was the responsible head of the family of Clayhanger. “I think you might let it +grow,” he decided.</p> + +<p>And when he had issued the verdict, it seemed to him like a sentence of sequestration +and death on his father... ‘Let it grow! What does it matter?’ Such was the +innuendo.</p> + +<p>“You used to grow a full beard once, didn’t you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Darius.</p> + +<p>That made the situation less cruel.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_08"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Eight.</h3> + +<h4>A Change of Mind.</h4> + +<p>One evening, a year later, in earliest summer of 1887, Edwin and Mr Osmond Orgreave +were walking home together from Hanbridge. When they reached the corner of the street +leading to Lane End House, Osmond Orgreave said, stopping—</p> + +<p>“Now you’ll come with us?” And he looked Edwin hard in the eyes, and +there was a most flattering appeal in his voice. It was some time since their eyes had met +frankly, for Edwin had recently been having experience of Mr Orgreave’s methods in +financial controversy, and it had not been agreeable.</p> + +<p>After an instant Edwin said heartily—</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think I’ll come. Of course I should like to. But I’ll let you +know.”</p> + +<p>“To-night?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, to-night.”</p> + +<p>“I shall tell my wife you’re coming.”</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave waved a hand, and passed with a certain decorative gaiety down the street. +His hair was now silvern, but it still curled in the old places, and his gestures had +apparently not aged at all.</p> + +<p>Mr and Mrs Orgreave were going to London for the Jubilee celebrations. So far as their +family was concerned, they were going alone, because Osmond had insisted humorously that +he wanted a rest from his children. But he had urgently invited Edwin to accompany them. +At first Edwin had instinctively replied that it was impossible. He could not leave home. +He had never been to London; a journey to London presented itself to him as an immense +enterprise, almost as a piece of culpable self-indulgence. And then, under the stimulus of +Osmond’s energetic and adventurous temperament, he had said to himself, “Why +not? Why shouldn’t I?”</p> + +<p>The arguments favoured his going. It was absurd and scandalous that he had never been +to London: he ought for his self-respect to depart thither at once. The legend of the +Jubilee, spectacular, processional, historic, touched his imagination. Whenever he thought +of it, his fancy saw pennons and corselets and chargers winding through stupendous +streets, and, somewhere in the midst, the majesty of England in the frail body of a little +old lady, who had had many children and one supreme misfortune. Moreover, he could +incidentally see Charlie. Moreover, he had been suffering from a series of his customary +colds, and from overwork, and Heve had told him that he ‘would do with a +change.’ Moreover, he had a project for buying paper in London: he had received, +from London, overtures which seemed promising. He had never been able to buy paper quite +as cheaply as Darius had bought paper, for the mere reason that he could not haggle over +sixteenths of a penny with efficient ruthlessness; he simply could not do it, being +somehow ashamed to do it. In Manchester, where Darius had bought paper for thirty years, +they were imperceptibly too brutal for Edwin in the harsh realities of a bargain; they had +no sense of shame. He thought that in letters from London he detected a softer spirit.</p> + +<p>And above all he desired, by accepting Mr Orgreave’s invitation, to show to the +architect that the differences between them were really expunged from his mind. Among many +confusions in his father’s flourishing but disorderly affairs, Edwin had been +startled to find the Orgreave transactions. There were accounts and contra-accounts, and +quantities of strangely contradictory documents. Never had a real settlement occurred +between Darius and Osmond. And Osmond did not seem to want one. Edwin, however, with his +old-maid’s passion for putting and keeping everything in its place, insisted on one. +Mr Orgreave had to meet him on his strongest point, his love of order. The process of +settlement had been painful to Edwin; it had seriously marred some of his illusions. +Nearly the last of the entanglements in his father’s business, the Orgreave matter +was straightened and closed now; and the projected escapade to London would bury it deep, +might even restore agreeable illusions. And Edwin was incapable of nursing malice.</p> + +<p>The best argument of all was that he had a right to go to London. He had earned London, +by honest and severe work, and by bearing firmly the huge weight of his responsibility. So +far he had offered himself no reward whatever, not even an increase of salary, not even a +week of freedom or the satisfaction of a single caprice.</p> + +<p>“I shall go, and charge it to the business,” he said to himself. He became +excited about going.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>As he approached his house, he saw the elder Heve, vicar of Saint Peter’s, coming +away from it, a natty clerical figure in a straw hat of peculiar shape. Recently this man +had called once or twice; not professionally, for Darius was neither a churchman nor a +parishioner, but as a brother of Dr Heve’s, as a friendly human being, and Darius +had been flattered. The Vicar would talk about Jesus with quiet half-humorous enthusiasm. +For him at any rate Christianity was grand fun. He seemed never to be solemn over his +religion, like the Wesleyans. He never, with a shamed, defiant air, said, “I am not +ashamed of Christ,” like the Wesleyans. He might have known Christ slightly at +Cambridge. But his relations with Christ did not make him conceited, nor condescending. +And if he was concerned about the welfare of people who knew not Christ, he hid his +concern in the politest manner. Edwin, after being momentarily impressed by him, was now +convinced of his perfect mediocrity; the Vicar’s views on literature had damned him +eternally in the esteem of Edwin, who was still naïve enough to be unable to +comprehend how a man who had been to Cambridge could speak enthusiastically of +“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Moreover, Edwin despised him for his obvious pride +in being a bachelor. The Vicar would not say that a priest should be celibate, but he +would, with delicacy, imply as much. Then also, for Edwin’s taste, the parson was +somewhat too childishly interested in the culture of cellar-mushrooms, which was his +hobby. He would recount the tedious details of all his experiments to Darius, who, +flattered by these attentions from the Established Church, took immense delight in the +Vicar and in the sample mushrooms offered to him from time to time.</p> + +<p>Maggie stood in the porch, which commanded the descent into Bursley; she was watching +the Vicar as he receded. When Edwin appeared at the gate, she gave a little jump, and he +fancied that she also blushed.</p> + +<p>“Look here!” he exclaimed to himself, in a flash of suspicion. +“Surely she’s not thinking of the Vicar! Surely Maggie isn’t after +all!” He did not conceive it possible that the Vicar, who had been to Cambridge and +had notions about celibacy, was thinking of Maggie. “Women are queer,” he said +to himself. (For him, this generalisation from facts was quite original.) Fancy her +staring after the Vicar! She must have been doing it quite unconsciously! He had supposed +that her attitude towards the Vicar was precisely his own. He took it for granted that the +Vicar’s attitude was the same to both of them, based on a polite and kindly but firm +recognition that there could be no genuine sympathy between him and them.</p> + +<p>“The Vicar’s just been,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Has he? ... Cheered the old man up at all?”</p> + +<p>“Not much.” Maggie shook her head gloomily.</p> + +<p>Edwin’s conscience seemed to be getting ready to hint that he ought not to go to +London.</p> + +<p>“I say, Mag,” he said quietly, as he inserted his stick in the +umbrella-stand. She stopped on her way upstairs, and then approached him.</p> + +<p>“Mr Orgreave wants me to go to London with him and Mrs Orgreave.” He +explained the whole project to her.</p> + +<p>She said at once, eagerly and benevolently—</p> + +<p>“Of course you ought to go. It’ll do you all the good in the world. I shall +be all right here. Clara and Albert will come for Jubilee Day, anyhow. But haven’t +you driven it late? ... The day after to-morrow, isn’t it? Mr Heve was only saying +just now that the hotels were all crammed.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you know what Orgreave is! I expect he’ll look after all +that.”</p> + +<p>“You go!” Maggie enjoined him.</p> + +<p>“Won’t upset him?” Edwin nodded vaguely to wherever Darius might +be.</p> + +<p>“Can’t be helped if it does,” she replied calmly.</p> + +<p>“Well then, I’m dashed if I don’t go! What about my +collars?”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Those three—Darius, Maggie, and Edwin—sat down to tea in silence. The +window was open, and the weather very warm and gay. During the previous twelve months they +had sat down to hundreds of such meals. Save for a few brief periods of cheerfulness, +Darius had steadily grown more taciturn, heavy and melancholy. In the winter he had of +course abandoned his attempts to divert himself by gardening—attempts at the best +half-hearted and feeble—and he had not resumed them in the spring. Less than half a +year previously he had often walked across the fields to Hillport and back, or up the +gradual slopes to the height of Toft End—he never went townwards, had not once +visited the Conservative Club. But now he could not even be persuaded to leave the garden. +An old wicker arm-chair had been placed at the end of the garden, and he would set out for +that arm-chair as upon a journey, and, having reached it, would sink into it with a huge +sigh, and repose before bracing himself to the effort of return.</p> + +<p>And now it seemed marvellous that he had ever had the legs to get to Hillport and to +Toft End. He existed in a stupor of dull reflection, from pride pretending to read and not +reading, or pretending to listen and not listening, and occasionally making a remark which +was inapposite but which had to be humoured. And as the weeks passed his children’s +manner of humouring him became increasingly perfunctory, and their movements in putting +right the negligence of his attire increasingly brusque. Vainly they tried to remember in +time that he was a victim and not a criminal; they would remember after the careless +remark and after the curt gesture, when it was too late. His malady obsessed them: it was +in the air of the house, omnipresent; it weighed upon them, corroding the nerve and +exasperating the spirit. Now and then, when Darius had vented a burst of irrational anger, +they would say to each other with casual bitterness that really he was too annoying. Once, +when his demeanour towards the new servant had strongly suggested that he thought her name +was Bathsheba, Mrs Nixon herself had ‘flown out’ at him, and there had been a +scene which the doctor had soothed by discreet professional explanations. Maggie’s +difficulty was that he was always there, always on the spot. To be free of him she must +leave the house; and Maggie was not fond of leaving the house.</p> + +<p>Edwin meant to inform him briefly of his intention to go to London, but such was the +power of habit that he hesitated; he could not bring himself to announce directly this +audacious and unprecedented act of freedom, though he knew that his father was as helpless +as a child in his hands. Instead, he began to talk about the renewal of the lease of the +premises in Duck Square, as to which it would be necessary to give notice to the landlord +at the end of the month.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been thinking I’ll have it made out in my own name,” he +said. “It’ll save you signing, and so on.” This in itself was a proposal +sufficiently startling, and he would not have been surprised at a violent instinctive +protest from Darius; but Darius seemed not to heed.</p> + +<p>Then both Edwin and Maggie noticed that he was trying to hold a sausage firm on his +plate with his knife, and to cut it with his fork.</p> + +<p>“No, no, father!” said Maggie gently. “Not like that!”</p> + +<p>He looked up, puzzled, and then bent himself again to the plate. The whole of his +faculties seemed to be absorbed in a great effort to resolve the complicated problem of +the plate, the sausage, the knife and the fork.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got your knife in the wrong hand,” said Edwin impatiently, as +to a wilful child.</p> + +<p>Darius stared at the knife and at the fork, and he then sighed, and his sigh meant, +“This business is beyond me!” Then he endeavoured to substitute the knife for +the fork, but he could not.</p> + +<p>“See,” said Edwin, leaning over. “Like this!” He took the +knife, but Darius would not loose it. “No, leave go!” he ordered. “Leave +go! How can I show you if you don’t leave go?”</p> + +<p>Darius dropped both knife and fork with a clatter. Edwin put the knife into his right +hand, and the fork into his left; but in a moment they were wrong again. At first Edwin +could not believe that his father was not indulging deliberately in naughtiness.</p> + +<p>“Shall I cut it up for you, father?” Maggie asked, in a mild, persuasive +tone.</p> + +<p>Darius pushed the plate towards her.</p> + +<p>When she had cut up the sausage, she said—</p> + +<p>“There you are! I’ll keep the knife. Then you can’t get mixed +up.”</p> + +<p>And Darius ate the sausage with the fork alone. His intelligence had failed to master +the original problem presented to it. He ate steadily for a few moments, and then the +tears began to roll down his cheek, and he ate no more.</p> + +<p>This incident, so simple, so unexpected, and so dramatic, caused the most acute +distress. And its effect was disconcerting in the highest degree. It reminded everybody +that what Darius suffered from was softening of the brain. For long he had been a prisoner +in the house and garden. For long he had been almost mute. And now, just after a visit +which usually acted upon him as a tonic, he had begun to lose the skill to feed himself. +Little by little he was demonstrating, by his slow declension from it, the wonder of the +standard of efficiency maintained by the normal human being.</p> + +<p>Edwin and Maggie avoided one another, even in their glances. Each affected the +philosophical, seeking to diminish the significance of the episode. But neither succeeded. +Of the two years allotted to Darius, one had gone. What would the second be?</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In his bedroom, after tea, Edwin fought against the gloomy influence, but uselessly. +The inherent and appalling sadness of existence enveloped and chilled him. He gazed at the +rows of his books. He had done no regular reading of late. Why read? He gazed at the +screen in front of his bed, covered with neat memoranda. How futile! Why go to London? He +would only have to come back from London! And then he said resistingly, “I +<i>will</i> go to London.” But as he said it aloud, he knew well that he would not +go. His conscience would not allow him to depart. He could not leave Maggie alone with his +father. He yielded to his conscience unkindly, reluctantly, with no warm gust of +unselfishness; he yielded because he could not outrage his abstract sense of justice.</p> + +<p>From the window he perceived Maggie and Janet Orgreave talking together over the low +separating wall. And he remembered a word of Janet’s to the effect that she and +Maggie were becoming quite friendly and that Maggie was splendid. Suddenly he went +downstairs into the garden. They were talking in attitudes of intimacy; and both were +grave and mature, and both had a little cleft under the chin. Their pale frocks harmonised +in the evening light. As he approached, Maggie burst into a girlish laugh. “Not +really?” she murmured, with the vivacity of a young girl. He knew not what they were +discussing, nor did he care. What interested him, what startled him, was the youthful +gesture and tone of Maggie. It pleased and touched him to discover another Maggie in the +Maggie of the household. Those two women had put on for a moment the charming, chattering +silliness of schoolgirls. He joined them. On the lawn of the Orgreaves, Alicia was +battling fiercely at tennis with an elegant young man whose name he did not know. Croquet +was deposed; tennis reigned.</p> + +<p>Even Alicia’s occasional shrill cry had a mournful quality in the languishing +beauty of the evening.</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d tell your father I shan’t be able to go +to-morrow,” Edwin said to Janet.</p> + +<p>“But he’s told all of us you <i>are</i> going!” Janet exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Shan’t you go?” Maggie questioned, low.</p> + +<p>“No,” he murmured. Glancing at Janet, he added, “It won’t do +for me to go.”</p> + +<p>“What a pity!” Janet breathed.</p> + +<p>Maggie did not say, “Oh! But you ought to! There’s no reason whatever why +you shouldn’t!” By her silence she contradicted the philosophic nonchalance of +her demeanour during the latter part of the meal.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_09"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Nine.</h3> + +<h4>The Ox.</h4> + +<p>Edwin walked idly down Trafalgar Road in the hot morning sunshine of Jubilee Day. He +had left his father tearfully sentimentalising about the Queen. ‘She’s a good +’un!’ Then a sob. ‘Never was one like her!’ Another sob. +‘No, and never will be again!’ Then a gush of tears on the newspaper, which +the old man laboriously scanned for details of the official programme in London. He had +not for months read the newspaper with such a determined effort to understand; indeed, +since the beginning of his illness, no subject, except mushroom-culture, had interested +him so much as the Jubilee. Each time he looked at the sky from his shady seat in the +garden he had thanked God that it was a fine day, as he might have thanked Him for +deliverance from a grave personal disaster.</p> + +<p>Except for a few poor flags, there was no sign of gaiety in Trafalgar Road. The street, +the town, and the hearts of those who remained in it, were wrapped in that desolating +sadness which envelops the provinces when a supreme spectacular national rejoicing is +centralised in London. All those who possessed the freedom, the energy, and the money had +gone to London to witness a sight that, as every one said to every one, would be unique, +and would remain unique for ever—and yet perhaps less to witness it than to be able +to recount to their grandchildren that they had witnessed it. Many more were visiting +nearer holiday resorts for a day or two days. Those who remained, the poor, the +spiritless, the afflicted, and the captive, felt with mournful keenness the shame of their +utter provinciality, envying the crowds in London with a bitter envy, and picturing London +as the paradise of fashion and splendour.</p> + +<p>It was from sheer aimless disgust that Edwin went down Trafalgar Road; he might as +easily have gone up. Having arrived in the town, a wilderness of shut shops, he gazed a +moment at his own, and then entered it by the side door. He had naught else to do. Had he +chosen he could have spent the whole day in reading, or he might have taken again to his +long-neglected water-colours. But it was not in him to put himself to the trouble of +seeking contentment. He preferred to wallow in utter desolation, thinking of all the +unpleasant things that had ever happened to him, and occasionally conjecturing what he +would have been doing at a given moment had he accompanied the jolly, the distinguished, +and the enterprising Osmond Orgreave to London.</p> + +<p>He passed into the shop, sufficiently illuminated by the white rays that struck through +the diamond holes in the shutters. The morning’s letters—a sparse +company—lay forlorn on the floor. He picked them up and pitched them down in the +cubicle. Then he went into the cubicle, and with the negligent gesture of long habit +unlocked a part of the desk, the part which had once been his father’s privacy, and +of which he had demanded the key more than a year ago. It was all now under his absolute +dominion. He could do exactly as he pleased with a commercial apparatus that brought in +some eight hundred pounds a year net. He was the unquestioned regent, and yet he told +himself that he was no happier than when a slave.</p> + +<p>He drew forth his books of account, and began to piece figures together on backs of +envelopes, using a shorthand of accounts such as a principal will use when he is impatient +and not particular to a few pounds. A little wasp of curiosity was teasing Edwin, and to +quicken it a comparison was necessary between the result of the first six months of that +year and the first six months of the previous year. True, June had not quite expired, but +most of the quarterly accounts were ready, and he could form a trustworthy estimate. Was +he, with his scorn of his father, his brains, his orderliness, doing better or worse than +his father in the business? At the election of 1886, there had been considerably fewer +orders than was customary at elections; he had done nothing whatever for the Tories, but +that was a point that affected neither period of six months. Sundry customers had +assuredly been lost; on the other hand, Stifford’s travelling had seemed to be very +satisfactory. Nor could it be argued that money had been dropped on the new-book business, +because he had not yet inaugurated the new-book business, preferring to wait; he was +afraid that his father might after all astoundingly walk in one day, and see new books on +the counter, and rage. He had stopped the supplying of newspapers, and would deign to +nothing lower than a sixpenny magazine; but the profit on newspapers was negligible.</p> + +<p>The totals ought surely to compare in a manner favourable to himself, for he had been +extremely and unremittingly conscientious. Nevertheless he was afraid. He was afraid +because he knew, vaguely and still deeply, that he could neither buy nor sell as well as +his father. It was not a question of brains; it was a question of individuality. A sense +of honour, of fairness, a temperamental generosity, a hatred of meanness, often prevented +him from pushing a bargain to the limit. He could not bring himself to haggle desperately. +And even when price was not the main difficulty, he could not talk to a customer, or to a +person whose customer he was, with the same rough, gruff, cajoling, bullying skill as his +father. He could not, by taking thought, do what his father had done naturally, by the +mere blind exercise of instinct. His father, with all his clumsiness, and his unscientific +methods, had a certain quality, unseizable, unanalysable, and Edwin had not that +quality.</p> + +<p>He caught himself, in the rapid calculating, giving himself the benefit of every doubt; +somehow he could not help it, childish as it was. And even so, he could see, or he could +feel, that the comparison was not going to be favourable to the regent. It grew plainer +that the volume of business had barely been maintained, and it was glaringly evident that +the expenses, especially wages, had sensibly increased. He abandoned the figures not quite +finished, partly from weary disgust, and partly because Big James most astonishingly +walked into the shop, from the back. He was really quite glad to encounter Big James, a +fellow-creature.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“Seeing the door open, sir,” said Big James cheerfully, through the narrow +doorway of the cubicle, “I stepped in to see as it was no one unlawful.”</p> + +<p>“Did I leave the side door open?” Edwin murmured. It was surprising even to +himself, how forgetful he was at times, he with his mania for orderliness!</p> + +<p>Big James was in his best clothes, and seemed, with his indestructible blandness, to be +perfectly happy.</p> + +<p>“I was just strolling up to have a look at the ox,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Edwin. “Are they cooking it?”</p> + +<p>“They should be, sir. But my fear is it may turn, in this weather.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll come out with you,” said Edwin, enlivened.</p> + +<p>He locked the desk, and hurriedly straightened a few things, and then they went out +together, by Wedgwood Street and the Cock Yard up to the market-place. No breeze moved, +and the heat was tremendous. And there at the foot of the Town Hall tower, and in its +scanty shadow, a dead ox, slung by its legs from an iron construction, was frizzling over +a great primitive fire. The vast flanks of the animal, all rich yellows and browns, +streamed with grease, some of which fell noisily on the almost invisible flames, while the +rest was ingeniously caught in a system of runnels. The spectacle was obscene, nauseating +to the eye, the nose, and the ear, and it powerfully recalled to Edwin the legends of the +Spanish Inquisition. He speculated whether he would ever be able to touch beef again. +Above the tortured and insulted corpse the air quivered in large waves. Mr Doy, the +leading butcher of Bursley, and now chief executioner, regarded with anxiety the operation +which had been entrusted to him, and occasionally gave instructions to a myrmidon. Round +about stood a few privileged persons, whom pride helped to bear the double heat; and +farther off on the pavements, a thin scattered crowd. The sublime spectacle of an ox +roasted whole had not sufficed to keep the townsmen in the town. Even the sages who had +conceived and commanded this peculiar solemnity for celebrating the Jubilee of a Queen and +Empress had not stayed in the borough to see it enacted, though some of them were to +return in time to watch the devouring of the animal by the aged poor at a ceremonial feast +in the evening.</p> + +<p>“It’s a grand sight!” said Big James, with simple enthusiasm. +“A grand sight! Real old English! And I wish her well!” He meant the Queen and +Empress. Then suddenly, in a different tone, sniffing the air, “I doubt it’s +turned! I’ll step across and ask Mr Doy.”</p> + +<p>He stepped across, and came back with the news that the greater portion of the ox, +despite every precaution, had in fact very annoyingly ‘turned,’ and that the +remainder of the carcass was in serious danger.</p> + +<p>“What’ll the old people say?” he demanded sadly. “But +it’s a grand sight, turned or not!”</p> + +<p>Edwin stared and stared, in a sort of sinister fascination. He thought that he might +stare for ever. At length, after ages of ennui, he loosed himself from the spell with an +effort and glanced at Big James.</p> + +<p>“And what are you going to do with yourself to-day, James?”</p> + +<p>Big James smiled. “I’m going to take my walks abroad, sir. It’s +seldom as I get about in the town nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I must be off!”</p> + +<p>“I’d like you to give my respects to the old gentleman, sir.”</p> + +<p>Edwin nodded and departed, very slowly and idly, towards Trafalgar Road and Bleakridge. +He pulled his straw hat over his forehead to avoid the sun, and then he pushed it +backwards to his neck to avoid the sun. The odour of the shrivelling ox remained with him; +it was in his nostrils for several days. His heart grew blacker with intense gloom; and +the contentment of Big James at the prospect of just strolling about the damnable dead +town for the rest of the day surpassed his comprehension. He abandoned himself to misery +voluptuously. The afternoon and evening stretched before him, an arid and appalling +Sahara. The Benbows, and their babes, and Auntie Hamps were coming for dinner and tea, to +cheer up grandfather. He pictured the repasts with savage gloating detestation—burnt +ox, and more burnt ox, and the false odious brightness of a family determined to be +mutually helpful and inspiring. Since his refusal to abet the project of a loan to Albert, +Clara had been secretly hostile under her superficial sisterliness, and Auntie Hamps had +often assured him, in a manner extraordinarily exasperating, that she was convinced he had +acted conscientiously for the best. Strange thought, that after eight hours of these +people and of his father, he would be still alive!</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_10"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Ten.</h3> + +<h4>Mrs Hamps as a Young Man.</h4> + +<p>On the Saturday afternoon of the week following the Jubilee, Edwin and Mrs Hamps were +sunning themselves in the garden, when Janet’s face and shoulders appeared suddenly +at the other side of the wall. At the sight of Mrs Hamps she seemed startled and +intimidated, and she bowed somewhat more ceremoniously than usual.</p> + +<p>“Good afternoon!”</p> + +<p>Then Mrs Hamps returned the bow with superb extravagance, like an Oriental monarch who +is determined to outvie magnificently the gifts of another. Mrs Hamps became conscious of +the whole of her body and of every article of her summer apparel, and nothing of it all +was allowed to escape from contributing to the completeness of the bow. She bridled. She +tossed proudly as it were against the bit. And the rich ruins of her handsomeness adopted +new and softer lines in the overpowering sickly blandishment of a smile. Thus she always +greeted any merely formal acquaintance whom she considered to be above herself in +status—provided, of course, that the acquaintance had done nothing to offend +her.</p> + +<p>“Good after<i>noon</i>, Miss Orgreave!”</p> + +<p>Reluctantly she permitted her features to relax from the full effort of the smile; but +they might not abandon it entirely.</p> + +<p>“I thought Maggie was there,” said Janet.</p> + +<p>“She was, a minute ago,” Edwin answered. “She’s just gone in to +father. She’ll be out directly. Do you want her?”</p> + +<p>“I only wanted to tell her something,” said Janet, and then paused.</p> + +<p>She was obviously very excited. She had the little quick movements of a girl. In her +cream-tinted frock she looked like a mere girl. And she was beautiful in her maturity; a +challenge to the world of males. As she stood there, rising from behind the wall, flushed, +quivering, abandoned to an emotion and yet unconsciously dignified by that peculiar +stateliness that never left her—as she stood there it seemed as if she really was +offering a challenge.</p> + +<p>“I’ll fetch Mag, if you like,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Janet, lifting her chin proudly, “it isn’t a +secret. Alicia’s engaged.” And pride was in every detail of her bearing.</p> + +<p>“Well, I never!” Edwin exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps’s features resumed the full smile.</p> + +<p>“Can you imagine it? I can’t! It seems only last week that she left +school!”</p> + +<p>And indeed it seemed only last week that Alicia was nothing but legs, gawkiness, +blushes, and screwed-up shoulders. And now she was a destined bride. She had caught and +enchanted a youth by her mysterious attractiveness. She had been caught and enchanted by +the mysterious attractiveness of the male. She had known the dreadful anxiety that +precedes the triumph, and the ecstasy of surrender. She had kissed as Janet had never +kissed, and gazed as Janet had never gazed. She knew infinitely more than Janet. She had +always been a child to Janet, but now Janet was the child. No wonder that Janet was +excited.</p> + +<p>“Might one ask who is the fortunate young gentleman?” Mrs Hamps dulcetly +inquired.</p> + +<p>“It’s Harry Hesketh, from Oldcastle... You’ve met him here,” +she added, glancing at Edwin.</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps nodded, satisfied, and the approving nod indicated that she was aware of all +the excellences of the Hesketh family.</p> + +<p>“The tennis man!” Edwin murmured.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course! You aren’t surprised, are you?”</p> + +<p>The fact was that Edwin had not given a thought to the possible relations between +Alicia and any particular young man. But Janet’s thrilled air so patently assumed +his interest that he felt obliged to make a certain pretence.</p> + +<p>“I’m not what you’d call staggered,” he said roguishly. +“I’m keeping my nerve.” And he gave her an intimate smile.</p> + +<p>“Father-in-law and son-in-law have just been talking it over,” said Janet +archly, “in the breakfast-room! Alicia thoughtfully went out for a walk. I’m +dying for her to come back.” Janet laughed from simple joyous expectation. +“When Harry came out of the breakfast-room he just put his arms round me and kissed +me. Yes! That was how I was told about it. He’s a dear! Don’t you think so? I +mean really! I felt I must come and tell some one.”</p> + +<p>Edwin had never seen her so moved. Her emotion was touching, it was beautiful. She need +not have said that she had come because she must. The fact was in her rapt eyes. She was +under a spell.</p> + +<p>“Well, I must go!” she said, with a curious brusqueness. Perhaps she had a +dim perception that she was behaving in a manner unusual with her. “You’ll +tell your sister.”</p> + +<p>Her departing bow to Mrs Hamps had the formality of courts, and was equalled by Mrs +Hamps’s bow. Just as Mrs Hamps, having re-created her elaborate smile, was allowing +it finally to expire, she had to bring it into existence once more, and very suddenly, for +Janet returned to the wall.</p> + +<p>“You won’t forget tennis after tea,” said Janet shortly.</p> + +<p>Edwin said that he should not.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“Well, well!” Mrs Hamps commented, and sat down in the wicker-chair of +Darius.</p> + +<p>“I wonder she doesn’t get married herself,” said Edwin idly, having +nothing in particular to remark.</p> + +<p>“You’re a nice one to say such a thing!” Mrs Hamps exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you really are!” She raised the structure of her bonnet and curls, +and shook it slowly at him. And her gaze had an extraordinary quality of fleshly +naughtiness that half pleased and half annoyed him.</p> + +<p>“Why?” he repeated.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said again, “you aren’t a ninny, and you +aren’t a simpleton. At least I hope not. You must know as well as anybody the name +of the young gentleman that <i>she’s</i> waiting for.”</p> + +<p>In spite of himself, Edwin blushed: he blushed more and more. Then he scowled.</p> + +<p>“What nonsense!” he muttered viciously. He was entirely sincere. The notion +that Janet was waiting for him had never once crossed his mind. It seemed to him +fantastic, one of those silly ideas that a woman such as Auntie Hamps would be likely to +have, or more accurately would be likely to pretend to have. Still, it did just happen +that on this occasion his auntie’s expression was more convincing than usual. She +seemed more human than usual, to have abandoned, at any rate partially, the baffling +garment of effusive insincerity in which she hid her soul. The Eve in her seemed to show +herself, and, looking forth from her eyes, to admit that the youthful dalliance of the +sexes was alone interesting in this life of strict piety. The revelation was uncanny.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t talk like that,” she retorted calmly, “unless you +want to go down in my good opinion. You don’t mean to tell me honestly that you +don’t know what’s been the talk of the town for years and years!”</p> + +<p>“It’s ridiculous,” said Edwin. “Why—what do you know of +her—you don’t know the Orgreaves at all!”</p> + +<p>“I know <i>that</i>, anyway,” said Auntie Hamps.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Stuff!” He grew impatient.</p> + +<p>And yet, in his extreme astonishment, he was flattered and delighted.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Auntie Hamps, “you’re so difficult to talk +to—”</p> + +<p>“Difficult to talk to!—Me?”</p> + +<p>“Otherwise your auntie might have given you a hint long ago. I believe you are a +simpleton after all! I cannot understand what’s come over the young men in these +days. Letting a girl like that wait and wait!” She implied, with a faint scornful +smile, that if she were a young man she would be capable of playing the devil with the +maidenhood of the town. Edwin was rather hurt. And though he felt that he ought not to be +ashamed, yet he was ashamed. He divined that she was asking him how he had the face to +stand there before her, at his age, with his youth unspilled. After all, she was an +astounding woman. He remained silent.</p> + +<p>“Why—look how splendid it would be!” she murmured. “The very +thing! Everybody would be delighted!”</p> + +<p>He still remained silent.</p> + +<p>“But you can’t keep on philandering for ever!” she said sharply. +“She’ll never see thirty again! ... Why does she ask you to go and play at +tennis? Can you tell me that? ... perhaps I’m saying too much, but this I +<i>will</i> say—”</p> + +<p>She stopped.</p> + +<p>Darius and Maggie appeared at the garden door. Maggie offered her hand to aid her +father, but he repulsed it. Calmly she left him, and came up the garden, out of the deep +shadow into the sunshine. She had learnt the news of the engagement, and had fully +expressed her feelings about it before Darius arrived at his destination and Mrs Hamps +vacated the wicker-chair.</p> + +<p>“I’ll get some chairs,” said Edwin gruffly. He could look nobody in +the eyes. As he turned away he heard Mrs Hamps say—</p> + +<p>“Great news, father! Alicia Orgreave is engaged!”</p> + +<p>The old man made no reply. His mere physical present deprived the betrothal of all its +charm. The news fell utterly flat and lay unregarded and insignificant.</p> + +<p>Edwin did not get the chairs. He sent the servant out with them.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_11"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Eleven.</h3> + +<h4>An Hour.</h4> + +<p>Janet called out—“Play—no, I think perhaps you’ll do better if +you stand a little farther back. Now—play!”</p> + +<p>She brought down her lifted right arm, and smacked the ball into the net.</p> + +<p>“Double fault!” she cried, lamenting, when she had done this twice. +“Oh dear! Now you go over to the other side of the court.”</p> + +<p>Edwin would not have kept the rendezvous could he have found an excuse satisfactory to +himself for staying away. He was a beginner at tennis, and a very awkward one, having +little aptitude for games, and being now inelastic in the muscles. He possessed no +flannels, though for weeks he had been meaning to get at least a pair of white pants. He +was wearing Jimmie Orgreave’s india-rubber pumps, which admirably fitted him. +Moreover, he was aware that he looked better in his jacket than in his shirt-sleeves. But +these reasons against the rendezvous were naught. The only genuine reason was that he had +felt timid about meeting Janet. Could he meet her without revealing by his mere guilty +glance that his aunt had half convinced him that he had only to ask nicely in order to +receive? Could he meet her without giving her the impression that he was a conceited ass? +He had met her. She was waiting for him in the garden, and by dint of starting the +conversation in loud tones from a distance, and fumbling a few moments with the tennis +balls before approaching her, he had come through the encounter without too much +foolishness.</p> + +<p>And now he was glad that he had not been so silly as to stay away. She was alone; Mrs +Orgreave was lying down, and all the others were out. Alicia and her Harry were off +together somewhere. She was alone in the garden, and she was beautiful, and the shaded +garden was beautiful, and the fading afternoon. The soft short grass was delicate to his +feet, and round the oval of the lawn were glimpses of flowers, and behind her clear-tinted +frock was the yellow house laced over with green. A column of thick smoke rose from a +manufactory close behind the house, but the trees mitigated it. He played perfunctorily, +uninterested in the game, dreaming.</p> + +<p>She was a wondrous girl! She was the perfect girl! Nobody had ever been able to find +any fault with her. He liked her exceedingly. Had it been necessary, he would have +sacrificed his just interests in the altercation with her father in order to avoid a +coolness in which she might have been involved. She was immensely distinguished and +superior. And she was over thirty and had never been engaged, despite the number and +variety of her acquaintances, despite her challenging readiness to flirt, and her +occasional coquetries. Ten years ago he had almost regarded her as a madonna on a throne, +so high did she seem to be above him. His ideas had changed, but there could be no doubt +that in an alliance between an Orgreave and a Clayhanger, it would be the Clayhanger who +stood to gain the greater advantage. There she was! If she was not waiting for him, she +was waiting—for some one! Why not for him as well as for another?</p> + +<p>He said to himself—</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t I be happy? That other thing is all over!”</p> + +<p>It was, in fact, years since the name of Hilda had ever been mentioned between them. +Why should he not be happy? There was nothing to prevent her from being happy. His +father’s illness could not endure for ever. One day soon he would be free in theory +as well as in practice. With no tie and no duty (Maggie was negligible) he would have both +money and position. What might his life not be with a woman like Janet, brilliant, +beautiful, elegant, and faithful? He pictured that life, and even the vision of it dazzled +him. Janet his! Janet always there, presiding over a home which was his home, wearing hats +that he had paid for, appealing constantly to his judgement, and meaning <i>him</i> when +she said, ‘My husband.’ He saw her in the close and tender intimacy of +marriage, acquiescent, exquisite, yielding, calmly accustomed to him, modest, but with a +different modesty! It was a vision surpassing visions. And there she was on the other side +of the net!</p> + +<p>With her he could be his finest self. He would not have to hide his finest self from +ridicule, as often now, among his own family.</p> + +<p>She was a fine woman! He watched the free movement of her waist, and the curvings and +flyings of her short tennis skirt. And there was something strangely feminine about the +neck of her blouse, now that he examined it.</p> + +<p>“Your game!” she cried. “That’s four double faults I’ve +served. I can’t play! I really don’t think I can. There’s something the +matter with me! Or else it’s the net that’s too high. Those boys will keep +screwing it up!”</p> + +<p>She had a pouting, capricious air, and it delighted him. Never had he seen her so +enchantingly girlish as, by a curious hazard, he saw her now. Why should he not he happy? +Why should he not wake up out of his nightmare and begin to live? In a momentary flash he +seemed to see his past in a true perspective, as it really was, as some well-balanced +person not himself would have seen it. Mere morbidity to say, as he had been saying +privately for years, that marriage was not for him! Marriage emphatically was for him, if +only because he had fine ideals of it. Most people who married were too stupid to get the +value of their adventure. Celibacy was grotesque, cowardly, and pitiful—no matter +how intellectual the celibate—and it was no use pretending the contrary.</p> + +<p>A masculine gesture, an advance, a bracing of the male in him ... probably nothing else +was needed.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said boldly, “if you don’t want to play, let’s +sit down and rest.” And then he gave a nervous little laugh.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>They sat down on the bench that was shaded by the old elderberry tree. Visually, the +situation had all the characteristics of an idyllic courtship.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s Alicia’s engagement,” she said, smiling +reflectively, “that’s put me off my game. They do upset you, those things do, +and you don’t know why... It isn’t as if Alicia was the first—I mean of +us girls. There was Marian; but then, of course, that was so long ago, and I was only a +chit.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he murmured vaguely; and though she seemed to be waiting for him to +say more, he merely repeated, “Yes.”</p> + +<p>Such was his sole contribution to this topic, so suitable to the situation, so +promising, so easy of treatment. They were so friendly that he was under no social +obligation to talk for the sake of talking.</p> + +<p>That was it: they were too friendly. She sat within a foot of him, reclining against +the sloping back of the bench, and idly dangling one white-shod foot; her long hands lay +on her knees. She was there in all her perfection. But by some sinister magic, as she had +approached him and their paths had met at the bench, his vision had faded. Now, she was no +longer a woman and he a man. Now, the curvings of her drapery from the elegant waistband +were no longer a provocation. She was immediately beneath his eye, and he recognised her +again for what she was—Janet! Precisely Janet—no less and no more! But her +beauty, her charm, her faculty for affection—surely... No! His instinct was deaf to +all ‘buts.’ His instinct did not argue; it cooled. Fancy had created a vision +in an instant out of an idea, and in an instant the vision had died. He remembered Hilda +with painful intensity. He remembered the feel of her frock under his hand in the cubicle, +and the odour of her flesh that was like fruit. His cursed constancy! ... Could he not get +Hilda out of his bones? Did she sleep in his bones like a malady that awakes whenever it +is disrespectfully treated?</p> + +<p>He grew melancholy. Accustomed to savour the sadness of existence, he soon accepted the +new mood without resentment.</p> + +<p>He resigned himself to the destruction of his dream. He was like a captive whose cell +has been opened in mistake, and who is too gentle to rave when he sees it shut again. Only +in secret he poured an indifferent, careless scorn upon Auntie Hamps.</p> + +<p>They played a whole interminable set, and then Edwin went home, possibly marvelling at +the variety of experience that a single hour may contain.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_12"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Twelve.</h3> + +<h4>Revenge.</h4> + +<p>Edwin re-entered his home with a feeling of dismayed resignation. There was then no +escape, and never could be any escape, from the existence to which he was accustomed; even +after his father’s death, his existence would still be essentially the +same—incomplete and sterile. He accepted the destiny, but he was daunted by it.</p> + +<p>He quietly shut the front door, which had been ajar, and as he did so he heard voices +in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“I tell ye I’m going to grow mushrooms,” Darius was saying. +“Can’t I grow mushrooms in my own cellar?” Then a snort.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it’ll be a good thing,” was Maggie’s calm +reply.</p> + +<p>“Ye’ve said that afore. Why won’t it be a good thing? And +what’s it got to do with you?” The voice of Darius, ordinarily weak and +languid, was rising and becoming strong.</p> + +<p>“Well, you’d be falling up and down the cellar steps. You know how dark +they are. Supposing you hurt yourself?”</p> + +<p>“Ye’d only be too glad if I killed mysen!” said Darius, with a touch +of his ancient grimness.</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>“And it seems they want a lot of attention, mushrooms do,” Maggie went on +with unperturbed placidity. “You’d never be able to do it.”</p> + +<p>“Jane could help me,” said Darius, in the tone of one who is rather pleased +with an ingenious suggestion.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, she couldn’t!” Maggie exclaimed, with a peculiar humorous +dryness which she employed only on the rarest occasions. Jane was the desired +Bathsheba.</p> + +<p>“And I say she could!” the old man shouted with surprising vigour. +“Her does nothing! What does Mrs Nixon do? What do you do? Three great strapping +women in the house and doing nought! I say she shall!” The voice dropped and +snarled. “Who’s master here? Is it me, or is it the cat? D’ye think as I +can’t turn ye all out of it neck and crop, if I’ve a mind? You and Edwin, and +the lot of ye! And to-night too! Give me some money now, and quicker than that! I’ve +got nought but sovereigns and notes. I’ll go down and get the spawn myself—ay! +and order the earth too! I’ll make it my business to show my childer—But I mun +have some change for my car fares.” He breathed heavily.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure Edwin won’t like it,” Maggie murmured.</p> + +<p>“Edwin! Hast told Edwin?” Darius also murmured, but it was a murmur of +rage.</p> + +<p>“No, I haven’t. Edwin’s got quite enough on his hands as it is, +without any other worries.”</p> + +<p>There was the noise of a sudden movement, and of a chair falling.</p> + +<p>“Bugger you all!” Darius burst out with a fury whose restraint showed that +he had unsuspected reserves of strength. And then he began to swear. Edwin, like many +timid men, often used forbidden words with much ferocity in private. Once he had had a +long philosophic argument with Tom Orgreave on the subject of profanity. They had +discussed all aspects of it, from its religious origin to its psychological results, and +Edwin’s theory had been that it was only improper by a purely superstitious +convention, and that no man of sense could possibly be offended, in himself, by the mere +sound of words that had been deprived of meaning. He might be offended on behalf of an +unreasoning fellow-listener, such as a woman, but not personally. Edwin now discovered +that his theory did not hold. He was offended. He was almost horrified. He had never in +his life till that moment heard Darius swear. He heard him now. He considered himself to +be a fairly first-class authority on swearing; he thought that he was familiar with all +the sacred words and with all the combinations of them. He was mistaken. His +father’s profanity was a brilliant and appalling revelation. It comprised words +which were strange to him, and strange perversions that renewed the vigour of decrepit +words. For Edwin, it was a whole series of fresh formulae, brutal and shameless beyond his +experience, full of images and similes of the most startling candour, and drawing its +inspiration always from the sickening bases of life. Darius had remembered with ease the +vocabulary to which he was hourly accustomed when he began life as a man of seven. For +more than fifty years he had carried within himself these vestiges of a barbarism which +his children had never even conceived, and now he threw them out in all their crudity at +his daughter. And when she did not blench, he began to accuse her as men were used to +accuse their daughters in the bright days of the Sailor King. He invented enormities which +she had committed, and there would have been no obscene infamy of which Maggie was not +guilty, if Edwin—more by instinct than by volition—had not pushed open the +door and entered the drawing-room.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>He was angry, and the sight of the flushed meekness of his sister, as she leaned +quietly with her back against an easy-chair, made him angrier.</p> + +<p>“Enough of this!” he said gruffly and peremptorily.</p> + +<p>Darius, with scarcely a break, continued.</p> + +<p>“I say enough of this!” Edwin cried, with increased harshness.</p> + +<p>The old man paused, half intimidated. With his pimpled face and glaring eyes, his +gleaming gold teeth, his frowziness of a difficult invalid, his grimaces and gestures +which were the result of a lifetime devoted to gain, he made a loathsome object. Edwin +hated him, and there was a bitter contempt in his hatred.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to have that spawn, and I’m going to have some change! +Give me some money!” Darius positively hissed.</p> + +<p>Edwin grew nearly capable of homicide. All the wrongs that he had suffered leaped up +and yelled.</p> + +<p>“You’ll have no money!” he said, with brutal roughness. “And +you’ll grow no mushrooms! And let that be understood once for all! You’ve got +to behave in this house.”</p> + +<p>Darius flickered up.</p> + +<p>“Do you hear?” Edwin stamped on the conflagration.</p> + +<p>It was extinguished. Darius, cowed, slowly and clumsily directed himself towards the +door. Once Edwin had looked forward to a moment when he might have his father at his +mercy, when he might revenge himself for the insults and the bullying that had been his. +Once he had clenched his fist and his teeth, and had said, “When you’re old, +and I’ve <i>got</i> you, and you can’t help yourself!” That moment had +come, and it had even enabled and forced him to refuse money to his father—refuse +money to his father! As he looked at the poor figure fumbling towards the door, he knew +the humiliating paltriness of revenge. As his anger fell, his shame grew.</p> + +<p>Maggie lifted her eyebrows when Darius banged the door.</p> + +<p>“He can’t help it,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Of course he can’t help it,” said Edwin, defending himself, less to +Maggie than to himself. “But there must be a limit. He’s got to be kept in +order, you know, even if he is an invalid.” His heart was perceptibly beating.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course.”</p> + +<p>“And evidently there’s only one way of doing it. How long’s he been +on this mushroom tack?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, not long.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you ought to have told me,” said Edwin, with the air of a master of +the house who is displeased. Maggie accepted the reproof.</p> + +<p>“He’d break his neck in the cellar before he knew where he was,” +Edwin resumed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he would,” said Maggie, and left the room.</p> + +<p>Upon her placid features there was not the slightest trace of the onslaught of +profanity. The faint flush had paled away.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>The next morning, Sunday, Edwin came downstairs late, to the sound of singing. In his +soft carpet-slippers he stopped at the foot of the stairs and tapped the weather-glass, +after the manner of his father; and listened. It was a duet for female voices that was +being sung, composed by Balfe to the words of the good Longfellow’s +“Excelsior.” A pretty thing, charming in its thin sentimentality; one of the +few pieces that Darius in former days really understood and liked. Maggie and Clara had +not sung it for years. For years they had not sung it at all.</p> + +<p>Edwin went to the doorway of the drawing-room and stood there. Clara, in Sunday bonnet, +was seated at the ancient piano; it had always been she who had played the accompaniments. +Maggie, nursing one of the babies, sat on another chair, and leaned towards the page in +order to make out the words. She had half-forgotten the words, and Clara was no longer at +ease in the piano part, and their voices were shaky and unruly, and the piano itself was +exceedingly bad. A very indifferent performance of indifferent music! And yet it touched +Edwin. He could not deny that by its beauty and by the sentiment of old times it touched +him. He moved a little forward in the doorway. Clara glanced at him, and winked. Now he +could see his father. Darius was standing at some distance behind his daughters and his +grandchild, and staring at them. And the tears rained down from his red eyes, and then his +emotion overcame him and he blubbered, just as the duet finished.</p> + +<p>“Now, father,” Clara protested cheerfully, “this won’t do. You +know you asked for it. Give me the infant, Maggie.”</p> + +<p>Edwin walked away.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_13"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Thirteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Journey Upstairs.</h4> + +<p>Late on another Saturday afternoon in the following March, when Darius had been ill +nearly two years, he and Edwin and Albert were sitting round the remains of high tea +together in the dining-room. Clara had not been able to accompany her husband on what was +now the customary Saturday visit, owing to the illness of her fourth child. Mrs Hamps was +fighting chronic rheumatism at home. And Maggie had left the table to cosset Mrs Nixon, +who of late received more help than she gave.</p> + +<p>Darius sat in dull silence. The younger men were talking about the Bursley Society for +the Prosecution of Felons, of which Albert had just been made a member. Whatever it might +have been in the past, the Society for the Prosecution of Felons was now a dining-club and +little else. Its annual dinner, admitted to be the chief oratorical event of the year, was +regarded as strictly exclusive, because no member, except the president, had the right to +bring a guest to it. Only ‘Felons,’ as they humorously named themselves, and +the reporters of the “Signal,” might listen to the eloquence of Felons. Albert +Benbow, who for years had been hearing about the brilliant funniness of the American +Consul at these dinners, was so flattered by his Felonry that he would have been ready to +put the letters S P F after his name.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’ll have to join!” said he to Edwin, kindly urgent, like a +man who, recently married, goes about telling all bachelors that they positively must +marry at once. “You ought to get it fixed up before the next feed.”</p> + +<p>Edwin shook his head. Though he, too, dreamed of the Felons’ Dinner as a repast +really worth eating, though he wanted to be a Felon, and considered that he ought to be a +Felon, and wondered why he was not already a Felon, he repeatedly assured Albert that +Felonry was not for him.</p> + +<p>“You’re a Felon, aren’t you, dad?” Albert shouted at +Darius.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, father’s a Felon,” said Edwin. “Has been ever since I +can remember.”</p> + +<p>“Did ye ever speak there?” asked Albert, with an air of good-humoured +condescension.</p> + +<p>Darius’s elbow slipped violently off the tablecloth, and a knife fell to the +floor and a plate after it. Darius went pale.</p> + +<p>“All right! All right! Don’t be alarmed, dad!” Albert reassured him, +picking up the things. “I was asking ye, did ye ever speak there—make a +speech?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Darius heavily.</p> + +<p>“Did you now!” Albert murmured, staring at Darius. And it was exactly as if +he had said, “Well, it’s extraordinary that a foolish physical and mental +wreck such as you are now, should ever have had wit and courage enough to rise and address +the glorious Felons!”</p> + +<p>Darius glanced up at the gas, with a gesture that was among Edwin’s earliest +recollections, and then he fixed his eyes dully on the fire, with head bent and muscles +lax.</p> + +<p>“Have a cigarette—that’ll cheer ye up,” said Albert.</p> + +<p>Darius made a negative sign.</p> + +<p>“He’s very tired, seemingly,” Albert remarked to Edwin, as if Darius +had not been present.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Edwin muttered, examining his father. Darius appeared ten years +older than his age. His thin hair was white, though the straggling beard that had been +allowed to grow was only grey. His face was sunken and pale, but even more striking was +the extreme pallor of the hands with their long clean fingernails, those hands that had +been red and rough, tools of all work. His clothes hung somewhat loosely on him, and a +shawl round his shoulders was awry. The comatose melancholy in his eyes was acutely +painful to see—so much so that Edwin could not bear to look long at them. +“Father,” Edwin asked him suddenly, “wouldn’t you like to go to +bed?”</p> + +<p>And to his surprise Darius said, “Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Well, come on then.”</p> + +<p>Darius did not move.</p> + +<p>“Come on,” Edwin urged. “I’m sure you’re overtired, and +you’ll be better in bed.”</p> + +<p>He took his father by the arm, but there was no responsive movement. Often Edwin +noticed this capricious, obstinate attitude; his father would express a wish to do a +certain thing, and then would make no effort to do it. “Come!” said Edwin more +firmly, pulling at the lifeless arm. Albert sprang up, and said that he would assist. One +on either side, they got Darius to his feet, and slowly walked him out of the room. He was +very exasperating. His weight and his inertia were terrible. The spectacle suggested that +either Darius was pretending to be a carcass, or Edwin and Albert were pretending that a +carcass was alive. On the stairs there was not room for the three abreast. One had to +push, another to pull: Darius seemed wilfully to fall backwards if pressure were released. +Edwin restrained his exasperation; but though he said nothing, his sharp half-vicious pull +on that arm seemed to say, “Confound you! Come up—will you!” The last +two steps of the stair had a peculiar effect on Darius. He appeared to shy at them, and +then finally to jib. It was no longer a reasonable creature that they were getting +upstairs, but an incalculable and mysterious beast. They lifted him on to the landing, and +he stood on the landing as if in his sleep. Both Edwin and Albert were breathless. This +was the man who since the beginning of his illness had often walked to Hillport and back! +It was incredible that he had ever walked to Hillport and back. He passed more easily +along the landing. And then he was in his bedroom.</p> + +<p>“Father going to bed?” Maggie called out from below.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Albert. “We’ve just been getting him +upstairs.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! That’s right,” Maggie said cheerfully. “I thought he was +looking very tired to-night.”</p> + +<p>“He gave us a doing,” said the breathless Albert in a low voice at the door +of the bedroom, smiling, and glancing at his cigarette to see if it was still alight.</p> + +<p>“He does it on purpose, you know,” Edwin whispered casually. +“I’ll just get him to bed, and then I’ll be down.”</p> + +<p>Albert went, with a ‘good night’ to Darius that received no answer.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>In the bedroom, Darius had sunk on to the cushioned ottoman. Edwin shut the door.</p> + +<p>“Now then!” said Edwin encouragingly, yet commandingly. “I can tell +you one thing—you aren’t losing weight.” He had recovered from his +annoyance, but he was not disposed to submit to any trifling. For many months now he had +helped Darius to dress, when he came up from the shop for breakfast, and to undress in the +evening. It was not that his father lacked the strength, but he would somehow lose himself +in the maze of his garments, and apparently he could never remember the proper order of +doffing or donning them. Sometimes he would ask, “Am I dressing or +undressing?” And he would be capable of so involving himself in a shirt, if Edwin +were not there to direct, that much patience was needed for his extrication. His +misapprehensions and mistakes frequently reached the grotesque. As habit threw them more +and more intimately together, the trusting dependence of Darius on Edwin increased. At +morning and evening the expression of that intensely mournful visage seemed to be saying +as its gaze met Edwin’s, “Here is the one clear-sighted, powerful being who +can guide me through this complex and frightful problem of my clothes.” A suit, for +Darius, had become as intricate as a quadratic equation. And, in Edwin, compassion and +irritation fought an interminable guerilla. Now one obtained the advantage, now the other. +His nerves demanded relief from the friction, but he could offer them no holiday, not one +single day’s holiday. Twice every day he had to manoeuvre and persuade that +ponderous, irrational body in his father’s bedroom. Maggie helped the body to feed +itself at table. But Maggie apparently had no nerves.</p> + +<p>“I shall never go down them stairs again,” said Darius, as if in fatigued +disgust, on the ottoman.</p> + +<p>“Oh, nonsense!” Edwin exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Darius shook his head solemnly, and looked at vacancy.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll talk about that to-morrow,” said Edwin, and with the +skill of regular practice drew out the ends of the bow of his father’s necktie. He +had gradually evolved a complete code of rules covering the entire process of the +toilette, and he insisted on their observance. Every article had its order in the ceremony +and its place in the room. Never had the room been so tidy, nor the rites so expeditious, +as in the final months of Darius’s malady.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>The cumbrous body lay in bed. The bed was in an architecturally contrived recess, +sheltered from both the large window and the door. Over its head was the gas-bracket and +the bell-knob. At one side was a night-table, and at the other a chair. In front of the +night-table were Darius’s slippers. On the chair were certain clothes. From a hook +near the night-table, and almost over the slippers, hung his dressing-gown. Seen from the +bed, the dressing-table, at the window, appeared to be a long way off, and the wardrobe +was a long way off in another direction. The gas was turned low. It threw a pale +illumination on the bed, and gleamed on a curve of mahogany here and there in the +distances.</p> + +<p>Edwin looked at his father, to be sure that all was in order, that nothing had been +forgotten. The body seemed monstrous and shapeless beneath the thickly piled clothes; and +from the edge of the eider-down, making a valley in the pillow, the bearded face +projected, in a manner grotesque and ridiculous. A clock struck seven in another part of +the house.</p> + +<p>“What time’s that?” Darius murmured.</p> + +<p>“Seven,” said Edwin, standing close to him.</p> + +<p>Darius raised himself slowly and clumsily on one elbow.</p> + +<p>“Here! But look here!” Edwin protested. “I’ve just fixed you +up—”</p> + +<p>The old man ignored him, and one of those unnaturally white hands stretched forth to +the night-table, which was on the side of the bed opposite to Edwin. Darius’s gold +watch and chain lay on the night-table.</p> + +<p>“I’ve wound it up! I’ve wound it up!” said Edwin, a little +crossly. “What are you worrying at?”</p> + +<p>But Darius, silent, continued to manoeuvre his flannelled arm so as to possess the +watch. At length he seized the chain, and, shifting his weight to the other elbow, held +out the watch and chain to Edwin, with a most piteous expression. Edwin could see in the +twilight that his father was ready to weep.</p> + +<p>“I want ye—” the old man began, and then burst into violent sobs; and +the watch dangled dangerously.</p> + +<p>“Come now!” Edwin tried to soothe him, forcing himself to be kindly. +“What is it? I tell you I’ve wound it up all right. And it’s correct +time to a tick.” He consulted his own silver watch.</p> + +<p>With a tremendous effort, Darius mastered his sobs, and began once more, “I want +ye—”</p> + +<p>He tried several times, but his emotion overcame him each time before he could force +the message out. It was always too quick for him. Silent, he could control it, but he +could not simultaneously control it and speak.</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” said Edwin. “We’ll see about that +tomorrow.” And he wondered what bizarre project affecting the watch had entered his +father’s mind. Perhaps he wanted it set a quarter of an hour fast.</p> + +<p>Darius dropped the watch on the eider-down, and sighed in despair, and fell back on the +pillow and shut his eyes. Edwin restored the watch to the night-table.</p> + +<p>Later, he crept into the dim room. Darius was snoring under the twilight of the gas. +Like an unhappy child, he had found refuge in sleep from the enormous, infantile problems +of his existence. And it was so pathetic, so distressing, that Edwin, as he gazed at that +beard and those gold teeth, could have sobbed too.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_14"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Fourteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Watch.</h4> + +<p>When Edwin the next morning, rather earlier than usual on Sundays, came forth from his +bedroom to go into the bathroom, he was startled by a voice from his father’s +bedroom calling him. It was Maggie’s. She had heard him open his door, and she +joined him on the landing.</p> + +<p>“I was waiting for you to be getting up,” she said in a quiet tone. +“I don’t think father’s so well, and I was wondering whether I +hadn’t better send Jane down for the doctor. It’s not certain he’ll call +to-day if he isn’t specially fetched.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” said Edwin. “What’s up?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, nothing,” Maggie answered. “Nothing particular, but you +didn’t hear him ringing in the night?”</p> + +<p>“Ringing? No! What time?”</p> + +<p>“About one o’clock. Jane heard the bell, and she woke me. So I got up to +him. He said he couldn’t do with being alone.”</p> + +<p>“What did you do?”</p> + +<p>“I made him something hot and stayed with him.”</p> + +<p>“What? All night?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“But why didn’t you call me?”</p> + +<p>“What was the good?”</p> + +<p>“You ought to have called me,” he said with curt displeasure, not really +against Maggie, but against himself for having heard naught of all these happenings. +Maggie had no appearance of having passed the night by her father’s bedside.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she said lightly, “I dozed a bit now and then. And as soon as +the girl was up I got her to come and sit with him while I spruced myself.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll have a look at him,” said Edwin, in another tone.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I wish you would.” Now, as often, he was struck by Maggie’s +singular deference to him, her submission to his judgement. In the past her attitude had +been different; she had exercised the moral rights of an elder sister; but latterly she +had mysteriously transformed herself into a younger sister.</p> + +<p>He went towards his father, drawing his dressing-gown more closely round him. The +chamber had an aspect of freshness and tidiness that made it almost gay—until he +looked at the object in the smoothed and rectified bed. He nodded to his father, who +merely gazed at him. There was no definite, definable change in the old man’s face, +but his bearing, even as he lay, was appreciably more melancholy and impotent. The mere +sight of a man so broken and so sad was humiliating to the humanity which Edwin shared +with him.</p> + +<p>“Well, father,” he nodded familiarly. “Don’t feel like getting +up, eh?” And, remembering that he was the head of the house, the source of authority +and of strength, he tried to be cheerful, casual, and invigorating, and was disgusted by +the futile inefficiency of the attempt. He had not, like Auntie Hamps, devoted a lifetime +to the study of the trick.</p> + +<p>Darius feebly moved his hopeless head to signify a negative.</p> + +<p>And Edwin thought, with a lancinating pain, of what the old man had mumbled on the +previous evening: “I shall never go down them stairs again.” Perhaps the old +man never would go down those stairs again! He had paid no serious attention to the remark +at the moment, but now it presented itself to him as a solemn and prophetic utterance, of +such as are remembered with awe for years and continue to jut up clear in the mind when +all minor souvenirs of the time have crumbled away. And he would have given much of his +pride to be able to go back and help the old man upstairs once more, and do it with a more +loving patience.</p> + +<p>“I’ve sent Jane,” said Maggie, returning to the bedroom. +“You’d better go and finish dressing.”</p> + +<p>On coming out of the bathroom he discovered Albert on the landing, waiting.</p> + +<p>“The missis would have me come up and see how he was,” said Albert. +“So I’ve run in between school and chapel. When I told her what a doing he +gave us, getting him upstairs, she was quite in a way, and she would have me come up. The +kid’s better.” He was exceedingly and quite genuinely fraternal, not having +his wife’s faculty for nourishing a feud.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The spectacular developments were rapid. In the afternoon Auntie Hamps, Clara, Maggie, +and Edwin were grouped around the bed of Darius. A fire burned in the grate; flowers were +on the dressing-table. An extra table had been placed at the foot of the bed. The room was +a sick-room.</p> + +<p>Dr Heve had called, and had said that the patient’s desire not to be left alone +was a symptom of gravity. He suggested a nurse, and when Maggie, startled, said that +perhaps they could manage without a nurse, he inquired how. And as he talked he seemed to +be more persuaded that a nurse was necessary, if only for night duty, and in the end he +went himself to the new Telephone Exchange and ordered a nurse from the Pirehill Infirmary +Nursing Home. And the dramatic thing was that within two hours and a half the nurse had +arrived. And in ten minutes after that it had been arranged that she should have +Maggie’s bedroom and that she should take night duty, and in order that she might be +fresh for the night she had gone straight off to bed.</p> + +<p>Then Clara had arrived, in spite of the illness of her baby, and Auntie Hamps had +forced herself up Trafalgar Road, in spite of her rheumatism. And a lengthy confabulation +between the women had occurred in the dining-room, not about the invalid, but about what +‘she’ had said, and about the etiquette of treating ‘her,’ and +about what ‘she’ looked like and shaped like; ‘her’ and +‘she’ being the professional nurse. With a professional nurse in it, each +woman sincerely felt that the house was no longer itself, that it had become the house of +the enemy.</p> + +<p>Darius lay supine before them, physically and spiritually abased, accepting, like a +victim who is too weak even to be ashamed, the cooings and strokings and prayers and +optimistic mendacities of Auntie Hamps, and the tearful tendernesses of Clara.</p> + +<p>“I’ve made my will,” he whimpered.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Auntie Hamps. “Of course you have!”</p> + +<p>“Did I tell you I’d made my will?” he feebly insisted.</p> + +<p>“Yes, father,” said Clara. “Don’t worry about your +will.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve left th’ business to Edwin, and all th’ rest’s +divided between you two wenches.” He was weeping gently.</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry about that, father,” Clara repeated. “Why are you +thinking so much about your will?” She tried to speak in a tone that was easy and +matter-of-fact. But she could not. This was the first authentic information that any of +them had had as to the dispositions of the will, and it was exciting.</p> + +<p>Then Darius began to try to sit up, and there were protests against such an act. Though +he sat up to take his food, the tone of these apprehensive remonstrances implied that to +sit up at any other time was to endanger his life. Darius, however, with a weak scowl, +continued to lift himself, whereupon Maggie aided him, and Auntie Hamps like lightning put +a shawl round his shoulders. He sighed, and stretched out his hand to the night-table for +his gold watch and chain, which he dangled towards Edwin.</p> + +<p>“I want ye—” He stopped, controlling the muscles of his face.</p> + +<p>“He wants you to wind it up,” said Clara, struck by her own insight.</p> + +<p>“No, he doesn’t,” said Edwin. “He knows it’s wound +up.”</p> + +<p>“I want ye—” Darius recommenced. But he was defeated again by his +insidious foe. He wept loudly and without restraint for a few moments, and then suddenly +ceased, and endeavoured to speak, and wept anew, agitating the watch in the direction of +Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Take it, Edwin,” said Mrs Hamps. “Perhaps he wants it put +away,” she added, as Edwin obeyed.</p> + +<p>Darius shook his head furiously. “I want him—” Sobs choked him.</p> + +<p>“I know what he wants,” said Auntie Hamps. “He wants to give dear +Edwin the watch, because Edwin’s been so kind to him, helping him to dress every +day, and looking after him just like a professional nurse—don’t you, +dear?”</p> + +<p>Edwin secretly cursed her in the most horrible fashion. But she was right.</p> + +<p>“Ye–hes,” Darius confirmed her, on a sob.</p> + +<p>“He wants to show his gratitude,” said Auntie Hamps.</p> + +<p>“Ye–hes,” Darius repeated, and wiped his eyes.</p> + +<p>Edwin stood foolishly holding the watch with its massive Albert chain. He was very +genuinely astonished, and he was profoundly moved. His father’s emotion concerning +him must have been gathering force for months and months, increasing a little and a little +every day in those daily, intimate contacts, until at length gratitude had become, as it +were, a spirit that possessed him, a monstrous demon whose wild eagerness to escape +defeated itself. And Edwin had never guessed, for Darius had mastered the spirit till the +moment when the spirit mastered him. It was out now, and Darius, delivered, breathed more +freely. Edwin was proud, but his humiliation was greater than his pride. He suffered +humiliation for his father. He would have preferred that Darius should never have felt +gratitude, or, at any rate, that he should never have shown it. He would have preferred +that Darius should have accepted his help nonchalantly, grimly, thanklessly, as a right. +And if through disease, the old man could not cease to be a tyrant with dignity, could not +become human without this appalling ceremonial abasement—better that he should have +exercised harshness and oppression to the very end! There was probably no phenomenon of +human nature that offended Edwin’s instincts more than an open conversion.</p> + +<p>Maggie turned nervously away and busied herself with the grate.</p> + +<p>“You must put it on,” said Auntie Hamps sweetly. “Mustn’t he, +father?”</p> + +<p>Darius nodded.</p> + +<p>The outrage was complete. Edwin removed his own watch and dropped it into the pocket of +his trousers, substituting for it the gold one.</p> + +<p>“There, father!” exclaimed Auntie Hamps proudly, surveying the curve of the +Albert on her nephew’s waistcoat.</p> + +<p>“Ay!” Darius murmured, and sank back on the pillow with a sigh of +relief.</p> + +<p>“Thanks, father,” Edwin muttered, reddening. “But there was no +occasion.”</p> + +<p>“Now you see what it is to be a good son!” Auntie Hamps observed.</p> + +<p>Darius murmured indistinctly.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” she asked, bending down.</p> + +<p>“I must have his,” said Darius. “I must have a watch here.”</p> + +<p>“He wants your old one in exchange,” Clara explained eagerly.</p> + +<p>Edwin smiled, discovering a certain alleviation in this shrewd demand of his +father’s, and he drew out the silver Geneva.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Shortly afterwards the nurse surprised them all by coming into the room. She carried a +writing-case. Edwin introduced her to Auntie Hamps and Clara. Clara blushed and became +mute. Auntie Hamps adopted a tone of excessive deference, of which the refrain was +“Nurse will know best.” Nurse seemed disinclined to be professional. +Explaining that as she was not able to sleep she thought she might as well get up, she +took a seat near the fire and addressed herself to Maggie. She was a tall and radiant +woman of about thirty. Her aristocratic southern accent proved that she did not belong to +the Five Towns, and to Maggie, in excuse for certain questions as to the district, she +said that she had only been at Pirehill a few weeks. Her demeanour was extraordinarily +cheerful. Auntie Hamps remarked aside to Clara what a good thing it was that Nurse was so +cheerful; but in reality she considered such cheerfulness exaggerated in a sick-room, and +not quite nice. The nurse asked about the posts, and said she had a letter to write and +would write it there if she could have pen and ink. Auntie Hamps, telling her eagerly +about the posts, thought that these professional nurses certainly did make themselves at +home in a house. The nurse’s accent intimidated all of them.</p> + +<p>“Well, nurse, I suppose we mustn’t tire our patient,” said Auntie +Hamps at last, after Edwin had brought ink and paper.</p> + +<p>Edwin, conscious of the glory of a gold watch and chain, and conscious also of freedom +from future personal service on his father, preceded Auntie Hamps and Clara to the +landing, and Nurse herself sped them from the room, in her quality of mistress of the +room. And when she and Maggie and Darius were alone together she went to the bedside and +spoke softly to her patient. She was so neat and bright and white and striped, and so +perfect in every detail, that she might have been a model taken straight from a +shop-window. Her figure illuminated the dusk. An incredible luxury for the little boy from +the Bastille! But she was one of the many wonderful things he had earned.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_15"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Fifteen.</h3> + +<h4>The Banquet.</h4> + +<p>It was with a conscience uneasy that Edwin shut the front door one night a month later, +and issued out into Trafalgar Road. Since the arrival of Nurse Shaw, Darius had not risen +from his bed, and the household had come to accept him as bed-ridden and the nurse as a +permanency. The sick-room was the centre of the house, and Maggie and Edwin and the +servants lived, as it were, in a camp round about it, their days uncomfortably passing in +suspense, in expectation of developments which tarried. “How is he this +morning?” “Much the same.” “How is he this evening?” +“Much the same.” These phrases had grown familiar and tedious. But for three +days Darius had been noticeably worse, and the demeanour of Nurse Shaw had altered, and +she had taken less sleep and less exercise. Osmond Orgreave had even called in person to +inquire after the invalid, doubtless moved by Janet to accomplish this formality, for he +could not have been without news. Janet was constantly in the house, helping Maggie; and +Alicia also sometimes. Since her engagement, Alicia had been striving to prove that she +appreciated the gravity of existence.</p> + +<p>Still, despite the change in the patient’s condition, everybody had insisted that +Edwin should go to the annual dinner of the Society for the Prosecution of Felons, to +which he had been duly elected with flattering dispatch. Why should he not go? Why should +he not enjoy himself? What could he do if he stayed at home? Would not the change be good +for him? At most the absence would be for a few hours, and if he could absent himself +during ten hours for business, surely for healthful distraction he might absent himself +during five hours! Maggie grew elder-sisterly at the last moment of decision, and told him +he must go, and that if he didn’t she should be angry. When he asked her ‘What +about <i>her</i> health? What about <i>her</i> needing a change?’ she said curtly +that that had nothing to do with it.</p> + +<p>He went. The persuaders were helped by his own desire. And in spite of his conscience, +when he was fairly in the street he drew a sigh of relief, and deliberately turned his +heart towards gaiety. It seemed inexpressibly pathetic that his father was lying behind +those just-lighted blinds above, and would never again breathe the open air, never again +glide along those pavements with his arms fixed and slightly outwards. But Edwin was +determined to listen to reason and not to be morbid.</p> + +<p>The streets were lively with the red and the blue colours of politics. The Liberal +member for the Parliamentary borough of Hanbridge, which included Bursley, had died very +suddenly, and the seat was being disputed by the previously defeated Conservative +candidate and a new Labour candidate officially adopted by the Liberal party. The Tories +had sworn not to be beaten again in the defence of the integrity of the Empire. And though +they had the difficult and delicate task of persuading a large industrial constituency +that an industrial representative would not further industrial interests, and that they +alone were actuated by unselfish love for the people, yet they had made enormous progress +in a very brief period, and publicans were jubilant and bars sloppy.</p> + +<p>The aspect of the affair that did not quite please the Society for the Prosecution of +Felons was that the polling had been fixed for the day after its annual dinner instead of +the day before. Powerful efforts had been made ‘in the proper quarter’ to get +the date conveniently arranged, but without success; after all, the seat of authority was +Hanbridge and not Bursley. Hanbridge, sadly failing to appreciate the importance of +Bursley’s Felonry, had suggested that the feast might be moved a couple of days. The +Felonry refused. If its dinner clashed with the supreme night of the campaign, so much the +worse for the campaign! Moreover, the excitement of the campaign would at any rate give +zest to the dinner.</p> + +<p>Ere he reached Duck Bank, the vivacity of the town, loosed after the day’s labour +to an evening’s orgy of oratory and horseplay and beer, had communicated itself to +Edwin. He was most distinctly aware of pleasure in the sight of the Tory candidate driving +past, at a pace to overtake steam-cars, in a coach-and-four, with amateur postilions and +an orchestra of horns. The spectacle, and the speed of it, somehow thrilled him, and for +an instant made him want to vote Tory. A procession of illuminated carts, bearing white +potters apparently engaged in the handicraft which the Labour candidate had practised in +humbler days, also pleased him, but pleased him less. As he passed up Duck Bank the Labour +candidate himself was raising loud enthusiastic cheers from a railway lorry in Duck +Square, and Edwin’s spirits went even higher, and he elbowed through the laughing, +joking throng with fraternal good-humour, feeling that an election was in itself a grand +thing, apart from its result, and apart from the profit which it brought to +steam-printers.</p> + +<p>In the porch of the Town Hall, a man turned from an eagerly-smiling group of hungry +Felons and, straightening his face, asked with quiet concern, “How’s your +father?” Edwin shook his head. “Pretty bad,” he answered. “Is +he?” murmured the other sadly. And Edwin suddenly saw his father again behind the +blind, irrevocably prone.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>But by the time the speeches were in progress he was uplifted high once more into the +joy of life. He had been welcomed by acquaintances and by strangers with a deferential +warmth that positively startled him. He realised, as never before, that the town esteemed +him as a successful man. His place was not many removes from the chair. Osmond Orgreave +was on his right, and Albert Benbow on his left. He had introduced an impressed Albert to +his friend Mr Orgreave, recently made a Justice of the Peace.</p> + +<p>And down the long littered tables stretched the authority and the wealth of the +town-aldermen, councillors, members of the school board, guardians of the poor, +magistrates, solid tradesmen, and solid manufacturers, together with higher officials of +the borough and some members of the learned professions. Here was the oligarchy which, +behind the appearances of democratic government, effectively managed, directed, and +controlled the town. Here was the handful of people who settled between them whether rates +should go up or down, and to whom it did not seriously matter whether rates went up or +down, provided that the interests of the common people were not too sharply set in +antagonism to their own interests. Here were the privileged, who did what they liked on +the condition of not offending each other. Here the populace was honestly and cynically +and openly regarded as a restless child, to be humoured and to be flattered, but also to +be ruled firmly, to be kept in its place, to be ignored when advisable, and to be made to +pay.</p> + +<p>For the feast, the court-room had been transformed into a banqueting hall, and the +magistrates’ bench, where habitual criminals were created and families ruined and +order maintained, was hidden in flowers. Osmond Orgreave was dryly facetious about that +bench. He exchanged comments with other magistrates, and they all agreed, with the same +dry facetiousness, that most of the law was futile and some of it mischievous; and they +all said, ‘But what can you do?’ and by their tone indicated that you could do +nothing. According to Osmond Orgreave’s wit, the only real use of a magistrate was +to sign the necessary papers for persons who had lost pawn-tickets. It appeared that such +persons in distress came to Mr Orgreave every day for the august signature. “I had +an old woman come to me this morning at my office,” he said. “I asked her how +it was they were always losing their pawn-tickets. I told her I never lost mine.” +Osmond Orgreave was encircled with laughter. Edwin laughed heartily. It was a good joke. +And even mediocre jokes would convulse the room.</p> + +<p>Jos Curtenty, the renowned card, a jolly old gentleman of sixty, was in the chair, and +therefore jollity was assured in advance. Rising to inaugurate the oratorical section of +the night, he took an enormous red flower from a bouquet behind him, and sticking it with +a studiously absent air in his button-hole, said blandly, “Gentlemen, no politics, +please!” The uproarious effect was one of his very best. He knew his audience. He +could have taught Edwin a thing or two. For Edwin in his simplicity was astonished to find +the audience almost all of one colour, frankly and joyously and optimistically Tory. There +were not ten Liberals in the place, and there was not one who was vocal. The cream of the +town, of its brains, its success, its respectability, was assembled together, and the +Liberal party was practically unrepresented. It seemed as if there was no Liberal party. +It seemed impossible that a Labour candidate could achieve anything but complete disaster +at the polls. It seemed incredible that in the past a Liberal candidate had ever been +returned. Edwin began, even in the privacy of his own heart, to be apologetic for his +Liberalism. All these excellent fellows could not be wrong. The moral force of numbers +intimidated him. He suspected that there was, after all, more to be said for Conservatism +than he had hitherto allowed himself to suppose.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>And the Felons were so good-humoured and kindly and so free-handed, and, with it all, +so boyish! They burst into praise of one another on the slenderest excuse. They ordered +more champagne as carelessly as though champagne were ginger-beer (Edwin was glad that by +an excess of precaution he had brought two pounds in his pocket—the scale of +expenditure was staggering); and they nonchalantly smoked cigars that would have made +Edwin sick. They knew all about cigars and about drinks, and they implied by their +demeanour, though they never said, that a first-class drink and a first-class smoke were +the ‘good things’ of life, the ultimate rewards; the references to women were +sly... Edwin was like a demure cat among a company of splendid curly dogs.</p> + +<p>The toasts, every one of them, called forth enthusiasm. Even in the early part of the +evening much good-nature had bubbled out when, at intervals, a slim young bachelor of +fifty, armed with a violent mallet, had rapped authoritatively on the table and cried: +“Mr President wishes to take wine with Mr Vice,” “Mr President wishes to +take wine with the bachelors on the right,” “Mr President wishes to take wine +with the married Felons on the left,” and so on till every sort and condition and +geographical situation had been thus distinguished. But the toasts proper aroused displays +of the most affectionate loving-kindness. Each reference to a Felon was greeted with warm +cheers, and each reference touched the superlative of laudation. Every stroke of humour +was noisily approved, and every exhibition of tender feeling effusively endorsed. And all +the estates of the realm, and all the institutions of the realm and of the town, and all +the services of war and peace, and all the official castes were handsomely and +unreservedly praised, and their health and prosperity pledged with enthusiastic fervour. +The organism of the Empire was pronounced to be essentially perfect. Nobody of importance, +from the Queen’s Majesty to the ‘ministers of the Established Church and other +denominations,’ was omitted from the certificate of supreme excellence and +efficiency. And even when an alderman, proposing the toast of the ‘town and trade of +Bursley,’ mentioned certain disturbing symptoms in the demeanour of the lower +classes, he immediately added his earnest conviction that the ‘heart of the country +beat true,’ and was comforted with grave applause.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of the toast-list one of the humorous vocal quartets which were +designed to relieve the seriousness of the programme, was interrupted by the formidable +sound of the governed proletariat beyond the walls of the Town Hall. And Edwin’s +memory, making him feel very old, leapt suddenly back into another generation of male +glee-singers that did not disport humorously and that would not have permitted themselves +to be interrupted by the shouting of populations; and he recalled ‘Loud +Ocean’s Roar,’ and the figure of Florence Simcox flitted in front of him. The +proletariat was cheering somebody. The cheers died down. And in another moment the +Conservative candidate burst into the room, and was followed by two of his friends (the +latter in evening-dress), whom he presented to the President. The ceremonious costume +impressed the President himself, for at this period of ancient history Felons dined in +frock-coats or cutaways; it proved that the wearers were so accustomed to wearing +evening-dress of a night that they put it on by sheer habit and inadvertence even for +electioneering. The candidate only desired to shake hands with a few supporters and to +assure the President that nothing but hard necessity had kept him away from the dinner. +Amid inspiriting bravos and hurrahs he fled, followed by his friends, and it became known +that one of these was a baronet.</p> + +<p>After this the vote of thanks to the President scarcely escaped being an anticlimax. +And several men left, including Albert Benbow, who had once or twice glanced at his watch. +“She won’t let you be out after half-past ten, eh, Benbow?” said +jocularly a neighbour. And Albert, laughing at the joke, nevertheless looked awkward. And +the neighbour perceived that he had been perhaps a trifle clumsy. Edwin, since the +mysterious influence in the background was his own sister, had to share Albert’s +confusion. He too would have departed. But Osmond Orgreave absolutely declined to let him +go, and to prevent him from going used the force which good wine gives.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>The company divided itself into intimate groups, leaving empty white spaces at the +disordered tables. The attendants now served whisky, and more liqueurs and coffee. Those +guests who knew no qualm lighted fresh cigars; a few produced beloved pipes; the others +were content with cigarettes. Some one ordered a window to be opened, and then, when the +fresh night air began to disturb the curtains and scatter the fumes of the banquet, some +one else crept aside and furtively closed it again.</p> + +<p>Edwin found himself with Jos Curtenty and Osmond Orgreave and a few others. He felt gay +and enheartened; he felt that there was a great deal of pleasure to be had on earth with +very little trouble. Politics had been broached, and he made a mild joke about the Tory +candidate. And amid the silence that followed it he mistily perceived that the remainder +of the group, instead of becoming more jolly, had grown grave. For them the political +situation was serious. They did not trouble to argue against the Labour candidate. All +their reasoning was based on the assumption, which nobody denied or questioned, that at +any cost the Labour candidate must be defeated. The success of the Labour candidate was +regarded as a calamity. It would jeopardise the entire social order. It would deliver into +the destroying hands of an ignorant, capricious, and unscrupulous rabble all that was best +in English life. It would even mean misery for the rabble itself. The tones grew more +solemn. And Edwin, astonished, saw that beneath the egotism of their success, beneath +their unconscious arrogance due to the habit of authority, there was a profound and +genuine patriotism and sense of duty. And he was abashed. Nevertheless, he had definitely +taken sides, and out of mere self-respect he had gently to remind them of the fact. +Silence would have been cowardly.</p> + +<p>“Then what about ‘trusting to the people’?” he murmured, +smiling.</p> + +<p>“If trusting to the people means being under the thumb of the British working +man, my boy,” said Osmond Orgreave, “you can scratch me out, for +one.”</p> + +<p>Edwin had never heard him speak so colloquially.</p> + +<p>“I’ve always found ’em pretty decent,” said Edwin, but +lamely.</p> + +<p>Jos Curtenty fixed him with a grim eye.</p> + +<p>“How many hands do you employ, Mr Clayhanger?”</p> + +<p>“Fourteen,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Do you?” exclaimed another voice, evidently surprised and impressed.</p> + +<p>Jos Curtenty pulled at his cigar. “I wish I could make as much money as you make +out of fourteen hands!” said he. “Well, I’ve got two hundred of +’em at my place. And I know ’em! I’ve known ’em for forty years +and more. There’s not ten of ’em as I’d trust to do an honest +day’s work, of their own accord... And after the row in ’80, when they’d +agreed to arbitration—fifteen thousand of ’em—did they accept the award, +or didn’t they? Tell me that, if it isn’t troubling ye too much.”</p> + +<p>Only in the last phase did the irrepressible humorous card in him assert itself.</p> + +<p>Edwin mumbled inarticulately. His mind was less occupied by politics than by the fact +that in the view of all these men he had already finally and definitely taken the place of +his father. But for the inquiries made at intervals during the evening, he might have +supposed that Darius, lying in helpless obscurity up there at Bleak ridge, had been erased +from the memory of the town.</p> + +<p>A crony who had not hitherto spoken began to give sarcastic and apparently damning +details of the early record of the Labour candidate. Among other delinquencies the fellow +had condoned the inexcusable rejection of the arbitrators’ award long ago. And then +some one said:</p> + +<p>“Hello! Here’s Benbow back again!”</p> + +<p>Albert, in overcoat and cap, beckoned to Edwin, who sprang up, pricked into an +exaggerated activity by his impatient conscience.</p> + +<p>“It’s nothing particular,” said Albert at the door. “But the +missus has been round to your father’s to-night, and it seems the nurse has knocked +up. She thought I’d perhaps better come along and tell you, in case you hadn’t +gone.”</p> + +<p>“Knocked up, has she?” said Edwin. “Well, it’s not to be +wondered at. Nurse or no nurse, she’s got no more notion of looking after herself +than anybody else has. I was just going. It’s only a little after eleven.”</p> + +<p>The last thing he heard on quitting the precincts of the banqueting chamber was the +violent sound of the mallet. Its wielder seemed to have developed a slight affection for +the senseless block of wood.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_16"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Sixteen.</h3> + +<h4>After the Banquet.</h4> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Edwin, impatiently, in reply to some anxious remark of +Maggie’s, “I shall be all right with him. Don’t you worry till +morning.”</p> + +<p>They stood at the door of the sick-room, Edwin in an attitude almost suggesting that he +was pushing her out.</p> + +<p>He had hurried home from the festival, and found the doctor just leaving and the house +in a commotion. Dr Heve said mildly that he was glad Edwin had come, and he hinted that +some general calming influence was needed. Nurse Shaw had developed one of the sudden +abscesses in the ear which troubled her from time to time. This radiant and apparently +strong creature suffered from an affection of the ear. Once her left ear had kept her in +bed for six weeks, and she had arisen with the drum pierced. Since which episode there had +always been the danger, when the evil recurred, of the region of the brain being +contaminated through the tiny orifice in the drum. Hence, even if the acute pain which she +endured had not forced her to abandon other people’s maladies for the care of her +own, the sense of her real peril would have done so. This masterful, tireless woman, whom +no sadness nor abomination of her habitual environment could depress or daunt, lived under +a menace, and was sometimes laid low, like a child. She rested now in Maggie’s room, +with a poultice for a pillow. A few hours previously no one in the house had guessed that +she had any weakness whatever. Her collapse gave to Maggie an excellent opportunity, such +as Maggie loved, to prove that she was equal to a situation. Maggie would not permit Mrs +Hamps to be sent for. Nor would she permit Mrs Nixon to remain up. She was excited and +very fatigued, and she meant to manage the night with the sole aid of Jane. It was even +part of her plan that Edwin should go to bed as usual—poor Edwin, with all the +anxieties of business upon his head! But she had not allowed for Edwin’s conscience, +nor foreseen what the doctor would say to him privately. Edwin had learnt from the +doctor—a fact which the women had not revealed to him—that his father during +the day had shown symptoms of ‘Cheyne-Stokes breathing,’ the final and the +worst phenomenon of his disease; a phenomenon, too, interestingly rare. The doctor had +done all that could be done by injections, and there was absolutely nothing else for +anybody to do except watch.</p> + +<p>“I shall come in in the night,” Maggie whispered.</p> + +<p>Behind them the patient vaguely stirred and groaned in his recess.</p> + +<p>“You’ll do no such thing,” said Edwin shortly. “Get all the +sleep you can.”</p> + +<p>“But Nurse has to have a fresh poultice every two hours,” Maggie +protested.</p> + +<p>“Now, look here!” Edwin was cross. “Do show a little sense. +Get—all—the—sleep—you—can. We shall be having you ill next, +and then there’ll be a nice kettle of fish. I won’t have you coming in here. I +shall be perfectly all right. Now!” He gave a gesture that she should go at +once.</p> + +<p>“You won’t be fit for the shop to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Damn the shop!”</p> + +<p>“Well, you know where everything is.” She was resigned. “If you want +to make some tea—”</p> + +<p>“All right, all right!” He forced himself to smile.</p> + +<p>She departed, and he shut the door.</p> + +<p>“Confounded nuisance women are!” he thought, half indulgently, as he turned +towards the bed. But it was his conscience that was a confounded nuisance. He ought never +to have allowed himself to be persuaded to go to the banquet. When his conscience annoyed +him, it was usually Maggie who felt the repercussion.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Darius was extremely ill. Every part of his physical organism was deranged and wearied +out. His features combined the expression of intense fatigue with the sinister liveliness +of an acute tragic apprehension. His failing faculties were kept horribly alert by the +fear of what was going to happen to him next. So much that was appalling had already +happened to him! He wanted repose; he wanted surcease; he wanted nothingness. He was too +tired to move, but he was also too tired to lie still. And thus he writhed faintly on the +bed; his body seemed to have that vague appearance of general movement which a multitude +of insects will give to a piece of decaying matter. His skin was sick, and his hair, and +his pale lips. The bed could not be kept tidy for five minutes.</p> + +<p>“He’s bad, no mistake!” thought Edwin, as he met his father’s +anxious and intimidated gaze. He had never seen anyone so ill. He knew now what disease +could do.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Nurse?” the old man murmured, with excessive feebleness, his +voice captiously rising to a shrill complaint.</p> + +<p>“She’s not well. She’s lying down. I’m going to sit with you +to-night. Have a drink?” As Edwin said these words in his ordinary voice, it seemed +to him that in comparison with his father he was a god of miraculous proud strength and +domination.</p> + +<p>Darius nodded.</p> + +<p>“Her’s a Tartar!” Darius muttered. “But her’s just! Her +will have her own way!” He often spoke thus of the nurse, giving people to +understand that during the long nights, when he was left utterly helpless to the harsh +mercy of the nurse, he had to accept many humiliations. He seemed to fear and love her as +a dog its master. Edwin, using his imagination to realise the absoluteness of the power +which the nurse had over Darius during ten hours in every twenty-four, was almost +frightened by it. “By Jove!” he thought, “I wouldn’t be in his +place with any woman on earth!” The old man’s lips closed clumsily round the +funnel of the invalid’s cup that Edwin offered. Then he sank back, and shut his +eyes, and appeared calmer.</p> + +<p>Edwin smoothed the clothes, stared at him a long time, and finally sat down in the +arm-chair by the fire. He wound up his watch. It was not yet midnight. He took off his +boots and put on the slippers which now Darius had not worn for over a week and would not +wear again. He yawned heavily. The yawn surprised him. He perceived that his head was +throbbing and his mouth dry, and that the meats and liquors of the banquet, having ceased +to stimulate, were incommoding him. His mind and body were in reaction. He reflected +cynically upon the facile self-satisfactions of those successful men in whose company he +had been. The whole dinner grew unreal. Nothing was real except imprisonment on a bed +night and day, day and night for weeks. Every one could have change and rest save his +father. For his father there was no relief, not a moment’s. He was always there, in +the same recess, prone, in subjection, helpless, hopeless, and suffering. Politics! What +were they?</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He closed his eyes, because it occurred to him that to do so would be agreeable. And he +was awakened from a doze by a formidable stir on the bed. Darius’s breathing was +quick and shallow, and growing more so. He lifted his head from the pillow in order to +breathe, and leaned on one elbow. Edwin sprang up and went to him.</p> + +<p>“Clara! Clara! Don’t leave me!” the old man cried in tones of +agonised apprehension.</p> + +<p>“It’s all right; I’m here,” said Edwin reassuringly. And he +took the sick man’s hot, crackling hand and held it.</p> + +<p>Gradually the breathing went slower and deeper, and at length Darius sighed very deeply +as at a danger past, and relaxed his limbs, and Edwin let go his hand. But he had not been +at ease more than a few seconds when the trouble recommenced, and he was fighting again, +and with appreciably more difficulty, to get air down into his lungs. It entered in +quantities smaller and smaller, until it seemed scarcely to reach his throat before it was +expelled again. The respirations were as rapid as the ticking of a watch. Despite his +feebleness Darius wrenched his limbs into contortions, and gripped fiercely Edwin’s +hands.</p> + +<p>“Clara! Clara!” he cried once more.</p> + +<p>“It’s all right. You’re all right. There’s nothing to be afraid +of,” said Edwin, soothing him.</p> + +<p>And that paroxysm also passed, and the old man moaned in the melancholy satisfaction of +deep breaths. But the mysterious disturbing force would not leave him in peace. In another +moment yet a fresh struggle was commencing. And each was worse than the last. And it was +always Clara to whom he turned for succour. Not Maggie, who had spent nearly forty years +in his service, and never spoke ill-naturedly of him; but Clara, who was officious rather +than helpful, who wept for him in his presence, and said harsh things behind his back, and +who had never forgiven him since the refusal of the loan to Albert.</p> + +<p>After he had passed through a dozen crises of respiration Edwin said to himself that +the next one could not be worse. But it was worse. Darius breathed like a blown dog that +has fallen. He snatched furiously at breath like a tiger snatching at meat. He +accomplished exertions that would have exhausted an athlete, and when he had saved his +life in the very instant of its loss, calling on Clara as on God, he would look at Edwin +for confirmation of his hope that he had escaped again. The paroxysms continued, still +growing more critical. Edwin was aghast at his own helplessness. He could do absolutely +naught. It was even useless to hold the hand or to speak sympathy and reassurance. Darius +at the keenest moment of battle was too occupied with his enemy to hear or feel the +presence of a fellow-creature. He was solitary with his unseen enemy, and if the room had +been full of ministering angels he would still have been alone and unsuccoured. He might +have been sealed up in a cell with his enemy who, incredibly cruel, withheld from him his +breath; and Edwin outside the cell trying foolishly to get in. He asked for little; he +would have been content with very little; but it was refused him until despair had reached +the highest agony.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“He’s dying, I do believe,” thought Edwin, and the wonder of this +nocturnal adventure sent tremors down his spine. He faced the probability that at the next +bout his father would be worsted. Should he fetch Maggie and then go for the doctor? Heve +had told him that it would be ‘pretty bad,’ and that nothing on earth could be +done. No! He would not fetch Maggie, and he would not go for the doctor. What use? He +would see the thing through. In the solemnity of the night he was glad that an experience +tremendous and supreme had been vouchsafed to him. He knew now what the will to live was. +He saw life naked, stripped of everything unessential. He saw life and death together. +What caused his lip to curl when the thought of the Felons’ dinner flashed through +his mind was the damned complacency of the Felons. Did any of them ever surmise that they +had never come within ten miles of life itself, that they were attaching importance to the +most futile trifles? Let them see a human animal in a crisis of Cheyne-Stokes breathing, +and they would know something about reality! ... So this was Cheyne-Stokes breathing, that +rare and awful affliction! What was it? What caused it? What controlled its frequency? No +answer! Not only could he do naught, he knew naught! He was equally useless and ignorant +before the affrighting mystery.</p> + +<p>Darius no longer sat up and twisted himself in the agony of the struggles. He lay flat, +resigned but still obstinate, fighting with the only muscles that could fight now, those +of his chest and throat. The enemy had got him down, but he would not surrender. Time +after time he won a brief armistice in the ruthless altercation, and breathed deep and +long, and sighed as if he would doze, and then his enemy was at him again, and Darius, +aroused afresh to the same terror, summoned Clara in the extremity of his anguish.</p> + +<p>Edwin moved away, and surveyed the bed from afar. The old man was perfectly oblivious +of him. He looked at his watch, and timed the crises. They recurred fairly regularly about +every hundred seconds. Thirty-six times an hour Darius, growing feebler, fought unaided +and without hope of aid an enemy growing stronger, and would not yield. He was dragged to +his death thirty-six times every hour, and thirty-six times managed to scramble back from +the edge of the chasm. Occasionally his voice, demanding that Clara should not desert him, +made a shriek which seemed loud enough to wake the street. Edwin listened for any noise in +the house, but heard nothing.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>A curious instinct drove him out of the room for a space on to the landing. He shut the +door on the human animal in its lonely struggle. The gas was burning on the landing and +also in the hall, for this was not a night on which to extinguish lights. The clock below +ticked quietly, and then struck three. He had passed more than three hours with his +father. The time had gone quickly. He crept to Maggie’s door. No sound! Utter +silence! He crept upstairs to the second storey. No sound there! Coming down again to the +first floor he noticed that the door of his own bedroom was open. He crept in there, and +started violently to see a dim form on the bed. It was Maggie, dressed, but fast asleep +under a rug. He left her. The whole world was asleep, and he was awake with his +father.</p> + +<p>“What an awful shame!” he thought savagely. “Why couldn’t we +have let him grow his mushrooms if he wanted to? What harm would it have done us? +Supposing it <i>had</i> been a nuisance, supposing he <i>had</i> tried to kiss Jane, +supposing he <i>had</i> hurt himself, what then? Why couldn’t we let him do what he +wanted?”</p> + +<p>And he passionately resented his own harshness and that of Maggie as he might have +resented the cruelty of some national injustice.</p> + +<p>He listened. Nothing but the ticking of the clock disturbed the calm of the night. +Could his father have expired in one of those frantic bouts with his enemy? Brusquely, +with false valiance, he re-entered the chamber, and saw again the white square of the +blind and the expanse of carpet and the tables littered with nursing apparatus, and saw +the bed and his father on it, panting in a new and unsurpassable despair, but still +unbeaten, under the thin gas-flame. The crisis eased as he went in. He picked up the +arm-chair and carried it to the bedside and sat down facing his father, and once more took +his father’s intolerably pathetic hand.</p> + +<p>“All right!” he murmured, and never before had he spoken with such +tenderness. “All right! I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”</p> + +<p>The victim grew quieter.</p> + +<p>“Is it Edwin?” he whispered, scarcely articulate, out of a bottomless depth +of weakness.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin cheerfully; “you’re a bit better now, +aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Aye!” sighed Darius in hope.</p> + +<p>And almost immediately the rumour of struggle recommenced, and in a minute the crisis +was at its fiercest.</p> + +<p>Edwin became hardened to the spectacle. He reasoned with himself about suffering. After +all, what was its importance? Up to a point it could be borne, and when it could not be +borne it ceased to be suffering. The characteristic grimness of those latitudes showed +itself in him. There was nothing to be done. They who were destined to suffer had to +suffer, must suffer; and no more could be said. The fight must come to an end sooner or +later. Fortitude alone could meet the situation. Nevertheless, the night seemed eternal, +and at intervals fortitude lacked.</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” he would mutter aloud, under the old man’s constant +appeals to Clara, “I shan’t be sorry when this is over.”</p> + +<p>Then he would interest himself in the periodicity of the attacks, timing them by his +watch with care. Then he would smooth the bed. Once he looked at the fire. It was out. He +had forgotten it. He immediately began to feel chilly, and then he put on his +father’s patched dressing-gown and went to the window, and, drawing aside the blind, +glanced forth. All was black and utterly silent. He thought with disdain of Maggie and the +others unconscious in sleep. He returned to the chair.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>He was startled, at a side glance, by something peculiar in the appearance of the +window. It was the first messenger of the dawn. Yes, a faint greyness, very slowly working +in secret against the power of the gaslight: timid, delicate, but brightening by +imperceptible degrees into strength.</p> + +<p>“Some of them will be getting up soon, now,” he said to himself. The hour +was between four and half-past. He looked forward to release. Maggie was sure to come and +release him shortly. And even as he held the sick man’s arm, comforting him, he +yawned.</p> + +<p>But no one came. Five o’clock, half-past five! The first car rumbled down. And +still the victim, unbroken, went through his agony every two minutes or oftener, with the +most frightful regularity.</p> + +<p>He extinguished the gas, and lo! there was enough daylight to see clearly. He pulled up +the blind. The night had gone. He had been through the night. The entire surface of his +head was tingling. Now he would look at the martyrdom of the victim as at a natural +curiosity, having no capacity left for feeling. And now his sympathy would gush forth +anew, and he would cover with attentions his father, who, fiercely preoccupied with the +business of obtaining breath, gave no heed to them. And now he would stand impressed, +staggered, by the magnificence of the struggle.</p> + +<p>The suspense from six to seven was the longest. When would somebody come? Had the +entire household taken laudanum? He would go and rouse Maggie. No, he would not. He was +too proud.</p> + +<p>At a quarter-past seven the knob of the door clicked softly. He could scarcely believe +his ears. Maggie entered. Darius was easier between two crises.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said she tranquilly, “how is he?” She was tying her +apron.</p> + +<p>“Pretty bad,” Edwin answered, with affected nonchalance.</p> + +<p>“Nurse is a bit better. I’ve given her three fresh poultices since +midnight. You’d better go now, hadn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“All right. I’ve let the fire out.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell Jane to light it. She’s just making some tea for +you.”</p> + +<p>He went. He did not need twice telling. As he went, carelessly throwing off the +dressing-gown and picking up his boots, Darius began to pant afresh, to nerve himself +instinctively afresh for another struggle. Edwin, strong and healthy, having done nothing +but watch, was completely exhausted. But Darius, weakened by disease, having fought a +couple of hundred terrific and excruciating encounters, each a supreme battle, in the +course of a single night, was still drawing upon the apparently inexhaustible reserves of +his volition.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t have stood that much longer,” said Edwin, out on the +landing.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_3_chap_17"></a> +<h3>Volume Three--Chapter Seventeen.</h3> + +<h4>The Chain Broken.</h4> + +<p>Shortly after eight o’clock Edwin was walking down Trafalgar Road on his way to +the shop. He had bathed, and drunk some tea, and under the stimulation he felt the +factitious vivacity of excessive fatigue. Rain had fallen quietly and perseveringly during +the night, and though the weather was now fine the streets were thick with black mire. +Paintresses with their neat gloves and their dinner-baskets and their thin shoes were +trudging to work, and young clerks and shop-assistants and the upper classes of labour +generally. Everybody was in a hurry. The humbler mass had gone long ago. Miners had been +in the earth for hours. Later, and more leisurely, the magnates would pass by.</p> + +<p>There were carriages about. An elegant wagonette, streaming with red favours, dashed +down the road behind two horses. Its cargo was a handful of clay-soiled artisans, gleeful +in the naïve pride of their situation, wearing red and shouting red, and hurrahing +for the Conservative candidate.</p> + +<p>“Asses!” murmured Edwin, with acrid and savage disdain. “Do you think +he’d drive you anywhere to-morrow?” He walked on a little, and broke forth +again, all to himself: “Of course he’s doing it solely in your interest, +isn’t he? Why doesn’t he pick some of these paintresses out of the mud and +give them a drive?”</p> + +<p>He cultivated an unreasoning anger against the men who had so impressed him at the +banquet. He did not try to find answers to their arguments. He accused them stoutly of +wilful blindness, of cowardice, of bullying, of Pharisaism, and of other sins. He had no +wish to hear their defence. He condemned them, and as it were ordered them to be taken +away and executed. He had a profound conviction that argument was futile, and that nothing +would serve but a pitched battle, in which each fighting man should go to the poll and put +a cross against a name in grim silence. Argue with these gross self-satisfied fellows +about the turpitude of the artisans! Why, there was scarcely one of them whose grandfather +had not been an artisan! Curse their patriotism! Then he would begin bits of argument to +himself, and stop them, too impatient to continue... The shilling cigars of those feasters +disgusted him... In such wise his mind ran. And he was not much kinder to the artisan. If +scorn could have annihilated, there would have been no proletariat left in the division... +Men? Sheep rather! Letting themselves be driven up and down like that, and believing all +the yarns that were spun to them! Gaping idiots, they would swallow any mortal thing! +There was simply naught that they were not stupid enough to swallow with a glass of beer. +It would serve them right if — However, that could not happen. Idiocy had limits. At +least he presumed it had.</p> + +<p>Early as it was, the number of carriages was already considerable. But he did not see +one with the blue of the Labour candidate. Blue rosettes there were, but the red rosettes +bore them down easily. Even dogs had been adorned with red rosettes, and nice clean +infants! And on all the hoardings were enormous red posters exhorting the shrewd +common-sense potter not to be misled by paid agitators, but to plump for his true friend, +for the man who was anxious to devote his entire career and goods to the welfare of the +potter and the integrity of the Empire.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“If you can give me three days off, sir,” said Big James, in the majestic +humility of his apron, “I shall take it kindly.”</p> + +<p>Edwin had gone into the composing room with the copy for a demy poster, consisting of +four red words to inform the public that the true friend of the public was ‘romping +in.’ A hundred posters were required within an hour. He had nearly refused the +order, in his feverish fatigue and his disgust, but some remnant of sagacity had asserted +itself in him and saved him from this fatuity.</p> + +<p>“Why?” he asked roughly. “What’s up now, James?”</p> + +<p>“My old comrade Abraham Harracles is dead, sir, at Glasgow, and I’m wishful +for to attend the interment, far as it is. He was living with his daughter, and +she’s written to me. If you could make it convenient to spare me—”</p> + +<p>“Of course, of course!” Edwin interrupted him hastily. In his present mood, +it revolted him that a man of between fifty and sixty should be humbly asking as a favour +to be allowed to fulfil a pious duty.</p> + +<p>“I’m very much obliged to you, sir,” said Big James simply, quite +unaware that captious Edwin found his gratitude excessive and servile. “I’m +the last now, sir, of the old glee-party,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Really!”</p> + +<p>Big James nodded, and said quietly, “And how’s the old gentleman, +sir?”</p> + +<p>Edwin shook his head.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, sir,” said Big James.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been up with him all night,” Edwin told him.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you’d mind dropping me a line to Glasgow, sir, if anything +happens. I can give you the address. If it isn’t—”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, if you like.” He tried to be nonchalant “When are you +going?”</p> + +<p>“I did think of getting to Crewe before noon, sir. As soon as I’ve seen to +this—” He cocked his eye at the copy for the poster.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you needn’t bother about that,” said Edwin carelessly. “Go +now if you want to.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got time, sir. Mr Curtenty’s coming for me at nine +o’clock to drive me to th’ polling-booth.”</p> + +<p>This was the first time that Edwin had ever heard Big James talk of his private +politics. The fact was that Big James was no more anxious than Jos Curtenty and Osmond +Orgreave to put himself under the iron heel of his fellow working-man.</p> + +<p>“And what’s <i>your</i> colour, James?” His smile was half a +sneer.</p> + +<p>“If you’ll pardon me saying so, sir, I’m for Her Most +Gracious,” Big James answered with grave dignity.</p> + +<p>Three journeymen, pretending to be busy, were listening with all ears from the other +side of a case.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Edwin, dashed. “Well, that’s all +right!”</p> + +<p>He walked straight out, put on his hat, and went to the Bleakridge polling-station and +voted Labour defiantly, as though with a personal grievance against the polling-clerk. He +had a vote, not as lessee of the business premises, but as his father’s lodger. He +despised Labour; he did not care what happened to Labour. In voting for Labour, he seemed +to have the same satisfaction as if from pique he had voted against it because its +stupidity had incensed him.</p> + +<p>Then, instead of returning him to the shop, his legs took him home and upstairs, and he +lay down in his own room.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>He was awakened by the presence of some one at his bedside, and the whole of his body +protested against the disturbance.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t make you hear with knocking,” said Dr Heve, “so I +came into the room.”</p> + +<p>“Hello, doctor, is that you?” Edwin sat up, dazed, and with a sensation of +large waves passing in slow succession through his head. “I must have dropped +asleep.”</p> + +<p>“I hear you had a pretty bad night with him,” the doctor remarked.</p> + +<p>“Yes. It’s a mystery to me how he could keep it up.”</p> + +<p>“I was afraid you would. Well, he’s quieter now. In fact, he’s +unconscious.”</p> + +<p>“Unconscious, is he?”</p> + +<p>“You’ll have no more trouble with the old gentleman,” said the +doctor. He was looking at the window, as though at some object of great interest to be +seen thence. His tone was gentle and unaffected. For the twentieth time Edwin privately +admitted that in spite of the weak, vacuous smile which seemed to delight everybody except +himself, there was a sympathetic quality in this bland doctor. In common moments he was +common, but in the rare moment when a man with such a smile ought to be at his worst, a +certain soft dignity would curiously distinguish his bearing.</p> + +<p>“Um!” Edwin muttered, also looking at the window. And then, after a pause, +he asked: “Will it last long?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “The fact is, this is the +first case of Cheyne-Stokes breathing I’ve ever had. It may last for +days.”</p> + +<p>“How’s the nurse?” Edwin demanded.</p> + +<p>They talked about the nurse, and then Dr Heve said that, his brother the Vicar and he +having met in the street, they had come in together, as the Vicar was anxious to have news +of his old acquaintance’s condition. It appeared that the Vicar was talking to +Maggie and Janet in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, “I shan’t come down. Tell him I’m +only presentable enough for doctors.”</p> + +<p>With a faint smile and a nod, the doctor departed. As soon as he had gone, Edwin jumped +off the bed and looked at his watch, which showed two o’clock. No doubt dinner was +over. No doubt Maggie had decided that it would be best to leave him alone to sleep. But +that day neither he nor anybody in the household had the sense of time, the continuous +consciousness of what the hour was. The whole systematised convention of existence was +deranged, and all values transmuted. Edwin was aware of no feeling whatever except an +intensity of curiosity to see again in tranquillity the being with whom he had passed the +night. Pushing his hand through his hair, he hurried into the sick-room. It was all tidy +and fresh, as though nothing had ever happened in it. Mrs Nixon, shrivelled and deaf, sat +in the arm-chair, watching. No responsibility now attached to the vigil, and so it could +be left to the aged and almost useless domestic. She gave a gesture which might have meant +anything—despair, authority, pride, grief.</p> + +<p>Edwin stood by the bedside and gazed. Darius lay on his back, with eyes half-open, +motionless, unseeing, unhearing, and he breathed faintly, with the soft regularity of an +infant. The struggle was finished, and he had emerged from it with the right to breathe. +His hair had been brushed, and his beard combed. It was uncanny, this tidiness, this calm, +this passivity. The memory of the night grew fantastic and remote. Surely the old man must +spring up frantically in a moment, to beat off his enemy! Surely his agonised cry for +Clara must be ringing through the room! But nothing of him stirred. Air came and went +through those parted and relaxed lips with the perfect efficiency of a healthy natural +function. And yet he was not asleep. His obstinate and tremendous spirit was now withdrawn +somewhere, into some fastness more recondite than sleep; not far off; not detached, not +dethroned; but undiscoverably hidden, and beyond any summons. Edwin gazed and gazed, until +his heart could hold no more of the emotion which this mysteriously impressive spectacle, +at once majestic and poignant, distilled into it. Then he silently left the old woman +sitting dully by the spirit concealed in its ruined home.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>In the evening he was resting on the sofa in the drawing-room. Auntie Hamps was near +him, at work on some embroidery. In order that her dear Edwin might doze a little if he +could, she refrained from speech; from time to time she stopped her needle and looked +reflectively at the morsel of fire, or at the gas. She had been in the house since before +tea. Clara also had passed most of the day there, with a few intervals at her own home; +but now Clara was gone, and Janet too had gone. Darius was tiring them all out, in his +mild and senseless repose. He remained absolutely still, and the enigma which he so +indifferently offered to them might apparently continue for ever; at any rate the +doctor’s statement that he might keep as he was for days and days, beyond help, hung +over the entire household, discouraging and oppressive. The energy of even Auntie Hamps +was baffled. Only Alicia, who had come in, as she said, to take Janet’s place, +insisted on being occupied. This was one of the nights dedicated by family arrangement to +her betrothed, but Alicia had found pleasure in sacrificing herself, and him, to her very +busy sense of duty.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the drawing-room door was pushed open, without a sound, and Alicia, in all the +bursting charm of her youthfulness and the delicious <i>naïveté</i> of her +self-importance, stood in the doorway. She made no gesture; she just looked at Edwin with +a peculiar ominous and excited glance, and Edwin rose quickly and left the room. Auntie +Hamps had noticed nothing.</p> + +<p>“Maggie wants you upstairs,” said Alicia to Edwin.</p> + +<p>He made no answer. He did not ask where Maggie was. They went upstairs together. But at +the door of the sick-room Alicia hung back, intimidated, and Edwin entered and shut the +door on that beautiful image of proud, throbbing life.</p> + +<p>Maggie, standing by the bed under the gas which blazed at full, turned to him as he +approached.</p> + +<p>“Just come and look at him,” she said quietly.</p> + +<p>Darius lay in exactly the same position; except that his mouth was open a little wider, +he presented exactly the same appearance as in the afternoon. His weary features, pitiful +and yet grim, had exactly the same expression. But there was no sign of breathing. Edwin +bent and listened.</p> + +<p>“Oh! He’s dead!” he murmured.</p> + +<p>Maggie nodded, her eyes glittering as though set with diamonds. “I think +so,” she said.</p> + +<p>“When was it?”</p> + +<p>“Scarcely a minute ago. I was sitting there, by the fire, and I thought I noticed +something—”</p> + +<p>“What did you notice?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know... I must go and tell nurse.”</p> + +<p>She went, wiping her eyes.</p> + +<p>Edwin, now alone, looked again at the residue of his father. The spirit, after hiding +within so long, had departed and left no trace. It had done with that form and was away. +The vast and forlorn adventure of the little boy from the Bastille was over. Edwin did not +know that the little boy from the Bastille was dead. He only knew that his father was +dead. It seemed intolerably tragic that the enfeebled wreck should have had to bear so +much, and yet intolerably tragic also that death should have relieved him. But +Edwin’s distress was shot through and enlightened by his solemn satisfaction at the +fact that destiny had allotted to him, Edwin, an experience of such profound and +overwhelming grandeur. His father was, and lo! he was not. That was all, but it was +ineffable.</p> + +<p>Maggie returned to the room, followed by Nurse Shaw, whose head was enveloped in +various bandages. Edwin began to anticipate all the tedious formalities, as to which he +would have to inform himself, of registration and interment...</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>Ten o’clock. The news was abroad in the house. Alicia had gone to spread it. +Maggie had startled everybody by deciding to go down and tell Clara herself, though Albert +was bound to call. The nurse had laid out the corpse. Auntie Hamps and Edwin were again in +the drawing-room together; the ageing lady was making up her mind to go. Edwin, in search +of an occupation, prepared to write letters to one or two distant relatives of his mother. +Then he remembered his promise to Big James, and decided to write that letter first.</p> + +<p>“What a mercy he passed away peacefully!” Auntie Hamps exclaimed, not for +the first time.</p> + +<p>Edwin, at a rickety fancy desk, began to write: “Dear James, my father passed +peacefully away at—” Then, with an abrupt movement, he tore the sheet in two +and threw it in the fire, and began again: “Dear James, my father died quietly at +eight o’clock to-night.”</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards, when Mrs Hamps had departed with her genuine but too spectacular +grief, Edwin heard an immense commotion coming down the road from Hanbridge: cheers, +shouts, squeals, penny whistles, and trumpets. He opened the gate.</p> + +<p>“Who’s in?” he asked a stout, shabby man, who was gesticulating in +glee with a little Tory flag on the edge of the crowd.</p> + +<p>“Who do <i>you</i> think, mister?” replied the man drunkenly.</p> + +<p>“What majority?”</p> + +<p>“Four hundred and thirty-nine.”</p> + +<p>The integrity of the empire was assured, and the paid agitator had received a proper +rebuff.</p> + +<p>“Miserable idiots!” Edwin murmured, with the most extraordinary violence of +scorn, as he re-entered the house, and the blare of triumph receded. He was very much +surprised. He had firmly expected his own side to win, though he was reconciled to a +considerable reduction of the old majority. His lips curled.</p> + +<p>It was in his resentment, in the hard setting of his teeth as he confirmed himself in +the rightness of his own opinions, that he first began to realise an individual freedom. +“I don’t care if we’re beaten forty times,” his thoughts ran. +“I’ll be a more out-and-out Radical than ever! I don’t care, and I +don’t care!” And he felt sturdily that he was free. The chain was at last +broken that had bound together those two beings so dissimilar, antagonistic, and +ill-matched—Edwin Clayhanger and his father.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_01"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter One.</h3> + +<h4>Book Four — His Start in Life.</h4> + +<h4>The Birthday Visit.</h4> + +<p>It was Auntie Hamps’s birthday.</p> + +<p>“She must be quite fifty-nine,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Oh, stuff!” Edwin contradicted her curtly. “She can’t be +anything like as much as that.”</p> + +<p>Having by this positive and sharp statement disposed of the question of Mrs +Hamps’s age, he bent again with eagerness to his newspaper. The “Manchester +Examiner” no longer existing as a Radical organ, he read the “Manchester +Guardian,” of which that morning’s issue contained a long and vivid obituary +of Charles Stewart Parnell.</p> + +<p>Brother and sister were at breakfast. Edwin had changed the character of this meal. He +went fasting to business at eight o’clock, opened correspondence, and gave orders to +the wonderful Stifford, a person now of real importance in the firm, and at nine +o’clock flew by car back to the house to eat bacon and eggs and marmalade leisurely, +like a gentleman. It was known that between nine and ten he could not be seen at the +shop.</p> + +<p>“Well,” Maggie continued, with her mild persistence, “Aunt Spenser +told me—”</p> + +<p>“Who’s Aunt Spenser, in God’s name?”</p> + +<p>“You know—mother’s and auntie’s cousin—the fat old +thing!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Her!” He recalled one of the unfamiliar figures that had bent over his +father’s coffin.</p> + +<p>“She told me auntie was either fifty-five or fifty-six, at father’s +funeral. And <i>that’s</i> nearly three and a half years ago. So she must +be—”</p> + +<p>“Two and a half, you mean.” Edwin interrupted with a sort of +savageness.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t. It’s nearly three years since Mrs Nixon +died.”</p> + +<p>Edwin was startled to realise the passage of time. But he said nothing. Partly he +wanted to read in peace, and partly he did not want to admit his mistake. Bit by bit he +was assuming the historic privileges of the English master of the house. He had the +illusion that if only he could maintain a silence sufficiently august his error of fact +and of manner would cease to be an error.</p> + +<p>“Yes; she must be fifty-nine,” Maggie resumed placidly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care if she’s a hundred and fifty-nine!” snapped +Edwin. “Any more coffee? Hot, that is.”</p> + +<p>Without moving his gaze from the paper, he pushed his cup a little way across the +table.</p> + +<p>Maggie took it, her chin slightly lifting, and her cheeks showing a touch of red.</p> + +<p>“I hope you didn’t forget to order the inkstand, after all,” she said +stiffly. “It’s not been sent up yet, and I want to take it down to +auntie’s myself this morning. You know what a lot she thinks of such +things!”</p> + +<p>It had been arranged that Auntie Hamps should receive that year a cut-glass double +inkstand from her nephew and niece. The shop occasionally dealt in such articles. Edwin +had not willingly assented to the choice. He considered that a cut-glass double inkstand +was a vicious concession to Mrs Hamps’s very vulgar taste in knick-knacks, and, +moreover, he always now discouraged retail trade at the shop. But still, he had assented, +out of indolence.</p> + +<p>“Well, it won’t come till to-morrow,” he said.</p> + +<p>“But, Edwin, how’s that?”</p> + +<p>“How’s that? Well, if you want to know, I didn’t order it till +yesterday. I can’t think of everything.”</p> + +<p>“It’s very annoying!” said Maggie sincerely.</p> + +<p>Edwin put on the martyr’s crown. “Some people seem to think I’ve +nothing else to do down at my shop but order birthday presents,” he remarked with +disagreeable sarcasm.</p> + +<p>“I think you might be a little more polite,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Do you!”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I do!” Maggie insisted stoutly. “Sometimes you get positively +unbearable. Everybody notices it.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s everybody?”</p> + +<p>“You never mind!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Maggie tossed her head, and Edwin knew that when she tossed her head—a gesture +rare with her—she was tossing the tears back from her eyes. He was more than +startled, he was intimidated, by that feminine movement of the head. She was hurt. It was +absurd of her to be so susceptible, but he had undoubtedly hurt her. He had been clumsy +enough to hurt her. She was nearing forty, and he also was close behind her on the road to +forty; she was a perfectly decent sort, and he reckoned that he, too, was a perfectly +decent sort, and yet they lacked the skill not to bicker. They no longer had the somewhat +noisy altercations of old days concerning real or fancied interferences with the order and +privacy of Edwin’s sacred chamber, but their general demeanour to one another had +dully soured. It was as if they tolerated one another, from motives of self-interest. Why +should this be so? They were, at bottom, affectionate and mutually respectful. In a crisis +they could and would rely on one another utterly. Why should their demeanour be so false +an index to their real feelings? He supposed it was just the fault of loose habit. He did +not blame her. From mere pride he blamed himself. He knew himself to be cleverer, more +perceptive, wilier, than she; and he ought to have been able to muster the diplomatic +skill necessary for smooth and felicitous intercourse. Any friction, whether due to her +stupidity or not, was a proof of his incompetence in the art of life...</p> + +<p>“Everybody notices it!” The phrase pricked him. An exaggeration, of course! +Still, a phrase that would not be dismissed by a superior curl of the lips. Maggie was not +Clara, and she did not invent allegations. His fault! Yes, his fault! Beyond doubt he was +occasionally gruff, he was churlish, he was porcupinish. He did not mean to be +so—indeed he most honestly meant not to be so—but he was. He must change. He +must turn over a new leaf. He wished it had been his own birthday, or, better still, the +New Year, instead of his auntie’s birthday, so that he might have turned over a new +leaf at once with due solemnity. He actually remembered a pious saw uttered over twenty +years earlier by that wretch in a white tie who had damnably devised the Saturday +afternoon Bible-class, a saw which he furiously scorned—“Every day begins a +New Year.” Well, every day did begin a New Year! So did every minute. Why not begin +a New Year then, in that minute? He had only to say in a cajoling, good-natured tone, +“All right, all right! Keep your hair on, my child. I grovel!” He had only to +say some such words, and the excellent, simple, unresentful Maggie would at once be +appeased. It would be a demonstration of his moral strength to say them.</p> + +<p>But he could not say them.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Nevertheless he did seriously determine to turn over a new leaf at the very next +occasion. His eyes were now following the obituary of Parnell mechanically, without +transmitting any message that his preoccupied brain would seize. He had been astonished to +find that Parnell was only forty-five. He thought: “Why, at my age Parnell was +famous—a great man and a power!” And there was he, Edwin, eating bacon and +eggs opposite his sister in the humdrum dining-room at Bleakridge. But after all, what was +the matter with the dining-room? It was not the dining-room that his father had left. He +had altered and improved it to suit his own taste. He was free to do so, and he had done +so. He was free in every way. The division of his father’s estate according to the +will had proved unjust to himself; but he had not cared in the least. He had let Albert do +as Albert and Clara pleased. In the settlement Maggie had taken the house (at a figure too +high), and he paid her an adequate rent for it, while she in turn paid him for her board +and lodging. They were all in clover, thanks to the terrible lifelong obstinacy of the +little boy from the Bastille. And Edwin had had the business unburdened. It was not +growing, but it brought in more than twice as much as he spent. Soon he would be as rich +as either of the girls, and that without undue servitude. He bought books surpassing those +books of Tom Orgreave which had once seemed so hopelessly beyond his reach. He went to the +theatre. He went to concerts. He took holidays. He had been to London, and more than once. +He had a few good friends. He was his own master. Nobody dreamed of saying him nay, and no +bad habits held him in subjection. Everywhere he was treated with quite notable respect. +Even when, partly from negligence, and partly to hide recurring pimples, he had allowed +his beard to grow, Clara herself had not dared to titter. And although he suffered from +certain disorders of the blood due to lack of exercise and to his condition, his health +could not be called bad. The frequency of his colds had somewhat diminished. His career, +which to others probably seemed dull and monotonous, presented itself to him as almost +miraculously romantic in its development.</p> + +<p>And withal he could uneasily ask himself, “Am I happy?” Maggie did not +guess that, as he bent unseeing over his precious “Manchester Guardian,” he +was thinking: “I must hold an inquisition upon my whole way of existence. I must see +where I stand. If ever I am to be alive, I ought to be alive now. And I’m not at all +sure whether I am.” Maggie never put such questions to herself. She went on in +placidness from hour to hour, ruffled occasionally.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>An unusual occurrence gave him the opportunity to turn over a new leaf immediately. The +sounds of the front-door bell and of voices in the hall were followed by the proud +entrance of Auntie Hamps herself into the dining-room.</p> + +<p>“Now don’t disturb yourselves, please,” Mrs Hamps entreated. She +often began with this phrase.</p> + +<p>Maggie sprang up and kissed her, somewhat effusively for Maggie, and said in a quiet, +restrained tone—</p> + +<p>“Many happy returns of the day, auntie.”</p> + +<p>Then Edwin rose, scraping his arm-chair backwards along the floor, and shook hands with +her, and said with a guilty grin—</p> + +<p>“A long life and a merry one, auntie!”</p> + +<p>“Eh!” she exclaimed, falling back with a sigh of satisfaction into a chair +by the table. “I’m sure everybody’s very kind. Will you believe me, +those darling children of Clara’s were round at my house before eight o’clock +this morning!”</p> + +<p>“Is Amy’s cough better?” Maggie interjected, as she and Edwin sat +down.</p> + +<p>“Bless ye!” cried Auntie Hamps, “I was in such a fluster I forgot to +ask the little toddler. But I didn’t hear her cough. I do hope it is. +October’s a bad time for coughs to begin. I ought to have asked. But I’m +getting an old woman.”</p> + +<p>“We were just arguing whether you were thirty-eight or thirty-nine, +auntie,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“What a tease he is—with his beard!” she archly retorted. +“Well, your old aunt is sixty this day.”</p> + +<p>“Sixty!” the nephew and niece repeated together in astonishment.</p> + +<p>Auntie Hamps nodded.</p> + +<p>“You’re the finest sixty I ever saw!” said Edwin, with unaffected +admiration.</p> + +<p>And she was fine. The pride in her eye as she made the avowal—probably the first +frank avowal of her age that had passed those lips for thirty years—was richly +justified. With her clear, rosy complexion, her white regular teeth, her straight spine, +her plump figure, her brilliant gaze, her rapid gestures, and that authentic hair of hers +falling in Victorian curls, she offered to the world a figure that no one could regard +without a physical pleasure and stimulation. And she was so shiningly correct in her black +silk and black velvet, and in the massive jet at her throat, and in the slenderness of her +shoe! It was useless to recall her duplicities, her mendacities, her hypocrisies, her +meannesses. At any rate she could be generous at moments, and the splendour of her +vitality sometimes, as now, hid all her faults. She would confess to aches and pains like +other folk, bouts of rheumatism for example—but the high courage of her body would +not deign to ratify such miserable statements; it haughtily repelled the touch of time; it +kept at least the appearance of victory. If you did not like Auntie Hamps willingly, in +her hours of bodily triumph, you had to like her unwillingly. Both Edwin and Maggie had +innumerable grievances against her, but she held their allegiance, and even their warm +instinctive affection, on the morning of her sixtieth birthday. She had been a lone widow +ever since Edwin could remember, and yet she had continued to bloom. Nothing could +desiccate nor wither her. Even her sins did not find her out. God and she remained always +on the best terms, and she thrived on insincerity.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>“There’s a little parcel for you, auntie,” said Edwin, with a +particular effort to make his voice soft and agreeable. “But it’s in +Manchester. It won’t be here till to-morrow. My fault entirely! You know how awful I +am for putting off things.”</p> + +<p>“We quite expected it would be here to-day,” said the loyal Maggie, when +most sisters—and Clara assuredly—would have said in an eager, sarcastic tone: +“Yes, it’s just like Edwin, and yet I reminded him I don’t know how many +times!” (Edwin felt with satisfaction that the new leaf was already turned. He was +glad that he had said ‘My fault entirely.’ He now said to himself: +“Maggie’s all right, and so am I. I must keep this up. Perfect nonsense, +people hinting that she and I can’t get on together!”)</p> + +<p>“Please, <i>please!</i>” Auntie Hamps entreated. “Don’t talk +about parcels!” And yet they knew that if they had not talked about a parcel the +ageing lady would have been seriously wounded. “All I want is your love. You +children are all I have now. And if you knew how proud I am of you all, seeing you all so +nice and good, and respected in the town, and Clara’s little darlings beginning to +run about, and such strong little things. If only your poor mother—!”</p> + +<p>Impossible not to be impressed by those accents! Edwin and Maggie might writhe under +Auntie Hamps’s phraseology; they might remember the most horrible examples of her +cant. In vain! They were impressed. They had to say to themselves: “There’s +something very decent about her, after all.”</p> + +<p>Auntie Hamps looked from one to the other, and at the quiet opulence of the +breakfast-table, and the spacious solidities of the room. Admiration and respect were in +that eye, always too masculine to weep under emotion. Undoubtedly she was proud of her +nephew and nieces. And had she not the right to be? The bearded Edwin, one of the chief +tradesmen in the town, and so fond of books, such a reader, and so quiet in his habits! +And the two girls, with nice independent fortunes: Clara so fruitful and so winning, and +Maggie so dependable, so kind! Auntie Hamps had scarce anything else to wish for. Her +ideals were fulfilled. Undoubtedly since the death of Darius her attitude towards his +children had acquired even a certain humility.</p> + +<p>“Shall you be in to-morrow morning, auntie?” Maggie asked, in the +constrained silence that followed Mrs Hamps’s protestations.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I shall,” said Mrs Hamps, with assurance. “I shall be mending +curtains.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I shall call. About eleven.” Maggie turned to Edwin +benevolently. “It won’t be too soon if I pop in at the shop a little before +eleven?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin with equal benevolence. “It’s not often +Sutton’s delivery is after ten. That’ll be all right. I’ll have it +unpacked.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>He lit a cigarette.</p> + +<p>“Have one?” he suggested to Mrs Hamps, holding out the case.</p> + +<p>“I shall give you a rap over the knuckles in a minute,” smiled Mrs Hamps, +who was now leaning an elbow on the table in easy intimacy. And she went on in a peculiar +tone, low, mysterious, and yet full of vivacity: “I can’t quite make out who +that little nephew is that Janet Orgreave is taking about.”</p> + +<p>“Little nephew that Janet’s taking about!” murmured Maggie, in +surprise; and to Edwin, “Do you know?”</p> + +<p>Edwin shook his head. “When?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Well, this morning,” said Mrs Hamps. “I met them as I was coming up. +She was on one side of the road, and the child was on the other—just opposite +Howson’s. My belief is she’d lost all control over the little jockey. Oh! A +regular little jockey! You could see that at once. ‘Now, George, come along,’ +she called to him. And then he shouted, ‘I want you to come on this side, +auntie.’ Of course I couldn’t stop to see it out. She was so busy with him she +only just moved to me.”</p> + +<p>“George? George?” Maggie consulted her memory. “How old was he, +about?”</p> + +<p>“Seven or eight, I should say.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it couldn’t be one of Tom’s children. Nor +Alicia’s.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Auntie Hamps. “And I always understood that the eldest +daughter’s—what’s her name?”</p> + +<p>“Marian.”</p> + +<p>“Marian’s were all girls.”</p> + +<p>“I believe they are. Aren’t they, Edwin?”</p> + +<p>“How can I tell?” said Edwin. It was a marvel to him how his auntie +collected her information. Neither she nor Clara had ever been in the slightest degree +familiar with the Orgreaves, and Maggie, so far as he knew, was not a gossiper. He thought +he perceived, however, the explanation of Mrs Hamps’s visit. She had encountered in +the street a phenomenon which would not harmonise with facts of her own knowledge, and the +discrepancy had disturbed her to such an extent that she had been obliged to call in +search of relief. There was that, and there was also her natural inclination to show +herself off on her triumphant sixtieth birthday.</p> + +<p>“Charles Orgreave isn’t married, is he?” she inquired.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Maggie.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>Silence fell upon this enigma of Janet’s entirely unaccountable nephew.</p> + +<p>“Charlie <i>may</i> be married,” said Edwin humorously, at length. +“You never know! It’s a funny world! I suppose you’ve seen,” he +looked particularly at his auntie, “that your friend Parnell’s +dead?”</p> + +<p>She affected to be outraged.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen that Parnell is dead,” she rebuked him, with solemn +quietness. “I saw it on a poster as I came up. I don’t want to be +uncharitable, but it was the best thing he could do. I do hope we’ve heard the last +of all this Home Rule now!”</p> + +<p>Like many people Mrs Hamps was apparently convinced that the explanation of +Parnell’s scandalous fall and of his early death was to be found in the inherent +viciousness of the Home Rule cause, and also that the circumstances of his end were a +proof that Home Rule was cursed of God. She reasoned with equal power forwards and +backwards. And she was so earnest and so dignified that Edwin was sneaped into silence. +Once more he could not keep from his face a look that seemed to apologise for his +opinions. And all the heroic and passionate grandeur of Parnell’s furious career +shrivelled up to mere sordidness before the inability of one narrow-minded and ignorant +but vigorous woman to appreciate its quality. Not only did Edwin feel apologetic for +himself, but also for Parnell. He wished he had not tried to be funny about Parnell; he +wished he had not mentioned him. The brightness of the birthday was for an instant +clouded.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what’s coming over things!” Auntie Hamps murmured +sadly, staring out of the window at the street gay with October sun shine. “What +with that! And what with those terrible baccarat scandals. And now there’s this free +education, that we ratepayers have to pay for. They’ll be giving the children of the +working classes free meals next!” she added, with remarkably intelligent +anticipation.</p> + +<p>“Oh well! Never mind!” Edwin soothed her.</p> + +<p>She gazed at him in loving reproach. And he felt guilty because he only went to chapel +about once in two months, and even then from sheer moral cowardice.</p> + +<p>“Can you give me those measurements, Maggie?” Mrs Hamps asked suddenly. +“I’m on my way to Brunt’s.”</p> + +<p>The women left the room together. Edwin walked idly to the window. After all, he had +been perhaps wrong concerning the motive of her visit. The next moment he caught sight of +Janet and the unaccountable nephew, breasting the hill from Bursley, hand in hand.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_02"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Two.</h3> + +<h4>Janet’s Nephew.</h4> + +<p>Edwin was a fairly conspicuous object at the dining-room window. As Janet and the child +drew level with the corner her eye accidentally caught Edwin’s. He nodded, smiling, +and took the cigarette out of his mouth and waved it. They were old friends. He was +surprised to notice that Janet blushed and became self-conscious. She returned his smile +awkwardly, and then, giving a gesture to signify her intention, she came in at the gate. +Which action surprised Edwin still more. With all her little freedoms of manner, Janet was +essentially a woman stately and correct, and time had emphasised these qualities in her. +It was not in the least like her to pay informal, capricious calls at a quarter to ten in +the morning.</p> + +<p>He went to the front door and opened it. She was persuading the child up the tiled +steps. The breeze dashed gaily into the house.</p> + +<p>“Good morning. You’re out early.”</p> + +<p>“Good morning. Yes. We’ve just been down to the post-office to send off a +telegram, haven’t we, George?”</p> + +<p>She entered the hall, the boy following, and shook hands, meeting Edwin’s gaze +fairly. Her esteem for him, her confidence in him, shone in her troubled, candid eyes. She +held herself proudly, mastering her curious constraint. “Now just see that!” +she said, pointing to a fleck of black mud on the virgin elegance of her pale brown +costume. Edwin thought anew, as he had often thought, that she was a distinguished and +delightful piece of goods. He never ceased to be flattered by her regard. But with harsh +masculine impartiality he would not minimise to himself the increasing cleft under her +chin, nor the deterioration of her once brilliant complexion.</p> + +<p>“Well, young man!” Edwin greeted the boy with that insolent familiarity +which adults permit themselves to children who are perfect strangers.</p> + +<p>“I thought I’d just run in and introduce my latest nephew to you,” +said Janet quickly, adding, “and then that would be over.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Edwin murmured. “Come into the drawing-room, will you? +Maggie’s upstairs.”</p> + +<p>They passed into the drawing-room, where a servant in striped print was languidly +caressing the glass of a bookcase with a duster. “You can leave this a bit,” +Edwin said curtly to the girl, who obsequiously acquiesced and fled, forgetting a brush on +a chair.</p> + +<p>“Sit down, will you?” Edwin urged awkwardly. “And which particular +nephew is this? I may tell you he’s already raised a great deal of curiosity in the +town.”</p> + +<p>Janet most unusually blushed again.</p> + +<p>“Has he?” she replied. “Well, he isn’t my nephew at all really, +but we pretend he is, don’t we, George? It’s cosier. This is Master George +Cannon.”</p> + +<p>“Cannon? You don’t mean—”</p> + +<p>“You remember Mrs Cannon, don’t you? Hilda Lessways? Now, Georgie, come and +shake hands with Mr Clayhanger.”</p> + +<p>But George would not.</p> +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“Indeed!” Edwin exclaimed, very feebly. He knew not whether his voice was +natural or unnatural. He felt as if he had received a heavy blow with a sandbag over the +heart: not a symbolic, but a real physical blow. He might, standing innocent in the +street, have been staggeringly assailed by a complete stranger of mild and harmless +appearance, who had then passed tranquilly on. Dizzy astonishment held him, to the +exclusion of any other sentiment. He might have gasped, foolish and tottering: +“Why—what’s the meaning of this? What’s happened?” He looked +at the child uncomprehendingly, idiotically. Little by little—it seemed an age, and +was in fact a few seconds—he resumed his faculties, and remembered that in order to +keep a conventional self-respect he must behave in such a manner as to cause Janet to +believe that her revelation of the child’s identity had in no way disturbed him. To +act a friendly indifference seemed to him, then, to be the most important duty in life. +And he knew not why.</p> + +<p>“I thought,” he said in a low voice, and then he began again, “I +thought you hadn’t been seeing anything of her, of Mrs Cannon, for a long time +now.”</p> + +<p>The child was climbing on a chair at the window that gave on the garden, absorbed in +exploration and discovery, quite ignoring the adults. Either Janet had forgotten him, or +she had no hope of controlling him and was trusting to chance that the young wild stag +would do nothing too dreadful.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she admitted, “we haven’t.” Her constraint +recurred. Very evidently she had to be careful about what she said. There were reasons why +even to Edwin she would not be frank. “I only brought him down from London +yesterday.”</p> + +<p>Edwin trembled as he put the question—</p> + +<p>“Is she here too—Mrs Cannon?”</p> + +<p>Somehow he could only refer to Mrs Cannon as “her” and +“she.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” said Janet, in a tone to indicate that there was no possibility of +Mrs Cannon being in Bursley.</p> + +<p>He was relieved. Yes, he was glad. He felt that he could not have endured the sensation +of her nearness, of her actually being in the next house. Her presence at the +Orgreaves’ would have made the neighbourhood, the whole town, dangerous. It would +have subjected him to the risk of meeting her suddenly at any corner. Nay, he would have +been forced to go in cold blood to encounter her. And he knew that he could not have borne +to look at her. The constraint of such an interview would have been torture too acute. +Strange, that though he was absolutely innocent, though he had done nought but suffer, he +should feel like a criminal, should have the criminal’s shifting downcast +glance!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“Auntie!” cried the boy. “Can’t I go into this garden? +There’s a swing there.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no!” said Janet. “This isn’t our garden. We must go home. +We only just called in. And big boys who won’t shake hands—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes!” Edwin dreamily stopped her. “Let him go into the garden +for a minute if he wants to. You can’t run off like that! Come along, my +lord.”</p> + +<p>He saw an opportunity of speaking to her out of the child’s hearing. Janet +consented, perhaps divining his wish. The child turned and stared deliberately at Edwin, +and then plunged forward, too eager to await guidance, towards the conquest of the +garden.</p> + +<p>Standing silent and awkward in the garden porch, they watched him violently agitating +the swing, a contrivance erected by a good-natured Uncle Edwin for the diversion of +Clara’s offspring.</p> + +<p>“How old is he?” Edwin demanded, for the sake of saying something.</p> + +<p>“About nine,” said Janet.</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t look it.”</p> + +<p>“No, but he talks it—sometimes.”</p> + +<p>George did not in fact look his age. He was slight and small, and he seemed to have no +bones—nothing but articulations that functioned with equal ease in all possible +directions. His skin was pale and unhealthy. His eyes had an expression of fatigue, or he +might have been ophthalmic. He spoke loudly, his gestures were brusque, and his life was +apparently made up of a series of intense, absolute absorptions. The general effect of his +personality upon Edwin was not quite agreeable, and Edwin’s conclusion was that +George, in addition to being spoiled, was a profound and rather irritating egoist by +nature.</p> + +<p>“By the way,” he murmured, “what’s <i>Mr</i> Cannon?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Janet, hesitating, with emotion, “she’s a +widow.”</p> + +<p>He felt sick. Janet might have been a doctor who had informed him that he was suffering +from an unexpected disease, and that an operation severe and perilous lay in front of him. +The impartial observer in him asked somewhat disdainfully why he should allow himself to +be deranged in this physical manner, and he could only reply feebly and very meekly that +he did not know. He felt sick.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he said to himself making a discovery—</p> + +<p>“Of course she won’t come to Bursley. She’d be ashamed to meet +me.”</p> + +<p>“How long?” he demanded of Janet.</p> + +<p>“It was last year, I think,” said Janet, with emotion increased, her voice +heavy with the load of its sympathy. When he first knew Janet an extraordinary quick +generous concern for others had been one of her chief characteristics. But of late years, +though her deep universal kindness had not changed, she seemed to have hardened somewhat +on the surface. Now he found again the earlier Janet.</p> + +<p>“You never told me.”</p> + +<p>“The truth is, we didn’t know,” Janet said, and without giving Edwin +time to put another question, she continued: “The poor thing’s had a great +deal of trouble, a very great deal. George’s health, now! The sea air doesn’t +suit him. And Hilda couldn’t possibly leave Brighton.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! She’s still at Brighton?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Let me see—she used to be at—what was it?—Preston +Street?”</p> + +<p>Janet glanced at him with interest: “What a memory you’ve got! Why, +it’s ten years since she was here!”</p> + +<p>“Nearly!” said Edwin. “It just happened to stick in my mind. You +remember she came down to the shop to ask me about trains and things the day she +left.”</p> + +<p>“Did she?” Janet exclaimed, raising her eyebrows.</p> + +<p>Edwin had been suspecting that possibly Hilda had given some hint to Janet as to the +nature of her relations with him. He now ceased to suspect that. He grew easier. He +gathered up the reins again, though in a rather limp hand.</p> + +<p>“Why is she so bound to stay in Brighton?” he inquired with affected +boldness.</p> + +<p>“She’s got a boarding-house.”</p> + +<p>“I see. Well, it’s a good thing she has a private income of her +own.”</p> + +<p>“That’s just the point,” said Janet sadly. “We very much doubt +if she has any private income any longer.”</p> + +<p>Edwin waited for further details, but Janet seemed to speak unwilling. She would follow +him, but she would not lead.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Behind them he could hear the stir of Mrs Hamps’s departure. She and Maggie were +coming down the stairs. Guessing not the dramatic arrival of Janet Orgreave and the +mysterious nephew, Mrs Hamps, having peeped into the empty dining-room, said: “I +suppose the dear boy has gone,” and forthwith went herself. Edwin smiled cruelly at +the thought of what her joy would have been actually to inspect the mysterious nephew at +close quarters, and to learn the strange suspicious truth that he was not a nephew after +all.</p> + +<p>“Auntie!” yelled the boy across the garden.</p> + +<p>“Come along, we must go now,” Janet retorted.</p> + +<p>“No! I want you to swing me. Make me swing very high.”</p> + +<p>“George!”</p> + +<p>“Let him swing a bit,” said Edwin. “I’ll go and swing +him.” And calling loud to the boy: “I’ll come and swing you.”</p> + +<p>“He’s dreadfully spoiled,” Janet protested. “You’ll make +him worse.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care,” said Edwin carelessly.</p> + +<p>He seemed to understand, better than he had ever done with Clara’s litter, how +and why parents came to spoil their children. It was not because they feared a struggle of +wills; but because of the unreasoning instinctive pleasure to be derived from the +conferring of pleasure, especially when the pleasure thus conferred might involve doubtful +consequences. He had not cared for the boy, did not care for him. In theory he had the +bachelor’s factitious horror of a spoiled child. Nevertheless he would now support +the boy against Janet. His instinct said: “He wants something. I can give it him. +Let him have it. Never mind consequences. He shall have it.”</p> + +<p>He crossed the damp grass, and felt the breeze and the sun. The sky was a moving medley +of Chinese white and Prussian blue, that harmonised admirably with the Indian red +architecture which framed it on all sides. The high trees in the garden of the Orgreaves +were turning to rich yellows and browns, and dead leaves slanted slowly down from their +summits a few reaching even the Clayhanger garden, speckling its evergreen with ochre. On +the other side of the west wall traps and carts rattled and rumbled and creaked along +Trafalgar Road.</p> + +<p>The child had stopped swinging, and greeted him with a most heavenly persuasive +grateful smile. A different child! A sudden angel, with delicate distinguished gestures! +... A wondrous screwing-up of the eyes in the sun! Weak eyes, perhaps! The thick eyebrows +recalled Hilda’s. Possibly he had Hilda’s look! Or was that fancy? Edwin was +sure that he would never have guessed George’s parentage.</p> + +<p>“Now!” he warned. “Hold tight.” And, going behind the boy, he +strongly clasped his slim little waist in its blue sailor-cloth, and sent the whole +affair—swing-seat and boy and all—flying to the skies. And the boy shrieked in +the violence of his ecstasy, and his cap fell on the grass. Edwin worked hard without +relaxing.</p> + +<p>“Go on! Go on!” The boy shriekingly commanded.</p> + +<p>And amid these violent efforts and brusque delicious physical contacts, Edwin was +calmly penetrated and saturated by the mystic effluence that is disengaged from young +children. He had seen his father dead, and had thought: “Here is the most majestic +and impressive enigma that the earth can show!” But the child George—aged nine +and seeming more like seven—offered an enigma surpassing in solemnity that of death. +This was Hilda’s. This was hers, who had left him a virgin. With a singular thrilled +impassivity he imagined, not bitterly, the history of Hilda. She who was his by word and +by kiss, had given her mortal frame to the unknown Cannon—yielded it. She had +conceived. At some moment when he, Edwin, was alive and suffering, she had conceived. She +had ceased to be a virgin. Quickly, with an astounding quickness—for was not George +nine years old?—she had passed from virginity to motherhood. And he imagined all +that too; all of it; clearly. And here, swinging and shrieking, exerting the powerful and +unique charm of infancy, was the miraculous sequel! Another individuality; a new being; +definitely formed, with character and volition of its own; unlike any other individuality +in the universe! Something fresh! Something unimaginably created! A phenomenon absolutely +original of the pride and the tragedy of life! George!</p> + +<p>Yesterday she was a virgin, and to-day there was this! And this might have been his, +ought to have been his! Yes, he thrilled secretly amid all those pushings and joltings! +The mystery obsessed him. He had no rancour against Hilda. He was incapable of rancour, +except a kind of wilful, fostered rancour in trifles. Thus he never forgave the inventor +of Saturday afternoon Bible-classes. But rancour against Hilda! No! Her act had been above +rancour, like an act of Heaven! And she existed yet. On a spot of the earth’s +surface entitled Brighton, which he could locate upon a map, she existed: a widow, in +difficulty, keeping a boarding-house. She ate, slept, struggled; she brushed her hair. He +could see her brushing her hair. And she was thirty-four—was it? The wonder of the +world amazed and shook him. And it appeared to him that his career was more romantic than +ever.</p> + +<p>George with dangerous abruptness wriggled his legs downwards and slipped off the seat +of the swing, not waiting for Edwin to stop it. He rolled on the grass and jumped up in +haste. He had had enough.</p> + +<p>“Well, want any more?” Edwin asked, breathing hard.</p> + +<p>The child made a shy, negative sigh, twisting his tousled head down into his right +shoulder. After all he was not really impudent, brazen. He could show a delicious +timidity. Edwin decided that he was an enchanting child. He wanted to talk to him, but he +could not think of anything natural and reasonable to say by way of opening.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t told me your name, you know,” he began at length. +“How do I know what your name is? George, yes—but George what? George is +nothing by itself, I know ten million Georges.”</p> + +<p>The child smiled.</p> + +<p>“George Edwin Cannon,” he replied shyly.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>“Now, George!” came Janet’s voice, more firmly than before. After +all, she meant in the end to be obeyed. She was learning her business as aunt to this new +and difficult nephew; but learn it she would, and thoroughly!</p> + +<p>“Come on!” Edwin counselled the boy.</p> + +<p>They went together to the house. Maggie had found Janet, and the two were conversing. +Soon afterwards aunt and nephew departed.</p> + +<p>“How very odd!” murmured Maggie, with an unusual intonation, in the hall, +as Edwin was putting on his hat to return to the shop. But whether she was speaking to +herself or to him, he knew not.</p> + +<p>“What?” he asked gruffly.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, “isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>She was more like Auntie Hamps, more like Clara, than herself in that moment. He +resented the suspicious implications of her tone. He was about to give her one of his +rude, curt rejoinders, but happily he remembered in time that scarce half an hour earlier +he had turned over a new leaf; so he kept silence. He walked down to the shop in a deep +dream.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_03"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Three.</h3> + +<h4>Adventure.</h4> + +<p>It was when Edwin fairly reached the platform at Victoria Station and saw the grandiose +express waiting its own moment to start, that the strange irrational quality of his +journey first fully impressed him and frightened him—so much that he was almost +ready to walk out of the station again. To come gradually into London from the North, to +pass from the Manchester train half-full of Midlanders through Bloomsbury into the +preoccupied, struggling, and untidy Strand—this gave no shock, typified nothing +definite. But, having spent a night in London, deliberately to leave it for the South, +where he had never been, of which he was entirely ignorant,—that was like an +explicit self-committal, like turning the back on the last recognisable landmark in an +ill-considered voyage of pure adventure.</p> + +<p>The very character of Victoria Station and of this express was different from that of +any other station and express in his experience. It was unstrenuous, soft; it had none of +the busy harshness of the Midlands; it spoke of pleasure, relaxation, of spending free +from all worry and humiliation of getting. Everybody who came towards this train came with +an assured air of wealth and of dominion. Everybody was well dressed; many if not most of +the women were in furs; some had expensive and delicate dogs; some had pale, elegant +footmen, being too august even to speak to porters. All the luggage was luxurious; +handbags could be seen that were worth fifteen or twenty pounds apiece. There was no +question of first, second, or third class; there was no class at all on this train. Edwin +had the apologetic air of the provincial who is determined to be as good as anybody else. +When he sat down in the vast interior of one of those gilded vehicles he could not dismiss +from his face the consciousness that he was an intruder, that he did not belong to that +world. He was ashamed of his hand-baggage, and his gesture in tipping the porter lacked +carelessness. Of course he pretended a frowning, absorbed interest in a +newspaper—but the very newspaper was strange; he guessed not that unless he glanced +first at the penultimate column of page one thereof he convicted himself of not knowing +his way about.</p> + +<p>He could not think consecutively, not even of his adventure. His brain was in a maze of +anarchy. But at frequent intervals recurred the query: “What the devil am I up +to?” And he would uneasily smile to himself. When the train rolled with all its +majesty out of the station and across the Thames, he said to himself, fearful, +“Well, I’ve done it now!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>On the Thursday he had told Maggie, with affected casualness, that on the Friday he +might have to go to London, about a new machine. Sheer invention! Fortunately Maggie had +been well drilled by her father in the manner proper to women in accepting announcements +connected with ‘business.’ And Edwin was just as laconic and mysterious as +Darius had been about ‘business.’ It was a word that ended arguments, or +prevented them. On the Friday he had said that he should go in the afternoon. On being +asked whether he should return on the Saturday, he had replied that he did not know, but +that he would telegraph. Whereupon Maggie had said that if he stayed away for the week-end +she should probably have all the children up for dinner and tea. At the shop, +“Stifford,” he had said, “I suppose you don’t happen to know a +good hotel in Brighton? I might run down there for the week-end if I don’t come back +to-morrow. But you needn’t say anything.” “No, sir,” Stifford had +discreetly concurred in this suggestion. “They say there’s really only one +hotel in Brighton, sir—the Royal Sussex. But I’ve never been there.” +Edwin had replied: “Not the Metropole, then?” “Oh <i>no</i>, sir!” +Stifford had become a great and wonderful man, and Edwin’s constant fear was that he +might lose this indispensable prop to his business. For Stifford, having done a little +irregular commercial travelling in Staffordshire and the neighbouring counties, had been +seised of the romance of travelling; he frequented the society of real commercial +travellers, and was gradually becoming a marvellous encyclopaedia of information about +hotels, routes, and topography.</p> + +<p>Edwin having been to the Bank himself, instead of sending Stifford, had departed with +the minimum of ostentation. He had in fact crept away. Since the visit of Janet and the +child he had not seen either of them again, nor had he mentioned the child to anybody at +all.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>When, in an astounding short space of time, he stood in the King’s Road at +Brighton, it seemed to him that he was in a dream; that he was not really at Brighton, +that town which for so many years had been to him naught but a romantic name. Had his +adventurousness, his foolhardiness, indeed carried him so far? As for Brighton, it +corresponded with no dream. It was vaster than any imagining of it. Edwin had only seen +the pleasure cities of the poor and of the middling, such as Blackpool and Llandudno. He +had not conceived what wealth would do when it organised itself for the purposes of +distraction. The train had prepared him to a certain extent, but not sufficiently. He +suddenly saw Brighton in its autumnal pride, Brighton beginning one of its fine week-ends, +and he had to admit that the number of rich and idle people in the world surpassed his +provincial notions. For miles westwards and miles eastwards, against a formidable +background of high, yellow and brown architecture, persons the luxuriousness of any one of +whom would have drawn remarks in Bursley, walked or drove or rode in thronging multitudes. +Edwin could comprehend lolling by the sea in August, but in late October it seemed +unnatural, fantastic. The air was full of the trot of glossy horses and the rattle of bits +and the roll of swift wheels, and the fall of elegant soles on endless clean pavements; it +was full of the consciousness of being correct and successful. Many of the faces were +monstrously ugly, most were dissatisfied and querulous; but they were triumphant. Even the +pale beings in enlarged perambulators, pulled solemnly to and fro by their aged +fellow-beings, were triumphant. The scared, the maimed, yes, and the able-bodied blind +trusting to the arms of friends, were triumphant. And the enormous policemen, respectfully +bland, confident in the system which had chosen them and fattened them, gave as it were to +the scene an official benediction.</p> + +<p>The bricks and stucco which fronted the sea on the long embanked promenade never sank +lower than a four-storey boarding-house, and were continually rising to the height of some +gilt-lettered hotel, and at intervals rose sheer into the skies—six, eight, ten +storeys—where a hotel, admittedly the grandest on any shore of ocean sent +terra-cotta chimneys to lose themselves amid the pearly clouds. Nearly every building was +a lodgement waiting for the rich, and nearly every great bow-window, out of tens of +thousands of bow-windows bulging forward in an effort to miss no least glimpse of the full +prospect, exhibited the apparatus and the menials of gourmandise. And the eye, following +the interminable irregular horizontal lines of architecture, was foiled in the far +distances, and, still farther off, after a break of indistinguishable brown, it would +catch again the receding run of roofs, simplified by atmosphere into featureless +rectangles of grey against sapphire or rose. There were two piers that strode and sprawled +into the sea, and these also were laden with correctness and with domination. And, between +the two, men were walking miraculously on the sea to build a third, that should stride +farther and deeper than the others.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Amid the crowd, stamping and tapping his way monotonously along with the assured +obstinacy of a mendicant experienced and hardened, came a shabby man bearing on his breast +a large label with these words: “Blind through boy throwing mortar. Discharged from +four hospitals. Incurable.” Edwin’s heart seemed to be constricted. He thought +of the ragged snarling touts who had fawned to him at the station, and of the creatures +locked in the cellars whence came beautiful odours of confectionery and soup through the +pavement gratings, and of the slatternly women who kept thrusting flowers under his nose, +and the half-clad infants who skimmed before the wind yelling the names of newspapers. All +was not triumph! Where triumph was, there also must be the conquered.</p> + +<p><i>She</i> was there, she too! Somewhere, close to him. He recalled the exact tone of +Janet’s voice as she had said: “The poor thing’s had a great deal of +trouble.” A widow, trying to run a boarding-house and not succeeding! Why, there +were hundreds upon hundreds of boarding-houses, all large, all imposing, all busy at the +end of October! Where was hers hidden away, her pathetic little boarding-house? Preston +Street! He knew not where Preston Street was, and he had purposely refrained from +inquiring. But he might encounter it at any moment. He was afraid to look too closely at +the street-signs as he passed them; afraid!</p> + +<p>“What am I doing here?” he asked himself curiously, and sometimes +pettishly. “What’s my object? Where’s the sense of it? I’m nothing +but a damned fool. I’ve got no plan. I don’t know what I’m going to +do.” It was true. He had no plan, and he did not know what he was going to do. What +he did most intimately know was that the idea of her nearness made him tremble.</p> + +<p>“I’d much better go back at once,” he said.</p> + +<p>He walked miles, until he came to immense and silent squares of huge palatial houses, +and wide transversal avenues running far up into the land and into the dusk. In these vast +avenues and across these vast squares infrequent carriages sped like mechanical toys +guided by mannikins. The sound of the sea waxed. And then he saw the twinkle of lights, +and then fire ran slowly along the promenade: until the whole map of it was drawn out in +flame; and he perceived that though he had walked a very long way, the high rampart of +houses continued still interminably beyond him. He turned. He was tired. His face caught +the full strength of the rising wind. Foam gleamed on the rising tide. In the profound +violet sky to the east stars shone and were wiped out, in fields; but to the west, silver +tarried. He had not seen Preston Street, and it was too dark now to decipher the signs. He +was glad. He went on and on, with rapidly increasing fatigue, disgust, impatience. The +thronging multitudes had almost disappeared; but many illuminated vehicles were flitting +to and fro, and the shops were brilliant. He was so exhausted by the pavements that he +could scarcely walk. And Brighton became for him the most sorrowful city on earth.</p> + +<p>“What am I doing here?” he asked himself savagely. However, by dint of +sticking doggedly to it he did in the end reach the hotel.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>After dinner, and wine, both of which, by their surprising and indeed unique +excellence, fostered the prestige of Stifford as an authority upon hotels, Edwin was +conscious of new strength and cheerfulness. He left the crowded and rose-lit dining-room +early, because he was not at ease amid its ceremoniousness of attire and of service, and +went into the turkey-carpeted hall, whose porter suddenly sprang into propitiatory life on +seeing him. He produced a cigarette, and with passionate haste the porter produced a +match, and by his method of holding the flame to the cigarette, deferential and yet firm, +proved that his young existence had not been wasted in idleness. When the cigarette was +alight, the porter surveyed his work with a pleased smile.</p> + +<p>“Another rare storm blowing up, sir,” said the porter.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin. “It’s been giving the window of my room a +fine shake.”</p> + +<p>The porter glanced at the clock. “High tide in half an hour, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I think I’ll go out and have a look at it,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“By the way,” Edwin added, “I suppose you haven’t got a map of +Brighton?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, sir,” said the porter, and with a rebirth of passion began to +search among the pile of time-tables and other documents on a table behind him.</p> + +<p>Edwin wished he had not asked for the map. He had not meant to ask for it. The words +had said themselves. He gazed unseeing at the map for a few instants.</p> + +<p>“What particular street did you want, sir?” the porter murmured.</p> + +<p>In deciding how to answer, it seemed to Edwin that he was deciding the hazard of his +life.</p> + +<p>“Preston Street.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Preston Street!” the porter repeated in a relieved tone, as if +assuring Edwin that there was nothing very esoteric about Preston Street. +“It’s just beyond the Metropole. You know Regency Square. Well, it’s the +next street after that. There’s a club at the corner.”</p> + +<p>In the afternoon, then, Edwin must have walked across the end of Preston Street twice. +This thought made him tremble as at the perception of a danger past but unperceived at the +moment.</p> + +<p>The porter gave his whole soul to the putting of Edwin’s overcoat on +Edwin’s back; he offered the hat with an obeisance, and having ushered Edwin into +the night so that the illustrious guest might view the storm, he turned with a sudden new +mysterious supply of zeal to other guests who were now emerging from the dining-room.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>The hotel fronted north on an old sheltered square where no storm raged, but +simultaneously with Edwin’s first glimpse of the sea the wind struck him a +tremendous blow, and continued to strike. He had the peculiar grim joy of the Midlander +and Northerner in defying an element. All the lamps of the promenade were insecurely +flickering. Grouped opposite a small jetty was a crowd of sightseers. The dim extremity of +the jetty was wreathed in spray, and the waves ran along its side, making curved lines on +the masonry like curved lines of a rope shaken from one end. The wet floor of the jetty +shone like a mirror. Edwin approached the crowd, and, peeping over black shoulders, could +see down into the hollow of the corner between the jetty and the sea-wall, where boys on +the steps dared the spent waves, amid jeering laughter. The crowd had the air of being a +family intimately united. Farther on was another similar crowd, near an irregular high +fountain of spray that glittered in the dark. On the beach below, at vague distances were +curious rows of apparently tiny people silhouetted like the edge of a black saw against an +excessive whiteness. This whiteness was the sheet of foam that the sea made. It stretched +everywhere, until the eye lost it seawards. Edwin descended to the beach, adding another +tooth to the saw. The tide ran up absolutely white in wide chords of a circle, and then, +to the raw noise of disturbed shingle, the chord vanished; and in a moment was re-created. +This play went on endlessly, hypnotising the spectators who, beaten by the wind and +deafened by sound, stared and stared, safe, at the mysterious and menacing world of spray +and foam and darkness. Before, was the open malignant sea. Close behind, on their +eminence, the hotels rose in vast cubes of yellow light, moveless, secure, strangely +confident that nothing sinister could happen to them.</p> + +<p>Edwin was aware of emotion. The feel of his overcoat-collar upturned against the chin +was friendly to him amid that onset of the pathos of the human world. He climbed back to +the promenade. Always at the bottom of his mind, the foundation of all the shifting +structures in his mind, was the consciousness of his exact geographical relation to +Preston Street. He walked westwards along the promenade. “Why am I doing +this?” he asked himself again and again. “Why don’t I go home? I must be +mad to be doing this.” Still his legs carried him on, past lamp-post after lamp-post +of the wind-driven promenade, now almost deserted. And presently the high lighted windows +of the grandest hotels were to be seen, cut like square holes in the sky; and then the +pier, which had flung a string of lanterns over the waves into the storm; and opposite the +pier a dark empty space and a rectangle of gas-lamps: Regency Square. He crossed over, and +passed up the Square, and out of it by a tiny side street, at hazard, and lo! he was in +Preston Street. He went hot and cold.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Seven.</h4> + +<p>Well, and what then? Preston Street was dark and lonely. The wind charged furiously +through it, panting towards the downs. He was in Preston Street, but what could he do? She +was behind the black walls of one of those houses. But what then? Could he knock at the +door in the night and say: “I’ve come. I don’t know why?”</p> + +<p>He said: “I shall walk up and down this street once, and then I shall go back to +the hotel. That’s the only thing to do. I’ve gone off my head, that’s +what’s the matter with me! I ought to have written to her. Why in the name of God +didn’t I begin by writing to her? ... Of course I might write to her from the hotel +... send the letter by messenger, to-night ... or early to-morrow. Yes, that’s what +I’ll do.”</p> + +<p>He set himself to make the perambulation of the street. Many of the numbers were +painted on the fanlights over the doors and showed plain against illumination. Suddenly he +saw the large figures ‘59.’ He was profoundly stirred. He had said that the +matter with him was that he had gone off his head; but now, staring at that number on the +opposite side of the street, he really did not know what was the matter with him. He might +have been dying. The front of the house was dark save for the fanlight. He crossed over and +peered down into the area and at the black door. A brass plate: “Cannon’s +Boarding-House,” he could read. He perspired. It seemed to him that he could see her +within the house, mysteriously moving at her feminine tasks. Or did she lie in bed? He had +come from Bursley to London, from London to Brighton, and now he had found her portal; it +existed. The adventure seemed incredible in its result. Enough for the present! He could +stand no more. He walked away, meaning not to return.</p> + +<p>When he returned, five minutes later, the fanlight was dark. Had <i>she</i>, in the +meantime, come into the hall of the house and extinguished the gas? Strange, that all +lights should be out in a boarding establishment before ten o’clock! He stood +hesitant quite near the house, holding himself against the wind. Then the door opened a +little, as it were stealthily, and a hand and arm crept out and with a cloth polished the +face of the brass plate. He thought, in his excited fancy, that it was her hand and arm. +Within, he seemed to distinguish a dim figure. He did not move; could not. The door opened +wider, and the figure stood revealed, a woman’s. Surely it was she! She gazed at him +suspiciously, duster in hand.</p> + +<p>“What are you standing there for?” she questioned inimically. +“We’ve had enough of loiterers in this street. Please go away.”</p> + +<p>She took him for a knave expectant of some chance to maraud. She was not fearful, +however. It was she. It was her voice.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_04"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Four.</h3> + +<h4>In Preston Street.</h4> + +<p>He said, “I happened to be in Brighton, so I thought I’d just call, +and—I thought I’d just call.”</p> + +<p>She stared at him, frowning, in the dim diffused light of the street.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been seeing your little boy,” he said. “I thought perhaps +as I was here you’d like to know how he was getting on.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” she exclaimed, with seeming bitterness, “you’ve grown a +beard!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he admitted foolishly, apologetically.</p> + +<p>“We can’t stand here in this wind,” she said, angry with the wind, +which was indeed blowing her hair about, and her skirts and her duster.</p> + +<p>She did not in words invite him to enter, but she held the door more widely open and +drew back for him to pass. He went in. She closed the door with a bang and rattle of large +old-fashioned latches, locks, and chains, and the storm was excluded. They were in the +dark of the hall. “Wait till I put my hand on the matches,” she said. Then she +struck a match, which revealed a common oil-lamp, with a reservoir of yellow glass and a +paper shade. She raised the chimney and lit the lamp, and regulated the wick.</p> + +<p>Edwin kept silence. The terrible constraint which had half paralysed him when Janet +first mentioned Hilda, seized him again. He stood near the woman who without a word of +explanation or regret had jilted, outraged, and ruined him ten years before; this was +their first meeting after their kisses in his father’s shop. And yet she was not on +her knees, nor in tears, nor stammering an appeal for forgiveness. It was rather he who +was apologetic, who sought excuses. He felt somehow like a criminal, or at least like one +who commits an enormous indiscretion.</p> + +<p>The harsh curves of her hair were the same. Her thick eyebrows were the same. Her +blazing glance was the same. Her intensely clear intonation was the same. But she was a +profoundly changed woman. Even in his extreme perturbation he could be sure of that. As, +bending under the lamp-shade to arrange the wick, she exposed her features to the bright +light, Edwin saw a face marred by anxiety and grief and time, the face of a mature woman, +with no lingering pretension to girlishness. She was thirty-four, and she looked older +than Maggie, and much older than Janet. She was embittered. Her black dress was shabby and +untidy, her finger-nails irregular, discoloured, and damaged. The aspect of her pained +Edwin acutely. It seemed to him a poignant shame that time and sorrow and misfortune could +not pass over a young girl’s face and leave no mark. When he recalled what she had +been, comparing the woman with the delicious wistful freshness of the girl that lived +unaltered in his memory, he was obliged to clear his throat. The contrast was too pathetic +to be dwelt on. Only with the woman before him did he fully appreciate the exquisite +innocent simplicity of the girl. In the day of his passion Hilda had not seemed to him +very young, very simple, very wistful. On the contrary she had seemed to have much of the +knowledge and the temper of a woman.</p> + +<p>Having at length subjugated the wick, she straightened her back, with a gesture that he +knew, and for one instant she was a girl again.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“Will you come this way?” she said coldly, holding the lamp in front of +her, and opening a door.</p> + +<p>At the same moment another door opened at the far end of the hall; there was a heavy +footstep; a great hand and arm showed, and then Edwin had a glimpse of a man’s head +and shoulders emerging from an oblong flickering firelight.</p> + +<p>Hilda paused. “All right,” she called to the man, who at once disappeared, +shutting the door and leaving darkness where he had been. The large shadows cast by +Hilda’s lamp now had the gaunt hall to themselves again.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be alarmed,” she laughed harshly. “It’s only the +broker’s man.”</p> + +<p>Edwin was tongue-tied. If Hilda were joking, what answer could be made to such a +pleasantry in such a situation? And if she were speaking the truth, if the bailiffs really +were in possession...! His life seemed to him once again astoundingly romantic. He had +loved this woman, conquered her. And now she was a mere acquaintance, and he was following +her stiffly into the recesses of a strange and sinister abode peopled by mysterious men. +Was this a Brighton boarding-house? It resembled nothing reputable in his experience. All +was incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>The room into which she led him was evidently the dining-room. Not spacious, perhaps +not quite so large as his own dining-room, it was nearly filled by one long bare table. +Eight or ten monotonous chairs were ranged round the grey walls. In the embrasure of the +window was a wicker stand with a withered plant on its summit, and at the other end of the +room a walnut sideboard in the most horrible taste. The mantelpiece was draped with dark +knotted and rosetted cloth; within the fender stood a small paper screen. The walls were +hung with ancient and with fairly modern engravings, some big, others little, some +coloured, others in black-and-white, but all distressing in their fatuous ugliness. The +ceiling seemed black. The whole room fulfilled pretty accurately the scornful scrupulous +housewife’s notion of a lodging-house interior. It was suspect. And in Edwin there +was a good deal of the housewife. He was appalled. Obviously the house was small—he +had known that from the outside—and the entire enterprise insignificant. This +establishment was not in the King’s Road, nor on the Marine Parade, nor at Hove; no +doubt hundreds of such little places existed precariously in a vast town like Brighton. +Widows, of course, were often in straits. And Janet had told him... Nevertheless he was +appalled, and completely at a loss to reconcile Hilda with her environment. And +then—“the broker’s man!”</p> + +<p>At her bidding he sat down, in his overcoat, with his hat insecure on his knee, and +observed, under the lamp, the dust on the surface of the long table. Hilda seated herself +opposite, so that the lamp was between them, hiding him from her by its circle of light. +He wondered what Maggie would have thought, and what Clara would have said, could they +have seen him in that obscurity.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>“So you’ve seen my boy?” she began, with no softening of tone.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Janet Orgreave brought him in one morning—the other day. He +didn’t seem to me to be so ill as all that.”</p> + +<p>“Ill!” she exclaimed. “He certainly wasn’t ill when he left +here. But he had been. And the doctor said that this air didn’t suit him—it +never had suited him. It doesn’t suit some folks, you know—people can say what +they like.”</p> + +<p>“Anyhow, he’s a lively piece—no mistake about that!”</p> + +<p>“When he’s well, he’s very well,” said George’s mother. +“But he’s up and down in a minute. And on the whole he’s been on the +poorly side.”</p> + +<p>He noticed that, though there was no relapse from the correctness of her accent, she +was using just such phrases as she might have used had she never quitted her native +Turnhill. He looked round the lamp at her furtively, and seemed to see in her shadowed +face a particular local quality of sincerity and downrightness that appealed strongly to +his admiration. (Yet ten years earlier he had considered her markedly foreign to the Five +Towns.) That this quality should have survived in her was a proof to him that she was a +woman unique. Unique she had been, and unique she still remained. He did not know that he +had long ago lost for ever the power of seeing her with a normal vision. He imagined in +his simplicity, which disguised itself as chill critical impartiality, that he was adding +her up with clear-sighted shrewdness... And then she was a mother! That meant a +mysterious, a mystic perfecting! For him, it was as if among all women she alone had been +a mother—so special was his view of the influence of motherhood upon her. He drew +together all the beauty of an experience almost universal, transcendentalised it, and +centred it on one being. And he was disturbed, baffled, agitated by the effect of the +secret workings of his own unsuspected emotion. He was made sad, and sadder. He wanted to +right wrongs, to efface from hearts the memory of grief, to create bliss; and he knew that +this could never be done. He now saw Hilda exclusively as a victim, whose misfortunes were +innumerable. Imagine this creature, with her passion for Victor Hugo, obliged by +circumstances to polish a brass door-plate surreptitiously at night! Imagine her solitary +in the awful house—with the broker’s man! Imagine her forced to separate +herself from her child! Imagine the succession of disasters that had soured her and +transformed seriousness into harshness and acridity! ... And within that envelope, what a +soul must be burning!</p> + +<p>“And when he begins to grow—he’s scarcely <i>begun</i> to grow +yet,” Hilda continued about her offspring, “then he will need all his +strength!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he will,” Edwin concurred heartily.</p> + +<p>He wanted to ask her, “Why did you call him Edwin for his second name? Was it his +father’s name, or your father’s, or did <i>you</i> insist on it yourself, +because—?” But he could not ask. He could ask nothing. He could not even ask +why she had jilted him without a word. He knew naught, and evidently she was determined to +give no information. She might at any rate have explained how she had come to meet Janet, +and under what circumstances Janet had taken possession of the child. All was a mystery. +Her face, when he avoided the lamp, shone in the midst of a huge dark cloud of +impenetrable mystery. She was too proud to reveal anything whatever. The grand pride in +her forbade her even to excuse her conduct to himself. A terrific woman!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Silence fell. His constraint was excruciating. She too was nervous, tapping the table +and creaking her chair. He could not speak.</p> + +<p>“Shall you be going back to Bursley soon?” she demanded. In her voice was +desperation.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” he said, thankfully eager to follow up any subject. “On +Monday, I expect.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if you’d mind giving Janet a little parcel from me—some +things of George’s? I meant to send it by post, but if you—”</p> + +<p>“Of course! With pleasure!” He seemed to implore her.</p> + +<p>“It’s quite small,” she said, rising and going to the sideboard, on +which lay a little brown-paper parcel.</p> + +<p>His eye followed her. She picked up the parcel, glanced at it, and offered it to +him.</p> + +<p>“I’ll take it across on Monday night,” he said fervently.</p> + +<p>“Thanks.”</p> + +<p>She remained standing; he got up.</p> + +<p>“No message or anything?” he suggested.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she said coldly, “I write, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Well—” He made the gesture of departing. There was no +alternative.</p> + +<p>“We’re having very rough weather, aren’t we?” she said, with +careless conventionality, as she took the lamp.</p> + +<p>In the hall, when she held out her hand, he wanted tremendously to squeeze it, to give +her through his hand the message of sympathy which his tongue, intimidated by her manner, +dared not give. But his hand also refused to obey him. The clasp was strictly ceremonious. +As she was drawing the heavy latch of the door he forced himself to say, “I’m +in Brighton sometimes, off and on. Now I know where you are, I must look you +up.”</p> + +<p>She made no answer. She merely said good night as he passed out into the street and the +wind. The door banged.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>Edwin took a long breath. He had seen her! Yes, but the interview had been worse than +his worst expectations. He had surpassed himself in futility, in fatuous lack of +enterprise. He had behaved liked a schoolboy. Now, as he plunged up the street with the +wind, he could devise easily a dozen ways of animating and guiding and controlling the +interview so that, even if sad, its sadness might have been agreeable. The interview had +been hell, ineffable torture, a perfect crime of clumsiness. It had resulted in nothing. +(Except, of course, that he had seen her—that fact was indisputable.) He blamed +himself. He cursed himself with really extraordinary savageness.</p> + +<p>“Why did I go near her?” he demanded. “Why couldn’t I keep +away? I’ve simply made myself look a blasted fool! Creeping and crawling round her! +... After all, she <i>did</i> throw me over! And now she asks me to take a parcel to her +confounded kid! The whole thing’s ridiculous! And what’s going to happen to +her in that hole? I don’t suppose she’s got the least notion of looking after +herself. Impossible—the whole thing! If anybody had told me that I should—that +she’d—” Half of which talk was simple bluster. The parcel was bobbing on +its loop against his side.</p> + +<p>When he reached the top of the street he discovered that he had been going up it +instead of down it. “What am I thinking of?” he grumbled impatiently. However, +he would not turn back. He adventured forward, climbing into latitudes whose geography was +strange to him, and scarcely seeing a single fellow-wanderer beneath the gas-lamps. +Presently, after a steep hill, he came to a churchyard, and then he redescended, and at +last tumbled into a street alive with people who had emerged from a theatre, laughing, +lighting cigarettes, linking arms. Their existence seemed shallow, purposeless, infantile, +compared to his. He felt himself superior to them. What did they know about life? He would +not change with any of them.</p> + +<p>Recognising the label on an omnibus, he followed its direction, and arrived almost +immediately in the vast square which contained his hotel, and which was illuminated by the +brilliant façades of several hotels. The doors of the Royal Sussex were locked, +because eleven o’clock had struck. He could not account for the period of nearly +three hours which had passed since he left the hotel. The zealous porter, observing his +shadow through the bars, had sprung to unfasten the door before he could ring.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>Within the hotel reigned gaiety, wine, and the dance. Small tables had been placed in +the hall, and at these sat bald-headed men, smoking cigars and sharing champagne with +ladies of every age. A white carpet had been laid in the large smoking-room, and through +the curtained archway that separated it from the hall, Edwin could see couples revolving +in obedience to the music of a piano and a violin. One of the Royal Sussex’s +Saturday Cinderellas was in progress. The self-satisfied gestures of men inspecting their +cigars or lifting glasses, of simpering women glancing on the sly at their jewels, and of +youths pulling straight their white waistcoats as they strolled about with the air of Don +Juans, invigorated his contempt for the average existence. The tinkle of the music +appeared exquisitely tedious in its superficiality. He could not remain in the hall +because of the incorrectness of his attire, and the staircase was blocked, to a timid man, +by elegant couples apparently engaged in the act of flirtation. He turned, through a group +of attendant waiters, into the passage leading to the small smoking-room which adjoined +the discreetly situated bar. This smoking-room, like a club, warm and bright, was empty, +but in passing he had caught sight of two mutually affectionate dandies drinking at the +splendid mahogany of the bar. He lit a cigarette. Seated in the smoking-room he could hear +their conversation; he was forced to hear it.</p> + +<p>“I’m really a very quiet man, old chap, <i>very</i> quiet,” said one, +with a wavering drawl, “but when they get at me— I was at the Club at one +o’clock. I wasn’t drunk, but I had a top on.”</p> + +<p>“You were just gay and cheerful,” the other flatteringly and soothingly +suggested, in an exactly similar wavering drawl.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I felt as if I wanted to go out somewhere and have another drink. So I went +to Willis’s Rooms. I was in evening-dress. You know you have to get a domino for +those things. Then, of course, you’re a mark at once. I also got a nose. A girl +snatched it off me. I told her what I thought of <i>her</i>, and I got another nose. Then +five fellows tried to snatch my domino off me. Then I <i>did</i> get angry. I landed out +with my right at the nearest chap—right on his heart. Not his face. His heart. I +lowered him. He asked me afterwards, ‘Was that your right?’ ‘Yes,’ +I said, ‘and my left’s worse!’ I couldn’t use my left because they +were holding it. You see? You <i>see</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the other impatiently, and suddenly cantankerous. “I see +that all right! Damned awful rot those Willis’s Rooms affairs are getting, if you +ask me!”</p> + +<p>“Asses!” Edwin exploded within himself. “Idiots!” He could not +tolerate their crassness. He had a hot prejudice against them because they were not as +near the core of life as he was himself. It appeared to him that most people died without +having lived. Willis’s Rooms! Girls! Nose! Heart! ... Asses!</p> + +<p>He surged again out of the small room, desolating the bar with one scornful glance as +he went by. He braved the staircase, leaving those scenes of drivelling festivity. In his +bedroom, with the wind crashing against the window, he regarded meditatively the parcel. +After all, if she had meant to have nothing to do with him, she would not have charged him +with the parcel. The parcel was a solid fact. The more he thought about it, the more +significant a fact it seemed to him. His ears sang with the vibrating intensity of his +secret existence, but from the wild confusion of his heart he could disentangle no +constant idea.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_05"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Five.</h3> + +<h4>The Bully.</h4> + +<p>The next morning he was up early, preternaturally awake. When he descended the waiters +were waiting for him, and the zealous porter stood ready to offer him a Sunday paper, just +as though in the night they had refreshed themselves magically, without going to bed. No +sign nor relic of the Cinderella remained. He breakfasted in an absent mind, and then went +idly into the lounge, a room with one immense circular window, giving on the Square. Rain +was falling heavily. Already from the porter, and in the very mien of the waiters, he had +learnt that the Brighton Sunday was ruined. He left the window. On a round table in the +middle of the room were ranged, with religious regularity, all the most esoteric examples +of periodical literature in our language, from “The Iron-Trades Review” to +“The Animals’ Guardian.” With one careless movement he destroyed the +balanced perfection of a labour into which some menial had put his soul, and then dropped +into a gigantic easy-chair near the fire, whose thin flames were just rising through the +interstices of great black lumps of coal.</p> + +<p>The housekeeper, stiff with embroidered silk, swam majestically into the lounge, bowed +with a certain frigid and deferential surprise to the early guest, and proceeded to an +inquiry into dust. In a moment she called, sharp and low—</p> + +<p>“Arthur!”</p> + +<p>And a page ran eagerly in, to whom, in the difficult corners of upholstery and of +sculptured wood, she pointed out his sins of omission, lashing him with a restrained voice +that Edwin could scarcely hear. Passing her hand carelessly along the beading of a door +panel and then examining her fingers, she departed. The page fetched a duster.</p> + +<p>“I see why this hotel has such a name,” said Edwin to himself. And suddenly +the image of Hilda in that dark and frowzy tenement in Preston Street, on that wet Sunday +morning, filled his heart with a revolt capricious and violent. He sprang to his feet, +unreflecting, wilful, and strode into the hall.</p> + +<p>“Can I have a cab?” he asked the porter.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, sir,” said the porter, as if saying, “You ask me too +little. Why will you not ask for a white elephant so that I may prove my devotion?” +And within five seconds the screech of a whistle sped through the air to the cab-stand at +the corner.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>“Why am I doing this?” he once more asked himself, when he heard the bell +ring, in answer to his pull, within the house in Preston Street. The desire for a tranquil +life had always been one of his strongest instincts, and of late years the instinct had +been satisfied, and so strengthened. Now he seemed to be obstinately searching for tumult; +and he did not know why. He trembled at the sound of movement behind the door. “In a +moment,” he thought, “I shall be right in the thick of it!”</p> + +<p>As he was expecting, she opened the door herself; but only a little, with the gesture +habitual to women who live alone in apprehension, and she kept her hand on the latch.</p> + +<p>“Good morning,” he said curtly. “Can I speak to you?”</p> + +<p>His eye could not blaze like hers, but all his self-respect depended on his valour now, +and with desperation he affronted her. She opened the door wider, and he stepped in, and +at once began to wipe his boots on the mat with nervous particularity.</p> + +<p>“Frightful morning!” he grinned.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said. “Is that your cab outside?”</p> + +<p>He admitted that it was.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps if we go upstairs,” she suggested.</p> + +<p>Thanking her, he followed her upwards into the gloom at the head of the narrow stairs, +and then along a narrow passage. The house appeared quite as unfavourably by day as by +night. It was shabby. All its tints had merged by use and by time into one tint, +nondescript and unpleasant, in which yellow prospered. The drawing-room was larger than +the dining-room by the poor width of the hall. It was a heaped, confused mass of chairs, +sofas, small tables, draperies, embroideries, and valueless knick-knacks. There was no +peace in it for the eye, neither on the walls nor on the floor. The gaze was driven from +one ugliness to another without rest.</p> + +<p>The fireplace was draped; the door was draped; the back of the piano was draped; and +none of the dark suspicious stuffs showed a clear pattern. The faded chairs were hidden by +faded antimacassars; the little futile tables concealed their rickets under vague +needlework, on which were displayed in straw or tinsel frames pale portraits of dowdy +people who had stood like sheep before fifteenth-rate photographers. The mantelpiece and +the top of the piano were thickly strewn with fragments of coloured earthenware. At the +windows hung heavy dark curtains from great rings that gleamed gilt near the ceiling; and +lest the light which they admitted should be too powerful it was further screened by +greyish white curtains within them. The carpet was covered in most places by small rugs or +bits of other carpets, and in the deep shadows beneath sofas and chairs and behind the +piano it seemed to slip altogether out of existence into black nothingness. The room +lacked ventilation, but had the appearance of having been recently dusted.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Hilda closed the draped door with a mysterious, bitter, cynical smile.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” she said coldly.</p> + +<p>“Last night,” Edwin began, without sitting down, “when you mentioned +the broker’s man, were you joking, or did you mean it?”</p> + +<p>She was taken aback.</p> + +<p>“Did I say ‘broker’s man’?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, “you’ve not forgotten, I +suppose.”</p> + +<p>She sat down, with some precision of pose, on the principal sofa.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said at length. “As you’re so curious. The landlords +are in possession.”</p> + +<p>“The bailiffs still here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“But what are you going to do?”</p> + +<p>“I’m expecting them to take the furniture away to-morrow, or Tuesday at the +latest,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“And then what?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“But haven’t you got any money?”</p> + +<p>She took a purse from her pocket, and opened it with a show of impartial curiosity. +“Two-and-seven,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Any servant in the house?”</p> + +<p>“What do you think?” she replied. “Didn’t you see me cleaning +the door-plate last night? I <i>do</i> like that to look nice at any rate!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see much use in that looking nice, when you’ve got the +bailiffs in, and no servant and no money,” Edwin said roughly, and added, still more +roughly: “What should you do if anyone came inquiring for rooms?” He tried to +guess her real mood, but her features would betray nothing.</p> + +<p>“I was expecting three old ladies—sisters—next week,” she said. +“I’d been hoping I could hold out till they came. They’re horrid women, +though they don’t know it; but they’ve stayed a couple of months in this house +every winter for I don’t know how many years, and they’re firmly convinced +it’s the best house in Brighton. They’re quite enough to keep it going by +themselves when they’re here. But I shall have to write and tell them not to come +this time.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin. “But I keep asking you—what then?”</p> + +<p>“And I keep saying I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“You must have some plans?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t.” She put her lips together, and dimpled her chin, and +again cynically smiled. At any rate she had not resented his inquisition.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you know you’re behaving like a perfect fool?” he +suggested angrily. She did not wince.</p> + +<p>“And what if I am? What’s that got to do with you?” she asked, as if +pleasantly puzzled.</p> + +<p>“You’ll starve. You can’t live for ever on two-and-seven.”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“And the boy? Is he going to starve?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Hilda, “Janet will look after him till something turns up. +The fact is, that’s one reason why I allowed her to take him.”</p> + +<p>“‘Something turns up,’ ‘something turns up!’” Edwin +repeated deliberately, letting himself go. “You make me absolutely sick! It’s +absolutely incredible how some people will let things slide! What in the name of God +Almighty do you think will turn up?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” she said, with a certain weakness, still trying to be +placidly bitter, and not now succeeding.</p> + +<p>“Where is the bailiff-johnny?”</p> + +<p>“He’s in the kitchen with one of his friends, drinking.”</p> + +<p>Edwin with bravado flopped his hat down forcefully on a table, pushed a chair aside, +and strode towards the door.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” she asked in alarm, standing up.</p> + +<p>“Where do you suppose I’m going? I’m going to find out from that chap +how much will settle it. If you can’t show any common sense for yourself, other +folks must show some for you—that’s all. The brokers in the house! I never +heard of such work!”</p> + +<p>And indeed, to a respected and successful tradesman, the entrance of the bailiffs into +a house did really seem to be the very depth of disaster and shame for the people of that +house. Edwin could not remember that he had ever before seen a bailiff. To him a bailiff +was like a bug—something heard of, something known to exist, but something not +likely to enter the field of vision of an honest and circumspect man.</p> + +<p>He would deal with the bailiff. He would have a short way with the bailiff. Secure in +the confidence of his bankers, he was ready to bully the innocent bailiff. He would not +reflect, would not pause. He had heated himself. His steam was up, and he would not let +the pressure be weakened by argumentative hesitations. His emotion was not +disagreeable.</p> + +<p>When he was in the passage he heard the sound of a sob. Prudently, he had not banged +the door after him. He stopped, and listened. Was it a sob? Then he heard another sob. He +went back to the drawing-room.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Yes! She stood in the middle of the room weeping. Save Clara, and possibly once or +twice Maggie, he had never seen a woman cry—that is, in circumstances of intimacy; +he had seen women crying in the street, and the spectacle usually pained him. On occasion +he had very nearly made Maggie cry, and had felt exceedingly uncomfortable. But now, as he +looked at the wet eyes and the shaken bosom of Hilda Cannon, he was aware of acute joy. +Exquisite moment! Damn her! He could have taken her and beaten her in his sudden +passion—a passion not of revenge, not of punishment! He could have made her scream +with the pain that his love would inflict.</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, and failed, in a storm of sobs. He had left the door open. Half +blind with tears she dashed to the door and shut it, and then turned and fronted him, with +her hands hovering near her face.</p> + +<p>“I can’t let you do it!” she murmured imploringly, plaintively, and +yet with that still obstinate bitterness in her broken voice.</p> + +<p>“Then who is to do it?” he demanded, less bitterly than she had spoken, +nevertheless not softly. “Who is to keep you if I don’t? Have you got any +other friends who’ll stand by you?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got the Orgreaves,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“And do you think it would be better for the Orgreaves to keep you, or for +me?” As she made no response, he continued: “Anybody else besides the +Orgreaves?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she muttered sulkily. “I’m not the sort of woman that +makes a lot of friends. I expect people don’t like me, as a rule.”</p> + +<p>“You’re the sort of woman that behaves like a blooming infant!” he +said. “Supposing I don’t help you? What then, I keep asking you? How shall you +get money? You can only borrow it—and there’s nobody but Janet, and +she’d have to ask her father for it. Of course, if you’d sooner borrow from +Osmond Orgreave than from me—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to borrow from any one,” she protested.</p> + +<p>“Then you want to starve! And you want your boy to starve—or else to live +on charity! Why don’t you look facts in the face? You’ll have to look them in +the face sooner or later, and the sooner the better. You think you’re doing a fine +thing by sitting tight and bearing it, and saying nothing, and keeping it all a secret, +until you get pitched into the street! Let me tell you you aren’t.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>She dropped into a chair by the piano, and rested her elbows on the curved lid of the +piano.</p> + +<p>“You’re frightfully cruel!” she sobbed, hiding her face.</p> + +<p>He fidgeted away to the larger of the two windows, which was bayed, so that the room +could boast a view of the sea. On the floor he noticed an open book, pages downwards. He +picked it up. It was the poems of Crashaw, an author he had never read but had always been +intending to read. Outside, the driver of his cab was bunching up his head and shoulders +together under a large umbrella, upon which the rain spattered. The flanks of the resigned +horse glistened with rain.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t talk about cruelty!” he remarked, staring hard at the +signboard of an optician opposite. He could hear the faint clanging of church bells.</p> + +<p>After a pause she said, as if apologetically—</p> + +<p>“Keeping a boarding-house isn’t my line. But what could I do? My +sister-in-law had it, and I was with her. And when she died... Besides, I dare say I can +keep a boarding-house as well as plenty of other people. But—well, it’s no use +going into that!”</p> + +<p>Edwin abruptly sat down near her.</p> + +<p>“Come, now,” he said less harshly, more persuasively. “How much do +you owe?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she cried, pouting, and shifting her feet. “It’s out of +the question! They’ve distrained for seventy-five pounds.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care if they’ve distrained for seven hundred and +seventy-five pounds!” She seemed just like a girl to him again now, in spite of her +face and her figure. “If that was cleared off, you could carry on, couldn’t +you? This is just the season. Could you get a servant in, in time for these three +sisters?”</p> + +<p>“I could get a charwoman, anyhow,” she said unwillingly.</p> + +<p>“Well, do you owe anything else?”</p> + +<p>“There’ll be the expenses.”</p> + +<p>“Of the distraint?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“That’s nothing. I shall lend you a hundred pounds. It just happens that +I’ve got fifty pounds on me in notes. That and a cheque’ll settle the bailiff +person, and the rest of the hundred I’ll send you by post. It’ll be a bit of +working capital.”</p> + +<p>She rose and threaded between chairs and tables to the sofa, several feet from Edwin. +With a vanquished and weary sigh, she threw herself on to the sofa.</p> + +<p>“I never knew there was anybody like you in the world,” she breathed, +flicking away some fluff from her breast. She seemed to be regarding him, not as a +benefactor, but as a natural curiosity.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>He looked at her like a conqueror. He had taught her a thing or two. He had been a man. +He was proud of himself. He was proud of all sorts of details in his conduct. The fifty +pounds in notes, for example, was not an accident. Since the death of his father, he had +formed the habit of never leaving his base of supplies without a provision far in excess +of what he was likely to need. He was extravagant in nothing, but the humiliations of his +penurious youth and early manhood had implanted in him a morbid fear of being short of +money. He had fantastically surmised circumstances in which he might need a considerable +sum at Brighton. And lo! the sequel had transformed his morbidity into prudence.</p> + +<p>“This time yesterday,” he reflected, in his triumph, “I hadn’t +even seen her, and didn’t know where she was. Last night I was a fool. Half an hour +ago she herself hadn’t a notion that I was going to get the upper hand of her... +Why, it isn’t two days yet since I left home! ... And look where I am +now!”</p> + +<p>With pity and with joy he watched her slowly wiping her eyes. Thirty-four, perhaps; yet +a child—compared to him! But if she did not give a natural ingenuous smile of +relief, it was because she could not. If she acted foolishly it was because of her +tremendous haughtiness. However, he had lowered that. He had shown her her master. He felt +that she had been profoundly wronged by destiny, and that gentleness must be lavished upon +her.</p> + +<p>In a casual tone he began to talk about the most rapid means of getting rid of the +bailiff. He could not tolerate the incubus of the bailiff a moment longer than was +absolutely unavoidable. At intervals a misgiving shot like a thin flying needle through +the solid satisfaction of his sensations: “She is a strange and an incalculable +woman—why am I doing this?” Shot, and was gone, almost before perceived!</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_06"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Six.</h3> + +<h4>The Rendezvous.</h4> + +<p>In the afternoon the weather cleared somewhat. Edwin, vaguely blissful, but with +nothing to occupy him save reflection, sat in the lounge drinking tea at a Moorish table. +An old Jew, who was likewise drinking tea at a Moorish table, had engaged him in +conversation and was relating the history of a burglary in which he had lost from his flat +in Bolton Street, Piccadilly, nineteen gold cigarette-cases and thirty-seven jewelled +scarf-pins, tokens of esteem and regard offered to him by friends and colleagues at +various crises of his life. The lounge was crowded, but not with tea-drinkers. Despite the +horrid dismalness of the morning, hope had sent down from London trains full of people +whose determination was to live and to see life in a grandiose manner. And all about the +lounge of the Royal Sussex were groups of elegant youngish men and flaxen, uneasily +stylish women, inviting the assistance of flattered waiters to decide what liqueurs they +should have next. Edwin was humanly trying to publish in nonchalant gestures the scorn +which he really felt for these nincompoops, but whose free expression was hindered by a +layer of envy.</p> + +<p>The hall-porter appeared, and his eye ranged like a condor’s over the field until +it discovered Edwin, whom he approached with a mien of joy and handed to him a letter.</p> + +<p>Edwin took the letter with an air of custom, as if he was anxious to convince the +company that his stay at the Royal Sussex was frequently punctuated by the arrival of +special missives.</p> + +<p>“Who brought this?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“An oldish man, sir,” said the porter, and bowed and departed.</p> + +<p>The handwriting was hers. Probably the broker’s man had offered to bring the +letter. In the short colloquy with him in the morning, Edwin had liked the slatternly, +coarse fellow. The bailiff could not, unauthorised, accept cheques, but his tone in +suggesting an immediate visit to his employers had shown that he had bowels, that he +sympathised with the difficulties of careless tenants in a harsh world of landlords. It +was Hilda who, furnished with notes and cheque, had gone, in Edwin’s cab, to placate +the higher powers. She had preferred to go herself, and to go alone. Edwin had not +insisted. He had so mastered her that he could afford to yield to her in trifles.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The letter said exactly this: “Everything is all right and settled. I had no +trouble at all. But I should like to speak to you this afternoon. Will you meet me on the +West Pier at six?—H.C.” No form of greeting! No thanks! The bare words +necessary to convey a wish! On leaving her in the morning no arrangement had been made for +a further interview. She had said nothing, and he had been too proud to ask—the +terrible pride of the benefactor! It was only by chance that it had even occurred to him +to say: “By the way, I am staying at the Royal Sussex.” She had shown no +curiosity whatever about him, his doings, his movements. She had not put to him a single +question. He had intended to call at Preston Street on the Monday morning. And now a +letter from her! Her handwriting had scarcely changed. He was to meet her on the pier. At +her own request he now had a rendezvous with her on the pier! Why not at her house? +Perhaps she was afraid of his power over her in the house. (Curious, how she, and she +almost alone, roused the masculine force in him!) Perhaps she wanted to thank him in +surroundings which would compel both of them to be calm. That would be like her! +Essentially modest, restrained! And did she not know how to be meek, she who was so +headstrong and independent!</p> + +<p>He looked at the clock. The hour was not yet five. Nevertheless he felt obliged to go +out, to bestir himself. On the misty, crowded, darkening promenade he abandoned himself +afresh to indulgence in the souvenance of the great critical scene of the morning. Yes, he +had done marvels; and fate was astoundingly kind to him also. But there was one aspect of +the affair that intrigued and puzzled him, and weakened his self-satisfaction. She had +been defeated, yet he was baffled by her. She was a mystery within folds of mysteries. He +was no nearer—he secretly felt—to the essential Her than he had been before +the short struggle and his spectacular triumph. He wanted to reconstruct in his fancy all +her emotional existence; he wanted to get <i>at</i> her,—to possess her intimate +mind,—and lo! he could not even recall the expressions of her face from minute to +minute during the battle. She hid herself from him. She eluded him... Strange creature! +The polishing of the door-plate in the night! That volume of Crashaw—on the floor! +Her cold, almost daemonic smile! Her sobs! Her sudden retreats! What was at the back of it +all? He remembered her divine gesture over the fond Shushions. He remembered the ecstatic +quality of her surrender in the shop. He remembered her first love-letter: “Every +bit of me is absolutely yours.” And yet the ground seemed to be unsure beneath his +feet, and he wondered whether he had ever in reality known her, ever grasped firmly the +secret of her personality, even for an instant.</p> + +<p>He said to himself that he would be seeing her face to face in an hour, and that then +he would, by the ardour of his gaze, get behind those enigmatic features to the arcana +they concealed.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Before six o’clock it was quite dark. He thought it a strange notion, to fix a +rendezvous at such an hour, on a day in autumn, in the open air. But perhaps she was very +busy, doing servant’s work in the preparation of her house for visitors. When he +reached the pier gates at five minutes to six, they were closed, and the obscure vista of +the pier as deserted as some northern pier in mid-winter. Naturally it was closed! There +was a notice prominently displayed that the pier would close that evening at dusk. What +did she mean? The truth was, he decided, that she lived in the clouds, ordering her +existence by means of sudden and capricious decisions in which facts were +neglected,—and herein probably lay the explanation of her misfortunes. He was very +philosophical: rather amused than disturbed, because her house was scarcely a +stone’s-throw away: she could not escape him.</p> + +<p>He glanced up and down the lighted promenade, and across the broad muddy road towards +the opening of Preston Street. The crowds had disappeared; only scattered groups and +couples, and now and then a solitary, passed quickly in the gloom. The hotels were +brilliant, and carriages with their flitting lamps were continually stopping in front of +them; but the blackness of the shop-fronts produced the sensation of melancholy proper to +the day even in Brighton, and the renewed sound of church bells intensified this arid +melancholy.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he saw her, coming not across the road from Preston Street, but from the +direction of Hove. He saw her before she saw him. Under the multiplicity of lamps her face +was white and clear. He had a chance to read in it. But he could read nothing in it save +her sadness, save that she had suffered. She seemed querulous, preoccupied, worried, and +afflicted. She had the look of one who is never free from apprehension. Yet for him that +look of hers had a quality unique, a quality that he had never found in another, but which +he was completely unable to define. He wanted acutely to explain to himself what it was, +and he could not.</p> + +<p>“You are frightfully cruel,” she had said. And he admitted that he had +been. Yes, he had bullied her, her who, he was convinced, had always been the victim. In +spite of her vigorous individuality she was destined to be a victim. He was sure that she +had never deserved anything but sympathy and respect and affection. He was sure that she +was the very incarnation of honesty—possibly she was too honest for the actual +world. Did not the Orgreaves worship her? And could he himself have been deceived in his +estimate of her character?</p> + +<p>She recognised him only when she was close upon him. A faint, transient, wistful smile +lightened her brooding face, pale and stern.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“Oh! There you are!” she exclaimed, in her clear voice. “Did I say +six, or five, in my note?”</p> + +<p>“Six.”</p> + +<p>“I was afraid I had done, when I came here at five and didn’t find you. +I’m so sorry.”</p> + +<p>“No!” he said. “I think <i>I</i> ought to be sorry. It’s you +who’ve had the waiting to do. The pier’s closed now.”</p> + +<p>“It was just closing at five,” she answered. “I ought to have known. +But I didn’t. The fact is, I scarcely ever go out. I remembered once seeing the pier +open at night, and I thought it was always open.” She shrugged her shoulders as if +stopping a shiver.</p> + +<p>“I hope you haven’t caught cold,” he said. “Suppose we walk +along a bit.”</p> + +<p>They walked westwards in silence. He felt as though he were by the side of a stranger, +so far was he from having pierced the secret of that face.</p> + +<p>As they approached one of the new glazed shelters, she said—</p> + +<p>“Can’t we sit down a moment. I—I can’t talk standing up. I must +sit down.”</p> + +<p>They sat down, in an enclosed seat designed to hold four. And Edwin could feel the wind +on his calves, which stretched beyond the screened side of the structure. Odd people +passed dimly to and fro in front of them, glanced at them with nonchalant curiosity, and +glanced away. On the previous evening he had observed couples in those shelters, and had +wondered what could be the circumstances or the preferences which led them to accept such +a situation. Certainly he could not have dreamed that within twenty-four hours he would be +sitting in one of them with her, by her appointment, at her request. He thrilled with +excitement—with delicious anxieties.</p> + +<p>“Janet told you I was a widow,” Hilda began, gazing at the ferule of her +umbrella, which gleamed on the ground.</p> + +<p>“Yes.” Again she was surprising him.</p> + +<p>“Well, we arranged she should tell every one that. But I think you ought to know +that I’m not.”</p> + +<p>“No?” he murmured weakly. And in one small unimportant region of his mind +he reflected with astonishment upon the hesitating but convincing air with which Janet had +lied to him. Janet!</p> + +<p>“After what you’ve done”—she paused, and went on with unblurred +clearness—“after what you’ve insisted on doing, I don’t want there +to be any misunderstanding. I’m not a widow. My husband’s in prison. +He’ll be in prison for another six or seven years. That’s all I wanted to tell +you.”</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry,” he breathed. “I’d no idea you’d +had this trouble.” What could he say? What could anybody have said?</p> + +<p>“I ought to have told you at once,” she said. “I ought to have told +you last night.” Another pause. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t have come +again this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I should!” he asserted eagerly. “If you’re in a hole, +you’re in a hole. What difference could it possibly make whether you were a widow or +not?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she said. “The wife of a convict... you know!” He felt +that she was evading the point.</p> + +<p>She went on: “It’s a good thing my three old ladies don’t know, +anyhow...! I’d no chance to tell you this morning. You were too much for +me.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care whose wife you are!” he muttered, as though to himself, +as though resenting something said by some one who had gone away and left him. “If +you’re in a hole, you’re in a hole.”</p> + +<p>She turned and looked at him. His eyes fell before hers.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said. “I’ve told you. I must go. I haven’t a +moment. Good night.” She held out her hand. “You don’t want me to thank +you a lot, do you?”</p> + +<p>“That I don’t!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Good night.”</p> + +<p>“But—”</p> + +<p>“I really must go.”</p> + +<p>He rose and gave his hand. The next instant she was gone.</p> + +<p>There was a deafening roar in his head. It was the complete destruction by earthquake +of a city of dreams. A calamity which left nothing—even to be desired! A tremendous +silence reigned after the event.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>On the following evening, when from the windows of the London-to-Manchester express he +saw in the gloom the high-leaping flames of the blast-furnaces that seem to guard +eternally the southern frontier of the Five Towns, he felt that he had returned into daily +reality out of an impossible world. Waiting for the loop-line train in the familiar tedium +of Knype platform, staring at the bookstall, every item on which he knew by heart and +despised, surrounded once more by local physiognomies, gestures, and accent, he thought to +himself: “<i>This</i> is my lot. And if I get messing about, it only shows what a +damned fool I am!” He called himself a damned fool because Hilda had proved to have +a husband; because of that he condemned the whole expedition to Brighton as a piece of +idiocy. His dejection was profound and bitter. At first, after Hilda had quitted him on +the Sunday night, he had tried to be cheerful, had persuaded himself indeed that he was +cheerful; but gradually his spirit had sunk, beaten and miserable. He had not called at +Preston Street again. Pride forbade, and the terror of being misunderstood.</p> + +<p>And when he sat at his own table, in his own dining-room, and watched the calm +incurious Maggie dispensing to him his elaborate tea-supper with slightly more fuss and +more devotion than usual, his thoughts, had they been somewhat less vague, might have been +summed up thus: “The right sort of women don’t get landed as the wives of +convicts. Can you imagine such a thing happening to Maggie, for instance? Or Janet?” +(And yet Janet was in the secret! This disturbed the flow of his reflections.) Hilda was +too mysterious. Now she had half disclosed yet another mystery. But what? “Why was +her husband a convict? Under what circumstances? For what crime? Where? Since when?” +He knew the answer to none of these questions. More deeply than ever was that woman +embedded in enigmas.</p> + +<p>“What’s this parcel on the sideboard?” Maggie inquired.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I want you to send it in to Janet. It’s from her particular friend, +Mrs Cannon—something for the kid, I believe. I ran across her in Brighton, and she +asked me if I’d bring the parcel along.”</p> + +<p>The innocence of his manner was perfectly acted. He wondered that he could do it so +well. But really there was no danger. Nobody in Bursley, or in the world, had the least +suspicion of his past relations with Hilda. The only conceivable danger would have been in +hiding the fact that he had met her in Brighton.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Maggie, mildly interested. “I was forgetting she +lived at Brighton. Well?” and she put a few casual questions, to which Edwin +casually replied.</p> + +<p>“You look tired,” she said later.</p> + +<p>He astonished her by admitting that he was. According to all precedent her statement +ought to have drawn forth a quick contradiction.</p> + +<p>The sad image of Hilda would not be dismissed. He had to carry it about with him +everywhere, and it was heavy enough to fatigue a stronger than Edwin Clayhanger. The +pathos of her situation overwhelmed him, argue as he might about the immunity of +‘the right sort of women’ from a certain sort of disaster. On the Tuesday he +sent her a post-office order for twenty pounds. It rather more than made up the agreed sum +of a hundred pounds. She returned it, saying she did not need it. “Little +fool!” he said. He was not surprised. He was, however, very much surprised, a few +weeks later, to receive from Hilda her own cheque for eighty pounds odd! More mystery! An +absolutely incredible woman! Whence had she obtained that eighty pounds? Needless to say, +she offered no explanation. He abandoned all conjecture. But he could not abandon the +image. And first Auntie Hamps said, and then Clara, and then even Maggie admitted, that +Edwin was sticking too close to business and needed a change, needed rousing. Auntie Hamps +urged openly that a wife ought to be found for him. But in a few days the great talkers of +the family, Auntie Hamps and Clara, had grown accustomed to Edwin’s state, and some +new topic supervened.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_07"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Seven.</h3> + +<h4>The Wall.</h4> + +<p>One morning—towards the end of November—Edwin, attended by Maggie, was +rearranging books in the drawing-room after breakfast, when there came a startling loud +tap at the large central pane of the window. Both of them jumped.</p> + +<p>“Who’s throwing?” Edwin exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“I expect it’s that boy,” said Maggie, almost angrily.</p> + +<p>“Not Georgie?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I wish you’d go and stop him. You’ve no idea what a tiresome +little thing he is. And so rough too!”</p> + +<p>This attitude of Maggie towards the mysterious nephew was a surprise for Edwin. She had +never grumbled about him before. In fact they had seen little of him. For a fortnight he +had not been abroad, and the rumour ran that he was unwell, that he was ‘not so +strong as he ought to be.’ And now Maggie suddenly charged him with a whole series +of misdoings! But it was Maggie’s way to keep unpleasant things from Edwin for a +time, in order to save her important brother from being worried, and then in a moment of +tension to fling them full in his face, like a wet clout.</p> + +<p>“What’s he been up to?” Edwin inquired for details.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I don’t know,” answered Maggie vaguely. At the same instant came +another startling blow on the window. “There!” Maggie cried, in triumph, as if +saying: “That’s what he’s been up to!” After all, the windows were +Maggie’s own windows.</p> + +<p>Edwin left on the sofa a whole pile of books that he was sorting, and went out into the +garden. On the top of the wall separating him from the Orgreaves a row of damaged +earthenware objects—jugs and jars chiefly—at once caught his eye. He witnessed +the smashing of one of them, and then he ran to the wall, and taking a spring, rested on +it with his arms, his toes pushed into crevices. Young George, with hand outstretched to +throw, in the garden of the Orgreaves, seemed rather diverted by this apparition.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” said Edwin. “What are you up to?”</p> + +<p>“I’m practising breaking crocks,” said the child. That he had +acquired the local word gave Edwin pleasure.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but do you know you’re practising breaking my windows too? When you +aim too high you simply can’t miss one of my windows.”</p> + +<p>George’s face was troubled, as he examined the facts, which had hitherto escaped +his attention, that there was a whole world of consequences on the other side of the wall, +and that a missile which did not prove its existence against either the wall or a crock +had not necessarily ceased to exist. Edwin watched the face with a new joy, as though +looking at some wonder of nature under a microscope. It seemed to him that he now saw +vividly why children were interesting.</p> + +<p>“I can’t see any windows from here,” said George, in defence.</p> + +<p>“If you climb up here you’ll see them all right.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I can’t climb up. I’ve tried to, a lot of times. Even when +I stood on my toes on this stump I could only just reach to put the crocks on the +top.”</p> + +<p>“What did you want to get on the wall for?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted to see that swing of yours.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, laughing, “if you could remember the swing why +couldn’t you remember the windows?”</p> + +<p>George shook his head at Edwin’s stupidity, and looked at the ground. “A +swing isn’t windows,” he said. Then he glanced up with a diffident smile: +“I’ve often been wanting to come and see you.”</p> + +<p>Edwin was tremendously flattered. If he had made a conquest, the child by this frank +admission had made a greater.</p> + +<p>“Then why didn’t you come?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t, by myself. Besides, my back hasn’t been well. Did they +tell you?”</p> + +<p>George was so naturally serious that Edwin decided to be serious too.</p> + +<p>“I did hear something about it,” he replied, with the grave confidential +tone that he would have used to a man of his own age. This treatment was evidently +appreciated by George, and always afterwards Edwin conversed with him as with an equal, +forbearing from facetiousness.</p> + +<p>Damp though it was, Edwin twisted himself round and sat on the wall next to the crocks, +and bent over the boy beneath, who gazed with upturned face.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you ask Auntie Janet to bring you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t generally ask for things that I really want,” said the boy, +with a peculiar glance.</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Edwin, with an air of comprehension. He did not, however, +comprehend. He only felt that the boy was wonderful. Imagine the boy saying that! He bent +lower. “Come on up,” he said. “I’ll give you a hand. Stick your +feet into that nick there.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>In an instant George was standing on the wall, light as fluff. Edwin held him by the +legs, and his hand was on Edwin’s cap. The feel of the boy was delightful; he was so +lithe and so yielding, and yet firm; and his glance was so trustful and admiring. +“Rough!” thought Edwin, remembering Maggie’s adjective. “He +isn’t a bit rough! Unruly? Well, I dare say he can be unruly if he cares to be. It +all depends how you handle him.” Thus Edwin reflected in the pride of conquest, +holding close to the boy, and savouring intimately his charm. Even the boy’s +slightness attracted him. Difficult to believe that he was nine years old! His body was +indeed backward. So too, it appeared, was his education. And yet was there not the wisdom +of centuries in, “I don’t generally ask for things that I really +want?”</p> + +<p>Suddenly the boy wriggled, and gave a sound of joy that was almost a yell. +“Look!” he cried.</p> + +<p>The covered top of the steam-car could just be seen gliding along above the high wall +that separated Edwin’s garden from the street.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Edwin agreed. “Funny, isn’t it?” But he considered +that such glee at such a trifle was really more characteristic of six or seven than of +nine years. George’s face was transformed by ecstasy.</p> + +<p>“It’s when things move like that—horizontal!” George explained, +pronouncing the word carefully.</p> + +<p>Edwin felt that there was no end to the surpassing strangeness of this boy. One moment +he was aged six, and the next he was talking about horizontality.</p> + +<p>“Why? What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know!” George sighed. “But somehow—” Then, +with fresh vivacity: “I tell you—when Auntie Janet comes to wake me up in the +morning the cat comes in too, with its tail up in the air—you know!” Edwin +nodded. “Well, when I’m lying in bed I can’t see the cat, but I can see +the top of its tail sailing along the edge of the bed. But if I sit up I can see all the +cat, and that spoils it, so I don’t sit up at first.”</p> + +<p>The child was eager for Edwin to understand his pleasure in horizontal motion that had +no apparent cause, like the tip of a cat’s tail on the horizon of a bed, or the roof +of a tram-car on the horizon of the wall. And Edwin was eager to understand, and almost +persuaded himself that he did understand; but he could not be sure. A marvellous +child—disconcerting! He had a feeling of inferiority to the child, because the child +had seen beauty where he had not dreamed of seeing it.</p> + +<p>“Want a swing,” he suggested, “before I have to go off to +business?”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>When it occurred to him that he had had as much violent physical exercise as was good +for his years, and that he had left his books in disarray, and that his business demanded +him, Edwin apologetically announced that he must depart, and the child admitted that Aunt +Janet was probably waiting to give him his lessons.</p> + +<p>“Are you going back the way you came? You’d better. It’s always +best,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Is it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>He lifted and pushed the writhing form on to the wall, dislodging a jar, which crashed +dully on the ground.</p> + +<p>“Auntie Janet told me I could have them to do what I liked with. So I break +them,” said George, “when they don’t break themselves!”</p> + +<p>“I bet she never told you to put them on this wall,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“No, she didn’t. But it was the best place for aiming. And she told me it +didn’t matter how many crocks I broke, because they make crocks here. Do they, +really?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because there’s clay here,” said Edwin glibly.</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Round about.”</p> + +<p>“White, like that?” exclaimed George eagerly, handling a teapot without a +spout. He looked at Edwin: “Will you take me to see it? I should like to see white +ground.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, more cautiously, “the clay they get about here +isn’t exactly white.”</p> + +<p>“Then do they make it white?”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact the white clay comes from a long way off—Cornwall, for +instance.”</p> + +<p>“Then why do they make the things here?” George persisted; with the +annoying obstinacy of his years. He had turned the teapot upside down. “This was +made here. It’s got ‘Bursley’ on it. Auntie Janet showed me.”</p> + +<p>Edwin was caught. He saw himself punished for that intellectual sloth which leads +adults to fob children off with any kind of a slipshod, dishonestly simplified explanation +of phenomena whose adequate explanation presents difficulty. He remembered how nearly +twenty years earlier he had puzzled over the same question and for a long time had not +found the answer.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you how it is,” he said, determined to be conscientious. +“It’s like this—” He had to pause. Queer, how hard it was to state +the thing coherently! “It’s like this. In the old days they used to make +crocks anyhow, very rough, out of any old clay. And crocks were first made here because +the people found common yellow clay, and the coal to burn it with, lying close together in +the ground. You see how handy it was for them.”</p> + +<p>“Then the old crocks were yellow?”</p> + +<p>“More or less. Then people got more particular, you see, and when white clay was +found somewhere else they had it brought here, because everybody was used to making crocks +here, and they had all the works and the tools they wanted, and the coal too. Very +important, the coal! Much easier to bring the clay to the people and the works, than cart +off all the people—and their families, don’t forget—and so on, to the +clay, and build fresh works into the bargain... That’s why. Now are you sure you +see?”</p> + +<p>George ignored the question. “I suppose they used up all the yellow clay there +was here, long ago?”</p> + +<p>“Not much!” said Edwin. “And they never will! You don’t know +what a sagger is, I reckon?”</p> + +<p>“What is a sagger?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t stop to tell you all that now. But I will some time. They +make saggers out of the yellow clay.”</p> + +<p>“Will you show me the yellow clay?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and some saggers too.”</p> + +<p>“When?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. As soon as I can.”</p> + +<p>“Will you to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>To-morrow happened to be Thursday. It was not Edwin’s free afternoon, but it was +an afternoon to which a sort of licence attached. He yielded to the ruthless egotism of +the child.</p> + +<p>“All right!” he said.</p> + +<p>“You won’t forget?”</p> + +<p>“You can rely on me. Ask your auntie if you may go, and if she says you may, be +ready for me to pull you up over the wall here, about three o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“Auntie will have to let me go,” said George, in a savage tone, as Edwin +helped him to slip down into the garden of the Orgreaves. Edwin went off to business with +a singular consciousness of virtue, and with pride in his successful manner of taming +wayward children, and with a very strong new interest in the immediate future.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_08"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Eight.</h3> + +<h4>The Friendship.</h4> + +<p>The next afternoon George’s invincible energy took both himself and the great +bearded man, Edwin, to a certain spot on the hollow confines of the town towards Turnhill, +where there were several pits of marl and clay. They stared in silence at a vast +ochre’s-coloured glistening cavity in the ground, on the high edges of which grew +tufts of grass amid shards and broken bottles. In the bottom of the pit were laid planks, +and along the planks men with pieces of string tied tight round their legs beneath the +knees drew large barrows full or empty, sometimes insecurely over pools of yellow water +into which the plank sagged under their weight, and sometimes over little hillocks and +through little defiles formed in the basin of the mine. They seemed to have no aim. The +whole cavity had a sticky look which at first amused George, but on the whole he was not +interested, and Edwin gathered that the clay-pit in some mysterious way fell short of +expectations. A mineral line of railway which, near by, ambled at random like a pioneer +over rough country, was much more successful than the pit in winning his approval.</p> + +<p>“Can we go and see the saggers now?” he suggested.</p> + +<p>Edwin might have taken him to the manufactory in which Albert Benbow was a partner, but +he preferred not to display to the father of Clara’s offspring his avuncular +patronage of George Cannon, and he chose the works of a customer down at Shawport for whom +he was printing a somewhat ambitious catalogue. He would call at the works and talk about +the catalogue, and then incidentally mention that his young friend desired to see +saggers.</p> + +<p>“I suppose God put that clay there so that people could practise on it first, +before they tried the white clay,” George observed, as the pair descended Oldcastle +Street.</p> + +<p>Decidedly he had moments of talking like an infant, like a baby of three. Edwin +recalled that Hilda used to torture herself about questions of belief when she was not +three but twenty-three. The scene in the garden porch seemed to have happened after all +not very long ago. Yet a new generation, unconceived on that exciting and unforgettable +night, had since been born and had passed through infancy and was now trotting and arguing +and dogmatising by his side. It was strange, but it was certainly a fact, that George +regarded him as a being immeasurably old. He still felt a boy.</p> + +<p>How ought he to talk to the child concerning God? He was about to make a conventional +response, when he stopped himself. “Confound it! Why should I?” he +thought.</p> + +<p>“If I were you I shouldn’t worry about God,” he said, aloud, in a +casual and perhaps slightly ironic tone.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t!” George answered positively. “But now and then He +comes into your head, doesn’t He? I was only just thinking.” The boy ceased, +being attracted by the marvellous spectacle of a man perilously balanced on a crate-float +driving a long-tailed pony full tilt down the steep slope of Oldcastle Street: it was +equal to a circus.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The visit to the works was a particularly brilliant success. By good fortune an oven +was just being ‘drawn,’ and the child had sight of the finest, the most +barbaric picture that the manufacture of earthenware, from end to end picturesque, offers +to the imaginative observer. Within the dark and sinister bowels of the kiln, illuminated +by pale rays that came down through the upper orifice from the smoke-soiled sky, +half-naked figures moved like ghosts, strenuous and damned, among the saggers of ware. At +rapid intervals they emerged, their hairy torsos glistening with sweat, carrying the fired +ware, which was still too hot for any but inured fingers to touch: an endless procession +of plates and saucers and cups and mugs and jugs and basins, thousands and thousands! +George stared in an enchanted silence of awe. And presently one of the Hercules’s +picked him up, and held him for a moment within the portal of the torrid kiln, and he +gazed at the high curved walls, like the walls of a gigantic tomb, and at the yellow +saggers that held the ware. Now he knew what a sagger was.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you took me,” he said afterwards, clearly impressed by the +authority of Edwin, who could stroll out and see such terrific goings-on whenever he +chose. During all the walk home he did not speak.</p> + +<p>On the Saturday, nominally in charge of his Auntie Janet, he called upon his chum with +some water-colour drawings that he had done; they showed naked devils carrying cups and +plates amid bright salmon-tinted flames: designs horrible, and horribly crude, interesting +only because a child had done them. But somehow Edwin was obscurely impressed by them, and +also he was touched by the coincidence that George painted in water-colours, and he, too, +had once painted in water-colours. He was moreover expected to judge the drawings as an +expert. On Monday he brought up the most complicated box of water-colours that his shop +contained, and presented it to George, who, astounded, dazed, bore it away to his bedroom +without a single word. Their friendship was sealed and published; it became a fact +recognised by the two families.</p> +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>About a week later, after a visit of a couple of days to Manchester, Edwin went out +into the garden as usual when breakfast was finished, and discovered George standing on +the wall. The boy had learned how to climb the wall from his own side of it without +help.</p> + +<p>“I say!” George cried, in a loud, rough, angry voice, as soon as he saw +Edwin at the garden door. “I’ve got to go off in a minute, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“Go off? Where?”</p> + +<p>“Home. Didn’t they tell you in your house? Auntie Janet and I came to your +house yesterday, after I’d waited on the wall for you I don’t know how long, +and you never came. We came to tell you, but you weren’t in. So we asked Miss +Clayhanger to tell you. Didn’t Miss Clayhanger tell you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin. “She must have forgot.” It occurred to him +that even the simple and placid Maggie had her personal prejudices, and that one of them +might be against this child. For some reason she did not like the child. She positively +could not have forgotten the child’s visit with Janet. She had merely not troubled +to tell him: a touch of that malice which, though it be as rare as radium, nevertheless +exists even in the most benignant natures. Edwin and George exchanged a silent, puzzled +glance.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s a nice thing!” said the boy. It was.</p> + +<p>“When are you going home?”</p> + +<p>“I’m going <i>now</i>! Mr Orgreave has to go to London to-day, and mamma +wrote to Auntie Janet yesterday to say that I must go with him, if he’d let me, and +she would meet me at London. She wants me back. So Auntie Janet is taking me to Knype to +meet Mr Orgreave there—he’s gone to his office first. And the gardener has +taken my luggage in the barrow up to Bleakridge Station. Auntie’s putting her hat +on. Can’t you see I’ve got my other clothes on?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin, “I noticed that.”</p> + +<p>“And my other hat?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve promised auntie I’ll come and put my overcoat on as soon as she +calls me. I say—you wouldn’t believe how jammed my trunk is with that paint +box and everything! Auntie Janet had to sit on it like anything! I say—shall you be +coming to Brighton soon?”</p> + +<p>Edwin shook his head.</p> + +<p>“I never go to Brighton.”</p> + +<p>“But when I asked you once if you’d been, you said you had.”</p> + +<p>“So I have, but that was an accident.”</p> + +<p>“Was it long since?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Edwin, “you ought to know. It was when I brought that +parcel for you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Of course!”</p> + +<p>Edwin was saying to himself: “She’s sent for him on purpose. She’s +heard that we’re great friends, and she’s sent for him! She means to stop it! +That’s what it is!” He had no rational basis for this assumption. It was +instinctive. And yet why should she desire to interfere with the course of the friendship? +How could it react unpleasantly on her? There obviously did not exist between mother and +son one of those passionate attachments which misfortune and sorrow sometimes engender. +She had been able to let him go. And as for George, he seldom mentioned his mother. He +seldom mentioned anybody who was not actually present, or necessary to the fulfilment of +the idea that happened to be reigning in his heart. He lived a life of absorption, +hypnotised by the idea of the moment. These ideas succeeded each other like a dynasty of +kings, like a series of dynasties, marked by frequent dynastic quarrels, by depositions +and sudden deaths; but George’s loyalty was the same to all of them; it was +absolute.</p> + +<p>“Well, anyhow,” said he, “I shall come back here. Mother will have to +let me.”</p> + +<p>And he jumped down from the wall into Edwin’s garden, carelessly, his hands in +his pockets, with a familiar ease of gesture that implied practice. He had in fact often +done it before. But just this time—perhaps he was troubled by the unaccustomed +clothes—having lighted on his feet, he failed to maintain his balance and staggered +back against the wall.</p> + +<p>“Now, clumsy!” Edwin commented.</p> + +<p>The boy turned pale, and bit his lip, and then Edwin could see the tears in his eyes. +One of his peculiarities was that he had no shame whatever about crying. He could not, or +he would not, suffer stoically. Now he put his hands to his back, and writhed.</p> + +<p>“Hurt yourself?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>George nodded. He was very white, and startled. At first he could not command himself +sufficiently to be able to articulate. Then he spluttered, “My back!” He +subsided gradually into a sitting posture.</p> + +<p>Edwin ran to him, and picked him up. But he screamed until he was set down. At the open +drawing-room window, Maggie was arranging curtains. Edwin reluctantly left George for an +instant and hurried to the window, “I say, Maggie, bring a chair or something out, +will you? This dashed kid’s fallen and hurt himself.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not surprised,” said Maggie calmly. “What surprises me is +that you should ever have given him permission to scramble over the wall and trample all +about the flower-beds the way he does!”</p> + +<p>However, she moved at once to obey.</p> + +<p>He returned to George. Then Janet’s voice was heard from the other garden, +calling him: “George! Georgie! Nearly time to go!”</p> + +<p>Edwin put his head over the wall.</p> + +<p>“He’s fallen and hurt his back,” he answered to Janet, without any +prelude.</p> + +<p>“His back!” she repeated in a frightened tone.</p> + +<p>Everybody was afraid of that mysterious back. And George himself was most afraid of +it.</p> + +<p>“I’ll get over the wall,” said Janet.</p> + +<p>Edwin quitted the wall. Maggie was coming out of the house with a large cane easy-chair +and a large cushion. But George was now standing up, though still crying. His beautiful +best sailor hat lay on the winter ground.</p> + +<p>“Now,” said Maggie to him, “you mustn’t be a baby!”</p> + +<p>He glared at her resentfully. She would have dropped down dead on the spot if his wet +and angry glance could have killed her. She was a powerful woman. She seized him carefully +and set him in the chair, and supported the famous spine with the cushion.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think he’s much hurt,” she decided. “He +couldn’t make that noise if he was, and see how his colour’s coming +back!”</p> + +<p>In another case Edwin would have agreed with her, for the tendency of both was to +minimise an ill and to exaggerate the philosophical attitude in the first moments of any +occurrence that looked serious. But now he honestly thought that her judgement was being +influenced by her prejudice, and he felt savage against her. The worst was that it was all +his fault. Maggie was odiously right. He ought never to have encouraged the child to be +acrobatic on the wall. It was he who had even put the idea of the wall as a means of +access into the child’s head.</p> + +<p>“Does it hurt?” he inquired, bending down, his hands on his knees.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said George, ceasing to cry.</p> + +<p>“Much?” asked Maggie, dusting the sailor hat and sticking it on his +head.</p> + +<p>“No, not much,” George unwillingly admitted. Maggie could not at any rate +say that he did not speak the truth.</p> + +<p>Janet, having obtained steps, stood on the wall in her elaborate street-array.</p> + +<p>“Who’s going to help me down?” she demanded anxiously. She was not so +young and sprightly as once she had been. Edwin obeyed the call.</p> + +<p>Then the three of them stood round the victim’s chair, and the victim, like a +god, permitted himself to be contemplated. And Janet had to hear Edwin’s account of +the accident, and also Maggie’s account of it, as seen from the window.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what to do!” said Janet.</p> + +<p>“It is annoying, isn’t it?” said Maggie. “And just as you were +going to the station too!”</p> + +<p>“I—I think I’m all right,” George announced.</p> + +<p>Janet passed a hand down his back, as though expecting to be able to judge the +condition of his spine through the thickness of all his clothes.</p> + +<p>“Are you?” she questioned doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“It’s nothing,” said Maggie, with firmness.</p> + +<p>“He’d be all right in the train,” said Janet. “It’s the +walking to the station that I’m afraid of... You never know.”</p> + +<p>“I can carry him,” said Edwin quickly.</p> + +<p>“Of course you can’t!” Maggie contradicted. “And even if you +could you’d jog him far worse than if he walked himself.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no time to get a cab, now,” said Janet, looking at her +watch. “If we aren’t at Knype, father will wonder what on earth’s +happened, and I don’t know what his mother would say!”</p> + +<p>“Where’s that old pram?” Edwin demanded suddenly of Maggie.</p> + +<p>“What? Clara’s? It’s in the outhouse.”</p> + +<p>“I can run him up to the station in two jiffs in that.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes! Do!” said George. “You must. And then lift me into the +carriage!”</p> + +<p>The notion was accepted.</p> + +<p>“I hope it’s the best thing to do,” said Janet, apprehensive and +doubtful, as she hurried off to the other house in order to get the boy’s overcoat +and meet Edwin and the perambulator at the gates.</p> + +<p>“I’m certain it is,” said Maggie calmly. “There’s nothing +really the matter with that child.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s very good of Edwin, I’m sure,” said Janet.</p> + +<p>Edwin had already rushed for the perambulator, an ancient vehicle which was sometimes +used in the garden for infant Benbows.</p> + +<p>In a few moments Trafalgar Road had the spectacle of the bearded and eminent +master-printer, Edwin Clayhanger, steaming up its muddy pavement behind a perambulator +with a grown boy therein. And dozens of persons who had not till then distinguished the +boy from other boys, inquired about his identity, and gossip was aroused. Maggie was +displeased.</p> + +<p>In obedience to the command Edwin lifted George into the train; and the feel of his +little slippery body, and the feel of Edwin’s mighty arms, seemed to make them more +intimate than ever. Except for dirty tear-marks on his cheeks, George’s appearance +was absolutely normal.</p> + +<p>Edwin expected to receive a letter from him, but none came, and this negligence wounded +Edwin.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_09"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Nine.</h3> + +<h4>The Arrivals.</h4> + +<p>On a Saturday in the early days of the following year, 1892, Edwin by special request +had gone in to take afternoon tea with the Orgreaves. Osmond Orgreave was just +convalescent after an attack of influenza, and in the opinion of Janet wanted cheering up. +The task of enlivening him had been laid upon Edwin. The guest, and Janet and her father +and mother sat together in a group round the fire in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>The drawing-room alone had grown younger with years. Money had been spent on it rather +freely. During the previous decade Osmond’s family, scattering, had become very much +less costly to him, but his habits of industry had not changed, nor his faculty for +collecting money. Hence the needs of the drawing-room, which had been pressing for quite +twenty years, had at last been satisfied; indeed Osmond was saving, through mere lack of +that energetic interest in things which is necessary to spending. Possibly even the +drawing-room would have remained untouched—both Janet and her elder sister Marian +sentimentally preferred it as it was—had not Mrs Orgreave been ‘positively +ashamed’ of it when her married children, including Marian, came to see her. They +were all married now, except Janet and Charlie and Johnnie; and Alicia at any rate had a +finer drawing-room than her mother. So far as the parents were concerned Charlie might as +well have been married, for he had acquired a partnership in a practice at Ealing and +seldom visited home. Johnnie, too, might as well have been married. Since Jimmie’s +wedding he had used the house strictly as a hotel, for sleeping and eating, and not always +for sleeping. He could not be retained at home. His interests were mysterious, and lay +outside it. Janet alone was faithful to the changed drawing-room, with its new carpets and +wall-papers and upholstery.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got more grandchildren than children now,” said Mrs Orgreave to +Edwin, “and I never thought to have!”</p> + +<p>“Have you really?” Edwin responded. “Let me see—”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got nine.”</p> + +<p>“Ten, mother,” Janet corrected. “She’s forgetting her own +grandchildren now!”</p> + +<p>“Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs Orgreave, taking off her eyeglasses and wiping +them, “I’d missed Tom’s youngest.”</p> + +<p>“You’d better not tell Emily that,” said Janet. (Emily was the mother +of Tom’s children.) “Here, give me those eyeglasses, dear. You’ll never +get them right with a linen handkerchief. Where’s your bit of chamois?”</p> + +<p>Mrs Orgreave absently and in somewhat stiff silence handed over the pince-nez! She was +now quite an old woman, small, shapeless, and delightfully easy-going, whose sense of +humour had not developed with age. She could never see a joke which turned upon her +relations with her grandchildren, and in fact the jocular members of the family had almost +ceased to employ this subject of humour. She was undoubtedly rather foolish about her +grandchildren—‘fond,’ as they say down there. The parents of the +grandchildren did not object to this foolishness—that is, they only pretended to +object. The task of preventing a pardonable weakness from degenerating into a tedious and +mischievous mania fell solely upon Janet. Janet was ready to admit that the health of the +grandchildren was a matter which could fairly be left to their fathers and mothers, and +she stood passive when Mrs Orgreave’s grandmotherly indulgences seemed inimical to +their health; but Mrs Orgreave was apt to endanger her own health in her devotion to the +profession of grandmother—for example by sitting up to unchristian hours with a +needle. Then there would be a struggle of wills, in which of course Mrs Orgreave, being +the weaker, was defeated; though her belief survived that she and she alone, by +watchfulness, advice, sagacity, and energy, kept her children’s children out of the +grave. On all other questions the harmony between Janet and her mother was complete, and +Mrs Orgreave undoubtedly considered that no mother had ever had a daughter who combined so +many virtues and charms.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>Mr Orgreave, forgetful of the company, was deciphering the “British Medical +Journal” in the twilight of the afternoon. His doctor had lent him this esoteric +periodical because there was an article therein on influenza, and Mr Orgreave was very +much interested in influenza.</p> + +<p>“You remember the influenza of ’89, Edwin?” he asked suddenly, +looking over the top of the paper.</p> + +<p>“Do I?” said Edwin. “Yes, I fancy I do remember a sort of +epidemic.”</p> + +<p>“I should think so indeed!” Janet murmured.</p> + +<p>“Well,” continued Mr Orgreave, “I’m like you. I thought it was +an epidemic. But it seems it wasn’t. It was a pandemic. What’s a pandemic, +now?”</p> + +<p>“Give it up,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“You might just look in the dictionary—Ogilvie there,” and while +Edwin ferreted in the bookcase, Mr Orgreave proceeded, reading: “‘The pandemic +of 1889 has been followed by epidemics, and by endemic prevalence in some areas!’ So +you see how many <i>demics</i> there are! I suppose they’d call it an epidemic +we’ve got in the town now.”</p> + +<p>His voice had changed on the last sentence. He had meant to be a little facetious about +the Greek words; but it was the slowly prepared and rather exasperating facetiousness of +an ageing man, and he had dropped it listlessly, as though he himself had perceived this. +Influenza had weakened and depressed him; he looked worn, and even outworn. But not +influenza alone was responsible for his appearance. The incredible had happened: Osmond +Orgreave was getting older. His bald head was not the worst sign of his declension, nor +the thickened veins in his hands, nor the deliberation of his gestures, nor even the +unsprightliness of his wit. The worst sign was that he was losing his terrific zest in +life; his palate for the intense savour of it was dulled. In this last attack of influenza +he had not fought against the onset of the disease. He had been wise; he had obeyed his +doctor, and laid down his arms at once; and he showed no imprudent anxiety to resume them. +Yes, a changed Osmond! He was still one of the most industrious professional men in +Bursley; but he worked from habit, not from passion.</p> + +<p>When Edwin had found ‘pandemic’ in Ogilvie, Mr Orgreave wanted to see the +dictionary for himself, and then he wanted the Greek dictionary, which could not be +discovered, and then he began to quote further from the “British Medical +Journal.”</p> + +<p>“‘It may be said that there are three well-marked types of the disease, +attacking respectively the respiratory, the digestive, and the nervous system.’ +Well, I should say I’d had ’em all three. ‘As a rule the +attack—’”</p> + +<p>Thus he went on. Janet made a <i>moue</i> at Edwin, who returned the signal. These +youngsters were united in good-natured forbearing condescension towards Mr Orgreave. The +excellent old fellow was prone to be tedious; they would accept his tediousness, but they +would not disguise from each other their perception of it.</p> + +<p>“I hear the Vicar of Saint Peter’s is very ill indeed,” said Mrs +Orgreave, blandly interrupting her husband.</p> + +<p>“What? Heve? With influenza?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I wouldn’t tell you before because I thought it might pull you down +again.”</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave, in silence, stared at the immense fire.</p> + +<p>“What about this tea, Janet?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>Janet rang the bell.</p> + +<p>“Oh! I’d have done that!” said Edwin, as soon as she had done it.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>While Janet was pouring out the tea, Edwin restored Ogilvie to his place in the +bookcase, feeling that he had had enough of Ogilvie.</p> + +<p>“Not so many books here now as there used to be!” he said, vacuously +amiable, as he shut the glass door which had once protected the treasures of Tom +Orgreave.</p> + +<p>For a man who had been specially summoned to the task of cheering up, it was not a +felicitous remark. In the first place it recalled the days when the house, which was now a +hushed retreat where settled and precise habits sheltered themselves from a changing +world, had been an arena for the jolly, exciting combats of outspread individualities. And +in the second place it recalled a slight difficulty between Tom and his father. Osmond +Orgreave was a most reasonable father, but no father is perfect in reasonableness, and +Osmond had quite inexcusably resented that Tom on his marriage should take away all +Tom’s precious books. Osmond’s attitude had been that Tom might in decency +have left, at any rate, some of the books. It was not that Osmond had a taste for +book-collecting: it was merely that he did not care to see his house depleted and +bookcases empty. But Tom had shown no compassion. He had removed not merely every scrap of +a book belonging to himself, but also two bookcases which he happened to have paid for. +The weight of public opinion was decidedly against Mr Orgreave, who had to yield and +affect pleasantness. Nevertheless books had become a topic which was avoided between +father and son.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” muttered Mr Orgreave, satirical, in response to Edwin’s +clumsiness.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we have another gas lighted,” Janet suggested. The servant had +already lighted several burners and drawn the blinds and curtains.</p> + +<p>Edwin comprehended that he had been a blundering fool, and that Janet’s object +was to create a diversion. He lit the extra burner above her head. She sat there rather +straight and rather prim between her parents, sticking to them, smoothing creases for +them, bearing their weight, living for them. She was the kindliest, the most dignified, +the most capable creature; but she was now an old maid. You saw it even in the way she +poured tea and dropped pieces of sugar into the cups. Her youth was gone; her complexion +was nearly gone. And though in one aspect she seemed indispensable, in another the chief +characteristic of her existence seemed to be a tragic futility. Whenever she came +seriously into Edwin’s thoughts she saddened him. Useless for him to attempt to be +gay and frivolous in that house!</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>With the inevitable passionate egotism of his humanity he almost at once withdrew his +aroused pity from her to himself. Look at himself! Was he not also to be sympathised with? +What was the object or the use of his being alive? He worked, saved, improved his mind, +voted right, practised philosophy, and was generally benevolent; but to what end? Was not +his existence miserable and his career a respectable fiasco? He too had lost zest. He had +diligently studied both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus; he was enthusiastic, to others, +about the merit of these two expert daily philosophers; but what had they done for him? +Assuredly they had not enabled him to keep the one treasure of this world-zest. The year +was scarcely a week old, and he was still young enough to have begun the year with +resolutions and fresh hopes and aspirations, but already the New Year sensation had left +him, and the year might have been dying in his heart.</p> + +<p>And yet what could he have done that he had not done? With what could he reproach +himself? Ought he to have continued to run after a married woman? Ought he to have set +himself titanically against the conventions amid which he lived, and devoted himself +either to secret intrigue or to the outraging of the susceptibilities which environed him? +There was only one answer. He could not have acted otherwise than he had acted. His was +not the temperament of a rebel, nor was he the slave of his desires. He could sympathise +with rebels and with slaves, but he could not join them; he regarded himself as +spiritually their superior.</p> + +<p>And then the disaster of Hilda’s career! He felt, more than ever, that he had +failed in sympathy with her overwhelming misfortune. In the secrecy of his heart a full +imaginative sympathy had been lacking. He had not realised, as he seemed to realise then, +in front of the fire in the drawing-room of the Orgreaves, what it must be to be the wife +of a convict. Janet, sitting there as innocent as a doe, knew that Hilda was the wife of a +convict. But did her parents know? And was she aware that he knew? He wondered, drinking +his tea.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>Then the servant—not the Martha who had been privileged to smile on duty if she +felt so inclined—came with a tawny gold telegram on a silver plate, and hesitated a +moment as to where she should bestow it.</p> + +<p>“Give it to me, Selina,” said Janet.</p> + +<p>Selina impassively obeyed, imitating as well as she could the deportment of an +automaton; and went away.</p> + +<p>“That’s my telegram,” said Mr Orgreave. “How is it +addressed?”</p> + +<p>“Orgreave, Bleakridge, Bursley.”</p> + +<p>“Then it’s mine.”</p> + +<p>“Oh no, it isn’t!” Janet archly protested. “If you have your +business telegrams sent here you must take the consequences. I always open all telegrams +that come here, don’t I, mother?”</p> + +<p>Mrs Orgreave made no reply, but waited with candid and fretful impatience, thinking of +her five absent children, and her ten grandchildren, for the telegram to be opened.</p> + +<p>Janet opened it.</p> + +<p>Her lips parted to speak, and remained so in silent astonishment. “Just read +that!” she said to Edwin, passing the telegram to him; and she added to her father: +“It was for me, after all.”</p> + +<p>Edwin read, aloud: “Am sending George down to-day. Please meet 6:30 train at +Knype. Love. Hilda.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I never!” exclaimed Mrs Orgreave. “You don’t mean to +tell me she’s letting that boy travel alone! What next?”</p> + +<p>“Where’s the telegram sent from?” asked Mr Orgreave.</p> + +<p>Edwin examined the official indications: “Victoria.”</p> + +<p>“Then she’s brought him up to London, and she’s putting him in a +train at Euston. That’s it.”</p> + +<p>“Only there is no London train that gets to Knype at half-past six,” Edwin +said. “It’s 7:12, or 7:14—I forget.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! That’s near enough for Hilda,” Janet smiled, looking at her +watch.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t mean any other train?” Mrs Orgreave fearfully +suggested.</p> + +<p>“She can’t mean any other train. There is no other. Only probably +she’s been looking at the wrong time-table,” Janet reassured her mother.</p> + +<p>“Because if the poor little thing found no one to meet him at +Knype—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry, dear,” said Janet. “The poor little thing would +soon be engaging somebody’s attention. Trust him!”</p> + +<p>“But has she been writing to you lately?” Mrs Orgreave questioned.</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Then why—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask <i>me</i>!” said Janet. “No doubt I shall get a +letter to-morrow, after George has come and told us everything! Poor dear, I’m glad +she’s doing so much better now.”</p> + +<p>“Is she?” Edwin murmured, surprised.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” said Janet. “She’s got a regular bustling partner, +and they’re that busy they scarcely know what to do. But they only keep one little +servant.”</p> + +<p>In the ordinary way Janet and Edwin never mentioned Hilda to one another. Each seemed +to be held back by a kind of timid shame and by a cautious suspicion. Each seemed to be +inquiring: “What does <i>he</i> know?” “What does <i>she</i> +know?”</p> + +<p>“If I thought it wasn’t too cold, I’d go with you to Knype,” +said Mr Orgreave.</p> + +<p>“Now, Osmond!” Mrs Orgreave sat up.</p> + +<p>“Shall I go?” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Janet, with much kindliness, “I’m sure he’d +be delighted to see <i>you</i>.”</p> + +<p>Mrs Orgreave rang the bell.</p> + +<p>“What do you want, mother?”</p> + +<p>“There’ll be the bed—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you trouble with those things, dear,” said Janet, very calmly. +“There’s heaps of time.”</p> + +<p>But Janet was just as excited as her parents. In two minutes the excitement had spread +through the whole house, like a piquant and agreeable odour. The place was alive +again.</p> + +<p>“I’ll just step across and ask Maggie to alter supper,” said Edwin, +“and then I’ll call for you. I suppose we’ll go down by +train.”</p> + +<p>“I’m thankful he’s had influenza,” observed Mrs Orgreave, +implying that thus there would be less chance of George catching the disease under her +infected roof.</p> + +<p>That George had been down with influenza before Christmas was the sole information +about him that Edwin obtained. Nobody appeared to consider it worth while to discuss the +possible reasons for his sudden arrival. Hilda’s caprices were accepted in that +house like the visitations of heaven.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>Edwin and Janet stood together on the windy and bleak down-platform of Knype Station, +awaiting the express, which had been signalled. Edwin was undoubtedly very nervous and +constrained, and it seemed to him that Janet’s demeanour lacked naturalness.</p> + +<p>“It’s just occurred to me how she made that mistake about the time of the +train,” said Edwin, chiefly because he found the silence intolerably irksome. +“It stops at Lichfield, and in running her eye across the page she must have mixed +up the Lichfield figures with the Knype figures—you know how awkward it is in a +time-table. As a matter of fact, the train does <i>stop</i> at Lichfield about +6:30.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Janet reflectively.</p> + +<p>And Edwin was saying to himself—</p> + +<p>“It’s a marvel to me how I can talk to her at all. What made me offer to +come with her? How much does she know about me and Hilda? Hilda may have told her +everything. If she’s told her about her husband why shouldn’t she have told +her about me? And here we are both pretending that there’s never been anything at +all between me and Hilda!”</p> + +<p>Then the train appeared, obscure round the curve, and bore down formidable and dark +upon them, growing at every instant in stature and in noise until it deafened and seemed +to fill the station; and the platform was suddenly in an uproar.</p> + +<p>And almost opposite Janet and Edwin, leaning forth high above them from the door of a +third-class carriage, the head and the shoulders of George Cannon were displayed in the +gaslight. He seemed to dominate the train and the platform. At the windows on either side +of him were adult faces, excited by his excitement, of the people who had doubtless been +friendly to him during the journey. He distinguished Janet and Edwin almost at once, and +shouted, and then waved.</p> + +<p>“Hello, young son of a gun!” Edwin greeted him, trying to turn the handle +of the door. But the door was locked, and it was necessary to call a porter, who +tarried.</p> + +<p>“I <i>made</i> mamma let me come!” George cried victoriously. “I told +you I should!” He was far too agitated to think of shaking hands, and seemed to be +in a state of fever. All his gestures were those of a proud, hysterical conqueror, and +like a conqueror he gazed down at Edwin and Janet, who stood beneath him with upturned +faces. He had absolutely forgotten the existence of his acquaintances in the carriage. +“Did you know I’ve had the influenza? My temperature was up to 104 +once—but it didn’t stay long,” he added regretfully.</p> + +<p>When the door was at length opened, he jumped headlong, and Edwin caught him. He shook +hands with Edwin and allowed Janet to kiss him.</p> + +<p>“How hot you are!” Janet murmured.</p> + +<p>The people in the compartment passed down his luggage, and after one of them had +shouted good-bye to him twice, he remembered them, as it were by an effort, and replied, +“Good-bye, good-bye,” in a quick, impatient tone.</p> + +<p>It was not until his anxious and assiduous foster-parents had bestowed him and his +goods in the tranquillity of an empty compartment of the Loop Line train that they began +to appreciate the morbid unusualness of his condition. His eyes glittered with +extraordinary brilliance. He talked incessantly, not listening to their answers. And his +skin was burning hot.</p> + +<p>“Why, whatever’s the matter with you, my dear?” asked Janet, alarmed. +“You’re like an oven!”</p> + +<p>“I’m thirsty,” said George. “If I don’t have something to +drink soon, I don’t know what I shall do.”</p> + +<p>Janet looked at Edwin.</p> + +<p>“There won’t be time to get something at the refreshment room?”</p> + +<p>They both felt heavily responsible.</p> + +<p>“I might—” Edwin said irresolutely.</p> + +<p>But just then the guard whistled.</p> + +<p>“Never mind!” Janet comforted the child. “In twenty minutes we shall +be in the house... No! you must keep your overcoat buttoned.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you been like that, George?” Edwin asked. “You +weren’t like that when you started, surely?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said George judicially. “It came on in the train.”</p> + +<p>After this, he appeared to go to sleep.</p> + +<p>“He’s certainly not well,” Janet whispered.</p> + +<p>Edwin shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t you think he’s grown?” he +observed.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!” said Janet. “It’s astonishing, isn’t it, how +children shoot up in a few weeks!”</p> + +<p>They might have been parents exchanging notes, instead of celibates playing at +parenthood for a hobby.</p> + +<p>“Mamma says I’ve grown an inch.” George opened his eyes. “She +says it’s about time I had! I dare say I shall be very tall. Are we nearly +there?” His high, curt, febrile tones were really somewhat alarming.</p> + +<p>When the train threw them out into the sodden waste that surrounds Bleakridge Station, +George could scarcely stand. At any rate he showed no wish to stand. His protectors took +him strongly by either arm, and thus bore him to Lane End House, with irregular unwilling +assistance from his own feet. A porter followed with the luggage. It was an extremely +distressing passage. Each protector in secret was imagining for George some terrible +fever, of swift onslaught and fatal effect. At length they entered the garden, thanking +their gods.</p> + +<p>“He’s not well,” said Janet to her mother, who was fussily awaiting +them in the hall. Her voice showed apprehension, and she was not at all convincing when +she added: “But it’s nothing serious. I shall put him straight to bed and let +him eat there.”</p> + +<p>Instantly George became the centre of the house. The women disappeared with him, and +Edwin had to recount the whole history of the arrival to Osmond Orgreave in the +drawing-room. This recital was interrupted by Mrs Orgreave.</p> + +<p>“Mr Edwin, Janet thinks if we sent for the doctor, just to be sure. As Johnnie +isn’t in, would you mind—”</p> + +<p>“Stirling, I suppose?” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>Stirling was the young Scottish doctor who had recently come into the town and taken it +by storm.</p> + +<p>When Edwin at last went home to a much-delayed meal, he was in a position to tell +Maggie that young George Cannon had thought fit to catch influenza a second time in a +couple of months. And Maggie, without a clear word, contrived to indicate that it was what +she would have expected from a boy of George’s violent temperament.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_10"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Ten.</h3> + +<h4>George and the Vicar.</h4> + +<p>On the Tuesday evening Edwin came home from business at six o’clock, and found +that he was to eat alone. The servant anxiously explained that Miss Clayhanger had gone +across to the Orgreaves’ to assist Miss Orgreave. It was evident that before going +Miss Clayhanger had inspired the servant with a full sense of the importance of Mr +Clayhanger’s solitary meal, and of the terrible responsibility lying upon the person +in charge of it. The girl was thrillingly alive; she would have liked some friend or other +of the house to be always seriously ill, so that Miss Clayhanger might often leave her to +the voluptuous savouring of this responsibility whose formidableness surpassed words. +Edwin, as he went upstairs and as he came down again, was conscious of her excited +presence somewhere near him, half-visible in the warm gas-lit house, spying upon him in +order to divine the precise moment for the final service of the meal.</p> + +<p>And in the dining-room the table was laid differently, so that he might be well +situated, with regard to the light, for reading. And by the side of his plate were the +newspaper, the magazines, and the book, among which Maggie had well guessed that he would +make his choice for perusal. He was momentarily touched. He warmed his hands at the +splendid fire, and then he warmed his back, watching the servant as with little flouncings +and perkings she served, and he was touched by the placid and perfect efficiency of Maggie +as a housekeeper. Maggie gave him something that no money could buy.</p> + +<p>The servant departed and shut the door.</p> + +<p>When he sat down he minutely changed the situation of nearly everything on the table, +so that his magazine might be lodged at exactly the right distance and angle, and so that +each necessary object might be quite handy. He was in luxury, and he yielded himself to it +absolutely. The sense that unusual events were happening, that the course of social +existence was disturbed while his comfort was not disturbed, that danger hung cloudy on +the horizon—this sense somehow intensified the appreciation of the hour, and +positively contributed to his pleasure. Moreover, he was agreeably excited by a dismaying +anticipation affecting himself alone.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>The door opened again, and Auntie Hamps was shown in by the servant. Before he could +move the old lady had with overwhelming sweet supplications insisted that he should not +move—no, not even to shake hands! He rose only to shake hands, and then fell back +into his comfort. Auntie Hamps fixed a chair for herself opposite him, and drummed her +black-gloved hands on the white table-cloth. She was steadily becoming stouter, and those +chubby little hands seemed impossibly small against the vast mountain of fur which was +crowned by her smirking crimson face and the supreme peak of her bonnet.</p> + +<p>“They keep very friendly—those two,” she remarked, with a strangely +significant air, when he told her where Maggie was. She had shown no surprise at finding +him alone, for the reason that she had already learnt everything from the servant in the +hall.</p> + +<p>“Janet and Maggie? They’re friendly enough when they can be of use to each +other.”</p> + +<p>“How <i>kind</i> Miss Janet was when your father was ill! I’m sure Maggie +feels she must do all she can to return her kindness,” Mrs Hamps murmured, with +emotion. “I shall always be grateful for her helpfulness! She’s a grand girl, +a grand girl!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“She’s still waiting for you,” said Mrs Hamps, not archly, but +sadly.</p> + +<p>Edwin restively poohed. At the first instant of her arrival he had been rather glad to +see her, for unusual events create a desire to discuss them; but if she meant to proceed +in that strain unuttered curses would soon begin to accumulate for her in his heart.</p> + +<p>“I expect the kid must be pretty bad,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” sighed Mrs Hamps. “And probably poor Mrs Orgreave is more in +the way than anything else. And Mr Orgreave only just out of bed, as you may say! ... That +young lady must have her hands full! My word! What a blessing it is she <i>has</i> made +such friends with Maggie!”</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps had the peculiar gift, which developed into ever-increasing perfection as her +hair grew whiter, of being able to express ideas by means of words which had no relation +to them at all. Within three minutes, by three different remarks whose occult message no +stranger could have understood but which forced itself with unpleasant clearness upon +Edwin, Mrs Hamps had conveyed, “Janet Orgreave only cultivates Maggie because Maggie +is the sister of Edwin Clayhanger.”</p> + +<p>“You’re all very devoted to that child,” she said, meaning, +“There is something mysterious in that quarter which sooner or later is bound to +come out.” And the meaning was so clear that Edwin was intimidated. What did she +guess? Did she know anything? To-night Auntie Hamps was displaying her gift at its +highest.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know that Maggie’s so desperately keen on the infant!” +he said.</p> + +<p>“She’s not like you about him, that’s sure!” Mrs Hamps +admitted. And she went on, in a tone that was only superficially casual, “I wonder +the mother doesn’t come down to him!”</p> + +<p>Not ‘his’ mother—‘the’ mother. Odd, the effect of that +trifle! Mrs Hamps was a great artist in phrasing.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Edwin. “It’s not serious enough for that.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m not so sure,” Auntie Hamps gravely replied. “<i>The +Vicar is dead.</i>”</p> + +<p>The emphasis which she put on these words was tremendous.</p> + +<p>“Is he,” Edwin stammered. “But what’s that got to do with +it?”</p> + +<p>He tried to be condescending towards her absurdly superstitious assumption that the +death of the Vicar of Saint Peter’s could increase the seriousness of George’s +case. And he feebly succeeded in being condescending. Nevertheless he could not meet his +auntie’s gaze without self-consciousness. For her emphasis had been double, and he +knew it. It had implied, secondly, that the death of the Vicar was an event specially +affecting Edwin’s household. The rough sketch of a romance between the Vicar and +Maggie had never been completed into a picture, but on the other hand it had never been +destroyed. The Vicar and Maggie had been supposed to be still interested in each other, +despite the Vicar’s priestliness, which latterly had perhaps grown more marked, just +as his church had grown more ritualistic. It was a strange affair, thin, elusive; but an +affair it was. The Vicar and Maggie had seldom met of recent years, they had +never—so far as anyone knew—met alone; and yet, upon the news of the +Vicar’s death, the first thought of nearly everybody was for Maggie Clayhanger.</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps’s eyes, swimming in the satisfaction of several simultaneous woes, said +plainly, “What about poor Maggie?”</p> + +<p>“When did you hear?” Edwin asked. “It isn’t in this +afternoon’s paper.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve only just heard. He died at four o’clock.”</p> + +<p>She had come up immediately with the news as fresh as orchard fruit.</p> + +<p>“And the Duke of Clarence is no better,” she said, in a luxurious sighing +gloom. “And I’m afraid it’s all over with Cardinal Manning.” She +made a peculiar noise in her throat, not quite a sigh; rather a brave protest against the +general fatality of things, stiffened by a determination to be strong though melancholy in +misfortune.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Maggie suddenly entered, hatted, with a jacket over her arm.</p> + +<p>“Hello, auntie, you here!” They had already met that morning.</p> + +<p>“I just called,” said Mrs Hamps guiltily. Edwin felt as though Maggie had +surprised them both in some criminal act. They knew that Mr Heve was dead. She did not +know. She had to be told. He wished violently that Auntie Hamps had been elsewhere.</p> + +<p>“Everything all right?” Maggie asked Edwin, surveying the table. “I +gave particular orders about the eggs.”</p> + +<p>“As right as rain,” said Edwin, putting into his voice a note of true +appreciation. He saw that her sense of duty towards him had brought her back to the house. +She had taken every precaution to ensure his well-being, but she could not be content +without seeing for herself that the servant had not betrayed the trust.</p> + +<p>“How are things—across?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Maggie, frowning, “that’s one reason why I came +back sooner than I meant. The doctor’s just been. His temperature is getting higher +and higher. I wish you’d go over as soon as you’ve finished. If you ask me, I +think they ought to telegraph to his mother. But Janet doesn’t seem to think so. Of +course it’s enough when Mrs Orgreave begins worrying about telegraphing for Janet to +say there’s no need to telegraph. She’s rather trying, Mrs Orgreave is, I must +admit. All that <i>I</i>’ve been doing is to keep her out of the bedroom. Janet has +everything on her shoulders. Mr Orgreave is just about as fidgety as Mrs. And of course the +servants have their own work to do. Naturally Johnnie isn’t in!” Her tone grew +sarcastic and bitter.</p> + +<p>“What does Stirling say about telegraphing?” Edwin demanded. He had +intended to say ‘telegraphing for Mrs Cannon,’ but he could not utter the last +words; he could not compel his vocal organs to utter them. He became aware of the beating +of his heart. For twenty-four hours he had been contemplating the possibility of a summons +to Hilda. Now the possibility had developed into a probability. Nay, a certainty! Maggie +was the very last person to be alarmist.</p> + +<p>Maggie replied: “He says it might be as well to wait till to-morrow. But then you +know he is like that—a bit.”</p> + +<p>“So they say,” Auntie Hamps agreed.</p> + +<p>“Have you seen the kid?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>“About two minutes,” said Maggie. “It’s pitiable to watch +him.”</p> + +<p>“Why? Is he in pain?”</p> + +<p>“Not what you’d call pain. No! But he’s so upset. Worried about +himself. He’s got a terrific fever on him. I’m certain he’s delirious +sometimes. Poor little thing!”</p> + +<p>Tears gleamed in her eyes. The plight of the boy had weakened her prejudices against +him. Assuredly he was not ‘rough’ now.</p> + +<p>Astounded and frightened by those shimmering tears, Edwin exclaimed, “You +don’t mean to say there’s actual danger?”</p> + +<p>“Well—” Maggie hesitated, and stopped.</p> + +<p>There was silence for a moment. Edwin felt that the situation was now further +intensified.</p> + +<p>“I expect you’ve heard about the poor Vicar,” Mrs Hamps funereally +insinuated. Edwin mutely damned her.</p> + +<p>Maggie looked up sharply. “No! ... He’s not—”</p> + +<p>Mrs Hamps nodded twice.</p> + +<p>The tears vanished from Maggie’s eyes, forced backwards by all the secret pride +that was in her. It was obvious that not the news of the Vicar had originally caused those +tears; but nevertheless there should be no shadow of misunderstanding. The death of the +Vicar must be associated with no more serious sign of distress in Maggie than in others. +She must be above suspicion. For one acute moment, as he read her thoughts and as the +profound sacrificial tragedy of her entire existence loomed less indistinctly than usual +before him, Edwin ceased to think about himself and Hilda.</p> + +<p>She made a quick hysterical movement.</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d go across, Edwin,” she said harshly.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go now,” he answered, with softness. And he was glad to go.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>It was Osmond Orgreave who opened to him the front door of Lane End House. Maggie had +told the old gentleman that she should send Edwin over, and he was wandering vaguely about +in nervous expectation. In an instant they were discussing George’s case, and the +advisability of telegraphing to Hilda. Mrs Orgreave immediately joined them in the hall. +Both father and mother clearly stood in awe of the gentle but powerful Janet. And somehow +the child was considered as her private affair, into which others might not thrust +themselves save on sufferance. Perceiving that Edwin was slightly inclined to the course +of telegraphing, they drew him towards them as a reinforcement, but while Mrs Orgreave +frankly displayed her dependence on him, Mr Orgreave affected to be strong, independent, +and judicial.</p> + +<p>“I wish you’d go and speak to her,” Mrs Orgreave entreated.</p> + +<p>“Upstairs?”</p> + +<p>“It won’t do any harm, anyhow,” said Osmond, finely indifferent.</p> + +<p>They went up the stairs in a procession. Edwin did not wish to tell them about the +Vicar. He could see no sense in telling them about the Vicar. And yet, before they reached +the top of the stairs, he heard himself saying in a concerned whisper—</p> + +<p>“You know about the Vicar of Saint Peter’s?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Died at four o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“Oh dear me! Dear me!” murmured Mrs Orgreave, agonised.</p> + +<p>Most evidently George’s case was aggravated by the Vicar’s death—and +not only in the eyes of Mrs Orgreave and her falsely stoic husband, but in Edwin’s +eyes too! Useless for him to argue with himself about idiotic superstitiousness! The death +of the Vicar had undoubtedly influenced his attitude towards George.</p> + +<p>They halted on the landing, outside a door that was ajar. Near them burned a gas jet, +and beneath the bracket was a large framed photograph of the bridal party at +Alicia’s wedding. Farther along the landing were other similar records of the +weddings of Marion, Tom, and Jimmie.</p> + +<p>Mr Orgreave pushed the door half open.</p> + +<p>“Janet,” said Mr Orgreave conspiratorially.</p> + +<p>“Well?” from within the bedroom.</p> + +<p>“Here’s Edwin.”</p> + +<p>Janet appeared in the doorway, pale. She was wearing an apron with a bib.</p> + +<p>“I—I thought I’d just look in and inquire,” Edwin said +awkwardly, fiddling with his hat and a pocket of his overcoat. “What’s he like +now?”</p> + +<p>Janet gave details. The sick-room lay hidden behind the face of the door, mysterious +and sacred.</p> + +<p>“Mr Edwin thinks you ought to telegraph,” said Mrs Orgreave timidly.</p> + +<p>“Do you?” demanded Janet. Her eyes seemed to pierce him. Why did she gaze +at him with such particularity, as though he possessed a special interest in Hilda?</p> + +<p>“Well—” he muttered. “You might just wire how things are, and +leave it to her to come as she thinks fit.”</p> + +<p>“Just so,” said Mr Orgreave quickly, as if Edwin had expressed his own +thought.</p> + +<p>“But the telegram couldn’t be delivered to-night,” Janet objected. +“It’s nearly half-past seven now.”</p> + +<p>It was true. Yet Edwin was more than ever conscious of a keen desire to telegraph at +once.</p> + +<p>“But it would be delivered first thing in the morning,” he said. “So +that she’d have more time to make arrangements if she wanted to.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if you think like that,” Janet acquiesced.</p> + +<p>The visage of Mrs Orgreave lightened.</p> + +<p>“I’ll run down and telegraph myself, if you like,” said Edwin. +“Of course you’ve written to her. She knows—”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes!”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>In a minute he was walking rapidly, with his ungainly, slouching stride, down Trafalgar +Road, his overcoat flying loose. Another crisis was approaching, he thought. As he came to +Duck Square, he met a newspaper boy shouting shrilly and wearing the contents bill of a +special edition of the “Signal” as an apron: “Duke of Clarence. More +serious bulletin.” The scourge and fear of influenza was upon the town, upon the +community, tangible, oppressive, tragic.</p> + +<p>In the evening calm of the shabby, gloomy post-office, holding a stubby pencil that was +chained by a cable to the wall, he stood over a blank telegraph-form, hesitating how to +word the message. Behind the counter an instrument was ticking unheeded, and far within +could be discerned the vague bodies of men dealing with parcels. He wrote, “Cannon, +59 Preston Street, Brighton. George’s temperature 104.” Then he paused, and +added, “Edwin.” It was sentimental. He ought to have signed Janet’s +name. And, if he was determined to make the telegram personal, he might at least have put +his surname. He knew it was sentimental, and he loathed sentimentality. But that evening +he wanted to be sentimental.</p> + +<p>He crossed to the counter, and pushed the form under the wire-netting.</p> + +<p>A sleepy girl accepted it, and glanced mechanically at the clock, and then wrote the +hour 7:42.</p> + +<p>“It won’t be delivered to-night,” she said, looking up, as she +counted the words.</p> + +<p>“No, I know,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Sixpence, please.”</p> + +<p>As he paid the sixpence he felt as though he had accomplished some great, critical, +agitating deed. And his heart asserted itself again, thunderously beating.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_11"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Eleven.</h3> + +<h4>Beginning of the Night.</h4> + +<p>The next day was full of strange suspense; it was coloured throughout with that quality +of strangeness which puts a new light on all quotidian occupations and exposes their +fundamental unimportance. Edwin arose to the fact that a thick grey fog was wrapping the +town. When he returned home to breakfast at nine the fog was certainly more opaque than it +had been an hour earlier. The steam-cars passed like phantoms, with a continuous clanging +of bells. He breakfasted under gas—and alone. Maggie was invisible, or only to be +seen momentarily, flying across the domestic horizon. She gave out that she was very busy +in the attics, cleaning those shockingly neglected rooms. “Please, sir,” said +the servant, “Miss Clayhanger says she’s been across to Mr Orgreave’s, +and Master George is about the same.” Maggie would not come and tell him herself. On +the previous evening he had not seen her after the reception of the news about the Vicar. +She had gone upstairs when he came back from the post office. Beyond doubt, she was too +disturbed, emotionally, to be able to face him with her customary tranquillity. She was +getting over the shock with brush and duster up in the attics. He was glad that she had +not attempted to be as usual. The ordeal of attempting to be as usual would have tried him +perhaps as severely as her.</p> + +<p>He went forth again into the fog in a high state of agitation, constricted with +sympathetic distress on Maggie’s account, apprehensive for the boy, and painfully +expectant of the end of the day. The whole day slipped away so, hour after monotonous +hour, while people talked about influenza and about distinguished patients, and doctors +hurried from house to house, and the fog itself seemed to be the visible mantle of the +disease. And the end of the day brought nothing to Edwin save an acuter expectancy. George +varied; on the whole he was worse; not much worse, but worse. Dr Stirling saw him twice. +No message arrived from Hilda, nor did she come in person. Maggie watched George for five +hours in the late afternoon and evening, while Janet rested.</p> + +<p>At eight o’clock, when there was no further hope of a telegram from Hilda, +everybody pretended to concur in the view that Hilda, knowing her boy better than anybody +else, and having already seen him through an attack of influenza, had not been unduly +alarmed by the telegraphic news of his temperature, and was content to write. She might +probably be arranging to come on the morrow. After all, George’s temperature had +reached 104 in the previous attack. Then there was the fog. The fog would account for +anything.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, nobody was really satisfied by these explanations of Hilda’s +silence and absence. In every heart lay the secret and sinister thought of the queerness +and the incalculableness of Hilda.</p> + +<p>Edwin called several times on the Orgreaves. He finally left their house about ten +o’clock, with some difficulty tracing his way home from gas lamp to gas lamp through +the fog. Mr Orgreave himself had escorted him with a lantern round the wilderness of the +lawn to the gates. “We shall have a letter in the morning,” Mr Orgreave had +said. “Bound to!” Edwin had replied. And they had both superiorly puffed away +into the fog the absurd misgivings of women.</p> + +<p>Knowing that he was in no condition to sleep, Edwin mended the drawing-room fire, and +settled down on the sofa to read. But he could no more read than sleep. He seemed to lie +on the sofa for hours while his thoughts jigged with fatiguing monotony in his head. He +was extraordinarily wakeful and alive, every sense painfully sharpened. At last he decided +to go to bed. In his bedroom he gazed idly out at the blank density of the fog. And then +his heart leapt as his eye distinguished a moving glimmer below in the garden of the +Orgreaves. He threw up the window in a tumult of anticipation. The air was absolutely +still. Then he heard a voice say, “Good night.” It was undoubtedly Dr +Stirling’s voice. The Scotch accent was unmistakable. Was the boy worse? Not +necessarily, for the doctor had said that he might look in again ‘last thing,’ +if chance favoured. And the Scotch significance of ‘last thing’ was +notoriously comprehensive; it might include regions beyond midnight. Then Edwin heard +another voice: “Thanks ever so much!” At first it puzzled him. He knew it, and +yet! Could it be the Sunday’s voice? Assuredly it was not the voice of Mr Orgreave, +nor of any one living in the house. It reminded him of the Sunday’s voice.</p> + +<p>He went out of his bedroom, striking a match, and going downstairs lit the gas in the +hall, which he had just extinguished. Then he put on a cap, found a candlestick in the +kitchen, unbolted the garden door as quietly as he could, and passed into the garden. The +flame of the candle stood upright in the fog. He blundered along to the dividing wall, +placed the candle on the top of it, and managed to climb over. Leaving the candle on the +wall to guide his return, he approached the house, which showed gleams at several windows, +and rang the bell. And in fact it was Charlie Orgreave himself who opened the door. And a +lantern, stuck carelessly on the edge of a chair, was still burning in the hall.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>In a moment he had learnt the chief facts. Hilda had gone up to London, dragged Charlie +out of Ealing, and brought him down with her to watch over her child. Once more she had +done something which nobody could have foreseen. The train—not the London express, +but the loop—was late. The pair had arrived about half-past ten, and a little later +Dr Stirling had fulfilled his promise to look in if he could. The two doctors had +conferred across the child’s bed, and had found themselves substantially in +agreement. Moreover, the child was if anything somewhat better. The Scotsman had gone. +Charles and Hilda had eaten. Hilda meant to sit up, and had insisted that Janet should go +to bed; it appeared that Janet had rested but not slept in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>Charlie took Edwin into the small breakfast-room, where Osmond Orgreave was waiting, +and the three men continued to discuss the situation. They were all of them too excited to +sit down, though Osmond and—in a less degree—Charlie affected the tranquillity +of high philosophers. At first Edwin knew scarcely what he did. His speech and gestures +were not the result of conscious volition. He seemed suddenly to have two individualities, +and the new one, which was the more intimate one, watched the other as in a dim-lighted +dream... She was there in a room above! She had come in response to the telegram signed +‘Edwin!’ Last night she was far away. To-night she was in the very house with +him. Miracle! He asked himself: “Why should I get myself into this state simply +because she is here? It would have been mighty strange if she had not come. I must take +myself in hand better than this. I mustn’t behave like a blooming girl.” He +frowned and coughed.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Osmond Orgreave to his son, thrusting out his coat-tails with +his hands towards the fire, and swaying slightly to and fro on his heels and toes, +“so you’ve had your consultation, you eminent specialists! What’s the +result?”</p> + +<p>He looked at his elegant son with an air half-quizzical and half-deferential.</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you he’s evidently a little better, dad,” Charlie +answered casually. His London deportment was more marked than ever. The bracingly correct +atmosphere of Ealing had given him a rather obvious sense of importance. He had developed +into a man with a stake in the country, and he twisted his moustache like such a man, and +took out a cigarette like such a man.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” said Osmond, with controlled impatience. “But what +sort of influenza is it? I’m hoping to learn something now you’ve come. +Stirling will talk about anything except influenza.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of influenza is it? What do you mean?” And Charlie’s +twinkling glance said condescendingly: “What’s the old cock got hold of now? +This is just like him.”</p> + +<p>“But is there any real danger?” Edwin murmured.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Osmond, bringing up his regiments, “as I understand it, +there are three types of influenza—the respiratory, the gastro-intestinal, and the +nervous. Which one is it?”</p> + +<p>Charlie laughed, and prodded his father with a forefinger in a soft region near the +shoulder, disturbing his balance. “You’ve been reading the +‘BMJ,’” he said, “and so you needn’t pretend you +haven’t!”</p> + +<p>Osmond paused an instant to consider the meaning of these initials.</p> + +<p>“What if I have?” he demanded, raising his eyebrows, “I say there are +three types—”</p> + +<p>“Thirty; you might be nearer the mark with thirty,” Charlie interrupted +him. “The fact is that this division into types is all very well in theory,” +he proceeded, with easy disdain. “But in practice it won’t work out. Now for +instance, what this kid has won’t square with any of your three types. It’s +purely febrile, that’s what it is. Rare, decidedly rare, but less rare in children +than in adults—at any rate in my experience—in my experience. If his +temperature wasn’t so high, I should say the thing might last for days—weeks +even. I’ve known it. The first question I put was—has he been in a stupor? He +had. It may recur. That, and headache, <i>and</i> the absence of localised nervous +symptoms—” He stopped, leaving the sentence in the air, grandiose and +formidable, but of no purport.</p> + +<p>Charlie shrugged his shoulders, allowing the beholder to choose his own interpretation +of the gesture.</p> + +<p>“You’re a devilish wonderful fellow,” said Osmond grimly to his son. +And Charlie winked grimly at Edwin, who grimly smiled.</p> + +<p>“You and your ‘British Medical Journal’!” Charlie exclaimed, +with an irony from which filial affection was not absent, and again prodded his father in +the same spot.</p> + +<p>“Of course I know I’m an old man,” said Osmond, condescendingly +rejecting Charlie’s condescension. He thought he did not mean what he said; +nevertheless, it was the expression of the one idea which latterly beyond all other ideas +had possessed him.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Janet came into the room, and was surprised to see Edwin. She was in a state of extreme +fatigue—pale, with burning eyes, and hair that has lost the gracefulness of its +curves.</p> + +<p>“So you know?” she said.</p> + +<p>Edwin nodded.</p> + +<p>“It seems I’ve got to go to bed,” she went on. “Father, you +must go to bed too. Mother’s gone. It’s frightfully late. Come along +now!”</p> + +<p>She was insistent. She had been worried during the greater part of the day by her +restless parents, and she was determined not to leave either of them at large.</p> + +<p>“Charlie, you might run upstairs and see that everything’s all right before +I go. I shall get up again at four.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be off,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Here! Hold on a bit,” Charlie objected. “Wait till I come down. +Let’s have a yarn. You don’t want to go to bed yet.”</p> + +<p>Edwin agreed to the suggestion, and was left alone in the breakfast-room. What struck +him was that the new situation created by Hilda’s strange caprice had instantly been +accepted by everybody, and had indeed already begun to seem quite natural. He esteemed +highly the demeanour of all the Orgreaves. Neither he himself nor Maggie could have +surpassed them in their determination not to exaggerate the crisis, in their determination +to bear themselves simply and easily, and to speak with lightness, even with occasional +humour. There were few qualities that he admired more than this.</p> + +<p>And what was her demeanour, up there in the bedroom?</p> + +<p>Suddenly the strangeness of Hilda’s caprice presented itself to him as even more +strange. She had merely gone to Ealing and captured Charlie. Charlie was understood to +have a considerable practice. At her whim all his patients had been abandoned. What an +idea, to bring him down like this! What tremendous faith in him she must have! And Edwin +remembered distinctly that the first person who had ever spoken to him of Hilda was +Charlie! And in what terms of admiration! Was there a long and secret understanding +between these two? They must assuredly be far more intimate than he had ever suspected. +Edwin hated to think that Hilda would depend more upon Charlie than upon himself in a +grave difficulty. The notion caused him acute discomfort. He was resentful against Charlie +as against a thief who had robbed him of his own, but who could not be apprehended and put +to shame.</p> + +<p>The acute discomfort was jealousy; but this word did not occur to him.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>“I say,” Edwin began, in a new intimate tone, when after what seemed a very +long interval Charlie Orgreave returned to the breakfast-room with the information that +for the present all had been done that could be done.</p> + +<p>“What’s up?” said Charlie, responding quite eagerly to the appeal for +intimacy in Edwin’s voice. He had brought in a tray with whisky and its apparatus, +and he set this handily on a stool in front of the fire, and poked the fire, and generally +made the usual ritualistic preparations for a comfortable talkative night.</p> + +<p>“Rather delicate, wasn’t it, you coming down and taking Stirling’s +case off him?”</p> + +<p>Edwin smiled idly as he lolled far back in an old easy chair. His two individualities +had now merged again into one.</p> + +<p>“My boy,” Charlie answered, pausing impressively with his curly head held +forward, before dropping into an arm-chair by the stool, “you may take it from me +that ‘delicate’ is not the word!”</p> + +<p>Edwin nodded sympathetically, perceiving with satisfaction that beneath his +Metropolitan mannerism, and his amusing pomposities, and his perfectly dandiacal clothes, +Charlie still remained the Sunday, possibly more naïve than ever. This +<i>naïveté</i> of Charlie’s was particularly pleasing to him, for the +reason that it gave him a feeling of superiority to the more brilliant being and persuaded +him that the difference between London and the provinces was inessential and negligible. +Charlie’s hair still curled like a boy’s, and he had not outgrown the +<i>naïveté</i> of boyhood. Against these facts the fact that Charlie was a +partner in a fashionable and dashing practice at Ealing simply did not weigh. The +deference which in thought Edwin had been slowly acquiring for this Charlie, as to whom +impressive news reached Bursley from time to time, melted almost completely away. In +fundamentals he was convinced that Charlie was an infant compared to himself.</p> + +<p>“Have a drop?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s not often I do, but I will to-night. Steady on with the whisky, +old chap.”</p> + +<p>Each took a charged glass and sipped. Edwin, by raising his arm, could just lodge his +glass on the mantelpiece. Charlie then opened his large gun-metal cigarette case, and one +match lighted two cigarettes.</p> + +<p>“Yes, my boy,” Charlie resumed, as he meditatively blew out the match and +threw it on the fire, “you may well say ‘delicate.’ The truth is that if +I hadn’t seen at once that Stirling was a very decent sort of chap, and very +friendly here, I might have funked it. Yes, I might. He came in just after we’d +arrived. So I saw him alone—here. I made a clean breast of it, and put myself in his +hands. Of course he appreciated the situation at once; and considering he’d never +seen <i>her</i>, it was rather clever of him... I suppose people rather like that Scotch +accent of his, down here?”</p> + +<p>“They say he makes over a thousand a year already,” Edwin replied. He was +thinking. “Is she likely to be coming downstairs? No.”</p> + +<p>“The deuce he does!” Charlie murmured, with ingenuous animation, foolishly +betraying by an instant’s lack of self-control the fact that Ealing was not Utopia. +Envy was in his voice as he continued: “It’s astonishing how some chaps can +come along and walk straight into anything they want—whatever it happens to +be!”</p> + +<p>“What do you think of him as a doctor?” Edwin questioned.</p> + +<p>“Seems all right,” said Charlie, with a fine brief effort to be +patronising.</p> + +<p>“He’s got a great reputation down here,” Edwin said quietly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes. I should say he’s quite all right.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>“How came it that Mrs Cannon came and rummaged <i>you</i> out?” Edwin knew +that he would blush, and so he reached up for his whisky, and drank, adding: “The +old man still clings to his old brand of Scotch.”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, I know no more than you. I was perfectly staggered—I can +tell you that. I hadn’t seen her since before she was married. Only heard of her +again just lately through Janet. I suppose it was Janet who told her I was at Ealing. +It’s an absolute fact that just at the first blush I didn’t even recognise +her.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you?” Edwin wondered how this could be.</p> + +<p>“I did not. She came into our surgery, as if she’d come out of the next +room and I’d seen her only yesterday, and she just asked me to come away with her at +once to Bursley. I thought she was off her nut, but she wasn’t. She showed me your +telegram.”</p> + +<p>“The dickens she did!” Edwin was really startled.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I told her there was nothing absolutely fatal in a temperature of 104. It +happened in thousands of cases. Then she explained to me exactly how he’d been ill +before, seemingly in the same way, and I could judge from what she said that he +wasn’t a boy who would stand a high temperature for very long.”</p> + +<p>“By the way, what’s his temperature to-night?” Edwin interrupted.</p> + +<p>“102 point 7,” said Charlie.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he resumed, “she did convince me it might be serious. But what +then? I told her I couldn’t possibly leave. She asked me why not. She kept on asking +me why not. I said, What about my patients here? She asked if any of them were dying. I +said no, but I couldn’t leave them all to my partner. I don’t think she +realised, before that, that I was in partnership. She stuck to it worse than ever then. I +asked her why she wanted just me. I said all we doctors were much about the same, and so +on. But it was no use. The fact is, you know, Hilda always had a great notion of me as a +doctor. Can’t imagine why! Kept it to herself of course, jolly close, as she did +most things, but I’d noticed it now and then. You know—one of those tremendous +beliefs she has. You’re another of her beliefs, if you want to know.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know? Give us another cigarette.” Edwin was exceedingly uneasy, +and yet joyous. One of his fears was that the Sunday might inquire how it was that he +signed telegrams to Hilda with only his Christian name. The Sunday, however, made no such +inquiry.</p> + +<p>“How do I know!” Charlie exclaimed. “I could tell in a second by the +way she showed me your telegram. Oh! And besides, that’s an old story, my young +friend. You needn’t flatter yourself it wasn’t common property at one +time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Rot!” Edwin muttered. “Well, go on!”</p> + +<p>“Well, then I explained that there was such a thing as medical etiquette... Ah! +you should have heard Hilda on medical etiquette. You should just have heard her on that +lay—medical etiquette versus the dying child. I simply had to chuck that. I said to +her, ‘But suppose you hadn’t caught me at home? I might have been out for the +day—a hundred things.’ It was sheer accident she had caught me. At last she +said: ‘Look here, Charlie, will you come, or won’t you?’”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Six.</h4> + +<p>“Well, and what did you say?”</p> + +<p>“I should tell you she went down on her knees. What should you have said, eh, my +boy? What could I say? They’ve got you when they put it that way. Especially a woman +like she is! I tell you she was simply terrific. I tell you I wouldn’t go through it +again—not for something.”</p> + +<p>Edwin responsively shook.</p> + +<p>“I just threw up the sponge and came. I told Huskisson a thundering lie, to save +my face, and away I came, and I’ve been with her ever since. Dashed if I +haven’t!”</p> + +<p>“Who’s Huskisson?”</p> + +<p>“My partner. If anybody had told me beforehand that I should do such a thing I +should have laughed. Of course, if you look at it calmly, it’s preposterous. +Preposterous—there’s no other word—from my point of view. But when they +begin to put it the way she put it—well, you’ve got to decide quick whether +you’ll be sensible and a brute, or whether you’ll sacrifice yourself and be a +damned fool... What good am I here? No more good than anybody else. Supposing there +<i>is</i> danger? Well, there may be. But I’ve left twenty or thirty influenza cases +at Ealing. Every influenza case is dangerous, if it comes to that.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” breathed Edwin.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t have done it for any other woman,” Charlie recommenced. +“Not much!”</p> + +<p>“Then why did you do it for her?”</p> + +<p>Charlie shrugged his shoulders. “There’s something about her... I +don’t know—” He lifted his nostrils fastidiously and gazed at the fire. +“There’s not many women knocking about like <i>her</i>... She gets hold of +you. She’s nothing at all for about six months at a stretch, and then she has one +minute of the grand style... That’s the sort of woman she is. Understand? But I +expect you don’t know her as we do.”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, I understand,” said Edwin. “She must be tremendously fond of +the kid.”</p> + +<p>“You bet she is! Absolute passion. What sort is he?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! He’s all right. But I’ve never seen them together, and I never +thought she was so particularly keen on him.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you make any mistake,” said Charlie loftily. “I believe +women often are like that about an only child when they’ve had a rough time. And by +the look of her she must have had a pretty rough time. I’ve never made out why she +married that swine, and I don’t think anyone else has either.”</p> + +<p>“Did you know him?” Edwin asked, with sudden eagerness.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit. But I’ve sort of understood he was a regular outsider. Do you +know how long she’s been a widow?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin. “I’ve barely seen her.”</p> + +<p>At these words he became so constrained, and so suspicious of the look on his own face, +that he rose abruptly and began to walk about the room.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” demanded Charlie. “Got pins and +needles?”</p> + +<p>“Only fidgets,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“I hope this isn’t one of your preliminaries for clearing out and leaving +me alone,” Charlie complained. “Here—where’s that glass of yours? +Have another cigarette.”</p> + +<p>There was a sound that seemed to resemble a tap on the door.</p> + +<p>“What’s that noise?” said Edwin, startled. The whole of his epidermis +tingled, and he stood still. They both listened.</p> + +<p>The sound was repeated. Yes, it was a tap on the door; but in the night, and in the +repose of the house, it had the character of some unearthly summons.</p> + +<p>Edwin was near the door. He hesitated for an instant afraid, and then with an effort +brusquely opened the door and looked forth beyond the shelter of the room. A woman’s +figure was disappearing down the passage in the direction of the stairs. It was she.</p> + +<p>“Did you—” he began. But Hilda had gone. Agitated, he said to +Charlie, his hand still on the knob: “It’s Mrs Cannon. She just knocked and +ran off. I expect she wants you.”</p> + +<p>Charlie jumped up and scurried out of the room exactly like a boy, despite his tall, +mature figure of a man of thirty-five.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_12"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Twelve.</h3> + +<h4>End of the Night.</h4> + +<p>For the second time that night Edwin was left alone for a long period in the little +breakfast-room. Charlie’s phrase, ‘You’re another of her beliefs,’ +shone like a lamp in his memory, beneficent. And though he was still jealous of Charlie, +with whom Hilda’s relations were obviously very intimate; although he said to +himself, ‘She never made any appeal to <i>me</i>, she would scarcely have <i>my</i> +help at any price;’ nevertheless he felt most singularly uplifted and, without any +reason, hopeful. So much so that the fate of the child became with him a matter of +secondary importance. He excused this apparent callousness by making sure in his own mind +that the child was in no real danger. On the other hand he blamed himself for ever having +fancied that Hilda was indifferent to George. She, indifferent to her own son! What a +wretched, stupid slander! He ought to have known better than that. He ought to have known +that a Hilda would bring to maternity the mightiest passions. All that Charlie had said +confirmed him in his idolisation of her. ‘One minute of the grand style.’ That +was it. Charlie had judged her very well—damn him! And the one minute was priceless, +beyond all estimation.</p> + +<p>The fire sank, with little sounds of decay; and he stared at it, prevented as if by a +spell from stooping to make it up, prevented even from looking at his watch. At length he +shivered slightly, and the movement broke the trance. He wandered to the door, which +Charlie had left ajar, and listened. No sign of life! He listened intently, but his ear +could catch nothing whatever. What were those two doing upstairs with the boy? Cautiously +he stepped out into the passage, and went to the foot of the stairs, where a gas jet was +burning. He was reminded of the nights preceding his father’s death.</p> + +<p>Another gas jet showed along the corridor at the head of the stairs. He put his foot on +the first step; it creaked with a noise comparable to the report of a pistol in the dead +silence. But there was no responsive sound to show that anyone had been alarmed by this +explosion. Impelled by nervous curiosity, and growing careless, he climbed the +reverberating, complaining stairs, and, entering the corridor, stood exactly in front of +the closed door of the sick-room, and listened again, and heard naught. His heart was +obstreperously beating. Part of the household slept; the other part watched; and he was +between the two, like a thief, like a spy. Should he knock, discreetly, and ask if he +could be of help? The strange romance of his existence, and of all existence, flowed +around him in mysterious currents, obsessing him.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the door opened, and Charlie, barely avoiding a collision, started back in +alarm. Then Charlie recovered his self-possession and carefully shut the door.</p> + +<p>“I was just wondering whether I could be any use,” Edwin stammered in a +whisper.</p> + +<p>Charlie whispered: “It’s all right, but I must run round to +Stirling’s, and get a drug I want.”</p> + +<p>“Is he worse?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. That is—yes. You never know with a child. They’re up and down +and all over the place inside of an hour.”</p> + +<p>“Can I go?” Edwin suggested.</p> + +<p>“No. I can explain to him quicker than you.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never find your way in this fog.”</p> + +<p>“Bosh, man! D’you think I don’t know the town as well as you? +Besides, it’s lifted considerably.”</p> + +<p>By a common impulse they tiptoed to the window at the end of the corridor. Across the +lawn could be dimly discerned a gleam through the trees.</p> + +<p>“I’ll come with you,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“You’d much better stay here—in case.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I go into the bedroom?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly.”</p> + +<p>Charlie turned to descend the stairs.</p> + +<p>“I say,” Edwin called after him in a loud whisper, “when you get to +the gate—you know the house—you go up the side entry. The night bell’s +rather high up on the left hand.”</p> + +<p>“All right! All right!” Charlie replied impatiently. “Just come and +shut the front door after me. I don’t want to bang it.”</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>When Edwin crept into the bedroom he was so perturbed by continually growing excitement +that he saw nothing clearly except the central group of objects: that is to say, a narrow +bed, whose burden was screened from him by its foot, a table, an empty chair, the +gas-globe luminous against a dark-green blind, and Hilda in black, alert and erect beneath +the down-flowing light. The rest of the chamber seemed to stretch obscurely away into no +confines. Not for several seconds did he even notice the fire. This confusing excitement +was not caused by anything external such as the real or supposed peril of the child; it +had its source within.</p> + +<p>As soon as Hilda identified him her expression changed from the intent frowning stare +of inquiry to a smile. Edwin had never before seen her smile in that way. The smile was +weak, resigned, almost piteous; and it was extraordinarily sweet. He closed the door +quietly, and moved in silence towards the bed. She nodded an affectionate welcome. He +returned her greeting eagerly, and all his constraint was loosed away, and he felt at +ease, and happy. Her face was very pale indeed against the glittering blackness of her +eyes, and her sombre disordered hair and untidy dress; but it did not show fatigue nor +extreme anxiety; it was a face of calm meekness. The sleeves of her dress were reversed, +showing the forearms, which gave her an appearance of deshabille, homely, intimate, +confiding. “So it was common property at one time,” Edwin thought, recalling a +phrase of Charlie’s in the breakfast-room. Strange: he wanted her in all her +disarray, with all her woes, anxieties, solicitudes; he wanted her, piteous, meek, beaten +by destiny, weakly smiling; he wanted her because she stood so, after the immense, +masterful effort of the day, watching in acquiescence by that bed!</p> + +<p>“Has he gone?” she asked, in a voice ordinarily loud, but, for her, +unusually tender.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Edwin. “He’s gone. He told me I’d better come +in here. So I came.”</p> + +<p>She nodded again. “Have that chair.”</p> + +<p>Without arguing, he took the chair. She remained standing.</p> + +<p>The condition of George startled him. Evidently the boy was in a heavy stupor. His body +was so feverish that it seemed to give off a perceptible heat. There was no need to touch +the skin in order to know that it burned: one divined this. The hair was damp. About the +pale lips an irregular rash had formed, purplish, patchy, and the rash seemed to be the +mark and sign of some strange dreadful disease that nobody had ever named: a plague. Worse +than all this was the profound, comprehensive discomfort of the whole organism, showing +itself in the unnatural pose of the limbs, and in multitudinous faint instinctive ways of +the inert but complaining body. And the child was so slight beneath the blanket, so young, +so helpless, spiritually so alone. How could even Hilda communicate her sympathy to that +spirit, withdrawn and inaccessible? During the illness of his father Edwin had thought +that he was looking upon the extreme tragic limit of pathos, but this present spectacle +tightened more painfully the heart. It was more shameful: a more excruciating accusation +against the order of the universe. To think of George in his pride, strong, capricious, +and dominant, while gazing at this victim of malady ... the contrast was intolerable!</p> + +<p>George was very ill. And yet Hilda, despite the violence of her nature, could stand +there calm, sweet, and controlled. What power! Edwin was humbled. “This is the sort +of thing that women of her sort can do,” he said to himself. “Why, Maggie and +I are simply nothing to her!” Maggie and he could be self-possessed in a crisis; +they could stand a strain; but the strain would show itself either in a tense harshness, +or in some unnatural lightness, or even flippancy. Hilda was the very image of soft +caressing sweetness. He felt that he must emulate her.</p> + +<p>“Surely his temperature’s gone up?” he said quietly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Hilda replied, fingering absently the clinical thermometer that with +a lot of other gear lay on the table. “It’s nearly 105. It can’t last +like this. It won’t. I’ve been through it with him before, but not quite so +bad.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think anyone could have influenza twice, so soon,” Edwin +murmured.</p> + +<p>“Neither did I,” said she. “Still, he must have been sickening for it +before he came down here.” There was a pause. She wiped the boy’s forehead. +“This change has come on quite suddenly,” she said, in a different voice. +“Two hours ago—less than two hours ago—there was scarcely a sign of that +rash.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Charlie says it’s nothing particular.”</p> + +<p>“What’s Charlie gone for?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.” She shook her head; then smiled. +“<i>Isn’t</i> it a good thing I brought him?”</p> + +<p>Indubitably it was. Her caprice, characterised as preposterous by males, had been +justified. Thus chance often justifies women, setting at naught the high priests of +reason.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>Looking at the unconscious and yet tormented child, Edwin was aware of a melting +protective pity for him, of an immense desire to watch over his rearing with all insight, +sympathy, and help, so that in George’s case none of the mistakes and cruelties and +misapprehensions should occur which had occurred in his own. This feeling was intense to +the point of being painful.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know whether you know or not,” he said, “but +we’re great pals, the infant and I.”</p> + +<p>Hilda smiled, and in the very instant of seeing the smile its effect upon him was such +that he humiliated himself before her in secret for ever having wildly suspected that she +was jealous of the attachment. “Do you think I don’t know all about +that?” she murmured. “He wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been +for that.” After a silence she added: “You’re the only person that he +ever has really cared for, and I can tell you he likes you better than he likes +me.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know that?”</p> + +<p>“I know by the way he talks and looks.”</p> + +<p>“If he takes after his mother, that’s no sign,” Edwin retorted, +without considering what he said.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean—‘if he takes after his mother’?” She +seemed puzzled.</p> + +<p>“Could anyone tell <i>your</i> real preferences from the way <i>you</i> talked +and looked?” His audacious rashness astounded him. Nevertheless he stared her in the +eyes, and her glance fell.</p> + +<p>“No one but you could have said a thing like that,” she observed mildly, +yieldingly.</p> + +<p>And what he had said suddenly acquired a mysterious and wise significance and became +oracular. She alone had the power of inspiring him to be profound. He had noticed that +before, years ago, and first at their first meeting. Or was it that she saw in him an +oracle, and caused him to see with her?</p> + +<p>Slowly her face coloured, and she walked away to the fireplace, and cautiously tended +it. Constraint had seized him again, and his heart was loud.</p> + +<p>“Edwin,” she summoned him, from the fireplace.</p> + +<p>He rose, shaking with emotion, and crossed the undiscovered spaces of the room to where +she was. He had the illusion that they were by themselves not in the room but in the +universe. She was leaning with one hand on the mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>“I must tell you something,” she said, “that nobody at all knows +except George’s father, and probably nobody ever will know. His sister knew, but +she’s dead.”</p> + +<p>“Yes!” he muttered, in an exquisite rush of happiness. After all, it was +not with Charlie, nor even with Janet, that she was most intimate; it was with +himself!</p> + +<p>“George’s father was put in prison for bigamy. George is +illegitimate.” She spoke with her characteristic extreme clearness of enunciation, +in a voice that showed no emotion.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean it!” He gasped foolishly.</p> + +<p>She nodded. “I’m not a married woman. I once thought I was, but I +wasn’t. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“But—”</p> + +<p>“But what?”</p> + +<p>“You—you said six or seven years, didn’t you? Surely they don’t +give that long for bigamy?”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” she replied mildly. “That was for something else. When he came +out of prison the first time they arrested him again instantly—so I was told. It was +in Scotland.”</p> + +<p>“I see.”</p> + +<p>There was a rattle as of hailstones on the window. They both started.</p> + +<p>“That must be Charlie!” she exclaimed, suddenly loosing her excitement +under this pretext. “He doesn’t want to ring and wake the house.”</p> + +<p>Edwin ran out of the room, sliding and slipping down the deserted stairs that waited +patiently through the night for human feet.</p> + +<p>“Forgot to take a key,” said Charlie, appearing, breathless, just as the +door opened. “I meant to take the big key, and then I forgot.” He had a little +round box in his hand. He mounted the stairs two and three at a time.</p> + +<p>Edwin slowly closed the door. He could not bring himself to follow Charlie and, after a +moment’s vacillation, he went back into the breakfast-room.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Four.</h4> + +<p>Amazing, incalculable woman, wrapped within fold after fold of mystery! He understood +better now, but even now there were things that he did not understand; and the greatest +enigma of all remained unsolved, the original enigma of her treachery to himself... And +she had chosen just that moment, just that crisis, to reveal to him that sinister secret +which by some unguessed means she had been able to hide from her acquaintance. Naturally, +if she wished to succeed with a boarding-house in Brighton she would be compelled to +conceal somehow the fact that she was the victim of a bigamist and her child without a +lawful name! The merest prudence would urge her to concealment so long as concealment was +possible; yes, even from Janet! Her other friends deemed her a widow; Janet thought her +the wife of a convict; he alone knew that she was neither wife nor widow. Through what +scathing experience she must have passed! An unfamiliar and disconcerting mood gradually +took complete possession of him. At first he did not correctly analyse it. It was sheer, +exuberant, instinctive, unreasoning, careless joy.</p> + +<p>Then, after a long period of beatific solitude in the breakfast-room, he heard stealthy +noises in the hall, and his fancy jumped to the idea of burglary. Excited, unreflecting, +he hurried into the hall. Johnnie Orgreave, who had let himself in with a latchkey, was +shutting and bolting the front door. Johnnie’s surprise was the greater. He started +violently on seeing Edwin, and then at once assumed the sang-froid of a hero of romance. +When Edwin informed him that Hilda had come, and Charlie with her, and that those two were +watching by the boy, the rest of the household being in bed, Johnnie permitted himself a +few verbal symptoms of astonishment.</p> + +<p>“How is Georgie?” he asked with an effort, as if ashamed.</p> + +<p>“He isn’t much better,” said Edwin evasively.</p> + +<p>Johnnie made a deprecatory sound with his tongue against his lips, and frowned, +determined to take his proper share in the general anxiety.</p> + +<p>With careful, dignified movements, he removed his silk hat and his heavy ulster, +revealing evening-dress, and a coloured scarf that overhung a crumpled shirt-front.</p> + +<p>“Where’ve you been?” Edwin asked.</p> + +<p>“Tennis dance. Didn’t you know?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edwin.</p> + +<p>“Really!” Johnnie murmured, with a falsely ingenuous air. After a pause he +said: “They’ve left you all alone, then?”</p> + +<p>“I was in the breakfast-room,” said Edwin, when he had given further +information.</p> + +<p>They walked into the breakfast-room together. Charlie’s cigarette-case lay on the +tray.</p> + +<p>“Those your cigarettes?” Johnnie inquired.</p> + +<p>“No. They’re Charlie’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Master Charlie’s, are they? I wonder if they’re any good.” +He took one fastidiously. Between two enormous outblowings of smoke he said: “Well, +I’m dashed! So Charlie’s come with her! I hope the kid’ll soon be +better... I should have been back long ago, only I took Mrs Chris Hamson home.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s Mrs Chris Hamson?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know her? She’s a ripping woman.”</p> + +<p>He stood there in all the splendour of thirty years, with more than Charlie’s +<i>naïveté</i>, politely trying to enter into the life of the household, but +failing to do so because of his preoccupation with the rippingness of Mrs Chris Hamson. +The sight of him gave pleasure to Edwin. It did not occur to him to charge the young man +with being callous.</p> + +<p>When the cigarette was burnt, Johnnie said—</p> + +<p>“Well, I think I shall leave seeing Charlie till breakfast.”</p> + +<p>And he went to bed. On reaching the first-floor corridor he wished that he had gone to +bed half a minute sooner; for in the corridor he encountered Janet, who had risen and was +returning to her post; and Janet’s face, though she meant it not, was an accusation. +Four o’clock had struck.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Five.</h4> + +<p>It was nearly half-past seven before Edwin left the house. In the meantime he had seen +Charlie briefly twice, and Janet once, but he had not revisited the sick-room nor seen +Hilda again. The boy’s condition was scarcely altered; if there was any change, it +was for the better.</p> + +<p>Dawn had broken. The fog was gone, but a faint mist hung in the trees over the damp +lawn. The air was piercingly chill. Yawning and glancing idly about him, he perceived a +curious object on the dividing wall. It was the candlestick which he had left there on the +previous night. The candle was entirely consumed. “I may as well get over the +wall,” he said to himself, and he scrambled up it with adventurous cheerfulness, and +took the candlestick with him; it was covered with drops of moisture. He deposited it in +the kitchen, where the servant was cleaning the range. On the oak chest in the hall lay +the “Manchester Guardian,” freshly arrived. He opened it with another heavy +yawn. At the head of one column he read, “Death of the Duke of Clarence,” and +at the head of another, “Death of Cardinal Manning.” The double news shocked +him strangely. He thought of what those days had been to others beside himself. And he +thought: “Supposing after all the kid doesn’t come through?”</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="bodytext"> +<a name="vol_4_chap_13"></a> +<h3>Volume Four--Chapter Thirteen.</h3> + +<h4>Her Heart.</h4> + +<p>After having been to business and breakfasted as usual, Edwin returned to the shop at +ten o’clock. He did not feel tired, but his manner was very curt, even with +Stifford, and melancholy had taken the place of his joy. The whole town was gloomy, and +seemed to savour its gloom luxuriously. But Edwin wondered why he should be melancholy. +There was no reason for it. There was less reason for it than there had been for ten +years. Yet he was; and, like the town, he found pleasure in his state. He had no real +desire to change it. At noon he suddenly went off home, thus upsetting Stifford’s +arrangements for the dinner-hour. “I shall lie down for a bit,” he said to +Maggie. He slept till a little after one o’clock, and he could have slept longer, +but dinner was ready. He said to himself, with an extraordinary sense of satisfaction, +“<i>I have had a sleep.</i>” After dinner he lay down again, and slept till +nearly three o’clock. It was with the most agreeable sensations that he awakened. +His melancholy was passing; it had not entirely gone, but he could foresee the end of it +as of an eclipse. He made the discovery that he had only been tired. Now he was somewhat +reposed. And as he lay in repose he was aware of an intensified perception of himself as a +physical organism. He thought calmly, “<i>What a fine thing life is!</i>”</p> + +<p>“I was just going to bring you some tea up,” said Maggie, who met him on +the stairs as he came down. “I heard you moving. Will you have some?”</p> + +<p>He rubbed his eyes. His head seemed still to be distended with sleep, and this was a +part of his well-being. “Aye!” he replied, with lazy satisfaction. +“That’ll just put me right.”</p> + +<p>“George is much better,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“Good!” he said heartily.</p> + +<p>Joy, wild and exulting, surged through him once more; and it was of such a turbulent +nature that it would not suffer any examination of its origin. It possessed him by its +might. As he drank the admirable tea he felt that he still needed a lot more sleep. There +were two points of pressure at the top of his head. But he knew that he could sleep, and +sleep well, whenever he chose; and that on the morrow his body would be perfectly +restored.</p> + +<p>He walked briskly back to the shop, intending to work, and he was a little perturbed to +find that he could not work. His head refused. He sat in the cubicle vaguely staring. Then +he was startled by a tremendous yawn, which seemed to have its inception in the very +centre of his being, and which by the pang of its escape almost broke him in pieces. +“I’ve never yawned like that before,” he thought, apprehensive. Another +yawn of the same seismic kind succeeded immediately, and these frightful yawns continued +one after another for several minutes, each leaving him weaker than the one before. +“I’d better go home while I can,” he thought, intimidated by the +suddenness and the mysteriousness of the attack. He went home. Maggie at once said that he +would be better in bed, and to his own astonishment he agreed. He could not eat the meal +that Maggie brought to his room.</p> + +<p>“There’s something the matter with you,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p>“No. I’m only tired.” He knew it was a lie.</p> + +<p>“You’re simply burning,” she said, but she refrained from any +argument, and left him.</p> + +<p>He could not sleep. His anticipations in that respect were painfully falsified.</p> + +<p>Later, Maggie came back.</p> + +<p>“Here’s Dr Heve,” she said briefly, in the doorway. She was +silhouetted against the light from the landing. The doctor, in mourning, stood behind +her.</p> + +<p>“Dr Heve? What the devil—” But he did not continue the protest.</p> + +<p>Maggie advanced into the room and turned up the gas, and the glare wounded his +eyes.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Dr Heve, at the end of three minutes. “You’ve got +it. Not badly, I hope. But you’ve got it all right.”</p> + +<p>Humiliating! For the instinct of the Clayhangers was always to assume that by virtue of +some special prudence, or immunity, or resisting power, peculiar to them alone, they would +escape any popular affliction such as an epidemic. In the middle of the night, amid +feverish tossings and crises of thirst, and horrible malaise, it was more than +humiliating! Supposing he died? People did die of influenza. The strangest, the most +monstrous things did happen. For the first time in his life he lay in the genuine fear of +death. He had never been ill before. And now he was ill. He knew what it was to be ill. +The stupid, blundering clumsiness of death aroused his angry resentment. No! It was +impossible that he should die! People did not die of influenza.</p> + +<p>The next day the doctor laughed. But Edwin said to himself: “He may have laughed +only to cheer me up. They never tell their patients the truth.” And every cell of +his body was vitiated, poisoned, inefficient, profoundly demoralised. Ordinary health +seemed the most precious and the least attainable boon.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Two.</h4> + +<p>After wildernesses of time that were all but interminable, the attack was completely +over. It had lasted a hundred hours, of which the first fifty had each been an age. It was +a febrile attack similar to George’s, but less serious. Edwin had possibly caught +the infection at Knype Railway Station: yet who could tell? Now he was in the +drawing-room, shaved, clothed, but wearing slippers for a sign that he was only +convalescent, and because the doctor had forbidden him the street. He sat in front of the +fire, in the easy chair that had been his father’s favourite. On his left hand were +an accumulation of newspapers and a book; on his right, some business letters and +documents left by the assiduous Stifford after a visit of sympathy and of affairs. The +declining sun shone with weak goodwill on the garden.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, there’s a lady,” said the servant, opening the +door.</p> + +<p>He was startled. His first thought naturally was, “It’s Hilda!” in +spite of the extreme improbability of it being Hilda. Hilda had never set foot in his +house. Nevertheless, supposing it was Hilda, Maggie would assuredly come into the +drawing-room—she could not do otherwise—and the three-cornered interview +would, he felt, be very trying. He knew that Maggie, for some reason inexplicable by +argument, was out of sympathy with Hilda, as with Hilda’s son. She had given him +regular news of George, who was now at about the same stage of convalescence as himself, +but she scarcely mentioned the mother, and he had not dared to inquire. These thoughts +flashed through his brain in an instant.</p> + +<p>“Who is it?” he asked gruffly.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know, sir. Shall I ask?” replied the servant, +blushing as she perceived that once again she had sinned. She had never before been in a +house where aristocratic ceremony was carried to such excess as at Edwin’s. Her +unconquerable instinct, upon opening the front door to a well-dressed stranger, was to +rush off and publish the news that somebody mysterious and grand had come, leaving the +noble visitor on the door-mat. She had been instructed in the ritual proper to these +crises, but with little good result, for the crises took her unawares.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Go and ask the name, and then tell my sister,” said Edwin +shortly.</p> + +<p>“Miss Clayhanger is gone out, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well, run along,” he told her impatiently.</p> + +<p>He was standing anxiously near the door when she returned to the room.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, it’s a Mrs Cannon, and it’s you she wants.”</p> + +<p>“Show her in,” he said, and to himself: “My God!”</p> + +<p>In the ten seconds that elapsed before Hilda appeared he glanced at himself in the +mantel mirror, fidgeted with his necktie, and walked to the window and back again to his +chair. She had actually called to see him! ... His agitation was extreme... But how like +her it was to call thus boldly! ... Maggie’s absence was providential.</p> + +<p>Hilda entered, to give him a lesson in blandness. She wore a veil, and carried a +muff—outworks of her self-protective, impassive demeanour. She was pale, and as calm +as pale. She would not take the easy chair which he offered her. Useless to +insist—she would not take it. He brushed away letters and documents from the small +chair to his right, and she took that chair... Having taken it, she insisted that he +should resume the easy chair.</p> + +<p>“I called just to say good-bye,” she said. “I knew you couldn’t +come out, and I’m going to-night.”</p> + +<p>“But surely he isn’t fit to travel?” Edwin exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“George? Not yet. I’m leaving him behind. You see I mustn’t stay away +longer than’s necessary.”</p> + +<p>She smiled, and lifted her veil as far as her nose. She had not smiled before.</p> + +<p>“Charlie’s gone back?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes. Two days ago. He left a message for you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Maggie gave it me. By the way, I’m sorry she’s not +in.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve just seen her,” said Hilda.</p> + +<p>“Oh!”</p> + +<p>“She came in to see Janet. They’re having a cup of tea in George’s +bedroom. So I put my things on and walked round here at once.”</p> + +<p>As Hilda made this surprising speech she gazed full at Edwin.</p> + +<hr></hr> + +<h4>Three.</h4> + +<p>A blush slowly covered his face. They both sat silent. Only the fire crackled lustily. +Edwin thought, as his agitation increased and entirely confused him, “No other woman +was ever like this woman!” He wanted to rise masterfully, to accomplish some gesture +splendid and decisive, but he was held in the hollow of the easy chair as though by +paralysis. He looked at Hilda; he might have been looking at a stranger. He tried to read +her face, and he could not read it. He could only see in it vague trouble. He was afraid +of her. The idea even occurred to him that, could he be frank with himself, he would admit +that he hated her. The moments were intensely painful; the suspense exasperating and +excruciating. Ever since their last encounter he had anticipated this scene; his fancy had +been almost continuously busy in fashioning this scene. And now the reality had swept down +upon him with no warning, and he was overwhelmed.</p> + +<p>She would not speak. She had withdrawn her gaze, but she would not speak. She would +force him to speak.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he began gruffly, in a resentful tone, careless as to what he was +saying, “you might have told me earlier what you told me on Wednesday night. Why +didn’t you tell me when I was at Brighton?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted to,” she said meekly. “But I couldn’t. I really +couldn’t bring myself to do it.”</p> + +<p>“Instead of telling me a lie,” he went on. “I think you might have +trusted me more than that.”</p> + +<p>“A lie?” she muttered. “I told you the truth. I told you he was in +prison.”</p> + +<p>“You told me your husband was in prison,” he corrected her, in a voice +meditative and judicial. He knew not in the least why he was talking in this strain.</p> + +<p>She began to cry. At first he was not sure that she was crying. He glanced +surreptitiously, and glanced away as if guilty. But at the next glance he was sure. Her +eyes glistened behind the veil, and tear-drops appeared at its edge and vanished under her +chin.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know how much I wanted to tell you!” she wept.</p> + +<p>She hid her half-veiled face in her hands. And then he was victimised by the blackest +desolation. His one desire was that the scene should finish, somehow, anyhow.</p> + +<p>“I never wrote to you because there was nothing to say. Nothing!” She +sobbed, still covering her face.</p> + +<p>“Never wrote to me—do you mean—”</p> + +<p>She nodded violently twice. “Yes. <i>Then!</i>” He divined that suddenly +she had begun to talk of ten years ago. “I knew you’d know it was because I +couldn’t help it.” She spoke so indistinctly through her emotion and her +tears, and her hands, that he could not distinguish the words.</p> + +<p>“What do you say?”</p> + +<p>“I say I couldn’t help doing what I did. I knew you’d know I +couldn’t help it. I couldn’t write. It was best for me to be silent. What else +was there for me to do except be silent? I knew you’d know I couldn’t help it. +It was a—” Sobs interrupted her.</p> + +<p>“Of course I knew that,” he said. He had to control himself very carefully, +or he too would have lost command of his voice. Such was her power of suggestion over him +that her faithlessness seemed now scarcely to need an excuse.</p> + +<p>(Somewhere within himself he smiled as he reflected that he, in his father’s +place, in his father’s very chair, was thus under the spell of a woman whose child +was nameless. He smiled grimly at the thought of Auntie Hamps, of Clara, of the pietistic +Albert! They were of a different race, a different generation! They belonged to a dead +world!)</p> + +<p>“I shall tell you,” Hilda recommenced mournfully, but in a clear and steady +voice, at last releasing her face, which was shaken like that of a child in childlike +grief. “You’ll never understand what I had to go through, and how I +couldn’t help myself”—she was tragically plaintive—“but I +shall tell you... You <i>must</i> understand!”</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes. Already for some moments his hands had been desiring the pale +wrists between her sleeve and her glove. They fascinated his hands, which, hesitatingly, +went out towards them. As soon as she felt his touch, she dropped to her knees, and her +chin almost rested on the arm of his chair. He bent over a face that was transfigured.</p> + +<p>“My heart never kissed any other man but you!” she cried. “How often +and often and often have I kissed you, and you never knew! ... It was for a message that I +sent George down here—a message to you! I named him after you... Do you think that +if dreams could make him your child—he wouldn’t be yours?”</p> + +<p>Her courage, and the expression of it, seemed to him to be sublime.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know me!” she sighed, less convulsively.</p> + +<p>“Don’t I!” he said, with lofty confidence.</p> + +<p>After a whole decade his nostrils quivered again to the odour of her olive skin. +Drowning amid the waves of her terrible devotion, he was recompensed in the hundredth part +of a second for all that through her he had suffered or might hereafter suffer. The many +problems and difficulties which marriage with her would raise seemed trivial in the light +of her heart’s magnificent and furious loyalty. He thought of the younger Edwin whom +she had kissed into rapture, as of a boy too inexperienced in sorrow to appreciate this +Hilda. He braced himself to the exquisite burden of life.</p> + +<hr></hr> +</div> + +<div class="navigation"> +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_01">Volume 1 Chapter 1</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_02">Volume 1 Chapter 2</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_03">Volume 1 Chapter 3</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_04">Volume 1 Chapter 4</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_05">Volume 1 Chapter 5</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_06">Volume 1 Chapter 6</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_07">Volume 1 Chapter 7</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_08">Volume 1 Chapter 8</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_09">Volume 1 Chapter 9</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_10">Volume 1 Chapter 10</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_11">Volume 1 Chapter 11</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_12">Volume 1 Chapter 12</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_13">Volume 1 Chapter 13</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_14">Volume 1 Chapter 14</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_15">Volume 1 Chapter 15</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_16">Volume 1 Chapter 16</a> | +| <a href="#vol_1_chap_17">Volume 1 Chapter 17</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_01">Volume 2 Chapter 1</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_02">Volume 2 Chapter 2</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_03">Volume 2 Chapter 3</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_04">Volume 2 Chapter 4</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_05">Volume 2 Chapter 5</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_06">Volume 2 Chapter 6</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_07">Volume 2 Chapter 7</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_08">Volume 2 Chapter 8</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_09">Volume 2 Chapter 9</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_10">Volume 2 Chapter 10</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_11">Volume 2 Chapter 11</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_12">Volume 2 Chapter 12</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_13">Volume 2 Chapter 13</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_14">Volume 2 Chapter 14</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_15">Volume 2 Chapter 15</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_16">Volume 2 Chapter 16</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_17">Volume 2 Chapter 17</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_18">Volume 2 Chapter 18</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_19">Volume 2 Chapter 19</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_20">Volume 2 Chapter 20</a> | +| <a href="#vol_2_chap_21">Volume 2 Chapter 21</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_01">Volume 3 Chapter 1</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_02">Volume 3 Chapter 2</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_03">Volume 3 Chapter 3</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_04">Volume 3 Chapter 4</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_05">Volume 3 Chapter 5</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_06">Volume 3 Chapter 6</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_07">Volume 3 Chapter 7</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_08">Volume 3 Chapter 8</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_09">Volume 3 Chapter 9</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_10">Volume 3 Chapter 10</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_11">Volume 3 Chapter 11</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_12">Volume 3 Chapter 12</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_13">Volume 3 Chapter 13</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_14">Volume 3 Chapter 14</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_15">Volume 3 Chapter 15</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_16">Volume 3 Chapter 16</a> | +| <a href="#vol_3_chap_17">Volume 3 Chapter 17</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_01">Volume 4 Chapter 1</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_02">Volume 4 Chapter 2</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_03">Volume 4 Chapter 3</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_04">Volume 4 Chapter 4</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_05">Volume 4 Chapter 5</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_06">Volume 4 Chapter 6</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_07">Volume 4 Chapter 7</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_08">Volume 4 Chapter 8</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_09">Volume 4 Chapter 9</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_10">Volume 4 Chapter 10</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_11">Volume 4 Chapter 11</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_12">Volume 4 Chapter 12</a> | +| <a href="#vol_4_chap_13">Volume 4 Chapter 13</a> | +<hr></hr> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Clayhanger, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLAYHANGER *** + +***** This file should be named 21249-h.htm or 21249-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/2/4/21249/ + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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