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- float: left; - margin-right: 1em } - -.align-right { clear: right; - float: right; - margin-left: 1em } - -.align-center { margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto } - -div.shrinkwrap { display: table; } - -/* SECTIONS */ - -body { margin: 5% 10% 5% 10% } - -/* compact list items containing just one p */ -li p.pfirst { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 } - -.first { margin-top: 0 !important; - text-indent: 0 !important } -.last { margin-bottom: 0 !important } - -span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } -img.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; max-width: 25% } -span.dropspan { font-variant: small-caps } - -.no-page-break { page-break-before: avoid !important } - -/* PAGINATION */ - -.pageno { position: absolute; right: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } -.pageno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } -.lineno { position: absolute; left: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } -.lineno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } -.toc-pageref { float: right } - -@media screen { - .coverpage, .frontispiece, .titlepage, .verso, .dedication, .plainpage - { margin: 10% 0; } - - div.clearpage, div.cleardoublepage - { margin: 10% 0; border: none; border-top: 1px solid gray; } - - .vfill { margin: 5% 10% } -} - -@media print { - div.clearpage { page-break-before: always; padding-top: 10% } - div.cleardoublepage { page-break-before: right; padding-top: 10% } - - .vfill { margin-top: 20% } - h2.title { margin-top: 20% } -} - -/* DIV */ -pre { font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.9em; white-space: pre-wrap } -</style> -<title>THESE TWAIN</title> -<meta name="DC.Title" content="These Twain" /> -<meta name="PG.Producer" content="Al Haines" /> -<meta name="DC.Created" content="1915" /> -<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Arnold Bennett" /> -<meta name="PG.Id" content="40483" /> -<meta name="PG.Title" content="These Twain" /> -<meta name="PG.Released" content="2012-08-11" /> -<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" /> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/img-cover.jpg" /> -<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" /> - -<link rel="schema.DCTERMS" href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" /> -<link rel="schema.MARCREL" href="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/" /> -<meta name="DCTERMS.title" content="These Twain" /> -<meta name="DCTERMS.source" content="/home/ajhaines/twain/twain.rst" /> -<meta scheme="DCTERMS.RFC4646" name="DCTERMS.language" content="en" /> -<meta scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.modified" content="2018-12-02T22:34:41.986074+00:00" /> -<meta name="DCTERMS.publisher" content="Project Gutenberg" /> -<meta name="DCTERMS.rights" content="Public Domain in the USA." /> -<link rel="DCTERMS.isFormatOf" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40483" /> -<meta name="DCTERMS.creator" content="Arnold Bennett" /> -<meta scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.created" content="2012-08-11" /> -<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" /> -<meta name="generator" content="Ebookmaker 0.4.0a5 by Marcello Perathoner <webmaster@gutenberg.org>" /> -</head> -<body> -<div class="document" id="these-twain"> -<h1 class="center document-title level-1 pfirst title"><span class="x-large">THESE TWAIN</span></h1> - -<!-- this is the default PG-RST stylesheet --> -<!-- figure and image styles for non-image formats --> -<!-- default transition --> -<!-- default attribution --> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="clearpage"> -</div> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="container language-en pgheader" id="pg-header" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the </span><a class="reference internal" href="#project-gutenberg-license">Project Gutenberg License</a><span> included with -this ebook or online at </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a><span>. If you -are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws -of the country where you are located before using this ebook.</span></p> -<p class="noindent pnext"></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<div class="container" id="pg-machine-header"> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>Title: These Twain -<br /> -<br />Author: Arnold Bennett -<br /> -<br />Release Date: August 11, 2012 [EBook #40483] -<br /> -<br />Language: English -<br /> -<br />Character set encoding: UTF-8</span></p> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-start-line"><span>*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>THESE TWAIN</span><span> ***</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by Al Haines.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p> -</div> -<div class="container coverpage"> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 51%" id="figure-11"> -<span id="cover"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="Cover" src="images/img-cover.jpg" /> -<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin"> -<span class="italics">Cover</span></div> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -</div> -<div class="container titlepage"> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">THESE TWAIN</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">BY</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="large">ARNOLD BENNETT</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">AUTHOR OF "THE OLD WIVES' TALE," "THE OLD ADAM," -<br />"CLAYHANGER," "HILDA LESSWAYS," ETC.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">NEW YORK -<br />GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -</div> -<div class="container verso"> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">Copyright, 1915, -<br />BY ARNOLD BENNETT</span></p> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<div class="container plainpage"> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CONTENTS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">BOOK I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE</span></p> -<p class="left pnext"><span class="medium">CHAPTER</span></p> -<ol class="upperroman simple"> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-house">THE HOUSE</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#hilda-on-the-stairs">HILDA ON THE STAIRS</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#attack-and-repulse">ATTACK AND REPULSE</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-word">THE WORD</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#tertius-ingpen">TERTIUS INGPEN</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#husband-and-wife">HUSBAND AND WIFE</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-truce">THE TRUCE</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-family-at-home">THE FAMILY AT HOME</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-week-end">THE WEEK-END</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-orgreave-calamity">THE ORGREAVE CALAMITY</a></p> -</li> -</ol> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">BOOK II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">THE PAST</span></p> -<ol class="upperroman simple" start="11"> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#lithography">LITHOGRAPHY</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#dartmoor">DARTMOOR</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-departure">THE DEPARTURE</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#tavy-mansion">TAVY MANSION</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-prison">THE PRISON</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-ghost">THE GHOST</a></p> -</li> -</ol> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">BOOK III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">EQUILIBRIUM</span></p> -<ol class="upperroman simple" start="17"> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#george-s-eyes">GEORGE'S EYES</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#auntie-hamps-sentenced">AUNTIE HAMPS SENTENCED</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#death-and-burial">DEATH AND BURIAL</a></p> -</li> -<li><p class="first left pfirst"><a class="medium reference internal" href="#the-discovery">THE DISCOVERY</a></p> -</li> -</ol> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-house"><span class="large">BOOK I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">THESE TWAIN</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CHAPTER I</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="large">THE HOUSE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>In the year 1892 Bleakridge, residential suburb of -Bursley, was still most plainly divided into old and -new,--that is to say, into the dull red or dull yellow -with stone facings, and the bright red with terra cotta -gimcrackery. Like incompatible liquids congealed in -a pot, the two components had run into each other -and mingled, but never mixed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Paramount among the old was the house of the -Member of Parliament, near the top of the important -mound that separates Hanbridge from Bursley. The -aged and widowed Member used the house little, but he -kept it up, and sometimes came into it with an -unexpectedness that extremely flattered the suburb. Thus -you might be reading in the morning paper that the -Member had given a lunch in London on the previous -day to Cabinet Ministers and ladies as splendid as the -Countess of Chell, and--glancing out of the window--you -might see the Member himself walking down -Trafalgar Road, sad, fragile, sedately alert, with his -hands behind him, or waving a gracious hand to an -acquaintance. Whereupon you would announce, not -apathetically: "Member's gone down to MacIlvaine's!" -(MacIlvaine's being the works in which the Member -had an interest) and there would perhaps be a rush -to the window. Those were the last great days of -Bleakridge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After the Member's house ranked such historic -residences as those of Osmond Orgreave, the architect, -(which had the largest, greenest garden and the best -smoke-defying trees in Bleakridge), and Fearns, the -Hanbridge lawyer; together with Manor "Cottage" -(so-called, though a spacious house), where lived the -mechanical genius who had revolutionised the pottery -industry and strangely enough made a fortune thereby, -and the dark abode of the High Church parson.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Next in importance came the three terraces,--Manor -Terrace, Abbey Terrace, and the Sneyd Terrace--each -consisting of three or four houses, and all on the west -side of Trafalgar Road, with long back-gardens and a -distant prospect of Hillport therefrom over the Manor -fields. The Terraces, considered as architecture, were -unbeautiful, old-fashioned, inconvenient,--perhaps -paltry, as may be judged from the fact that rents ran -as low as £25 a year; but they had been wondrous in -their day, the pride of builders and owners and the -marvel of a barbaric populace. They too had -histories, which many people knew. Age had softened -them and sanctioned their dignity. A gate might creak, -but the harsh curves of its ironwork had been mollified -by time. Moreover the property was always maintained -in excellent repair by its landlords, and residents cared -passionately for the appearance of the windows and the -front-steps. The plenary respectability of the -residents could not be impugned. They were as -good as the best. For address, they would not give the -number of the house in Trafalgar Road, but the name of -its Terrace. Just as much as the occupiers of -detached houses, they had sorted themselves out from -the horde. Conservative or Liberal, they were -anti-democratic, ever murmuring to themselves as they -descended the front-steps in the morning and mounted -them in the evening: "Most folks are nobodies, but I -am somebody." And this was true.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The still smaller old houses in between the -Terraces, and even the old cottages in the side streets -(which all ran to the east) had a similar distinction of -caste, aloofness, and tradition. The least of them was -scornful of the crowd, and deeply conscious of itself -as a separate individuality. When the tenant-owner of -a cottage in Manor Street added a bay-window to his -front-room the event seemed enormous in Manor Street, -and affected even Trafalgar Road, as a notorious -clean-shaven figure in the streets may disconcert a whole -quarter by growing a beard. The congeries of cottage -yards between Manor Street and Higginbotham Street, -as visible from certain high back-bedrooms in -Trafalgar Road,--a crowded higgledy-piggledy of -plum-coloured walls and chimneys, blue-brick pavements, and -slate roofs--well illustrated the grand Victorian epoch -of the Building Society, when eighteenpence was added -weekly to eighteenpence, and land haggled over by the -foot, and every brick counted, in the grim, long effort -to break away from the mass.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The traditionalism of Bleakridge protected even -Roman Catholicism in that district of Nonconformity, -where there were at least three Methodist chapels to -every church and where the adjective "popish" was -commonly used in preference to "papal." The little -"Catholic Chapel" and the priest's house with its -cross-keys at the top of the mound were as respected as any -other buildings, because Roman Catholicism had always -been endemic there, since the age when the entire -let belonged to Cistercian monks in white robes. A -feebly endemic Catholicism and a complete exemption -from tithes were all that remained of the Cistercian -occupation. The exemption was highly esteemed by the -possessing class.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Alderman Sutton, towards the end of the seventies, -first pitted the new against the old in Bleakridge. The -lifelong secretary of a first-class Building Society, he -was responsible for a terrace of three commodious -modern residences exactly opposite the house of the -Member. The Member and Osmond Orgreave might -modernise their antique houses as much as they liked,--they -could never match the modernity of the Alderman's -Terrace, to which, by the way, he declined to give a -name. He was capable of covering his drawing-room -walls with papers at three-and-six a roll, and yet he -capriciously preferred numbers to a name! These -houses cost twelve hundred pounds each (a lot of money -in the happy far-off days when good bricks were only -£1 a thousand, or a farthing apiece), and imposed -themselves at once upon the respect and admiration of -Bleakridge. A year or two later the Clayhanger house -went up at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Hulton -Street, and easily outvied the Sutton houses. -Geographically at the centre of the residential suburb, it -represented the new movement in Bleakridge at its -apogee, and indeed was never beaten by later ambitious -attempts.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Such fine erections, though nearly every detail of -them challenged tradition, could not disturb -Bleakridge's belief in the stability of society. But -simultaneously whole streets of cheap small houses (in -reality, pretentious cottages) rose round about. Hulton -Street was all new and cheap. Oak Street offered -a row of pink cottages to Osmond Orgreave's garden -gates, and there were three other similar new streets -between Oak Street and the Catholic Chapel. Jerry-building -was practised in Trafalgar Road itself, on a -large plot in full view of the Catholic Chapel, where a -speculative builder, too hurried to use a measure, -"stepped out" the foundations of fifteen cottages with -his own bandy legs, and when the corner of a -freshly-constructed cottage fell into the street remarked that -accidents would happen and had the bricks replaced. -But not every cottage was jerry-built. Many, perhaps -most, were of fairly honest workmanship. All were -modern, and relatively spacious, and much superior in -plan to the old. All had bay-windows. And yet all -their bay-windows together could not produce an -effect equal to one bay-window in ancient Manor Street, -because they had omitted to be individual. Not one -showy dwelling was unlike another, nor desired to be -unlike another.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The garish new streets were tenanted by magic. On -Tuesday the paperhangers might be whistling in those -drawing-rooms (called parlours in Manor Street),--on -Wednesday bay-windows were curtained and chimneys -smoking. And just as the cottages lacked -individuality, so the tenants were nobodies. At any rate -no traditional person in Bleakridge knew who they -were, nor where they came from, except that they -came mysteriously up out of the town. (Not that -there had been any shocking increase in the birthrate -down there!) And no traditional person seemed to -care. The strange inroad and portent ought to have -puzzled and possibly to have intimidated traditional -Bleakridge: but it did not. Bleakridge merely -observed that "a lot of building was going on," and left -the phenomenon at that. At first it was interested and -flattered; then somewhat resentful and regretful. And -even Edwin Clayhanger, though he counted himself -among the enlightened and the truly democratic, felt -hurt when quite nice houses, copying some features of -his own on a small scale, and let to such people as -insurance agents, began to fill up the remaining empty -spaces of Trafalgar Road. He could not help thinking -that the prestige of Bleakridge was being impaired.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin Clayhanger, though very young in marriage, -considered that he was getting on in years as a -householder. His age was thirty-six. He had been -married only a few months, under peculiar circumstances -which rendered him self-conscious, and on an evening -of August 1892, as he stood in the hall of his house -awaiting the commencement of a postponed and -unusual At Home, he felt absurdly nervous. But the -nervousness was not painful; because he himself could -laugh at it. He might be timid, he might be a little -gawky, he might often have the curious sensation of -not being really adult but only a boy after all,--the -great impressive facts would always emerge that he -was the respected head of a well-known family, that he -was successful, that he had both ideas and money, and -that his position as one of the two chief master-printers -of the district would not be challenged. He knew that -he could afford to be nervous. And further, since he -was house-proud, he had merely to glance round his -house in order to be reassured and puffed up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Loitering near the foot of the stairs, discreetly -stylish in an almost new blue serge suit and a quite new -black satin tie, with the light of the gas on one -side of his face, and the twilight through the glazed -front-door mitigating the shadow on the other, -Edwin mused pleasingly upon the whole organism of -his home. Externally, the woodwork and metalwork -of the house had just been repainted, and the -brickwork pointed. He took pleasure in the thought of -the long even lines of fresh mortar, and of the new -sage-tinted spoutings and pipings, every foot of which -he knew by heart and where every tube began and -where it ended and what its purpose was. The nice -fitting of a perpendicular spout into a horizontal one, -and the curve of the joint from the eave to the wall of -the house, and the elaborate staples that firmly held -the spout to the wall, and the final curve of the spout -that brought its orifice accurately over a spotless grid -in the ground,--the perfection of all these ridiculous -details, each beneath the notice of a truly celestial mind, -would put the householder Edwin into a sort of -contemplative ecstasy. Perhaps he was comical. But -such inner experiences were part of his great interest -in life, part of his large general passion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Within the hall he regarded with equal interest and -pride the photogravure of Bellini's "Agony in the -Garden," from the National Gallery, and the radiator -which he had just had installed. The radiator was -only a half-measure, but it was his precious toy, his pet -lamb, his mistress; and the theory of it was that by -warming the hall and the well of the staircase it softly -influenced the whole house and abolished draughts. He -had exaggerated the chilliness of the late August night -so that he might put the radiator into action. About -the small furnace in the cellar that heated it he was -both crotchetty and extravagant. The costly efficiency -of the radiator somewhat atoned in his mind for the -imperfections of the hot water apparatus, depending on -the kitchen boiler. Even in 1892 this middle-class -pioneer and sensualist was dreaming of an ideal house in -which inexhaustible water was always positively -steaming, so that if a succession of persons should -capriciously desire hot baths in the cold middle of the night, -their collective fancy might be satisfied.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Bellini's picture was the symbol of an artistic -revolution in Edwin. He had read somewhere that it was -"perhaps the greatest picture in the world." A critic's -exhortation to "observe the loving realistic passion -shown in the foreshortening of the figure of the -sleeping apostle" had remained in his mind; and, thrilled, -he would point out this feature of the picture -alike to the comprehending and the uncomprehending. -The hanging-up of the Bellini, in its strange frame -of stained unpolished oak, had been an epochal event, -closing one era and inaugurating another. And -yet, before the event, he had not even noticed the -picture on a visit to the National Gallery! A -hint, a phrase murmured in the right tone in a -periodical, a glimpse of an illustration,--and the mighty -magic seed was sown. In a few months all -Victorian phenomena had been put upon their trial, and -most of them condemned. And condemned without even -the forms of justice! Half a word (in the right tone) -might ruin any of them. Thus was Sir Frederick -Leighton, P.R.A., himself overthrown. One day his "Bath -of Psyche" reigned in Edwin's bedroom, and the next -it had gone, and none knew why. But certain aged -Victorians, such as Edwin's Auntie Hamps, took the -disappearance of the licentious engraving as a sign -that the beloved queer Edwin was at last coming to his -senses--as, of course, they knew he ultimately would. -He did not and could not explain. More and more he -was growing to look upon his house as an island, cut -off by a difference of manners from the varnished -barbarism of multitudinous new cottages, and by an -immensely more profound difference of thought from both -the cottages and the larger houses. It seemed astounding -to Edwin that modes of thought so violently separative -as his and theirs could exist so close together and -under such appearances of similarity. Not even all the -younger members of the Orgreave family, who counted -as his nearest friends, were esteemed by Edwin to be -meet for his complete candour.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The unique island was scarcely a dozen years old, but -historical occurrences had aged it for Edwin. He had -opened the doors of all three reception-rooms, partly -to extend the benign sway of the radiator, and partly -so that he might judge the total effect of the illuminated -chambers and improve that effect if possible. And -each room bore the mysterious imprints of past emotion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the drawing-room, with its new orange-coloured -gas-globes that gilded everything beneath them, -Edwin's father used to sit on Sunday evenings, alone. -And one Sunday evening, when Edwin, entering, had -first mentioned to his father a woman's name, his -father had most terribly humiliated him. But now -it seemed as if some other youth, and not Edwin, had -been humiliated, so completely was the wound -healed.... And he could remember leaning in the -doorway of the drawing-room one Sunday morning, -and his sister Clara was seated at the piano, and -his sister Maggie, nursing a baby of Clara's, by her -side, and they were singing Balfe's duet "Excelsior," -and his father stood behind them, crying, crying -steadily, until at length the bitter old man lost control of -himself and sobbed aloud under the emotional stress -of the women's voices, and Clara cheerfully upbraided -him for foolishness; and Edwin had walked suddenly -away. This memory was somehow far more poignant -than the memory of his humiliation.... And in the -drawing-room too he had finally betrothed himself to -Hilda. That by comparison was only yesterday; yet -it was historical and distant. He was wearing his -dressing-gown, being convalescent from influenza; he -could distinctly recall the feel of his dressing-gown; -and Hilda came in--over her face was a veil....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The dining-room, whose large glistening table was -now covered with the most varied and modern -"refreshments" for the At Home, had witnessed no event -specially dramatic, but it had witnessed hundreds of -monotonous tragic meals at which the progress of his -father's mental malady and the approach of his death -could be measured by the old man's increasing disability -to distinguish between his knife and his fork; it had -seen Darius Clayhanger fed like a baby. And it had -never been the same dining-room since. Edwin might -transform it, re-paper it, re-furnish it,--the mysterious -imprint remained....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then there was the little "breakfast-room," -inserted into the plan of the house between the hall and -the kitchen. Nothing had happened there, because the -life of the household had never adjusted itself to the -new, borrowed convention of the "breakfast-room." Nothing? -But the most sensational thing had -happened there! When with an exquisite passing timidity -she took possession of Edwin's house as his wife, Hilda -had had a sudden gust of audacity in the breakfast-room. -A mature woman (with a boy aged ten to prove -it), she had effervesced into the naïve gestures of a -young girl who has inherited a boudoir. "This shall -be my very own room, and I shall arrange it just how I -like, without asking you about </span><em class="italics">anything</em><span>. And it will -be my very own." She had not offered an idea; she -had announced a decision. Edwin had had other -notions for the room, but he perceived that he must bury -them in eternal silence, and yield eagerly to this caprice. -Thus to acquiesce had given him deep and strange joy. -He was startled, perhaps, to discover that he had -brought into his house--not a woman, but a tripartite -creature--woman, child, and sibyl. Neither Maggie -nor Clara, nor Janet Orgreave, nor even Hilda before -she became his wife, had ever aroused in him the least -suspicion that a woman might be a tripartite creature. -He was married, certainly--nobody could be more -legally and respectably married than was he--but the -mere marriage seemed naught in comparison with the -enormous fact that he had got this unexampled -creature in his house and was living with her, she at his -mercy, and he at hers. Enchanting escapade! Solemn -doom! ... By the way, she had yet done nothing with -the breakfast-room. Yes, she had stolen a "cabinet" -gold frame from the shop, and put his photograph into -it, and stuck his picture on the mantelpiece; but that -was all. She would not permit him to worry her about -her secret designs for the breakfast-room. The -breakfast-room was her affair. Indeed the whole house was -her affair. It was no longer his house, in which he -could issue orders without considering another -individuality--orders that would infallibly be executed, either -cheerfully or glumly, by the plump spinster, Maggie. -He had to mind his p's and q's; he had to be wary, -everywhere. The creature did not simply live in the -house; she pervaded it. As soon as he opened the -front-door he felt her.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>She was now upstairs in their joint bedroom, dressing -for the At Home. All day he had feared she might -be late, and as he looked at the hall-clock he saw that -the risk was getting acute.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Before the domestic rearrangements preceding the -marriage had been fully discussed, he had assumed, -and Maggie and Clara had assumed, and Auntie Hamps -had absolutely assumed, that the husband and wife -would occupy the long empty bedroom of old -Darius, because it was two-foot-six broader than -Edwin's, and because it was the "principal" bedroom. -But Hilda had said No to him privately. Whereupon, -being himself almost morbidly unsentimental, -he had judiciously hinted that to object to a room -because an old man had died in it under distressing -circumstances was to be morbidly sentimental and -unworthy of her. Whereupon she had mysteriously -smiled, and called him sweet bad names, and kissed him, -and hung on his neck. </span><em class="italics">She</em><span> sentimental! Could not -the great stupid see without being told that what -influenced her was not an aversion for his father's -bedroom, but a predilection for Edwin's. She desired that -they should inhabit his room. She wanted to sleep in -his room; and to wake up in it, and to feel that she -was immersing herself in his past.... (Ah! The -exciting flattery, like an aphrodisiac!) And she would -not allow him to uproot the fixed bookcases on either -side of the hearth. She said that for her they were -part of the room itself. Useless to argue that they -occupied space required for extra furniture! She -would manage! She did manage. He found that the -acme of convenience for a husband had not been -achieved, but convenience was naught in the rapture of -the escapade. He had "needed shaking up," as they -say down there, and he was shaken up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nevertheless, though undoubtedly shaken up, he had -the male wit to perceive that the bedroom episode had -been a peculiar triumph for himself. Her attitude in -it, imperious superficially, was in truth an impassioned -and outright surrender to him. And further, she had -at once become a frankly admiring partisan of his -theory of bedrooms. The need for a comfortable solitude -earlier in life had led Edwin to make his bedroom -habitable by means of a gas-stove, an easy chair, and -minor amenities. When teased by hardy compatriots -about his sybaritism Edwin was apt sometimes to flush -and be "nettled," and he would make offensive -un-English comments upon the average bedroom of the -average English household, which was so barbaric that -during eight months of the year you could not maintain -your temperature in it unless you were either in -bed or running about the room, and that even in -Summer you could not sit down therein at ease because there -was nothing easy to sit on, nor a table to sit at nor -even a book to read. He would caustically ask to be -informed why the supposedly practical and comfort-loving -English were content with an Alpine hut for a -bedroom. And in this way he would go on. He was -rather pleased with the phrase "Alpine hut." One day -he had overheard Hilda replying to an acquaintance -upstairs: "People may say what they like, but Edwin -and I don't care to sleep in an Alpine hut." She had -caught it! She was his disciple in that matter! And -how she had appreciated his easy-chair! As for calm -deliberation in dressing and undressing, she could -astonishingly and even disconcertingly surpass him in the -quality. But it is to be noted that she would not permit -her son to have a gas-stove in his bedroom. Nor would -she let him occupy the disdained principal bedroom, her -argument being that that room was too large for a little -boy. Maggie Clayhanger's old bedroom was given to -George, and the principal bedroom remained empty.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="hilda-on-the-stairs"><span class="large">CHAPTER II</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">HILDA ON THE STAIRS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Ada descended the stairs, young, slim, very neat. -Ada was one of Hilda's two new servants. Before -taking charge of the house Hilda had ordained the -operation called "a clean sweep," and Edwin had approved. -The elder of Maggie's two servants had been a good -one, but Hilda had shown no interest in the catalogue -of her excellences. She wanted fresh servants. -Maggie, like Edwin, approved, but only as a general -principle. In the particular case she had hinted that her -prospective sister-in-law was perhaps unwise to let slip -a tested servant. Hilda wanted not merely fresh -servants, but young servants agreeable to behold. "I will -not have a lot of middle-aged scowling women about -my house," Hilda had said. Maggie was reserved, but -her glance was meant to remind Hilda that in those -end-of-the-century days mistresses had to be content -with what they could get. Young and comely servants -were all very well--if you could drop on them, but -supposing you couldn't? The fact was that Maggie could -not understand Hilda's insistence on youth and -comeliness in a servant, and she foresaw trouble for Hilda. -Hilda, however, obtained her desire. She was outspoken -with her servants. If Edwin after his manner implied -that she was dangerously ignoring the touchiness of the -modern servant, she would say indifferently: "It's -always open to them to go if they don't like it." They -did not go. It is notorious that foolhardy mistresses -are often very lucky.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As soon as Ada caught sight of her master in the -hall she became self-conscious; all the joints of her -body seemed to be hung on very resilient springs, -and,--reddening slightly,--she lowered her gaze and looked at -her tripping toes. Edwin seldom spoke to her more -than once a day, and not always that. He had one day -visited the large attic into which, with her colleague, -she disappeared late at night and from which she -emerged early in the morning, and he had seen two -small tin trunks and some clothes behind the door, and -an alarm-clock and a portrait of a fireman on the -mantelpiece. (The fireman, he seemed to recollect, was her -brother.) But she was a stranger in his house, and -he had no sustained curiosity about her. The days -were gone when he used to be the intimate of servants--of -Mrs. Nixon, for example, sole prop of the Clayhanger -family for many years, and an entirely human -being to Edwin. Mrs. Nixon had never been either -young, slim, or neat. She was dead. The last servant -whom he could be said to have known was a pert niece -of Mrs. Nixon's--now somebody's prolific wife and -much changed. And he was now somebody's husband, -and bearded, and perhaps occasionally pompous, and -much changed in other ways. So that enigmatic Adas -bridled at sight of him and became intensely aware of -themselves. Still, this Ada in her smartness was a -pretty sight for his eyes as like an aspen she trembled -down the stairs, though the coarseness of her big red -hands, and the vulgarity of her accent were a -surprising contrast to her waist and her fine carriage.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He knew she had been hooking her mistress's dress, -and that therefore the hooking must be finished. He -liked to think of Hilda being attired thus in the -bedroom by a natty deferential wench. The process gave -to Hilda a luxurious, even an oriental quality, which -charmed him. He liked the suddenly impressive tone -in which the haughty Hilda would say to Ada, "Your -master," as if mentioning a sultan. He was more and -more anxious lest Hilda should be late, and he wanted -to ask Ada: "Is Mrs. Clayhanger coming down?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But he discreetly forbore. He might have run up -to the bedroom and burst in on the toilette--Hilda -would have welcomed him. But he preferred to remain -with his anxiety where he was, and meditate upon Hilda -bedecking herself up there in the bedroom--to please -him; to please not the guests, but him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada disappeared down the narrow passage leading -to the kitchen, and a moment later he heard a crude -giggle, almost a scream, and some echo of the rough -tones in which the servants spoke to each other when -they were alone in the kitchen. There were in fact two -Adas; one was as timid as a fawn with a voice like a -delicate invalid's; the other a loud-mouthed hoity-toity -girl such as rushed out of potbanks in flannel apron at -one o'clock. The Clayhanger servants were satisfactory, -more than satisfactory, the subject of favourable -comment for their neatness among the mistresses of -other servants. He liked them to be about; their -presence and their official demeanour flattered him; they -perfected the complex superiority of his house,--that -island. But when he overheard them alone together, or -when he set himself to imagine what their soul's life -was, he was more than ever amazed at the unnoticed -profound differences between modes of thought that in -apparently the most natural manner could exist so -close together without producing a cataclysm. Auntie -Hamps's theory was that they were all--he, she, the -servants--equal in the sight of God!</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda's son, George Edwin, sidled surprisingly into -the hall. He was wearing a sailor suit, very new, and -he had probably been invisible somewhere against the -blue curtains of the drawing-room window--an example -of nature's protective mimicry. George was rather -small for his ten years. Dark, like his mother, he had -her eyes and her thick eyebrows that almost met in -the middle, and her pale skin. As for his mind, he -seemed to be sometimes alarmingly precocious and -sometimes a case of arrested development. In this and -many other respects he greatly resembled other boys. -The son of a bigamist can have no name, unless it be -his mother's maiden name, but George knew nothing -of that. He had borne his father's name, and when -at the exciting and puzzling period of his mother's -marriage he had learnt that his surname would in -future be Clayhanger he had a little resented the affront -to his egoism. Edwin's explanation, however, that the -change was for the convenience of people in general -had caused him to shrug his shoulders in concession -and to murmur casually: "Oh, well then--!" He -seemed to be assenting with loftiness: "If it's any -particular use to the whole world, I don't really mind."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, uncle," he began.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had chosen this form of address. "Stepfather" -was preposterous, and "father" somehow -offended him; so he constituted himself an uncle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello, kid!" said he. "Can you find room to keep -anything else in your pockets besides your hands?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George snatched his hands out of his pockets. Then -he smiled confidently up. These two were friends. -Edwin was as proud as the boy of the friendship, and -perhaps more flattered. At first he had not cared for -George, being repelled by George's loud, positive tones, -his brusque and often violent gestures, and his intense -absorption in himself. But gradually he had been won -by the boy's boyishness, his smile, his little, soft body, -his unspoken invocations, his resentment of injustice -(except when strict justice appeared to clash with his -own interests), his absolute impotence against adult -decrees, his touching fatalism, his recondite personal -distinction that flashed and was gone, and his occasional -cleverness and wit. He admitted that George charmed -him. But he well knew that he also charmed George. -He had a way of treating George as an equal that few -children (save possibly Clara's) could have resisted. -True, he would quiz the child, but he did not forbid the -child to quiz. The mother was profoundly relieved and -rejoiced by this friendship. She luxuriated in it. Edwin -might well have been inimical to the child; he might -through the child have shown a jealousy of the child's -father. But, somewhat to the astonishment of even -Edwin himself, he never saw the father in the child, -nor thought of the father, nor resented the parenthood -that was not his. For him the child was an individual. -And in spite of his stern determination not to fall into -the delusions of conceited parents, he could not help -thinking that George was a remarkable child.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you seen my horse?" asked George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have I seen your horse? ... Oh! ... I've seen -that you've left it lying about on the hall-table."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I put it there so that you'd see it," George -persuasively excused himself for the untidiness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, let's inspect it," Edwin forgave him, and -picked up from the table a piece of cartridge-paper -on which was a drawing of a great cart-horse with -shaggy feet. It was a vivacious sketch.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're improving," said Edwin, judicially, but in -fact much impressed. Surely few boys of ten could -draw as well as that! The design was strangely more -mature than certain quite infantile watercolours that -Edwin had seen scarcely a year earlier.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's rather good, isn't it?" George suggested, -lifting up his head so that he could just see over the edge -of the paper which Edwin held at the level of his -watch-chain.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've met worse. Where did you see this particular -animal?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I saw him down near the Brewery this morning. -But when I'm doing a horse, I see him on the paper -before I begin to draw, and I just draw round him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This kid is no ordinary kid."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, we'll pin it up here. We'll have a Royal -Academy and hear what the public has to say." He -took a pin from under his waistcoat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's not level," said George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And when Edwin had readjusted the pin, George -persisted boldly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's not level either."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's as level as it's going to be. I expect you've -been drawing horses instead of practising your piano."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He looked down at the mysterious little boy, who -lived always so much nearer to the earth's surface than -himself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George nodded simply, and then scratched his head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose if I don't practise while I'm young I shall -regret it in after life, shan't I?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who told you that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's what Auntie Hamps said to me, I think... -I say, uncle."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's up?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Mr. John coming to-night?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose so. Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, nothing.... I say, uncle."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's twice you've said it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The boy smiled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You know that piece in the Bible about if two of -you shall agree on earth--?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What of it?" Edwin asked rather curtly, anticipating -difficulties.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't think two </span><em class="italics">boys</em><span> would be enough, would -they? Two grown-ups might. But I'm not so sure -about two boys. You see in the very next verse it says -two </span><em class="italics">or three</em><span>, gathered together."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Three might be more effective. It's always as well -to be on the safe side."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Could you pray for anything? A penknife, for -instance?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But could you?" George was a little impatient.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Better ask your mother," said Edwin, who was -becoming self-conscious under the strain.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George exploded coarsely:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Poh! It's no good asking mother."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Edwin:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The great thing in these affairs is to know what -you want, and to </span><em class="italics">want</em><span> it. Concentrate as hard as you -can, a long time in advance. No use half wanting!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, there's one thing that's poz [positive]. I -couldn't begin to concentrate to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who could?" George protested. "We're all so -nervous to-night, aren't we, with this At Home -business. And I know I never could concentrate in my -best clothes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>For Edwin the boy with his shocking candour had -suddenly precipitated out of the atmosphere, as it -were, the collective nervousness of the household, made -it into a phenomenon visible, tangible, oppressive. And -the household was no longer a collection of units, but -an entity. A bell rang faintly in the kitchen, and the -sound abraded his nerves. The first guests were on -the threshold, and Hilda was late. He looked at the -clock. Yes, she was late. The hour named in the -invitations was already past. All day he had feared -lest she should be late, and she was late. He looked -at the glass of the front-door; but night had come, and -it was opaque. Ada tripped into view and ran upstairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you hear the front-door?" he stopped her flight.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was missis's bell, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" Respite!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada disappeared.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then another ring! And no parlour-maid to answer -the bell! Naturally! Naturally Hilda, forgetting -something at the last moment, had taken the parlour-maid -away precisely when the girl was needed! Oh! -He had foreseen it! He could hear shuffling outside and -could even distinguish forms through the glass--many -forms. All the people converging from various streets -upon the waiting nervousness of the household seemed -to have arrived at once.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George moved impulsively towards the front-door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are you going?" Edwin asked roughly. -"Come here. It's not your place to open the door. -Come with me in the drawing-room."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was no affair of Edwin's, thought Edwin crossly -and uncompromisingly, if guests were kept waiting at -the front-door. It was Hilda's affair; she was the -mistress of the house, and the blame was hers.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At high speed Ada swept with streamers down the -stairs, like a squirrel down the branch of a tree. And -then came Hilda.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>She stood at the turn of the stairs, waiting while -the front-door was opened. He and George could see -her over and through the banisters. And at sight of -her triumphant and happy air, all Edwin's annoyance -melted. He did not desire that it should melt, but it -melted. She was late. He could not rely on her not -to be late. In summoning the parlourmaid to her -bedroom when the parlourmaid ought to have been on -duty downstairs she had acted indefensibly and -without thought. No harm, as it happened, was done. -Sheer chance often thus saved her, but logically her -double fault was not thereby mitigated. He felt that -if he forgave her, if he dismissed the charge and wiped -the slate, he was being false to the great male principles -of logic and justice. The godlike judge in him resented -the miscarriage of justice. Nevertheless justice -miscarried. And the weak husband said like a woman: -"What does it matter?" Such was her shameful power -over him, of which the unscrupulous creature was quite -aware.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he looked at her he asked himself: "Is she -magnificent? Or is she just ordinary and am I deluded? -Does she seem her age? Is she a mature woman -getting past the prime, or has she miraculously kept -herself a young girl for me?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In years she was thirty-five. She had large bones, -and her robust body, neither plump nor slim, showed -the firm, assured carriage of its age. It said: -"I have stood before the world, and I cannot -be intimidated." Still, marriage had rejuvenated -her. She was marvellously young at times, and -experience would drop from her and leave the girl that -he had first known and kissed ten years earlier; but a -less harsh, less uncompromising girl. At their first -acquaintance she had repelled him with her truculent -seriousness. Nowadays she would laugh for no apparent -reason, and even pirouette. Her complexion was good; -he could nearly persuade himself that that olive skin -had not suffered in a decade of distress and disasters.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Previous to her marriage she had shown little -interest in dress. But now she would spasmodically -worry about her clothes, and she would make Edwin -worry. He had to decide, though he had no qualifications -as an arbiter. She would scowl at a dressmaker -as if to say: "For God's sake do realise that upon -you is laid the sacred responsibility of helping me to -please my husband!" To-night she was wearing a -striped blue dress, imperceptibly décolletée, with the -leg-of-mutton sleeves of the period. The colours, two -shades of blue, did not suit her. But she imagined -that they suited her, and so did he; and the frock was -elaborate, was the result of terrific labour and -produced a rich effect, meet for a hostess of position.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The mere fact that this woman with no talent for -coquetry should after years of narrow insufficiency -scowl at dressmakers and pout at senseless refractory -silks in the yearning for elegance was utterly delicious -to Edwin. Her presence there on the landing of the -stairs was in the nature of a miracle. He had -wanted her, and he had got her. In the end he -had got her, and nothing had been able to stop -him--not even the obstacle of her tragic adventure -with a rascal and a bigamist. The strong magic -of his passion had forced destiny to render her up to -him mysteriously intact, after all. The impossible had -occurred, and society had accepted it, beaten. There -she was, dramatically, with her thick eyebrows, and -the fine wide nostrils and the delicate lobe of the ear, -and that mouth that would startlingly fasten on him -and kiss the life out of him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There is dear Hilda!" said someone at the door amid -the arriving group.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>None but Auntie Hamps would have said 'dear' -Hilda. Maggie, Clara, and even Janet Orgreave never -used sentimental adjectives on occasions of ceremony.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And in her clear, precise, dominating voice Hilda -with gay ease greeted the company from above:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good evening, all!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What the deuce was I so upset about just now?" -thought Edwin, in sudden, instinctive, exulting felicity: -"Everything is absolutely all right."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="attack-and-repulse"><span class="large">CHAPTER III</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">ATTACK AND REPULSE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The entering guests were Edwin's younger sister -Clara with her husband Albert Benbow, his elder sister -Maggie, Auntie Hamps, and Mr. Peartree. They had -arrived together, and rather unfashionably soon after -the hour named in the invitation, because the Benbows -had called at Auntie Hamps's on the way up, and the -Benbows were always early, both in arriving and in -departing, "on account of the children." They called -themselves "early birds." Whenever they were out of -the nest in the evening they called themselves early -birds. They used the comparison hundreds, thousands, -of times, and never tired of it; indeed each time they -were convinced that they had invented it freshly for -the occasion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Auntie Hamps, magnificent in jetty black, -handsome, and above all imposing:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I knew you would be delighted to meet Mr. Peartree -again, Edwin. He is staying the night at my -house--I can be so much more hospitable now Maggie is with -me--and I insisted he should come up with us. But it -needed no insisting."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The old erect lady looked from Mr. Peartree with -pride towards her nephew.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree was a medium-sized man of fifty, with -greying sandy hair. Twenty years before, he had been -second minister in the Bursley Circuit of the Wesleyan -Methodist Connexion. He was now Superintendent -Minister in a Cheshire circuit. The unchangeable -canons of Wesleyanism permit its ministers to marry, -and celibacy is even discouraged, for the reason that -wives and daughters are expected to toil in the cause, -and their labour costs the circuit not a halfpenny. But -the canons forbid ministers to take root and found a -home. Eleven times in thirty years Mr. Peartree had -been forced to migrate to a strange circuit and to -adapt his much-travelled furniture and family to a -house which he had not chosen, and which his wife -generally did not like. During part of the period he had -secretly resented the autocracy of Superintendent -Ministers, and during the remainder he had learnt that -Superintendent Ministers are not absolute autocrats.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was neither overworked nor underpaid. He -belonged to the small tradesman class, and, keeping a -shop in St. Luke's Square, he might well have worked -harder for less money than he now earned. His -vocation, however, in addition to its desolating nomadic -quality, had other grave drawbacks. It gave him -contact with a vast number of human beings, but the -abnormal proportion among them of visionaries, bigots, -hypocrites, and petty office-seekers falsified his general -estimate of humanity. Again, the canons rigorously -forbade him to think freely for himself on the subjects -which in theory most interested him; with the result -that he had remained extremely ignorant through the -very fear of knowledge, that he was a warm enemy -of freedom, and that he habitually carried intellectual -dishonesty to the verge of cynicism. Thirdly, he was -obliged always to be diplomatic (except of course with -his family), and nature had not meant him for the -diplomatic career. He was so sick of being all things -to all men that he even dreamed diplomatic dreams as -a galley-slave will dream of the oar; and so little -gifted for the rôle that he wore insignificant tight -turned-down collars, never having perceived the -immense moral advantage conferred on the diplomatist -by a high, loose, wide-rolling collar. Also he was sick -of captivity, and this in no wise lessened his objection -to freedom. He had lost all youthful enthusiasm, and -was in fact equally bored with earth and with heaven.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nevertheless, he had authority and security. He -was accustomed to the public gaze and to the forms of -deference. He knew that he was as secure as a judge,--and -far more secure than a cabinet-minister. Nothing -but the inconceivable collapse of a powerful and wealthy -sect could affect his position or his livelihood to the -very end of life. Hence, beneath his weariness and his -professional attitudinarianism there was a hint of the -devil-may-care that had its piquancy. He could foresee -with indifference even the distant but approaching day -when he would have to rise in the pulpit and assert that -the literal inspiration of the Scriptures was not and -never had been an essential article of Wesleyan faith.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin blenched at the apparition of Mr. Peartree. -That even Auntie Hamps should dare uninvited to -bring a Wesleyan Minister to the party was startling; -but that the minister should be Mr. Peartree staggered -him. For twenty years and more Edwin had secretly, -and sometimes in public, borne a tremendous grudge -against Mr. Peartree. He had execrated, anathematised, -and utterly excommunicated Mr. Peartree, and -had extended the fearful curse to his family, all his -ancestors, and all his descendants. When Mr. Peartree -was young and fervent in the service of heaven he had -had the monstrous idea of instituting a Saturday -Afternoon Bible Class for schoolboys. Abetted by -parents weak-minded and cruel, he had caught and -horribly tortured some score of miserable victims, of -whom Edwin was one. The bitter memory of those -weekly half-holidays thieved from him and made -desolate by a sanctimonious crank had never softened, nor -had Edwin ever forgiven Mr. Peartree.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was at the sessions of the Bible Class that Edwin, -while silently perfecting himself in the art of profanity -and blasphemy, had in secret fury envenomed his -instinctive mild objection to the dogma, the ritual, and -the spirit of conventional Christianity, especially as -exemplified in Wesleyan Methodism. He had left -Mr. Peartree's Bible Class a convinced anti-religionist, a -hater and despiser of all that the Wesleyan Chapel -and Mr. Peartree stood for. He deliberately was not -impartial, and he took a horrid pleasure in being -unfair. He knew well that Methodism had produced many -fine characters, and played a part in the moral -development of the race; but he would not listen to his own -knowledge. Nothing could extenuate, for him, the -noxiousness of Methodism. On the other hand he was full -of glee if he could add anything to the indictment -against it and Christianity. Huxley's controversial -victories over Gladstone were then occurring in the -monthly press, and he acclaimed them with enormous -gusto. When he first read that the Virgin Birth was -a feature of sundry creeds more ancient than -Christianity, his private satisfaction was intense and lasted -acutely for days. When he heard that Methodism had -difficulty in maintaining its supply of adequately -equipped ministers, he rejoiced with virulence. His -hostility was the more significant in that it was -concealed--embedded like a foreign substance in the rather suave -gentleness of his nature. At intervals--increasingly -frequent, it is true--he would carry it into the chapel -itself; for through mingled cowardice and sharp -prudence, he had not formally left the Connexion. To -compensate himself for such bowings-down he would -now and then assert, judicially to a reliable male friend, -or with ferocious contempt to a scandalised defenceless -sister, that, despite all parsons, religion was not a -necessity of the human soul, and that he personally had -never felt the need of it and never would. In which -assertion he was profoundly sincere.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And yet throughout he had always thought of -himself as a rebel against authority; and--such is the -mysterious intimidating prestige of the past--he was -outwardly an apologetic rebel. Neither his intellectual -pride nor his cold sustained resentment, nor his -axiomatic conviction of the crude and total falseness of -Christian theology, nor all three together, had ever -sufficed to rid him of the self-excusing air. When -Auntie Hamps spoke with careful reverence of "the -Super" (short for "superintendent minister"), the -word had never in thirty years quite failed to inspire in -him some of the awe with which he had heard it as an -infant. Just as a policeman was not an employee but -a </span><em class="italics">policeman</em><span>, so a minister was not a person of the -trading-class who happened to have been through a -certain educational establishment, subscribed to certain -beliefs, submitted to certain ceremonies and adopted a -certain costume,--but a </span><em class="italics">minister</em><span>, a being inexplicably -endowed with authority,--in fact a sort of arch-policeman. -And thus, while detesting and despising him, -Edwin had never thought of Abel Peartree as merely a man.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Now, in the gas-lit bustle of the hall, after an -interval of about twenty years, he beheld again his enemy, -his bugbear, his loathed oppressor, the living symbol -of all that his soul condemned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Mrs. Hamps:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I reminded Mr. Peartree that you used to attend -his Bible-class, Edwin. Do you remember? I hope -you do."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes!" said Edwin, with a slight nervous laugh, -blushing. His eye caught Clara's, but there was no -sign whatever of the old malicious grin on her maternal -face. Nor did Maggie's show a tremor. And, of -course, the majestic duplicity of Auntie Hamps did -not quiver under the strain. So that the Rev. Mr. Peartree, -protesting honestly that he should have -recognised his old pupil Mr. Clayhanger anywhere, never -suspected the terrific drama of the moment.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And the next moment there was no drama.... -Teacher and pupil shook hands. The recognition was -mutual. To Edwin, Mr. Peartree, save for the greying -of his hair, had not changed. His voice, his form, his -gestures, were absolutely the same. Only, instead of -being Mr. Peartree, he was a man like another -man--a commonplace, hard-featured, weary man; a spare -little man, with a greenish-black coat and bluish-white -low collar; a perfunctory, listless man with an -unpleasant voice; a man with the social code of the -Benbows and Auntie Hamps; a man the lines of whose -face disclosed a narrow and self-satisfied ignorance; a -man whose destiny had forbidden him ever to be -natural; the usual snobbish man, who had heard of the -importance and the success and the wealth of Edwin -Clayhanger and who kowtowed thereto and was naïvely -impressed thereby, and proud that Edwin Clayhanger -had once been his pupil; and withal an average decent -fellow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin rather liked the casual look in Mr. Peartree's -eyes that said: "My being here is part of my job. -I'm indifferent. I do what I have to do, and I really -don't care. I have paid tens of thousands of calls -and I shall pay tens of thousands more. If I am bored -I am paid to be bored, and I repeat I really don't care." This -was the human side of Mr. Peartree showing itself. -It endeared him to Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not a bad sort of cuss, after all!" thought Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All the carefully tended rage and animosity of twenty -years evaporated out of his heart and was gone. He -did not forgive Mr. Peartree, because there was no -Mr. Peartree--there was only this man. And there was -no Wesleyan chapel either, but only an ugly forlorn -three-quarters-empty building at the top of Duck Bank. -And Edwin was no longer an apologetic rebel, nor even -any kind of a rebel. It occurred to nobody, not even -to the mighty Edwin, that in those few seconds the -history of dogmatic religion had passed definitely out of -one stage into another.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Abel Peartree nonchalantly, and with a practised -aplomb which was not disturbed even by the vision of -George's heroic stallion, said the proper things to -Edwin and Hilda; and it became known, somehow, that -the parson was re-visiting Bursley in order to deliver -his well-known lecture entitled "The Mantle and -Mission of Elijah,"--the sole lecture of his repertoire, but -it had served to raise him ever so slightly out of the -ruck of 'Supers.' Hilda patronised him. Against the -rich background of her home, she assumed the pose of -the grand lady. Abel Peartree seemed to like the pose, -and grew momentarily vivacious in knightly response. -"And why not?" said Edwin to himself, justifying his -wife after being a little critical of her curtness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then, when the conversation fell, Auntie Hamps -discreetly suggested that she and the girls should "go -upstairs." The negligent Hilda had inexcusably -forgotten in her nervous excitement that on these -occasions arriving ladies should be at once escorted to the -specially-titivated best bedroom, there to lay their -things on the best counterpane. She perhaps ought to -have atoned for her negligence by herself leading -Auntie Hamps to the bedroom. But instead she -deputed Ada. "And why not?" said Edwin to himself -again. As the ladies mounted Mr. Peartree laughed -genuinely at one of Albert Benbow's characteristic -pleasantries, which always engloomed Edwin. "Kindred -spirits, those two!" thought the superior sardonic -Edwin, and privately raised his eyebrows to his wife, -who answered the signal.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Somewhat later, various other guests having come -and distributed themselves over the reception-rooms, -the chandeliers glinted down their rays upon light -summer frocks and some jewellery and coats of black and -dark grey and blue; and the best counterpanes in the -best bedroom were completely hidden by mantles and -cloaks, and the hatstand in the hall heavily clustered -with hats and caps. The reception was in being, and -the interior full of animation. Edwin, watchful and -hospitably anxious, wandered out of the drawing-room -into the hall. The door of the breakfast-room was -ajar, and he could hear Clara's voice behind it. He -knew that the Benbows and Maggie and Auntie Hamps -were all in the breakfast-room, and he blamed chiefly -Clara for this provincial clannishness, which was so -characteristic of her. Surely Auntie Hamps at any -rate ought to have realised that the duty of members -of the family was to spread themselves among the other -guests!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He listened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," Clara was saying, "we don't know what's -happened to him since he came out of prison. He got two -years." She was speaking in what Edwin called her -'scandal' tones, low, clipped, intimate, eager, blissful.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then Albert Benbow's voice:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's had the good sense not to bother us."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, while resenting the conversation, and the -Benbows' use of "we" and "us" in a matter which did -not concern them, was grimly comforted by the thought -of their ignorance of a detail which would have -interested them passionately. None but Hilda and -himself knew that the bigamist was at that moment in -prison again for another and a later offence. Everything -had been told but that.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Clara, "they needn't have said -anything about the bigamy at all, and nobody outside -the family need have known that poor Hilda was not -just an ordinary widow. But we all thought--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know so much about that, Clary," Albert -Benbow interrupted his wife; "you mustn't forget his -real wife came to Turnhill to make enquiries. That -started a hare."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you know what I mean," said Clara vaguely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree's voice came in:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But surely the case was in the papers?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I expect it was in the Sussex papers," Albert -replied. "You see, they went through the ceremony of -marriage at Lewes. But it never got into the local -rag, because he got married in his real name--Cannon -wasn't his real name; and he'd no address in the -Five Towns, then. He was just a boarding-house -keeper at Brighton. It was a miracle it -didn't get into the </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span>, if you ask me; but it -didn't. I happen to know"--his voice grew important--"that -the </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span> people have an arrangement with -the Press Association for a full report of all matrimonial -cases that 'ud be likely to interest the district. -However, the Press Association weren't quite on the -spot that time. And it's not surprising they weren't, -either."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara resumed:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. It never came out. Still, as I say, we all -thought it best not to conceal anything. Albert -strongly advised Edwin not to attempt any such -thing." ("What awful rot!" thought Edwin.) "So we just -mentioned it quietly like to a few friends. After all, -poor Hilda was perfectly innocent. Of course she felt -her position keenly when she came to live here after -the wedding." ("Did she indeed!" thought Edwin.) "Edwin -would have the wedding in London. We did -so feel for her." ("Did you indeed!" thought Edwin.) "She -wouldn't have an At Home. I knew it was a -mistake not to. We all knew. But no, </span><em class="italics">she would not</em><span>. -Folks began to talk. They thought it strange she -didn't have an At Home like other folks. Many young -married women have two At Homes nowadays. So in -the end she was persuaded. She fixed it for August -because she thought so many people would be away at -the seaside. But they aren't--at least not so many as -you'd think. Albert says it's owing to the General -Election upset. And she wouldn't have it in the -afternoon like other folks. Mrs. Edwin isn't like other -folks, and you can't alter her."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter with the evening for an At Home, -anyhow?" asked Benbow the breezy and consciously -broad-minded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, of course, </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> quite agree. I like it. But folks -are so funny."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After a momentary pause, Mr. Peartree said uncertainly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And there's a little boy?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Clara:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, the one you've seen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Auntie Hamps:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor little thing! I do feel so sorry for -him--when he grows up--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't, Auntie," said Maggie curtly, expressing -her attitude to George in that mild curtness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Clara quickly. "We never let it -make any difference. In fact our Bert and he are -rather friends, aren't they, Albert?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At this moment George himself opened the door of -the dining-room, letting out a faint buzz of talk and -clink of vessels. His mouth was not empty.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Precipitately Edwin plunged into the breakfast-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello! You people!" he murmured. "Well, -Mr. Peartree."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There they were--all of them, including the parson--grouped -together, lusciously bathing in the fluid of -scandal.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara turned, and without the least constraint said -sweetly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Edwin! There you are! I was just telling -Mr. Peartree about you and Hilda, you know. We -thought it would be better."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You see," said Auntie Hamps impressively, "Mr. Peartree -will be about the town to-morrow, and a word -from him--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree tried unsuccessfully to look as if he -was nobody in particular.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's all right," said Edwin. "Perhaps the door -might as well be shut." He thought, as many a man -has thought: "My relations take the cake!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara occupied the only easy chair in the room. -Mrs. Hamps and the parson were seated. Maggie -stood. Albert Benbow, ever uxorious, was perched -sideways on the arm of his wife's chair. Clara, centre -of the conclave and of all conclaves in which she took -part, was the mother of five children,--and nearing -thirty-five years of age. Maternity had ruined her once -slim figure, but neither she nor Albert seemed to mind -that,--they seemed rather to be proud of her unshapeliness. -Her face was unspoiled. She was pretty and had -a marvellously fair complexion. In her face Edwin -could still always plainly see the pert, charming, -malicious girl of fourteen who loathed Auntie Hamps and -was rude to her behind her back. But Clara and Auntie -Hamps were fast friends nowadays. Clara's brood had -united them. They thought alike on all topics. Clara -had accepted Auntie Hamps's code practically entire; -but on the other hand she had dominated Auntie -Hamps. The respect which Auntie Hamps showed for -Clara and for Edwin, and in a slightly less degree for -Maggie, was a strange phenomenon in the old age of -that grandiose and vivacious pillar of Wesleyanism and -the conventions.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not like Clara; he objected to her domesticity, -her motherliness, her luxuriant fruitfulness, the -intonations of her voice, her intense self-satisfaction -and her remarkable duplicity; and perhaps more than -anything to her smug provinciality. He did not -positively dislike his brother-in-law, but he objected to him -for his uxoriousness, his cheerful assurance of Clara's -perfection, his contented and conceited ignorance of -all intellectual matters, his incorrigible vulgarity of a -small manufacturer who displays everywhere the -stigmata of petty commerce, and his ingenuous love of -office. As for Maggie, the plump spinster of forty, -Edwin respected her when he thought of her, but -reproached her for social gawkiness and taciturnity. As -for Auntie Hamps, he could not respect, but he was -forced to admire, her gorgeous and sustained hypocrisy, -in which no flaw had ever been found, and which -victimised even herself; he was always invigorated by her -ageless energy and the sight of her handsome, erect, -valiant figure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's absence had stopped the natural free course -of conversation. But there were at least three people -in the room whom nothing could abash: Mrs. Hamps, -Clara, and Mr. Peartree.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree, sitting up with his hands on his baggy -knees, said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Everything seems to have turned out very well in -the end, Mr. Clayhanger--very well, indeed." His -features showed less of the tedium of life.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh, yes! Eh, yes!" breathed Auntie Hamps in -ecstasy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, diffident and ill-pleased, was about to suggest -that the family might advantageously separate, when -George came after him into the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" cried George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, little jockey!" Clara began instantly to him -with an exaggerated sweetness that Edwin thought must -nauseate the child, "would you like Bert to come up and -play with you one of these afternoons?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George stared at her, and slowly flushed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said George. "Only--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Only what?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Supposing I was doing something else when he came?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Without waiting for possible developments George -turned to leave the room again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're a caution, you are!" said Albert Benbow; -and to the adults: "Hates to be disturbed, I suppose."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's it," said Edwin responsively, as brother-in-law -to brother-in-law. But he felt that he, with a few -months' experience of another's child, appreciated the -exquisite strange sensibility of children infinitely better -than Albert were he fifty times a father.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is a caution, Uncle Albert?" asked George, -peeping back from the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps good-humouredly warned the child of -the danger of being impertinent to his elders:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"George! George!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A caution is a caution to snakes," said Albert. -"Shoo!" Making a noise like a rocket, he feinted to -pursue the boy with violence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree laughed rather loudly, and rather like -a human being, at the word "snakes." Albert Benbow's -flashes of humour, indeed, seemed to surprise -him, if only for an instant, out of his attitudinarianism.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara smiled, flattered by the power of her husband -to reveal the humanity of the parson.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Albert's so good with children," she said. "He -always knows exactly..." She stopped, leaving -what he knew exactly to the listeners' imagination.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Uncle Albert and George could be heard scuffling -in the hall.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps rose with a gentle sigh, saying:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose we ought to join the others."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her social sense, which was pretty well developed, -had at last prevailed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The sisters Maggie and Clara, one in light and -the other in dark green, walked out of the room. -Maggie's face had already stiffened into mute constraint, -and Clara's into self-importance, at the prospect of -meeting the general company.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Auntie Hamps held back, and Edwin at once perceived -from the conspiratorial glance in her splendid -eyes that in suggesting a move she had intended to -deceive her fellow-conspirator in life, Clara. But -Auntie Hamps could not live without chicane. And -she was happiest when she had superimposed chicane -upon chicane in complex folds.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She put a ringed hand softly but arrestingly upon -Edwin's arm, and pushed the door to. Alone with her -and the parson, Edwin felt himself to be at bay, and he -drew back before an unknown menace.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin, dear," said she, "Mr. Peartree has something -to suggest to you. I was going to say 'a favour to -ask,' but I won't put it like that. I'm sure my nephew -will look upon it as a privilege. You know how much -Mr. Peartree has at heart the District Additional -Chapels Fund--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not know how much; but he had heard of -the Macclesfield District Additional Chapels Fund, -Bursley being one of the circuits in the Macclesfield -District. Wesleyanism finding itself confronted with -lessening congregations and with a shortage of ministers, -the Macclesfield District had determined to prove -that Wesleyanism was nevertheless spiritually vigorous -by the odd method of building more chapels. Mr. Peartree, -inventor of Saturday afternoon Bible-Classes -for schoolboys, was one of the originators of the bricky -scheme, and in fact his lecture upon the "Mantle and -Mission of Elijah" was to be in aid of it. The next -instant Mr. Peartree had invited Edwin to act as District -Treasurer of the Fund, the previous treasurer having -died.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>More chicane! The parson's visit, then, was not a -mere friendly call, inspired by the moment. It was -part of a scheme. It had been planned against him. -Did they (he seemed to be asking himself) think him -so ingenuous, so simple, as not to see through their -dodge? If not, then why the preliminary pretences? -He did not really ask himself these questions, for the -reason that he knew the answers to them. When a -piece of chicane had succeeded Auntie Hamps forgot -it, and expected others to forget it,--or at any rate -she dared, by her magnificent front, anybody on earth -to remind her of it. She was quite indifferent whether -Edwin saw through her dodge or not.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're so good at business," said she.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ah! She would insist on the business side of the -matter, affecting to ignore the immense moral -significance which would be attached to Edwin's acceptance -of the office! Were he to yield, the triumph for -Methodism would ring through the town. He read all -her thoughts. Nothing could break down her magnificent -front. She had cornered him by a device; she had -him at bay; and she counted on his weak good-nature, -on his easy-going cowardice, for a victory.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree talked. Mr. Peartree expressed his -certitude that Edwin was "with them at heart," and -his absolute reliance upon Edwin's sense of the -responsibilities of a man in his, Edwin's, position. Auntie -Hamps recalled with fervour Edwin's early activities -in Methodism--the Young Men's Debating Society, -for example, which met at six o'clock on frosty winter -mornings for the proving of the faith by dialectics.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin faltered in his speech.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to get Albert," he feebly suggested.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no!" said Auntie. "Albert is grand in his -own line. But for this, </span><em class="italics">we want a man like you</em><span>."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was a master-stroke. Edwin had the illusion of -trembling, and yet he knew that he did not tremble, even -inwardly. He seemed to see the forces of evolution and -the forces of reaction ranged against each other in a -supreme crisis. He seemed to see the alternative of two -futures for himself--and in one he would be a humiliated -and bored slave, and in the other a fine, reckless ensign -of freedom. He seemed to be doubtful of his own -courage. But at the bottom of his soul he was not doubtful. -He remembered all the frightful and degrading ennui -which when he was young he had suffered as a martyr to -Wesleyanism and dogma, all the sinister deceptions -which he had had to practise and which had been -practised upon him. He remembered his almost life-long -intense hatred of Mr. Peartree. And he might have -clenched his hands bitterly and said with homicidal -animosity: "</span><em class="italics">Now</em><span> I will pay you out! And I will tell you -the truth! And I will wither you up and incinerate you, -and be revenged for everything in one single sentence!" But -he felt no bitterness, and his animosity was dead. -At the bottom of his soul there was nothing but a bland -indifference that did not even scorn.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," he said quietly. "I shan't be your treasurer. -You must ask somebody else."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A vast satisfaction filled him. The refusal was so -easy, the opposing forces so negligible.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps and Mr. Peartree knew nothing of -the peculiar phenomena induced in Edwin's mind by -the first sight of the legendary Abel Peartree after -twenty years. But Auntie Hamps, though puzzled for -an explanation, comprehended that she was decisively -beaten. The blow was hard. Nevertheless she did not -wince. The superb pretence must be kept up, and she -kept it up. She smiled and, tossing her curls, checked -Edwin with cheerful, indomitable rapidity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, now! Don't decide at once. Think it over -very carefully, and we shall ask you again. Mr. Peartree -will write to you. I feel sure..."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Appearances were preserved.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The colloquy was interrupted by Hilda, who came in -excited, gay, with sparkling eyes, humming an air. She -had protested vehemently against an At Home. She -had said again and again that the idea of an At Home -was abhorrent to her, and that she hated all such -wholesale formal hospitalities and could not bear -"people." And yet now she was enchanted with her situation as -hostess--delighted with herself and her rich dress, -almost ecstatically aware of her own attractiveness and -domination. The sight of her gave pleasure and -communicated zest. Mature, she was yet only beginning -life. And as she glanced with secret condescension at -the listless Mr. Peartree she seemed to say: "What is -all this talk of heaven and hell? I am in love with life -and the senses, and everything is lawful to me, and I -am above you." And even Auntie Hamps, though one -of the most self-sufficient creatures that ever lived, -envied in her glorious decay the young maturity of -sensuous Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Hilda. "What's going on </span><em class="italics">here</em><span>? -They're all gone mad about missing words in the drawing-room."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She smiled splendidly at Edwin, whose pride in her -thrilled him. Her superiority to other women was -patent. She made other women seem negative. In fact, -she was a tingling woman before she was anything -else--that was it! He compared her with Clara, who -was now nothing but a mother, and to Maggie, who had -never been anything at all.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree made the mistake of telling her the -subject of the conversation. She did not wait to hear -what Edwin's answer had been.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She said curtly, and with finality:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no! I won't have it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not quite like this. The matter concerned -him alone, and he was an absolutely free agent. -She ought to have phrased her objection differently. -For example, she might have said: "I hope he has refused."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Still, his annoyance was infinitesimal.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The poor boy works quite hard enough as it is," -she added, with delicious caressing intonation of the -first words.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He liked that. But she was confusing the issue. -She always would confuse the issue. It was not because -the office would involve extra work for him that he had -declined the invitation, as she well knew.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Of course Auntie Hamps said in a flash:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If it means overwork for him I shouldn't dream--" She -was putting the safety of appearances beyond -doubt.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"By the way, Auntie," Hilda continued. "What's -the trouble about the pew down at chapel? Both Clara -and Maggie have mentioned it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Trouble, my dear?" exclaimed Auntie Hamps, justifiably -shocked that Hilda should employ such a word -in the presence of Mr. Peartree. But Hilda was apt -to be headlong.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>To the pew originally taken by Edwin's father, and -since his death standing in Edwin's name, Clara had -brought her husband; and although it was a long pew, -the fruits of the marriage had gradually filled it, so that -if Edwin chanced to go to chapel there was not too -much room for him in the pew, which presented the -appearance of a second-class railway carriage crowded -with season-ticket holders. Albert Benbow had -suggested that Edwin should yield up the pew to the -Benbows, and take a smaller pew for himself and Hilda -and George. But the women had expressed fear lest -Edwin "might not like" this break in a historic -tradition, and Albert Benbow had been forbidden to put -forward the suggestion until the diplomatic sex had -examined the ground.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We shall be only too pleased for Albert to take -over the pew," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But have you chosen another pew?" Mrs. Hamps -looked at Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no!" said Hilda lightly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, Auntie," the tingling woman warned Auntie -Hamps as one powerful individuality may warn -another, "don't worry about us. You know we're not -great chapel-goers."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She spoke the astounding words gaily, but firmly. -She could be firm, and even harsh, in her triumphant -happiness. Edwin knew that she detested Auntie -Hamps. Auntie Hamps no doubt also knew it. In -their mutual smilings, so affable, so hearty, so -appreciative, apparently so impulsive, the hostility between -them gleamed mysteriously like lightning in sunlight.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Edwin's family were Church of England," -said Auntie Hamps, in the direction of Mr. Peartree.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nor great church-goers, either," Hilda finished -cheerfully.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>No woman had ever made such outrageous remarks -in the Five Towns before. A quarter of a century ago -a man might have said as much, without suffering in -esteem--might indeed have earned a certain intellectual -prestige by the declaration; but it was otherwise with a -woman. Both Mrs. Hamps and the minister thought -that Hilda was not going the right way to live down her -dubious past. Even Edwin in his pride was flurried. -Great matters, however, had been accomplished. Not -only had the attack of Auntie Hamps and Mr. Peartree -been defeated, but the defence had become an onslaught. -Not only was he not the treasurer of the District -Additional Chapels Fund, but he had practically ceased -to be a member of the congregation. He was free with -a freedom which he had never had the audacity to -hope for. It was incredible! Yet there it was! A -word said, bravely, in a particular tone,--and a new -epoch was begun. The pity was that he had not done -it all himself. Hilda's courage had surpassed his own. -Women were astounding. They were disconcerting -too. His manly independence was ever so little wounded -by Hilda's boldness in initiative on their joint behalf.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do come and take something, Auntie," said Hilda, -with the most winning, the most loving inflection.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps passed out.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda turned back into the room: "Do go with -Auntie, Mr. Peartree. I must just--" She affected -to search for something on the mantelpiece.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Peartree passed out. He was unmoved. He did -not care in his heart. And as Edwin caught his -indifferent eye, with that "it's-all-one-to-me" glint in it, -his soul warmed again slightly to Mr. Peartree. And -further, Mr. Peartree's aloof unworldliness, his -personal practical unconcern with money, feasting, -ambition, and all the grosser forms of self-satisfaction, made -Edwin feel somewhat a sensual average man and -accordingly humiliated him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As soon as, almost before, Mr. Peartree was beyond -the door, Hilda leaped at Edwin, and kissed him -violently. The door was not closed. He could hear the -varied hum of the party.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I had to kiss you while it's all going on," she -whispered. Ardent vitality shimmered in her eyes.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-word"><span class="large">CHAPTER IV</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE WORD</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Ada was just crossing the hall to the drawing-room, -a telegram on a salver in her red hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here you are, Ada," said Edwin, stopping her, -with a gesture towards the telegram.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's for Mr. Tom Swetnam, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin and Hilda followed the starched and fussy -girl into the drawing-room, in which were about a dozen -people, including Fearns, the lawyer, and his wife, the -recently married Stephen and Vera Cheswardine, -several Swetnams, and Janet Orgreave, who sat at the -closed piano, smiling vaguely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tom Swetnam, standing up, took the telegram.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I never knew they delivered telegrams at this time -o' night," said Fearns sharply, looking at his watch. -He was wont to keep a careful eye on the organisation -of railways, ships, posts, and other contrivances for -the shifting of matter from one spot to another. An -exacting critic of detail, he was proud of them in the -mass, and called them civilisation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They don't," said Tom Swetnam naughtily, glad -to plague a man older than himself, and the father of -a family. Tom was a mere son, but he had travelled, -and was, indeed, just returned from an excursion -through Scandinavia. "Observe there's no deception. -The envelope's been opened. Moreover, it's addressed -to Ben Clewlow, not to me. Ben's sent it up. I asked -him to. Now, we'll see."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Having displayed the envelope like a conjurer, he -drew forth the telegram, and prepared to read it aloud. -One half of the company was puzzled; the other half -showed an instructed excitement. Tom read the message:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Twenty-seven pounds ten nine. Philosophers tell -us that there is nothing new under the sun. Nevertheless -it may well be doubted whether the discovery of -gold at Barmouth, together with two earthquake shocks -following each other in quick succession in the same -district, does not constitute, in the history of the -gallant little Principality, a double event of -unique--'" He stopped.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Vera Cheswardine, pretty, fluffy, elegant, cried out -with all the impulsiveness of her nature:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Novelty!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Whatever is it all about?" mildly asked Mrs. Fearns, -a quiet and dignified, youngish woman whom motherhood -had made somewhat absent-minded when she was -away from her children.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Missing-word competition," Fearns explained to -her with curt, genial superiority. He laughed -outright. "You do go it, some of you chaps," he said. -"Why, that telegram cost over a couple of bob, I bet!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you see," said Tom Swetnam, "three of us -share it. We get it thirty-six hours before the paper's -out--fellow in London--and there's so much more time -to read the dictionary. No use half doing a thing! -Twenty-seven pounds odd! Not a bad share this week, eh?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Won anything?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather. We had the wire about the winning word -this morning. We'd sent it in four times. That makes -about £110, doesn't it? Between three of us. We sent -in nearly two hundred postal orders. Which leaves -£100 clear. Thirty-three quid apiece, net."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He tried to speak calmly and nonchalantly, but his -excitement was extreme. The two younger Swetnams -regarded him with awe. Everybody was deeply -impressed by the prodigious figures, and in many hearts -envy, covetousness, and the wild desire for a large, -free life of luxury were aroused.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Seems to me you've reduced this game to a science," -said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, we have," Tom Swetnam admitted. "We send -in every possible word."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a mere thousand per cent profit per week," -murmured Fearns. "At the rate of fifty thousand per -cent per annum."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert Benbow, entering, caught the last phrase, -which very properly whetted his curiosity as a man of -business. Clara followed him closely. On nearly all -ceremonial occasions these two had an instinctive need -of each other's presence and support; and if Albert did -not run after Clara, Clara ran after Albert.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Then came the proof of the genius, the cynicism -and the insight of the leviathan newspaper-proprietor -who had invented the dodge of inviting his readers to -risk a shilling and also to buy a coupon for the privilege -of supplying a missing word, upon the understanding -that the shillings of those who supplied the wrong word -should be taken for ever away from them and given to -those who supplied the right word. The entire -company in the Clayhanger drawing-room was absorbed -in the tremendous missing-word topic, and listened to -Swetnam as to a new prophet bearing the secret of -eternal felicity. The rumour of Swetnam's triumph -drew people out of the delectable dining-room to listen -to his remarks; and among these was Auntie Hamps. -So it was in a thousand, in ten thousand, in hundreds -of thousands of homes of all kinds throughout the -kingdom. The leviathan journalist's readers (though -as a rule they read nothing in his paper save the -truncated paragraph and the rules of the competition) had -grown to be equivalent to the whole British public. And -he not only held them but he had overshadowed all -other interests in their minds. Upon honeymoons -people thought of the missing-word amid caresses, and -it is a fact that people had died with the missing word -on their lips. Sane adults of both sexes read the -dictionary through from end to end every week with an -astounding conscientiousness. The leviathan -newspaper-proprietor could not buy enough paper, nor hire -sufficient presses, to meet the national demands. And -no wonder, seeing that any small news-agent in a side -street was liable at any moment to receive an order -from an impassioned student of periodical literature -for more copies of one issue of the journal than the -whole town had been used to buy before the marvellous -invention of the missing-word. The post office was -incommoded; even the Postmaster General was -incommoded, and only by heroical efforts and miraculous -feats of resourcefulness did he save himself from the -ignominy of running out of shilling postal orders. Post -office girls sold shilling postal orders with a sarcastic -smile, with acerbity, with reluctance,--it was naught to -them that the revenue was benefited and the pressure on -taxpayers eased. Employers throughout the islands -suffered vast losses owing to the fact that for months -their offices and factories were inhabited not by clerks -and other employees, but by wage-paid monomaniacs -who did naught but read dictionaries and cut out and -fill up coupons. And over all the land there hung the -dark incredible menace of an unjust prosecution under -the Gambling Laws, urged by interfering busybodies -who would not let a nation alone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And how much did you make last week, Mr. Swetnam?" -judicially asked Albert Benbow, who was rather -pleased and flattered, as an active Wesleyan, to rub -shoulders with frank men of the world like Tom. As -an active Wesleyan he had hitherto utterly refused to -listen to the missing-word; but now it seemed to be -acquiring respectability enough for his ears.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Swetnam replied with a casual air:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We didn't make much last week. We won -something, of course. We win every week; that's a -mathematical certainty--but sometimes the expenses mount -up a bit higher than the receipts. It depends on the -word. If it's an ordinary word that everybody chooses, -naturally the share is a small one because there are so -many winners." He gave no more exact details.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara breathed a disillusioned "Oh!" implying that -she had known there must be some flaw in the scheme--and -her husband had at once put his finger on it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But her husband, with incipient enthusiasm for the -word, said: "Well, it stands to reason they must take -one week with another, and average it out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, Albert! Now, Albert!" Edwin warned him. -"No gambling."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert replied with some warmth: "I don't see that -there's any gambling in it. Appears to me that it's -chiefly skill and thoroughness that does the trick."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Gambling!" murmured Tom Swetnam shortly. "Of -course it's not gambling."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Vera Cheswardine, "I say 'novelty.' -'A double event of unique novelty.' That's it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't go nap on 'novelty,' if I were you," -said Tom Swetnam, the expert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tom read the thing again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Novelty," Vera repeated. "I know it's novelty. -I'm always right, aren't I, Stephen?" She looked -round. "Ask Stephen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You were right last week but one, my child," said -Stephen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And did you make anything?" Clara demanded eagerly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Only fifteen shillings," said Vera discontentedly. -"But if Stephen had listened to me we should have -made lots."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert Benbow's interest in the word was strengthened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Fearns, leaning carefully back in his chair, asked -with fine indifference: "By the way, what is this week's -word, Tom? I haven't your secret sources of information. -I have to wait for the paper."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Unaccountably,'" said Tom. "Had you anything on it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," Fearns admitted. "I've caught a cold this -week, it seems."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert Benbow stared at him. Here was another -competitor--and as acute a man of business as you -would find in the Five Towns!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Me, too!" said Edwin, smiling like a culprit.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda sprang up gleefully, and pointed at him a -finger of delicious censure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! You wicked sinner! You never told me you'd -gone in! You deceitful old thing!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, it was a man at the shop who would have me -try," Edwin boyishly excused himself.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda's vivacity enchanted Edwin. The charm of -her reproof was simply exquisite in its good-nature and -in the elegance of its gesture. The lingering taste of -the feverish kiss she had given him a few minutes earlier -bemused him and he flushed. To conceal his inconvenient -happiness in the thought of his wife he turned -to open the new enlarged window that gave on the -garden. (He had done away with the old garden-entrance -of the house, and thrown the side corridor into the -drawing-room.) Then he moved towards Janet -Orgreave, who was still seated at the closed piano.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Your father isn't coming, I suppose?" he asked her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The angelic spinster, stylishly dressed in white, and -wearing as usual her kind heart on her sleeve, smiled -with soft benignity, and shook her head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He told me to tell you he was too old. He is, you -know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And how's your mother?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, pretty well, considering.... I really ought -not to leave them."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes!" Edwin protested. The momentary vision -of Mr. and Mrs. Orgreave in the large house close by, -now practically deserted by all their children except -Janet, saddened him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then a loud voice dominated the general conversation -behind him:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, this is a bit stiff. I did think I should be -free of it here. But no! Same old missing-word -everywhere! What is it this week, Swetnam?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was Johnnie Orgreave, appreciably younger than -his sister, but a full-grown man of the world, and -somewhat dandiacal. After shaking hands with Hilda -he came straight to Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Awfully sorry I'm so late, old chap. How do, Jan?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course you are," Edwin quizzed him like an uncle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where's Ingpen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not come."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not come! He said he should be here at eight. -Just like him!" said Johnnie. "I expect he's had a -puncture."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've been looking out for him every minute," Edwin -muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the middle of the room Albert Benbow, stocky -and vulgar, but feeling himself more and more a man -of the world among men and women of the world, was -proclaiming, not without excitement:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I agree with Mrs. Cheswardine. 'Novelty' 's -much more likely than 'interest.' 'Interest' 's the wrong -kind of word altogether. It doesn't agree with the -beginning of the paragraph."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's right, Mr. Benbow," Vera encouraged him -with flirtatious dimples. "You put your money on me, -even if my own husband won't." Albert as a dowdy -dissenter was quite out of her expensive sphere, but to -Vera any man was a man.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, Albert," Clara warned him, "if you win anything, -you must give it to me for the new perambulator."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>("Dash that girl's infernal domesticity!" thought -Edwin savagely.)</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who says I'm going in for it, missis?" Albert challenged.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I only say </span><em class="italics">if</em><span> you do, dear," Clara said smoothly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I </span><em class="italics">will</em><span>!" Albert announced the great decision. -"Just for the fun of the thing, I will. Thank ye, -Mrs. Cheswardine."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He glanced at Mrs. Cheswardine as a knight at his -unattainable mistress. Indeed the decision had in it -something of the chivalrous; the attention of slim -provocative Vera, costliest and most fashionably -dressed woman in Bursley, had stirred his fancy to -wander far beyond its usual limits.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Albert! Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't mind, do you Auntie?" said Albert -jovially, standing over her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not if it's not gambling," said Mrs. Hamps stoutly. -"And I hope it isn't. And it would be very nice for -Clara, I'm sure, if you won."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hurrah for Mrs. Hamps!" Johnnie Orgreave almost yelled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the same moment, Janet Orgreave, swinging -round on the music-stool, lifted the lid of the piano, -and, still with her soft, angelic smile, played loudly -and dashingly the barbaric, Bacchic, orgiastic melody -which had just recently inflamed England, Scotland, -Ireland, Wales, and the Five Towns--the air which -was unlike anything ever heard before by British -ears, and which meant nothing whatever that could be -avowed, the air which heralded social revolutions and -inaugurated a new epoch. And as the ringed fingers -of the quiet, fading spinster struck out the shocking -melody, Vera Cheswardine and one or two others who -had been to London and there seen the great legendary -figure, Lottie Collins, hummed more or less brazenly -the syllables heavy with mysterious significance:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Tarara-boom-deay!</em></div> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">Tarara-boom-deay!</em></div> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">Tarara-boom-deay!</em></div> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">Tarara-boom-deay!</em><span>"</span></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Upon this entered Mr. Peartree, like a figure of -retribution, and silence fell.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm afraid..." he began. "Mr. Benbow."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They spoke together.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A scared servant-girl had come up from the Benbow -home with the affrighting news that Bert Benbow, who -had gone to bed with the other children as usual, was -not in his bed and could not be discovered in the house. -Mr. Peartree, being in the hall, had chosen himself to -bear the grievous tidings to the drawing-room. In an -instant Albert and Clara were parents again. Both -had an idea that the unprecedented, incomprehensible -calamity was a heavenly dispensation to punish them -for having trifled with the missing-word. Their sudden -seriousness was terrific. They departed immediately, -without ceremony of any sort. Mrs. Hamps said that -she really ought to go too, and Maggie said that as -Auntie Hamps was going she also would go. The -parson said that he had already stayed longer than he -ought, in view of another engagement, and he followed. -Edwin and Hilda dutifully saw them off and were as -serious as the circumstances demanded. But those who -remained in the drawing-room sniggered, and when -Hilda rejoined them she laughed. The house felt -lighter. Edwin, remaining longest at the door, saw a -bicyclist on one of the still quaint pneumatic-tyred -"safety" bicycles, coming along behind a "King of the -Road" lamp. The rider dismounted at the corner.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That you, Mr. Ingpen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said a blithe voice:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How d'ye do, host? When you've known me a bit -longer you'll learn that I always manage to arrive just -when other people are leaving."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="tertius-ingpen"><span class="large">CHAPTER V</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">TERTIUS INGPEN</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Tertius Ingpen was the new District Factory -Inspector, a man of about thirty-five, neither fair nor -dark, neither tall nor short. He was a native of the -district, having been born somewhere in the aristocratic -regions between Knype and the lordly village of Sneyd, -but what first struck the local observer in him was that -his speech had none of the local accent. In the pursuit -of his vocation he had lived in other places than the -Five Towns. For example, in London, where he had -become acquainted with Edwin's friend, Charlie -Orgreave, the doctor. When Ingpen received a goodish -appointment amid the industrial horrors of his birth, -Charlie Orgreave recommended him to Edwin, and -Edwin and Ingpen had met once, under arrangement made -by Johnnie Orgreave. It was Johnnie who had -impulsively suggested in Ingpen's presence that Ingpen -should be invited to the At Home. Edwin, rather -intimidated by Ingpen's other-worldliness, had said: -"You'll run up against a mixed lot." But Ingpen, -though sternly critical of local phenomena, seemed to -be ready to meet social adventures in a broad and even -eager spirit of curiosity concerning mankind. He was -not uncomely, and he possessed a short silky beard of -which secretly he was not less proud than of his -striking name. He wore a neat blue suit, with the trousers -fastened tightly round the ankles for bicycle-riding, -and thick kid gloves. He took off one glove to shake -hands, and then, having leisurely removed the other, -and talking all the time, he bent down with care and -loosed his trousers and shook them into shape.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now what about this jigger?" he asked, while still -bending. "I don't care to leave it anywhere. It's a -good jigger."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As it leaned on one pedal against the kerb of Hulton -Street, the strange-looking jigger appeared to be at -any rate a very dirty jigger. Fastened under the -saddle were a roll of paper and a mackintosh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There are one or two ordinaries knocking about the -place," said Edwin, "but we haven't got a proper -bicycle-house. I'll find a place for it somewhere in the -garden." He lifted the front wheel.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't trouble, please. I'll take it," said Ingpen, -and before picking up the machine blew out the lamp, -whose extinction left a great darkness down the slope -of Hulton Street.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've got a very nice place here. Too central -for me, of course!" Ingpen began, after they had -insinuated the bicycle through narrow paths to the back -of the house.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was leading him along the side of the lawn -furthest away from Trafalgar Road. Certainly the -property had the air of being a very nice place. The -garden with its screen of high rustling trees seemed -spacious and mysterious in the gloom, and the lighted -windows of the house produced an effect of much -richness--especially the half-open window of the -drawing-room. Fearns and Cheswardine were standing in front -of it chatting (doubtless of affairs) with that -important adult air which Edwin himself could never -successfully imitate. Behind them were bright women, -and the brilliant chandelier. The piano faintly -sounded. Edwin was proud of his very nice place. -"How strange!" he thought. "This is all mine! These -are my guests! And my wife is mine!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you see," he answered Ingpen's criticism with -false humility. "I've no choice. I've got to be central."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen answered pleasantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I take your word for it; but I don't see."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The bicycle was carefully bestowed by its groping -owner in a small rustic arbour which, situated almost -under the wall that divided the Clayhanger property -from the first cottage in Hulton Street, was hidden -from the house by a clump of bushes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the dark privacy of this shelter Tertius Ingpen -said in a reflective tone:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I understand that you haven't been married long, -and that this is a sort of function to inform the world -officially that you're no longer what you were?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's something like that?" Edwin admitted with a -laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He liked the quiet intimacy of Ingpen's voice, whose -delicate inflections indicated highly cultivated -sensibilities. And he thought: "I believe I shall be friends -with this chap." And was glad, and faith in Ingpen -was planted in his heart.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," Ingpen continued, "I wish you happiness. -It may seem a strange thing to say to a man in your -position, but my opinion is that the proper place for -women is--behind the veil. Only my personal opinion, -of course! But I'm entitled to hold it, and therefore -to express it." Whatever his matter, his manner was -faultless.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?" Edwin murmured awkwardly. What on earth -did Ingpen expect by way of reply to such a -proposition? Surely Ingpen should have known that he was -putting his host in a disagreeable difficulty. His -new-born faith in Ingpen felt the harsh wind of experience -and shivered. Nevertheless, there was a part of Edwin -that responded to Ingpen's attitude. "Behind the veil." Yes, -something could be said for the proposition.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They left the arbour in silence. They had not gone -more than a few steps when a boy's shrill voice made -itself heard over the wall of the cottage yard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh Lord, thou 'ast said 'If two on ye sh'll agray -on earth as touching onything that they sh'll ask it -sh'll be done for them of my Father which is in 'eaven. -For where two or three are gathered together i' my -name theer am I in th' midst of 'em. Oh Lord, George -Edwin Clay'anger wants a two-bladed penknife. We -all three on us want ye to send George Edwin -Clay'anger a two-bladed penknife."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The words fell with impressive effect on the men in -the garden.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What the--" Edwin exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh!" Ingpen stopped him in an excited whisper. -"Don't disturb them for anything in the world!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Silence followed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin crept away like a scout towards a swing -which he had arranged for his friend George before he -became the husband of George's mother. He climbed -into it and over the wall could just see three boys' -heads in the yard illuminated by a lamp in the -back-window of the cottage. Tertius Ingpen joined him, but -immediately climbed higher on to the horizontal beam -of the swing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who are they?" Ingpen asked, restraining his joy -in the adventure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The one on the right's my stepson. The other big -one is my sister Clara's child, Bert. I expect the little -one's old Clowes', the gravedigger's kid. They say he's -a regular little parson--probably to make up for his -parents. I expect they're out somewhere having a -jollification."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," Ingpen breathed. "I wouldn't have missed -this for a good deal." He gave a deep, almost -soundless giggle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was startled--as much as anything by the -extraordinary deceitfulness of George. Who could -possibly have guessed from the boy's demeanour when his -Aunt Clara mentioned Bert to him, that he had made -an outrageous rendezvous with Bert that very night? -Certainly he had blushed, but then he often blushed. Of -course, the Benbows would assert that George had -seduced the guileless Bert. Fancy them hunting the town -for Bert at that instant! As regards Peter Clowes, -George, though not positively forbidden to do so, had -been warned against associating with him--chiefly -because of the bad influence which Peter's accent would -have on George's accent. His mother had said that she -could not understand how George could wish to be -friendly with a rough little boy like Peter. Edwin, -however, inexperienced as he was, had already -comprehended that children, like Eastern women, have no -natural class bias; and he could not persuade himself -to be the first to inculcate into George ideas which -could only be called snobbish. He was a democrat. -Nevertheless he did not like George to play with Peter -Clowes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The small Peter, with uplifted face and clasped -hands, repeated urgently, passionately:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"O God! We all three on us want ye to send George -Edwin Clay'anger a two-bladed penknife. Now lads, -kneel, and all three on us together!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He stood between the taller and better-dressed boys -unashamed, fervent, a born religionist. He was not -even praying for himself. He was praying out of his -profound impersonal interest in the efficacy of prayer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The three boys, kneeling, and so disappearing from -sight behind the wall, repeated together:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"O God! Please send George Edwin Clayhanger a -two-bladed penknife."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then George and Bert stood up again, shuffling -about. Peter Clowes did not reappear.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't help it," whispered Ingpen in a strange, -moved voice, "I've got to be God. Here goes! And -it's practically new, too!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin in the darkness could see him feeling in his -waistcoat pocket, and then raise his arm, and, taking -careful aim, throw in the direction of the dimly lighted -yard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" came the cry of George, in sudden pain.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The descending penknife had hit him in the face.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was a scramble on the pavement of the yard, -and some muttered talk. The group went to the back -window where the lamp was and examined the heavenly -penknife. They were more frightened than delighted -by the miracle. The unseen watchers in the swing -were also rather frightened, as though they had -interfered irremediably in a solemn and delicate crisis -beyond their competence. In a curious way they were -ashamed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, and what about me?" said the voice of fat Bert -Benbow, sulkily. "This is all very well. But what -about me? Ye tried without me and ye couldn't do -anything. Now I've come and ye've done it. What am -I going to get? Ye've got to give me something instead -of a half-share in that penknife, George."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let's pray for something for you now. What d'you -want?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I want a bicycle. Ye know what I want."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no, you don't, Bert Benbow!" said George. -"You've got to want something safer than a bike. -Suppose it comes tumbling down like the penknife did! -We shall be dam well killed."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tertius Ingpen could not suppress a snorting giggle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I want a bike," Bert insisted. "And I don't want -nothin' else."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The two bigger boys moved vaguely away from the -window, and the little religionist followed them in -silence, ready to supplicate for whatever they should -decide.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," George agreed. "We'll pray for a -bicycle. But we'd better all stand as close as we can to -the wall, under the spouting, in case."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The ceremonial was recommenced.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," Ingpen murmured. "I'm not being God this -time. It won't run to it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Footsteps were heard on the lawn behind the swing. -Ingpen slid down and Edwin jumped down. Johnnie -Orgreave was approaching.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh!" Ingpen warned him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What are you chaps--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh!" Ingpen was more imperative.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All three men walked away out of earshot of the -yard, towards the window of the drawing-room--Johnnie -Orgreave mystified, the other two smiling but with -spirits disturbed. Johnnie heard the story in brief; -it was told to him in confidence, as Tertius Ingpen held -firmly that eavesdroppers, if they had any honour left, -should at least hold their tongues.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When Tertius Ingpen was introduced to Hilda in the -drawing-room, the three men having entered by the -French window, Edwin was startled and relieved by -the deportment of the orientalist who thought that the -proper place for women was behind the veil. In his -simplicity he had assumed that the orientalist would -indicate his attitude by a dignified reserve. Not at all! -As soon as Ingpen reached Hilda's hospitable gaze his -whole bearing altered. He bowed, with a deferential -bending that to an untravelled native must have seemed -exaggerated; his face was transformed by a sweet -smile; his voice became the voice of a courtier; he shook -hands with chivalrous solicitude for the fragile hand -shaken. Hilda was pleased by him, perceiving that this -man was more experienced in the world than any of the -other worldly guests. She liked that. Ingpen's new -symptoms were modified after a few moments, but when -he was presented to Mrs. Fearns he reproduced them -in their original intensity, and again when he was -introduced to Vera Cheswardine.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Been out without your cap?" Hilda questioned -Edwin, lifting her eyebrows. She said it in order to say -something, for the entry of this ceremonious personage, -who held all the advantages of the native and of the -stranger, had a little overpowered the company.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Only just to see after Mr. Ingpen's machine. Give -me your cap, Mr. Ingpen. I'll hang it up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When he returned to the drawing-room from the -hatstand Ingpen was talking with Janet Orgreave, -whom he already knew.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you seen George, Edwin?" Hilda called across -the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hasn't he gone to bed?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's what I want to know. I haven't seen him -lately."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Everyone, except Johnnie Orgreave and a Swetnam -or so, was preoccupied by the thought of children, by -the thought of this incalculable and disturbing race -that with different standards and ideals lived so -mysteriously in and among their adult selves. Nothing -was said about the strange disappearance of Bert -Benbow, but each woman had it in mind, and coupled it -with Hilda's sudden apprehension concerning George, -and imagined weird connections between the one and -the other, and felt forebodings about children nearer to -her own heart. Children dominated the assemblage and, -made restless, the assemblage collectively felt that the -moment for separation approached. The At Home was -practically over.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda rang the bell, and as she did so Johnnie -Orgreave winked dangerously at Edwin, who with -sternness responded. He wondered why he should thus -deceive his wife, with whom he was so deliciously -intimate. He thought also that women were capricious -in their anxieties, and yet now and then their -moods--once more by the favour of hazard--displayed a -marvellous appositeness. Hilda had no reason -whatever for worrying more about George on this -night than on any other night. Nevertheless this -night happened to be the night on which anxiety would -be justified.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ada," said Hilda to the entering servant. "Have -you seen Master George?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No'm," Ada replied, almost defiantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"When did you see him last?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't remember, m'm."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is he in bed?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know, m'm."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Just go and see, will you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes'm."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The company waited with gentle, concealed -excitement for the returning Ada, who announced:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"His bedroom door's locked, m'm."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He will lock it sometimes, although I've positively -forbidden him to. But what are you to do?" said -Hilda, smilingly to the other mothers.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Take the key away, obviously," Tertius Ingpen -answered the question, turning quickly and interrupting -his chat with Janet Orgreave.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That ought not to be necessary," said Fearns, as -an expert father.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada departed, thankful to be finished with the ordeal -of cross-examination in a full drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you know anything about him?" Hilda -addressed Johnnie Orgreave suddenly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Me? About your precious? No. Why should I know?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because you're getting such friends, you two."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Are we?" Johnnie said carelessly. Nevertheless -he was flattered by a certain nascent admiration -on the part of George, which was then beginning to be -noticeable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A quarter of an hour later, when several guests had -gone, Hilda murmured to Edwin:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not easy about that boy. I'll just run upstairs."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But she did. And the distant sound of knocking, -and "George, George," could be heard even down in -the hall.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't wake him," said Hilda, back in the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you want to wake him for, foolish girl?" -Edwin demanded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She enjoyed being called "foolish girl," but she was -not to be tranquillised.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you think he is in bed?" she questioned, before -the whole remaining company, and the dread suspicion -was out!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After more journeys upstairs, and more bangings, -and essays with keys, and even attempts at lock-picking, -Hilda announced that George's room must be besieged -from its window. A ladder was found, and -interested visitors went into the back-entry, by the -kitchen, to see it reared and hear the result. Edwin -thought that the cook in the kitchen looked as guilty -as he himself felt, though she more than once asseverated -her belief that Master George was safely in bed. The -ladder was too short. Edwin mounted it, and tried to -prise himself on to the window-sill, but could not.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here, let me try!" said Ingpen, joyous.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen easily succeeded. He glanced through the -open window into George's bedroom, and then looked -down at the upturned faces, and Ada's apron, whitely -visible in the gloom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's here all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, good!" said Hilda. "Is he asleep?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He deserves to be wakened," she laughed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You see what a foolish girl you've been," said Edwin -affectionately.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind!" she retorted. "</span><em class="italics">You</em><span> couldn't get on -the window. And you were just as upset as anybody. -Do you think I don't know? Thank you, Mr. Ingpen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is he really there?" Edwin whispered to Ingpen as -soon as he could.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. And asleep, too!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder how the deuce he slipped in. I'll bet -anything those servants have been telling a lot of lies for -him. He pulls their hair down and simply does what -he likes with them."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was now greatly reassured, but he could not -quite recover from the glimpse he had had of George's -capacity for leading a double life. Sardonically he -speculated whether the heavenly penknife would be -brought to his notice by its owner, and if so by what -ingenious method.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The final sensation was caused by the arrival, in a -nearly empty drawing-room, of plump Maggie, nervous, -constrained, and somewhat breathless.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bert has turned up," she said. "Clara thought I'd -better come along and tell you. She felt sure you'd -like to know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, that's all right then," Hilda replied perfunctorily, -indicating that Clara's conceited assumption of -a universal interest in her dull children was ridiculous.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin asked:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did the kid say where he'd been?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Been running about the streets. They don't know -what's come over him--because, you see, he'd actually -gone to bed once. Albert is quite puzzled; but he says -he'll have it out of him before he's done."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"When he does get it out of him," thought Edwin -again, "there will be a family row and George will be -indicted as the corrupter of innocence."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie would not stay a single moment. Hilda -attentively accompanied her to the hall. The former -and the present mistress of the house kissed with the -conventional signs of affection. But the fact that one -had succeeded the other seemed to divide them. Hilda -was always lying in wait for criticism from Maggie, -ready to resent it; Maggie divined this and said never -a word. The silence piqued Hilda as much as outspoken -criticism would have annoyed her. She could not bear it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How do you like my new stair-carpet?" she -demanded defiantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very nice! Very nice, I'm sure!" Maggie replied -without conviction. And added, just as she stepped -outside the front-door, "You've made a lot of changes." This -was the mild, good-natured girl's sole thrust, and -it was as effective as she could have wished.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Everybody had gone except the two Orgreaves and -Tertius Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know about you, Johnnie, but I must go," -said Janet Orgreave when Hilda came back.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hold on, Jan!" Johnnie protested. "You're -forgetting those duets you are to try with Ingpen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Really?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Duets!" cried Hilda, instantly uplifted and -enthusiastic. "Oh, do let's have some music!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen by arrangement with the Orgreaves had -brought some pianoforte duets. They were tied to his -bicycle. He was known as an amateur of music. -Edwin, bidding Ingpen not to move, ran out into the -garden to get the music from the bicycle. Johnnie ran -after him through the French window.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say!" Johnnie called in a low voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's up?" Edwin stopped for him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've a piece of news for you. About that land -you've set your heart on, down at Shawport! ... It -can be bought cheap--at least the old man says it's -cheap--whatever his opinion may be worth. I was -telling him about your scheme for having a new -printing works altogether. Astonishing how keen he is! -If I'd had a plan of the land, I believe he'd have sat -down and made sketches at once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Johnnie (with his brother Jimmie) was in partnership -with old Orgreave as an architect.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Set my heart on?'" Edwin mumbled, intimidated -as usual by a nearer view of an enterprise which he had -himself conceived and which had enchanted him from -afar. "'Set my heart on?'"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, had you, or hadn't you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose I had," Edwin admitted. "Look here, -I'll drop in and see you to-morrow morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Right!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Together they detached the music from the bicycle, -and, as Edwin unrolled it and rolled it the other side -out to flatten it, they returned silently through the -dark wind-stirred garden into the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There were now the two Orgreaves, Tertius Ingpen, -and Hilda and Edwin in the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We will now begin the evening," said Ingpen, as he -glanced at the music.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All five were conscious of the pleasant feeling of -freedom, intimacy, and mutual comprehension which -animates a small company that by self-selection has -survived out of a larger one. The lateness of the hour -aided their zest. Even the more staid among them -perceived as by a revelation that it did not in fact -matter, once in a way, if they were tired and inefficient on -the morrow, and that too much regularity of habit was -bad for the soul. Edwin had brought in a tray from -the dining-room, and rearranged the chairs according -to Hilda's caprice, and was providing cushions to raise -the bodies of the duet-players to the proper height. -Janet began to excuse herself, asserting that if there -was one member of her family who could not play duets, -she was that member, that she had never seen this -Dvorak music before, and that if they had got her -brother Tom, or her elder sister Marion, or even -Alicia,--etc., etc.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We are quite accustomed to these formal preliminaries -from duet-players, Miss Orgreave," said -Ingpen. "I never do them myself,--not because I can -play well, but because I am hardened. Now shall we -start? Will you take the treble or the bass?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet answered with eager modesty that she would -take the bass.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's all one to me," said Ingpen, putting on -spectacles; "I play either equally badly. You'll soon -regret leaving the most important part to me. -However...! Clayhanger, will you turn over?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Er--yes," said Edwin boldly. "But you'd better -give me the tip."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He knew a little about printed music, from his -experiences as a boy when his sisters used to sing -two-part songs. That is to say, he had a vague idea "where -a player was" on a page. But the enterprise of -turning over Dvorak's "Legends" seemed to him critically -adventurous. Dvorak was nothing but a name to him; -beyond the correct English method of pronouncing that -name, he had no knowledge whatever of the subject in -hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then the performance of the "Legends" began. -Despite halts, hesitations, occasional loud insistent -chanting of the time, explanations between the players, many -wrong notes by Ingpen, and a few wrong notes by -Janet, and one or two enormous misapprehensions by -Edwin, the performance was a success, in that it put a -spell on its public, and permitted the loose and tender -genius of Dvorak to dominate the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Play that again, will you?" said Hilda, in a low -dramatic voice, at the third "Legend."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We will," Ingpen answered. "And we'll play it -better."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had the exquisite sensation of partially -comprehending music whose total beauty was beyond the -limitations of his power to enjoy--power, nevertheless, -which seemed to grow each moment. Passages -entirely intelligible and lovely would break at intervals -through the veils of general sound and ravish him. All -his attention was intensely concentrated on the page. -He could hear Ingpen breathing hard. Out of the -corner of his eye he was aware of Johnnie Orgreave on -the sofa making signs to Hilda about drinks, and -pouring out something for her, and something for himself, -without the faintest noise. And he was aware of Ada -coming to the open door and being waved away to bed -by her mistress.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," he said, when the last "Legend" was played. -"That's a bit of the right sort--no mistake." He was -obliged to be banal and colloquial.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda said nothing at all. Johnnie, who had waited -for the end in order to strike a match, showed by two -words that he was an expert listener to duets. Tertius -Ingpen was very excited and pleased. "More tricky -than difficult, isn't it--to read?" he said privately to -his fellow-performer, who concurred. Janet also was -excited in her fashion. But even amid the general -excitement Ingpen had to be judicious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Delightful stuff, of course," he said, pulling his -beard. "But he's not a great composer you know, all -the same."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He'll do to be going on with," Johnnie murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes! Delightful! Delightful!" Ingpen repeated -warmly, removing his spectacles. "What a pity -we can't have musical evenings regularly!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But we can!" said Hilda positively. "Let's have -them here. Every week!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A great scheme!" Edwin agreed with enthusiasm, -admiring his wife's initiative. He had been a little -afraid that the episode of George had upset her for the -night, but he now saw that she had perfectly recovered -from it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" Ingpen paused. "I doubt if I could come -every week. I could come once a fortnight."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, once a fortnight then!" said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose Sunday wouldn't suit you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin challenged him almost fiercely:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why won't it suit us? It will suit us first-class."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen merely said, with quiet delicacy:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So much the better.... We might go all through -the Mozart fiddle sonatas."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And who's your violinist?" asked Johnnie.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I am, if you don't mind." Ingpen smiled. "If your -sister will take the piano part."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda exclaimed admiringly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you play the violin, too, Mr. Ingpen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I scrape it. Also the tenor. But my real -instrument is the clarinet." He laughed. "It seems odd," -he went on with genuine scientific unegotistic interest in -himself. "But d'you know I thoroughly enjoy playing -the clarinet in a bad orchestra whenever I get the -chance. When I happen to have a free evening I often -wish I could drop in at a theatre and play rotten music -in the band. It's better than nothing. Some of us are -born mad."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But Mr. Ingpen," said Janet Orgreave anxiously, -after this speech had been appreciated. "I have never -played those Mozart sonatas."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I am glad to hear it," he replied with admirable -tranquillity. "Neither have I. I've often meant to. -It'll be quite a sporting event. But of course we can -have a rehearsal if you like."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The project of the musical evenings was discussed -and discussed until Janet, having vanished silently -upstairs, reappeared with her hat and cloak on.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I can go alone if you aren't ready, Johnnie," said -she.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Johnnie yawned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. I'm coming."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I also must go--I suppose," said Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They all went into the hall. Through the open door -of the dining-room, where one gas-jet burned, could be -seen the rich remains of what had been "light -refreshments" in the most generous interpretation of the -term.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen stopped to regard the spectacle, fingering his -beard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was just wondering," he remarked, with that -strange eternal curiosity about himself, "whether I'd -had enough to eat. I've got to ride home."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, what have you had?" Johnnie quizzed him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I haven't had anything," said Ingpen, "except drink."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda cried.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! You poor sufferer! I am ashamed!" And -led him familiarly to the table.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin was kept at the front-door some time by -Johnnie Orgreave, who resumed as he was departing -the subject of the proposed new works, and maintained -it at such length that Janet, tired of waiting on the -pavement, said that she would walk on. When he -returned to the dining-room, Ingpen and Hilda were -sitting side by side at the littered table, and the first -words that Edwin heard were from Ingpen:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It cost me a penknife. But it was dirt cheap at -the price. You can't expect to be the Almighty for -much less than a penknife." Seeing Edwin, he added -with a nonchalant smile: "I've told Mrs. Clayhanger -all about the answer to prayer. I thought she ought -to know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin laughed awkwardly, saying to himself:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ingpen, my boy, you ought to have thought of my -position first. You've been putting your finger into -a rather delicate piece of mechanism. Supposing she -cuts up rough with me afterwards for hiding it from -her all this time! ... I'm living with her. You -aren't."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," Ingpen added. "I've sworn the lady to -secrecy."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I knew all the time there was something wrong."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you didn't. And if he hadn't happened to tell -you about the thing, you'd have been convinced that -you'd been alarming yourself for nothing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But he only said, not certain of Hilda's humour, and -anxious to placate her:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's no doubt George ought to be punished."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing of the kind! Nothing of the kind!" Ingpen -vivaciously protested. "Why, bless my soul! The -kids were engaged in a religious work. They were busy -with someone far more important than any parents." And -after a pause, reflectively: "Curious thing, the -mentality of a child! I doubt if we understand -anything about it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda smiled, but said naught.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"May I enquire what there is in that bottle?" Ingpen asked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Benedictine."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have some, Mr. Ingpen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I will if you will, Mrs. Clayhanger."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin raised his eyebrows at his wife.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't look at me!" said Hilda. "I'm going -to have some."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen smacked his lips over the liqueur.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a very bad thing late at night, of course. But -I believe in giving your stomach something to think -about. I never allow my digestive apparatus to boss me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Quite right, Mr. Ingpen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They touched glasses, without a word, almost instinctively.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," thought Edwin, "for a chap who thinks -women ought to be behind the veil...!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Be a man, Clayhanger, and have some."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin shook his head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With a scarcely perceptible movement of her glass, -Hilda greeted her husband, peeping out at him as it -were for a fraction of a second in a glint of affection. -He was quite happy. They were all seated close -together, Edwin opposite the other two at the large table. -The single gas-jet, by the very inadequacy with which -it lighted the scene of disorder, produced an effect of -informal homeliness and fellowship that warmed the -heart. Each of the three realised with pleasure that a -new and promising friendship was in the making. They -talked at length about the Musical Evenings, and -Edwin said that he should buy some music, and Hilda -asked him to obtain a history of music that Ingpen -described with some enthusiasm, and the date of the -first evening was settled,--Sunday week. And after -uncounted minutes Ingpen remarked that he presumed -he had better go.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I have to cycle home," he announced once more.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"To-night?" Hilda exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. This morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All the way to Axe?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no! I'm three miles this side of Axe. It's only -six and a half miles."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But all those hills!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pooh! Excellent for the muscles of the calf."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you live alone, Mr. Ingpen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I have a sort of housekeeper."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In a cottage?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In a cottage."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But what do you </span><em class="italics">do</em><span>--all alone?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I cultivate myself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Hilda, in a changed tone, said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How wise you are!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather inconvenient, being out there, isn't it?" -Edwin suggested.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It may be inconvenient sometimes for my job. But -I can't help that. I give the State what I consider fair -value for the money it pays me, and not a grain more. -I've got myself to think about. There are some things -I won't do, and one of them is to live all the time in a -vile hole like the Five Towns. I won't do it. I'd sooner -be a blooming peasant on the land."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he was a native he had the right to criticise the -district without protest from other natives.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're quite right as to the vile hole," said Hilda -with conviction.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know----" Edwin muttered. "I think old -Bosley isn't so bad."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. But you're an old stick-in-the-mud, dearest," -said Hilda. "Mr. Ingpen has lived away from the -district, and so have I. You haven't. You're no judge. -We know, don't we, Mr. Ingpen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When, Ingpen having at last accumulated sufficient -resolution to move and get his cap, they went through -the drawing-room to the garden, they found that rain -was falling.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind!" said Ingpen, lifting his head sardonically -in a mute indictment of the heavens. "I have -my mack."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin searched out the bicycle and brought it to -the window, and Hilda stuck a hat on his head. -Leisurely Ingpen clipped his trousers at the ankle, and -unstrapped a mackintosh cape from the machine, and -folded the strap. Leisurely he put on the cape, and -gazed at the impenetrable heavens again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I can make you up a bed, Mr. Ingpen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, thanks. Oh, no, thanks! The fact is, I rather -like rain."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Leisurely he took a box of fusees from his pocket, -and lighted his lamp, examining it as though it -contained some hidden and perilous defect. Then he -pressed the tyres.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The back tyre'll do with a little more air," he said -thoughtfully. "I don't know if my pump will work."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It did work, but slowly. After which, gloves had to -be assumed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose I can get out this way. Oh! My -music! Never mind, I'll leave it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then with a sudden access of ceremoniousness he -bade adieu to Hilda; no detail of punctilio was omitted -from the formality.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-bye. Many thanks."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-bye. Thank </span><em class="italics">you</em><span>!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin preceded the bicyclist and the bicycle round -the side of the house to the front-gate at the corner of -Hulton Street and Trafalgar Road.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the solemn and chill nocturnal solitude of -rain-swept Hulton Street, Ingpen straddled the bicycle, -with his left foot on one raised pedal and the other on -the pavement; and then held out a gloved hand to Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-bye, old chap. See you soon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Much good-will and appreciation and hope was -implicit in that rather casual handshake.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He sheered off strongly down the dark slope of Hulton -Street in the rain, using his ankles with skill in the -pedal-stroke. The man's calves seemed to be -enormously developed. The cape ballooned out behind his -swiftness, and in a moment he had swerved round the -flickering mournful gas-lamp at the bottom of the mean -new street and was gone.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="husband-and-wife"><span class="large">CHAPTER VI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">HUSBAND AND WIFE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"I'm upstairs," Hilda called in a powerful whisper -from the head of the stairs as soon as Edwin had closed -and bolted the front-door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He responded humorously. He felt very happy, -lusty, and wideawake. The evening had had its contretemps, -its varying curve of success, but as a whole it -was a triumph. And, above all, it was over,--a thing -that had had to be accomplished and that had been -accomplished, with dignity and effectiveness. He -walked in ease from room to lighted empty room, and -the splendid waste of gas pleased him, arousing -something royal that is at the bottom of generous natures. -In the breakfast-room especially the gas had been -flaring to no purpose for hours. "</span><em class="italics">Her</em><span> room, her very -own room!" He wondered indulgently when, if ever, -she would really make it her own room by impressing -her individuality upon it. He knew she was always -meaning to do something drastic to the room, but so -far she had got no further than his portrait. Child! -Infant! Wayward girl! ... Still the fact of the -portrait on the mantelpiece touched him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He dwelt tenderly on the invisible image of the woman -upstairs. It was marvellous how she was not the Hilda -he had married. The new Hilda had so overlaid and -hidden the old, that he had positively to make an effort -to recall what the old one was, with her sternness and -her anxious air of responsibility. But at the same -time she was the old Hilda too. He desired to be -splendidly generous, to environ her with all luxuries, to lift -her clear above other women; he desired the means to -be senselessly extravagant for her. To clasp on her -arm a bracelet whose cost would keep a workingman's -family for three years would have delighted him. And -though he was interested in social schemes, and had a -social conscience, he would sooner have bought that -bracelet, and so purchased the momentary thrill of -putting it on her capricious arm, than have helped to -ameliorate the lot of thousands of victimised human -beings. He had Hilda in his bones and he knew it, and -he knew that it was a grand and a painful thing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nevertheless he was not without a considerable -self-satisfaction, for he had done very well by Hilda. He -had found her at the mercy of the world, and now she -was safe and sheltered and beloved, and made mistress -of a house and home that would stand comparison with -most houses and homes. He was proud of his house; -he always watched over it; he was always improving it; -and he would improve it more and more; and it should -never be quite finished.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The disorder in it, now, irked him. He walked to -and fro, and restored every piece of furniture to its -proper place, heaped the contents of the ash-trays into -one large ash-tray, covered some of the food, and -locked up the alcohol. He did this leisurely, while -thinking of the woman upstairs, and while eating two -chocolates,--not more, because he had notions about -his stomach. Then he shut and bolted the drawing-room -window, and opened the door leading to the cellar -steps and sniffed, so as to be quite certain that the -radiator furnace was not setting the house on fire. -And then he extinguished the lights, and the hall-light -last of all, and his sole illumination was the gas on the -first-floor landing inviting him upstairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Standing on the dark stairs, on his way to bed, eager -and yet reluctant to mount, he realised the entity of -the house. He thought of the astounding and -mysterious George, and of those uncomprehended beings, Ada -and the cook in their attic, sleeping by the side of the -portrait of a fireman in uniform. He felt sure that -one or both of them had been privy to George's -unlawful adventures, and he heartily liked them for -shielding the boy. And he thought of his wife, moving about -in the bedroom upon which she </span><em class="italics">had</em><span> impressed her -individuality. He went upstairs.... Yes, he should -proceed with the enterprise of the new works. He had -the courage for it now. He was rich, according to -Bursley ideas,--he would be far richer.... He gave -a faint laugh at the memory of George's objection to -Bert's choice of a bicycle as a gift from heaven.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda was brushing her hair. The bedroom seemed -to be full of her and the disorder of her multitudinous -things. Whenever he asked why a particular item of -her goods was in a particular spot--the spot appearing -to him to have been bizarrely chosen--she always -proved to her own satisfaction, by a quite improvised -argument, that that particular spot was the sole -possible spot for that particular item. The bedroom was -no longer theirs--it was hers. He picnicked in it. -He didn't mind. In fact he rather liked the -picnic. It pleased him to exercise his talent for order -and organisation, so as to maintain his own comfort -in the small spaces which she left to him. To-night -the room was in a divine confusion. He accepted it -with pleasure. The beds had not been turned down, -because it was improper to turn them down when they -were to be used for the deposit of strangers' finery. -On Edwin's bed now lay the dress which Hilda had -taken off. It was a most agreeable object on the bed, -and seemed even richer and more complex there than -on Hilda. He removed it carefully to a chair. An -antique diaphanous shawl remained, which was -unfamiliar to him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's this shawl?" he asked. "I've never seen this -shawl before. What is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda was busy, her bent head buried in hair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Edwin, what an old fusser you are!" she mumbled. -"What shawl?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He held it up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Someone must have left it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He proceeded with the turning down of his bed. Then -he sat on a chair to regard Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When she had done her hair she padded across the -room and examined the shawl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a precious thing!" she exclaimed. "It's -Mrs. Fearns's. She must have taken it off to put her jacket -on, and then forgotten it. But I'd no idea how good -it was. It's genuine old. I wonder how it would suit me?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She put it round her shoulders, and then stood -smiling, posing, bold, provocative, for his verdict. The -whiteness of her deshabille showed through the delicate -pattern and tints of the shawl, with a strange effect. -For him she was more than a woman; she was the -incarnation of a sex. It was marvellous how all she did, -all her ideas and her gestures, were so intensely -feminine, so sure to perturb or enchant him. Nervously he -began to wind his watch. He wanted to spring up and -kiss her because she was herself. But he could not. -So he said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come here, chit. Let me look at that shawl."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She obeyed. She knelt acquiescent. He put his -watch back into his pocket, and fingered the shawl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then she said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose one'll be allowed to grumble at Georgie -for locking his bedroom door." And she said it with -a touch of mockery in her clear, precise voice, as -though twitting him, and Ingpen too, about their -absurd theoretical sense of honour towards children. And -there was a touch of fine bitterness in her voice also,--a -reminiscence of the old Hilda. Incalculable creature! -Who could have guessed that she would make such a -remark at such a moment? In his mind he dashed -George to pieces. But as a wise male he ignored all -her implications and answered casually, mildly, with -an affirmative.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She went on:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What were you talking such a long time to Johnnie -Orgreave about?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Talking a long time to Johnnie Orgreave? Oh! -D'you mean at the front-door? Why, it wasn't half a -minute! He happened to mention a piece of land down -at Shawport that I had a sort of a notion of buying."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Buying? What for?" Her tone hardened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, supposing I had to build a new works?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never told me anything about it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've only just begun to think of it myself. You -see, if I'm to go in for lithography as it ought to be -gone in for, I can't possibly stay at the shop. I must -have more room, and a lot more. And it would be -cheaper to build than to rent."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She stood up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why go in more for lithography?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You can't stand still in business. Must either go -forward or go back."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It seems to me it's very risky. I wondered what -you were hiding from me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear girl, I was not hiding anything from you," -he protested.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Whose land is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It belongs to Tobias Hall's estate."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, and I've no doubt the Halls would be very -glad to get rid of it. Who told you about it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Johnnie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course it would be a fine thing for him too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But I'd asked him if he knew of any land going -cheap."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She shrugged her shoulders, and shrugged away the -disinterestedness of all Orgreaves.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Anyone could get the better of you," she said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He resented this estimate of himself as a good-natured -simpleton. He assuredly did not want to quarrel, -but he was obliged to say:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Could they?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>An acerbity scarcely intentional somehow entered -into his tone. As soon as he heard it he recognised the -tone as the forerunner of altercations.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course!" she insisted, superiorly, and then went -on: "We're all right as we are. We spend too much -money, but I daresay we're all right. If you go in for -a lot of new things you may lose all we've got, and then -where shall we be?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In his heart he said to her:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's it got to do with you? You manage your -home, and I'll manage my business! You know nothing -at all about business. You're the very antithesis of -business. Whatever business you've ever had to do -with you've ruined. You've no right to judge and no -grounds for judgment. It's odious of you to asperse -any of the Orgreaves. They were always your best -friends. I should never have met you if it hadn't been -for them. And where would you be now without me? -Trying to run some wretched boarding-house and -probably starving. Why do you assume that I'm a d----d -fool? You always do. Let me tell you that I'm one -of the most common-sense men in this town, and -everybody knows it except you. Anyhow I was clever enough -to get </span><em class="italics">you</em><span> out of a mess.... You knew I was hiding -something from you, did you? I wish you wouldn't talk -such infernal rot. And moreover I won't have you -interfering in my business. Other wives don't, and you -shan't. So let that be clearly understood." In his -heart he was very ill-used and very savage.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But he only said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, we shall see."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She retorted:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Naturally if you've made up your mind, there's no -more to be said."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He broke out viciously:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've not made up my mind. Don't I tell you I've -only just begun to think about it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was angry. And now that he actually was angry, -he took an almost sensual pleasure in being angry. He -had been angry before, though on a smaller scale, with -less provocation, and he had sworn that he would never -be angry again. But now that he was angry again, he -gloomily and fiercely revelled in it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda silently folded up the shawl, and, putting it -into a drawer of the wardrobe, shut the drawer with -an irritatingly gentle click.... Click! He could -have killed her for that click.... She seized a -dressing-gown.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I must just go and look at George," she murmured, -with cool, clear calmness,--the virtuous, anxious -mother; not a trace of coquetry anywhere in her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What bosh!" he thought. "She knows perfectly -well George's door is bolted."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Marriage was a startling affair. Who could have -foretold this finish to the evening? Nothing had -occurred ... nothing ... and yet everything. His -plans were all awry. He could see naught but trouble.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was away some time. When she returned, he was -in bed, with his face averted. He heard her moving -about.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will she, or won't she, come and kiss me?" he -thought.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She came and kissed him, but it was a meaningless -kiss.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-night," she said, aloofly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She slept. But he could not sleep. He kept -thinking the same thought: "She's no right whatever.... -I must say I never bargained for this...." etc.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-truce"><span class="large">CHAPTER VII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE TRUCE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Nearly a week passed. Hilda, in the leisure of a -woman of fashion after dinner, was at the piano in the -drawing-room. She had not urgent stockings to mend, -nor jam to make, nor careless wenches to overlook, nor -food to buy, nor accounts to keep, nor a new dress to -scheme out of an old one, nor to perform her duty to -her neighbour. She had nothing to do. Like Edwin, -she could not play the piano, but she had picked up -a note here and a note there in the course of her life, -and with much labour and many slow hesitations she -could puzzle out a chord or a melody from the printed -page. She was now exasperatingly spelling with her -finger a fragment of melody from one of Dvorak's -"Legends,"--a fragment that had inhabited her mind -since she first heard it, and that seemed to gather up -and state all the sweet heart-breaking intolerable -melancholy implicit in the romantic existence of that city on -the map, Prague. On the previous day she had been -a quarter of an hour identifying the unforgetable, -indismissible fragment amid the multitude of notes. Now -she had recognisably pieced its phrases together, and as -her stiff finger stumbled through it, her ears heard it, -once more; and she could not repeat it often enough. -What she heard was not what she was playing but -something finer,--her souvenir of what Tertius Ingpen -had played; and something finer than that, something -finer than the greatest artist could possibly play--magic!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was in the nature of a miracle to her that she had -been able to reproduce the souvenir in physical sound. -She was proud of herself as a miracle-worker, and -somewhat surprised. And at the same time she was abject -because she "could not play the piano." She thought -that she would be ready to sacrifice many happinesses -in order to be able to play as well as even George -played, that she would exchange all her own gifts -multiplied by a hundred in order to be able to play as -Janet Orgreave played, and that to be a world-renowned -pianist dominating immense audiences in European -capitals must mean the summit of rapture and -glory. (She had never listened to a world-renowned -pianist.) Meanwhile, without the ennui and slavery of -practice, she was enchanting herself; and she savoured -her idleness, and thought of her young pretty servants -at work, and her boy loose and at large, and her -husband keeping her, and of the intensity of beautiful -sorrow palpitating behind the mediæval façades of Prague. -Had Ingpen overheard her, he might have demanded: -"Who is making that infernal noise on the piano?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin came into the room, holding a thick green -book. He ought long ago to have been back at the -works (or "shop," as it was still called, because it had -once been principally a shop), keeping her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello!" she murmured, without glancing away -from the piano. "I thought you were gone."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They had not quarrelled; but they had not made -peace; and the open question of lithography and the -new works still separated them. Sometimes they had -approached each other, pretending amiably or even -affectionately that there was no open question. But the -reality of the question could not be destroyed by any -pretence of ignoring it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While gazing at the piano, Hilda could also see -Edwin. She thought she knew him, but she was always -making discoveries in this branch of knowledge. Now -and then she was so bewildered by discoveries that she -came to wonder why she had married him, and why -people do marry--really! The fact was that she had -married him for the look in his eyes. It was a sad look, -and beyond that it could not be described. Also, a -little, she had married him for his bright untidy hair, -and for that short oblique shake of the head which -with him meant a greeting or an affirmative. She had -not married him for his sentiments nor for his goodness -of heart. Some points in him she did not like. He had -a tendency to colds, and she hated him whenever he -had a cold. She often detested his terrible tidiness, -though it was a convenient failing. More and more she -herself wilfully enjoyed being untidy, as her mother -had been untidy.... And to think that her mother's -untidiness used to annoy her! On the other hand she -found pleasure in humouring Edwin's crotchettiness in -regard to the details of a meal. She did not like his -way of walking, which was ungainly, nor his way of -standing, which was infirm. She preferred him to be -seated. She could not but regret his irresolution, and -his love of ease. However, the look in his eyes was -paramount, because she was in love with him. She -knew that he was more deeply and helplessly in love -with her than she with him, but even she was perhaps -tightlier bound than in her pride she thought.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her love had the maladies of a woman's love when it -is great; these may possibly be also the maladies of a -man's love. It could be bitter. Certainly it could -never rest from criticism, spoken or unspoken. In the -presence of others she would criticise him to herself, -if not aloud, nearly all the time; the ordeal was -continuous. When she got him alone she would often -endow him at a stroke with perfection, and her tenderness -would pour over him. She trusted him profoundly; -and yet she had constant misgivings, which weakened -or temporarily destroyed her confidence. She would -treat a statement from him with almost hostile caution, -and accept blindly the very same statement from a -stranger! Her habit was to assume that in any -encounter between him and a stranger he would be -worsted. She was afraid for him. She felt that she -could protect him better than he could protect -himself,--against any danger whatever. This instinct to -protect him was also the instinct of self-protection; for -peril to him meant peril to her. And she had had -enough of peril. After years of disastrous peril she -was safe and George was safe. And if she was -passionately in love with Edwin, she was also passionately -in love with safety. She had breathed a long sigh of -relief, and from a desperate self-defender had become -a woman. She lay back, as it were, luxuriously on a -lounge, after exhausting and horrible exertions; she had -scarcely ceased to pant. At the least sign of recurring -danger all her nerves were on the </span><em class="italics">qui vive</em><span>. Hence her -inimical attitude towards the project of the new works -and the extension of lithography in Bursley. The -simpleton (a moment earlier the perfect man) might ruin -himself--and her! In her view he was the last -person to undertake such an enterprise.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Since her marriage, Clara, Maggie, and Auntie -Hamps had been engaged in the pleasant endless task -of telling her all about everything that related to the -family, and she had been permitted to understand that -Edwin, though utterly admirable, was not of a creative -disposition, and that he had done nothing but conserve -what his father had left. Without his father Edwin -"would have been in a very different position." She -believed this. Every day, indeed, Edwin, by the texture -of his hourly life, proved the truth of it.... All the -persons standing to make a profit out of the new -project would get the better of his fine ingenuous -temperament--naturally! She knew the world. Did Edwin -suppose that she did not know what the world was? -... And then the interminable worry of the new -enterprise--misgivings, uncertainties, extra work, secret -preoccupations! What room for love, what hope of -tranquillity in all that? He might argue---- But -she did not want to argue; she would not argue. She -was dead against the entire project. He had not said -to her that it was no affair of hers, but she knew that -such was his thought, and she resented the attitude. -No affair of hers? When it threatened her felicity? -No! She would not have it. She was happy and secure. -And while lying luxuriously back in her lounge she -would maintain all the defences of her happiness and -her security.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Holding the green book in front of her, Edwin said -quietly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Read this!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Which?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He pointed with his finger.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She read:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"</span><em class="italics">I think I could turn and live with animals, they -are so placid and self-contained.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">I stand and look at them long and long.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">They do not sweat and whine about their condition.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their -sins.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">They do not make me sick discussing their duty to -God.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the -mania of owning things.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived -thousands of years ago.</em></p> -<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole -earth.</em><span>"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin had lately been exciting himself, not for the -first time, over Walt Whitman.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Fine, isn't it?" he said, sure that she would share -his thrill.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Magnificent!" she agreed with quiet enthusiasm. -"I must read more of that." She gazed over the top -of the book through the open blue-curtained window -into the garden.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He withdrew the book and closed it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You haven't got that tune exactly right, you know," -he said, jerking his head in the direction of the music.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" She was startled. What did he know about -it? He could not play the piano.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are you?" he asked. "Show me. Where's -the confounded place on the piano? Well! At the -end you play it like this." He imitated her. "Whereas -it ought to be like this." He played the last four notes -differently.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So it ought!" She murmured with submission, after -having frowned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That bit of a tune's been running in my head, too," -he said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The strange beauty of Whitman and the strange -beauty of Dvorak seemed to unite, and both Edwin and -Hilda were uplifted, not merely by these mingled -beauties, but by their realisation of the wondrous fact that -they both took intense pleasure in the same varied -forms of beauty. Happiness rose about them like a -sweet smell in the spaces of the comfortable impeccable -drawing-room. And for a moment they leaned towards -each other in bliss--across the open question.... -Was it still open? ... Ah! Edwin might be -ingenuous, a simpleton, but Hilda admitted the astounding, -mystifying adroitness of his demeanour. Had he -abandoned the lithographic project, or was he privately -nursing it? In his friendliness towards herself was -there a reserve, or was there not? She knew ... she -did not know ... she knew.... Yes, there was a -reserve, but it was so infinitesimal that she could not -define it,--could not decide whether it was due to -obstinacy of purpose, or merely to a sense of injury, -whether it was resentful or condescending. Exciting -times! And she perceived that her new life was -gradually getting fuller of such excitements.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said he. "It's nearly three. Quarter-day's -coming along. I'd better be off down and earn a bit -towards Maggie's rent."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Before the June quarter-day, he had been jocular in -the same way about Maggie's rent. In the division of -old Darius Clayhanger's estate Maggie had taken over -the Clayhanger house, and Edwin paid rent to her -therefor.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said Hilda, -pouting amiably.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I wish you wouldn't."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Anyhow, the rent has to be paid, I suppose."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And I wish it hadn't. I wish we didn't live in -Maggie's house."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't like the idea of it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're sentimental."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You can call it what you like. I don't like the -idea of us living in Maggie's house. I never feel as if -I was at home. No, I don't feel as if I was at home."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a kid you are!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You won't change me," she persisted stoutly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He knew that she was not sympathetic towards the -good Maggie. And he knew the reasons for her -attitude, though they had never been mentioned. One was -mere vague jealousy of Maggie as her predecessor in -the house. The other was that Maggie was always very -tepid towards George. George had annoyed her on his -visits previous to his mother's marriage, and moreover -Maggie had dimly resented Edwin's interest in the son -of a mysterious woman. If she had encountered George -after the proclamation of Edwin's engagement she -would have accepted the child with her customary -cheerful blandness. But she had encountered him too -soon, and her puzzled gaze had said to George: "Why -is my brother so taken up with you? There must be -an explanation, and your strange mother is the -explanation." Edwin did not deny Maggie's attitude to -George, but he defended Maggie as a human being. -Though dull, "she was absolutely the right sort," -and the very slave of duty and loyalty. He would have -liked to make Hilda see all Maggie's excellences.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you know what I've been thinking?" Hilda went -on. "Suppose you were to buy the house from -Maggie? Then it would be ours."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He answered with a smile:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What price 'the mania for owning things'? ... Would -you like me to?" There was promise in his -roguish voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! I should. I've often thought of it," she said -eagerly. And at the same time all her gestures and -glances seemed to be saying: "Humour me! I appeal -to you as a girl pouting and capricious. But humour -me. You know it gives you pleasure to humour me. -You know you like me not to be too reasonable. We -both know it. I want you to do this."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was not the fact that she had often thought of the -plan. But in her eagerness she imagined it to be the -fact. She had never seriously thought of the plan -until that moment, and it appeared doubly favourable to -her now, because the execution of it, by absorbing -capital, ought to divert Edwin from his lithographic -project, and perhaps render the lithographic project -impossible for years.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She added, aloud:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you wouldn't have any rent to pay."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How true!" said Edwin, rallying her. "But it -would stand me in a loss, because I should have to pay -too much for the place."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" she cried, in arms. "Why should Maggie -ask too much just because you want it? And think -of all the money you've spent on it!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The money spent on it only increases its value to -Maggie. You don't seem to understand landlordism, -my child. But that's not the point at all. Maggie -won't ask any price. Only I couldn't decently pay her -less than the value she took the house over at when we -divided up. To wit, £1,800. It ain't worth that. I -only pay £60 rent."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If she took it over at too high a value that's her -look-out," said the harsh and unjust Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not at all. She was a fool. Albert and Clara -persuaded her. It was a jolly good thing for them. I -couldn't very well interfere."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It seems a great shame you should have to pay for -what Albert and Clara did."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I needn't unless I want to. Only, if I buy the -house, £1,800 will have to be the price."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Hilda. "I wish you'd buy it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Would she feel more at home if he did?" he -seductively chaffed her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, she would." Hilda straightened her shoulders, -and smiled with bravado.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And suppose Mag won't sell?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you allow me to mention it to her?" Hilda's -submissive tone implied that Edwin was a tyrant who -ruled with a nod.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't mind," he said negligently.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, one of these days I just will."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin departed, leaving the book behind. Hilda was -flushed. She thought: "It is marvellous. I can do -what I like with him. When I use a particular tone, -and look at him in a particular way, I can do what I -like with him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was ecstatically conscious of an incomprehensible -power. What a rôle, that of the capricious, pouting -queen, reclining luxuriously on her lounge, and -subduing a tyrant to a slave! It surpassed that of the -world-renowned pianist!...</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>But soon she became more serious. She had a -delicious glow of seriousness. She overflowed with -gratitude to Edwin. His good-nature was exquisite. He -was not perfect. She could see all his faults just as -plainly as when she was angry with him. But he was -perfect in lovableness. She adored every aspect of him, -every manifestation of his character. She felt her -responsibility to him and to George. It was hers to -bring grace into their lives. Without her, how -miserable, how uncared for, those two would be! They -would be like lost children. Nobody could do for them -what she did. Money could not buy what she gave -naturally, and mere invention could not devise it. She -looked up to Edwin, but at the same time she was -mysteriously above both him and George. She had a -strange soft wisdom for them. It was agreeable, and -it was proper, and it was even prudent, to be -capricious on occasion and to win by pouting and wiles and -seductions; but beneath all that lay the tremendous -sternness of the wife's duty, everlasting and intricate, a -heavy obligation that demanded all her noblest powers -for its fulfilment. She rose heroically to the thought of -duty, conceiving it as she had never conceived it -before. She desired intensely to be the most wonderful -wife in the whole history of marriage. And she -believed strongly in her capabilities.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She went upstairs to put on another and a finer -dress; for since the disastrous sequel to the At Home -she had somewhat wearied in the pursuit of elegance. -She had thought: "What is the use of me putting -myself to such a lot of trouble for a husband who is -insensible enough to risk my welfare unnecessarily?" She -was now ashamed of this backsliding. Ada was in the -bedroom finicking with something on the dressing-table. -Ada sprang to help as soon as she knew that her -mistress had to go out. And she openly admired the -new afternoon dress and seemed as pleased as though -she was to wear it herself. And Ada buttoned her boots -and found her gloves and her parasol, and remembered -her purse and her bag and her handkerchief.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't quite know what time I shall be back, Ada."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No'm," said Ada eagerly, as though saying: "Of -course you don't, m'm. You have many engagements. -But no matter when you come back we shall be -delighted to see you because the house is nothing without -you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I shall be back for tea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes'm!" Ada agreed, as though saying: "Need -you tell me that, m'm? I know you would never leave -the master to have his tea alone."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda walked regally down the stairs and glanced -round about her at the house, which belonged to -Maggie and which Edwin had practically promised to buy. -Yes, it was a fine house, a truly splendid abode. And -it seemed all the finer because it was Maggie's. Hilda -had this regrettable human trait of overvaluing what -was not hers and depreciating what was. It accounted -in part, possibly, for her often very critical attitude -towards Edwin. She passed out of the front-door in -triumph, her head full of wise schemes and plots. But -even then she was not sure whether she had destroyed--or -could ever destroy, by no matter what arts!--the -huge dangerous lithographic project.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As soon as she was gone, Ada ran yelling to the -kitchen:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hooray! She's safe."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And both servants burst like infants into the garden, -to disport themselves upon the swing.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-family-at-home"><span class="large">CHAPTER VIII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE FAMILY AT HOME</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When Hilda knocked at the door of Auntie Hamps's -house, in King Street, a marvellously dirty and untidy -servant answered the summons, and a smell of -greengage jam in the making surged out through the -doorway into the street. The servant wore an apron of -rough sacking.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Miss Clayhanger in?" coldly asked Hilda, -offended by the sight and the smell.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The servant looked suspicious and mysterious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, mum. Her's gone out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Hamps, then?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Missis is up yon," said the servant, jerking her -tousled head back towards the stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you tell her I'm here?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The servant left the visitor on the doorstep, and -with an elephantine movement of the knees ran upstairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda walked into the passage towards the kitchen. -On the kitchen fire was the brilliant copper pan sacred -to "preserving." Rows of earthenware and glass jars -stood irregularly on the table.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Her'll be down," said the brusque servant, returning, -and glared open-mouthed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall I wait in the sitting-room?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The house, about seventy years old, was respectably -situated in the better part of King Street, at the -bottom of the slope near St. Luke's Church. It had once -been occupied by a dentist of a certain grandeur, and -possessed a garden, of which, however, Auntie Hamps -had made a wilderness. The old lady was magnificent, -but her magnificence was limited to herself. She could -be sublimely generous, gorgeously hospitable, but only -upon special occasions. Her teas, at which a fresh -and costly pineapple and wonderful confectionery and -pickled salmon and silver plate never lacked, were -renowned, but the general level of her existence was very -mean. Her servants, of whom she had many, though -never more than one at a time, were not only obliged to -be Wesleyan Methodists and to attend the Sunday -night service, and in the week to go to class-meeting for -the purpose of confessing sins and proving the power -of Christ,--they were obliged also to eat dripping -instead of butter. The mistress sometimes ate dripping, -if butter ran short or went up in price. She considered -herself a tremendous housewife. She was a martyr to -her housewifely ideals. Her private career was chiefly -an endless struggle to keep the house clean--to get -forward with the work. The house was always going to -be clean and never was, despite eternal soap, -furniture-polish, scrubbing, rubbing. Auntie Hamps never -changed her frowsy house-dress for rich visiting attire -without the sad thought that she was "leaving -something undone." The servant never went to bed -without hearing the discontented phrase: "Well, we must -do it to-morrow." Spring-cleaning in that house lasted -for six weeks. On days of hospitality the effort to -get the servant "dressed" for tea-time was simply -desperate, and not always successful.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps had no sense of comfort and no sense -of beauty. She was incapable of leaning back in a -chair, and she regarded linoleum as one of the most -satisfactory inventions of the modern age. She "saved" -her carpets by means of patches of linoleum, often -stringy at the edges, and in some rooms there was more -linoleum than anything else. In the way of renewals -she bought nothing but linoleum,--unless some chapel -bazaar forced her to purchase a satin cushion or a -hand-painted grate-screen. All her furniture was old, -decrepit and ugly; it belonged to the worst Victorian -period, when every trace of the eighteenth century had -disappeared. The abode was always oppressive. It -was oppressive even amid hospitality, for then the mere -profusion on the tables accused the rest of the interior, -creating a feeling of discomfort; and moreover -Mrs. Hamps could not be hospitable naturally. She could -be nothing and do nothing naturally. She could no -more take off her hypocrisy than she could take off -her skin. Her hospitality was altogether too ruthless. -And to satisfy that ruthlessness, the guests had always -to eat too much. She was so determined to demonstrate -her hospitality to herself, that she would never leave -a guest alone until he had reached the bursting point.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda sat grimly in the threadbare sitting-room amid -morocco-bound photograph albums, oleographs, and -beady knickknacks, and sniffed the strong odour of -jam; and in the violence of her revolt against that -wide-spread messy idolatrous eternal domesticity of which -Auntie Hamps was a classic example, she protested that -she would sooner buy the worst jam than make the best, -and that she would never look under a table for dust, -and that naught should induce her to do any housework -after midday, and that she would abolish -spring-cleaning utterly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The vast mediocre respectability of the district -weighed on her heart. She had been a mistress-drudge -in Brighton during a long portion of her adult life; -she knew the very depths of domesticity; but at -Brighton the eye could find large, rich, luxurious, and -sometimes beautiful things for its distraction; and there -was the sea. In the Five Towns there was nothing. -You might walk from one end of the Five Towns to -the other, and not see one object that gave a -thrill--unless it was a pair of lovers. And when you went -inside the houses you were no better off,--you were even -worse off, because you came at once into contact with -an ignoble race of slatternly imprisoned serfs driven -by narrow-minded women who themselves were serfs -with the mentality of serfs and the prodigious conceit -of virtue.... Talk to Auntie Hamps at home of -lawn-tennis or a musical evening, and she would set -you down as flighty, and shift the conversation on to -soaps or chapels. And there were hundreds of houses -in the Five Towns into which no ideas save the ideas -of Auntie Hamps had ever penetrated, and tens and -hundreds of thousands of such houses all over the -industrial districts of Staffordshire, Cheshire, -Lancashire, and Yorkshire,--houses where to keep bits of -wood clean and to fulfil the ceremonies of pietism, and -to help the poor to help themselves, was the highest -good, the sole good. Hilda in her mind saw every -house, and shuddered. She turned for relief to the -thought of her own house, and in a constructive spirit -of rebellion she shaped instantaneously a conscious -policy for it.... Yes, she took oath that her house -should at any rate be intelligent and agreeable before -it was clean. She pictured Auntie Hamps gazing at -a layer of dust in the Clayhanger hall, and heard -herself saying: "Oh, yes, Auntie, it's dust right enough. -I keep it there on purpose, to remind me of something -I want to remember." She looked round Auntie -Hamps's sitting-room and revelled grimly in the -monstrous catalogue of its mean ugliness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then Auntie Hamps came in, splendidly and -yet soberly attired in black to face the world, with her -upright, vigorous figure, her sparkling eye, and her -admirable complexion; self-content, smiling hospitably; -quite unconscious that she was dead, and that her era -was dead, and that Hilda was not guiltless of the murder.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is nice of you, Hilda. It's quite an honour." And -then, archly: "I'm making jam."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So I see," said Hilda, meaning that so she smelt. -"I just looked in on the chance of seeing Maggie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Maggie went out about half-an-hour ago."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps's expression had grown mysterious. -Hilda thought: "What's she hiding from me?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, well, it doesn't matter," said she. "You're -going out too, Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I do wish I'd known you were coming, dear. Will -you stay and have a cup of tea?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no! I won't keep you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But it will be a </span><em class="italics">pleasure</em><span>, dear," Auntie Hamps -protested warmly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no! Thanks! I'll just walk along with -you a little of the way. Which direction are you -going?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps hesitated, she was in a dilemma.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What </span><em class="italics">is</em><span> she hiding from me?" thought Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The truth is," said Auntie Hamps, "I'm just -popping over to Clara's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'll go with you, Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, do!" exclaimed Mrs. Hamps almost passionately. -"Do! I'm sure Clara will be delighted!" She -added in a casual tone: "Maggie's there."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Thought Hilda:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She evidently doesn't want me to go."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After Mrs. Hamps had peered into the grand -copper pan and most particularly instructed the servant, -they set off.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shan't be easy in my mind until I get back," said -Auntie Hamps. "Unless you look after them all the -time they always forget to stir it."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When they turned in at the gate of the Benbows' -house the front-door was already open, and Clara, -holding Rupert--her youngest--by the hand, stood smiling -to receive them. Obviously they had been descried up -the street from one of the bow-windows. This small -fact, strengthening in Hilda's mind the gradually-formed -notion that the Benbows were always lying in -wait and that their existence was a vast machination -for getting the better of other people, enlivened her -prejudice against her sister-in-law. Moreover Clara -was in one of her best dresses, and her glance had a -peculiar self-conscious expression, partly guilty and -partly cunning. Nevertheless, the fair fragility of -Clara's face, with its wonderful skin, and her manner, -at once girlish and maternal, of holding fast the child's -hand, reacted considerably against Hilda's prejudice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Rupert was freshly all in white, stitched and -embroidered with millions of plain and fancy stitches; he -had had time neither to tear nor to stain; only on his -bib there was a spot of jam. His obese right arm was -stretched straight upwards to attain the immense -height of the hand of the protective giantess his -mother, and this reaching threw the whole balance of -his little body over towards the left, and gave him a -comical and wistful appearance. He was a pretty and -yet sturdy child, with a look indicating a nice disposition, -and he had recently been acquiring the marvellous -gift of speech.... Astounding how the infantile -brain added word to word and phrase to phrase, and -(as though there were not enough) actually invented -delicious words and graphic droll phrases! Nobody -could be surprised that he became at once the centre -of greetings. His grand-aunt snatched him up, and -without the slightest repugnance he allowed the ancient -woman to bury her nose in his face and neck.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then Hilda embraced him with not less pleasure, -for the contact of his delicate flesh, and his flushed -timid smile, were exquisite. She wished for a moment -that George was only two and a half again, and that -she could bathe him, and wipe him, and nurse him -close. Clara's pride, though the visitors almost -forgot to shake hands with her, was ecstatic. At length -Rupert was safely on the step once more. He had -made no remark whatever. Shyness prevented him -from showing off his new marvellous gift, but his -mother, gazing at him, said that in ordinary life he -never stopped chattering.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come this way, will you?" said Clara effusively, and -yet conspiratorially, pointing to the drawing-room, -which was to the left of the front-door. From the -dining-room, which was to the right of the front-door, -issued confused sounds. "Albert's here. I'm so glad -you've come," she added to Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps murmured warningly into Hilda's ear:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's Bert's birthday party."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A fortnight earlier Hilda had heard rumours of -Bert's approaching birthday--his twelfth, and -therefore a high solemnity--but she had very wrongly -forgotten about it. "I'm so glad you've come," Clara -repeated in the drawing-room. "I was afraid you might -be hurt. I thought I'd just bring you in here first and -explain it all to you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Bless me!" exclaimed Auntie Hamps,--interrupting, -as she glanced round the drawing-room. "We -are grand! Well I never! We are grand!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you like it?" said Clara, blushing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps in reply told one of the major lies of -her career. She said with rapture that she did like -the new drawing-room suite. This suite was a proof, -disagreeable to Auntie Hamps, that the world would -never stand still. It quite ignored all the old -Victorian ideals of furniture; and in ignoring the past, it -also ignored the future. Victorian furniture had -always sought after immortality; in Bursley there were -thousands of Victorian chairs and tables that defied -time and that nothing but an axe or a conflagration -could destroy. But this new suite thought not of the -morrow; it did not even pretend to think of the -morrow. Nobody believed that it would last, and the -owners of it simply forbore to reflect upon what it -would be after a few years of family use. They -contemplated with joy its first state of dainty freshness, -and were content therein. Whereas the old Victorians -lived in the future (in so far as they truly lived at -all), the neo-Victorians lived careless in the present.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The suite was of apparent rosewood, with salmon-tinted -upholstery ending in pleats and bows. But -white also entered considerably into the scheme, for -enamel paint had just reached Bursley and was -destined to become the rage. Among the items of the suite -was a three-legged milking-stool in deal covered with -white enamel paint heightened by salmon-tinted bows -of imitation silk. Society had recently been -thunderstruck by the originality of putting a milking-stool in -a drawing-room; its quaintness appealed with -tremendous force to nearly all hearts; nearly every -house-mistress on seeing a milking-stool in a friend's -drawing-room, decided that she must have a milking-stool -in her drawing-room, and took measures to get one. -Clara was among the earlier possessors, the pioneers. -Ten years--five years--before, Clara had appropriated -the word "æsthetic" as a term of sneering abuse, with -but a vague idea of its meaning; and now--such is the -miraculous effect of time--she was caught up in the -movement as it had ultimately spread to the Five -Towns, a willing convert and captive, and nothing -could exceed her scorn for that which once she had -admired to the exclusion of all else. Into that -mid-Victorian respectable house, situate in a rather -old-fashioned street leading from Shawport Lane to the -Canal, and whose boast (even when inhabited by -non-conformists) was that it overlooked the Rectory -garden, the new ideals of brightness, freshness, eccentricity, -brittleness and impermanency had entered, and Auntie -Hamps herself was intimidated by them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda gave polite but perfunctory praise. Left -alone, she might not have been averse from the new -ideals in their more expensive forms, but the influence -of Edwin had taught her to despise them. Edwin's -tastes in furniture, imbibed from the Orgreaves, -neglected the modern, and went even further back than -earliest Victorian. Much of the ugliness bought by his -father remained in the Clayhanger house, but all -Edwin's own purchases were either antique, or, if new, -careful imitations of the pre-Victorian. Had England -been peopled by Edwins, all original artists in -furniture might have died of hunger. Yet he encouraged -original literature. What, however, put Hilda against -Clara's drawing-room suite, was not its style, nor its -enamel, nor its frills, nor the obviously inferior quality -of its varnish, but the mere fact that it had been -exposed for sale in Nixon's shop-window in Duck Bank, -with the price marked. Hilda did not like this. Now -Edwin might see an old weather-glass in some frowsy -second-hand shop at Hanbridge or Turnhill, and from -indecision might leave it in the second-hand shop for -months, and then buy it and hang it up at home,--and -instantly it was somehow transformed into another -weather-glass, a superior and personal weather-glass. -But Clara's suite was not--for Hilda--thus transformed. -Indeed, as she sat there in Clara's drawing-room, -she had the illusion of sitting in Nixon's shop.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Further, Nixon had now got in his window another -suite precisely like Clara's. It was astonishing to -Hilda that Clara was not ashamed of the publicity and -the wholesale reproduction of her suite. But she was -not. On the contrary she seemed to draw a mysterious -satisfaction from the very fact that suites precisely -similar to hers were to be found or would soon -be found in unnumbered other drawing-rooms. Nor did -she mind that the price was notorious. And in the -matter of the price the phrase "hire-purchase" flitted -about in Hilda's brain. She felt sure that Albert -Benbow had not paid cash to Nixon. She regarded the -hire-purchase system as unrespectable, if not immoral, -and this opinion was one of the very few she shared -with Auntie Hamps. Both ladies in their hearts, and -in the security of their financial positions, blamed the -Benbows for imprudence. Nobody, not even his wife, -knew just how Albert "stood," but many took leave -to guess--and guessed unfavourably.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do sit down," said Clara, too urgently. She was so -preoccupied that Hilda's indifference to her new -furniture did not affect her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They all sat down, primly, in the pretty primness of -the drawing-room, and Rupert leaned as if tired against -his mother's fine skirt.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, expectant, glanced vaguely about her. Auntie -Hamps did the same. On the central table lay a -dictionary of the English language, open and leaves -downwards; and near it a piece of paper containing a -long list of missing words in pencil. Auntie Hamps, as -soon as her gaze fell on these objects, looked quickly -away, as though she had by accident met the obscene. -Clara caught the movement, flushed somewhat, and -recovered herself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so glad you've come," she repeated yet again to -Hilda, with a sickly-sweet smile. "I did so want to -explain to you how it was we didn't ask George--I was -afraid you might be vexed."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What an idea!" Hilda murmured as naturally as -she could, her nostrils twitching uneasily in the -atmosphere of small feuds and misunderstandings which -Clara breathed with such pleasure. She laughed, to -reassure Clara, and also in enjoyment of the thought -that for days Clara had pictured her as wondering -sensitively why no invitation to the party had come -for George, while in fact the party had never crossed -her mind. She regretted that she had no gift for Bert, -but decided to give him half-a-crown for his -savings-bank account, of which she had heard a lot.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"To tell ye the truth," said Clara, launching -herself, "we've had a lot of trouble with Bert. Albert's -been quite put about. It was only the day before -yesterday Albert got out of him the truth about the night -of your At Home, Hilda, when he ran away after he'd -gone to bed. Albert said to him: 'I shan't whip you, -and I shan't put you on bread and water. Only if you -don't tell me what you were doing that night there'll -be no birthday and no birthday party--that's all.' So -at last Bert gave in. And d'you know what he was -doing? Holding a prayer-meeting with your George -and that boy of Clowes's next door to your house down -Hulton Street. Did you know?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda shook her head bravely. Officially she did not -know.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you ever hear of such a thing?" exclaimed -Auntie Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," proceeded Clara, taking breath for a new -start. "And Bert's story is that they prayed for a -penknife for your George, and it came. And then they -prayed for a bicycle for our Bert, but the bicycle didn't -come, and then Bert and George had a fearful -quarrel, and George gave him the penknife--made him have -it--and then said he'd never speak to him any more as -long as he lived. At first Albert was inclined to thrash -Bert for telling lies and being irreverent, but in the -end he came to the conclusion that at any rate Bert -was telling what he thought to be the truth.... And -that Clowes boy is so </span><em class="italics">little</em><span>! ... Bert wanted his -birthday party of course, but he begged and prayed -us not to ask George. So in the end we decided we'd -better not, and we let him have his own way. That's -all there is to it.... So George has said nothing?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not a word," replied Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And the Clowes boy is so </span><em class="italics">little</em><span>!" said Clara again. -She went suddenly to the mantelpiece and picked up a -penknife and offered it to Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here's the penknife. Of course Albert took it off -him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" said Hilda ingenuously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Clara detected satire and repelled it with a -glance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's not Edwin's penknife, I suppose?" she queried, -in a severe tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, it isn't. I've never seen it before. Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We were only thinking Edwin might have overheard -the boys and thrown a knife over the wall. It -would be just like Edwin, that would."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no!" The deceitful Hilda blew away such a -possibility.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm quite sure he didn't," said she, and added -mischievously as she held out the penknife: "I thought -all you folks believed in the efficacy of prayer."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>These simple words were never forgiven by Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The next moment, having restored the magic -penknife to the mantelpiece, and gathered up her infant, -she was leading the way to the dining-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come along, Rupy, my darling," said she.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Rupy!'" Hilda privately imitated her, deriding -the absurdity of the diminutive.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you ask me," said Auntie Hamps, determined to -save the honour of the family, "it's that little Clowes -monkey that is responsible. I've been thinking it over -since you told me about it last night, Clara, and I feel -almost sure it must have been that little Clowes monkey."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was magnificent. She was no longer a house-keeper -worried about the processes of jam-making, but -a grandiose figure out in the world, a figure symbolic, -upon whom had devolved the duty of keeping up -appearances on behalf of all mankind.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The dining-room had not yet begun to move with -the times. It was rather a shabby apartment, -accustomed to daily ill-treatment, and its contents dated -from different periods, the most ancient object of all -stretching backwards in family history to the epoch -of Albert's great-grandfather. This was an oak -arm-chair, occupied usually by Albert, but on the present -occasion by his son and heir, Bert. Bert, spectacled, -was at the head of the table; and at the foot was his -auntie Maggie in front of a tea-tray. Down the sides -of the table were his sisters, thin Clara, fat Amy, and -little Lucy--the first nearly as old as Bert--and his -father; two crumb-strewn plates showed that the -mother and Rupert had left the meal to greet the -visitors. And there were two other empty places. In a -tiny vase in front of Amy was a solitary flower. The -room was nearly full; it had an odour of cake, tea, and -children.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, here we are," said Clara, entering with the -guests and Rupert, very cheerfully. "Getting on all -right?" (She gave Albert a glance which said: "I -have explained everything, but Hilda is a very -peculiar creature.")</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A1," Albert answered. "Hello, all you aunties!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Albert left the works early on purpose," Clara -explained her husband's presence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was a happy man. In early adolescence he had -taken to Sunday Schools as some youths take to vice. -He loved to exert authority over children, and -experience had taught him all the principal dodges. Under -the forms of benevolent autocracy, he could exercise a -ruthless discipline upon youngsters. He was not at -all ashamed at being left in charge of a tableful of -children while his wife went forth to conduct -diplomatic interviews. At the same time he had his pride. -Thus he would express no surprise, nor even pleasure, -at the presence of Hilda, his theory being that it ought -to be taken as a matter of course. Indeed he was -preoccupied by the management of the meal, and he did -not conceal the fact. He shook hands with the ladies -in a perfunctory style, which seemed to say: "Now -the supreme matter is this birthday repast. I am -running it, and I am running it very well. Slip inobtrusively -into your places in the machine, and let me continue -my work of direction."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nevertheless, he saw to it that all the children rose -politely and saluted according to approved precedents. -His eye was upon them. He attached importance to -every little act in any series of little acts. If he cut -the cake, he had the air of announcing to the world: -"This is a beautiful cake. I have carefully estimated -the merits of this cake, and mother has carefully -estimated them; we have in fact all come to a definite and -favourable conclusion about this cake,--namely that -it is a beautiful cake. I will now cut it. The -operation of cutting it is a major operation. Watch me cut -it, and then watch me distribute it. Wisdom and -justice shall preside over the distribution." Even if he -only passed the salt, he passed it as though he were -passing extreme unction.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps with apparent delight adapted -herself to his humour. She said she would "squeeze in" -anywhere, and was soon engaged in finding perfection -in everything that appertained to the Benbow family. -Hilda, not being quite so intimate with the household, -was installed with more ceremony. She could not keep -out of her eye the idea that it was droll to see a -stoutish, somewhat clay-dusted man neglecting his business -in order to take charge of a birthday-party of small -children; and Albert, observing this, could not keep -out of his eye the rebutting assertion that it was not -in the least droll, but entirely proper and laudable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The first mention of birthday presents came from -Auntie Hamps, who remarked with enthusiasm that -Bert looked a regular little man in his beautiful new -spectacles. Bert, glowering, gloomy and yet proud, -and above all self-conscious, grew even more -self-conscious at this statement. Spectacles had been ordained -for him by the oculist, and his parents had had the -hardihood to offer him his first pair for a birthday -present. They had so insisted on the beauty and -originality of the scheme that Bert himself had almost come -to believe that to get a pair of spectacles for a -birthday present was a great thing in a boy's life. He was -now wearing the spectacles for the first time. On the -whole, gloom outbalanced pride in his demeanour, and -Bert's mysterious soul, which had flabbergasted his -father for about a week, peeped out sidelong occasionally -through those spectacles in bitter criticism of -the institution of parents. He ate industriously. Soon -Auntie Hamps, leaning over, rapped half-a-sovereign -down on his sticky plate. Everybody pretended to be -overwhelmed, though nobody entitled to prophesy had -expected less. Almost simultaneously with the ring of -the gold on the plate, Clara said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now what do you say?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Albert was judiciously benevolent:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Leave him alone, mother--he'll say it all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure he will," his mother agreed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Bert said it, blushing, and fingering the coin -nervously. And Auntie Hamps sat like an antique -goddess, bland, superb, morally immense. And even her -dirty and broken finger-nails detracted naught from her -grandiosity. She might feed servants on dripping, but -when the proper moment came she could fling -half-sovereigns about with anybody.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then, opening her purse, Hilda added five shillings -to the half-sovereign, amid admiring exclamations -sincere and insincere. Beside Auntie Hamps's gold the -two half-crowns cut a poor figure, and therefore Hilda, -almost without discontinuing the gesture of largesse, -said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That is from Uncle Edwin. And this," putting a -florin and three shillings more to the treasure, "is from -Auntie Hilda."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Somehow she was talking as the others talked, and -she disliked herself for yielding to the spirit of the -Benbow home, but she could not help it; the pervading -spirit conquered everybody. She felt self-conscious; -and Bert's self-consciousness was still further increased -as the exclamations grew in power and sincerity. -Though he experienced the mournful pride of rich -possessions, he knew well that the money would be of no -real value. His presents, all useful (save a bouquet of -flowers from Rupert), were all useless to him. Thus the -prim young Clara had been parentally guided to give -him a comb. If all the combs in the world had been -suddenly annihilated Bert would not have cared,--would -indeed have rejoiced. And as to the spectacles, -he would have preferred the prospect of total -blindness in middle age to the compulsion of wearing them. -Who can wonder that his father had not fathomed the -mind of the strange creature?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert gazed rapt at the beautiful sight of the plate. -It reminded him pleasantly of a collection-plate at the -Sunday School Anniversary sermons. In a moment the -conversation ran upon savings-bank accounts. Each -child had a savings-bank account, and their riches were -astounding. Rupert had an account and was getting -interest at the rate of two and a half per cent on six -pounds ten shillings. The thriftiness of the elder -children had reached amounts which might be mentioned -with satisfaction even to the luxurious wife of the -richest member of the family. Young Clara was the -wealthiest of the band. "I've got the most, haven't I, -fardy?" she said with complacency. "I've got more -than Bert, haven't I?" Nobody seemed to know how -it was that she had surpassed Bert, who had had more -birthdays and more Christmases. The inferiority of -the eldest could not be attributed to dissipation or -improvidence, for none of the children was allowed to -spend a cent. The savings-bank devoured all, and -never rendered back. However, Bert was now creeping -up, and his mother exhorted him to do his best in -future. She then took the money from the plate, and -promised Bert for the morrow the treat of accompanying -her to the Post Office in order to bury it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A bell rang within the house, and at once young -Clara exclaimed:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! There's Flossie! Oh, my word, she is late, -isn't she, fardy? What a good thing we didn't wait -tea for her! ... Move up, miss." This to Lucy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"People who are late must take the consequences, -especially little girls," said Albert in reply.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And presently Flossie entered, tripping, shrugging -up her shoulders and throwing back her mane, and -wonderfully innocent.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is Flossie, who is always late," Albert -introduced her to Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I really?" said Flossie, in a very low, soft voice, -with a bright and apparently frightened smile.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Dark Flossie was of Amy's age and supposed to be -Amy's particular friend. She was the daughter of -young Clara's music mistress. The little girl's prestige -in the Benbow house was due to two causes. First she -was graceful and rather stylish in movement--qualities -which none of the Benbow children had, though -young Clara was pretty enough; and second her mother -had rather more pupils than she could comfortably -handle, and indeed sometimes refused a pupil.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Flossie with her physical elegance was like a -foreigner among the Benbows. She had a precocious -demeanour. She shook hands and embraced like a woman, -and she gave her birthday gift to Bert as if she were -distributing a prize. It was a lead-pencil, with a -patent sharpener. Bert would have preferred a -bicycle, but the patent sharpener made an oasis in his -day. His father pointed out to him that as the pencil -was already sharpened he could not at present use the -sharpener. Amy thereupon furtively passed him the -stump of a pencil to operate upon, and then his mother -told him that he had better postpone his first -sharpening until he got into the garden, where bits of wood -would not be untidy. Flossie carefully settled her very -short white skirts on a chair, smiling all the time, and -enquired about two brothers whom she had been told -were to be among the guests. Albert informed her with -solemnity that these two brothers were both down with -measles, and that Auntie Hamps and Auntie Hilda had -come to make up for their absence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor things!" murmured Flossie sympathetically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda laughed, and Flossie screwing up her eyes and -shrugging up her shoulders laughed too, as if saying: -"You and I alone understand me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a pretty flower!" Flossie exclaimed, in her -low soft voice, indicating the flower in the vase in front -of Amy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's half a crumb left," said Albert, passing the -cake-plate to Flossie carefully. "We thought we'd -better keep it for you, though we don't reckon to keep -anything for little girls that come late."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Amy," whispered her mother, leaning towards the -fat girl. "Wouldn't it be nice of you to give your -flower to Flossie?" Amy started.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't want to," she whispered back, flushing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The flower was a gift to Amy from Bert, out of the -birthday bunch presented to him by Rupert. -Mysterious relations existed between Bert and the -benignant, acquiescent Amy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Amy!" her mother protested, still whispering, -but shocked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tears came into Amy's eyes. These tears Amy at -length wiped away, and, straightening her face, offered -the flower with stiff outstretched arm to her friend -Flossie. And Flossie smilingly accepted it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It </span><em class="italics">is</em><span> kind of you, you darling!" said Flossie, and -stuck the flower in an interstice of her embroidered -pinafore.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Amy, gravely lacking in self-control, began to -whimper again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's my good little girl!" muttered Clara to her, -exhibiting pride in her daughter's victory over self, -and rubbed the child's eyes with her handkerchief. The -parents were continually thus "bringing up" their -children. Hilda pressed her lips together.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Immediately afterwards it was noticed that Flossie -was no longer eating.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've had quite enough, thank you," said she in -answer to expostulations.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No jam, even? And you've not finished your tea!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've had quite enough, thank you," said she, and -folded up her napkin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please, father, can we go and play in the garden -now?" Bert asked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert looked at his wife.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I think they might," said Clara. "Go and -play nicely." They all rose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now quietly, qui-etly!" Albert warned them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And they went from the room quietly, each in his -own fashion,--Flossie like a modest tsarina, young -Clara full of virtue and holding Rupert by the hand, -Amy lumpily, tiny Lucy as one who had too soon been -robbed of the privilege of being the youngest, and Bert -in the rear like a criminal who is observed in a -suspicious act. And Albert blew out wind, as if getting -rid of a great weight.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"Finished your greengage, auntie?" asked Clara, -after the pause which ensued while the adults were -accustoming themselves to the absence of the children.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And it was Maggie who answered, rather eagerly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, she hasn't. She's left it to the tender mercies -of that Maria. She wouldn't let me stay, and she -wouldn't stay herself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>These were almost the first words, save murmurings -as to cups of tea, quantities of sugar and of milk, etc., -that the taciturn Maggie had uttered since Hilda's -arrival. She was not sulky, she had merely been devoting -herself and allowing herself to be exploited, in the -vacuous manner customary to her,--and listening -receptively--or perhaps not even receptively--offering -no remark. Save that the smooth-working mechanism -of the repast would have creaked and stopped at her -departure, she might have slipped from the room -unnoticed as a cat. But now she spoke as one capable -of enthusiasm and resentment on behalf of an ideal. -To her it was scandalous that greengage jam should be -jeopardised for the sake of social pleasures, and -suddenly it became evident she and her auntie had had a -difference on the matter.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Hamps said stoutly and defiantly, with grandeur:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I wasn't going to have my eldest grand-nephew's -twelfth birthday party interfered with for -any jam."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hear, hear!" said Hilda, liking the terrific woman -for an instant.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But mild Maggie was inflexible.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara, knowing that in Maggie very slight symptoms -had enormous significance, at once changed the -subject. Albert went to the back window, whence by -twisting his neck he could descry a corner of the garden.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Clara, smiling:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I hear you're going to have some </span><em class="italics">musical evenings</em><span>, -Hilda ... on Sunday nights."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Malice and ridicule were in Clara's tone. On the -phrase "musical evenings" she put a strange disdainful -emphasis, as though a musical evening denoted something -not only unrighteous but snobbish, new-fangled, -and absurd. Yet envy also was in her tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda was startled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah! Who told you that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind! I heard," said Clara darkly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda wondered where the Benbows, from whom seemingly -naught could be concealed, had in fact got this -tit-bit of news. By tacit consent she and Edwin had -as yet said nothing to anybody except the Orgreaves, -who alone, with Tertius Ingpen and one or two more -intimates, were invited, or were to be invited, to the -first evening. Relations between the Orgreaves and the -Benbows scarcely existed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We're having a little music on Sunday night," said -Hilda, as it were apologetically, and scorning herself -for being apologetic. Why should she be apologetic to -these base creatures? But she couldn't help it; the -public opinion of the room was too much for her. She -even added: "We're hoping that old Mrs. Orgreave -will come. It will be the first time she's been out in -the evening for ever so long." The name of Mrs. Orgreave -was calculated by Hilda to overawe them and stop their mouths.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>No name, however, could overawe Mrs. Hamps. She -smiled kindly, and with respect for the caprices of others; -she spoke in a tone exceptionally polite,--but what she -said was: "I'm sorry ... I'm sorry."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The deliverance was final. Auntie Hamps was -almost as deeply moved about the approaching desecration -of the Sabbath as Maggie had been about the casual -treatment of jam. In earlier years she would have said -a great deal more--just as in earlier years she would -have punctuated Bert's birthday mouthfuls with descants -upon the excellence of his parents and moral exhortations -to himself; but Auntie Hamps was growing older, -and quieter, and "I'm sorry ... I'm sorry" meant much -from her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda became sad, disgusted, indignant, moody. The -breach which separated her and Edwin from the rest of -the family was enormous, as might be seen in the mere -fact that they had never for a moment contemplated -asking anybody in the family to the musical evening, nor -had the family ever dreamed of an invitation. It was -astonishing that Edwin should be so different from the -others. But after all, was he? She could see in him -sometimes bits of Maggie, of Clara, and even of the -Unspeakable. She was conscious of her grievances -against Edwin. Among these was that he never, or -scarcely ever, praised her. At moments, when she had -tried hard, she felt a great need of praise. But Edwin -would watch her critically, with the damnable grim -detachment of the Five Towns towards a stranger or -a returned exile.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As she sat in the stuffy dining-room of the Benbows, -surrounded by hostilities and incomprehensions, she had -a sensation of unreality, or at any rate of a vast -mistake. Why was she there? Was she not tied by -intimate experience to a man at that very instant in -prison? (She had a fearful vision of him in prison,--she, -sitting there in the midst of Maggie, Clara, and -Auntie Hamps!) Was she not the mother of an -illegitimate boy? Victimised or not, innocent or not, she, -a guest at Bert's intensely legitimate birthday fête, -was the mother of an illegitimate boy. Incredible! She -ought never to have married into the Clayhangers, -never to have come back to this cackling provincial -district. All these people were inimical towards -her,--because she represented the luxury and riches and -worldly splendour of the family, and because her -illegitimate boy had tempted the heir of the Benbows -to blasphemous wickedness, and because she herself had -tempted a weak Edwin to abandon chapel and to -desecrate the Sabbath, and again because she, without a -penny of her own, had stepped in and now represented -the luxury and riches and worldly splendour of the -family. And all the family's grievances against -Edwin were also grievances against her. Once, long ago, -when he was yet a bachelor, and had no hope of Hilda, -Edwin had prevented his father, in dotage, from -lending a thousand pounds to Albert upon no security. -The interference was unpardonable, and Hilda would -not be pardoned for it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Such was marriage into a family. Such was family -life.... Yes, she felt unreal there, and also unsafe. -She had prevaricated about George and the penknife; -and she had allowed Clara to remain under the -impression that her visit to the house was a birthday visit. -Auntie Hamps and destiny, between them, would lay -bare all this lying. The antipathy against her would -increase. But let it increase never so much, it still -would not equal Hilda's against the family, as she -thrilled to it then. Their narrow ignorance, their -narrow self-conceit, their detestation of beauty, their -pietism, their bigotry--revolted her. In what century had -they been living all those years? Was this married -life? Had Albert and Clara ever felt a moment of -mutual passion? They were nothing but parents, -eternally preoccupied with "oughts" and "ought nots" and -forbiddances and horrid reluctant permissions. They -did not know what joy was, and they did not want -anybody else to know what joy was. Even on the outskirts -of such a family, a musical evening on a Sunday night -appeared a forlorn enterprise. And all the families in -all the streets were the same. Hilda was hard enough -on George sometimes, but in that moment she would -have preferred George to be a thoroughly bad rude -boy and to go to the devil, and herself to be a woman -abandoned to every licence, rather than that he and -she should resemble Clara and her offspring. All her -wrath centred upon Clara as the very symbol of what -she loathed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello!" cried the watchful Albert from the window. -"What's happening, I wonder?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In a moment Rupert ran into the room, and without -a word scrambled on his mother's lap, absolutely -confident in her goodness and power.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's amiss, tuppenny?" asked his father.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tired," answered Rupert, with a faint, endearing smile.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He laid himself close against his mother's breast, -and drew up his knees, and Clara held his body in her -arms, and whispered to him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Amy 'udn't play with me," he murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Wouldn't she? Naughty Amy!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mammy tired too," he glanced upwards at his -mother's eyes in sympathy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And immediately he was asleep. Clara kissed him, -bending her head down and with difficulty reaching his -cheek with her lips.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps enquired fondly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What does he mean--'mother tired too'?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Clara, "the fact is some of 'em were -so excited they stopped my afternoon sleep this -afternoon. I always do have my nap, you know,"--she -looked at Hilda. "In here! When this door's closed -they know mother mustn't be disturbed. Only this -afternoon Lucy or Amy--I don't know which, and I didn't -enquire too closely--forgot.... He's remembered it, -the little Turk."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is he asleep?" Hilda demanded in a low voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Fast. He's been like that lately. He'll play a bit, -and then he'll stop, and say he's tired, and sometimes -cry, and he'll come to me and be asleep in two jiffs. -I think he's been a bit run down. He said he had -toothache yesterday. It was nothing but a little cold; -they've all had colds; but I wrapped his face up to -please him. He looked so sweet in his bandage, I -assure you I didn't want to take it off again. No, I -didn't.... I wonder why Amy wouldn't play with -him? She's such a splendid playmate--when she likes. -Full of imagination! Simply full of it!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert had approached from the window.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With an air of important conviction, he said to Hilda:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Amy's imagination is really remarkable." As -no one responded to this statement, he drummed on -the table to ease the silence, and then suddenly added: -"Well, I suppose I must be getting on with my -dictionary reading! I'm only at S; and there's bound -to be a lot of words under U--beginning with </span><em class="italics">un</em><span>, -you know. I saw at once there would be." He spoke -rather defiantly, as though challenging public opinion -to condemn his new dubious activity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" said Clara. "Albert's quite taken up with -missing words nowadays."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But instead of conning his dictionary, Albert -returned to the window, drawn by his inexhaustible -paternal curiosity, and he even opened the window and -leaned out, so that he might more effectively watch -the garden. And with the fresh air there entered -the high, gay, inspiriting voices of the children.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara smiled down at the boy sleeping in her lap. -She was happy. The child was happy. His flushed face, -with its expression of loving innocence, was exquisitely -touching. Clara's face was full of proud tenderness. -Everybody gazed at the picture with secret and -profound pleasure. Hilda wished once more that George -was only two and a half years old again. George's -infancy, and her early motherhood, had been very -different from all this. She had never been able to shut -a dining-room door, or any other door, as a sign that -she must not be disturbed. And certainly George -had never sympathetically remarked that she was tired.... -She was envious.... And yet a minute ago she -had been execrating the family life of the Benbows. -The complexity of the tissue of existence was puzzling.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When Albert brought his head once more into the -room he suddenly discovered the stuffiness of the -atmosphere, and with the large, free gestures of a -mountaineer and a sanitarian threw open both windows as -wide as possible. The bleak wind from the moorlands -surged in, fluttering curtains, and lowering the -temperature at a run.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Won't Rupert catch cold?" Hilda suggested, chilled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's got to be hardened, Rupert has!" Albert -replied easily. "Fresh air! Nothing like it! Does -'em good to feel it!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pity you didn't think so a bit earlier!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her countenance was too expressive. Albert divined -some ironic thought in her brain, and turned on her -with a sort of parrying jeer:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And how's the great man getting along?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In this phrase, which both he and Clara employed -with increasing frequency, Albert let out not only his -jealousy of, but his respect for, the head of the family. -Hilda did not like it, but it flattered her on Edwin's -behalf, and she never showed her resentment of the -attitude which prompted it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin? Oh, he's all right. He's working." She -put a slight emphasis on the last pronoun, in order -revengefully to contrast Edwin's industry with Albert's -presence during business hours at a children's birthday -party. "He said to me as he went out that he must -go and earn something towards Maggie's rent." She -laughed softly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara smiled cautiously; Maggie smiled and blushed -a little; Albert did not commit himself; only Auntie -Hamps laughed without reserve.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin will have his joke," said she.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Although Hilda had audaciously gone forth that -afternoon with the express intention of opening -negotiations, on her own initiative, with Maggie for -the purchase of the house, she had certainly not -meant to discuss the matter in the presence of the -entire family. But she was seized by one of her -characteristic impulses, and she gave herself up to -it with the usual mixture of glee and apprehension. -She said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose you wouldn't care to sell us the house, -would you, Maggie?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Everybody became alert, and as it grew apparent -that the company was assisting at the actual birth of -a family episode or incident, a peculiar feeling of -eager pleasure spread through the room, and the -appetite for history-making leapt up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed I should!" Maggie answered, with a deepening -flush, and all were astonished at her decisiveness, -and at the warmth of her tone. "I never wanted the -house. Only it was arranged that I should have it, so -of course I took it." The long-silent victim was -speaking. Money was useless to her, for she was incapable -of turning it into happiness; but she had her views -on finance and property, nevertheless; and though in -all such matters she did as she was told, submissively -accepting the decisions of brother or brother-in-law -as decrees of fate, yet she was quite aware of the -victimhood. The assemblage was surprised and even -a little intimidated by her mild outburst.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But you've got a very good tenant, Maggie," said -Auntie Hamps enthusiastically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's got a very good tenant, admitted!" Albert -said judicially and almost sternly. "But she'd never -have any difficulty in finding a very good tenant for -that house. That's not the point. The point is that -the investment really isn't remunerative. Maggie could -do much better for herself than that. Very much -better. Why, if she went the right way about it she -could get ten per cent on her money! I know of -things.... And I bet she doesn't get three and a -half per cent clear from the house. Not three and -a half." He glanced reproachfully at Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you mean the rent's too low?" Hilda questioned -boldly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He hesitated, losing courage.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't say it's too low. But Maggie perhaps took -the house over at too big a figure."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie looked up at her brother-in-law.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And whose fault was that?" she asked sharply. -The general surprise was intensified. No one could -understand Maggie. No one had the wit to perceive -that she had been truly annoyed by Auntie Hamps's -negligence in regard to jam, and was momentarily -capable of bitterness. "Whose fault was that?" she -repeated. "You and Clara and Edwin settled it -between you. You yourself said over and over again it -was a fair figure."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought so at the time! I thought so at the -time!" said Albert quickly. "We all acted for the -best."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure you did," murmured Auntie Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should think so, indeed!" murmured Clara, -seeking to disguise her constraint by attentions to the -sleeping Rupert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Edwin thinking of buying, then?" Albert asked -Hilda in a quiet, studiously careless voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We've discussed it," responded Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because if he is, he ought to take it over at the -price Mag took it at. She oughtn't to lose on it. -That's only fair."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure Edwin would never do anything unfair," -said Auntie Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda made no reply. She had already heard the -argument from Edwin, and Albert now seemed to her -more tedious and unprincipled than usual. Her -reason admitted the force of the argument as regards -Maggie, but instinct opposed it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nevertheless she was conscious of sudden sympathy -for Maggie, and of a weakening of her prejudice against -her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hadn't we better be going, Auntie?" Maggie curtly -and reproachfully suggested. "You know quite well -that jam stands a good chance of being ruined."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose we had," Auntie Hamps concurred with -a sigh, and rose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall be able to carry out my plan," thought -Hilda, full of wisdom and triumph. And she saw -Edwin, owner of the house, with his wild lithographic -project scotched. And the realisation of her own -sagacity thus exercised on behalf of those she loved, -made her glad.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the same moment, just as Albert was recommencing -his flow, the door opened and Edwin entered. He -had glimpsed the children in the garden and had come -into the house by the back way. There were cries of -stupefaction and bliss. Both Albert and Clara were -unmistakably startled and flattered. Indeed, several -seconds elapsed before Albert could assume the proper -grim, casual air. Auntie Hamps rejoiced and sat down -again. Maggie disclosed no feeling, and she would not -sit down again. Hilda had a serious qualm. She was -obliged to persuade herself that in opening the -negotiations for the house she had not committed an -enormity. She felt less sagacious and less dominant. Who -could have dreamt that Edwin would pop in just then? -It was notorious, it was even a subject of complaint, -that he never popped in. In reply to enquiries he -stammered in his customary hesitating way that he -happened to be in the neighbourhood on business and -that it had occurred to him, etc., etc. In short, there -he was.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Aren't you coming, Auntie?" Maggie demanded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let me have a look at Edwin, child," said Auntie -Hamps, somewhat nettled. "How set you are!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I shall go alone," said Maggie.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. But what about this house business?" Albert -tried to stop her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He could not stop her. Finance, houses, rents, were -not real to her. She owned but did not possess such -things. But the endangered jam was real to her. She -did not own it, but she possessed it. She departed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's amiss with her to-day?" murmured Mrs. Hamps. -"I must go too, or I shall be catching it; -my word I shall!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What house business?" Edwin asked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Albert. "I like that! Aren't you -trying to buy her house from her? We've just been -talking it over."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin glanced swiftly at Hilda, and Hilda knew -from the peculiar constrained, almost shamefaced, -expression on his features, that he was extremely -annoyed. He gave a little nervous laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Have ye?" he muttered.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VI</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Although Edwin discussed the purchase of the house -quite calmly with Albert, and appeared to regard it as -an affair practically settled, Hilda could perceive from -a single gesture of his in the lobby as they were -leaving, that his resentment against herself had not been -diminished by the smooth course of talking. Nevertheless -she was considerably startled by his outburst in -the street.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a pity Maggie went off like that," she said -quietly. "You might have fixed everything up immediately."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then it was that he turned on her, glowering angrily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why on earth did you go talking about it, without -telling me first?" he demanded, furious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But it was understood, dear----" She smiled, -affecting not to perceive his temper, and thereby -aggravating it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He almost shouted:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing of the kind! Nothing of the kind!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Maggie was there. I just happened to mention -it." Hilda was still quite placid.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You went down on purpose to tell her, so you -needn't deny it. Do you take me for a fool?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her placidity was undiminished.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I don't take you for a fool, dear. I -assure you I hadn't the slightest idea you'd be annoyed."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, you had. I could see it on your face when I -came in. Don't try to stuff me up. You go blundering -into a thing, without the least notion--without -the least notion! I've told you before, and I tell you -again--I won't have you interfering in my business -affairs. You know nothing of business. You'll make -my life impossible. All you women are the same. You -will poke your noses in. There'll have to be a clear -understanding between you and me on one or two -points, before we go much further."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But you told me I could mention it to her."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I didn't."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You did, Edwin. Do be just."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't say you could go and plunge right into it -at once. These things have to be thought out. Houses -aren't bought like that. A house isn't a pound of tea, -and it isn't a hat."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm very sorry."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you aren't. And you know jolly well you -aren't. Your scheme was simply to tie my hands."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She knew the truth of this, and her smile became -queer. Nevertheless the amiable calm which she -maintained astonished even herself. She was not happy, -but certainly she was not unhappy. She had got, or -she was going to get, what she wanted; and here was -the only fact important to her; the means by which -she had got it, or was going to get it, were negligible -now. It cost her very little to be magnanimous. She -wondered at Edwin. Was this furious brute the timid, -worshipping boy who had so marvellously kissed her -a dozen years earlier--before she had fallen into the -hands of a scoundrel? Were these scenes what the -exquisite romance of marriage had come to? ... Well, -and if it was so, what then? If she was not happy -she was elated, and she was philosophic, and she had -the terrific sense of realities of some of her sex. She -was out of the Benbow house; she breathed free, she -had triumphed, and she had her man to herself. He -might be a brute--the Five Towns (she had noticed -as a returned exile) were full of brutes whose passions -surged and boiled beneath the phlegmatic surface--but -he existed, and their love existed. And a peep -into the depth of the cauldron was exciting.... The -injustice or the justice of his behaviour did not make -a live question.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Moreover, she did not in truth seriously regard him -as a brute. She regarded him as an unreasonable -creature, something like a baby, to be humoured in the -inessentials of a matter of which the essentials were -now definitely in her favour. His taunt that she went -blundering into a thing, and that she knew naught of -business, amused her. She knew her own business, -and knew it profoundly. The actual situation was a -proof of that. As for abstract principles of business, -the conventions and etiquette of it--her lips -condescendingly curled. After all, what had she done to -merit this fury? Nothing! Nothing! What could it -matter whether the negotiations were begun instantly -or in a week's or a month's time? (Edwin would have -dilly-dallied probably for three months, or six). She -had merely said a few harmless words, offered a -suggestion. And now he desired to tear her limb from -limb and eat her alive. It was comical! Impossible -for her to be angry, in her triumph! It was too -comical! She had married an astounding personage.... -But she had married him. He was hers. She -exulted in the possession of him. His absurd peculiarities -did not lower him in her esteem. She had a perfect -appreciation of his points, including his general -wisdom. But she was convinced that she had a special -and different and superior kind of wisdom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And a nice thing you've let Maggie in for!" Edwin -broke out afresh after a spell of silent walking.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let Maggie in for?" she exclaimed lightly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Albert ought never to have known anything of it -until it was all settled. He will be yarning away to her -about how he can use her money for her, and what he -gets hold of she'll never see again,--you may bet your -boots on that. If you'd left it to me I could have fixed -things up for her in advance. But no! In you must -go! Up to the neck! And ruin everything!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" she said reassuringly. "You'll be able to look -after Maggie all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He sniffed, and settled down into embittered disgust, -quickening somewhat his speed up the slope of Acre -Lane.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please don't walk so fast, Edwin," she breathed, -just like a nice little girl. "I can't keep up with you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In spite of his enormous anger he could not refuse -such a request. She was getting the better of him -again. He knew it; he could see through the devices. -With an irritated swing of his body he slowed down to -suit her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had a glimpse of his set, gloomy, savage, -ruthless face, the lower lip bulging out. Really it was -grotesque! Were they grown up, he and she? She smiled -almost self-consciously, fearing that passers-by might -notice his preposterous condition. All the way up Acre -Lane and across by St. Luke's Churchyard into -Trafalgar Road they walked thus side by side in silence. -By strange good luck they did not meet a single -acquaintance, and as Edwin had a latchkey, no servant -had to come and open the door and behold them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, throwing his hat on the stand, ran immediately -upstairs. Hilda passed idly into the drawing-room. -She was glad to be in her own drawing-room -again. It was a distinguished apartment, after -Clara's. There lay the Dvorak music on the piano.... -The atmosphere seemed full of ozone. She rang -for Ada and spoke to her with charming friendliness -about Master George. Master George had returned -from an informal cricket match in the Manor Fields, -and was in the garden. Yes, Ada had seen to his -school-clothes. Everything was in order for the new -term shortly to commence. But Master George had -received a blow from the cricket-ball on his shin, which -was black and blue.... Had Ada done anything to -the shin? No, Master George would not let her touch -it, but she had been allowed to see it.... Very well, -Ada.... There was something beatific about the -state of being mistress of a house. Without the -mistress, the house would simply crumble to pieces.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda went upstairs; she was apprehensive, but her -apprehensiveness was agreeable to her.... No, -Edwin was not in the bedroom.... She could hear him -in the bathroom. She tried the door. It was bolted. -He always bolted it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He opened the door. He was in his shirt sleeves -and had just finished with the towel. She entered, and -shut the door and bolted it. And then she began -to kiss him. She kissed him time after time, on his -cheek so damp and fresh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor dear!" she murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She knew that he could not altogether resist those -repeated kisses. They were more effective than the -best arguments or the most graceful articulate -surrenders. Thus she completed her triumph. But -whether the virtue of the kisses lay in their sensuousness -or in their sentiment, neither he nor she knew. -And she did not care.... She did not kiss him with -abandonment. There was a reserve in her kisses, and -in her smile. Indeed she went on kissing him rather -sternly. Her glance, when their eyes were very close -together, was curious. It seemed to imply: "We are -in love. And we love. I am yours. You are mine. -Life is very fine after all. I am a happy woman. But -still--</span><em class="italics">each is for himself in this world</em><span>, and that's the -bedrock of marriage as of all other institutions." Her -sense of realities again! And she went on kissing, -irresistibly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Kiss me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And he had to kiss her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Whereupon she softened to him, and abandoned -herself to the emanations of his charm, and her lips -became almost liquid as she kissed him again; -nevertheless there was still a slight reserve in her kisses.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At tea she chattered like a magpie, as the saying is. -Between her and George there seemed to be a secret -instinctive understanding that Edwin had to be -humoured, enlivened, drawn into talk,--for although he -had kissed her, his mood was yet by no means restored -to the normal. He would have liked to remain, -majestic, within the tent of his soul. But they were too -clever for him. Then, to achieve his discomfiture, -entered Johnnie Orgreave, with a suggestion that they -should all four--Edwin, Hilda, Janet, and himself--go -to the theatre at Hanbridge that night. Hilda -accepted the idea instantly. Since her marriage, her -appetite for pleasure had developed enormously. At -moments she was positively greedy for pleasure. She -was incapable of being bored at the theatre, she would -sooner be in the theatre of a night than out of it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Do let's go!" she cried.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not want to go, but he had to concur. He -did not want to be pleasant to Johnnie Orgreave or to -anybody, but he had to be pleasant.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Be on the first car that goes up after seven fifteen," -said Johnnie as he was departing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin grunted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You understand, Teddy? The first car that goes -up after seven fifteen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right! All right!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Blithely Hilda went to beautify herself. And when -she had beautified herself and made herself into a queen -of whom the haughtiest master-printer might be proud, -she despatched Ada for Master George. And Master -George had to come to her bedroom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let me look at that leg," she said. "Sit down."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Devious creature! During tea she had not even -divulged that she had heard of the damaged shin. -Master George was taken by surprise. He sat down. She -knelt, and herself unloosed the stocking and exposed -the little calf. The place was black and blue, but it -had a healthy look.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's nothing," she said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then, all in her splendid finery, she kissed the -dirty discoloured shin. Strange! He was only two -years old and just learning to talk.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now then, missis! Here's the tram!" Edwin yelled -out loudly, roughly, from below. He would have given -a sovereign to see her miss the car, but his -inconvenient sense of justice forced him to warn her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Coming! Coming!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She kissed Master George on the mouth eagerly, and -George seemed, unusually, to return the eagerness. She -ran down the darkening stairs, ecstatic.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the dusky road, Edwin curtly signalled to the vast -ascending steam-car, and it stopped. Those were in -the old days, when people did what they liked with the -cars, stopping them here and stopping them there -according to their fancy. The era of electricity and fixed -stopping-places, and soulless, conscienceless control -from London had not set in. Edwin and Hilda -mounted. Two hundred yards further on the -steam-tram was once more arrested, and Johnnie and Janet -joined them. Hilda was in the highest spirits. The -great affair of the afternoon had not been a quarrel, -but an animating experience which, though dangerous, -intensified her self-confidence and her zest.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-week-end"><span class="large">CHAPTER IX</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE WEEK-END</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The events of the portentous week-end which -included the musical evening began early on the -Saturday, and the first one was a chance word uttered by -George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Breakfast was nearly over in the Clayhanger -dining-room. Hilda sat opposite to Edwin, and George -between them. They had all eaten with appetite, and the -disillusion which usually accompanies the satisfaction -of desire was upon them. They had looked forward to -breakfast, scenting with zest its pleasing odours, and -breakfast was over, save perhaps for a final unnecessary -piece of toast or half a cup of chilled coffee.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda did not want to move, because she did not -care for the Saturday morning task of shopping and -re-victualling and being bland with fellow-shoppers in -the emporiums. The house-doors were too frequently -open on Saturday mornings, and errand-boys thereat, -and a wind blowing through the house, and it was the -morning for specially cleaning the hall--detestable -and damp operation--and servants seemed loose on -Saturday morning, and dinner was apt to be late. But -Hilda knew she would have to move. To postpone was -only to aggravate. Destiny grasped her firm. George -was not keen about moving, because he had no plan of -campaign; the desolating prospect of resuming school -on Monday had withered his energy; he was in a mood -to be either a martyr or a villain. Edwin was lazily -sardonic, partly because the leisure of breakfast was -at an end, partly because he hated the wage-paying -slackness of Saturday morning at the shop, and partly -because his relations with Hilda had remained -indefinite and disquieting, despite a thousand mutual -urbanities and thoughtful refinements, and even some -caresses. A sense of aimlessness dejected him; and in -the central caves of his brain the question was -mysteriously stirring: What is the use of all these -things,--success, dignity, importance, luxury, love, -sensuality, order, moral superiority? He foresaw thirty -years of breakfasts, with plenty of the finest -home-cured bacon and fresh eggs, but no romance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Before his marriage he used to read the paper -honestly and rudely at breakfast. That is to say, he would -prop it up squarely in front of him, hiding his sister -Maggie, and anyhow ignoring her; and Maggie had to -"like it or lump it"; she probably lumped it. But upon -marriage he had become a chevalier; he had nobly -decided that it was not correct to put a newspaper -between yourself and a woman who had denied you -nothing. Nevertheless, his appetite for newspapers being -almost equal to his appetite for bacon, he would still -take nips at the newspaper during breakfast, hold it -in one hand, glance at it, drop it, pick it up, talk -amiably while glancing at it, drop it, pick it up again. -So long as the newspaper was held aside and did not -touch the table, so long as he did not read more than -ten lines at a time, he considered that punctilio was -satisfied, and that he was not in fact reading the -newspaper at all. But towards the end of breakfast, when -the last food was disappearing, and he had lapped the -cream off the news, he would hold the newspaper in both -hands--and brazenly and conscientiously read. His -chief interest, just then, was political. Like most -members of his party, he was endeavouring to decipher the -party programme and not succeeding, and he feared for -his party and was a little ashamed for it. Grave events -had occurred. The substructure of the state was -rocking. A newly elected supporter of the Government, -unaware that he was being admitted to the best club -in London, had gone to the House of Commons in a -tweed cap and preceded by a brass-band. Serious -pillars of society knew that the time had come to invest -their savings abroad. Edwin, with many another -ardent liberal, was seeking to persuade himself that -everything was all right after all. The domestic -atmosphere--Hilda's baffling face, the emptied table, the shadow -of business, repletion, early symptoms of indigestion, -the sound of a slop-pail in the hall--did not aid him to -optimism. In brief the morning was a fair specimen -of a kind of morning that seemed likely to be for him -an average morning.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't I leave the table, mother?" asked George -discontentedly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George gave a coarse sound of glee.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"George! ... That's so unlike you!" his mother -frowned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Instead of going directly towards the door, he must -needs pass right round the table, behind the chair of -his occupied uncle. As he did so, he scanned the -newspaper and read out loudly in passing for the benefit -of the room:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Local Divorce Case. Etches v. Etches. Painful -details.'"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The words meant nothing to George. They had -happened to catch his eye. He read them as he might have -read an extract from the books of Euclid, and noisily -and ostentatiously departed, not without a further -protest from Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin and Hilda, left alone together, were -self-conscious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Lively kid!" murmured Edwin self-consciously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Hilda, self-consciously:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never told me that case was on."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't know till I saw it here."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the result?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not finished.... Here you are, if you want to -read it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He handed the sheet across the table. Despite his -serious interest in politics he had read the report -before anything else. Etches v. Etches, indeed, -surpassed Gladstonian politics as an aid to the dubious -prosperity of the very young morning newspaper, -which represented the latest and most original attempt -to challenge the journalistic monopoly of the -afternoon </span><em class="italics">Staffordshire Signal</em><span>. It lived scarcely longer -than the divorce case, for the proprietors, though -Non-conformists and therefore astute, had failed to foresee -that the Five Towns public would not wait for racing -results until the next morning.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Thanks," Hilda amiably and negligently murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin hummed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Useless for Hilda to take that casual tone! Useless -for Edwin to hum! The unconcealable thought in both -their minds was--and each could divine the other's -thought and almost hear its vibration:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We might end in the divorce court, too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hence their self-consciousness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The thought was absurd, irrational, indefensible, -shocking, it had no father and no mother, it sprang -out of naught; but it existed, and it had force enough -to make them uncomfortable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Etches couple, belonging to the great, numerous, -wealthy, and respectable family of Etches, had -been married barely a year.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin rose and glanced at his well-tended fingernails. -The pleasant animation of his skin caused by -the bath was still perceptible. He could feel it in his -back, and it helped his conviction of virtue. He chose -a cigarette out of his silver case,--a good cigarette, a -good case--and lit it, and waved the match into -extinction, and puffed out much smoke, and regarded -the correctness of the crease in his trousers (the -vertical trouser-crease having recently been introduced -into the district and insisted on by that tailor and -artist and seeker after perfection, Shillitoe), and -walked firmly to the door. But the self-consciousness -remained.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Just as he reached the door, his wife, gazing at the -newspaper, stopped him:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's up?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He did not move from the door, and she did not look -up from the newspaper.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Seen your friend Big James this morning?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin usually went down to business before breakfast, -so that his conscience might be free for a leisurely -meal at nine o'clock. Big James was the oldest -employee in the business. Originally he had been -foreman compositor, and was still technically so described, -but in fact he was general manager and Edwin's -majestic vicegerent in all the printing-shops. "Ask Big -James," was the watchword of the whole organism.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Edwin. "Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, nothing! It doesn't matter."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had made certain resolutions about his -temper, but it seemed to him that such a reply justified -annoyance, and he therefore permitted himself to be -annoyed, failing to see that serenity is a positive -virtue only when there is justification for annoyance. -The nincompoop had not even begun to perceive that -what is called "right-living" means the acceptance of -injustice and the excusing of the inexcusable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now then," he said, brusquely. "Out with it." But -there was still a trace of rough tolerance in his voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. It's all right. I was wrong to mention it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her admission of sin did not in the least placate him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He advanced towards the table.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You haven't mentioned it," he said stiffly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Their eyes met, as Hilda's quitted the newspaper. -He could not read hers. She seemed very calm. He -thought as he looked at her: "How strange it is that -I should be living with this woman! What is she to -me? What do I know of her?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She said with tranquillity:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you do see Big James you might tell him not -to trouble himself about that programme."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Programme? What programme?" he asked, startled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Edwin!" She gave a little laugh. "The -musical evening programme, of course. Aren't we having -a musical evening to-morrow night?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>More justification for annoyance! Why should she -confuse the situation by pretending that he had -forgotten the musical evening? The pretence was idiotic, -deceiving no one. The musical evening was constantly -being mentioned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Reports of assiduous practising had reached them; -and on the previous night they had had quite a -subdued altercation over a proposal of Hilda's for -altering the furniture in the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is the first I've heard of any programme," said -Edwin. "Do you mean a printed programme?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Of course she could mean nothing else. He was -absolutely staggered at the idea that she had been down -to his works, without a word to him, and given orders -to Big James, or even talked to Big James, about a -programme. She had no remorse. She had no sense of -danger. Had she the slightest conception of what -business was? Imagine Maggie attempting such a thing! -It was simply not conceivable. A wife going to her -husband's works, and behind his back giving -orders----! It was as though a natural law had -suspended its force.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, Edwin," she said in extremely clear, somewhat -surprised, and gently benevolent accents. "What -ever's the matter with you? There </span><em class="italics">is</em><span> a programme of -music, I suppose?" (There she was, ridiculously -changing the meaning of the word programme! What -infantile tactics!) "It occurred to me all of a sudden -yesterday afternoon how nice it would be to have it -printed on gilt-edged cards, so I ran down to the shop, -but you weren't there. So I saw Big James."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never said anything to me about it last night. -Nor this morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't I? ... Well, I forgot."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Grotesque creature!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, what did Big James say?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Don't ask me. But if he treats all your -customers as he treated me ... However, it doesn't -matter now. I shall write the programme out myself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What did he say?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It wasn't what he said.... But he's very rude, -you know. Other people think so too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What other people?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Never mind who! Of course, </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> know how to -take it. And I know you believe in him blindly. But -his airs are preposterous. And he's a dirty old man. -And I say, Edwin, seeing how very particular you are -about things at home, you really ought to see that the -front shop is kept cleaner. It's no affair of mine, and -I never interfere,--but really...!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Not a phrase of this speech but what was highly and -deliberately provocative. Assuredly no other person -had ever said that Big James was rude. (But </span><em class="italics">had</em><span> -someone else said so, after all? Suppose, challenged, -she gave a name!) Big James's airs were not preposterous; -he was merely old and dignified. His apron and -hands were dirty, naturally.... And then the -implication that Big James was a fraud, and that he, -Edwin, was simpleton enough to be victimised by the -fraud, while the great all-seeing Hilda exposed it at a -single glance! And the implication that he, Edwin, -was fussy at home, and negligent at the shop! And -the astounding assertion that she never interfered!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He smothered up all his feelings, with difficulty, as -a sailor smothers up a lowered sail in a high wind, and -merely demanded, for the third time:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What did Big James say?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was given to understand," said Hilda roguishly, -"that it was quite, quite, quite impossible. But his -majesty would see! ... Well, he needn't 'see.' I see -how wrong I was to suggest it at all."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin moved away in silence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you going, Edwin?" she asked innocently.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," glumly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You haven't kissed me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She did not put him to the shame of returning to -her. No, she jumped up blithely, radiant. Her -make-believe that nothing had happened was maddening. She -kissed him lovingly, with a smile, more than once. He -did not kiss; he was kissed. Nevertheless somehow the -kissing modified his mental position and he felt better -after it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't work yourself up, darling," she counselled -him, with kindness and concern, as he went out of the -room. "You know how sensitive you are." It was a -calculated insult, but an insult which had to be ignored. -To notice it would have been a grave tactical error.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When he reached the shop, he sat down at his old -desk in the black-stained cubicle, and spied forth and -around for the alleged dust which he would tolerate in -business but would not tolerate at home. It was there. -He could see places that had obviously not been touched -for weeks, withdrawn places where the undisturbed -mounds of stock and litter had the eternal character of -Roman remains or vestiges of creation. The senior -errand-boy was in the shop, snuffling over a blue-paper -parcel.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Boy," said Edwin. "What time do you come here -in the morning?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'A' past seven, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, on Monday morning you'll be here at seven -and you'll move everything--there and there and -there--and sweep and dust properly. This shop's like a -pigstye. I believe you never dust anything but the -counters."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was mild but firm. He knew himself for a just -man; yet the fact that he was robbing this boy of -half-an-hour's sleep and probably the boy's mother also, -and upsetting the ancient order of the boy's household, -did not trouble him, did not even occur to him. For -him the boy had no mother and no household, but was a -patent self-causing boy that came miraculously into -existence on the shop doorstep every morning and -achieved annihilation thereon every night.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The boy was a fatalist, but his fatalism had limits, -because he well knew that the demand for errand-boys -was greater than the supply. Though the limits of his -fatalism had not yet been reached, he was scarcely -pleased.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If I come at seven who'll gi' me th' kays, sir?" he -demanded rather surlily, wiping his nose on his sleeve.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll see that you have the keys," said Edwin, with -divine assurance, though he had not thought of the -difficulty of the keys.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The boy left the shop, his body thrown out of the -perpendicular by the weight of the blue-paper parcel.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to keep an eye on this place," said -Edwin quietly to the young man who combined the function -of clerk with that of salesman to the rare retail -customers. "I can't see to everything. Here, check -these wages for me." He indicated small piles of -money.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir," said the clerk with self-respect, but -admitting the justice of the animadversion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin seldom had difficulty with his employees. -Serious friction was unknown in the establishment.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He went out by the back-entrance, thinking:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's no affair whatever of hers. Moreover the shop's -as clean as shops are, and a damned sight cleaner than -most. A shop isn't a drawing-room.... And now -there's the infernal programme."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He would have liked to bury and forget the matter -of the programme. But he could not. His conscience, -or her fussiness, would force him to examine into it. -There was no doubt that Big James was getting an old -man, with peculiar pompous mannerisms and a -disposition towards impossibilism. Big James ought to have -remembered, in speaking to Hilda, that he was -speaking to the wife of his employer. That Hilda should -give an order, or even make a request, direct was -perhaps unusual, but--dash it!--you knew what women -were, and if that old josser of a bachelor, Big James, -didn't know what women were, so much the worse for -him. He should just give Big James a hint. He could -not have Big James making mischief between himself -and Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But the coward would not go straight to Big James. -He went first up to what had come to be called "the -litho room," partly in order to postpone Big James, -but partly also because he had quite an affectionate -proud interest in the litho room. In Edwin's childhood -this room, now stripped and soiled into a workshop, -had been the drawing-room of the Clayhanger family; -and it still showed the defect which it had always -shown; the window was too small and too near the -corner of the room. No transformation could render -it satisfactory save a change in the window. Old -Darius Clayhanger had vaguely talked of altering the -window. Edwin had thought seriously of it. But nothing -had been done. Edwin was continuing the very policy -of his father which had so roused his disdain when he -was young: the policy of "making things do." Instead -of entering upon lithography in a manner bold, logical, -and decisive, he had nervously and half-heartedly -slithered into it. Thus at the back of the yard was a -second-hand "Newsom" machine in quarters too small -for it, and the apparatus for the preliminary polishing -of the stones; while up here in the ex-drawing-room -were grotesquely mingled the final polishing process -and the artistic department.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The artist who drew the designs on the stone was a -German, with short fair hair and moustache, a thick -neck and a changeless expression. Edwin had surprisingly -found him in Hanbridge. He was very skilled in -judging the amount of "work" necessary on the stone -to produce a desired result on the paper, and very -laborious. Without him the nascent lithographic trade -could not have prospered. His wages were extremely -moderate, but they were what he had asked, and in -exchange for them he gave his existence. Edwin liked -to watch him drawing, slavishly, meticulously, -endlessly. He was absolutely without imagination, artistic -feeling, charm, urbanity, or elasticity of any sort,--a -miracle of sheer gruff positiveness. He lived -somewhere in Hanbridge, and had once been seen by Edwin -on a Sunday afternoon, wheeling a perambulator and -smiling at a young enceinte woman who held his free -arm. An astounding sight, which forced Edwin to -adjust his estimates! He grimly called himself an -Englishman, and was legally entitled to do so. On this -morning he was drawing a ewer and basin, for the -illustrated catalogue of an earthenware manufacturer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not a very good light to-day," murmured Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not a very good light."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Karl sourly and indifferently, bent over -the stone, and breathing with calm regularity. "My -eyesight is being de-stroit."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Behind, a young man in a smock was industriously -polishing a stone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin beheld with pleasure. It was a joy to think -that here was the sole lithography in Bursley, and -that his own enterprise had started it. Nevertheless -he was ashamed too,--ashamed of his hesitations, his -half-measures, his timidity, and of Karl's impaired -eyesight. There was no reason why he should not -build a proper works, and every reason why he should; -the operation would be remunerative; it would set an -example; it would increase his prestige. He grew -resolute. On the day of the party at the Benbows' he had -been and carefully inspected the plot of land at -Shawport, and yesterday he had made a very low offer for -it. If the offer was refused, he would raise it. He -swore to himself he would have his works.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then Big James came into the litho room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was seeking ye, sir," said Big James majestically, -with a mysterious expression.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin tried to look at him anew, as it were with -Hilda's eyes. Certainly his bigness amounted now to -an enormity, for proportionately his girth more than -matched his excessive height. His apron descended -from the semicircle of his paunch like a vast grey wall. -The apron was dirty, this being Saturday, but it was -at any rate intact; in old days Big James and others -at critical moments of machining used to tear strips -off their aprons for machine-rags.... Yes, he was -conceivably a grotesque figure, with his spectacles, -which did not suit him, his heavy breathing, his -mannerisms, and his grandiose air of Atlas supporting the -moral world. A woman might be excused for seeing -the comic side of him. But surely he was honest and -loyal. Surely he was not the adder that Hilda with an -intonation had suggested!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm coming," said Edwin, rather curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He felt just in the humour for putting Big James -"straight." Still his reply had not been too curt, for -to his staff he was the opposite of a bully; he always -scorned to take a facile advantage of his power, often -tried even to conceal his power in the fiction that the -employee was one man and himself merely another. He -would be far more devastating to his wife and his sister -than to any employee. But at intervals a bad or -careless workman had to meet the blaze of his eye and -accept the lash of his speech.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's about that little job for the mistress, sir," said -Big James in a soft voice, when they were out on the -landing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin gave a start. The ageing man's tones were so -eager, so anxiously loyal! His emphasis on the word -'mistress' conveyed so clearly that the mistress was a -high and glorious personage to serve whom was an -honour and a fearful honour! The ageing man had -almost whispered, like a boy, glancing with jealous -distrust at the shut door of the room that contained the -German.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" muttered Edwin, taken aback.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I set it up myself," said Big James, and holding his -head very high looked down at Edwin under his -spectacles.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why!" said Edwin cautiously. "I thought you'd -given Mrs. Clayhanger the idea it couldn't be done in -time."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bless ye, sir! Not if I know it! I intimated to -her the situation in which we were placed, with urgent -jobs on hand, as in duty bound, sir, she being the -mistress. Ye know how slow I am to give a promise, sir. -But not to do it--such was not my intention. And as I -have said already, sir, I've set it up myself, and here's -a rough pull."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He produced a piece of paper.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's ancient affection for Big James grew -indignant. The old fellow was the very mirror of loyalty. -He might be somewhat grotesque and mannered upon -occasion, but he was the soul of the Clayhanger -business. He had taught Edwin most of what he knew -about both typesetting and machining. It seemed not -long since that he used to call Edwin "young sir," and -to enter into tacit leagues with him against the -dangerous obstinacies of his decaying father. Big James had -genuinely admired Darius Clayhanger. Assuredly he -admired Darius's son not less. His fidelity to the -dynasty was touching; it was wistful. The order from -the mistress had tremendously excited and flattered -him in his secret heart.... And yet Hilda must call -him names, must insinuate against his superb integrity, -must grossly misrepresent his attitude to herself. -Whatever in his pompous old way he might have said, -she could not possibly have mistaken his anxiety to -please her. No, she had given a false account of their -interview,--and Edwin had believed it! Edwin -now swerved violently back to his own original view. -He firmly believed Big James against his wife. He -reflected: "How simple I was to swallow all Hilda said -without confirmation! I might have known!" And -that he should think such a thought shocked him -tremendously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The programme was not satisfactorily set up. Apart -from several mistakes in the spelling of proper names, -the thing with its fancy types, curious centring, and -superabundance of full-stops, resembled more the -libretto of a Primitive Methodist Tea-meeting than a -programme of classical music offered to refined -dilettanti on a Sunday night. Though Edwin had -endeavoured to modernise Big James, he had failed. It -was perhaps well that he had failed. For the majority -of customers preferred Big James's taste in printing to -Edwin's. He corrected the misspellings and removed a -few full-stops, and then said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's all right. But I doubt if Mrs. Clayhanger'll -care for all these fancy founts," implying that it was -a pity, of course, that Big James's fancy founts would -not be appreciated at their true value, but women were -women. "I should almost be inclined to set it all again -in old-face. I'm sure she'd prefer it. Do you mind?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"With the greatest of pleasure, sir," Big James -heartily concurred, looking at his watch. "But I must -be lively."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He conveyed his immense bulk neatly and -importantly down the narrow stairs.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin sat in his cubicle again, his affection for Big -James very active. How simple and agreeable it was to -be a man among men only! The printing-business was -an organism fifty times as large as the home, and it -worked fifty times more smoothly. No misunderstandings, -no secrecies (at any rate among the chief persons -concerned), and a general recognition of the -principles of justice! Even the errand-boy had understood. -And the shop-clerk by his tone had admitted that he -too was worthy of blame. The blame was not -overdone, and common-sense had closed the episode in a -moment. And see with what splendid good-will Big -James, despite the intense conservatism of old age, -had accepted the wholesale condemnation of his idea of -a programme! The relations of men were truly -wonderful, when you come to think about it. And to be -at business was a relief and even a pleasure. Edwin -could not remember having ever before regarded the -business as a source of pleasure. A youth, he had -gone into it greatly against his will, and by tradition -he had supposed himself still to hate it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Why had Hilda misled him as to Big James? For -she had misled him. Yes, she had misled him. What -was her motive? What did she think she could gain -by it? He was still profoundly disturbed by this -deception. "Why!" he thought, "I can't trust her! I -shall have to be on my guard! I've been in the habit -of opening my mouth and swallowing practically -everything she says!" His sense of justice very sharply -resented her perfidy to Big James. His heart warmed -to the defence of the excellent old man. What had she -got against Big James? Since the day when the -enormous man had first shown her over the printing shops, -before their original betrothal, a decade and more ago, -he had never treated her with anything but an elaborate -and sincere respect. Was she jealous of him, because -of his, Edwin's, expressed confidence in and ancient -regard for him, and because Edwin and he had always -been good companions? Or had she merely taken a -dislike to him,--a physical dislike? Edwin had noticed -that some women had a malicious detestation for some -old men, especially when the old men had any touch of -the grotesque or the pompous.... Well, he should -defend Big James against her. She should keep her -hands off Big James. His sense of justice was so -powerful in that moment that if he had had to choose -between his wife and Big James he would have chosen Big -James.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He came out of the cubicle into the shop, and -arranged his countenance so that the clerk should -suppose him to be thinking in tremendous concentration -upon some complex problem of the business. And -simultaneously Hilda passed up Duck Bank on the way -to market. She passed so close to the shop that she -seemed to brush it like a delicious, exciting, and -exasperating menace. If she turned her head she could -scarcely fail to see Edwin near the door of the shop. -But she did not turn her head. She glided up the slope -steadily and implacably. And even in the distance of -the street her individuality showed itself mysterious -and strong. He could never decide whether she was -beautiful or not; he felt that she was impressive, and -not to be scorned or ignored. Perhaps she was not -beautiful. Certainly she was not young. She had not -the insipidity of the young girl unfulfilled. Nor did -she inspire melancholy like the woman just beyond her -prime. The one was going to be; the other had been. -Hilda was. And she had lived. There was in her none -of the detestable ignorance and innocence that, for -Edwin, spoilt the majority of women. She knew. She -was an equal, and a dangerous equal. Simultaneously -he felt that he could crush and kill the little thing, and -that he must beware of the powerful, unscrupulous, -inscrutable individuality.... And she receded still -higher up Duck Bank and then turned round the -corner to the Market Place and vanished. And there was -a void.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She would return. As she had receded gradually, so -she would gradually approach the shop again with her -delicious, exciting, exasperating menace. And he had -a scheme for running out to her and with candour -inviting her in and explaining to her in just the right -tone of good-will that loyalty to herself simply hummed -and buzzed in the shop and the printing-works, and -that Big James worshipped her, and that though she -was perfect in sagacity she had really been mistaken -about Big James. And he had a vision of her smiling -kindly and frankly upon Big James, and Big James -twisting upon his own axis in joyous pride. Nothing -but good-will and candour was required to produce this -bliss.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But he knew that he would never run out to her and -invite her to enter. The enterprise was perilous to the -point of being foolhardy. With a tone, with a -hesitation, with an undecipherable pout, she might, she would, -render it absurd.... And then, his pride! ... At -that moment young Alec Batchgrew, perhaps then the -town's chief mooncalf, came down Duck Bank in -dazzling breeches on a superb grey horse. And Edwin -went abruptly back to work lest the noodle should rein -in at the shop door and talk to him.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When he returned home, a few minutes before the -official hour of one o'clock, he heard women's voices -and laughter in the drawing-room. And as he stood in -the hall, fingering the thin little parcel of six -programmes which he had brought with him, the laughter -overcame the voices and then expended itself in shrieks -of quite uncontrolled mirth. The drawing-room door -was half open. He stepped quietly to it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The weather, after being thunderous, had cleared, -and the part of the drawing-room near the open -window was shot with rays of sunshine.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet Orgreave, all dressed in white, lay back in an -easy chair; she was laughing and wiping the tears from -her eyes. At the piano sat very upright a seemingly -rather pert young woman, not laughing, but smiling, -with arch sparkling eyes fixed on the others; this was -Daisy Marrion, a cousin of Mrs. Tom Orgreave, and -the next to the last unmarried daughter of a large -family up at Hillport. Standing by the piano was a -young timid girl of about sixteen, whom Edwin, who -had not seen her before, guessed to be Janet's niece, -Elaine, eldest daughter of Janet's elder sister in -London; Elaine's approaching visit had been announced. -These other two, like Janet, were in white. Lastly -there was Hilda, in grey, with a black hat, laughing like -a child. "They are all children," he thought as, -unnoticed, he watched them in their bright fragile frocks -and hats, and in their excessive gaiety, and in the -strange abandon of their gestures. "They are a -foreign race encamped among us men. Fancy women of -nearly forty giggling with these girls as Janet and -Hilda are giggling!" He felt much pleasure in the -sight. It could not have happened in poor old -Maggie's reign. It was delicious. It was one of the -rewards of existence, for the grace of these creatures was -surpassing. But at the same time it was hysterical and -infantile. He thought: "I've been taking women too -seriously." And his heart lightened somewhat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Elaine saw him first. A flush flowed from her -cheeks to her neck. Her body stiffened. She -became intensely self-conscious. She could not speak, -but she leaned forward and gazed with a passion of -apprehension at Janet, as if murmuring: "Look! The -enemy! Take care!" The imploring silent movement -was delightful in its gawky ingenuousness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do tell us some more, Daisy," Hilda implored weakly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There is no more," said Daisy, and then started: -"Oh, Mr. Clayhanger! How long have you been there?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He entered the room, yielding himself, proud, masculine, -acutely aware of his sudden effect on these girls. -For even Hilda was naught but a girl at the moment; -and Janet was really a girl, though the presence of that -shy niece, just awaking to her own body and to the -world, made Janet seem old in spite of her slimness -and of that smoothness of skin that was due to a -tranquil, kind temperament. The shy niece was -enchantingly constrained upon being introduced to Edwin, -whom she was enjoined to call uncle. Only yesterday -she must have been a child. Her marvellously clear -complexion could not have been imitated by any aunt -or elder sister.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And now perhaps you'll tell me what it's all about," -said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda replied:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Janet's called about tennis. It seems they're sick -of the new Hillport Club. I knew they would be. And -so next year Janet's having a private club on her -lawn----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bad as it is," said Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where the entire conversation won't be remarks by -girls about other girls' frocks and remarks by men -about the rotten inferiority of other men."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is all very sound," said Edwin, rather struck -by Hilda's epigrammatic quality. "But what I ask -is--what were you laughing at?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, nothing!" said Daisy Marrion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well then," said Edwin, going to the door and -shutting it. "Nobody leaves this room till I know.... -Now, niece Elaine!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Elaine went crimson and squirmed on her only -recently hidden legs, but she did not speak.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tell him, Daisy," said Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Daisy sat still straighter.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was only about Alec Batchgrew, Mr. Clayhanger; -I suppose you know him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Alec was the youngest scion of the great and detested -plutocratic family of Batchgrew,--enormously -important in his nineteen years.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I know him," said Edwin. "I saw him on his -new grey horse this morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"His 'orse," Janet corrected. They all began to -laugh again loudly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's taken a terrific fancy to Maud, my kiddie -sister," said Daisy. "She's sixteen. Yesterday -afternoon at the tennis club he said to Maud: 'Look 'ere. -I shall ride through the town to-morrow morning on -my 'orse, while you're all marketing. I shan't take -any notice of any of the other girls, but if you bow -to me I'll take my 'at off to you.'" She imitated the -Batchgrew intonation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's a good tale," said Edwin calmly. "What -a cuckoo! He ought to be put in a museum."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Daisy, made rather nervous by the success of her -tale, bent over the piano, and skimmed pianissimo and -rapidly through the "Clytie" waltz. Elaine moved her -shoulders to the rhythm.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet said they must go.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here! Hold on a bit!" said Edwin, through the -light film of music, and undoing the little parcel he -handed one specimen of the programme to Hilda and -another to Janet, simultaneously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, so my ideas are listened to, sometimes!" murmured -Hilda, who was, however, pleased.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A malicious and unjust remark, he thought. But the -next instant Hilda said in a quite friendly natural -tone:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Janet's going to bring Elaine. And she says Tom -says she is to tell you that he's coming whether he's -wanted or not. Daisy won't come."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" asked Edwin, but quite perfunctorily; he -knew that the Marrions were not interested in interesting -music, and his design had been to limit the -audience to enthusiasts.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Church," answered Daisy succinctly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come after church."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She shook her head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And how's the practising?" Edwin enquired from Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pretty fair," said she. "But not so good as this -programme. What swells we are, my word!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hilda's idea," said Edwin generously. "Your -mother coming?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes, I think so."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As the visitors were leaving, Hilda stopped Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you think it'll be better if we have the piano -put over there, and all the chairs together round here, -Janet?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It might be," said Janet uncertainly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda turned sharply to Edwin:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There! What did I tell you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," he protested good-humouredly, "what on -earth do you expect her to say, when you ask her like -that? Anyhow I may announce definitely that I'm not -going to have the piano moved. We'll try things as -they are, for a start, and then see. Why, if you put all -the chairs together over there, the place'll look like -a blooming boarding-house."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The comparison was a failure in tact, which he at -once recognised but could not retrieve. Hilda faintly -reddened, and the memory of her struggles as -manageress of a boarding-house was harshly revived in her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Some day I shall try the piano over there," she -said, low.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin concurred, amiably:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right. Some day we'll try it together, just to -see what it is like."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The girls, the younger ones still giggling, slipped -elegantly out of the house, one after another.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Dinner passed without incident.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The next day, Sunday, Edwin had a headache; and -it was a bilious headache. Hence he insisted to himself -and to everyone that it was not a bilious headache, but -just one of those plain headaches which sometimes visit -the righteous without cause or excuse; for he would -never accept the theory that he had inherited his -father's digestive weakness. A liability to colds he would -admit, but not on any account a feeble stomach. Hence, -further, he was obliged to pretend to eat as usual. -George was rather gnat-like that morning, and Hilda -was in a susceptible condition, doubtless due to -nervousness occasioned by the novel responsibilities of the -musical evening--and a Sabbath musical evening at that! -After the one o'clock dinner, Edwin lay down on the -sofa in the dining-room and read and slept; and when -he woke up he felt better, and was sincerely almost -persuaded that his headache had not been and was not a -bilious headache. He said to himself that a short walk -might disperse the headache entirely. He made one or -two trifling adjustments in the disposition of the -drawing-room furniture--his own disposition of it, and -immensely and indubitably superior to that so -pertinaciously advocated by Hilda--and then he went out. -Neither Hilda nor George was visible. Possibly -during his rest they had gone for a walk; they had fits of -intimacy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He walked in the faint September sunshine down -Trafalgar Road into the town. Except for a few girls -in dowdy finery and a few heavy youths with their -black or dark-blue trousers turned up round the ankles -far enough to show the white cotton lining, the street -was empty. The devout at that hour were either -dozing at home or engaged in Sunday school work; -thousands of children were concentrated in the hot Sunday -schools. As he passed the Bethesda Chapel and School -he heard the voices of children addressing the Lord of -the Universe in laudatory and intercessory song. Near -the Bethesda chapel, by the Duke of Cambridge Vaults, -two men stood waiting, their faces firm in the sure -knowledge that within three hours the public-houses -would again be open. Thick smoke rose from the -chimneys of several manufactories and thin smoke from -the chimneys of many others. The scheme of a Sunday -musical evening in that land presented itself to Edwin -as something rash, fantastic, and hopeless,--and yet -solacing. Were it known it could excite only hostility, -horror, contempt, or an intense bovine indifference; -chiefly the last.... Breathe the name of Chopin in -that land!...</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he climbed Duck Bank he fumbled in his pocket -for his private key of the shop, which he had brought -with him; for, not the desire for fresh air, but an acute -curiosity as to the answer to his letter to the solicitor -to the Hall trustees making an offer for the land at -Shawport, had sent him out of the house. Would the -offer be accepted or declined, or would a somewhat -higher sum be suggested? The reply would have been -put into the post on Saturday, and was doubtless then -lying in the letter-box within the shop. The whole -future seemed to be lying unopened in that letter-box.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He penetrated into his own shop like a thief, for it -was not meet for an important tradesman to be seen -dallying with business of a Sunday afternoon. As he -went into the shutter-darkened interior he thought of -Hilda, whom many years earlier he had kissed in that -very same shutter-darkened interior one Thursday -afternoon. Life appeared incredible to him, and in his -wife he could see almost no trace of the girl he had -kissed there in the obscure shop. There was a fair -quantity of letters in the box. The first one he opened -was from a solicitor; not the solicitor to the Hall -trustees, but Tom Orgreave, who announced to Edwin -Clayhanger, Esquire, dear sir, that his clients, the Palace -Porcelain Company of Longshaw, felt compelled to call -their creditors together. The Palace Porcelain -Company, who had believed in the efficacy of printed -advertising matter and expensive catalogues, owed Edwin -a hundred and eighty pounds. It was a blow, and the -more so in that it was unexpected. "Did I come -messing down here on a Sunday afternoon to receive this -sort of news?" he bitterly asked. A moment earlier -he had not doubted the solvency of the Palace -Porcelain Company; but now he felt that the Company -wouldn't pay two shillings in the pound,--perhaps not -even that, as there were debenture-holders. The next -letter was an acceptance of his offer for the Shawport -land. The die was cast, then. The new works would -have to be created; lithography would increase; in the -vast new enterprise he would be hampered by the -purchase of Maggie's house; he had just made a bad debt; -and he would have Hilda's capricious opposition to deal -with. He quitted the shop abruptly, locked the door, -and went back home, his mind very active but undirected.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VI</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Something unfamiliar in the aspect of the breakfast-room -as glimpsed through the open door from the hall, -drew him within. Hilda had at last begun to make it -into "her" room. She had brought an old writing-desk -from upstairs and put it between the fireplace -and the window. Edwin thought: "Doesn't she even -know the light ought to fall over the left shoulder, not -over the right?" Letter paper and envelopes and even -stamps were visible; and a miscellaneous mass of -letters and bills had been pushed into the space between -the flat of the desk and the small drawers about it. -There was also an easy-chair, with a freshly-covered -cushion on it; a new hearthrug that Edwin neither -recognised nor approved of; several framed prints, and -other oddments. His own portrait still dominated the -mantelpiece, but it was now flanked by two brass -candle-sticks. He thought: "If she'd ask me, I could -have arranged it for her much better than -that." Nevertheless the idea of her being absolute monarch of the -little room, and expressing her individuality in it and -by it, both pleased and touched him. Nor did he at all -resent the fact that she had executed her plan in -secret. She must have been anxious to get the room -finished for the musical evening.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Thence he passed into the drawing-room,--and was -thunderstruck. The arrangement of the furniture was -utterly changed, and the resemblance to a boarding-house -parlour after all achieved. The piano had -crossed the room; the chairs were massed together in -the most ridiculous way; the sofa was so placed as to -be almost useless. His anger was furious but cold. The -woman had considerable taste in certain directions, but -she simply did not understand the art of fixing up a -room. Whereas he did. Each room in the house -(save her poor little amateurish breakfast-room or -"boudoir") had been arranged by himself, even to small -details,--and well arranged. Everyone admitted that -he had a talent for interiors. The house was complete -before she ever saw it, and he had been responsible for -it. He was not the ordinary inexperienced ignorant -husband who "leaves all that sort of thing to the -missis." Interiors mattered to him; they influenced his -daily happiness. The woman had clearly failed to -appreciate the sacredness of the </span><em class="italics">status quo</em><span>. He -appreciated it himself, and never altered anything without -consulting her and definitely announcing his intention -to alter. She probably didn't care a fig for the </span><em class="italics">status -quo</em><span>. Her conduct was inexcusable. It was an attack -on vital principles. It was an outrage. Doubtless, in -her scorn for the </span><em class="italics">status quo</em><span>, she imagined that he -would accept the </span><em class="italics">fait accompli</em><span>. She was mistaken. -With astounding energy he set to work to restore the -</span><em class="italics">status quo ante</em><span>. The vigour with which he dragged -and pushed an innocent elephantine piano was -marvellous. In less than five minutes not a trace remained -of the </span><em class="italics">fait accompli</em><span>. He thought: "This is a queer -start for a musical evening!" But he was triumphant, -resolute, and remorseless. He would show her a thing -or two. In particular he would show that fair play -had to be practised in his house. Then, perceiving that -his hands were dirty, and one finger bleeding, he went -majestically, if somewhat breathless, upstairs to the -bathroom, and washed with care. In the glass he saw -that, despite his exertions, he was pale. At length he -descended, wondering where she was, where she had -hidden herself, who had helped her to move the -furniture, and what exactly the upshot would be. There -could be no doubt that he was in a state of high -emotion, in which unflinching obstinacy was shot through -with qualms about disaster.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He revisited the drawing-room to survey his labours. -She was there. Whence she had sprung, he knew -not. But she was there. He caught sight of her -standing by the window before entering the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When he got into the room he saw that her emotional -excitement far surpassed his own. Her lips and her -hands were twitching; her nostrils dilated and -contracted; tears were in her eyes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin," she exclaimed very passionately, in a thick -voice, quite unlike her usual clear tones, as she -surveyed the furniture, "this is really too much!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Evidently she thought of nothing but her -resentment. No consideration other than her outraged -dignity would have affected her demeanour. If a whole -regiment of their friends had been watching at the -door, her demeanour would not have altered. The -bedrock of her nature had been reached.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's war, this is!" thought Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was afraid; he was even intimidated by her anger; -but he did not lose his courage. The determination to -fight for himself, and to see the thing through no -matter what happened, was not a bit weakened. An -inwardly feverish but outwardly calm vindictive desperation -possessed him. He and she would soon know who -was the stronger.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the same time he said to himself:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was hasty. I ought not to have acted in such a -hurry. Before doing anything I ought to have told -her quietly that I intended to have the last word as -regards furniture in this house. I was within my rights -in acting at once, but it wasn't very clever of me, -clumsy fool!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Aloud he said, with a kind of self-conscious snigger:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's too much?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda went on:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You simply make me look a fool in my own house, -before my own son and the servants."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've brought it on yourself," said he fiercely. -"If you will do these idiotic things you must take the -consequences. I told you I didn't want the furniture -moved, and immediately my back's turned you go and -move it. I won't have it, and so I tell you straight."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're a brute," she continued, not heeding him, -obsessed by her own wound. "You're a brute!" She -said it with terrifying conviction. "Everybody knows -it. Didn't Maggie warn me? You're a brute and a -bully. And you do all you can to shame me in my -own house. Who'd think I was supposed to be the -mistress here? Even in front of my friends you insult -me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't act like a baby. How do I insult you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Talking about boarding-houses. Do you think -Janet and all of them didn't notice it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," he said. "Let this be a lesson to you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She hid her face in her hands and sobbed, moving -towards the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's beaten. She knows she's got to take it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then he said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> go altering furniture without consulting you? -Do </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> do things behind your back? Never!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's no reason why you should try to make me -look a fool in my own house. I told Ada how I wanted -the furniture, and George and I helped her. And then -a moment afterwards you give them contrary orders. -What will they think of me? Naturally they'll think -I'm not your wife, but your slave. You're a -brute." Her voice rose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't give any orders. I haven't seen the damned -servants and I haven't seen George."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She looked up suddenly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then who moved the furniture?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I did."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who helped you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nobody helped me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But I was here only a minute or two since."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, do you suppose it takes me half a day to -move a few sticks of furniture?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was impressed by his strength and his swiftness, -and apparently silenced; she had thought that the -servants had been brought into the affair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to know perfectly well," he proceeded, -"I should never dream of insulting you before the -servants. Nobody's more careful of your dignity than -I am. I should like to see anybody do anything against -your dignity while I'm here."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was still sobbing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I think you ought to apologise to me," she blubbered. -"Yes, I really do."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why should I apologise to you? You moved the -furniture against my wish. I moved it against yours. -That's all. You began. I didn't begin. You want -everything your own way. Well, you won't have it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She blubbered once more:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to apologise to me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then she wept hysterically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He meditated sourly, harshly. He had conquered. -The furniture was as he wished, and it would remain -so. The enemy was in tears, shamed, humiliated. He -had a desire to restore her dignity, partly because she -was his wife and partly because he hated to see any -human being beaten. Moreover, at the bottom of his -heart he had a tremendous regard for appearances, and -he felt fears for the musical evening. He could not -contemplate the possibility of visitors perceiving that -the host and hostess had violently quarrelled. He -would have sacrificed almost anything to the social -proprieties. And he knew that Hilda would not think of -them, or at any rate would not think of them -effectively. He did not mind apologising to her, if an -apology would give her satisfaction. He was her superior -in moral force, and naught else mattered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't think I ought to apologise," he said, with a -slight laugh. "But if you think so I don't mind -apologising. I apologise. There!" He dropped into an -easy-chair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>To him it was as if he had said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You see what a magnanimous chap I am."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She tried to conceal her feelings, but she was pleased, -flattered, astonished. Her self-respect returned to her -rapidly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank you," she murmured, and added: "It was -the least you could do."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At her last words he thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Women are incapable of being magnanimous."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She moved towards the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hilda," he said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She stopped.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come here," he commanded with gentle bluffness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She wavered towards him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come here, I tell you," he said again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He drew her down to him, all fluttering and sobbing -and wet, and kissed her, kissed her several times; and -then, sitting on his knees, she kissed him. But, though -she mysteriously signified forgiveness, she could not -smile; she was still far too agitated and out of control -to be able to smile.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The scene was over. The proprieties of the musical -evening were saved. Her broken body and soul huddled -against him were agreeably wistful to his triumphant -manliness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But he had had a terrible fright. And even now -there was a certain mere bravado in his attitude. In -his heart he was thinking:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove! Has it come to this?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The responsibilities of the future seemed too -complicated, wearisome and overwhelming. The earthly -career of a bachelor seemed almost heavenly in its -wondrous freedom.... Etches v. Etches.... The -unexampled creature, so recently the source of ineffable -romance, still sat on his knees, weighing them down. -Suddenly he noticed that his head ached very -badly--worse than it had ached all day.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VII</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The Sunday musical evening, beyond its artistic -thrills and emotional quality, proved to be exciting as -a social manifestation. Those present at it felt as must -feel Russian conspirators in a back room of some -big grey house of a Petrograd suburb when the -secret printing-press begins to function before their -eyes. This concert of profane harmonies, deliberately -planned and pouring out through open windows to -affront the ears of returners from church and chapel, -was considered by its organisers as a remarkable event; -and rightly so. The Clayhanger house might have -been a fortress, with the blood-red standard of art and -freedom floating from a pole lashed to its chimney. Of -course everybody pretended to everybody else that the -musical evening was a quite ordinary phenomenon.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was a success, and a flashing success, yet not -unqualified. The performers--Tertius Ingpen on the -piano, on the fiddle, and on the clarinet, Janet -Orgreave on the piano, and very timidly in a -little song by Grieg, Tom Orgreave on the piano -and his contralto wife in two famous and affecting -songs by Schumann and also on the piano, and Edwin -sick but obstinate as turner-over of pages--all did -most creditably. The music was given with ardent -sympathy, and in none of it did any marked pause -occur which had not been contemplated by the -composer himself. But abstentions had thinned the women -among the audience. Elaine Hill did not come, and, -far more important, Mrs. Orgreave did not come. Her -husband, old Osmond Orgreave, had not been expected, -as of late (owing to the swift onset of renal disease, -hitherto treated by him with some contempt) he had -declined absolutely to go out at night; but Edwin had -counted on Mrs. Orgreave. She simply sent word that -she did not care to leave her husband, and that Elaine -was keeping her company. Disappointment, keen but -brief, resulted. Edwin's severe sick headache was also -a drawback. It did, however, lessen the bad social -effect of an altercation between him and Hilda, in which -Edwin's part was attributed to his indisposition. This -altercation arose out of an irresponsible suggestion -from somebody that something else should be played -instead of something else. Now, for Edwin, a -programme was a programme,--sacred, to be executed -regardless of every extrinsic consideration. And seeing -that the programme was printed...! Edwin negatived -the suggestion instantly, and the most weighty -opinion in the room agreed with him, but Hilda must -needs fly out: "Why not change it? I'm sure it will -be better," etc. Whereas she could be sure of nothing -of the sort, and was incompetent to offer an opinion. -And she unreasonably and unnecessarily insisted, -despite Tertius Ingpen, and the change was made. It -was astounding to Edwin that, after the shattering -scene of the afternoon, she should be so foolhardy, so -careless, so obstinate. But she was. He kept his -resentment neatly in a little drawer in his mind, and -glanced at it now and then. And he thought of Tertius -Ingpen's terrible remark about women at Ingpen's first -visit. He said to himself: "There's a lot in it, no -doubt about that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the close of the last item, two of Brahms's -Hungarian Dances for pianoforte duet (played with truly -electrifying </span><em class="italics">brio</em><span> by little wizening Tom Orgreave and -his wife), both Tertius Ingpen and Tom fussed -consciously about the piano, triumphant, not knowing -quite what to do next, and each looking rather like a -man who has told a good story, and in the midst of -the applause tries to make out by an affectation of -casualness that the story is nothing at all.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Tom Orgreave carelessly, and -glancing at the ground as he usually did when speaking, -"Fine as those dances are on the piano, I should -prefer to hear them with the fiddle."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" demanded Ingpen challengingly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because they were written for the fiddle," said Tom -Orgreave with finality.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Written for the fiddle? Not a bit of it!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With superiority outwardly unruffled, Tom said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pardon me. Brahms wrote them for Joachim. I've -heard him play them."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So have I," said Tertius Ingpen, lightly but -scornfully. "But they were written originally for -pianoforte duet, as you played them to-night. Brahms -arranged them afterwards for Joachim."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tom Orgreave shook under the blow, for in musical -knowledge his supremacy had never been challenged in -Bleakridge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Surely----!" he began weakly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear fellow, it is so," said Ingpen impatiently.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Look it up," said Edwin, with false animation, for -his head was thudding. "George, fetch the -encyclopædia B--and J too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Delighted, George ran off. He had been examining -Johnnie Orgreave's watch, and it was to Johnnie he -delivered the encyclopædia, amid mock protests from -his uncle Edwin. More than one person had remarked -the growing alliance between Johnnie and young -George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But the encyclopædia gave no light.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then the eldest Swetnam (who had come by -invitation at the last moment) said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure Ingpen is right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was not sure, but from the demeanour of the two -men he could guess, and he thought he might as well -share the glory of Ingpen's triumph.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The next instant Tertius Ingpen was sketching out -future musical evenings at which quartets and -quintets should be performed. He knew men in the -orchestra at the Theatre Royal, Hanbridge; he knew -girl-violinists who could be drilled, and he was quite certain -that he could get a 'cello. From this he went on to -part-songs, and in answer to scepticism about local -gift for music, he said that during his visits of -inspection to factories he had heard spontaneous part-singing -"that would knock spots off the Savoy chorus." Indeed, -since his return to it, Ingpen had developed some -appreciation of certain aspects of his native district. -He said that the kindly commonsense with which as an -inspector he was received on pot-banks, surpassed -anything in the whole country.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Talking of pot-banks, you'll get a letter from me -about the Palace Porcelain Company," Tom Orgreave -lifting his eyebrows muttered to Edwin with a strange -gloomy constraint.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've had it," said Edwin. "You've got some nice -clients, I must say."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In a moment, though Tom said not a word more, the -Palace Porcelain Company was on the carpet, to -Edwin's disgust. He hated to talk about a misfortune. -But others beside himself were interested in the Palace -Porcelain Company, and the news of its failure had -boomed mysteriously through the Sabbath air of the -district.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda and Janet were whispering together. And -Edwin, gazing at them, saw in them the giggling -tennis-playing children of the previous day,--specimens of a -foreign race encamped among the men.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Suddenly Hilda turned her head towards the men, -and said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course </span><em class="italics">Edwin's</em><span> been let in!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was a reference to the Palace Porcelain Company. -How ungracious! How unnecessary! How unjust! -And somehow Edwin had been fearing it. And that was -really why he had not liked the turn of the -conversation,--he had been afraid of one of her darts!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Useless for Tom Swetnam to say that a number of -business men quite as keen as Edwin had been "let in"! -From her disdainful silence it appeared that Hilda's -conviction of the unusual simplicity of her husband -was impregnable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I hear you've got that Shawport land," said -Johnnie Orgreave.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The mystic influences of music seemed to have been -overpowered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who told ye?" asked Edwin in a low voice, once -more frightened of Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Young Toby Hall. Met him at the Conservative -Club last night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Hilda had heard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What land is that?" she demanded curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'What land is that?'" Johnnie mimicked her. "It's -the land for the new works, missis."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda threw her shoulders back, glaring at Edwin -with a sort of outraged fury. Happily most of the -people present were talking among themselves.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never told me," she muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I only knew this afternoon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her anger was unmistakable. She was no longer a -fluttering feminine wreck on his manly knee.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, good-bye," said Janet Orgreave startlingly -to him. "Sorry I have to go so soon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You aren't going!" Edwin protested with unnatural -loudness. "What about the victuals? I shan't touch -'em myself. But they must be consumed. Here! You -and I'll lead the way."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Half playfully he seized her arm. She glanced at -Hilda uncertainly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin," said Hilda very curtly and severely, "don't -be so clumsy. Janet has to go at once. Mr. Orgreave -is very ill--very ill indeed. She only came to oblige -us." Then she passionately kissed Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was like a thunderclap in the room. Johnnie and -Tom confirmed the news. Of the rest only Tom's wife -and Hilda knew. Janet had told Hilda before the -music began. Osmond Orgreave had been taken ill -between five and six in the afternoon. Dr. Stirling had -gone in at once, and pronounced the attack serious. -Everything possible was done; even a nurse was -obtained instantly, from the Clowes Hospital by the -station. From reasons of sentiment, if from no other, -Janet would have stayed at home and foregone the -musical evening. But those Orgreaves at home had -put their heads together and decided that Janet should -still go, because without her the entire musical evening -would crumble to naught. Here was the true reason -of the absence of Mrs. Orgreave and Elaine--both -unnecessary to the musical evening. The boys had come, -and Tom's wife had come, because, even considered -only as an audience, the Orgreave contingent was -almost essential to the musical evening. And so Janet, -her father's especial favourite and standby, had come, -and she had played, and not a word whispered except -to Hilda. It was wondrous. It was impressive. All -the Orgreaves departed, and the remnant of guests -meditated in proud, gratified silence upon the singular -fortitude and heroic commonsense that distinguished -their part of the world. The musical evening was -dramatically over, the refreshments being almost -wasted.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VIII</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda was climbing on to the wooden-seated chair in -the hall to put out the light there when she heard a -noise behind the closed door of the kitchen, which she -had thought to be empty. She went to the door and -pushed it violently open. Not only was the gas flaring -away in an unauthorised manner, not only were both -servants (theoretically in bed) still up, capless and -apronless and looking most curious in unrelieved black, -but the adventurous and wicked George was surreptitiously -with them, flattering them with his aristocratic -companionship, and eating blanc-mange out of a -cut-glass dish with a tablespoon. Twice George had been -sent to bed. Once the servants had been told to go to -bed. The worst of carnivals is that the dregs of the -population, such as George, will take advantage of -them to rise to the surface and, conscienceless and -mischievous, set at defiance the conventions by which -society protects itself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She merely glanced at George; the menace of her -eyes was alarming. His lower lip fell; he put down the -dish and spoon, and slunk timorously past her on his -way upstairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then she said to the servants:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, encouraging -him! Go to bed at once." And as they began -nervously to handle the things on the table, she added, -more imperiously: "At once! Don't keep me waiting. -I'll see to all this."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And they followed George meekly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gazed in disgust at the general litter of broken -refreshments, symbolising the traditional inefficiency of -servants, and extinguished the gas.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The three criminals were somewhat the victims of -her secret resentment against Edwin, who, a mere -martyrised perambulating stomach, had retired. Edwin -had defeated her in the afternoon; and all the evening, -in the disposition of the furniture, the evidence of his -victory had confronted her. By prompt and brutal -action, uncharacteristic of him and therefore mean, he -had defeated her. True he had embraced and -comforted her tears, but it was the kiss of a conqueror. -And then, on the top of that, he had proved his -commercial incompetence by making a large bad debt, and -his commercial rashness by definitely adopting a scheme -of whose extreme danger she was convinced. One part -of her mind intellectually knew that he had not -wilfully synchronised these events in order to wound her, -but another part of her mind felt deeply that he had. -She had been staggered by the revelation that he was -definitely committed to the project of lithography and -the new works. Not one word about the matter had -he said to her since their altercation on the night of the -reception; and she had imagined that, with his usual -indecision, he was allowing it to slide. She scarcely -recognised her Edwin. Now she accused him of a -malicious obstinacy, not understanding that he was -involved in the great machine of circumstance and -perhaps almost as much surprised as herself at the -movement of events. At any rate she was being beaten once -more, and her spirit rebelled. Through all the -misfortunes previous to her marriage that spirit, if -occasionally cowed, had never been broken. She had sat -grim and fierce against even bum-bailiffs in her time. -Yes, her spirit rebelled, and the fact that others had -known about the Shawport land before she knew made -her still more mutinous against destiny. She looked -round dazed at the situation. What? The mild -Edwin defying and crushing her? It was scarcely -conceivable. The tension of her nerves from this cause -only was extreme. Add to it the strain of the musical -evening, intensified by the calamity at the Orgreaves'!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A bell rang in the kitchen, and all the ganglions of -her spinal column answered it. Had Edwin rung? No. -It was the front-door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pardon me," said Tertius Ingpen, when she -opened. "But all my friends soon learn how difficult -it is to get rid of me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come in," she said, liking his tone, which flattered -her by assuming her sense of humour.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"As I'm sleeping at the office to-night, I thought I -might as well take one or two of my musical instruments -after all. So I came back."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've been round?" she asked, meaning round to -the Orgreaves'.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it, really?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, it appears to be pericarditis supervening on -renal disease. He lost consciousness, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I know. But what is pericarditis?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pericarditis is inflammation of the pericardium."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what's the pericardium?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They both smiled faintly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The pericardium is the membrane that encloses the -heart. I don't mind telling you that I've only just -acquired this encyclopædic knowledge from -Stirling,--he was there."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And is it supposed to be very dangerous?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know. Doctors never want to tell you -anything except what you can find out for yourself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After a little hesitating pause they went into the -drawing-room, where the lights were still burning, and -the full disorder of the musical evening persisted, -including the cigarette-ash on the carpet. Tertius -Ingpen picked up his clarinet case, took out the -instrument, examined the mouthpiece lovingly, and with -tenderness laid it back.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do sit down a moment," said Hilda, sitting limply -down. "It's stifling, isn't it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let me open the window," he suggested politely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he returned from the window, he said, pulling -his short beard:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was wonderful how those Orgreaves went through -the musical evening, wasn't it? Makes you proud of -being English.... I suppose Janet's a great friend -of yours?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His enthusiasm touched her, and her pride in Janet -quickened to it. She gave a deliberate, satisfied nod -in reply to his question. She was glad to be alone with -him in the silence of the house.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ed gone to bed?" he questioned, after another -little pause.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Already he was calling her husband Ed, and with an -affectionate intonation!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She nodded again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He stuck it out jolly well," said Ingpen, still -standing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He brings these attacks on himself," said Hilda, -with the calm sententiousness of a good digestion -discussing a bad one. She was becoming pleased with -herself--with her expensive dress, her position, her -philosophy, and her power to hold the full attention -of this man.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen replied, looking steadily at her:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We bring everything on ourselves."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then he smiled, as a comrade to another.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She shifted her pose. A desire to discuss Edwin -with this man grew in her, for she needed sympathy -intensely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you think of this new scheme of his?" she -demanded somewhat self-consciously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The new works? Seems all right. But I don't -know much about it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'm not so sure." And she exposed her -theory of the entire satisfactoriness of their present -situation, of the needlessness of fresh risks, and of -Edwin's unsuitability for enterprise. "Of course he's -splendid," she said. "But he'll never push. I can -look at him quite impartially--I mean in all those -things."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen murmured as it were dreamily:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you had much experience of business yourself?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It depends what you call business. I suppose you -know I used to keep a boarding-house." She was a -little defiant.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I didn't know. I may have heard vaguely. -Did you make it pay?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It did pay in the end."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But not at first? ... Any disasters?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She could not decide whether she ought to rebuff -the cross-examiner or not. His manner was so objective, -so disinterested, so innocent, so disarming, that -in the end she smiled uncertainly, raising her thick -eyebrows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes," she said bravely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And who came to the rescue?" Ingpen proceeded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin did."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I see," said Ingpen, still dreamily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe you knew all about it," she remarked, -having flushed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pardon me! Almost nothing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course you take Edwin's side."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are we talking man to man?" he asked suddenly, -in a new tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Most decidedly!" She rose to the challenge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I'll tell you my leading theory," he said in a -soft, polite voice. "The proper place for women is -the harem."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Ingpen!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!" he soothed her, but firmly. "We're -talking man to man. I can whisper sweet nothings to you, -if you prefer it, but I thought we were trying to be -honest. I hold a belief. I state it. I may be wrong, -but I hold that belief. You can persecute me for my -belief if you like. That's your affair. But surely you -aren't afraid of an idea! If you don't like the mere -word, let's call it zenana. Call it the drawing-room -and kitchen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So we're to be kept to our sphere!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now don't be resentful. Naturally you're to be -kept to your own sphere. If Edwin began dancing -around in the kitchen, you'd soon begin to talk about -</span><em class="italics">his</em><span> sphere. You can't have the advantages of married -life for nothing--neither you nor he. But some of you -women nowadays seem to expect them gratis. Let -me tell you, everything has to be paid for on this -particular planet. I'm a bachelor. I've often thought -about marrying, of course. I might get married some -day. You never know your luck. If I do----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll keep your wife in the harem, no doubt! And -she'll have to accept without daring to say a word all -the risks you choose to take."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There you are again!" he said. "This notion that -marriage ought to be the end of risks for a woman is -astonishingly rife, I find. Very curious! Very -curious!" He seemed to address the wall. "Why, it's the -beginning of them. Doesn't the husband take risks?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He chooses his own. He doesn't have business -risks thrust upon him by his wife."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Doesn't he? What about the risk of finding himself -tied for life to an inefficient housekeeper? That's -a bit of a business risk, isn't it? I've known more than -one man let in for it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And you've felt so sorry for him!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, not specially. You must run risks. When -you've finished running risks you're dead and you -ought to be buried. If I was a wife I should enjoy -running a risk with my husband. I swear I shouldn't -want to shut myself up in a glass case with him out of -all the draughts! Why, what are we all alive for?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The idea of the fineness of running risks struck her -as original. It challenged her courage, and she began -to meditate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," she murmured. "So you sleep at the office -sometimes?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A certain elasticity in one's domestic -arrangements." He waved a hand, seeming to pooh-pooh -himself lightly. Then, quickly changing his mood, he bent -and said good-night, but not quite with the saccharine -artificiality of his first visit--rather with honest, -friendly sincerity, in which were mingled both thanks -and appreciation. Hilda jumped up responsively. -And, the clarinet-case under his left arm, and the -fiddle-case in his left hand, leaving the right arm free, -Ingpen departed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She did not immediately go to bed. Now that Ingpen -was gone she perceived that though she had really -said little in opposition to Edwin's scheme, he had at -once assumed that she was a strong opponent of it. -Hence she must have shown her feelings far too openly -at the first mention of the affair before anybody had -left. This annoyed her. Also the immense injustice -of nearly all Ingpen's argument grew upon her moment -by moment. She was conscious of a grudge against -him, even while greatly liking him. But she swore that -she would never show the grudge, and that he should -never suspect it. To the end she would play a man's -part in the man-to-man discussion. Moreover her anger -against Edwin had not decreased. Nevertheless, a sort -of zest, perhaps an angry joy, filled her with novel -and intoxicating sensations. Let the scheme of the -new works go forward! Let it fail! Let it ruin them! -She would stand in the breach. She would show the -whole world that no ordeal could lower her head. She -had had enough of being the odalisque and the queen, -reclining on the soft couch of security. Her nostrils -scented life on the wind.... Then she heard a door -close upstairs, and began at last rapidly, as it were -cruelly, to put out the lights.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IX</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The incubus and humiliations of a first-class bilious -attack are not eternal. Edwin had not retired very -long before the malignant phase of the terrible malady -passed inevitably, by phenomena according with all -clinical experience, into the next phase. And the -patient, who from being chiefly a stomach, had now -become chiefly a throbbing head, lay on his pillow -exhausted but once more capable of objective thought. -His resentment against his wife on account of her -gratuitous disbelief in his business faculty, and on -account of her interference in a matter that did not -concern her, flickered up into new flame. He was -absolutely innocent. She was absolutely guilty; no excuse -existed or could be invented for her rude and wounding -attitude. He esteemed Tertius Ingpen, bachelor, the -most fortunate of men.... Women--unjust, dishonourable, -unintelligent, unscrupulous, giggling, -pleasure-loving! Their appetite for pleasure was infantile -and tigerish. He had noticed it growing in Hilda. -Previous to marriage he had regarded Hilda as -combining the best feminine with the best masculine -qualities. In many ways she had exhibited the comforting -straightforward characteristics of the male. But -since marriage her mental resemblance to a man had -diminished daily, and now she was the most feminine -woman he had ever met, in the unsatisfactory sense -of the word. Women ... Still, the behaviour of -Janet and Hilda during the musical evening had been -rather heroic. Impossible to dismiss them as being -exclusively of the giggling race! They had decided to -play a part, and they had played it with impressive -fortitude.... And the house of the Orgreaves--was -it about to fall? He divined that it was about to fall. -No death had so far occurred in the family, which had -seemed to be immune through decades and forever. -He wondered what would have happened to the house -of Orgreave in six months' time.... Then he went -back into the dark origins of his bilious attack.... -And then he was at inexcusable Hilda again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At length he heard her on the landing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She entered the bedroom, and quickly he shut his -eyes. He felt unpleasantly through his eyelids that -she had turned up the gas. Then she was close to him, -sat down on the edge of the bed. She asked him -a question, calmly, as to occurrences since his -retirement. He nodded an affirmative.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Your forehead's all broken out," she said, moving -away.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In a few moments he was aware of the delicious, -soothing, heavenly application to his forehead of a -handkerchief drenched in eau de cologne and water. -The compress descended upon his forehead with the -infinite gentleness of an endearment and the sudden -solace of a reprieve. He made faint, inarticulate -noises.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The light was extinguished for his ease.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He murmured weakly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you undressed already?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," she said quietly. "I can undress all right in -the dark."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He opened his eyes, and could dimly see her moving -darkly about, brushing her hair, casting garments. -Then she came towards him, a vague whiteness against -the gloom, and, bending, felt for his face, and kissed -him. She kissed him with superb and passionate -violence; she drew his life out of him, and poured in her -own. The tremendous kiss seemed to prove that there -is no difference between love and hate. It contained -everything--surrender, defiance, anger and tenderness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Neither of them spoke. The kiss dominated and -assuaged him. Its illogicalness overthrew him. He could -never have kissed like that under such circumstances. -It was a high and bold gesture. It expressed and -transmitted confidence. She had explained nothing, -justified nothing, made no charge, asked no forgiveness. -She had just confronted him with one unarguable -fact. And it was the only fact that mattered. -His pessimism about marriage lifted. If his spirit -was splendidly romantic enough to match hers, -marriage remained a feasible state. And he threw away -logic and the past, and in a magic vision saw that -success in marriage was an affair of goodwill and the -right tone. With the whole force of his heart he -determined to succeed in marriage. And in the mighty -resolve marriage presented itself to him as really -rather easy after all.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-orgreave-calamity"><span class="large">CHAPTER X</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE ORGREAVE CALAMITY</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>On the following Saturday afternoon--that is, six -days later--Edwin had unusually been down to the -shop after dinner, and he returned home about four -o'clock. Ada, hearing his entrance, came into the -hall and said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please, sir, missis is over at Miss Orgreave's and -will ye please go over?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where's Master George?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In missis's own room, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The "mistress's own room" was the new nomenclature -adopted by the kitchen, doubtless under suggestion, -for the breakfast-room or boudoir. Edwin -opened the door and glanced in. George, apparently -sketching, sat at his mother's desk, with the light -falling over his right shoulder.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He looked up quickly in self-excuse:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother said I could! Mother said I could!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>For the theory of the special sanctity of the -boudoir had mysteriously established itself in the -house during the previous eight or ten days. George -was well aware that even Edwin was not entitled to -go in and out as he chose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Keep calm, sonny," said Edwin, teasing him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With permissible and discreet curiosity he glanced -from afar at the desk, its upper drawers and its -pigeon-holes. Obviously it was very untidy. Its -untidiness gave him sardonic pleasure, because Hilda was -ever implying, or even stating, that she was a very -tidy woman. He remembered that many years ago -Janet had mentioned orderliness as a trait of the -wonderful girl, Hilda Lessways. But he did not -personally consider that she was tidy; assuredly she by no -means reached his standard of tidiness, which standard -indeed she now and then dismissed as old-maidish. -Also, he was sardonically amused by the air of -importance and busyness which she put on when using -the desk and the room; her household accounts, -beheld at a distance, were his wicked joy. He saw a -bluish envelope lying untidily on the floor between the -desk and the fireplace, and he picked it up. It had -been addressed to "Mrs. George Cannon, 59 Preston -Street, Brighton," and readdressed in a woman's -hand to "Mrs. Clayhanger, Trafalgar Road, -Bursley." Whether the handwriting of the original -address was masculine or feminine he could not decide. -The envelope had probably contained only a bill or -a circular. Nevertheless he felt at once inimically -inquisitive towards the envelope. Without quite -knowing it he was jealous of all Hilda's past life up -to her marriage with him. After a moment, reflecting -that she had made no mention of a letter, he -dropped the envelope superciliously, and it floated to -the ground.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm going to Lane End House," he said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can I come?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The same overhanging spirit of a great event which -had somehow justified him in being curt to the boy, -rendered him self-conscious and furtive as he stood in -the porch of the Orgreaves, waiting for the door to -open. Along the drive that curved round the oval -lawn under the high trees were wheel-marks still -surviving from the previous day. The house also -survived; the curtains in all the windows, and the plants -or the pieces of furniture between the curtains, were -exactly as usual. Yet the solid building and its -contents had the air of an illusion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A servant appeared.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good afternoon, Selina."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had probably never before called her by name, -but to-day his self-consciousness impelled him to do -uncustomary things.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good afternoon, sir," said Selina, whose changeless -attire ignored even the greatest events. And it -was as if she had said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, sir! To what have we come!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She too was self-conscious and furtive.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Aloud she said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Miss Orgreave and Mrs. Clayhanger are upstairs, -sir. I'll tell Miss Orgreave."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Coughing nervously, he went into the drawing-room, -the large obscure room, crowded with old furniture -and expensive new furniture, with books, knickknacks, -embroidery, and human history, in which he had first -set eyes on Hilda. It was precisely the same as it -had been a few days earlier; absolutely nothing had -been changed, and yet now it had the archæological -and forlorn aspect of a museum.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He dreaded the appearance of Janet and Hilda. -What could he say to Janet, or she to him? But he -was a little comforted by the fact that Hilda had -left a message for him to join them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>On the previous Tuesday Osmond Orgreave had -died, and within twenty-four hours Mrs. Orgreave -was dead also. On the Friday they were buried -together. To-day the blinds were up again; the funereal -horses with their artificially curved necks had already -dragged other corpses to the cemetery; the town -existed as usual; and the family of Orgreave was -scattered once more. Marian, the eldest daughter, had -not been able to come at all, because her husband -was seriously ill. Alicia Hesketh, the youngest -daughter, far away in her large house in Devonshire, had -not been able to come at all, because she was hourly -expecting her third child; nor would Harry, her -husband, leave her. Charlie, the doctor at Ealing, had -only been able to run down for the funeral, because, -his partner having broken his leg, the whole work of -the practice was on his shoulders. And to-day Tom, -the solicitor, was in his office exploring the financial -side of his father's affairs; Johnnie was in the office -of Orgreave and Sons, busy with the professional -side of his father's affairs; Jimmie, who had made a -sinister marriage, was nobody knew precisely where; -Tom's wife had done what she could and gone home; -Jimmie's wife had never appeared; Elaine, Marian's -child, was shopping at Hanbridge for Janet; and -Janet remained among her souvenirs. An epoch was -finished, and the episode that concluded it, in its -strange features and its swiftness, resembled a vast -hallucination.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Certain funerals will obsess a whole town. And -the funeral of Mr. and Mrs. Osmond Orgreave might -have been expected to do so. Not only had their -deaths been almost simultaneous, but they had been -preceded by superficially similar symptoms, though -the husband had died of pericarditis following renal -disease, and the wife of hyperæmia of the lungs -following increasingly frequent attacks of bronchial -catarrh. The phenomena had been impressive, and -rumour had heightened them. Also Osmond Orgreave -for half a century had been an important and -celebrated figure in the town; architecturally a large -portion of the new parts of it were his creation. Yet the -funeral had not been one of the town's great feverish -funerals. True, the children would have opposed -anything spectacular; but had municipal opinion decided -against the children, they would have been compelled -to yield. Again and again prominent men in the -town had as it were bought their funeral processions -in advance by the yard--processions in which their -families, willing or not, were reduced to the rôle of -stewards.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tom and Janet, however, had ordained that nobody -whatever beyond the family should be invited to the -funeral, and there had been no sincere protest from -outside.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The fact was that Osmond Orgreave had never related -himself to the crowd. He was not a Freemason; -he had never been President of the Society for the -Prosecution of Felons; he had never held municipal -office; he had never pursued any object but the good -of his family. He was a particularist. His charm -was kept chiefly for his own home. And beneath the -cordiality of his more general connections, there had -always been a subtle reservation--on both sides. He -was admired for his cleverness and his distinction, -liked where he chose to be liked, but never loved save -by his own kin. Further, he had a name for being -"pretty sharp" in business. Clients had had -prolonged difficulties with him--Edwin himself among -them. The town had made up its mind about Osmond -Orgreave, and the verdict, as with most popular -verdicts, was roughly just so far as it went, but unjust -in its narrowness. The laudatory three-quarters of -a column in the </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span> and the briefer effusive -notice in the new half-penny morning paper, both -reflected, for those with perceptions delicate enough to -understand, the popular verdict. And though Edwin -hated long funerals and the hysteria of a public woe, -he had nevertheless a sense of disappointment in the -circumstances of the final disappearance of Osmond -Orgreave.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The two women entered the room, silently. Hilda -looked fierce and protective. Janet Orgreave, pale -and in black, seemed very thin. She did not speak. -She gave a little nod of greeting.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, scarcely controlling his voice and his eyes, -murmured:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good afternoon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They would not shake hands; the effort would have -broken them. All remained standing, uncertainly. -Edwin saw before him two girls aged by the -accumulation of experience. Janet, though apparently -healthy, with her smooth fair skin, was like an old -woman in the shell of a young one. Her eyes were -dulled, her glance plaintive, her carriage slack. The -conscious wish to please had left her, together with -her main excuse for being alive. She was over -thirty-seven, and more and more during the last ten years -she had lived for her parents. She alone among all -the children had remained absolutely faithful to them. -To them, and to nobody else, she had been essential--a -fountain of vigour and brightness and kindliness from -which they drew. To see her in the familiar and -historic room which she had humanised and illuminated -with her very spirit, was heartrending. In a day she -had become unnecessary, and shrunk to the unneeded, -undesired virgin which in truth she was. She knew -it. Everybody knew it. All the waves of passionate -sympathy which Hilda and Edwin in their different -ways ardently directed towards her broke in vain -upon that fact.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And only the other day she was keen on tennis!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin," said Hilda. "Don't you think she ought -to come across to our place for a bit? I'm sure it -would be better for her not to sleep here."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Most decidedly," Edwin answered, only too glad -to agree heartily with his wife.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But Johnnie?" Janet objected.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pooh! Surely he can stay at Tom's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And Elaine?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She can come with you. Heaps of room for two."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I couldn't leave the servants all alone. I really -couldn't. They wouldn't like it," Janet persisted. -"Moreover, I've got to give them notice."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had to make the motion of swallowing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Hilda obstinately. "Come along now--for -the evening, anyhow. We shall be by ourselves."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, you must," said Edwin, curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I--I don't like walking down the street," Janet -faltered, blushing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't. You can get over the wall," said -Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course you can," Hilda concurred. "Just as -you are now. I'll tell Selina."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She left the room with decision, and the next -instant returned with a telegram in her hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Open it, please. I can't," said Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda read:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother and boy both doing splendidly. Harry."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet dropped onto a chair and burst into tears.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so glad. I'm so glad," she spluttered. "I can't -help it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then she jumped up, wiped her eyes, and smiled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>For a few yards the Clayhanger and the Orgreave -properties were contiguous, and separated by a fairly -new wall, which, after much procrastination on the -part of owners, had at last replaced an unsatisfactory -thorn-hedge. While Selina put a chair in position for -the ladies to stand on as a preliminary to climbing -the wall, Edwin suddenly remembered that in the days -of the untidy thorn-hedge Janet had climbed a pair of -steps in order to surmount the hedge and visit his -garden. He saw her balanced on the steps, and smiling -and then jumping, like a child. Now, he preceded her -and Hilda on to the wall, and they climbed carefully, -and when they were all up Selina handed him the chair -and he dropped it on his own side of the wall so that -they might descend more easily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Be careful, Edwin. Be careful," cried Hilda, -neither pleasantly nor unpleasantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And as he tried to read her mood in her voice, the -mysterious and changeful ever-flowing undercurrent of -their joint life bore rushingly away his sense of Janet's -tragedy; and he knew that no events exterior to his -marriage could ever overcome for long that constant -secret preoccupation of his concerning Hilda's mood.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When they came into the house, Ada met them with -zest and calamity in her whispering voice:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please 'm, Mr. and Mrs. Benbow are here. They're -in the drawing-room. They said they'd wait a bit to -see if you came back."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada had foreseen that, whatever their superficially -indifferent demeanour as members of the powerful -ruling caste, her master and mistress would be struck -all of a heap by this piece of news. And they were. -For the Benbows did not pay chance calls; in the -arrangement of their lives every act was neatly planned -and foreordained. Therefore this call was formal, and -behind it was an intention.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">I</em><span> can't see them. I can't possibly, dear," Janet -murmured, as it were intimidated. "I'll run back -home."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda replied with benevolent firmness:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No you won't. Come upstairs with me till they're -gone. Edwin, you go and see what they're after."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet faltered and obeyed, and the two women crept -swiftly upstairs. They might have been executing a -strategic retirement from a bad smell. The instinctive -movement, and the manner, were a judgment on -the ideals of the Benbows so terrible and final that -even the Benbows, could they have seen it, must have -winced and doubted for a moment their own moral -perfection. It came to this, that the stricken fled from -their presence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'What they're after'!" Edwin muttered to himself, -half resenting the phrase; because Clara was his -sister; and though she bored and exasperated him, he -could not class her with exactly similar boring and -exasperating women.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And, throwing down his cap, he went with false -casual welcoming into the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Young Bert Benbow, prodigiously solemn and -uncomfortable in his birthday spectacles, was with his -father and mother. Immense satisfaction, tempered -by a slight nervousness, gleamed in the eyes of the -parents. And the demeanour of all three showed -instantly that the occasion was ceremonious. Albert and -Clara could not have been more pleased and uplifted -had the occasion been a mourning visit of commiseration -or even a funeral.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The washed and brushed schoolboy, preoccupied, -did not take his share in the greetings with sufficient -spontaneity and promptitude.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara said, gently shocked:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bert, what do you say to your uncle?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good afternoon, uncle."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should think so indeed!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara of course sprang at once to the luscious first -topic, as to a fruit:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How is poor Janet bearing up?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was very characteristically of the Five Towns -in this,--he hated to admit, in the crisis itself, that -anything unusual was happening or had just happened. -Thus he replied negligently:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! All right!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As though his opinion was that Janet had nothing -to bear up against.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I hear it was a </span><em class="italics">very</em><span> quiet funeral," said Clara, -suggesting somehow that there must be something -sinister behind the quietness of the funeral.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't they ask </span><em class="italics">you</em><span>?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well--my word!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was a silence, save for faint humming from -Albert. And then, just as Clara was mentioning her -name, in rushed Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter?" the impulsive Hilda demanded -bluntly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This gambit did not please Edwin, whose instinct -was always to pretend that nothing was the matter. -He would have maintained as long as anybody that -the call was a chance call.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After a few vague exchanges, Clara coughed and -said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's really about your George and our Bert.... -Haven't you heard? ... Hasn't George said anything?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No.... What?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara looked at her husband expectantly, and -Albert took the grand male rôle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I gather they had a fight yesterday at school," -said he.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The two boys went to the same school, the -new-fangled Higher Grade School at Hanbridge, which -had dealt such a blow at the ancient educational -foundations at Oldcastle. That their Bert should attend -the same school as George was secretly a matter of -pride to the Benbows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Edwin. "We've seen no gaping wounds, -have we, Hilda?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert's face did not relax.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've only got to look at Bert's chin," said Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Bert shuffled under the world's sudden gaze. -Undeniably there was a small discoloured lump on his -chin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've had it out with Bert," Albert continued -severely. "I don't know who was in the wrong--it was -about that penknife business, you know--but I'm -quite sure that Bert was not in the right. And as he's -the older we've decided that he must ask George's -forgiveness."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," eagerly added Clara, tired of listening. -"Albert says we can't have quarrels going on like -this in the family--they haven't spoken friendly to -each other since that night we were here--and it's the -manly thing for Bert to ask George's forgiveness, and -then they can shake hands."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's what I say." Albert massively corroborated her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose these people imagine they're doing -something rather fine."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Whatever they imagined they were doing, they -had made both Edwin and Hilda sheepish. Either of -them would have sacrificed a vast fortune and the -lives of thousands of Sunday school officers in order -to find a dignified way of ridiculing and crushing the -expedition of Albert and Clara; but they could think -of naught that was effective.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda asked, somewhat curtly, but lamely:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where is George?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He was in your boudoir a two-three minutes ago, -drawing," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara's neck was elongated at the sound of the word -"boudoir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Boudoir?" said she. And Edwin could in fancy -hear her going down Trafalgar Road and giggling at -every house-door: "Did ye know Mrs. Clayhanger -has a boudoir? That's the latest." Still he had -employed the word with intention, out of deliberate -bravado.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Breakfast-room," he added, explanatory.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should suggest," said Albert, "that Bert goes -to him in the breakfast-room. They'll settle it much -better by themselves." He was very pleased by this -last phrase, which proved him a man of the world -after all.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So long as they don't smash too much furniture -while they're about it," murmured Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, Bert, my boy," said Albert, in the tone of a -father who is also a brother.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And, as Hilda was inactive, Bert stalked forth upon -his mission of manliness, smiling awkwardly and blushing. -He closed the door after him, and not one of the -adults dared to rise and open it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Had any luck with missing words lately?" Albert -asked, in a detached airy manner, showing that the -Bert-George affair was a trifle to him, to be dismissed -from the mind at will.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Edwin. "I've been off missing words -lately."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course you have," Clara agreed with gravity. -"All this must have been very trying to you all.... -Albert's done very well of course."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was on 'politeness,' my boy," said Albert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't you know?" Clara expressed surprise.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Politeness'?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sixty-four pounds nineteen shillings per share," -said Albert tremendously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin appreciatively whistled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Had the money?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. Cheques go out on Monday, I believe. Of -course," he added, "I go in for it scientifically. I -leave no chances, I don't. I'm making a capital -outlay of over five pounds ten on next week's competition, -and I may tell you I shall get it back again, </span><em class="italics">with</em><span> -interest."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the same moment, Bert re-entered the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's not there," said Bert. "His drawing's there, -but he isn't."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This news was adverse to the cause of manly peace.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you sure?" asked Clara, implying that Bert -might not have made a thorough search for George in -the boudoir.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda sat grim and silent.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He may be upstairs," said the weakly amiable Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda rang the bell with cold anger.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Master George in the house?" she harshly -questioned Ada.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No'm. He went out a bit since."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The fact was that George, on hearing from the -faithful Ada of the arrival of the Benbows, had -retired through the kitchen and through the back-door, -into the mountainous country towards Bleakridge -railway-station, where kite-flying was practised on -immense cinder-heaps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah! Well," said Albert, undefeated, to Edwin. -"You might tell him Bert's been up specially to -apologise to him. Oh! And here's that penknife!" He -looked now at Hilda, and, producing Tertius Ingpen's -knife, he put it with a flourish on the mantelpiece. "I -prefer it to be on your mantelpiece than on ours," he -added, smiling rather grandiosely. His manner as a -whole, though compound, indicated with some clearness -that while he adhered to his belief in the efficacy of -prayer, he could not allow his son to accept from -George earthly penknives alleged to have descended -from heaven. It was a triumphant hour for Albert -Benbow, as he stood there dominating the drawing-room. -He perceived that, in addition to silencing and -sneaping the elder and richer branch of the family, he -was cutting a majestic figure in the eyes of his own son.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In an awful interval, Clara said with a sweet bright -smile:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"By the way, Albert, don't forget about what -Maggie asked you to ask."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes! By the way," said Albert, "Maggie wants -to know how soon you can complete the purchase of -this house of yours."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin moved uneasily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," he mumbled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can you stump up in a month? Say the end of -October anyway, at latest." Albert persisted, and -grew caustic. "You've only got to sell a few of your -famous securities."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly. Before the end of October," Hilda -replied, with impulsive and fierce assurance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was amazed by this interference on her part. -Was she incapable of learning from experience? Let -him employ the right tone with absolutely perfect skill, -marriage would still be impossible if she meant to carry -on in this way! What did she know about the -difficulties of completing the purchase? What right had -she to put in a word apparently so decisive? Such -behaviour was unheard of. She must be mad. -Nevertheless he did not yield to anger. He merely said -feebly and querulously:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's all very well! That's all very well! But -I'm not quite so sure as all that. Will she let some -of it be on mortgage?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, she won't," said Albert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because I've got a new security for the whole -amount myself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin glanced at his wife and his resentful eyes -said: "There you are! All through your infernal -hurry and cheek Maggie's going to lose eighteen -hundred pounds in a rotten investment. I told you -Albert would get hold of that money if he heard of it. -And just look!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At this point Albert, who knew fairly well how to -draw an advantage from his brother-in-law's characteristic -weaknesses, perceived suddenly the value of an -immediate departure. And amid loud enquiries of all -sorts from Clara, and magnificent generalities from -Albert, and gloomy, stiff salutations from -uncomfortable Bert, the visit closed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But destiny lay in wait at the corner of the street -for Albert Benbow's pride. Precisely as the -Benbows were issuing from the portico, the front-door -being already closed upon them, the second Swetnam -son came swinging down Trafalgar Road. He stopped, -raising his hat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hallo, Mr. Benbow," he said. "You've heard -the news, I suppose?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What about?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Missing word competitions."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It is a fact that Albert paled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Injunction in the High Court this morning. All -the money's impounded, pending a hearing as to -whether the competitions are illegal or not. At the -very least half of it will go in costs. It's all over with -missing words."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who told you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've had a wire to stop me from sending in for -next week's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert Benbow gave an oath. His wife ought surely -to have been horrorstruck by the word; but she did -not blench. Flushing and scowling she said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a shame! We've sent ours in."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The faithful creature had for days past at odd -moments been assisting her husband in the dictionary -and as a clerk.... And lo! at last, confirmation of -those absurd but persistent rumours to the effect that -certain busybodies meant if they could to stop missing -word competitions on the ground that they were -simply a crude appeal to the famous "gambling -instincts" of mankind and especially of Englishmen!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert had rebutted the charge with virtuous warmth, -insisting on the skill involved in word-choosing, and -insisting also on the historical freedom of the -institutions of his country. He maintained that it was -inconceivable that any English court of justice should -ever interfere with a pastime so innocent and so tonic -for the tired brain. And though he had had secret -fears, and had been disturbed and even hurt by the -comments of a religious paper to which he subscribed, -he would not waver from his courageous and sensible -English attitude. Now the fearful blow had fallen, -and Albert knew in his heart that it was heaven's -punishment for him. He turned to shut the gate after -him, and noticed Bert. It appeared to him that in -hearing the paternal oath, Bert had been guilty of a -crime, or at least an indiscretion, and he at once began -to make Bert suffer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Meanwhile Swetnam had gone on, to spread the tale -which was to bring indignation and affliction into tens -of thousands of respectable homes.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Janet came softly and timidly into the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They are gone?" she questioned. "I thought I -heard the front-door."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, thank goodness!" Hilda exclaimed candidly, -disdaining the convention (which Edwin still had in -respect) that a weakness in family ties should never -be referred to, beyond the confines of the family, save -in urbane terms of dignity and regret excusing so far -as possible the sinner. But in this instance the -immense ineptitude of the Benbows had so affected -Edwin that, while objecting to his wife's outbreak, he -could not help giving a guffaw which supported it. -And all the time he kept thinking to himself:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Imagine that d----d pietistic rascal dragging the -miserable shrimp up here to apologise to George!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was ashamed, not merely of his relatives, but -somehow of all humanity. He could scarcely look even -a chair in the face. The Benbows had left behind -them desolation, and this desolation affected everything, -and could be tasted on the tongue. Janet of -course instantly noticed it, and felt that she ought not -to witness the shaming of her friends. Moreover, her -existence now was chiefly an apology for itself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I really think I ought to go back and see about a -meal for Johnnie in case he turns up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nonsense!" said Hilda, sharply. "With three -servants in the house, I suppose Johnnie won't starve! -Now just sit down. Sit </span><em class="italics">down</em><span>!" Her tone softened. -"My dear, you're worse than a child.... Tell -Edwin." She put a cushion behind Janet in the easy -chair. And the gesture made Janet's eyes humid once -more.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had the exciting, disquieting, vitalising -sensation of being shut up in an atmosphere of women. -Not two women, but two thousand, seemed to hem him -in with their incalculable impulses, standards, -inspirations.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Janet wants to consult you," Hilda added; and -even Hilda appeared to regard him as a strong saviour.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"After all, then, I'm not the born idiot she'd like -to make out. Now we're getting at her real opinion -of me!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's only about father's estate," said Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why? Hasn't he made a will?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes! He made a will over thirty years ago. -He left everything to mother and made her sole -executor or whatever you call it. Just like him, wasn't -it? ... D'you know that he and mother never had a -quarrel, nor anything near a quarrel?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," Edwin, nodding appreciatively, answered -with an informed masculine air. "The law provides -for all that. Tom will know. Did your mother make -a will?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. Dear thing! She would never have dreamt of it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then letters of administration will have to be -taken out," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet began afresh:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Father was talking of making a new will two or -three months ago. He mentioned it to Tom. He said -he should like you to be one of the executors. He -said he would sooner have you for an executor than -anybody."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>An intense satisfaction permeated Edwin, that he -should have been desired as an executor by such an -important man as Osmond Orgreave. He felt as -though he were receiving compensation for uncounted -detractions.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Really?" said he. "I expect Tom will take out -letters of administration, or Tom and Johnnie -together; they'll make better executors than I -should."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It doesn't seem to make much difference who looks -after it and who doesn't," Hilda sharply interrupted. -"When there's nothing to look after."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing to look after?" Edwin repeated.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing to look after!" said Hilda in a firm and -clear tone. "According to what Janet says."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But surely there must be something!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet answered mildly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm afraid there isn't much."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was Hilda who told the tale. The freehold of -Lane End House belonged to the estate, but there -were first and second mortgages on it, and had been -for years. Debts had always beleaguered the -Orgreave family. A year ago money had apparently -been fairly plentiful, but a great deal had been spent -on re-furnishing. Jimmie had had money, in connection -with his sinister marriage; Charlie had had money -in connection with his practice, and Tom had enticed -Mr. Orgreave into the Palace Porcelain Company. -Mr. Orgreave had given a guarantee to the Bank for -an overdraft, in exchange for debentures and shares -in that company. The debentures were worthless, and -therefore the shares also, and the bank had already -given notice under the guarantee. There was an -insurance policy--one poor little insurance policy for -a thousand pounds--whose capital well invested -might produce an income of twelve or fifteen shillings -a week; but even that policy was lodged as security -for an overdraft on one of Osmond's several private -banking accounts. There were many debts, small to -middling. The value of the Orgreave architectural -connection was excessively dubious--so much of it had -depended upon Osmond Orgreave himself. The estate -might prove barely solvent; on the other hand it might -prove insolvent; so Johnnie, who had had it from -Tom, had told Janet that day, and Janet had told Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Your father was let in for the Palace Porcelain -Company?" Edwin breathed, with incredulous emphasis -on the initial p's. "What on earth was Tom thinking of?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's what Johnnie wants to know," said Janet. -"Johnnie was very angry. They've had some words -about it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Except for the matter of the Palace Porcelain -Company, Edwin was not surprised at the revelations, -though he tried to be. The more closely he examined -his attitude for years past to the Orgreave household -structure, the more clearly he had to admit that a -suspicion of secret financial rottenness had never long -been absent from his mind--not even at the period of -renewed profuseness, a year or two ago, when -furniture-dealers, painters, and paperhangers had been -enriched. His resentment against the deceased -charming Osmond and also against the affectionate and -blandly confident mother, was keen and cold. They -had existed, morally, on Janet for many years; -monopolised her, absorbed her, aged her, worn her out, -done everything but finish her,--and they had made no -provision for her survival. In addition to being -useless, she was defenceless, helpless, penniless, and old; -and she shivered now that the warmth of her -parents' affection was withdrawn by death.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You see," said Janet. "Father was so transparently -honest and generous."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin said nothing to this sincere outburst.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you got any money at all, Janet?" asked Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's a little household money, and by a miracle -I've never spent the ten-pound note poor dad gave -me on my last birthday."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Edwin, sardonically imaging that -ten-pound note as a sole defence for Janet against the -world. "Of course Johnnie will have to allow you -something out of the business--for one thing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure he will, if he can," Janet agreed. "But -he says it's going to be rather tight. He wants us to -clear out of the house at once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Take my advice and don't do it," said Edwin. -"Until the house is let or sold it may as well be -occupied by you as stand empty--better in fact, because -you'll look after it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">That's</em><span> right enough, anyway," said Hilda, as if to -imply that by a marvellous exception a man had for -once in a while said something sensible.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't use all the house," Edwin proceeded. -"You won't want all the servants."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you'd say a word to Johnnie," breathed -Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll say a word to Johnnie, all right," Edwin -answered loudly. "But it seems to me it's Tom that -wants talking to. I can't imagine what he was doing -to let your father in for that Palace Porcelain -business. It beats me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet quietly protested:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I feel sure he thought it was all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, of course!" said Hilda, bitterly. "Of course! -They always do think it's all right. And here's my -husband just going into one of those big dangerous -affairs, and </span><em class="italics">he</em><span> thinks it's all right, and nothing I can -say will stop him from going into it. And he'll keep -on thinking it's all right until it's all wrong and we're -ruined, and perhaps me left a widow with George." Her -lowered eyes blazed at the carpet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet, troubled, glanced from one to the other, and -then, with all the tremendous unconscious persuasive -force of her victimhood and her mourning, murmured -gently to Edwin:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Don't run any risks! Don't run any risks!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was staggered by the swift turn of the -conversation. Two thousand women hemmed him in more -closely than ever. He could do nothing against them -except exercise an obstinacy which might be esteemed -as merely brutal. They were not accessible to -argument--Hilda especially. Argument would be received -as an outrage. It would be impossible to convince -Hilda that she had taken a mean and disgraceful -advantage of him, and that he had every right to resent -her behaviour. She was righteousness and injuredness -personified. She partook, in that moment, of -the victimhood of Janet. And she baffled him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He bit his lower lip.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All that's not the business before the meeting," he -said as lightly as he could. "D'you think if I stepped -down now I should catch Johnnie at the office?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And all the time, while his heart hardened against -Hilda, he kept thinking:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Suppose I </span><em class="italics">did</em><span> come to smash!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet had put a fear in his mind, Janet who in -her wistfulness and her desolating ruin seemed to be -like only a little pile of dust--all that remained of -the magnificent social structure of a united and -numerous Orgreave family.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin met Tertius Ingpen in the centre of the -town outside the offices of Orgreave and Sons, amid -the commotion caused by the return of uplifted spectators -from a football match in which the team curiously -known to the sporting world as "Bursley Moorthorne" -had scored a broken leg and two goals to nil.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello!" Ingpen greeted him. "I was thinking of -looking in at your place to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do!" said Edwin. "Come up with me now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't! ... Why do these ghastly louts try to -walk over you as if they didn't see you?" Then in -another tone, very quietly, and nodding in the -direction of the Orgreave offices: "Been in there? ... What -a week, eh! ... How are things?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bad," Edwin answered. "In a word, bad!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen lifted his eyebrows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They turned away out of the crowd, up towards the -tranquillity of the Turnhill Road. They were -manifestly glad to see each other. Edwin had had a -satisfactory interview with Johnnie Orgreave,--satisfactory -in the sense that Johnnie had admitted the wisdom -of all that Edwin said and promised to act on it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've just been talking to young Johnnie for his -own good," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And in a moment, with eagerness, with that strange -deep satisfaction felt by the carrier of disastrous -tidings, he told Ingpen all that he knew of the plight of -Janet Orgreave.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you ask me," said he, "I think it's infamous."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Infamous," Ingpen repeated the word savagely. -"There's no word for it. What'll she do?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I suppose she'll have to live with Johnnie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And where will Mrs. Chris come in, then?" Ingpen -asked in a murmur.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Chris Hamson?" exclaimed Edwin startled. -"Oh! Is that affair still on the carpet? ... Cheerful -outlook!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen pulled his beard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Anyhow," said he, "Johnnie's the most reliable of -the crew. Charlie's the most agreeable, but Johnnie's -the most reliable. I wouldn't like to count much on -Tom, and as for Jimmie, well of course----!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I always look on Johnnie as a kid. Can't help it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's no law against that, so long as you don't -go and blub it out to Mrs. Chris," Ingpen laughed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know her."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to know her. She's an education, my boy."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've been having a fair amount of education -lately," said Edwin. "Only this afternoon I was -practically told that I ought to give up the idea of my new -works because it has risks and the Palace Porcelain -Co. was risky and Janet hasn't a cent. See the point?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was obliged to talk about the affair, because it -was heavily on his mind. A week earlier he had -persuaded himself that the success of a marriage depended -chiefly on the tone employed to each other by the -contracting parties. But in the disturbing scene of the -afternoon, his tone had come near perfection, and yet -marriage presented itself as even more stupendously -difficult than ever. Ingpen's answering words salved -and strengthened him. The sensation of being -comprehended was delicious. Intimacy progressed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say," said Edwin, as they parted. "You'd better -not know anything about all this when you come to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Right you are, my boy."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Their friendship seemed once more to be suddenly -and surprisingly intensified.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When Edwin returned, Janet had vanished again. -Like an animal which fears the hunt and whose -shyness nothing can cure, she had fled to cover at the -first chance. According to Hilda she had run home -because it had occurred to her that she must go -through her mother's wardrobe and chest of drawers -without a moment's delay.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's account to his wife of the interview with -Johnnie Orgreave was given on a note justifiably -triumphant. In brief he had "talked sense" to Johnnie, -and Johnnie had been convicted and convinced. Hilda -listened with respectful propriety. Edwin said -nothing as to his encounter with Tertius Ingpen, partly -from prudence and partly from timidity. When -Ingpen arrived at the house, much earlier than he might -have been expected to arrive, Edwin was upstairs, and -on descending he found his wife and his friend -chatting in low and intimate voices close together in the -drawing-room. The gas had been lighted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here's Mr. Ingpen," said Hilda, announcing a surprise.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How do, Ingpen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How do, Ed?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen did not rise. Nor did they shake hands, but -in the Five Towns friends who have reached a certain -degree of intimacy proudly omit the ceremony of -handshaking when they meet. It was therefore impossible -for Hilda to divine that Edwin and Tertius had -previously met that day, and apparently Ingpen had not -divulged the fact. Edwin felt like a plotter.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The conversation of course never went far away -from the subject of the Orgreaves--and Janet in -particular. Ingpen's indignation at the negligence which -had left Janet in the lurch was more than warm enough -to satisfy Hilda, whose grievance against the wicked -carelessness of heads of families in general seemed -to be approaching expression again. At length she -said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's enough to make every woman think seriously of -where she'd be--if anything happened."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen smiled teasingly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now you're getting personal."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what if I am? With my headstrong husband -going in for all sorts of schemes!" Hilda's voice was -extraordinarily clear and defiant.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin nervously rose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll just get some cigarettes," he mumbled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda and Ingpen scarcely gave him any attention. -Already they were exciting themselves. Although he -knew that the supply of cigarettes was in the -dining-room, he toured half the house before going there; -and then lit the gas and with strange deliberation drew -the blinds; next he rang the bell for matches, and, -having obtained them, lit a cigarette.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When he re-entered the drawing-room, Ingpen was -saying with terrific conviction:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're quite wrong, as I've told you before. It's -your instinct that's wrong, not your head. Women -will do anything to satisfy their instincts, simply -anything. They'll ruin your life in order to satisfy their -instincts. Yes, even when they know jolly well their -instincts are wrong!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, if these two mean to have a row, it's no -affair of mine."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Hilda, seemingly overfaced, used a very moderate -tone to retort:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're very outspoken."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tertius Ingpen answered firmly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm only saying aloud what every man thinks.... -Mind--every man."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And how comes it that </span><em class="italics">you</em><span> know so much about women?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell you sometime," said Ingpen, shortly, and -then smiled again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, advancing, murmured:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here. Have a cigarette."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A few moments later Ingpen was sketching out a -Beethoven symphony unaided on the piano, and holding -his head back to keep the cigarette-smoke out of -his eyes.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VI</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When the hour struck for which Hilda had -promised a sandwich supper Edwin and Tertius Ingpen -were alone in the drawing-room, and Ingpen was again -at the piano, apparently absorbed in harmonic -inventions of his own. No further word had been said -upon the subject of the discussion between Ingpen -and Hilda. On the whole, despite the reserve of Hilda's -demeanour, Edwin considered that marriage at the -moment was fairly successful, and the stream of -existence running in his favour. At five minutes after -the hour, restless, he got up and said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd better be seeing what's happened to that supper."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen nodded, as in a dream.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin glanced into the dining-room, where the -complete supper was waiting in illuminated silence and -solitude. Then he went to the boudoir. There, the -two candlesticks from the mantelpiece had been put -side by side on the desk, and the candles lit the figures -of Hilda and her son. Hilda, kneeling, held a stamped -and addressed letter in her hand, the boy was bent -over the desk at his drawing, which his mother -regarded. Edwin in his heart affectionately derided -them for employing candles when the gas would have -been so much more effective; he thought that the use -of candles was "just like" one of Hilda's unforeseeable -caprices. But in spite of his secret derision he was -strangely affected by the group as revealed by the -wavering candle-flames in the general darkness of the -room. He seldom saw Hilda and George together; -neither of them was very expansive; and certainly he -had never seen Hilda kneeling by her son's side since -a night at the Orgreaves' before her marriage, when -George lay in bed unconscious and his spirit hesitated -between earth and heaven. He knew that Hilda's love -for George had in it something of the savage, but, -lacking demonstrations of it, he had been apt to forget -its importance in the phenomena of their united -existence. Kneeling by her son, Hilda had the look of a -girl, and the ingenuousness of her posture touched -Edwin. The idea shot through his brain like a star, -that life was a marvellous thing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As the door had been ajar, they scarcely heard -him come in. George turned first.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then Ada was standing at the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes'm?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Ada! Just run across with this letter to -the pillar, will you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes'm."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've missed the post, you know," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda got up slowly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It doesn't matter. Only I want it to be in the post."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As she gave the letter to Ada he speculated idly as -to the address of the letter, and why she wanted it -to be in the post. Anyhow, it was characteristic of -her to want the thing to be in the post. She would -delay writing a letter for days, and then, having -written it, be "on pins" until it was safely taken out of -the house; and even when the messenger returned -she would ask: "Did you put that letter in the post?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada had gone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's he drawing, this kid?" asked Edwin, genially.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nobody answered. Standing between his wife and -the boy he looked at the paper. The first thing he -noticed was some lettering, achieved in an imitation -of architect's lettering: "</span><em class="italics">Plan for proposed new -printing-works to be erected by Edwin Clayhanger, -Esq., upon land at Shawport. George Edwin -Clayhanger, architect.</em><span>" And on other parts of the paper, -"Ground-floor plan" and "Elevation." The plan at a -distance resembled the work of a real architect. Only -when closely examined did it reveal itself as a piece of -boyish mimicry. The elevation was not finished.... -It was upon this that, with intervals caused by the -necessity of escaping from bores, George had been -labouring all day. And here was exposed the secret and -the result of his chumminess with Johnnie Orgreave. -Yet the boy had never said a word to Edwin in -explanation of that chumminess; nor had Johnnie himself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's been telling me he's going to be an architect," -said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is this plan a copy of Johnnie's, or is it his own -scheme?" asked Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, his own!" Hilda answered, with a rapidity and -an earnestness which disclosed all her concealed pride -in the boy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was thrilled. He pored over the plan, making -remarks and putting queries, in a dull matter-of-fact -tone; but he was so thrilled that he scarcely -knew what he was saying or understood the replies to -his questions. It seemed to him wondrous, miraculous, -overwhelming, that his own disappointed ambition to -be an architect should have re-flowered in his wife's -child who was not his child. He was reconciled to -being a printer, and indeed rather liked being a -printer, but now all his career presented itself to him -as a martyrisation. And he passionately swore that -such a martyrisation should not happen to George. -George's ambition should be nourished and forwarded -as no boyish ambition had ever been nourished and -forwarded before. For a moment he had a genuine -conviction that George must be a genius.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, behind the back of proud, silent George, -pulled Edwin's face to hers and kissed it. And as she -kissed she gazed at Edwin and her eyes seemed to -be saying: "Have your works; I have yielded. -Perhaps it is George's plan that has made me yield, but -anyhow I am strong enough to yield. And my -strength remains."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin thought: "This woman is unique. What -other woman could have done that in just that way?" And -in their embrace, intensifying and complicating -its significance, were mingled the sensations of their -passion, his triumph, her surrender, the mysterious -boy's promise, and their grief for Janet's tragedy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Old Ingpen's waiting for his supper, you know," -said Edwin tenderly. "George, you must show that -to Mr. Ingpen."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="lithography"><span class="large">BOOK II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">THE PAST</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CHAPTER XI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">LITHOGRAPHY</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin, sitting behind a glazed door with the word -"Private" elaborately patterned on the glass, heard -through the open window of his own office the voices -of the Benbow children and their mother in the street -outside.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Mother! What a big sign!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. Isn't Uncle Edwin a proud man to have such -a big sign?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It wasn't up yesterday."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"L, i, t, h, o,----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My word, Rupy! You are getting on!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They're such large letters, aren't they, -mother? ... 'Lithographic' ... 'Lithographic printing. -Edwin Clayhanger'."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh! ... Bert, how often do you want me to tell -you about your shoe-lace?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder if George has come."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother, can't </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> ring the bell?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All the children were there, with their screeching -voices. Edwin wondered that Rupert should have been -brought. Where was the sense of showing a -three-year-old infant like Rupert over a printing-works? -But Clara was always like that. The difficulty of -leaving little Rupert alone at home did not present -itself to the august uncle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin rose, locked a safe that was let into the wall -of the room, and dropped the key into his pocket. The -fact of the safe being let into the wall gave him as -much simple pleasure as any detail of the new works; -it was an idea of Johnnie Orgreave's. He put a grey -hat carelessly at the back of his head, and, hands in -pockets, walked into the next and larger room, which -was the clerks' office.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Both these rooms had walls distempered in a green -tint, and were fitted and desked in pitchpine. Their -newness was stark, and yet in the clerks' office the -irrational habituating processes of time were already -at work. On the painted iron mantelpiece lay a dusty -white tile, brought as a sample long before the room -was finished, and now without the slightest excuse for -survival. Nevertheless the perfunctory cleaner lifted -the tile on most mornings, dusted underneath it, and -replaced it; and Edwin and his staff saw it scores of -times daily and never challenged it, and gradually it -was acquiring a prescriptive right to exist just where -it did. And the day was distant when some inconvenient, -reforming person would exclaim:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's this old tile doing here?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>What Edwin did notice was that the walls and desks -showed marks and even wounds; it seemed to him -somehow wrong that the brand new could not remain -forever brand new. He thought he would give a -mild reproof or warning to the elder clerk, (once the -shop-clerk in the ancient establishment at the corner -of Duck Bank and Wedgwood Street) and then he -thought: "What's the use?" and only murmured:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not going off the works."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And he passed out, with his still somewhat gawky -gait, to the small entrance-hall of the works. On the -outer face of the door, which he closed, was painted -the word "Office." He had meant to have the words -"Counting-House" painted on that door, because they -were romantic and fine-sounding; but when the -moment came to give the order he had quaked before -such romance; he was afraid as usual of being -sentimental and of "showing off," and with assumed satire -had publicly said: "Some chaps would stick -'Counting-house' as large as life all across the door." He -now regretted his poltroonery. And he regretted -sundry other failures in courage connected with the scheme -of the works. The works existed, but it looked rather -like other new buildings, and not very much like the -edifice he had dreamed. It ought to have been grander, -more complete, more dashingly expensive, more of an -exemplar to the slattern district. He had been (he -felt) unduly influenced by the local spirit for -half-measures. And his life seemed to be a life of -half-measures, a continual falling-short. Once he used to -read studiously on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday -evenings. He seldom read now, and never with -regularity. Scarcely a year ago he had formed a -beautiful vague project of being "musical." At Hilda's -instigation he had bought a book of musical criticism by -Hubert Parry, and Hilda had swallowed it in three -days, but he had begun it and not finished it. And the -musical evenings, after feeble efforts to invigorate -them, had fainted and then died on the miserable -excuse that circumstances were not entirely favourable -to them. And his marriage, so marvellous in its -romance during the first days...!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then either his commonsense or his self-respect -curtly silenced these weak depreciations. He had -wanted the woman and he had won her,--he had taken -her. There she was, living in his house, bearing his -name, spending his money! The world could not get -over that fact, and the carper in Edwin's secret soul -could not get over it either. He had said that he -would have a new works, and, with all its faults and -little cowardices, there the new works was! And -moreover it had just been assessed for municipal rates at -a monstrous figure. He had bought his house (and -mortgaged it); he had been stoical to bad debts; he -had sold securities--at rather less than they cost him; -he had braved his redoubtable wife; and he had got -his works! His will, and naught else, was the magic -wand that had conjured it into existence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The black and gold sign that surmounted its blue -roofs could be seen from the top of Acre Lane and -half way along Shawport Lane, proclaiming the -progress of lithography and steam-printing, and the name -of Edwin Clayhanger. Let the borough put that in -its pipe and smoke it! He was well aware that the -borough felt pride in his works. And he had orders -more than sufficient to keep the enterprise handsomely -going. Even in the Five Towns initiative seemed to -receive its reward.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Life might be as profoundly unsatisfactory as you -pleased, but there was zest in it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The bell had rung. He opened the main door, and -there stood Clara and her brood. And Edwin was the -magnificent, wonderful uncle. The children entered, -with maternal precautions and recommendations. -Every child was clean and spruce: Bert clumsy, -Clara minxlike, Amy heavy and benignant, Lucy the -pretty little thing, and Rupert simply adorable--each -representing a separate and considerable effort of -watchful care. The mother came last, worn, still -pretty, with a slight dragging movement of the limbs. -In her glittering keen eyes were both envy and naïve -admiration of her brother. "What a life!" thought -Edwin, meaning what a narrow, stuffy, struggling, -conventional, unlovely existence was the Benbows'! He -and they lived in different worlds of intelligence. -Nevertheless he savoured the surpassing charm of Rupert, -the goodness of Amy, the floral elegance of Lucy, and -he could appreciate the unending labours of that -mother of theirs, malicious though she was. He was -bluff and jolly with all of them. The new works being -fairly close to the Benbow home, the family had often -come </span><em class="italics">en masse</em><span> to witness its gradual mounting, -regarding the excursions as a sort of picnic. And now -that the imposing place was inaugurated and the signs -up, Uncle Edwin had been asked to show them over -it in a grand formal visit, and he had amiably consented.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has George come, Uncle Edwin?" asked Bert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George had not come. A reconciliation had -occurred between the cousins (though by no means at -the time nor in the manner desired by Albert); they -were indeed understood by the Benbows to be on the -most touching terms of intimacy, which was very -satisfactory to the righteousness of Albert and Clara; and -George was to have been of the afternoon party; but -he had not arrived. Edwin, knowing the -unknowableness of George, suspected trouble.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Machines! Machines!" piped tiny white-frocked -Rupert, to whom wondrous tales had been told.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll see machines all right," said Edwin -promisingly. It was not his intention to proceed straight -to the machine-room. He would never have admitted -it, but his deliberate intention was to display the -works dramatically, with the machine-room as a -culmination. The truth was, the man was full of secret -tricks, contradicting avuncular superior indifference. -He was a mere boy--he was almost a school-girl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He led them through a longish passage, and up -steps and down steps--steps which were not yet -hollowed, but which would be hollowed--into the -stone-polishing shop, which was romantically obscure, with -a specially dark corner where a little contraption was -revolving all by itself in the process of smoothing a -stone. Young Clara stared at the two workmen, while -the rest stared at the contraption, and Edwin, feeling -ridiculously like a lecturer, mumbled words of -exposition. And then next, after climbing some steps, they -were in a lofty apartment with a glass roof, -sunshine-drenched and tropical. Here lived two more men, -including Karl the German, bent in perspiration over -desks, and laboriously drawing. Round about were -coloured designs, and stones covered with pencilling, -and boards, and all sorts of sheets of paper and -cardboard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ooh!" murmured Bert, much impressed by the -meticulous cross-hatching of Karl's pencil on a stone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is the drawing-office."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes!" murmured Clara vaguely. "It's very -warm, isn't it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>None of them except Bert was interested. They -gazed about dully, uncomprehendingly, absolutely -incurious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Machines!" Rupert urged again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come on, then," said Edwin going out with -assumed briskness and gaiety.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the door stood Tertius Ingpen, preoccupied and -alert, with all the mien of a factory inspector in full -activity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't mind me," said Ingpen, "I can look after -myself. In fact I prefer to."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the sight of an important stranger speaking -familiarly to Uncle Edwin, all the children save Rupert -grew stiff, dismal and apprehensive, and Clara looked -about as though she had suddenly discovered very -interesting phenomena in the corners of the workshop.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My sister, Mrs. Benbow--Mr. Ingpen. Mr. Ingpen -is Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories, so we -must mind what we're about," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara gave a bright, quick smile as she limply -shook hands. The sinister enchantment which -precedes social introduction was broken. And Clara, -overcome by the extraordinary chivalry and deference -of Ingpen's customary greeting to women, decided that -he was a particularly polite man; but she reserved her -general judgment on him, having several times heard -Albert inveigh against the autocratic unreasonableness -of this very inspector, who, according to Albert, -forgot that even an employer had to live, and that -that which handicapped the employer could not -possibly help the workman--"in the long run."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Machines!" Rupert insisted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They all laughed; the other children laughed -suddenly and imitatively, and an instant later than the -elders; and Tertius Ingpen, as he grasped the full -purport of the remark, laughed more than anyone. -He turned sideways and bent slightly in order to give -vent to his laughter, which, at first noiseless and -imprisoned, gradually grew loud in freedom. When he -had recovered, he said thoughtfully, stroking his soft -beard:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now it would be very interesting to know exactly -what that child understands by 'machines'--what his -mental picture of them is. Very interesting! Has -he ever seen any?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah! That makes it all the more interesting," -Ingpen added roguishly: "I suppose you think you do -know, Mrs. Benbow?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara smiled the self-protective, non-committal smile -of one who is not certain of having seen the point.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's very hot in here, Edwin," she said, glancing -at the door. The family filed out, shepherded by -Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll be back in a sec," said he to Clara, on the -stairs, and returned to the drawing-office.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen was in apparently close conversation with -Karl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," murmured Ingpen, thoughtfully tapping his -teeth. "The whole process is practically a contest -between grease and water on the stone."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Karl gruffly, but with respect.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin could almost see the tentacles of -Ingpen's mind feeling and tightening round a new -subject of knowledge, and greedily possessing it. What -a contrast to the vacuous indifference of Clara, who -was so narrowed by specialisation that she could never -apply her brain to anything except the welfare and -the aggrandizement of her family! He dwelt sardonically -upon the terrible results of family life on the -individual, and dreamed of splendid freedoms.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Clayhanger," said Ingpen, in his official -manner, turning.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The two withdrew to the door. Invisible, at the foot -of the stairs, could be heard the family, existing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Haven't seen much of lithography, eh?" said -Edwin, in a voice discreetly restrained.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen, ignoring the question, murmured:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, you know this place is much too hot."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Edwin. "What do you expect in August?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But what's the object of all that glass roof?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wanted to give 'em plenty of light. At the old -shop they hadn't enough, and Karl, the Teuton there, -was always grumbling."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why didn't you have some ventilation in the roof?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We did think of it. But Johnnie Orgreave said if -we did we should never be able to keep it watertight."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It certainly isn't right as it is," said Ingpen. "And -our experience is that these skylighted rooms that are -too hot in summer are too cold in winter. How should -you like to have your private office in here?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" protested Edwin. "It isn't so bad as all that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen said quietly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should suggest you think it over--I mean the -ventilation."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But you don't mean to say that this shop here -doesn't comply with your confounded rules?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen answered:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That may or may not be. But we're entitled to -make recommendations in any case, and I should like -you to think this over, if you don't mind. I haven't -any thermometer with me, but I lay it's ninety -degrees here, if not more." In Ingpen's urbane, -reasonable tone there was just a hint of the potential -might of the whole organised kingdom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All serene," said Edwin, rather ashamed of the -temperature after all, and loyally responsive to Ingpen's -evident sense of duty, which somehow surprised him; -he had not chanced, before, to meet Ingpen at work; -earthenware manufactories were inspected once a -quarter, but other factories only once a year. The thought -of the ameliorating influence that Ingpen must -obviously be exerting all day and every day somewhat -clashed with and overset his bitter scepticism -concerning the real value of departmental administrative -government,--a scepticism based less upon experience -than upon the persuasive tirades of democratic apostles.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They walked slowly towards the stairs, and Ingpen -scribbled in a notebook.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You seem to take your job seriously," said Edwin, teasing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"While I'm at it. Did you imagine that I'd dropped -into a sinecure? Considering that I have to keep an -eye on three hundred and fifty potbanks, over a -thousand other factories, and over two thousand workshops -of sorts, my boy...! </span><em class="italics">And</em><span> you should see some -of 'em. </span><em class="italics">And</em><span> you should listen to the excuses."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No wonder," thought Edwin, "he hasn't told me -what a fine and large factory mine is! ... Still, he -might have said something, all the same. Perhaps he -will."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When, after visiting the composing-room, and -glancing from afar at the engine-house, the -sight-seeing party reached the machine-room, Rupert was so -affected by the tremendous din and the confusing whir -of huge machinery in motion that he began to cry, -and, seizing his mother's hand, pressed himself hard -against her skirt. The realisation of his ambition had -overwhelmed him. Amy protectingly took Lucy's hand. -Bert and Clara succeeded in being very casual.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the great lofty room there were five large or fairly -large machines, and a number of small ones. The -latter had chiefly to do with envelope and bill-head -printing and with bookbinding, and only two of them -were in use. Of the large machines, three were -functioning--the cylinder printing-machine which had been -the pride of Edwin's father, the historic "old machine," -also his father's, which had been so called ever since -Edwin could remember and which was ageless, and -Edwin's latest and most expensive purchase, the -"Smithers" litho-printer. It was on the guarded -flank of the Smithers, close to the roller-racks, that -Edwin halted his convoy. The rest of the immense -shop with its complex masses of metal revolving, -sliding, or paralysed, its shabby figures of men, boys, -and girls shifting mysteriously about, its smell of -iron, grease, and humanity, and its fearful racket, -was a mere background for the Smithers in its moving -might.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Smithers rose high above the spectators, and -at one end of it, higher even than the top parts of the -machine, was perched a dirty, frowsy, pretty girl. -With a sweeping gesture of her bare arms this girl -took a wide sheet of blank paper from a pile of sheets, -and lodged it on the receiving rack, whereupon it was -whirled off, caught into the clutches of the machine, -turned, reversed, hidden away from sight among -revolving rollers red and black, and finally thrust out -at the other end of the machine, where it was picked -up by a dirty, frowsy girl, not pretty, smaller and -younger than the high-perched creature, indeed -scarcely bigger than Amy. And now on the sheet -was printed four times in red the words "Knype -Mineral Water Mnfg. Co. Best and cheapest. -Trademark." Clara screeched a question about the -trademark, which was so far invisible. Edwin made a sign -to the lower dirty, frowsy girl, who respectfully -but with extreme rapidity handed him a sheet as it came -off the machine, and he shouted through the roar in -explanation that the trademark, a soda-water syphon in -blue, would be printed on the same sheet later from -another stone, and the sheets cut into fours, each quarter -making a complete poster. "I thought it must be like -that," replied Clara superiorly. From childhood she -had been well accustomed to printing processes, and it -was not her intention to be perplexed by "this -lithography." Edwin made a gesture to hand back the sheet -to the machine-girl, but the machine would not pause -to allow her to take it. She was the slave of the -machine; so long as it functioned, every second of -her existence was monopolised, and no variation of -conduct permissible. The same law applied to the -older girl up near the ceiling. He put the sheet in its -place himself, and noticed that to do so required -appreciable care and application of the manipulative -faculty.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>These girls, and the other girls at their greasy -task in the great shaking interior which he had created, -vaguely worried him. Exactly similar girls were -employed in thousands on the pot-banks, and had once -been employed also at the pit-heads and even in the -pits; but until lately he had not employed girls, nor -had his father ever employed girls; and these girls -so close to him, so dependent on him, so submissive, -so subjugated, so soiled, so vulgar, whose wages would -scarcely have kept his wife in boots and gloves, gave -rise to strange and disturbing sensations in his heart--not -merely in regard to themselves, but in regard to -the whole of the workpeople. A question obscure and -lancinating struck upwards through his industrial -triumph and through his importance in the world, a -question scarcely articulate, but which seemed to form -itself into the words: Is it right?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is what right?" his father would have snapped at -him. "Is what right?" would have respectfully -demanded Big James, who had now sidled grandiosely -to the Smithers, and was fussing among the rollers -in the rack. Neither of them would have been capable -of comprehending his trouble. To his father an -employee was an employee, to be hired as cheaply as -possible, and to be exploited as completely as possible. -And the attitude of Big James towards the underlings -was precisely that of his deceased master. They -would not be unduly harsh, they would often be -benevolent, but the existence of any problem, and -especially any fundamental problem, beyond the direct -inter-relation of wages and work could not conceivably -have occurred to them. After about three quarters of -a century of taboo trade-unions had now for a dozen -years ceased to be regarded as associations of -anarchistic criminals. Big James was cautiously in favor -of trade-unions, and old Darius Clayhanger in late -life had not been a quite uncompromising opponent of -them. As for Edwin, he had always in secret -sympathised with them, and the trade-unionists whom -he employed had no grievance against him. Yet this -unanswerable, persistent question would pierce the -complacency of Edwin's prosperity. It seemed to -operate in a sort of fourth dimension; few even amongst -trade-unionists themselves would have reacted to it. -But Edwin lived with it more and more. He was indeed -getting used to it. Though he could not answer it, -he could parry it, thanks to scientific ideas obtained -from Darwin and Spencer, by the reflection that both -he and his serfs, whatever their sex, were the almost -blind agencies of a vast process of evolution. And -this he did, exulting with pride sometimes in the sheer -adventure of the affair, and sharing his thoughts with -none.... Strange that once, and not so many years -ago either, he had been tempted to sell the business -and live inert and ignobly secure on the interest of -invested moneys! But even to-day he felt sudden -fears of responsibility; they came and went.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The visitors, having wandered to and fro, staring, -trailed out of the machine-room, led by Edwin. A -wide door swung behind them, and they were in the -abrupt, startling peace of another corridor. Clara -wiped Rupert's eyes, and he smiled, like a blossom -after a storm. The mother and the uncle exchanged -awkward glances. They had nothing whatever to say -to each other. Edwin could seldom think of anything -that he really wanted to say to Clara. The children -were very hot and weary of wonders.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Clara, "I suppose we'd better be -moving on now." She had somewhat the air of a -draught-animal about to resume the immense labour of -dragging a train. "It's very queer about George. He was -to have come with us for tea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Was he?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course he was," Clara replied sharply. "It -was most distinctly arranged."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At this moment Tertius Ingpen and Hilda appeared -together at the other end of the corridor. Hilda's -unsmiling face seemed enigmatic. Ingpen was talking -with vivacity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought apprehensively:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's up now? What's she doing here, and not -George?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And when the sisters-in-law, so strangely -contrasting, shook hands, he thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it possible that Albert looks on his wife as -something unpredictable? Do those two also have -moods, and altercations and antagonisms? Are they -always preoccupied about what they are thinking of -each other? No! It's impossible. Their life must -be simply fiendishly monotonous." And Clara's -inferiority before the erect, flashing individuality of -Hilda appeared to him despicable. Hilda bent and -kissed Rupert, Lucy, Amy and young Clara, as it -were with passion. She was marvellous as she bent -over Rupert. She scarcely looked at Edwin. Ingpen -stood aside.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm very sorry," said Hilda perfunctorily. "I had -to send George on an errand to Hanbridge at the last -moment."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nothing more! No genuine sign of regret! Edwin -blamed her severely. "Send George on an errand to -Hanbridge!" That was Hilda all over! Why the -devil should she go out of her way to make unpleasantness -with Clara? She knew quite well what kind of a -woman Clara was, and that the whole of Clara's -existence was made up of domestic trifles, each of which -was enormous for her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will he be down to tea?" asked Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I doubt it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well ... another day, then."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara, gathering her offspring, took leave at a door -in the corridor which gave on to the yard. Mindful -to the last of Mr. Ingpen's presence (which Hilda -apparently now ignored), she smiled sweetly as she -went. But behind the smile, Edwin with regret, and -Hilda with satisfaction, could perceive her everlasting -grudge against their superior splendour. Even had -they sunk to indigence Clara could never have -forgiven Edwin for having towards the end of their -father's life prevented Albert from wheedling a -thousand pounds out of old Darius, nor Hilda for her -occasional pricking, unanswerable sarcasms.... Still, -Rupert, descending two titanic steps into the yard, -clung to his mother as to an angel.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And </span><em class="italics">what</em><span> errand to Hanbridge?" Edwin asked -himself mistrustfully.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Scarcely a minute later, when Edwin, with Hilda and -Ingpen, was back at the door of the machine-room, -the office boy could be seen voyaging between roaring -machines across the room towards his employer. The -office boy made a sign of appeal, and Edwin answered -with a curt sign that the office boy was to wait.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's that ye say?" Edwin yelled in Ingpen's ear.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen laughed, and made a trumpet with his hands:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was only wondering what your weekly running -expenses are."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Even Ingpen was surprised and impressed by the -scene, and Edwin was pleased now, after the flatness -of Clara's inspection, that he had specially arranged -for two of the machines to be running which strictly -need not have been running that afternoon. He had -planned a spectacular effect, and it had found a good -public.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" He hesitated, in reply to Ingpen. Then -he saw Hilda's face, and his face showed confusion and -he smiled awkwardly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda had caught Ingpen's question. She said -nothing. Her expressive, sarcastic, unappeasable -features seemed to say: "Running expenses! Don't -mention them. Can't you see they must be enormous? -How can he possibly make this place pay? It's a -gigantic folly--and what will be the end of it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After all, her secret attitude towards the new -enterprise was unchanged. Arguments, facts, figures, -persuasions, brutalities had been equally and totally -ineffective. And Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She is the bitterest enemy I have."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Ingpen:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I like that girl up there on the top of that machine. -And doesn't she just know where she is! What a -movement of the arms, eh?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin nodded, appreciative, and then beckoned to -the office boy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please, Sir, Mrs. 'Amps in the office to see you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," he bawled, casually. But in reality he -was taken aback. "It's Auntie Hamps now!" he said -to the other two. "We shall soon have all Bursley -here this afternoon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda raised her eyebrows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"D'you know 'Auntie Hamps'?" she grimly asked -Ingpen. Her voice, though she scarcely raised it, was -plainer than the men's when they shouted. As Ingpen -shook his head, she added: "You ought to."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not altogether care for this public ridicule -of a member of the family. Auntie Hamps, though -possibly a monster, had her qualities. Hilda, -assuming the lead, beckoned with a lift of the head. And -Edwin did not care for that either, on his works. -Ingpen followed Hilda as though to a menagerie.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps, in her black attire, which by virtue -of its changeless style amounted to a historic uniform, -was magnificent in the private office. The three found -her standing in wait, tingling with vitality and -importance and eagerness. She watched carefully that -Edwin shut the door, and kept her eye not only on the -door but also on the open window. She received the -presentation of Mr. Tertius Ingpen with grandeur and -with high cordiality, and she could appreciate even -better than Clara the polished fealty of his greeting.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sit down, Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I won't sit down. I thought Clara was here. -I told her I might come if I could spare a moment. -I must say, Edwin"--she looked around the small office, -and seemed to be looking round the whole works in a -superb glance--"you make me proud of you. You -make me proud to be your Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Edwin, "you can be proud sitting down."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She smiled. "No, I won't sit down. I only just -popped in to catch Clara. I was going to tea with her -and the chicks." Then she lowered her voice: "I -suppose you've heard about Mr. John Orgreave?" Her -tone proved, however, that she supposed nothing of -the kind.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. What about Johnnie?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's run away with Mrs. Chris Hamson."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her triumph was complete. It was perhaps one of -her last triumphs, but it counted among the greatest -of her career as a watchdog of society.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The thing was a major event, and the report was -convincing. Useless to protest "Never!" "Surely -not!" "It can't be true!" It carried truth on its face. -Useless to demand sternly: "Who told you?" The news -had reached Auntie Hamps through a curious -channel--the stationmaster at Latchett. Heaven alone -could say how Auntie Hamps came to have relations -with the stationmaster at Latchett. But you might -be sure that, if an elopement was to take place from -Latchett station, Auntie Hamps would by an -instinctive prescience have had relations with the -station-master for twenty years previously. Latchett was the -next station, without the least importance, to -Shawport on the line to Crewe. Johnnie Orgreave had got -into the train at Shawport, and Mrs. Chris had joined -it at Latchett, her house being near by. Once on the -vast platforms of Crewe, the guilty couple would be -safe from curiosity, lost in England, like needles in a -haystack.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Orgreave-Hamson flirtation had been afoot for -over two years, but had only been seriously talked -about for less than a year. Mrs. Chris did not "move" -much in town circles. She was older than Johnnie, -but she was one of your blonde, slim, unfruitful women, -who under the shade of a suitable hat-brim are ageless. -Mr. Chris was a heavy man, "glumpy" as they say -down there, a moneymaker in pots, and great on the -colonial markets. He made journeys to America and -to Australia. His Australian journey occupied usually -about four months. He was now on his way back -from Sydney, and nearly home. Mrs. Chris had not -long since inherited a moderate fortune. It must have -been the fortune, rendering them independent, that had -decided the tragic immoralists to abandon all for love. -The time of the abandonment was fixed for them by -circumstance, for it had to occur before the husband's -return.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Imagine the Orgreave business left in the hands of -an incompetent irresponsible like Jimmie Orgreave! -And then, what of that martyr, Janet? Janet and -Johnnie had been keeping house together--a tiny house. -And Janet had had to "have an operation." Women, -talking together, said exactly what the operation was, -but the knowledge was not common. The phrase "have -an operation" was enough in its dread. As a fact the -operation, for calculus, was not very serious; it had -perfectly succeeded, and Janet, whom Hilda had -tenderly visited, was to emerge from the nursing home at -Knype Vale within three days. Could not Johnnie -and his Mrs. Chris have waited until she was re-established? -No, for the husband was unpreventibly approaching, -and romantic love must not be baulked. -Nothing could or should withstand romantic love. -Janet had not even been duly warned; Hilda had seen -her that very morning, and assuredly she knew -nothing then. Perhaps Johnnie would write to her softly -from some gay seaside resort where he and his leman -were hiding their strong passion. The episode was -shocking; it was ruinous. The pair could never -return. Even Johnnie alone would never dare to return.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He was a friend of yours, was he not?" asked -Auntie Hamps in bland sorrow of Tertius Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was a friend, and a close friend, of all three of -them. And not only had he outraged their feelings--he -had shamed them, irretrievably lowered their prestige. -They could not look Auntie Hamps in the face. -But Auntie Hamps could look them in the face. And -her glance, charged with grief and with satisfaction, -said: "How are the mighty fallen, with their jaunty -parade of irreligion, and their musical evenings on -Sundays, with the windows open while folks are -coming home from chapel!" And there could be no retort.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Another good man ruined by women!" observed -Tertius Ingpen, with a sigh, stroking his beard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda sprang up; and all her passionate sympathy -for Janet, and her disappointment and disgust with -Johnnie, the victim of desire, and her dissatisfaction -with her husband and her hatred of Auntie Hamps, -blazed forth and devastated the unwise Ingpen as she -scathingly replied:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Ingpen, that is a caddish thing to say!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She despised convention; she was frankly and -atrociously rude; and she did not care. Edwin blushed. -Tertius Ingpen blushed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sorry," said Ingpen, keeping his temper. "I -think I ought to have left a little earlier. Good-bye, -Ed. Mrs. Hamps--" He bowed with extreme urbanity -to the ladies, and departed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Shortly afterwards Auntie Hamps also departed, -saying that she must not be late for tea at dear -Clara's. She was secretly panting to disclose the whole -situation to dear Clara. What a scene had Clara -missed by leaving the works too soon!</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="dartmoor"><span class="large">CHAPTER XII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">DARTMOOR</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"What was that telegram you had this afternoon, Hilda?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The question was on Edwin's tongue as he walked -up Acre Lane from the works by his wife's side. But -it did not achieve utterance. A year had passed since -he last walked up Acre Lane with Hilda; and now of -course he recalled the anger of that previous -promenade. In the interval he had acquired to some extent -the habit of containing his curiosity and his criticism. -In the interval he had triumphed, but Hilda also had -consolidated her position, so that despite the increase -of his prestige she was still his equal; she seemed to -take strength from him in order to maintain the -struggle against him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>During the final half-hour at the works the great, -the enormous problem in his mind had been--not -whether such and such a plan of action for Janet's -welfare in a very grave crisis would be advisable, but -whether he should demand an explanation from Hilda -of certain disquieting phenomena in her boudoir. In -the excitement of his indecision Janet's tragic case -scarcely affected his sensibility. For about twelve -months Hilda had, he knew, been intermittently -carrying on a correspondence as to which she had said no -word to him; she did not precisely conceal it, but she -failed to display it. Lately, so far as his observation -went, it had ceased. And then to-day he had caught -sight of an orange telegraph-envelope in her -wastepaper basket. Alone in the boudoir, and glancing back -cautiously and guiltily at the door, he had picked up -the little ball of paper and smoothed it out, and read -the words: "Mrs. Edwin Clayhanger." In those days -the wives of even prominent business men did not -customarily receive such a rain of telegrams that the -delivery of a telegram would pass unmentioned and be -forgotten. On the contrary, the delivery of a telegram -was an event in a woman's life. The telegram which -he had detected might have been innocently negligible, -in forty different ways. It might, for example, have -been from Janet, or about a rehearsal of the Choral -Society, or from a tradesman at Oldcastle, or about -rooms at the seaside. But supposing that it was not -innocently negligible? Supposing that she was -keeping a secret? ... What secret? What conceivable -secret? He could conceive no secret. Yes, he could -conceive a secret. He had conceived and did conceive -a secret, and his private thoughts elaborated it.... -He had said to himself at the works: "I may ask -her as we go home. I shall see." But, out in the -street, with the disturbing sense of her existence over -his shoulder, he knew that he should not ask her. -Partly timidity and partly pride kept him from asking. -He knew that, as a wise husband, he ought to ask. -He knew that commonsense was not her strongest -quality, and that by diffidence he might be inviting -unguessed future trouble; but he would not ask. In -the great, passionate war of marriage they would draw -thus apart, defensive and watchful, rushing together at -intervals either to fight or to kiss. The heat of their -kisses had not cooled; but to him at any rate the kisses -often seemed intensely illogical; for, though he -regarded himself as an improving expert in the science -of life, he had not yet begun to perceive that those -kisses were the only true logic of their joint career.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was conscious of grievances against her as they -walked up Acre Lane, but instead of being angrily -resentful, he was content judicially to register the -grievances as further corroboration of his estimate -of her character. They were walking up Acre Lane -solely because Hilda was Hilda. A year ago they -had walked up Acre Lane in order that Edwin might -call at the shop. But Acre Lane was by no means -on the shortest way from Shawport to Bleakridge. -Hilda, however, on emerging from the works, full of -trouble concerning Janet, had suddenly had the -beautiful idea of buying some fish for tea. In earlier days -he would have said: "How accidental you are! What -would have happened to our tea if you hadn't been -down here, or if you hadn't by chance thought of fish?" He -would have tried to show her that her activities -were not based in the principles of reason, and that -even the composition of meals ought not to depend -upon the hazard of an impulse. Now, wiser, he said -not a word. He resigned himself in silence to an extra -three-quarters of a mile of walking. In such matters, -where her deep instinctiveness came into play, she had -established over him a definite ascendancy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then another grievance was that she had sent George -to Hanbridge, knowing that George, according to a -solemn family engagement, ought to have been at the -works. She was conscienceless. A third grievance, -naturally, was her behaviour to Ingpen. And a fourth -came back again to George. Why had she sent George -to Hanbridge at all? Was it not to despatch a telegram -which she was afraid to submit to the inquisitiveness -of the Post Office at Bursley? A daring supposition, -but plausible; and if correct, of what duplicity -was she not guilty! The mad, shameful episode of -Johnnie Orgreave, the awful dilemma of Janet--colossal -affairs though they were--interested him less and -less as he grew more and more preoccupied with his -relations to Hilda. And he thought, not caring:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Something terrific will occur between us, one of -these days."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then his bravado would turn to panic.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>They passed along Wedgwood Street, and Hilda -preceded him into the chief poulterer-and-fishmonger's. -Here was another slight grievance of Edwin's; for the -chief poulterer-and-fishmonger's happened now to be -the Clayhanger shop at the corner of Wedgwood -Street and Duck Bank. Positively there had been -competitors for the old location! Why should Hilda go -there and drag him there? Could she not comprehend -that he had a certain fine delicacy about entering? ... The -place where the former sign had been was -plainly visible on the brickwork above the shop-front. -Rabbits, fowl, and a few brace of grouse hung in the -right-hand window, from which most of the glass had -been removed; and in the left, upon newly-embedded -slabs of Sicilian marble, lay amid ice the curved forms -of many fish, and behind them was the fat white-sleeved -figure of the chief poulterer-and-fishmonger's -wife with her great, wet hands. He was sad. He -seriously thought yet again: "Things are not what -they were in this town, somehow." For this place had -once been a printer's; and he had a conviction that -printing was an aristocrat among trades. Indeed, could -printing and fishmongering be compared?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The saleswoman greeted them with deference, calling -Edwin "sir," and yet with a certain complacent -familiarity, as an occupant to ex-occupants. Edwin -casually gave the short shake of the head which in the -district may signify "Good-day," and turned, -humming, to look at the hanging game. It seemed to him -that he could only keep his dignity as a man of the -world by looking at the grouse with a connoisseur's -eye. Why didn't Hilda buy grouse? The shop was a -poor little interior. It smelt ill. He wondered what -the upper rooms were like, and what had happened to -the decrepit building at the end of the yard. The -saleswoman slapped the fish about on the marble, and -running water could be heard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin," said Hilda, with enchanting sweetness and -simplicity, "would you like hake or turbot, dear?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Impossible to divine from her voice that the ruin of -their two favourite Orgreaves was complete, that she -was conducting a secret correspondence, and that she -had knowingly and deliberately offended her husband!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Both women waited, moveless, for the decision, as -for an august decree.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When the transaction was finished, the saleswoman -handed over the parcel into Hilda's gloved hands; it -was a rough-and-ready parcel, not at all like the neat -stiff paper-bag of the modern age.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very hot, isn't it, ma'am?" said the saleswoman.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Hilda, utterly distinguished in gesture and -tone, replied with calm, impartial urbanity:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very. Good afternoon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd better take that thing," said Edwin outside, in -spite of himself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gave up the parcel to him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tell cook to fry it," said Hilda. "She always -fries better than she boils."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He repeated:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Tell cook to fry it.' What's up now?" His tone -challenged.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I must go over and see Janet at once. I shall take -the next car."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He lifted the end of his nose in disgust. There was -no end to the girl's caprices.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why at once?" the superior male demanded. Disdain -and resentment were in his voice. Hundreds of -times, when alone, he had decided that he would never -use that voice--first, because it was unworthy of a -philosopher, second, because it never achieved any -good result, and third, because it often did harm. Yet -he would use it. The voice had an existence and a -volition of its own within his being; he marvelled that -the essential mechanism of life should be so clumsy and -inefficient. He heard the voice come out, and yet was -not displeased, was indeed rather pleasantly excited. -A new grievance had been created for him; he might -have ignored it, just as he might ignore a solitary -cigarette lying in his cigarette case. Both cigarettes -and grievances were bad for him. But he could not -ignore them. The last cigarette in the case -magnetised him. Useless to argue with himself that he had -already smoked more than enough,--the cigarette had -to emerge from the case and be burnt; and the -grievance too was irresistible. In an instant he had it -between his teeth and was darkly enjoying it. Of -course Hilda's passionate pity for Janet was a fine -thing. Granted! But therein was no reason why -she should let it run away with her. The worst of -these capricious, impulsive creatures was that they -could never do anything fine without an enormous fuss -and upset. What possible difference would it make -whether Hilda went to break the news of disaster to -Janet at once or in an hour's time? The mere desire -to protect and assuage could not properly furnish an -excuse for unnecessarily dislocating a household and -depriving oneself of food. On the contrary, it was -wiser and more truly kind to take one's meals -regularly in a crisis. But Hilda would never appreciate -that profound truth--never, never!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Moreover, it was certain that Johnnie had written -to Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I feel I must go at once," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He spoke with more marked scorn:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what about your tea?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, it doesn't matter about my tea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course it matters about your tea. If you have -your tea quietly, you'll find the end of the world won't -have come, and you can go and see Janet just the -same, and the whole house won't have been turned -upside down."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She put her lips together and smiled mysteriously, -saying nothing. The racket of the Hanbridge and -Knype steam-car could be heard behind them. She -did not turn her head. The car overtook them, and -then stopped a few yards in front. But she did not -hail the conductor. The car went onwards.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had won. His argument had been so convincing -that she could not help being convinced. It was too -powerful for even her obstinacy, which as a rule -successfully defied any argument whatever.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Did he smile and forgive? Did he extend to her -the blessing of his benevolence? No. He could not -have brought himself to such a point. After all, she -had done nothing to earn approval; she had simply -refrained from foolishness. She had had to be -reminded of considerations which ought ever to have -been present in her brain. Doubtless she thought that -he was hard, that he was incapable of her divine pity -for Janet. But that was only because she could not -imagine a combination of emotional generosity and -calm commonsense; and she never would be able to -imagine it. Hence she would always be unjust to him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When they arrived home, she was still smiling -mysteriously to herself. She did not take her hat -off--sign of disturbance! He moved with careful -tranquillity through the ritual that preceded tea. He could -feel her in the house, ordering it, softening it, civilising -it. He could smell the fish. He could detect the -subservience of Ada to her mistress's serious mood. -He went into the dining-room. Ada followed him with -a tray of hot things. Hilda followed Ada. Then -George entered, cleaner than ordinary. Edwin -savoured deeply the functioning of his home. And his -wife had yielded. Her instinct had compelled her not -to neglect him; his sagacity had mastered her. In her -heart she must admire his sagacity, whatever she said -or looked, and her unreasoning passion for him was -still the paramount force in her vitality.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, are you two all right?" said Hilda, when -she had poured out the tea, and Edwin was carving -the fish.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin glanced up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't want any tea," she said. "I couldn't -touch it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She bent and kissed George, took her gloves from -the sideboard, and left the house, the mysterious smile -still on her face.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin controlled his vexation at this dramatic move. -It was only slight, and he had to play the serene -omniscient to George. Further, the attractive food -helped to make him bland.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't you know your mother had to go out?" said -Edwin, with astounding guile.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, she told me upstairs," George murmured, -"while she was washing me. She said she had to go -and see Auntie Janet again."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The reply was a blow to Edwin. She had said nothing -to him, but she had told the boy. Still, his -complacency was not overset. Boy and stepfather began -to talk, with the mingled freedom and constraint -practised by males accustomed to the presence of a woman, -when the woman is absent. Each was aware of the -stress of a novel, mysterious, and grave situation. -Each also thought of the woman, and each knew that -the other was thinking of the woman. Each, over a -serious apprehension, seemed to be lightly saying: "It's -rather fun to be without her for a bit. But we must be -able to rely on her return." Nothing stood between -them and domestic discomfort. Possible stupidity in -the kitchen had no check. As regards the mere -household machine, they had a ridiculous and amusing sense -of distant danger.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had to get up in order to pour out more tea. -He reckoned that he could both make tea and pour it -out with more exactitude than his wife, who often -forgot to put the milk in first. But he could not pour -it out with the same grace. His brain, not his heart, -poured the tea out. He left the tray in disorder. The -symmetry of the table was soon wrecked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Glad you're going back to school, I suppose?" said -Edwin satirically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George nodded. He was drinking, and he glanced -at Edwin over the rim of the cup. He had grown -much in twelve months, and was more than twelve -months older. Edwin was puzzled by the almost -sudden developments of his intelligence. Sometimes the -boy was just like a young man; his voice had become -a little uncertain. He still showed the greatest -contempt for his fingernails, but he had truly discovered -the toothbrush, and was preaching it at school among -a population that scoffed yet was impressed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I'm glad," he answered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! You're glad, are you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'm glad in a way. A boy does have to go -to school, doesn't he, uncle? And the sooner it's over -the better. I tell you what I should like--I should -like to go to school night and day and have no holidays -till it was all done. I sh'd think you could save at -least three years with that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A bit hard on the masters, wouldn't it be?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I never thought of that. Of course it would never -be over for them. I expect they'd gradually die."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you don't like school?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George shook his head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you like school, uncle?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin shook his head. They both laughed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Uncle, can I leave school when I'm sixteen?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've told you once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I know. But did you mean it? People -change so."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I told you you could leave school when you're -sixteen if you pass the London Matric."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But what good's the London Matric to an architect? -Mr. Orgreave says it isn't any good, anyway."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"When did he tell you that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yesterday."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But not so long since you were all for being a -stock-breeder!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah! I was only pretending to myself!" George smiled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, fetch me my cigarettes off the mantelpiece -in the drawing-room."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The boy ran off, eager to serve, and Edwin's glance -followed him with affection. George's desire to be -an architect had consistently strengthened, save -during a brief period when the Show of the North -Staffordshire Agricultural Society, held with much -splendour at Hanbridge, had put another idea into his -noddle--an idea that fed itself richly on glorious bulls -and other prize cattle for about a week, and then -expired. Indeed, already it had been in a kind of -way arranged that the youth should ultimately be -articled to Johnnie Orgreave. Among many -consequences of Johnnie's defiance to society would -probably be the quashing of that arrangement. And there -was Johnnie, on the eve of his elopement, chatting to -George about the futility of the London Matriculation! -Edwin wondered how George would gradually -learn what had happened to his friend and inspirer, -John Orgreave.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He arrived with the cigarettes, and offered them, and -lit the match, and offered that.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what have you been doing with yourself all -afternoon?" Edwin enquired, between puffs of smoke.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, nothing much!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought you were coming to the works and then -going down to Auntie Clara's for tea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So I was. But mother sent me to Hanbridge."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," murmured Edwin casually. "So your mother -packed you off to Hanbridge, did she?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I had to go to the Post Office," George continued. -"I think it was a telegram, but it was in an envelope, -and some money."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">In</em><span>deed!" said Edwin, with a very indifferent air.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was, however, so affected that he jumped up -abruptly from the table, and went into the darkening, -chill garden, ignoring George. George, accustomed -to these sudden accessions of interest and these sudden -forgettings, went unperturbed his ways.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>About half past eight Hilda returned. Edwin was -closing the curtains in the drawing-room. The gas -had been lighted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Johnnie has evidently written to Alicia," she burst -out somewhat breathless. "Because Alicia's -telegraphed to Janet that she must positively go straight -down there and stay with them when she leaves the Home."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What, on Dartmoor?" Edwin muttered, in a strange -voice. The very word "Dartmoor" made him shake.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It isn't actually on the moor," said Hilda. "And -so I shall take her down myself. I've told her all -about things. She wasn't a bit surprised. They're a -strange lot."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She tried to speak quite naturally, but he knew that -she was not succeeding. Their eyes would not meet. -Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How far away we are from this morning!" Hazard -and fate, like converging armies, seemed to be closing -upon him.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-departure"><span class="large">CHAPTER XIII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE DEPARTURE</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>It was a wet morning. Hilda, already in full street -attire, save for her gloves, and with a half empty cup -of tea by her side, sat at the desk in the boudoir. -She unlocked the large central drawer immediately -below the flap of the desk, with a peculiar, quick, -ruthless gesture, which gesture produced a very short -snappy click that summed up all the tension spreading -from Hilda's mind throughout the house and even into -the town. It had been decided that in order to call -for Janet at the Nursing Home and catch the Crewe -train at Knype for the Bristol and Southwest of -England connexion, Hilda must leave the house at -five minutes to nine.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This great fact was paramount in the minds of -various people besides Hilda. Ada upstairs stood bent -and flushed over a huge portmanteau into which she -was putting the last things, while George hindered -her by simultaneously tying to the leather handle a -wet label finely directed by himself in architectural -characters. The cook in the kitchen was preparing the -master's nine o'clock breakfast with new solicitudes -caused by a serious sense of responsibility; for Hilda, -having informed her in moving tones that the master's -welfare in the mistress's absence would depend finally -on herself, had solemnly entrusted that welfare to -her--had almost passed it to her from hand to hand, with -precautions, like a jewel in a casket. Ada, it may be -said, had immediately felt the weight of the cook's -increased importance. Edwin and the clerks at the -works knew that Edwin had to be home for breakfast -at a quarter to nine instead of nine, and that he must -not be late, as Mrs. Clayhanger had a train to catch, -and accordingly the morning's routine of the office -was modified. And, finally, a short old man in a rainy -stable-yard in Acre Parade, between Acre Lane and -Oldcastle Street, struggling to force a collar over the -head of a cab-horse that towered above his own head, -was already blasphemously excited by those pessimistic -apprehensions about the flight of time which forty -years of train-catching had never sufficed to allay in -him. As for Janet, she alone in her weakness and -her submissiveness was calm; the nurse and Hilda -understood one another, and she was "leaving it all" -to them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda opened the drawer, half lifting the flap of -the desk to disclose its contents. It was full of odd -papers, letters, bills, blotting-paper, door-knobs, -finger-plates, envelopes, and a small book or two. A -prejudiced observer, such as Edwin, might have said that -the drawer was extremely untidy. But to Hilda, who -had herself put in each item separately, and each for -a separate reason, the drawer was not untidy, for her -intelligence knew the plan of it, and every item as it -caught her eye suggested a justifying reason, and a -good one. Nevertheless, she formed an intention to -"tidy out" the drawer (the only drawer in the desk -with a safe lock), upon her return home. She felt -at the back of the drawer, drew forth the drawer a -little further, and felt again, vainly. A doubt of her -own essential orderliness crossed her mind. "Surely -I can't have put those letters anywhere else? Surely -I've not mislaid them?" Then she closed the flap of -the desk, and pulled the drawer right out, letting it -rest on her knees. Yes, the packet was there, hidden, -and so was another packet of letters--in the -handwriting of Edwin. She was reassured. She knew she -was tidy, had always been tidy. And Edwin's -innuendos to the contrary were inexcusable. Jerking the -drawer irregularly back by force into its place, she -locked it, reopened the desk, laid the packet on the -writing-pad, and took a telegram from her purse to -add to the letters in the packet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The letters were all in the same loose, sloping -hand, and on the same tinted notepaper. The -signature was plain on one of them, "Charlotte -M. Cannon," and then after it, in brackets "(Canonges),"--the -latter being the real name of George Cannon's -French father, and George Cannon's only legal name. -The topmost letter began: "Dear Madam, I think it -is my duty to inform you that my husband still -declares his innocence of the crime for which he is now -in prison. He requests that you shall be informed of -this. I ought perhaps to tell you that, since the change -in my religious convictions, my feelings--" The first -page ended there. Hilda turned the letters over, -preoccupied, gazing at them and deciphering chance -phrases here and there. The first letter was dated -about a year earlier; it constituted the beginning of -the resuscitation of just that part of her life which -she had thought to be definitely interred in memory.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda had only once--and on a legal occasion--met -Mrs. Canonges (as with strict correctness she called -herself in brackets)--a surprisingly old lady, with -quite white hair, and she had thought: "What a shame -for that erotic old woman to have bought and -married a man so much younger than herself! No -wonder he ran away from her!" She had been positively -shocked by the spectacle of the well-dressed, -well-behaved, quiet-voiced, prim, decrepit creature with her -aristocratic voice. And her knowledge of the possibilities -of human nature was thenceforth enlarged. And -when George Cannon (known to the law only as -Canonges) had received two years' hard labour for going -through a ceremony of marriage with herself, she had -esteemed, despite all her resentment against him, that -his chief sin lay in his real first marriage, not in his -false second one, and that for that sin the old woman -was the more deserving of punishment. And when -the old woman had with strange naïvete written to -say that she had become a convert to Roman -Catholicism and that her marriage and her imprisoned -bigamous husband were henceforth to her sacred, Hilda -had reflected sardonically: "Of course it is always -that sort of woman that turns to religion, when she's -too old for anything else!" And when the news came -that her deceiver had got ten years' penal servitude -(and might have got penal servitude for life) for -uttering a forged Bank-of-England note, Hilda had -reflected in the same strain: "Of course, a man who -would behave as George behaved to me would be just -the man to go about forging bank notes! I am not -in the least astonished. What an inconceivable -simpleton I was!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A very long time had elapsed before the letter -arrived bearing the rumour of Cannon's innocence. It -had not immediately produced much effect on her -mind. She had said not a word to Edwin. The idea -of reviving the shames of that early episode in -conversation with Edwin was extremely repugnant to her. -She would not do it. She had not the right to do it. -All her proud independence forbade her to do it. The -episode did not concern Edwin. The effect on her of -the rumour came gradually. It was increased when -Mrs. Cannon wrote of evidence, a petition to the Home -Secretary, and employing a lawyer. Mrs. Cannon's -attitude seemed to say to Hilda: "You and I have -shared this man, we alone in all the world." Mrs. Cannon -seemed to imagine that Hilda would be interested. -She was right. Hilda was interested. Her -implacability relented. Her vindictiveness forgave. -She pondered with almost intolerable compassion upon -the vision of George Cannon suffering unjustly month -after long month interminably the horrors of a -convict's existence. She read with morbidity reports of -Assizes, and picked up from papers and books and -from Mrs. Cannon pieces of information about prisons. -When he was transferred to Parkhurst in the Isle of -Wight on account of ill-health, she was glad, because -she knew that Parkhurst was less awful than -Portland, and when from Parkhurst he was sent to -Dartmoor she tried to hope that the bracing air would do -him good. She no longer thought of him as a criminal -at all, but simply as one victim of his passion for -herself; she, Hilda, had been the other victim. She -raged in secret against the British Judicature, its -delays, its stoniness, its stupidity. And when the -principal witness in support of Cannon's petition died, she -raged against fate. The movement for Cannon's -release slackened for months. Of late it had been -resumed, and with hopefulness. One of Cannon's -companions had emerged from confinement (due to an -unconnected crime), and was ready to swear affidavits. -Lastly, Mrs. Cannon had written stating that she -was almost beggared, and suggesting that Hilda should -lend her ten pounds towards the expenses of the affair. -Hilda had not ten pounds. That very day Hilda, -seeing Janet in the Nursing Home, had demanded: -"I say Jan, I suppose you haven't got ten pounds you -can let me have for about a day or so?" And had -laughed self-consciously. Janet, flushing with eager -pleasure, had replied: "Of course! I've still got that -ten-pound note the poor old dad gave me. I've always -kept it in case the worst should happen." Janet was -far too affectionate to display curiosity. Hilda had -posted the bank-note late at night. The next day had -come a telegram from Mrs. Cannon: "Telegraph if -you are sending money." Not for a great deal would -Hilda have despatched through the hands of the old -postmaster at Bursley--who had once been postmaster -at Turnhill and known her parents--a telegram such -as hers addressed to anybody named "Cannon." The -fear of chatter and scandal was irrational, but it was -a very genuine fear. She had sent her faithful George -with the telegram to Hanbridge--it was just as easy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda now, after hesitation, put the packet of letters -in her handbag, to take with her. It was a precaution -of secrecy which she admitted to be unnecessary, for -she was quite certain that Edwin never looked into her -drawers; much less would he try to open a locked -drawer; his incurious confidence in her was in some -respects almost touching. Certainly nobody else -would invade the drawer. Still, she hid the letters in -her handbag. Then, in her fashion, she scribbled a -bold-charactered note to Mrs. Cannon, giving a -temporary address, and this also she put in the handbag.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her attitude to Mrs. Cannon, like her attitude to the -bigamist, had slowly changed, and she thought of the -old woman now with respect and sympathetic sorrow. -Mrs. Cannon, before she knew that Hilda was married -to Edwin, had addressed her first letter to Hilda, -"Mrs. Cannon," when she would have been justified in -addressing it, "Miss Lessways." In the days of her -boarding-house it had been impossible, owing to -business reasons, for Hilda to drop the name to which she -was not entitled and to revert to her own. The -authentic Mrs. Cannon, despite the violence of her -grievances, had respected Hilda's difficulty; the act showed -kindly forbearance and it had aroused Hilda's -imaginative gratitude. Further, Mrs. Cannon's pertinacity -in the liberation proceedings, and her calm, logical -acceptance of all the frightful consequences of being -the legal wife of a convict, had little by little impressed -Hilda, who had said to herself: "There is something -in this old woman." And Hilda nowadays never thought -of her as an old woman who had been perverse and -shameless in desire, but as a victim of passion like -George Cannon. She said to herself: "This old -woman still loves George Cannon; her love was the -secret of her rancour against him, and it is also the -secret of her compassion." These constant reflections, -by their magnanimity, and their insistence upon the -tremendous reality of love, did something to ennoble -the clandestine and demoralising life of the soul which -for a year Hilda had hidden from her husband and -from everybody.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>It still wanted twenty minutes to nine o'clock. She -was too soon. The night before, Edwin had abraded -her sore nerves by warning her not to be late--in a -tone that implied habitual lateness on her part. Hilda -was convinced that she was an exact woman. She -might be late--a little late--six times together, but -as there was a sound explanation of and excuse for -each shortcoming, her essential exactitude remained -always unimpaired in her own mind. But Edwin -would not see this. He told her now and then that -she belonged to that large class of people who have -the illusion that a clock stands still at the last moment -while last things are being done. She resented the -observation, as she resented many of Edwin's -assumptions concerning her. Edwin seemed to forget that -she had been one of the first women-stenographers in -England, that she had been a journalist-secretary and -accustomed to correct the negligences of men of -business, and finally that she had been in business by -herself for a number of years. Edwin would sweep all -that away, and treat her like one of your mere -brainless butterflies. At any rate, on the present occasion -she was not late. And she took pride, instead of shame, -in her exaggerated earliness. She had the air of -having performed a remarkable feat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She left the boudoir to go upstairs and superintend -Ada, though she had told the impressed Ada that she -should put full trust in her, and should not superintend -her. However, as she opened the door she heard the -sounds of Ada and George directing each other in the -joint enterprise of bringing a very large and unwieldy -portmanteau out of the bedroom. The hour for -superintendence was therefore past. Hilda went into the -drawing-room, idly, nervously, to wait till the -portmanteau should have reached the hall. The French -window was ajar, and a wet wind entered from the -garden. The garden was full of rain. Two workmen -were in it, employed by the new inhabitants of the -home of the Orgreaves. Those upstarts had decided -that certain branches of the famous Orgreave elms -were dangerous and must be cut, and the workmen, -shirt sleeved in the rain, were staying one of the elms -with a rope made fast to the swing in the Clayhanger -garden. Hilda was unreasonably but sincerely -antipathetic to her new neighbours. The white-ended -stumps of great elm-branches made her feel sick. -Useless to insist to her on the notorious treachery of -elms! She had an affection for those elms, and, to -her, amputation was an outrage. The upstarts had -committed other sacrilege upon the house and grounds, -not heeding that the abode had been rendered holy by -the sacraments of fate. Hilda stared and stared at -the rain. And the prospect of the long, jolting, -acutely depressing drive through the mud and the rain -to Knype Vale, and of the interminable train journey -with a tragic convalescent, braced her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George stood behind her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, have you got the luggage down?" She -frowned, but George knew her nervous frown and could -rightly interpret it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ought I to put 'Dartmoor' on the luggage-label?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gave a negative sign.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Why should he ask such a question? She had -never breathed the name of Dartmoor. Why should -he mention it? Edwin also had mentioned -Dartmoor. "What, on Dartmoor?" Edwin had said. Did -Edwin suspect her correspondence? No. Had he -suspected he would have spoken. She knew him. And -even if Edwin had suspected, George could not -conceivably have had suspicions, of any sort.... There -he stood, the son of a convict, with no name of his -own. He existed--because she and the convict had -been unable to keep apart; his ignorance of the past -was appalling to think of, the dangers incident to it -dreadful; his easy confidence before the world affected -her almost intolerably. She felt that she could never -atone to him for having borne him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A faint noise at the front-door reached the drawing-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here's Nunks," exclaimed George, and ran off -eagerly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This was his new name for his stepfather.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda returned quickly to the boudoir. As she -disappeared therein, she heard George descanting to -Edwin on the beauties of his luggage-label, and Edwin -rubbing his feet on the mat and removing his mackintosh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She came back to the door of the boudoir.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"One moment."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He came into the boudoir, wiping the rain off his -face.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shut the door, will you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her earnest, self-conscious tone stirred into -activity the dormant secret antagonisms that seemed ever -to lie between them. She saw them animating his eyes, -stiffening his pose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Pointing to the cup and saucer on the desk, Edwin -said, critically:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That all you've had?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can you let me have ten pounds?" she asked -bluntly, ignoring his implication that in the matter -of nourishment she had not behaved sensibly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ten pounds? More?" He was on the defensive, as -it were crouching warily behind a screen of his -suspicions.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She nodded, awkwardly. She wanted to be graceful, -persuasive, enveloping, but she could not. It was to -repay Janet that she had need of the money. She -ought to have obtained it before, but she had -postponed the demand, and she had been wrong. Janet -would not require the money, she would have no -immediate use for it, but Hilda could not bear to be in -debt to her; to leave the sum outstanding would seem -so strange, so sinister, so equivocal; it would mar all -their intercourse.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But look here, child," said Edwin, protesting, -"I've given you about forty times as much as you can -possibly want already."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had never squarely refused any demand of hers -for money; he had almost always acceded instantly and -without enquiry to her demands. Obviously he felt -sympathy with the woman who by eternal custom is -forced to ask, and had a horror of behaving as the -majority of husbands notoriously behaved in such -circumstances; obviously he was anxious not to avail -himself of the husband's overwhelming economic -advantage. Nevertheless the fact that he earned and -she didn't was ever mysteriously present in his -relatively admirable attitude. And sometimes--perhaps -not without grounds, she admitted--he would hesitate -before a request, and in him a hesitation was as -humiliating as a refusal would have been from another man. -And Hilda resented, not so much his attitude, as the -whole social convention upon which it was unassailably -based. He earned--she knew. She would not deny -that he was the unique source and that without him -there would be naught. But still she did not think that -she ought to have to ask. On the other hand she had -no alternative plan to offer. Her criticism of the -convention was destructive, not constructive. And -all Edwin's careful regard for a woman's susceptibilities -seemed only to intensify her deep-hidden revolt. -It was a mere chance that he was thus chivalrous. And -whether he was chivalrous or not, she was in his power; -and she chafed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should be glad if you could let me have it," she -said, grimly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The appeal, besides being unpersuasive in manner, -was too general; it did not particularize. There was -no frankness between them. She saw his suspicions -multiplying. What did he suspect? What could he -suspect? ... Ah! And why was she herself so -timorous, so strangely excited, about going even to -the edge of Dartmoor? And why did she feel guilty, -why was her glance so constrained?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I can't," he answered. "Not now; but if -anything unexpected turns up, I can send you a cheque."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was beaten.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The cab stopped at the front-door, well in advance -of time.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's for Janet," she muttered to him, desperately.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's face changed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why in thunder didn't you say so to start with?" -he exclaimed. "I'll see what I can do. Of course I've -got a fiver in my pocket-book."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There were a number of men in the town who made -a point of always having a reserve five-pound note and -a telegraph-form upon their persons. It was the -dandyism of well-off prudence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He sprang out of the room. The door swung to -behind him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In a very few moments he returned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here you are!" he said, taking the note from his -pocket-book and adding it to a collection of gold and -silver.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda was looking out of the window at the tail of -the cab. She did not move.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't want it, thanks," she replied coldly. And -she thought: "What a fool I am!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" he murmured, with constraint.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'd do it for her!" said Hilda, chill and clear, -"But you wouldn't do it for me." And she thought: -"Why do I say such a thing?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He slapped all the money crossly down on the desk -and left the room. She could hear him instructing Ada -and the cabman in the manipulation of the great -portmanteau.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, mother!" cried George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gazed at the money, and, picking it up, shovelled -it into her purse. It was irresistible.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the hall she kissed George, and nodded with a -plaintive smile at Ada. Edwin was in the porch. He -held back; she held back. She knew from his face that -he would not offer to kiss her. The strange power -that had compelled her to alienate him refused to allow -her to relent. She passed down the steps out into the -rain. They nodded, the theory for George and Ada -being that they had made their farewells in the -boudoir. But George and Ada none the less had their -notions. It appeared to Hilda that instead of going -for a holiday with her closest friend, she was going -to some recondite disaster that involved the end of -marriage. And the fact that she and Edwin had not -kissed outweighed all other facts in the universe. Yet -what was a kiss? Until the cab laboriously started -she hoped for a miracle. It did not happen. If only -on the previous night she had not absolutely insisted -that nobody from the house should accompany her to -Knype! ... The porch slipped from her vision.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="tavy-mansion"><span class="large">CHAPTER XIV</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">TAVY MANSION</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda and Harry Hesketh stood together in the -soft warm Devonshire sunshine bending above the -foot-high wire-netting that separated the small ornamental -pond from the lawn. By their side was a St. Bernard -dog with his great baptising tongue hanging out. -Two swans, glittering in the strong light, swam slowly -to and fro; one had a black claw tucked up on his -back among downy white feathers; the other hissed -at the dog, who in his vast and shaggy good-nature -simply could not understand this malevolence on the -part of a fellow-creature. Round about the elegant -haughtiness of the swans clustered a number of -iridescent Muscovy ducks, and a few white Aylesburys -with gamboge beaks that intermittently quacked, all -restless and expectant of blessings to fall over the -wire-netting that eternally separated them from the -heavenly hunting-ground of the lawn. Across the -pond, looking into a moored dinghy, an enormous drake -with a vermilion top-knot reposed on the balustrade -of the landing-steps. The water reflected everything -in a rippled medley--blue sky, rounded woolly clouds, -birds, shrubs, flowers, grasses, and browny-olive -depths of the plantation beyond the pond, where tiny -children in white were tumbling and shrieking with a -nurse in white.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry was extraordinarily hospitable, kind, and -agreeable to his guest. Scarcely thirty, tall and slim, -he carried himself with distinction. His flannels were -spotless; his white shirt was spotless; his tennis shoes -were spotless; but his blazer, cap and necktie (which -all had the same multicoloured pattern of stripes) -were shabby, soiled, and without shape; nevertheless -their dilapidation seemed only to adorn his dandyism, -for they possessed a mysterious sacred quality. He -had a beautiful moustache, nice eyes, hands excitingly -dark with hair, and no affectations whatever. -Although he had inherited Tavy Mansion and a fortune -from an aunt who had left Oldcastle and the smoke to -marry a Devonshire landowner, he was boyish, modest, -and ingenuous. Nobody could have guessed from his -manner that he had children, nurses, servants, -gardeners, grooms, horses, carriages, a rent-roll, and a -safe margin at every year's end. He spoke of the -Five Towns with a mild affection. Hilda thought, -looking at him: "He has everything, simply everything! -And yet he's quite unspoilt!" In spite of the -fact that in previous years he had seen Hilda only a -few times--and that quite casually at the Orgreaves'--he -had assumed and established intimacy at the very -moment of meeting her and Janet at Tavistock station -the night before, and their friendship might now have -been twenty years old instead of twenty hours. Very -obviously he belonged to a class superior to Hilda's, -but he was apparently quite unconscious of what was -still the most deeply-rooted and influential institution -of English life. His confiding confidential tone -flattered her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How do you think Alicia's looking?" he asked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Magnificent," said Hilda, throwing a last piece of -bread into the water.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So do I," said he. "But she's ruined for tennis, -you know. This baby business is spiffing, only it puts -you right off your game. As a rule she manages to -be hors de combat bang in the middle of the season. -She has been able to play a bit this year, but she's not -keen--that's what's up with her ladyship--she's not -keen now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Hilda. "Even you can't have everything."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why 'even' me?" He laughed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She merely gazed at him with a mysterious smile. -She perceived that he was admiring her--probably for -her enigmatic quality, so different from Alicia's--and -she felt a pleasing self-content.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin do much tennis nowadays?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin?" She repeated the name in astonishment, -as though it were the name of somebody who could -not possibly be connected with tennis. "Not he! He's -not touched a racket all this season. He's quite -otherwise employed."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I hear he's a fearful pot in the Five Towns, -anyway," said Harry seriously. "Making money hand -over fist."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda raised her eyebrows and shook her head -deprecatingly. But the marked respectfulness of Harry's -reference to Edwin was agreeable. She thought: "I -do believe I'm becoming a snob!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's hard work making money, even in our small -way, in Bursley," she said--and seemed to indicate the -expensive spaciousness of the gardens.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should like to see old Edwin again."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I never knew you were friends."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I used to see him pretty often at Lane End -House, after Alicia and I were engaged. In fact once -he jolly nearly beat me in a set."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin did?" she exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The same.... He had a way of saying things -that a feller somehow thought about afterwards."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! So you noticed that!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Does he still?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I--I don't know. But he used to."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You ought to have brought him. In fact I quite -thought he was coming. Anyhow, I told Alicia to -invite him, too, as soon as we knew you were bringing -old Jan down."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She did mention it, Alicia did. But, oh! He -wouldn't hear of it. Works! Works! No holiday all -summer."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell you a scheme," said Harry roguishly. "Refuse -to rejoin the domestic hearth until he comes and -fetches you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gave a little laugh. "Oh, he won't come to fetch me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Harry shortly and decisively, "we shall -see what can be done. I may tell you we're rather -great at getting people down here.... I wonder -where those girls are?" He turned round and Hilda -turned round.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The red Georgian house with its windows in octagonal -panes, its large pediment hiding the centre of the -roof, and its white paint, showed brilliantly across the -hoop-studded green, between some cypresses and an -ilex; on either side were smooth walls of green--trimmed -shrubs forming long alleys whose floors were -also green; and here and there a round or oval flowerbed, -and, at the edges of the garden, curved borders of -flowers. Everything was still, save the ship-like birds -on the pond, the distant children in the plantation, -and the slow-moving, small clouds overhead. The -sun's warmth was like an endearment.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet and Alicia, their arms round each other's -shoulders, sauntered into view from behind the -cypresses. On the more sheltered lawn nearest the house -they were engaged in a quiet but tremendous palaver; -nobody but themselves knew what they were talking -about; it might have been the affair of Johnnie and -Mrs. Chris Hamson, as to which not a word had been -publicly said at Tavy Mansion since Janet and Hilda's -arrival. Janet still wore black, and now she carried -a red sunshade belonging to Alicia. Alicia was in -white, not very clean white, and rather tousled. She -was only twenty-five. She had grown big and jolly and -downright (even to a certain shamelessness) and -careless of herself. Her body had the curves, and her face -the emaciation, of the young mother. She used abrupt, -gawky, kind-hearted gestures. Her rough affectionateness -embraced not merely her children, but all young -living things, and many old. For her children she had a -passion. And she would say openly, as it were, -defiantly, that she meant to be the mother of more -children--lots more.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hey, lass!" cried out Harry, using the broad -Staffordshire accent for the amusement of Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The sisters stopped and untwined their arms.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hey, lad!" Alicia loudly responded. But instead -of looking at her husband she was looking through -him at the babies in the plantation behind the pond.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Janet smiled, in her everlasting resignation. Hilda, -smiling at her in return from the distance, recalled -the tone in which Harry had said 'old Jan'--a tone at -once affectionate and half-contemptuous. She was -old Jan, now; destined to be a burden upon somebody -and of very little use to anybody; no longer necessary. -If she disappeared, life would immediately close over -her, and not a relative, not a friend, would be -inconvenienced. Some among them would remark: -"Perhaps it's for the best." And Janet knew it. In the -years immediately preceding the death of Mr. and -Mrs. Orgreave, she had hardened a little from her earlier -soft, benevolent self--hardened to everybody save her -father and mother, whom she protected--and now she -was utterly tender again, and her gentle acquiescences -seemed to say: "I am defenceless, and to-morrow I -shall be old."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm going to telegraph to Edwin Clayhanger to -come down for the week-end," shouted Harry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Alicia shouted in reply:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Spiffing!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda said nervously:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You aren't, really?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had no intention of agreeing to the pleasant -project. A breach definitely existed between Edwin -and herself, and the idea of either maintaining it or -ending it on foreign ground was inconceivable. Such -things could only be done at home. She had telegraphed -a safe arrival, but she had not yet written -to him nor decided in what tone she should write.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Two gardeners, one pushing a wheeled water-can, -appeared from an alley and began silently and -assiduously to water a shaded flower-bed. Alicia and Harry -continued to shout enthusiastically to each other in -a manner sufficiently disturbing, but the gardeners -gave no sign that anybody except themselves lived in -the garden. Alicia, followed by Janet, was slowly -advancing towards the croquet lawn, when a parlourmaid -tripping from the house overtook her, and with -modest deference murmured something to the bawling, jolly -mistress. Alicia, still followed by Janet, turned and -went into the house, while the parlourmaid with bent -head waited discreetly to bring up the rear.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A sudden and terrific envy possessed Hilda as she -contrasted the circumstances of these people with her -own. These people lived in lovely and cleanly -surroundings without a care beyond the apprehension of -nursery ailments. They had joyous and kindly -dispositions. They were well-bred, and they were -attended by servants who, professionally, were even -better bred than themselves, and who were rendered happy -by smooth words and good pay. They lived at peace -with everyone. Full of health, they ate well and slept -well. They suffered no strain. They had absolutely -no problems, and they did not seek problems. Nor -had they any duties, save agreeable ones to each other. -Their world was ideal. If you had asked them how -their world could be improved for them, they would not -have found an easy reply. They could only have -demanded less taxes and more fine days.... Whereas -Hilda and hers were forced to live among a brutal -populace, amid the most horrible surroundings of -smoke, dirt, and squalor. In Devonshire the Five -Towns was unthinkable; the whiteness of the -window-curtains at Tavy Mansion almost broke the heart of -the housewife in Hilda. And compare--not Hilda's -handkerchief-garden, but even the old garden of the -Orgreaves, with this elysium, where nothing offended -the eye and the soot nowhere lay on the trees, -blackening the shiny leaves and stunting the branches. And -compare the too mean planning and space-saving of -the house in Trafalgar Road with the lavish generosity -of space inside Tavy Mansion!...</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin in the Bursley sense was a successful man, -and had consequence in the town, but the most that -he had accomplished or could accomplish would not -amount to the beginning of appreciable success -according to higher standards. Nobody in Bursley really -knew the meaning of the word success. And even such -local success as Edwin had had--at what peril and -with what worry was it won! These Heskeths were -safe forever. Ah! She envied them, and she intensely -depreciated everything that was hers. She stood in -the Tavy Mansion garden--it seemed to her--like an -impostor. Her husband was merely struggling -upwards. And moreover she had quarrelled with him, -darkly and obscurely; and who could guess what -would be the end of marriage? Harry and Alicia never -quarrelled; they might have tiffs--nothing worse than -that; they had no grounds for quarrelling.... And -supposing Harry and Alicia guessed the link -connecting her with Dartmoor prison! ... No, it could -not be supposed. Her envy melted into secret deep -dejection amid the beautiful and prosperous scene.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Evidently some one's called," said Harry, of his -wife's disappearance. "I hope she's nice."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Whoever's called. Shall we knock the balls about -a bit?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They began a mild game of croquet. But after a -few minutes Hilda burst out sharply:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You aren't playing your best, Mr. Hesketh. I -wish you would."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was startled by her eyes and her tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Honest Injun! I am," he fibbed in answer. "But -I'll try to do better. You must remember croquet -isn't my game. Alicia floors me at it five times out -of six."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then the parlourmaid and another maid came out to -lay tea on two tables under the ilex.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bowley," said Harry over his shoulder. "Bring -me a telegraph-form next time you come out, will you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir," said the parlourmaid.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda protested:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, Mr. Hesketh! Really! I assure you--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The telegraph-form came with the tea. Harry -knocked a ball against a coloured stick, and both he -and Hilda sat down with relief.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who's called, Bowley?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Rotherwas, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry counted the cups.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Isn't she staying for tea?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, sir. I think not, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, humming, rose and walked about. At the -same moment Alicia, Janet, and a tall young woman -in black and yellow emerged from the house. Hilda -moved behind a tree. She could hear good-byes. The -group vanished round the side of the house, and then -came the sound of hoofs and of wheels crunching. -An instant later Alicia arrived at the ilex, bounding -and jolly; Janet moved more sedately. The St. Bernard, -who had been reposing near the pond, now smelt -the tea and hot cakes and joined the party. The -wagging of his powerful tail knocked over a wicker-chair, -and Alicia gave a squeal. Then Alicia, putting her -hands to her mouth, shouted across the lawn and the -pond:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nursey! Nursey! Take them in!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And a faint reply came.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What was the Rotherwas dame after?" asked -Harry, sharpening a pencil, when Alicia had ascertained -the desires of her guests as to milk and sugar.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She was after you, of course," said Alicia. -"Tennis party on Monday. She wants you to balance -young Truscott. I just told her so. We shall all go. -You'll go, Hilda. She'll be delighted. I should have -brought her along only she was in such a hurry."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda enquired:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who is Mrs. Rotherwas?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Her husband's a big coal-owner at Cardiff. But -she's a niece or something of the governor of -Dartmoor prison, and she's apparently helping to keep -house for dear uncle just now. They'll take us over -the prison before tennis. It's awfully interesting. -Harry and I have been once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" murmured Hilda, staggered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now about this 'ere woire," said Harry. "What -price this?" He handed over the message which he -had just composed. It was rather long, and on the -form was left space for only two more words.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda could not decipher it. She saw the characters -with her eyes, but she was incapable of interpreting -them. All the time she thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall go to that prison. I can't help it. I shan't -be able to keep from going. I shall go to that prison. -I must go. Who could have imagined this? I am -bound to go, and I shall go."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But instead of objecting totally to the despatch of -the telegram, she said in a strange voice:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's very nice of you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You fill up the rest of the form," said Harry, -offering the pencil.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What must I put?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you'd better put 'Countersigned, Hilda.' That'll -fix it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you write it?" she muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He wrote the words.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let poor mummy see!" Alicia complained, seizing -the telegraph-form.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry called out:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Leeks!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A shirt-sleeved gardener half hidden by foliage -across the garden looked up sharply, saw Harry's -beckoning finger, and approached running.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have that sent off for me, will you? Tell Jos to -take it," said Harry, and gave Leeks the form and a -florin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, Hilda, you aren't eating anything!" protested -Alicia.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I only want tea," said Hilda casually, wondering -whether they had noticed anything wrong in her face.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin, looking curiously out of the carriage-window -as the train from Plymouth entered Tavistock -station early on the Monday, was surprised to -perceive Harry Hesketh on the platform. While, in the -heavenly air of the September morning, the train was -curving through Bickleigh Vale and the Valley of the -Plym and through the steeper valley of the Meavy up -towards the first fastnesses of the Moor, he had felt -his body to be almost miraculously well and his soul -almost triumphant. But when he saw Harry--the -remembered figure, but a little stouter and coarser--he -saw a being easily more triumphant than himself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry had great reason for triumph, for he had -proved himself to possess a genius for deductive -psychological reasoning and for prophecy. Edwin had -been characteristically vague about the visit. First he -had telegraphed that he could not come, business -preventing. Then he had telegraphed that he would come, -but only on Sunday, and he had given no particulars -of trains. They had all assured one another that this -was just like Edwin. "The man's mad!" said Harry -with genial benevolence, and had set himself to one -of his favourite studies--Bradshaw. He always -handled Bradshaw like a master, accomplishing feats of -interpretation that amazed his wife. He had -announced, after careful connotations, that Edwin was -perhaps after all not such a chump, but that he was -in fact a chump, in that, having chosen the -Bristol-Plymouth route, he had erred about the Sunday night -train from Plymouth to Tavistock. How did he know -that Edwin would choose the Bristol-Plymouth -route? Well, his knowledge was derived from -divination, based upon vast experience of human nature. -Edwin would "get stuck" at Plymouth. He would -sleep at Plymouth--staying at the Royal (he hoped)--and -would come on by the 8.1 a.m. on Monday, -arriving at 8.59 a.m., where he would be met by -Harry in the dog-cart drawn by Joan. The -telegraph was of course closed after 10 a.m. on Sunday, -but if it had been open and he had been receiving -hourly despatches about Edwin's tortuous progress -through England, Harry could not have been more -sure of his position. And on the Monday Harry -had risen up in the very apogee of health, and had -driven Joan to the station. "Mark my words!" he -had said. "I shall bring him back with me for -breakfast." He had offered to take Hilda to the station -to witness his triumph; but Hilda had not accepted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And there Edwin was! Everything had happened -according to Harry's prediction, except that, from an -unfortunate modesty, Edwin had gone to the wrong -hotel at Plymouth.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They shook hands in a glow of mutual pleasure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How on earth did you know?" Edwin began.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The careful-casual answer rounded off Harry's -triumph. And Edwin thought: "Why, he's just like -a grown-up boy!" But he was distinguished; his -club-necktie in all its decay was still impressive; and -his expansive sincere goodwill was utterly delightful. -Also the station, neat, clean, solid--the negation of -all gimcrackery--had an aspect of goodwill to man; -its advertisements did not flare; and it seemed to be -the expression of a sound and self-respecting race. -The silvern middle-aged guard greeted Harry with -deferential heartiness and saluted Edwin with even -more warmth than he had used at Plymouth. On -the Sunday Edwin had noticed that in the western -country guards were not guards (as in other parts -of England), but rather the cordial hosts of their -trains. As soon as the doors had banged in a -fusillade and the engine whistled, a young porter came -and, having exchanged civilities with Harry, picked -up Edwin's bag. This porter's face and demeanour -showed perfect content. His slight yet eager smile -and his quick movements seemed to be saying: "It -is natural and proper that I should salute you and -carry your bag while you walk free. You are -gentlemen by divine right, and by the same right I am -a railway porter and happy." To watch the man -at his job gave positive pleasure, and it was -extraordinarily reassuring--reassuring about everything. -Outside the station, the groom stood at Joan's head, -and a wonderful fox-terrier sat alert under the -dog-cart. Instantly the dog sprang out and began to -superintend the preparations for departure, rushing -to and fro and insisting all the time that delay would -be monstrous, if not fatal. The dog's excellence as -a specimen of breeding was so superlative as to -accuse its breeder and owner of a lack of perspective -in life. It was as if the entire resources of -civilization had been employed towards the perfecting of the -points of that dog.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Balanced the cart, I suppose, Jos?" asked Harry, -kindly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir," was all that Jos articulated, but his -bright face said: "Sir, your assumption that I have -already balanced the cart for three and a bag is -benevolent and justified. You trust me. I trust you, -sir. All is well."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The bag was stowed and the porter got threepence -and was so happy in his situation that apparently -he could not bring himself to leave the scene. Harry -climbed up on the right, Edwin on the left. The dog -gave one short bark and flew madly forward. Jos -loosed Joan's head, and at the same moment Harry -gave a click, and the machine started. It did not -wait for young Jos. Jos caught the back step as the -machine swung by, and levered himself dangerously to -the groom's place. And when he had done it he -grinned, announcing to beholders that his mission in -life was to do just that, and that it was a grand life -and he a lucky and enviable fellow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry drove across the Tavy, and through the small -grey and brown town, so picturesque, so clean, so solid, -so respectable, so content in its historicity. A policeman -saluted amiably and firmly, as if saying: "I am -protecting all this,--what a treasure!" Then they -passed the Town Hall.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Town Hall," said Harry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The Dook's," said Harry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He put on a certain facetiousness, but there -nevertheless escaped from him the conviction that the -ownership of a town hall by a Duke was a wondrous rare -phenomenon and fine, showing the strength of grand -English institutions and traditions, and meet for -honest English pride. (And you could say what you -liked about progress!) And Edwin had just the same -feeling. In another minute they were out of the town. -The countryside, though bleak, with its spare hedges -and granite walls, was exquisitely beautiful in the -morning light; and it was tidy, tended, mature; it -was as though it had nothing to learn from the -future. Beyond rose the slopes of the moor, tonic and -grim. An impression of health, moral and physical, -everywhere disengaged itself. The wayfarer, sturdy -and benign, invigorated by his mere greeting. The -trot of the horse on the smooth winding road, the -bounding of the dog, the resilience of the cart-springs, -the sharp tang of the air on the cheek, all helped to -perfect Edwin's sense of pleasure in being alive. He -could not deny that he had stood in need of a change. -He had been worrying, perhaps through overwork. -Overwork was a mistake. He now saw that -there was no reason why he should not be happy -always, even with Hilda. He had received a short but -nice and almost apologetic letter from Hilda. As for -his apprehensions, what on earth did it matter about -Dartmoor being so near? Nothing! This district -was marvellously reassuring. He thought: "There -simply is no social question down here!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Had your breakfast?" asked Harry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, thanks."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you just haven't, then!" said Harry. "We -shall be in the nick of time for it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"When do you have breakfast?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nine thirty."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bit late, isn't it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no! It suits us.... I say!" Harry stared -straight between the horse's ears.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry murmured:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No more news about Johnnie, I suppose?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>(Edwin glanced half round at the groom behind. -Harry with a gesture indicated that the groom was -negligible.)</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not that I've heard. Bit stiff, isn't it?" Edwin -answered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bit stiff? I should rather say it was. Especially -after Jimmie's performance. Rather hard lines on -Alicia, don't you think?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"On all of 'em," said Edwin, not seeing why Johnnie's -escapade should press more on Alicia than, for -example, on Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, of course," Harry agreed, evidently seeing -and accepting the point. "The less said the better!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm with you," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry resumed his jolly tone:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you'd better peck a bit. We've planned a -hard day for you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. Early lunch, and then we're going to drive -over to Princetown. Tennis with the Governor of the -prison. He'll show us all over the prison. It's worth -seeing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Impulsively Edwin exclaimed:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All of you? Is Hilda going?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly. Why not?" He raised the whip and -pointed: "Behold our noble towers."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, feeling really sick, thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hilda's mad. She's quite mad..... Morbid -isn't the word!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was confounded.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>At Tavy Mansion Edwin and Harry were told by -a maid that Mrs. Hesketh and Miss Orgreave were -in the nursery and would be down in a moment, but -that Mrs. Clayhanger had a headache and was -remaining in bed for breakfast. The master of the house -himself took Edwin to the door of his wife's bedroom. -Edwin's spirits had risen in an instant, as he -perceived the cleverness of Hilda's headache. There -could be no doubt that women were clever, though -perhaps unscrupulously and crudely clever, in a way -beyond the skill of men. By the simple device of -suffering from a headache Hilda had avoided the ordeal -of meeting a somewhat estranged husband in public; -she was also preparing an excuse for not going to -Princetown and the prison. Certainly it was better, in -the Dartmoor affair, to escape at the last moment than -to have declined the project from the start.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he opened the bedroom-door, apprehensions and -bright hope were mingled in him. He had a weighty -grievance against Hilda, whose behaviour at parting -had been, he considered, inexcusable; but the warm -tone of her curt private telegram to him and of her -almost equally curt letter, re-stating her passionate -love, was really equivalent to an apology, which he -accepted with eagerness. Moreover he had done a lot in -coming to Devonshire, and for this great act he lauded -himself and he expected some gratitude. Nevertheless, -despite the pacificism of his feelings, he could not smile -when entering the room. No, he could not!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda was lying in the middle of a very wide bed, -and her dark hair was spread abroad upon the pillow. -On the pedestal was a tea-tray. Squatted comfortably -at Hilda's side, with her left arm as a support, -was a baby about a year old, dressed for the day. -This was Cecil, born the day after his grandparents' -funeral. Cecil, with mouth open and outstretched pink -hands, of which the fingers were spread like the rays of -half a starfish, from wide eyes gazed at Edwin with -a peculiar expression of bland irony. Hilda smiled -lovingly; she smiled without reserve. And as soon as -she smiled, Edwin could smile, and his heart was -suddenly quite light.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That wistful look in his eyes has never changed, -and it never will. Imagine him travelling on Sunday, -when the silly old thing might just as well have come -on Saturday, if he'd had anybody to decide him! He's -been travelling for twenty-four hours or more, and -now he's here! What a shame for me to have dragged -him down here in spite of himself! But he would do -it for me! He has done it.... I had to have him, -for this afternoon! ... After all he must be very -good at business. Everyone respects him, even here. -We may end by being really rich. Have I ever really -appreciated him? ... And now of course he's going -to be annoyed again. Poor boy!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello! Who's this?" cried Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is Cecil. His mummy's left him, here with -his Auntie Hilda," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Another clever dodge of hers!" thought Edwin. -He liked the baby being there.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He approached the bed, and, staring nervously -about, saw that his bag had already mysteriously -reached the bedroom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, my poor boy! What a journey!" Hilda -murmured compassionately. She could not help -showing that she was his mother in wisdom and sense.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no!" he amiably dismissed this view.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was standing over her by the bedside. She -looked straight up at him timid and expectant. He -bent and kissed her. Under his kiss she shifted slightly -in the bed, and her arms clung round his neck, and -by her arms she lifted herself a little towards him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She shut her eyes. She would not loose him. She -seemed again to be drawing the life out of him. At -last she let him go, and gave a great sigh. All the past -which did not agree with that kiss and that sigh of -content was annihilated, and an immense reassurance -filled Edwin's mind.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So you've got a headache?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gave a succession of little nods, smiling happily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so glad you've come, dearest," she said, after -a pause. She was just like a young girl, like a child, -in her relieved satisfaction. "What about George?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, as it was left to me to decide, I thought I'd -better ask Maggie to come and stay in the house. -Much better than packing him off to Auntie Hamps's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And she came?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes!" said Edwin, indifferently, as if to say: -"Of course she came."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you did get my letter in time?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't have got it in time if I'd left Saturday -morning as you wanted. Oh! And here's a letter -for </span><em class="italics">you</em><span>."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He pulled a letter from his pocket. The envelope -was of the peculiar tinted paper with which he had -already been familiarised. Hilda became self-conscious -as she took the letter and opened it. Edwin too -was self-conscious. To lighten the situation, he put his -little finger in the baby's mouth. Cecil much appreciated -this form of humour, and as soon as the finger was -withdrawn from his toothless gums, he made a bubbling -whirring noise, and waved his arms to indicate that -the game must continue. Hilda, frowning, read the -letter. Edwin sat down, ledging himself cautiously -on the brink of the bed, and leaned back a little so as -to be able to get at the baby and tickle it among its -frills. From the distance, beyond walls, he could hear -the powerful happy cries of older babies, beings fully -aware of themselves, who knew their own sentiments -and could express them. And he glanced round the -long low room with its two small open windows -showing sunlit yellow cornfields and high trees, and its -monumental furniture, and the disorder of Hilda's -clothes and implements humanising it and individualising -it and making it her abode, her lair. And he -glanced prudently at Hilda over the letter-paper. She -had no headache; it was obvious that she had no -headache. Yet in the most innocent touching way she had -nodded an affirmative to his question about the -headache. He could not possibly have said to her: "Look -here, you know you haven't got a headache." She -would not have tolerated the truth. The truth would -have made her transform herself instantly into a -martyr, and him into a brute. She would have stuck -to it, even if the seat of eternal judgment had -suddenly been installed at the brassy foot of the bed, -that she had a headache.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was with this mentality (he reflected, assuming -that his own mentality never loved anything as well -as truth) that he had to live till one of them expired. -He reminded himself wisely that the woman's code is -different from the man's. But the honesty of his -intelligence rejected such an explanation, such an excuse. -It was not that the woman had a different code,--she -had no code except the code of the utter opportunist. -To live with her was like living with a marvellous -wild animal, full of grace, of cunning, of magnificent -passionate gestures, of terrific affection, and of cruelty. -She was at once indispensable and intolerable. He -felt that to match her he had need of all his force, all -his prescience, all his duplicity. The mystery that -had lain between him and Hilda for a year was in the -letter within two feet of his nose. He could watch -her as she read, study her face; he knew that he was -the wiser of the two; she was at a disadvantage; as -regards the letter, she was fighting on ground chosen -by him; and yet he could not in the least foresee the -next ten minutes,--whether she would advance, retreat, -feint, or surrender.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you bring your dress-clothes?" she murmured, -while she was reading. She had instructed him in her -letter on this point.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," he said, manfully, striving to imply -the immense untruth that he never stirred from home -without his dress-clothes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She continued to read, frowning, and drawing her -heavy eyebrows still closer together. Then she said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And passed him the letter. He could see now that -she was becoming excited.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The letter was from the legitimate Mrs. George -Cannon, and it said that, though nothing official was -announced or even breathed, her solicitor had -gathered from a permanent and important underling of -the Home Office that George Cannon's innocence was -supposed to be established, and that the Queen's -pardon would, at some time or other, be issued. It was an -affecting letter. Edwin, totally ignorant of all that -had preceded it, did not immediately understand its -significance. At first he did not even grasp what it -was about. When he did begin to comprehend he had -the sensation of being deprived momentarily of his -bearings. He had expected everything but this. That -is to say, he had absolutely not known what to -expect. The shock was severe.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">What</em><span> is it? </span><em class="italics">What</em><span> is it?" he questioned, as if -impatient.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda replied:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's about George Cannon. It seems he was quite -innocent in that bank-note affair. It's his wife who's -been writing to me about it. I don't know why she -should. But she did, and of course I had to reply."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never said anything to me about it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't want to worry you, dearest. I knew you'd -quite enough on your mind with the works. Besides, -I'd no right to worry you with a thing like </span><em class="italics">that</em><span>. -But of course I can show you all her letters,--I've -kept them."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Unanswerable! Unanswerable! Insincere, concocted, -but unanswerable! The implications in her -spoken defence were of the simplest and deepest -ingenuity, and withal they hurt him. For example, the -implication that the strain of the new works was -breaking him! As if he could not support it, and had -not supported it, easily! As if the new works meant -that he could not fulfil all his duties as a helpmeet! -And then the devilishly adroit plea that her -concealment was morally necessary since he ought not to be -troubled with any result of her pre-conjugal life! And -finally the implication that he would be jealous of the -correspondence and might exact the production of -it! ... He now callously ignored Cecil's signals for -attention.... He knew that he would receive no -further enlightenment as to the long secrecy of the -past twelve months. His fears and apprehensions and -infelicity were to be dismissed with those few words. -They would never be paid for, redeemed, atoned. The -grand scenic explanation and submission which was -his right would never come. Sentimentally, he was -cheated, and had no redress. And, as a climax, he -had to assume, to pretend, that justice still prevailed -on earth.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Isn't it awful!" Hilda muttered. "Him in prison -all this time!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He saw that her eyes were wet, and her emotion -increasing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He nodded in sympathy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She'll want some handling,--I can see that!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He too, as well as she, imaginatively comprehended -the dreadful tragedy of George Cannon's false -imprisonment. He had heart enough to be very glad -that the innocent man (innocent at any rate of that -one thing) was to be released. But at the same time -he could not stifle a base foreboding and regret. -Looking at his wife, he feared the moment when George -Cannon, with all the enormous prestige of a victim in a -woman's eyes, should be at large. Yes, the lover in -him would have preferred George Cannon to be -incarcerated forever. Had he not heard, had he not read, -had he not seen on the stage, that a woman never -forgets the first man? Nonsense, all that! Invented -theatrical psychology! And yet--if it was true! ... Look -at her eyes!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose he </span><em class="italics">is</em><span> innocent?" he said gruffly, for he -mistrusted, or affected to mistrust, the doings of these -two women together,--Cannon's wife and Cannon's -victim. Might they not somehow have been hoodwinked? -He knew nothing, no useful detail, naught that was -convincing--and he never would know! Was it not -astounding that the bigamist should have both these -women on his side, either working for him, or weeping -over his woes?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He must be innocent," Hilda answered, thoughtfully, -in a breaking voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where is he now,--up yon?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He indicated the unvisited heights of Dartmoor.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe so."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought they always shifted 'em back to -London before they released 'em."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I expect they will do. They may have moved him -already."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His mood grew soft, indulgent. He conceded that -her emotion was natural. She had been bound up -with the man. Cannon's admitted guilt on the one -count, together with all that she had suffered through -it, only intensified the poignancy of his innocence on -the other count. Contrary to the general assumption, -you must be sorrier for an unfortunate rascal than -for an unfortunate good man. He could feel all that. -He, Edwin, was to be pitied; but nobody save -himself would perceive that he was to be pitied. His -rôle would be difficult, but all his pride and -self-reliance commanded him to play it well, using every -resource of his masculine skill, and so prove that he -was that which he believed himself to be. The future -would be all right, because he would be equal to the -emergency. Why should it not be all right? His -heart in kindliness and tenderness drew nearer to -Hilda's, and he saw, or fancied he saw, that all their -guerilla had been leading up to this, had perhaps been -caused by this, and would be nobly ended by it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Just then a mysterious noise penetrated the room, -growing and growing until it became a huge deafening -din, and slowly died away.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I expect that's breakfast," said Edwin in a casual -tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The organism of the English household was -functioning. Even in the withdrawn calm of the bedroom -they could feel it irresistibly functioning. The gong -had a physical effect on Cecil; all his disappointment -and his sense of being neglected were gathered up in -his throat and exploded in a yell. Hilda took him -in her right arm and soothed him and called him -silly names.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin rose from the bed, and as he did so, Hilda -retained him with her left hand, and pulled him very -gently towards her, inviting a kiss. He kissed her. -She held to him. He could see at a distance of two -inches all the dark swimming colour of her wet eyes -half veiled by the long lashes. And he could feel the -soft limbs of the snuffling baby somewhere close to -his head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'd better stick where you are," he advised her -in a casual tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now the time's come. He'll be furious. But I -can't help it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no. I shall be quite all right soon. I'm going -to get up in about half an hour."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But then how shall you get out of going to Princetown?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Edwin! I must go. I told them I should go."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was astounded. There was no end to her -incalculability,--no end! His resentment was violent. -He stood right away from her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Told them you should go'!" he exclaimed. "What -in the name of heaven does that matter? Are you -absolutely mad?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She stiffened. Her features hardened. In the midst -of her terrible relief as to the fate of George Cannon -and of her equal terrible excitement under the -enigmatic and irresistible mesmerism of Dartmoor prison, -she was desperate, and resentment against Edwin -kindled deep within her. She felt the brute in him. -She felt that he would never really understand. She -felt all her weakness and all his strength, but she was -determined. At bottom she knew well that her -weakness was the stronger.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I must go!" she repeated.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's nothing but morbidness!" he said savagely. -"Morbidness! ... Well, I shan't have it. I shan't -let you go. And that's flat."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She kept silent. Frightfully disturbed, cursing -women, forgetting utterly in a moment his sublime -resolves, Edwin descended to breakfast in the large, -strange house. Existence was monstrous.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And before the middle of the morning Hilda came -into the garden where everyone else was idling. And -Alicia and Janet fondly kissed her. She said her -headache had vanished.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sure you feel equal to going this afternoon, -dearest?" asked Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes!" Hilda replied lightly. "It will do me -good."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was helpless. He thought, recalling with -vexation his last firm forbidding words to Hilda in -the bedroom:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nobody </span><em class="italics">could</em><span> be equal to this emergency."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-prison"><span class="large">CHAPTER XV</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE PRISON</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Harry had two stout and fast cobs in a light -wagonette. He drove himself, and Hilda sat by his side. -The driver's boast was that he should accomplish the -ten miles, with a rise of a thousand feet, in an hour -and a quarter. A hired carriage would have spent two -hours over the journey.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was when they had cleared the town, and were -on the long straight rise across the moor towards -Longford, that the horses began to prove the faith that -was in them, eager, magnanimous, conceiving grandly -the splendour of their task in life, and irrepressibly -performing it with glory. The stones on the loose-surfaced -road flew from under the striding of their hoofs -into the soft, dark ling on either hand. Harry's whip -hovered in affection over their twin backs, never -touching them, and Harry smiled mysteriously to himself. -He did not wish to talk. Nor did Hilda. The movement -braced and intoxicated her, and rendered thought -impossible. She brimmed with emotion, like a vase with -some liquid unanalysable and perilous. She was not -happy, she was not unhappy; the sensation of her -vitality and of the kindred vitality of the earth and the -air was overwhelming. She would have prolonged the -journey indefinitely, and yet she intensely desired the -goal, whatever terrors it might hold for her. At -intervals she pulled up the embroidered and -monogrammed apron that slipped slowly down over her skirt -and over Harry's tennis-flannels, disclosing two -rackets in a press that lay between them. Perhaps Harry -was thinking of certain strokes at tennis.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Longford!" ejaculated Harry, turning his head -slightly towards the body of the vehicle, as they -rattled by a hamlet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Soon afterwards the road mounted steeply,--five -hundred feet in little more than a mile, and the horses -walked, but they walked in haste, fiercely, clawing at -the road with their forefeet and thrusting it behind -them. And some of the large tors emerged clearly -into view--Cox Tor, the Staple Tors, and Great Mis -lifting its granite above them and beyond.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They were now in the midst of the moor, trotting -fast again. Behind and before them, and on either -side, there was nothing but moor and sky. The sky, -a vast hemisphere of cloud and blue and sunshine, with -a complex and ever elusive geography of its own, -discovered all the tints of heath and granite. It was one -of those days when every tint was divided into ten -thousand shades, and each is richer and more softly -beautiful than the others. On the shoulder of Great -Mis rain fell, while little Vixen Tor glittered with mica -points in the sun. Nothing could be seen over the -whole moor save here and there a long-tailed pony, or -a tiny cottage set apart in solitude. And the -yellowish road stretched forward, wavily, narrowing, -disappeared for a space, reappeared still narrower, -disappeared once more, reappeared like a thin meandering -line, and was lost on the final verge. It was an -endless road. Impossible that the perseverance of horses -should cover it yard by yard! But the horses strained -onward, seeing naught but the macadam under their -noses. Harry checked them at a descent.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Walkham River!" he announced.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They crossed a pebbly stream by a granite bridge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hut-circles!" said Harry laconically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They were climbing again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, in the body of the wagonette with Janet and -Alicia, looked for hut-circles and saw none; but he did -not care. He was content with the knowledge that -prehistoric hut-circles were somewhere there. He had -never seen wild England before, and its primeval -sanity awoke in him the primeval man. The healthiness -and simplicity and grandiose beauty of it created the -sublime illusion that civilisation was worthy to be -abandoned. The Five Towns seemed intolerable by -their dirt and ugliness, and by the tedious intricacy -of their existence. Lithography,--you had but to think -of the word to perceive the paltriness of the thing! -Riches, properties, proprieties, all the safeties,--futile! -He could have lived alone with Hilda on the -moor, begetting children by her, watching with -satisfaction the growing curves of her fecundity--his work, -and seeing her with her brood, all their faces beaten -by wind and rain and browned with sun. He had a -tremendous, a painful longing for such a life. His -imagination played round the idea of it with -voluptuous and pure pleasure, and he wondered that he had -never thought of it before. He felt that he had never -before peered into the depths of existence. And though -he knew that the dream of such an arcadian career -was absurd, yet he seemed to guess that beneath the -tiresome surfaces of life in the Five Towns the -essence of it might be mystically lived. And he thought -that Hilda would be capable of sharing it with -him,--nay, he knew she would!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His mood became gravely elated, even optimistic. -He saw that he had worried himself about nothing. If -she wanted to visit the prison, let her visit it! Why -not? At any rate he should not visit it. He had an -aversion for morbidity almost as strong as his -aversion for sentimentality. But her morbidity could do -no harm. She could not possibly meet George -Cannon. The chances were utterly against such an -encounter. Her morbidity would cure itself. He pitied -her, cherished her, and in thought enveloped her -fondly with his sympathetic and protective wisdom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"North Hessary," said Harry, pointing with his -whip to a jutting tor on the right hand. "We go -round by the foot of it. There in a jiff!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Soon afterwards they swerved away from the main -road, obeying a signpost marked "Princetown."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Glorious, isn't it?" murmured Janet, after a long -silence which had succeeded the light chatter of -herself and Alicia about children, servants, tennis, -laundries.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He nodded, with a lively responsive smile, and -glanced at Hilda's mysterious back. Only once -during the journey had she looked round. Alicia with -her coarse kind voice and laugh began to rally him, -saying he had dozed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A town, more granite than the moor itself, gradually -revealed its roofs in the heart of the moor. The -horses, indefatigable, quickened their speed. Villas, a -school, a chapel, a heavy church-tower followed in -succession; there were pavements; a brake full of -excursionists had halted in front of a hotel; -holiday-makers--simple -folk who disliked to live in flocks--wandered -in ecstatic idleness. Concealed within the warmth of -the mountain air, there pricked a certain sharpness. -All about, beyond the little town, the tors raised their -shaggy flanks surmounted by colossal masses of stone -that recalled the youth of the planet. The feel of the -world was stimulating like a tremendous tonic. Then -the wagonette passed a thick grove of trees, hiding a -house, and in a moment, like magic, appeared a huge -gated archway of brick and stone, and over it the -incised words:</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">PARCERE SUBJECTIS</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"Stop! Stop! Harry," cried Alicia shrilly. -"What are you doing? You'll have to go to the -house first."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall I?" said Harry. "All right. Two thirty-five, -be it noted."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The vehicle came to a standstill, and instantly -clouds of vapour rose from the horses.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Virgil!" thought Edwin, gazing at the archway, -which filled him with sudden horror, like an obscenity -misplaced.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Less than ten minutes later, he and Hilda and Alicia, -together with three strange men, stood under the -archway. Events had followed one another quickly, to -Edwin's undoing. When the wagonette drew up in -the grounds of the Governor's house, Harry Hesketh -had politely indicated that for his horses he -preferred the stables of a certain inn down the road to -any stables that hospitality might offer; and he had -driven off, Mrs. Rotherwas urging him to return -without any delay so that tennis might begin. The -Governor had been called from home, and in his absence -a high official of the prison was deputed to show the -visitors through the establishment. This official was -the first of the three strange men; the other two were -visitors. Janet had said that she would not go over the -prison, because she meant to play tennis and wished -not to tire herself. Alicia said kindly that she at any -rate would go with Hilda,--though she had seen it all -before, it was interesting enough to see again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had thereupon said that he should remain -with Janet. But immediately Mrs. Rotherwas, whose -reception of him had been full of the most friendly -charm, had shown surprise, if not pain. What,--come -to Princetown without inspecting the wonderful prison, -when the chance was there? Inconceivable! Edwin -might in his blunt Five Towns way have withstood -Mrs. Rotherwas, but he could not withstand Hilda, -who, frowning, seemed almost ready to risk a public -altercation in order to secure his attendance. He had -to yield. To make a scene, even a very little one, in -the garden full of light dresses and polite suave voices -would have been monstrous. He thought of all that he -had ever heard of the subjection of men to women. -He thought of Johnnie and of Mrs. Chris Hamson, -who was known for her steely caprices. And he -thought also of Jimmie and of the undesirable -Mrs. Jimmie, who, it was said, had threatened to love -Jimmie no more unless he took her once a week without -fail to the theatre, whatever the piece, and played -cards with her and two of her friends on all the other -nights of the week. He thought of men as a sex -conquered by the unscrupulous and the implacable, and in -this mood, superimposed on his mood of disgust at -the mere sight of the archway, he followed the high -official and his train. Mrs. Rotherwas's last words were -that they were not to be long. But the official said -privately to the group that they must at any rate -approach the precincts of the prison with all ceremony, -and he led them proudly, with an air of ownership, -round to the main entrance where the wagonette had -first stopped.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A turnkey on the other side of the immense gates, -using a theatrical gesture, jangled a great bouquet -of keys; the portal opened, increasing the pride of -the official, and the next moment they were interned -in the outer courtyard. The moor and all that it -meant lay unattainably beyond that portal. As the -group slowly crossed the enclosed space, with the grim -façades of yellow-brown buildings on each side and -vistas of further gates and buildings in front, the -official and the two male visitors began to talk together -over the heads of Alicia and Hilda. The women held -close to each other, and the official kept upon them -a chivalrous eye; the two visitors were friends; Edwin -was left out of the social scheme, and lagged -somewhat behind, like one who is not wanted but who -cannot be abandoned. He walked self-conscious, -miserable, resentful, and darkly angry. In one instant the -three men had estimated him, decided that he was not -of their clan nor of any related clan, and ignored -him. Whereas the official and the two male visitors, -who had never met before, grew more and more friendly -each minute. One said that he did not know So-and-So -of the Scots Greys, but he knew his cousin Trevor -of the Hussars, who had in fact married a niece of -his own. And then another question about somebody -else was asked, and immediately they were engaged -in following clues, as explorers will follow the intricate -mouths of a great delta and so unite in the main -stream. They were happy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not seriously mind that; but what he did -mind was their accent--in those days termed throughout -the Midlands "lah-di-dah" (an onomatopoeic -description), which, falsifying every vowel sound in the -language, and several consonants, magically created -around them an aura of utter superiority to the rest -of the world. He quite unreasonably hated them, and -he also envied them, because this accent was their -native tongue, and because their clothes were not cut -like his, and because they were entirely at their ease. -Useless for the official to throw him an urbane word -now and then; neither his hate nor his constraint would -consent to be alleviated; the urbane words grew less -frequent. Also Edwin despised them because they -were seemingly insensible to the tremendous horror of -the jail set there like an outrage in the midst of -primitive and sane Dartmoor. "Yes," their attitude said. -"This is a prison, one of the institutions necessary to -the well being of society, like a workhouse or an opera -house,--an interesting sight!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A second pair of iron gates were opened with the -same elaborate theatricality as the first, and while -the operation was being done the official, invigorated -by the fawning of turnkeys, conversed with Alicia, -who during her short married life had acquired some -shallow acquaintance with the clans, and he even drew -a reluctant phrase from Hilda. Then, after another -open space, came a third pair of iron gates, final and -terrific, and at length the party was under cover, and -even the sky of the moor was lost. Edwin, bored, -disgusted, shamed, and stricken, yielded himself proudly -and submissively to the horror of the experience.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda had only one thought--would she catch sight -of the innocent prisoner? The party was now deeply -engaged in a system of corridors and stairways. The -official had said that as the tour of inspection was to -be short he would display to them chiefly the modern -part of the prison. So far not a prisoner had been -seen, and scarcely a warder. The two male visitors -were scientifically interested in the question of escapes. -Did prisoners ever escape?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never!" said the official, with satisfaction.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Impossible, I suppose. Even when they're -working out on the moor? Warders are pretty good -shots, eh?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Practically impossible," said the official. "But -there is one way." He looked up the stairway on -whose landing they stood, and down the stairway, and -cautiously lowered his voice. "Of course what I tell -you is confidential. If one of our Dartmoor fogs -came on suddenly, and kind friends outside had -hidden a stock of clothes and food in an arranged spot, -then theoretically--I say, theoretically--a man might -get away. But nobody ever has done."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose you still have the silent system?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The official nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Absolutely?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Absolutely."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How awful it must be!" said Alicia, with a nervous -laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The official shrugged his shoulders, and the other -two males murmured reassuring axioms about discipline.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They emerged from the stairway into a colossal and -resounding iron hall. Round the emptiness of this -interior ran galleries of perforated iron protected from -the abyss by iron balustrades. The group stood on -the second of the galleries from the stony floor, and -there were two galleries above them. Far away, -opposite, a glint of sunshine had feloniously slipped in, -transpiercing the gloom, and it lighted a series of -doors. There was a row of these doors along every -gallery. Each had a peep-hole, a key-hole and a -number. The longer Hilda regarded, the more -nightmarishly numerous seemed the doors. The place was -like a huge rabbit-hutch designed for the claustration -of countless rabbits. Across the whole width and -length of the hall, and at the level of the lowest -gallery, was stretched a great net.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"To provide against suicides?" suggested one of -the men.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said the official.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A good idea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When the reverberation of the words had ceased, a -little silence ensued. The ear listened vainly for the -slightest sound. In the silence the implacability of -granite walls and iron reticulations reigned over the -accursed vision, stultifying the soul.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are these cells occupied?" asked Alicia timidly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not yet, Mrs. Hesketh. It's too soon. A few are."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He may be here,--behind one of those doors." Her -heart was liquid with compassion and revolt. "No," -she assured herself. "They must have taken him -away already. It's impossible he should be here. He's -innocent."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Perhaps you would like to see one of the cells?" -the official suggested.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A warder appeared, and, with the inescapable jangle -of keys, opened a door. The party entered the cell, -ladies first, then the official and his new acquaintances; -then Edwin, trailing. The cell was long and narrow, -fairly lofty, bluish-white colour, very dimly lighted by a -tiny grimed window high up in a wall of extreme thickness. -The bed lay next the long wall; except the bed, a -stool, a shelf, and some utensils, there was nothing to -furnish the horrible nakedness of the cell. One of the -visitors picked up an old book from the shelf. It was a -Greek Testament. The party seemed astonished at this -evidence of culture among prisoners, of the height from -which a criminal may have fallen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The official smiled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They often ask for such things on purpose," said -he. "They think it's effective. They're very naïve, -you know, at bottom."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This very cell may be his cell," thought Hilda. -"He may have been here all these months, years, -knowing he was innocent. He may have thought about me -in this cell." She glanced cautiously at Edwin, but -Edwin would not catch her eye.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They left. On the way to the workshops, they had a -glimpse of the old parts of the prison, used during -the Napoleonic wars, incredibly dark, frowsy, like -catacombs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We don't use this part--unless we're very full up," -said the official, and he contrasted it with the bright, -spacious, healthy excellences of the hall which they -had just quitted, to prove that civilisation never stood -still.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then suddenly, at the end of a passage, a door -opened and they were in the tailors' shop, a large -irregular apartment full of a strong stench and of -squatted and grotesque human beings. The human beings, -for the most part, were clothed in a peculiar brown -stuff, covered with broad arrows. The dress consisted -of a short jacket, baggy knickerbockers, black -stockings, and coloured shoes. Their hair was cut so short -that they had the appearance of being bald, and their -great ears protruded at a startling angle from the sides -of those smooth heads. They were of every age, yet -they all looked alike, ridiculous, pantomimic, appalling. -Some gazed with indifference at the visitors; -others seemed oblivious of the entry. They all stitched -on their haunches, in the stench, under the surveillance -of eight armed warders in blue.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How many?" asked the official mechanically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Forty-nine, sir," said a warder.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Hilda searched their loathsome and vapid faces -for the face of George Cannon. He was not there. -She trembled,--whether with relief or with disappointment -she knew not. She was agonised, but in her torture -she exulted that she had come.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>No comment had been made in the workshop, the -official having hinted that silence was usual on such -occasions. But in a kind of antechamber--one of -those amorphous spaces, serving no purpose and -resembling nothing, which are sometimes to be found -between definable rooms and corridors in a vast building -imperfectly planned--the party halted in the midst of -a discussion as to discipline. The male visitors, -except Edwin, showed marked intelligence and detachment; -they seemed to understand immediately how it -was that forty-nine ruffians could be trusted to squat -on their thighs and stitch industriously and use -scissors and other weapons for hours without being chained -to the ground; they certainly knew something of the -handling of men. The official, triumphant, stated that -every prisoner had the right of personal appeal to the -Governor every day.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They come with their stories of grievances," said -he, tolerant and derisive.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Which often aren't true?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Which are never true," said the official quietly. -"Never! They are always lies--always! ... Shows -the material we have to deal with!" He gave a short -laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Really!" said one of the men, rather pleased and -excited by this report of universal lying.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose," Edwin blurted out, "you can tell for -certain when they aren't speaking the truth?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Everybody looked at him surprised, as though the -dumb had spoken. The official's glance showed some -suspicion of sarcasm and a tendency to resent it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We can," he answered shortly, commanding his -features to a faint smile. "And now I wonder what -Mrs. Rotherwas will be saying if I don't restore you -to her." It was agreed that regard must be had for -Mrs. Rotherwas's hospitable arrangements, though the -prison was really very interesting and would repay -study.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They entered a wide corridor--one of two that met -at right-angles in the amorphous space--leading in -the direction of the chief entrance. From the end of -this corridor a file of convicts was approaching in -charge of two warders with guns. The official offered -no remark, but held on. Hilda, falling back near to -Edwin in the procession, was divided between a -dreadful fear and a hope equally dreadful. Except in the -tailors' shop, these were the only prisoners they had -seen, and they appeared out of place in the half-freedom -of the corridor; for nobody could conceive a prisoner -save in a cell or shop, and these were moving in a -public corridor, unshackled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then she distinguished George Cannon among them. -He was the third from the last. She knew him by his -nose and the shape of his chin, and by his walk, though -there was little left of his proud walk in the desolating, -hopeless prison-shuffle which was the gait of all -six convicts. His hair was iron-grey. All these -details she could see and be sure of in the distance of the -dim corridor. She no longer had a stomach; it had -gone, and yet she felt a horrible nausea.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She cried out to herself:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why did I come? Why did I come? I am always -doing these mad things. Edwin was right. Why -do I not listen to him?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The party of visitors led by the high official, and -the file of convicts in charge of armed warders, were -gradually approaching one another in the wide corridor. -It seemed to Hilda that a fearful collision was -imminent, and that something ought to be done. But -nobody among the visitors did anything or seemed to -be disturbed. Only they had all fallen silent; and in -the echoing corridor could be heard the firm steps of -the male visitors accompanying the delicate tripping -of the women, and the military tramp of the warders -with the confused shuffling of the convicts.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has he recognised me?" thought Hilda, wildly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She hoped that he had and that he had not. She -recalled with the most poignant sorrow the few days -of their union, their hours of intimacy, his kisses, her -secret realisation of her power over him, and of his -passion. She wanted to scream:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That man there is as innocent as any of you, and -soon the whole world will know it! He never -committed any crime except that of loving me too much. -He could not do without me, and so I was his ruin. It -is horrible that he should be here in this hell. He must -be set free at once. The Home Secretary knows he -is innocent, but they are so slow. How can anyone -bear that he should stop here one instant longer?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But she made no sound. The tremendous force of -an ancient and organised society kept her lips closed -and her feet in a line with the others. She thought in -despair:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We are getting nearer, and I cannot meet him. I -shall drop." She glanced at Edwin, as if for help, but -Edwin was looking straight ahead.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then a warder, stopping, ejaculated with the harsh -brevity of a drill-serjeant:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Halt!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The file halted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Right turn!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The six captives turned, with their faces close -against the wall of the corridor, obedient, humiliated, -spiritless, limp, stooping. Their backs presented the -most ridiculous aspect; all the calculated grotesquerie -of the surpassingly ugly prison uniform was -accentuated as they stood thus, a row of living -scarecrows, who knew that they had not the right even to -look upon free men. Every one of them except George -Cannon had large protuberant ears that completed -the monstrosity of their appearance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The official gave his new acquaintances a satisfied -glance, as if saying:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That is the rule by which we manage these chance -encounters."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The visitors went by in silence, instinctively edging -away from the captives. And as she passed, Hilda -lurched very heavily against Edwin, and recovered -herself. Edwin seized her arm near the shoulder, and -saw that she was pale. The others were in front.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Behind them they could hear the warder:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Left turn! March!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And the shuffling and the tramping recommenced.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>In the garden of the Governor's house tennis had -already begun when the official brought back his -convoy. Young Truscott and Mrs. Rotherwas were pitted -against Harry Hesketh and a girl of eighteen who -possessed a good wrist but could not keep her head. -Harry was watching over his partner, quietly -advising her upon the ruses of the enemy, taking the more -difficult strokes for her, and generally imparting to -her the quality which she lacked. Harry was fully -engaged; the whole of his brain and body was at strain; -he let nothing go by; he missed no chance, and within -the laws of the game he hesitated at no stratagem. -And he was beating young Truscott and Mrs. Rotherwas, -while an increasing and polite audience looked on. -To the entering party, the withdrawn scene, lit by -sunshine, appeared as perfect as a stage-show, with -its trees, lawn, flowers, toilettes, the flying balls, the -grace of the players, and the grey solidity of the -governor's house in the background.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Alicia ran gawkily to Janet, who had got a box of -chocolates from somewhere, and one of the men -followed her, laughing. Hilda sat apart; she was less -pale. Edwin remained cautiously near her. He had -not left her side since she lurched against him in the -corridor. He knew; he had divined that that which he -most feared had come to pass,--the supreme punishment -of Hilda's morbidity. He had not definitely -recognised George Cannon, for he was not acquainted with -him, and in the past had only once or twice by chance -caught sight of him in the streets of Bursley or -Turnhill. But he had seen among the six captives one who -might be he, and who certainly had something of the -Five Towns look. Hilda's lurch told him that by -vindictiveness of fate George Cannon was close to -them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had ignored his own emotion. The sudden transient -weight of Hilda's body had had a strange moral -effect upon him. "This," he thought, "is the burden -I have to bear. This, and not lithography, nor riches, -is my chief concern. She depends on me. I am all -she has to stand by." The burden with its immense -and complex responsibilities was sweet to his inmost -being; and it braced him and destroyed his resentment -against her morbidity. His pity was pure. He felt -that he must live more nobly--yes, more heroically--than -he had been living; that all irritable pettiness -must drop away from him, and that his existence in -her regard must have simplicity and grandeur. The -sensation of her actual weight stayed with him. He -had not spoken to her; he dared not; he had scarcely -met her eyes; but he was ready for any emergency. -Every now and then, in the garden, Hilda glanced -over her shoulder at the house, as though her gaze -could pierce the house and see the sinister prison beyond.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The set ended, to Harry Hesketh's satisfaction; and, -another set being arranged, he and Mrs. Rotherwas, -athletic in a short skirt and simple blouse, came -walking, rather flushed and breathless, round the garden -with one or two others, including Harry's late -partner. The conversation turned upon the great South -Wales colliery strike against a proposed reduction -of wages. Mrs. Rotherwas' husband was a colliery -proprietor near Monmouth, and she had just received -a letter from him. Everyone sympathised with her -and her husband, and nobody could comprehend the -wrongheadedness of the miners, except upon the -supposition that they had been led away by mischievous -demagogues. As the group approached, the timid -young girl, having regained her nerve, was exclaiming -with honest indignation: "The leaders ought to be -shot, and the men who won't go down the pits ought to -be forced to go down and made to work." And she -picked at fluff on her yellow frock. Edwin feared an -uprising from Hilda, but naught happened. Mrs. Rotherwas -spoke about tea, though it was rather early, -and they all, Hilda as well, wandered to a large yew -tree under which was a table; through the pendant -branches of the tree the tennis could be watched as -through a screen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The prison clock tolled the hour over the roofs of -the house, and Mrs. Rotherwas gave the definite signal -for refreshments.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're exhausted," she said teasingly to Harry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll see," said Harry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," Mrs. Rotherwas delightfully relented. "You're -a dear, and I love to watch you play. I'm sure you -could give Mr. Truscott half fifteen."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Think so?" said Harry, pleased, and very conscious -that he was living fully.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You see what it is to have an object in life, -Hesketh," Edwin remarked suddenly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Harry glanced at him doubtfully, and yet with a -certain ingenuous admiration. At the same time a -white ball rolled near the tree. He ducked under the -trailing branches, returned the ball, and moved slowly -towards the court.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Alicia tells me you're very old friends of theirs," -said Mrs. Rotherwas, agreeably, to Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda smiled quietly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, we are, both of us."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Who could have guessed, now, that her condition was -not absolutely normal?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Charming people, aren't they, the Heskeths?" said -Mrs. Rotherwas. "Perfectly charming. They're an -ideal couple. And I do like their house, it's so -deliciously quaint, isn't it, Mary?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Lovely," agreed the young girl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was an ideal world, full of ideal beings.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Soon after tea the irresistible magnetism of Alicia's -babies drew Alicia off the moor, and with her the -champion player, Janet, Hilda and Edwin. Mrs. Rotherwas -let them go with regret, adorably expressed. -Harry would have liked to stay, but on the other hand -he was delightfully ready to yield to Alicia.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>On arriving at Tavy Mansion Hilda announced that -she should lie down. She told Edwin, in an exhausted -but friendly voice, that she needed only rest, and he -comprehended, rightly, that he was to leave her. Not -a word was said between them as to the events within -the prison. He left her, and spent the time before -dinner with Harry Hesketh, who had the idea of -occupying their leisure with a short game of bowls, for -which it was necessary to remove the croquet hoops.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda undressed and got into bed. Soon afterwards -both Alicia, with an infant, and Janet came to see her. -Had Janet been alone, Hilda might conceivably in her -weakness have surrendered the secret to her in -exchange for that soft and persuasive sympathy of which -Janet was the mistress, but the presence of Alicia made -a confidence impossible, and Hilda was glad. She -plausibly fibbed to both sisters, and immediately -afterwards the household knew that Hilda would not appear -at dinner. There was not the slightest alarm or -apprehension, for the affair explained itself in the -simplest way,--Hilda had had a headache in the -morning, and had been wrong to go out; she was now -merely paying for the indiscretion. She would be -quite recovered the next day. Alicia whispered a word -to her husband, who, besides, was not apt easily to -get nervous about anything except his form at games. -Edwin also, with his Five Towns habit of mind, soberly -belittled the indisposition. The household remained -natural and gay. When Edwin went upstairs to -prepare for dinner, moving very quietly, his wife had -her face towards the wall and away from the light. -He came round the bed to look at her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm all right," she murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Want nothing at all?" he asked, with nervous -gruffness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She shook her head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Very impatiently she awaited his departure, -exasperated more than she had ever been by his precise -deliberation over certain details of his toilet. As soon -as he was gone she began to cry; but the tears came -so gently from her eyes that the weeping was as passive, -as independent of volition, as the escape of blood -from a wound.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had a grievance against Edwin. At the crisis in -the prison she had blamed herself for not submitting -to his guidance, but now she had reacted against all -such accusations, and her grievance amounted to just -an indictment of his commonsense, his quietude, his -talent for keeping out of harm's way, his lack of -violent impulses, his formidable respectability. She was -a rebel; he was not. He would never do anything -wrong, or even perilous. Never, never would he find -himself in need of a friend's help. He would always -direct his course so that society would protect him. -He was a firm part of the structure of society; he was -the enemy of impulses. When he foresaw a danger, -the danger was always realised: she had noticed that, -and she resented it. He was infinitely above the George -Cannons of the world. He would be incapable of -bigamy, incapable of being caught in circumstances -which could bring upon him suspicion of any crime -whatever. Yet for her the George Cannons had a -quality which he lacked, which he could never possess, -and which would have impossibly perfected him--a -quality heroic, foolish, martyr-like! She was almost -ready to decide that his complete social security was -due to cowardice and resulted in self-righteousness! ... Could -he really feel pity as she felt it, for the -despised and rejected, and a hatred of injustice equal -to hers?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>These two emotions were burning her up. Again -and again, ceaselessly, her mind ran round the circle -of George Cannon's torture and the callousness of -society. He had sinned, and she had loathed him; but -both his sin and her loathing were the fruit of passion. -He had been a proud man, and she had shared his -pride; now he was broken, unutterably humiliated, and -she partook of his humiliation. The grotesque and -beaten animal in the corridor was all that society had -left of him who had once inspired her to acts of -devotion, who could make her blush, and to satisfy whom -she would recklessly spend herself. The situation was -intolerable, and yet it had to be borne. But surely -it must be ended! Surely at the latest on the morrow -the prisoner must be released, and soothed and -reinstated! ... Pardoned? No! A pardon was an -insult, worse than an insult. She would not listen to the -word. Society might use it for its own purposes; but -she would never use it. Pardon a man after deliberately -and fiendishly achieving his ruin? She could -have laughed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Exhaustion followed, tempering emotion and reducing -it to a profound despairing melancholy that was -stirred at intervals by frantic revolt. The light failed. -The windows became vague silver squares. Outside -fowls clucked, a horse's hoof clattered on stones; -servants spoke to each other in their rough, good-natured -voices. The peace of the world had its effect on -her, unwilling though she was. Then there was a -faint tap at the door. She made no reply, and shut -her eyes. The door gently opened, and someone tripped -delicately in. She heard movements at the washstand.... -One of the maids. A match was struck. The -blinds were stealthily lowered, the curtains drawn; -garments were gathered together, and at last the -door closed again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She opened her eyes. The room was very dimly -illuminated. A night-light, under a glass hemisphere -of pale rose, stood on the dressing-table. By magic, -order had been restored; a glinting copper ewer of -hot water stood in the whiteness of the basin with a -towel over it; the blue blinds, revealed by the -narrowness of the red curtains, stirred in the depths of the -windows; each detail of the chamber was gradually -disclosed, and the chamber was steeped in the first -tranquillity of the night. Not a sound could be heard. -Through the depths of her bitterness, there rose slowly -the sensation of the beauty of existence even in its -sadness....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A long time afterwards it occurred to her in the -obscurity that the bed was tumbled. She must have -turned over and over. The bed must be arranged -before Edwin came. He had to share it. After all, he -had committed no fault; he was entirely innocent. -She and fate between them had inflicted these difficulties -and these solicitudes upon him. He had said little -or nothing, but he was sympathetic. When she had -stumbled against him she had felt his upholding -masculine strength. He was dependable, and would be -dependable to the last. The bed must be creaseless when -he came; this was the least she could do. She arose. -Very faintly she could descry her image in the mirror -of the great wardrobe--a dishevelled image. Forgetting -the bed, she bathed her face, and, unusually, took -care to leave the washstand as tidy as the maid had -left it. Then, having arranged her hair, she set about -the bed. It was not easy for one person unaided to -make a wide bed. Before she had finished she heard -footsteps outside the door. She stood still. Then she -heard Edwin's voice:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't trouble, thanks. I'll take it in myself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He entered, carrying a tray, and shut the door, and -instantly she busied herself once more with the bed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My poor girl," he said with quiet kindliness, "what -are you doing?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm just putting the bed to rights," she answered, -and almost with a single movement she slid back into -the bed. "What have you got there?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought I'd ask for some tea for you," he said. -"Nearly the whole blessed household wanted to come -and see you, but I wouldn't have it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She could not say: "It's very nice of you." But -she said, simply to please him: "I should like some -tea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He put the tray on the dressing-table; then lit three -candles, two on the dressing-table and one on the -night-table, and brought the tray to the night-table.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He himself poured out the tea, and offered the cup. -She raised herself on an elbow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you recognise him?" she muttered suddenly, -after she had blown on the tea to cool it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Under ordinary conditions Edwin would have -replied to such an unprepared question with another, -petulant and impatient: "Recognise who?" pretending -that he did not understand the allusion. But now he -made no pretences.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not quite," he said. "But I knew at once. I could -see which of them it must be."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The subject at last opened between them, Hilda felt -an extraordinary solace and relief. He stood by the -bedside, in black, with a great breastplate of white, his -hair rough, his hands in his pockets. She thought he -had a fine face; she thought of him as, at such a time, -her superior; she wanted powerfully to adopt his -attitude, to believe in everything he said. They were -talking together in safety, quietly, gravely, amicably, -withdrawn and safe in the strange house--he benevolent -and assuaging and comprehending, she desiring the -balm which he could give. It seemed to her that they -had never talked to each other in such tones.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Isn't it awful--awful?" she exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It is," said Edwin, and added carefully, tenderly: -"I suppose he </span><em class="italics">is</em><span> innocent."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She might have flown at him: "That's just like -you--to assume he isn't!" But she replied:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm quite sure of it. I say--I want you to read all -the letters I've had from Mrs. Cannon. I've got them -here. They're in my bag there. Read them now. -Of course I always meant to show them to you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," he agreed, drew a chair to the dressing-table -where the bag was, found the letters, and read -them. She waited, as he read one letter, put it down, -read another, laid it precisely upon the first one, with -his terrible exactitude and orderliness, and so on -through the whole packet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said he at the end, "I should say he's innocent -this time, right enough."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But something ought to be done!" she cried. "Don't -you think something ought to be done, Edwin?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Something has been done. Something is being done."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But something else!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He got up and walked about the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's only one thing to be done," he said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He came towards her, and stood over her again, and -the candle on the night-table lighted his chin and the -space between his eyelashes and his eyebrows. He -timidly touched her hair, caressing it. They were -absolutely at their ease together in the intimacy of the -bedroom. In her brief relations with George Cannon -there had not been time to establish anything like such -intimacy. With George Cannon she had always had -the tremors of the fawn.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Wait. That's all. It's not the slightest use trying -to hurry these public departments. You can't do it. -You only get annoyed for nothing at all. You can -take that from me, my child."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He spoke with such delicate persuasiveness, such an -evident desire to be helpful, that Hilda was convinced -and grew resigned. It did not occur to her that he -had made a tremendous resolve which had raised him -above the Edwin she knew. She thought she had -hitherto misjudged and underrated him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wanted to explain to you about that ten pounds," -she said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's all right--that's all right," said he hastily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But I </span><em class="italics">must</em><span> tell you. You saw Mrs. Cannon's letter -asking me for money. Well, I borrowed the ten -pounds from Janet. So of course I had to pay it back, -hadn't I?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How is Janet?" he asked in a new, lighter tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She seems to be going on splendidly, don't you -think so?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well then, we'll go home to-morrow."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall we?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She lifted her arms and he bent. She was crying. -In a moment she was sobbing. She gave him violent -kisses amid her sobs, and held him close to her until -the fit passed. Then she said, in her voice reduced to -that of a child:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What time's the train?"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-ghost"><span class="large">CHAPTER XVI</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE GHOST</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>It was six-thirty. The autumn dusk had already -begun to fade; and in the damp air, cold, grimy, and -vaporous, men with scarves round their necks and girls -with shawls over their heads, or hatted and even gloved, -were going home from work past the petty shops where -sweets, tobacco, fried fish, chitterlings, groceries, and -novelettes were sold among enamelled advertisements -of magic soaps. In the feeble and patchy illumination -of the footpaths, which left the middle of the streets -and the upper air all obscure, the chilled, preoccupied -people passed each other rapidly like phantoms, -emerging out of one mystery and disappearing into another. -Everywhere, behind the fanlights and shaded windows -of cottages, domesticity was preparing the warm -relaxations of the night. Amid the streets of little -buildings the lithographic establishment, with a yellow -oblong here and there illuminated in its dark façades, -stood up high, larger than reality, more important and -tyrannic, one of the barracks, one of the prisons, one -of the money-works where a single man or a small -group of men by brains and vigour and rigour -exploited the populace.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, sitting late in his private office behind those -façades, was not unaware of the sensation of being an -exploiter. By his side on the large flat desk lay a copy -of the afternoon's </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span> containing an account of -the breaking up by police of an open-air meeting of -confessed anarchists on the previous day at -Manchester. Manchester was, and is still, physically and -morally, very close to the Five Towns, which respect -it more than they respect London. An anarchist -meeting at Manchester was indeed an uncomfortable -portent for the Five Towns. Enormous strikes, like civil -wars at stalemate, characterised the autumn as they -had characterised the spring, affecting directly or -indirectly every industry, and weakening the prestige -of government, conventions, wealth, and success. -Edwin was successful. It was because he was successful -that he was staying late and that a clerk in the outer -office was staying late and that windows were -illuminated here and there in the façades. Holding in his -hand the wage-book, he glanced down the long column -of names and amounts. Some names conveyed nothing -to him; but most of them raised definite images in his -mind--of big men, roughs, decent clerks with wristbands, -undersized pale machinists, intensely respectable -skilled artisans and daughtsmen, thin ragged lads, -greasy, slatternly, pale girls, and one or two fat -women,--all dirty, and working with indifference in -dirt. Most of them kowtowed to him; some did not; -some scowled askance. But they were all dependent -on him. Not one of them but would be prodigiously -alarmed and inconvenienced--to say nothing of going -hungry--if it he did not pay wages the next morning. -The fact was he could distribute ruin with a gesture -and nobody could bring him to book....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Something wrong! Under the influence of strikes -and anarchist meetings he felt with foreboding and even -with a little personal alarm that something was wrong. -Those greasy, slatternly girls, for instance, with their -coarse charm and their sexuality,--they were -underpaid. They received as much as other girls, on -pot-banks, perhaps more, but they were underpaid. What -chance had they? He was getting richer every day, -and safer (except for the vague menace); yet he could -not appreciably improve their lot, partly for business -reasons, partly because any attempt to do so would -bring the community about his ears and he would be -labelled as a doctrinaire and a fool, and partly -because his own commonsense was against such a move. -Not those girls, not his works, not this industry and -that, was wrong. All was wrong. And it was -impossible to imagine any future period when all would -not be wrong. Perfection was a desolating thought. -Nevertheless the struggle towards it was instinctive -and had to go on. The danger was (in Edwin's eyes) -of letting that particular struggle monopolise one's -energy. Well, he would not let it. He did a little -here and a little there, and he voted democratically -and in his heart was most destructively sarcastic about -toryism; and for the rest he relished the adventure of -existence, and took the best he conscientiously could, -and thought pretty well of himself as a lover of his -fellowmen. If he was born to be a master, he would -be one, and not spend his days in trying to overthrow -mastery. He was tired that evening, he had a slight -headache, he certainly had worries; but he was not -unhappy on the throbbing, tossing steamer of -humanity. Nobody could seem less adventurous than he -seemed, with his timidities and his love of moderation, -comfort, regularity and security. Yet his -nostrils would sniff to the supreme and all-embracing -adventure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He heard Hilda's clear voice in the outer office: -"Mr. Clayhanger in there?" and the clerk's somewhat -nervously agitated reply, repeating several times in -eager affirmative. And he himself, the master, though -still all alone in the sanctum, at once pretended to -be very busy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her presence would thus often produce an excitation -in the organism of the business. She was so -foreign to it, so unsoiled by it, so aloof from it, so -much more gracious, civilised, enigmatic than -anything that the business could show! And, fundamentally, -she was the cause of the business; it was all for -her; it existed with its dirt, noise, crudity, strain, and -eternal effort so that she might exist in her elegance, -her disturbing femininity, her restricted and deep -affections, her irrational capriciousness, and her -strange, brusque commonsense. The clerks and some -of the women felt this; Big James certainly felt it; and -Edwin felt it, and denied it to himself, more than -anybody. There was no economic justice in the arrangement. -She would come in veiled, her face mysterious -behind the veil, and after a few minutes she would -delicately lift her gloved fingers to the veil, and raise -it, and her dark, pale, vivacious face would be -disclosed. "Here I am!" And the balance was even, her -debt paid! That was how it was.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the month that had passed since the visit to -Dartmoor, Edwin, despite his resolve to live heroically -and philosophically, had sometimes been forced into -the secret attitude: "This woman will kill me, but -without her I shouldn't be interested enough to live." He -was sometimes morally above her to the point of -priggishness, and sometimes incredibly below her; but -for the most part living in a different dimension. She -had heard nothing further from Mrs. Cannon; she -knew nothing of the bigamist's fate, though more than -once she had written for news. Her moods were -unpredictable and disconcerting, and as her moods -constituted the chief object of Edwin's study the effect on -him was not tranquillising. At the start he had risen -to the difficulty of the situation; but he could not -permanently remain at that height, and the situation -had apparently become stationary. His exasperations, -both concealed and open, were not merely unworthy of -a philosopher, they were unworthy of a common man. -"Why be annoyed?" he would say to himself. But he -was annoyed. "The tone--the right tone!" he would -remind himself. Surely he could remember to -command his voice to the right tone? But no! He could -not. He could infallibly remember to wind up his -watch, but he could not remember that. Moreover, he -felt, as he had felt before, on occasions, that no amount -of right tone would keep their relations smooth, for -the reason that principles were opposed. Could she not -see? ... Well, she could not. There she was, entire, -unalterable--impossible to chip inconvenient pieces off -her--you must take her or leave her; and she could -not see, or she would not--which in practice was the -same thing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And yet some of the most exquisite moments of their -union had occurred during that feverish and unquiet -month--moments of absolute surrender and devotion -on her part, of protective love on his; and also long -moments of peace. With the early commencement of -autumn, all the family had resumed the pursuit of -letters with a certain ardour. A startling feminist -writer, and the writer whose parentage and whose very -name lay in the Five Towns, who had re-created the -East and whose vogue was a passion among the -lettered--both these had published books whose success -was extreme and genuine. And in the curtained gas-lit -drawing-room of a night Hilda would sit rejoicing over -the triumphant satire of the woman-novelist, and -Edwin and George would lounge in impossible postures, -each mesmerised by a story of the Anglo-Indian; and -between chapters Edwin might rouse himself from the -enchantment sufficiently to reflect: "How indescribably -agreeable these evenings are!" And ten to one -he would say aloud, with false severity: "George! -Bed!" And George, a fine judge of genuineness in -severity, would murmur carelessly: "All right! I'm -going!" And not go.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And now Edwin in the office thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's come to fetch me away."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was gratified. But he must not seem to be -gratified. The sanctity of business from invasion had -to be upheld. He frowned, feigning more diligently -than ever to be occupied. She came in, with that air -at once apologetic and defiant that wives have in -affronting the sacred fastness. Nobody could have -guessed that she had ever been a business woman, -arriving regularly at just such an office every morning, -shorthand-writing, twisting a copying-press, filing, -making appointments. Nobody could have guessed -that she had ever been in business for herself, and had -known how sixpence was added to sixpence and a week's -profit lost in an hour. All such knowledge had -apparently dropped from her like an excrescence, had -vanished like a temporary disfigurement, and she looked -upon commerce with the uncomprehending, careless, -and yet impressed eyes of a young girl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello, missis!" he exclaimed casually.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then George came in. Since the visit to Dartmoor -Hilda had much increased her intimacy with George, -spending a lot of time with him, walking with him, and -exploring in a sisterly and reassuring manner his most -private life. George liked it, but it occasionally irked -him and he would give a hint to Edwin that mother -needed to be handled at times.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't come in here, George," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, can I go into the engine-house?" George -suggested. Edwin had always expected that he would -prefer the machine-room. But the engine-house was -his haunt, probably because it was dirty, fiery, and -stuffy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you can't," said Edwin. "Pratt's gone by -this, and it's shut up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, it isn't. Pratt's there."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shut the door, dear," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hooray!" George ran off and banged the glass door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, glancing by habit at the unsightly details -of the deteriorating room, walked round the desk. -With apprehension Edwin saw resolve and -perturbation in her face. He was about to say: "Look -here, infant, I'm supposed to be busy." But he -refrained.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Holding out a letter which she nervously snatched -from her bag, Hilda said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've just had this--by the afternoon post. Read it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He recognised at once the sloping handwriting; -but the paper was different; it was a mere torn -half-sheet of very cheap notepaper. He read: "Dear -Mrs. Clayhanger. Just a line to say that my husband -is at last discharged. It has been weary waiting. -We are together, and I am looking after him. With -renewed thanks for your sympathy and help. Believe -me, Sincerely yours, Charlotte M. Cannon." The -signature was scarcely legible. There was no address, no -date.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's first flitting despicable masculine thought -was: "She doesn't say anything about that ten -pounds!" It fled. He was happy in an intense relief -that affected all his being. He said to himself: "Now -that's over, we can begin again."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," he murmured. "That's all right. Didn't I -always tell you it would take some time? ... That's -all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He gazed at the paper, waving it in his hand as he -held it by one corner. He perceived that it was the -letter of a jealous woman, who had got what she -wanted and meant to hold it, and entirely to herself; -and his mood became somewhat sardonic.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very curt, isn't it?" said Hilda strangely. "And -after all this time, too!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He looked up at her, turning his head sideways to -catch her eyes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That letter," he said in a voice as strange as -Hilda's, "that letter is exactly what it ought to be. -It could not possibly have been better turned.... -You don't want to keep it, I suppose, do you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," she muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He tore it into very small pieces, and dropped them -into the waste-paper-basket beneath the desk.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And burn all the others," he said, in a low tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin," after a pause.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you think George ought to know? Don't -you think one of us ought to tell him,--either you or -me? You might tell him?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tell him what?" Edwin demanded sharply, pushing -back his chair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, everything!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He glowered. He could feel himself glowering. He -could feel the justifiable anger animating him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not!" he enunciated resentfully, -masterfully, overpoweringly. "Certainly not!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But supposing he hears from outsiders?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't begin supposing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But he's bound to have to know sometime."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Possibly. But he isn't going to know now, any -road! Not with my consent. The thing's absolute -madness."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda almost whispered:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, dear. If you think so."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I do think so."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He suddenly felt very sorry for her. He was ready -to excuse her astounding morbidity as a consequence -of extreme spiritual tribulation. He added with -brusque good-nature:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And so will you, in the morning, my child."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall you be long?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. I told you I should be late. If you'll run -off, my chuck, I'll undertake to be after you in half -an hour."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is your headache better?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. On the other hand, it isn't worse."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He gazed fiercely at the wages-book.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She bent down.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Kiss me," she murmured tearfully.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he kissed her, and as she pressed against him, he -absorbed and understood all the emotions through -which she had passed and was passing, and from him -to her was transmitted an unimaginable tenderness -that shamed and atoned for the inclemency of his -refusals. He was very happy. He knew that he would -not do another stroke of work that night, but still he -must pretend to do some. Playfully, without rising, -he drew down her veil, smacked her gently on the back, -and indicated the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I have to call at Clara's about that wool for -Maggie," she said, with courage. His fingering of her veil -had given her extreme pleasure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll bring the kid up," he said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She departed, leaving the door unlatched.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>A draught from the outer door swung wide-open the -unlatched door of Edwin's room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What are doors for?" he muttered, pleasantly -impatient; then he called aloud:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Simpson. Shut the outer door--and this one, too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was no answer. He arose and went to the -outer office. Hilda had passed through it like an -arrow. Simpson was not there. But a man stood -leaning against the mantelpiece; he held at full spread -a copy of the </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span>, which concealed all the upper -part of him except his fingers and the crown of his -head. Though the gas had been lighted in the middle -of the room, it must have been impossible for him to -read by it, since it shone through the paper. He -lowered the newspaper with a rustle and looked at Edwin. -He was a big, well-dressed man, wearing a dark grey -suit, a blue Melton overcoat, and a quite new glossy -"boiler-end" felt hat. He had a straight, prominent -nose, and dark, restless eyes, set back; his short hair -was getting grey, but not his short black moustache.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Were you waiting to see me?" Edwin said, in a -defensive, half-hostile tone. The man might be a -belated commercial traveller of a big house--some of -those fellows considered themselves above all laws; on -the other hand he might be a new; customer in a -hurry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," was the reply, in a deep, full and yet uncertain -voice. "The clerk said you couldn't be disturbed, -and asked me to wait. Then he went out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What can I do for you? It's really after hours, -but some of us are working a bit late."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The man glanced at the outer door, which Edwin -was shutting, and then at the inner door, which -exposed Edwin's room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm George Cannon," he said, advancing a step, as -it were defiantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>For an instant Edwin was frightened by the sudden -melodrama of the situation. Then he thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I am up against this man. This is a crisis."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And he became almost agreeably aware of his own -being. The man stood close to him, under the gas, -with all the enigmatic quality of another being. He -could perceive now--at any rate he could believe--that -it was George Cannon. Forgetful of what the -man had suffered, Edwin felt for him nothing but the -instinctive inimical distrust of the individual who has -never got at loggerheads with society for the individual -who once and for always has. To this feeling was -added a powerful resentment of the man's act in -coming--especially unannounced--to just </span><em class="italics">him</em><span>, the -husband of the woman he had dishonoured. It was a -monstrous act--and doubtless an act characteristic -of the man. It was what might have been expected. -The man might have been innocent of a particular -crime, might have been falsely imprisoned; but what -had he originally been doing, with what rascals had -he been consorting, that he should be even suspected -of crime? George Cannon's astonishing presence, so -suddenly after his release, at the works of Edwin -Clayhanger, was unforgiveable. Edwin felt an impulse -to say savagely:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Look here. You clear out. You understand -English, don't you? Hook it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But he had not the brutality to say it. Moreover, -the clerk returned, carrying, full to the brim, the tin -water-receptacle used for wetting the damping-brush -of the copying-press.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you come in, please?" said Edwin curtly. -"Simpson, I'm engaged."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The two men went into the inner room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sit down," said Edwin grimly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George Cannon, with a firm gesture, planted his hat -on the flat desk between them. He looked round -behind him at the shut glazed door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't be afraid," said Edwin. "Nobody can -hear--unless you shout."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He gazed curiously but somewhat surreptitiously at -George Cannon, trying to decide whether it was -possible to see in him a released convict. He decided that -it was not possible. George Cannon had a shifty, but -not a beaten, look; many men had a shifty look. His -hair was somewhat short, but so was the hair of many -men, if not of most. He was apparently in fair health; -assuredly his constitution had not been ruined. And -if his large, coarse features were worn, marked with -tiny black spots, and seamed and generally ravaged, -they were not more ravaged than the features of -numerous citizens of Bursley aged about fifty who saved -money, earned honours, and incurred the envy of -presumably intelligent persons. And as he realised all -this, Edwin's retrospective painful alarm as to what -might have happened if Hilda had noticed George -Cannon in the outer office lessened until he could dismiss -it entirely. By chance she had ignored Cannon, -perhaps scarcely seeing him in her preoccupied passage, -perhaps taking him vaguely for a customer; but -supposing she </span><em class="italics">had</em><span> recognised him, what then? There -would have been an awkward scene--nothing more. -Awkward scenes do not kill; their effect is transient. -Hilda would have had to behave, and would have -behaved, with severe commonsense. He, Edwin himself, -would have handled the affair. A demeanour matter-of-fact -and impassible was what was needed. After -all, a man recently out of prison was not a wild beast, -nor yet a freak. Hundreds of men were coming out -of prisons every day.... He should know how to -deal with this man--not pharisaically, not cruelly, not -unkindly, but still with a clear indication to the man -of his reprehensible indiscretion in being where he then -was.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did she recognise me--down there--Dartmoor?" -asked George Cannon, without any preparing of the -ground, in a deep, trembling voice; and as he spoke a -flush spread slowly over his dark features.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Er--yes!" answered Edwin, and his voice also -trembled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wasn't sure," said George Cannon. "We were -halted before I could see. And I daren't look round--I -should ha' been punished. I've been punished before -now for looking up at the sky at exercise." He spoke -more quickly and then brought himself up with a snort. -"However, I've not come all the way here to talk prison, -so you needn't be afraid. I'm not one of your reformers."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In his weak but ungoverned nervous excitement, from -which a faint trace of hysteria was not absent, he now -seemed rather more like an ex-convict, despite his good -clothes. He had become, to Edwin's superior -self-control, suddenly wistful. And at the same time, the -strange opening question, and its accent, had stirred -Edwin, and he saw with remorse how much finer had -been Hilda's morbid and violent pity than his own -harsh commonsense and anxiety to avoid emotion. The -man in good clothes moved him more than the convict -had moved him. He seemed to have received vision, and -he saw not merely the unbearable pathos of George -Cannon, but the high and heavenly charitableness of -Hilda, which he had constantly douched, and his own -common earthliness. He was exceedingly humbled. -And he also thought, sadly: "This chap's still -attached to her. Poor devil!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What have you come for?" he enquired.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George Cannon cleared his throat. Edwin waited, -in fear, for the avowal. He could make nothing out -of the visitor's face; its expression was anxious and -drew sympathy, but there was something in it which -chilled the sympathy it invoked and which seemed to -say: "I shall look after myself." It yielded naught. -You could be sorry for the heart within, and yet -could neither like nor esteem it. "Punished for -looking up at the sky." ... Glimpses of prison life -presented themselves to Edwin's imagination. He -saw George Cannon again halted and turning like -a serf to the wall of the corridor. And this man -opposite to him, close to him in the familiar room, -was the same man as the serf! Was he the same -man? ... Inscrutable, the enigma of that -existence whose breathing was faintly audible across -the desk.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You know all about it--about my affair, of course?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Edwin. "I expect you know how much -I know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm an honest man--you know that. I needn't -begin by explaining that to you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin nerved himself:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You weren't honest towards Hilda, if it comes to that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He used his wife's Christian name, to this man with -whom he had never before spoken, naturally, inevitably. -He would not say "my wife." To have said "my wife" -would somehow have brought some muddiness upon -that wife, and by contact upon her husband.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"When I say 'honest' I mean--you know what I mean. -About Hilda--I don't defend that. Only I couldn't -help myself.... I daresay I should do it again." Edwin -could feel his eyes smarting and he blinked, and -yet he was angry with the man, who went on: "It's -no use talking about that. That's over. And I -couldn't help it. I had to do it. She's come out of -it all right. She's not harmed, and I thank God for -it! If there'd been a child living ... well, it would -ha' been different."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin started. This man didn't know he was a -father--and his son was within a few yards of -him--might come running in at any moment! (No! Young -George would not come in. Nothing but positive -orders would get the boy out of the engine-house so long -as the engine-man remained there.) Was it possible -that Hilda had concealed the existence of her child, -or had announced the child's death? If so, she had -never done a wiser thing, and such sagacity struck -him as heroic. But if Mrs. Cannon knew as to the -child, then it was Mrs. Cannon who, with equal -prudence and for a different end, had concealed its -existence from George Cannon or lied to him as to its -death. Certainly the man was sincere. As he said -"Thank God!" his full voice had vibrated like the voice -of an ardent religionist at a prayer-meeting.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George Cannon began again:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All I mean is I'm an honest man. I've been -damnably treated. Not that I want to go into that. No! -I'm a fatalist. That's over. That's done with. I'm -not whining. All I'm insisting on is that I'm not a -thief, and I'm not a forger, and I've nothing to hide. -Perhaps I brought my difficulties about that bank-note -business on myself. But when you've once been in -prison, you don't choose your friends--you can't. -Perhaps I might have ended by being a thief or a -forger, only on this occasion it just happens that I've -had a good six years for being innocent. I never did -anything wrong, or even silly, except let myself get too -fond of somebody. That might happen to anyone. -It did happen to me. But there's nothing else. You -understand? I never--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, yes, certainly!" said Edwin, stopping him as -he was about to repeat all the argument afresh. It -was a convincing argument.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No one's got the right to look down on me, I -mean," George Cannon insisted, bringing his face -forward over the desk. "On the contrary this country -owes me an apology. However, I don't want to go -into that. That's done with. Spilt milk's spilt. I -know what the world is."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I agree. I agree!" said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He did. The honesty of his intelligence admitted -almost too eagerly and completely the force of the -pleading.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said George Cannon, "to cut it short, I want -help. And I've come to you for it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Me!" Edwin feebly exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You, Mr. Clayhanger! I've come straight here -from London. I haven't a friend in the whole world, -not one. It's not everybody can say that. There was -a fellow named Dayson at Turnhill--used to work for -me--he'd have done something if he could. But he -was too big a fool to be able to; and besides, he's gone, -no address. I wrote to him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, that chap!" murmured Edwin, trying to find -relief in even a momentary turn of the conversation. -"I know who you mean. Shorthand-writer. He died -in the Isle of Man on his holiday two years ago. It -was in the papers."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">That's</em><span> his address, is it? Good old Dead Letter -Office! Well, he is crossed off the list, then; no -mistake!" Cannon snarled bitterly. "I'm aware you're -not a friend of mine. I've no claim on you. You -don't know me; but you know about me. When I -saw you in Dartmoor I guessed who you were, and -I said to myself you looked the sort of man who might -help another man.... Why did you come into the -prison? Why did you bring her there? You must -have known I was there." He spoke with a sudden -change to reproachfulness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't bring her there." Edwin blushed. "It -was---- However, we needn't go into that, if you -don't mind."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Was she upset?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Cannon sighed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you want me to do?" asked Edwin gloomily. -In secret he was rather pleased that George Cannon -should have deemed him of the sort likely to help. -Was it the flattery of a mendicant? No, he did not -think it was. He believed implicitly everything the -man was saying.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Money!" said Cannon sharply. "Money! You -won't feel it, but it will save me. After all, Mr. Clayhanger, -there's a bond between us, if it comes to that. -There's a bond between us. And you've had all the -luck of it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Again Edwin blushed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But surely your wife--" he stammered. "Surely -Mrs. Cannon isn't without funds. Of course I know -she was temporarily rather short a while back, but -surely--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How do you know she was short?" Cannon grimly -interrupted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My wife sent her ten pounds--I fancy it was ten -pounds--towards expenses, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Cannon ejaculated, half to himself, savagely:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never told me!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He remained silent.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But I've always understood she's a woman of -property," Edwin finished.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Cannon put both elbows on the desk, leaned further -forward, and opened his mouth several seconds before -speaking.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Clayhanger, I've left my wife--as you call -her. If I'd stayed with her I should have killed her. -I've run off. Yes, I know all she's done for me. I -know without her I might have been in prison to-day -and for a couple o' years to come. But I'd sooner be -in prison or in hell or anywhere you like than with -Mrs. Cannon. She's an old woman. She always was -an old woman. She was nearly forty when she hooked -me, and I was twenty-two. And I'm young yet. I'm -not middle-aged yet. She's got a clear conscience, -Mrs. Cannon has. She always does her duty. She'd -let me walk over her, she'd never complain, if only she -could keep me. She'd just play and smile. Oh yes, -she'd turn the other cheek--and keep on turning it. -But she isn't going to have me. And for all she's -done I'm not grateful. Hag. That's what she is!" He -spoke loudly, excitedly, under considerable -emotion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh!" Edwin, alarmed, endeavoured gently to -soothe him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right! All right!" Cannon proceeded in a -lower but still impassioned voice. "But look here! -You're a man. You know what's what. You'll -understand what I mean. Believe me when I say that I -wouldn't live with that woman for eternal salvation. -I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I've taken some of her -money, only a little, and run off..." He paused, -and went on with conscious persuasiveness now: "I've -just got here. I had to ask your whereabouts. I -might have been recognised in the streets, but I haven't -been. I didn't expect to find you here at this time. -I might have had to sleep in the town to-night. I -wouldn't have come to your private house. Now I've -seen you I shall get along to Crewe to-night. I shall -be safer there. And it's on the way to Liverpool and -America. I want to go to America. With a bit o' -capital I shall be all right in America. It's my one -chance; but it's a good one. But I must have some -capital. No use landing in New York with empty -pockets."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Said Edwin, still shying at the main issues:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was under the impression you had been to -America once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, that's why I know. I hadn't any money. -And what's more," he added with peculiar emphasis, -"I was brought back."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall yield to this man."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At that instant he saw the shadow of Hilda's head -and shoulders on the glass of the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Excuse me a second," he murmured, bounded with -astonishing velocity out of the room, and pulled the -door to after him with a bang.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda, having observed the strange, excited gesture, -paused a moment, in an equally strange tranquillity, -before speaking. Edwin fronted her at the very door. -Then she said, clearly and deliberately, through her -veil:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Auntie Hamps has had an attack--heart. The -doctor says she can't possibly live through the night. -It was at Clara's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This was the first of Mrs. Hamps's fatal heart-attacks.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" breathed Edwin, with apparently a purely -artistic interest in the affair. "So that's it, is it? -Then she's at Clara's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What doctor?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I forget his name. Lives in Acre Lane. They -sent for the nearest. She can't get her breath--has -to fight for it. She jumped out of bed, struggling -to breathe."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you seen her?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. They made me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Albert there?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I suppose I'd better go round. You go -back. I'll follow you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was conscious of not the slightest feeling of -sorrow at the imminent death of Auntie Hamps. Even -the image of the old lady fighting to fetch her -breath scarcely moved him, though the deathbed of -his father had been harrowing enough. He and -Hilda had the same thought: "At last something -has happened to Auntie Hamps!" And it gave zest.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I must speak to you," said Hilda, low, and moved -towards the inner door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The clerk Simpson was behind them at his ink-stained -desk, stamping letters, and politely pretending -to be deaf.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," Edwin stopped her. "There's someone in -there. We can't talk there."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A customer?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes ... I say, Simpson. Have you done those -letters?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir," answered Simpson, smiling. He had -been recommended as a "very superior" youth, and -had not disappointed, despite a constitutional -nervousness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Take them to the pillar, and call at Mr. Benbow's -and tell them that I'll be round in about a quarter -of an hour. I don't know as you need come back. -Hurry up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin and Hilda watched Simpson go.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Whatever's the matter?" Hilda demanded in a low, -harsh voice, as soon as the outer door had clicked. -It was as if something sinister in her had been -suddenly released.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Matter? Nothing. Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You look so queer."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well--you come along with these shocks." He -gave a short, awkward laugh. He felt and looked -guilty, and he knew that he looked guilty.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You looked queer when you came out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've upset yourself, my child, that's all." He -now realised the high degree of excitement which he -himself, without previously being aware of it, had -reached.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin, who is it in there?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't I tell you--it's a customer."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He could see her nostrils twitching through, the -veil.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's George Cannon in there!" she exclaimed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He laughed again. "What makes you feel that?" -he asked, feeling all the while the complete absurdity -of such fencing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"When I ran out I noticed somebody. He was reading -a newspaper and I couldn't see him. But he just -moved it a bit, and I seemed to catch sight of the top -of his head. And when I got into the street I said -to myself, 'It looked like George Cannon,' and then -I said, 'Of course it couldn't be.' And then with this -business about Auntie Hamps the idea went right out -of my head."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, it is, if you want to know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her mysterious body and face seemed to radiate a -disastrous emotion that filled the whole office.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you know he was coming?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I did not. Hadn't the least notion!" The sensation -of criminality began to leave Edwin. As Hilda -seemed to move and waver, he added:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now you aren't going to see him!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And his voice menacingly challenged her, and defied -her to stir a step. The most important thing in the -world, then, was that Hilda should not see George -Cannon. He would stop her by force. He would let -himself get angry and brutal. He would show her -that he was the stronger. He had quite abandoned -his earlier attitude of unsentimental callousness which -argued that after all it wouldn't ultimately matter -whether they encountered each other or not. Far -from that, he was, so it appeared to him, standing -between them, desperate and determined, and acting -instinctively and conventionally. Their separate pasts, -each full of grief and tragedy, converged terribly upon -him in an effort to meet in just that moment, and he -was ferociously resisting.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What does he want?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He wants me to help him to go to America."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">You!</em><span>"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He says he hasn't a friend."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But what about his wife?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's just what I said.... He's left her. Says -he can't live with her."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was a silence, in which the tension -appreciably lessened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't live with her! Well, I'm not surprised. But -I do think it's strange, him coming to you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So do I," said Edwin drily, taking the upper hand; -for the change in Hilda's tone--her almost childlike -satisfaction in the news that Cannon would not live with -his wife--seemed to endow him with superiority. "But -there's a lot of strange things in this world. Now -listen here. I'm not going to keep him waiting; I -can't."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He then spoke very gravely, authoritatively and -ominously: "Find George and take him home at once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, impressed, gave a frown.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I think it's very wrong that you should be asked -to help him." Her voice shook and nearly broke. -"Shall you help him, Edwin?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall get him out of this town at once, and out -of the country. Do as I say. As things are he -doesn't know there is any George, and it's just as well -he shouldn't. But if he stays anywhere about, he's -bound to know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All Hilda's demeanour admitted that George Cannon -had never been allowed to know that he had a -son; and the simple candour of the admission -frightened Edwin by its very simplicity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now! Off you go! George is in the engine-house."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda moved reluctantly towards the outer-door, -like a reproved and rebellious schoolgirl. Suddenly -she burst into tears, sprang at Edwin, and, putting -her arms round his neck, kissed him through the veil.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nobody but you would have helped him--in your -place!" she murmured passionately, half admiring, -half protesting. And with a backward look as she -hurried off, her face stern and yet soft seemed to -appeal: "Help him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was at once deeply happy and impregnated -with a sense of the frightful sadness that lurks in the -hollows of the world. He stood alone with the flaring -gas, overcome.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>He went back to the private room, self-conscious -and rather tongue-tied, with a clear feeling of relief -that Hilda was disposed of, removed from the -equation--and not unsuccessfully. After the woman, to -deal with the man, in the plain language of men, seemed -simple and easy. He was astounded, equally, by the -grudging tardiness of Mrs. Cannon's information to -Hilda as to the release, and by the baffling, inflexible -detraction of Hilda's words: "Well, I'm not surprised." And -the flitting image of Auntie Hamps fighting for -life still left him untouched. He looked at George -Cannon, and George Cannon, with his unreliable eyes, -looked at him. He almost expected Cannon to say: -"Was that Hilda you were talking to out there?" But -Cannon seemed to have no suspicion that, in either -the inner or the outer room, he had been so close to -her. No doubt, when he was waiting by the -mantel-piece in the outer room, he had lifted the paper as -soon as he heard the door unlatched, expressly in order -to screen himself from observation. Probably he had -not even guessed that the passer was a woman. Had -Simpson been there, the polite young man would -doubtless have said: "Good night, Mrs. Clayhanger," -but Simpson had happened not to be there.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you going to help me?" asked George Cannon, -after a moment, and his heavy voice was so beseeching, -so humble, so surprisingly sycophantic, so fearful, that -Edwin could scarcely bear to hear it. He hated to -hear that one man could be so slavishly dependent on -another. Indeed, he much preferred Cannon's defiant, -half-bullying tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said he. "I shall do what I can. What do -you want?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A hundred pounds," said George Cannon, and, as -he named the sum, his glance was hard and steady.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was startled. But immediately he began to -readjust his ideas, persuading himself that after all -the man could not prudently have asked for less.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't give it you all now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Cannon's face lighted up in relief and joy. His -black eyes sparkled feverishly with the impatience of -an almost hopeless desire about to be satisfied. -Although he did not move, his self-control had for the -moment gone completely, and the secrets of his soul -were exposed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can you send it me--in notes? I can give you an -address in Liverpool." His voice could hardly utter -the words.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Wait a second," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He went to the safe let into the wall, of which he -was still so naïvely proud, and unlocked it with the -owner's gesture. The perfect fitting of the bright key, -the ease with which it turned, the silent, heavy swing -of the massive door on its hinges--these things gave -him physical as well as moral pleasure. He savoured -the security of his position and his ability to rescue -people from destruction. From the cavern of the safe -he took out a bag of gold, part of the money required -for wages on the morrow,--he would have to send to -the Bank again in the morning. He knew that the -bag contained exactly twenty pounds in half-sovereigns, -but he shed the lovely twinkling coins on the -desk and counted them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here," he said. "Here's twenty pounds. Take -the bag, too--it'll be handier," and he put the money -into the bag. Then a foolish, grand idea struck -him. "Write down the address on this envelope, will -you, and I'll send you a hundred to-morrow. You -can rely on it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eighty, you mean," muttered George Cannon.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Edwin, with affected nonchalance, blushing, -"a hundred. The twenty will get you over and -you'll have a hundred clear when you arrive on the -other side."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ye're very kind," said Cannon weakly. "I--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here. Here's the envelope. Here's a bit of -pencil." Edwin stopped him hastily. His fear of being -thanked made him harsh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While Cannon was nervously writing the address, -he noticed that the man's clumsy fingers were those of -a day-labourer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll get it all back. You'll see," said Cannon, as -he stood up to leave, holding his glossy felt hat in his -left hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't worry about that. I don't want it. You -owe me nothing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll have every penny back, and before long, too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin smiled, deprecating the idea.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, good luck!" he said. "You'll get to Crewe -all right. There's a train at Shawport at eight -seven."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They shook hands, and quitted the inner office. As -he traversed the outer office on his way forth, in front -of Edwin, Cannon turned his head, as if to say -something, but, confused, he said nothing and went on, and -at once he disappeared into the darkness outside. And -Edwin was left with a memory of his dubious eyes, hard -rather than confident, profoundly relieved rather than -profoundly grateful.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove!" Edwin murmured by himself. "Who'd -have thought it? ... They say those chaps always -turn up again like bad pennies, but I bet he -won't." Simultaneously he reflected upon the case of -Mrs. Cannon, deserted; but it did not excite his pity. He -fastened the safe, extinguished the lights, shut the -office, and prepared his mind for the visit to Auntie -Hamps.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda and her son were in the dining-room, in which -the table, set for a special meal--half-tea, half-supper--made -a glittering oblong of white. On the table, -among blue-and-white plates, and knives and forks, lay -some of George's shabby school-books. In most -branches of knowledge George privately knew that he -could instruct his parents--especially his mother. -Nevertheless that beloved outgrown creature was still -occasionally useful at home-lessons, as for instance in -"poetry." George, disdainful, had to learn some verses -each week, and now his mother held a book entitled -"The Poetry Reciter," while George mumbled with -imperfect verbal accuracy the apparently immortal -lines:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><span>Abou Ben Adhem, may his tribe increase,</span></div> -<div class="line"><span>Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.</span></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst"><span>His mother, however, scarcely regarded the book. -She knew the poem by heart, and had indeed recited -it to George, who, though he was much impressed by -her fire, could not by any means have been persuaded -to imitate the freedom of her delivery. His elocution -to-night was unusually bad, for the reason that he had -been pleasurably excited by the immense news of -Auntie Hamps's illness. Not that he had any grudge -against Auntie Hamps! His pleasure would have -been as keen in the grave illness of any other important -family connection, save his mother and Edwin. Such -notable events gave a sensational interest to domestic -life which domestic life as a rule lacked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then, through the half-open door of the dining-room -came the sound of Edwin's latch-key in the -front-door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's uncle!" exclaimed George, and jumped up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda stopped him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Put your books together," said she. "You know -uncle likes to go up to the bathroom before he does -anything!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was a fact that the precisian hated even to be -greeted, on his return home in the evening, until he came -downstairs from the bathroom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda herself collected the books and put them on -the sideboard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall I tell Ada?" George suggested, champing -the bit.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. Ada knows."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With deliberation Hilda tended the fire. Her mind -was in a state of emotional flux. Memories and -comparisons mournfully and yet agreeably animated it. -She thought of the days when she used to recite amid -enthusiasm in the old drawing-room of the Orgreaves; -and of the days when she was a wanderer, had no -home, no support, little security; and of the brief, -uncertain days with George Cannon; and of the -eternal days when her only assurance was the assurance -of disaster. She glanced at George, and saw in him -reminders of his tragic secret father now hidden away, -forced into the background, like something obscene. -Nearly every development of the present out of the -past seemed to her, now, to be tragic. Johnnie -Orgreave had of course not come back from his idyll with -the ripping Mrs. Chris Hamson; their seclusion was -not positively known; but the whole district knew that -the husband had begun proceedings and that the -Orgreave business was being damaged by the -incompetence of Jimmie Orgreave, whose deplorable wife had -a few days earlier been seen notoriously drunk in the -dress-circle of the Hanbridge Theatre Royal. Janet -was still at Tavy Mansion because there was no place -for her in the Five Towns. Janet had written to -Hilda, sadly, and the letter breathed her sense of her -own futility and superfluousness in the social scheme. -In one curt phrase, that very afternoon, the taciturn -Maggie, who very seldom complained, had disclosed -something of what it was to live day and night with -Auntie Hamps. Even Clara, the self-sufficient, -protected by an almost impermeable armour of conceit, -showed signs of the anxiety due to obscure chronic -disease and a husband who financially never knew -where he was. Finally, the last glories of Auntie -Hamps were sinking to ashes. Only Hilda herself was, -from nearly every point of view, in a satisfactory and -promising situation. She possessed love, health, -money, stability. When danger threatened, a quiet -and unfailingly sagacious husband was there to meet -and destroy it. Surely nothing whatever worth -mentioning, save the fact that she was distantly -approaching forty, troubled the existence of Hilda now; and -her age certainly did not trouble her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada entered with the hot dishes, and went out.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At length Hilda heard the bathroom door. She left -the dining-room, shutting the door on George, who -could take a hint very well--considering his years. -Edwin, brushed and spruce, was coming downstairs, -rubbing his clean hands with physical satisfaction. -He nodded amiably, but without smiling.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has he gone?" said Hilda, in a low voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin nodded. He was at the foot of the stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She did not offer to kiss him, having a -notion that he would prefer not to be kissed just -then.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How much did you give him?" She knew he would -not care for the question, but she could not help -putting it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He smiled, and touched her shoulder. She liked him -to touch her shoulder.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's all right," he said, with a faint condescension. -"Don't you worry about that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She did not press the point. He could be free -enough with information--except when it was -demanded. Some time later he would begin of his own -accord to talk.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How was Auntie Hamps?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, if anything, she's a bit easier. I don't mind -betting she gets over it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They went into the dining-room almost side by side, -and she enquired again about his headache.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The meal was tranquil. After a few moments Edwin -opened the subject of Auntie Hamps's illness with -some sardonic remarks upon the demeanour of Albert -Benbow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Auntie dying?" asked George with gusto.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin replied:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What are those schoolbooks doing there on the -sideboard? I thought it was clearly understood that -you were to do your lessons in your mother's boudoir."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He spoke without annoyance, but coldly. He was -aware that neither Hilda nor her son could -comprehend that to a bookman schoolbooks were not books, -but merely an eyesore. He did not blame them for -their incapacity, but he considered that an -arrangement was an arrangement.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother put them there," said the base George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you can take them away," said Edwin firmly. -"Run along now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George rose from his place between Hilda and -Edwin, and from his luscious plate, and removed the -books. Hilda watched him meekly go. His father, too, -had gone. Edwin was in the right; his position could -not be assailed. He had not been unpleasant, but he -had spoken as one sublimely confident that his order -would not be challenged. Within her heart Hilda -rebelled. If Edwin had been responsible for some act -contrary to one of her decrees, she would never in his -presence have used the tone that he used to enforce -obedience. She would have laughed or she would have -frowned, but she would never have been the polite -autocrat. Nor would he have expected her to play the rôle; -he would probably have resented it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Why? Were they not equals? No, they were not -equals. The fundamental unuttered assumption upon -which the household life rested was that they were -not equals. She might cross him, she might momentarily -defy him, she might torture him, she might drive -him to fury, and still be safe from any effective -reprisals, because his love for her made her necessary to -his being; but in spite of all that his will remained the -seat of government, and she and George were only the -Opposition. In the end, she had to incline. She was -the complement of his existence, but he was not the -complement of hers. She was just a parasite, though -an essential parasite. Why? ... The reason, she -judged, was economic, and solely economic. She -rebelled. Was she not as individual, as original, as he? -Had she not a powerful mind of her own, experience -of her own, ideals of her own? Was she not of a -nature profoundly and exceptionally independent?...</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her lot was unalterable. She had of course, not -the slightest desire to leave him; she was devoted to -him; what irked her was that, even had she had the -desire, she could not have fulfilled it, for she was too -old now, and too enamoured of comfort and security, -to risk such an enterprise. She was a captive, and -she recalled with a gentle pang, less than regret, the -days when she was unhappy and free as a man, when -she could say, "I will go to London," "I will leave -London," "I am deceived and ruined, but I am my -own mistress."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>These thoughts in the idyllic tranquillity of the -meal, mingled, below her smiling preoccupations of an -honoured house-mistress, with the thoughts of her love -for her husband and son and of their excellences, of -the masculine love which enveloped and shielded her, -of her security, of the tragedy of the bribed and -dismissed victim and villain, George Cannon, of the -sorrows of some of her friends, and of the dead. In -her heart was the unquiet whispering: "I submit, and -yet I shall never submit."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="george-s-eyes"><span class="large">BOOK III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">EQUILIBRIUM</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="large">CHAPTER XVII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">GEORGE'S EYES</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda sat alone in the boudoir, before the fire. She -had just come out of the kitchen, and she was -wearing the white uniform of the kitchen, unsuited for a -boudoir; but she wore it with piquancy. The -November afternoon had passed into dusk, and through the -window, over the roofs of Hulton Street, stars could -be seen in a darkening clear sky. After a very sharp -fall and rise of the barometer, accounting for heavy -rainstorms, the first frosts were announced, and -winter was on the doorstep. The hardy inhabitants of -the Five Towns, Hilda among them, were bracing -themselves to the discipline of winter, with its mud, -increased smuts, sleet, and damp, piercing chills; and -they were taking pleasure in the tonic prospect of -discomfort. The visitation had threatened ever since -September. Now it had positively come. Let it come! -Build up the fire, stamp the feet, and defy it! Hilda -was exhilarated, having been reawakened to the zest -and the romance of life, not merely by the onset of -winter, but by dramatic events in the kitchen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A little over three years had elapsed since the -closing of the episode of George Cannon, and for two of -those years Hilda had had peace in the kitchen. She -had been the firm mistress who knows what she wants, -and, knowing also how to handle the peculiar inmates -of the kitchen, gets it; she had been the mistress who -"won't put up with" all sorts of things, including -middle-age and ugliness in servants, and whom heaven -has spoilt by too much favour. Then the cook, with -the ingratitude of a cherished domestic, had fallen in -love and carried her passion into a cottage miles away -at Longshaw. And from that moment Hilda had -ceased to be the mistress who by firmness commands -fate; she had become as other mistresses. In a year -she had had five cooks, giving varying degrees of -intense dissatisfaction. She had even dismissed the slim -and constant Ada once, but, yielding to an outburst -of penitent affection, had withdrawn the notice. The -last cook, far removed from youthfulness or prettiness, -had left suddenly that day, after insolence, after -the discovery of secret beer and other vileness in the -attic-bedroom, after a scene in which Hilda had -absolutely silenced her, reducing ribaldry to sobs. Cook -and trunk expelled, Hilda had gone about the house -like a fumigation, and into the kitchen like the -embodiment of calm and gay efficiency. She would do the -cooking herself. She would show the kitchen that she -was dependent upon nobody. She had quickened the -speed of Ada, accused her "tartly," but not without -dry good-humour, of a disloyal secretiveness, and -counselled her to mind what she was about if she -wanted to get on in the world.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin knew nothing, for all had happened since his -departure to the works after midday dinner. He would -be back in due course, and George would be back, and -Tertius Ingpen (long ago reconciled) was coming for -the evening. She would show them all three what a -meal was, and incidentally Ada would learn what a -meal was. There was nothing like demonstrating to -servants that you could beat them easily at their own -game.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had just lived through her thirty-ninth birthday. -"Forty!" she had murmured to herself with a -shiver of apprehension, meaning that the next would -be the fortieth. It was an unpleasant experience. She -had told Edwin not to mention her birthday abroad. -Clumsy George had enquired: "Mother, how old are -you?" To which she had replied, "Lay-ours for -meddlers!" a familiar phrase whose origin none of them -understood, but George knew that it signified, "Mind -your own business." No! She had not been happy -on that birthday. She had gazed into the glass and -decided that she looked old, that she did not look old, -that she looked old, endlessly alternating. She was -not stout, but her body was solid, too solid; it had -no litheness, none whatever; it was absolutely set; the -cleft under the chin was quite undeniable, and the olive -complexion subtly ravaged. Still, not a hair of her -dark head had changed colour. It was perhaps her -soul that was greying. Her married life was fairly -calm. It had grown monotonous in ease and -tranquillity. The sharp, respectful admiration for her -husband roused in her by his handling of the Cannon -episode, had gradually been dulled. She had nothing -against him. Yet she had everything against him, -because apart from his grave abiding love for her he -possessed an object and interest in life, and because -she was a mere complement and he was not. She had -asked herself the most dreadful of questions: "Why -have I lived? Why do I go on living?" and had -answered: "Because of </span><em class="italics">them</em><span>," meaning Edwin and her -son. But it was not enough for her, who had once -been violently enterprising, pugnacious, endangered, -and independent. For after she had watched over -them she had energy to spare, and such energy was -not being employed and could not be employed. -Reading--a diversion! Fancy work--a detestable device -for killing time and energy! Social duties--ditto! -Charity--hateful! She had slowly descended into -marriage as into a lotus valley. And more than half her -life was gone. She could never detect that any other -married woman in the town felt as she felt. She could -never explain herself to Edwin, and indeed had not -tried to explain herself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Now the affair of the alcoholic cook, aided by -winter's first fillip, stimulated and brightened her. And -while thinking with a glance at the clock of the -precise moment when she must return to the kitchen and -put a dish down to the fire, she also thought, rather -hopefully and then quite hopefully, about the future of -her marriage. Her brain seemed to straighten and -correct itself, like the brain of one who, waking up in -the morning, slowly perceives that the middle-of-the-night -apprehensiveness about eventualities was all -awry in its pessimism. She saw that everything could -and must be improved, that the new life must begin. -Edwin needed to be inspired; she must inspire him. -He slouched more and more in his walk; he was more -and more absorbed in his business, quieter in the -evenings, more impatient in the mornings. Moreover, the -household machine had been getting slack. A general -tonic was required; she would administer it--and to -herself also. They should all feel the invigorating -ozone that very night. She would organise social -distractions; on behalf of the home she would reclaim from -the works those odd hours and half-hours of Edwin's -which it had imperceptibly filched. She would have -some new clothes, and she would send Edwin to the -tailor's. She would make him buy a dog-cart and a -horse. Oh! She could do it. She had the mastery of -him in many things when she chose to be aroused. In -a word, she would "branch out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was not sure that she would not prosecute a -campaign for putting Edwin on the Town Council, where he -certainly ought to be. It was his duty to take a share in -public matters, and ultimately to dominate the town. -Suggestions had already been made by wirepullers, and -unreflectively repulsed by the too casual Edwin. She -saw him mayor, and herself mayoress. Once, the prospect -of any such formal honour, with all that it entailed -of ceremoniousness and insincere civilities, would have -annoyed if not frightened her. But now she thought, -proudly and timidly and desirously, that she would -make as good a mayoress as most mayoresses, and that -she could set one or two of them an example in tact -and dignity. Why not? Of late neither mayors nor -mayoresses in the Five Towns had been what they used -to be. The grand tradition was apparently in -abeyance, the people who ought to carry it on seeming -somehow to despise it. She could remember mayors, -especially Chief Bailiffs at Turnhill, who imposed -themselves upon the imagination of the town. But -nowadays the name of a mayor was never a household word. -She had even heard Ingpen ask Edwin: "See, who is -the new mayor?" and Edwin start his halting answer: -"Let me see--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And she had still another and perhaps greater -ambition--to possess a country house. In her -fancy her country house was very like Alicia -Hesketh's house, Tavy Mansion, which she had never -ceased to envy. She felt that in a new home, spacious, -with space around it, she could really commence the -new life. She saw the place perfectly appointed and -functioning perfectly--no bother about smuts on -white curtains; no half-trained servants; none of the -base, confined, promiscuity of filthy Trafalgar Road; -and the Benbows and Auntie Hamps at least eight or -ten miles off! She saw herself driving Edwin to the -station in the morning, or perhaps right into Bursley -if she wanted to shop.... No, she would of course -shop at Oldcastle.... She would leave old Darius -Clayhanger's miracle-house without one regret. And in -the new life she would be always active, busy, dignified, -elegant, influential, and kind. And to Edwin she would -be absolutely indispensable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In these imaginings their solid but tarnished love -glittered and gleamed again. She saw naught but -the charming side of Edwin and the romantic side of -their union. She was persuaded that there really was -nobody like Edwin, and that no marriage had ever had -quite the mysterious, secretly exciting quality of hers. -She yearned for him to come home at once, to appear -magically in the dusk of the doorway. The mood was -marvellous.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The door opened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can I speak to you, m'm?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was the voice of Ada, somewhat perturbed. She -advanced a little and stood darkly in front of the -open doorway.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it, Ada?" Hilda asked curtly, without -turning to look at her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's--" Ada began and stopped.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda glanced round quickly, recognising now in the -voice a peculiar note with which experience had -familiarised her. It was a note between pertness and the -beginning of a sob, and it always indicated that Ada -was feeling more acutely than usual the vast injustice -of the worldly scheme. It might develop into tears; -on the other hand it might develop into mere insolence. -Hilda discerned that Ada was wearing neither cap nor -apron. She thought: "If this stupid girl wants -trouble, she has come to me at exactly and precisely -the right moment to get it. I'm not in the humour, -after all I've gone through to-day, to stand any -nonsense either from her or from anybody else."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it, Ada?" she repeated, with restraint, and -yet warningly. "And where's your apron and your cap?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In the kitchen, m'm."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, go and put them on, and then come and say -what you have to say," said Hilda, thinking: "I don't -give any importance to her cap and apron, but she -does."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was thinking I'd better give ye notice, m'm," said -Ada, and she said it pertly, ignoring the command.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The two women were alone together in the house. -Each felt it; each felt the large dark emptiness of the -house behind them, and the solid front and back doors -cutting them off from succour; each had to depend -entirely upon herself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda asked quietly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter now?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She knew that Ada's grievance would prove to be -silly. The girl had practically no commonsense. Not -one servant girl in a hundred had any appreciable -commonsense. And when girls happened to be "upset"--as -they were all liable to be, and as Ada by the -violent departure of the cook no doubt was--even such -minute traces of gumption as they possessed were -apt to disappear.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's no pleasing you, m'm!" said Ada. "The -way you talked to me in the kitchen, saying I was -always a-hiding things from ye. I've felt it very -much!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She threw her head back, and the gesture signified: -"I'm younger than you, and young men are always -running after me. And I can get a new situation any -time. And I've not gone back into my kitchen to -put my cap and apron on."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ada," said Hilda. "Shall I tell you what's wrong -with you? You're a little fool. You know you're -talking rightdown nonsense. You know that as well -as I do. And you know you'll never get a better place -than you have here. But you've taken an idea into -your head--and there you are! Now do be sensible. -You say you think you'd better give notice. Think -it over before you do anything ridiculous. Sleep on -it. We'll see how you feel in the morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I think I'd better give notice, m'm, especially seeing -I'm a fool, and silly," Ada persisted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda sighed. Her voice hardened slightly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So you'd leave me without a maid just at Christmas! -And that's all the thanks I get for all I've done -for you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, m'm. We've had such a queer lot of girls here -lately, haven't we?" The pertness was intensified. "I -don't hardly care to stay. I feel we sh'd both be -better for a change like."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was perhaps Ada's subtly insolent use of the word -"we" and "both" that definitely brought about a new -phase of the interview. Hilda suddenly lost all desire -for an amicable examination of the crisis.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, Ada," she said, shortly. "But remember -I shan't take you back again, whatever happens."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ada moved away, and then returned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Could I leave at once, m'm, same as cook?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda was astonished and outraged, despite all her -experience and its resulting secret sardonic cynicism in -regard to servants. The girl was ready to walk out -instantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And may I enquire where you'd go to?" asked -Hilda with a sneer. "At this time of night you couldn't -possibly get home to your parents."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" answered Ada brightly. "I could go to me -cousin's up at Toft End. And her could send down -a lad with a barrow for me box."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The plot, then, had been thought out. "Her -cousin's!" thought Hilda, and seemed to be putting -her finger on the cause of Ada's disloyalty. "Her -cousin's!" It was a light in a dark mystery. "Her -cousin's!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose you know you're forfeiting the wages -due to you the day after to-morrow?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall ask me cousin about that, m'm," said Ada, as -it were menacingly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should!" Hilda sarcastically agreed. "I certainly -should." And she thought with bitter resignation: -"She'll have to leave anyhow after this. She may as -well leave on the spot."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's those as'll see as I have me rights," said -Ada pugnaciously, with another toss of the head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda had a mind to retort in anger; but she -controlled herself. Already that afternoon she had -imperilled her dignity in the altercation with the cook. -The cook, however, had not Ada's ready tongue, and, -while the mistress had come off best against the cook, -she might through impulsiveness find herself worsted -by Ada's more youthful impudence, were it once unloosed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That will do, then, Ada," she said. "You can -go and pack your box first thing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In less than three quarters of an hour Ada was -gone, and her corded trunk lay just within the scullery -door, waiting the arrival of the cousin's barrow. -She had bumped it down the stairs herself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All solitary in the house, which had somehow been -transformed into a strange and unusual house, Hilda -wept. She had only parted with an unfaithful and -ungrateful servant, but she wept. She dashed into the -kitchen and began to do Ada's work, still weeping, and -she was savage against her own tears; yet they -continued softly to fall, misting her vision of fire and -utensils and earthenware vessels. Ada had left -everything in a moment; she had left the kettle on the fire, -and the grease in the square tin in which the -dinner-joint had been cooked, and the ashes in the fender, -and tea-leaves in the kitchen teapot and a cup and -saucer unwashed. She had cared naught for the -inconvenience she was causing; had shewn not the -slightest consideration; had walked off without a pang, -smilingly hoity-toity. And all servants were like that. -Such conduct might be due as much to want of -imagination, to a simple inability to picture to themselves -the consequences of certain acts, as to stark ingratitude; -but the consequences remained the same; and -Hilda held fiercely to the theory of stark ingratitude.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had made Ada; she had created her. When -Hilda engaged her, Ada was little more than an "oat-cake -girl,"--that is to say, one of those girls who earn -a few pence by delivering oat-cakes fresh from the stove -at a halfpenny each before breakfast at the houses -of gormandising superior artisans and the middle-classes. -True, she had been in one situation prior -to Hilda's, but it was a situation where she learnt -nothing and could have learnt nothing. Nevertheless, -she was very quick to learn, and in a month Hilda -had done wonders with her. She had taught her not -only her duties, but how to respect herself, to make -the best of herself, and favourably to impress others. -She had enormously increased Ada's value in the -universe. And she had taught her some worldly wisdom, -and permitted and even encouraged certain coquetries, -and in the bed-room during dressings and undressings -had occasionally treated her as a soubrette if not as a -confidante; had listened to her at length, and had gone -so far as to ask her views on this matter or that--the -supreme honour for a menial. Also she had very -conscientiously nursed her in sickness. She had really -liked Ada, and had developed a sentimental weakness -for her. She had taken pleasure in her prettiness, in -her natural grace, and in her crude youth. She -enjoyed seeing Ada arrange a bedroom, or answer the -door, or serve a meal. And Ada's stupidity--that -half-cunning stupidity of her class, which immovably -underlay her superficial aptitudes--had not sufficed -to spoil her affection for the girl. She had been -indulgent to Ada's stupidity; she had occasionally in -some soft moods hoped that it was curable. And she -had argued in moments of discouragement that at any -rate stupidity could be faithful. In her heart she had -counted Ada as a friend, as a true standby in the -more or less tragic emergencies of the household. And -now Ada had deserted her. Stupidity had proved to -be neither faithful nor grateful. Why had Ada been -so silly and so base? Impossible to say! A nothing! -A whim! Nerves! Fatuity! The whole affair was -horribly absurd. These creatures were incalculable. -Of course Hilda would have been wiser not to upbraid -her so soon after the scene with the cook, and to have -spoken more smoothly to the chit in the boudoir. Hilda -admitted that. But what then? Was that an excuse -for the chit's turpitude? There must be a limit to -the mistress's humouring. And probably after all the -chit had meant to go.... If she had not meant -to go she would not have entered the boudoir -apronless and capless. Some rankling word, some -ridiculous sympathy with the cook, some wild dream of a -Christmas holiday--who could tell what might have -influenced her? Hilda gave it up--and returned to it -a thousand times. One truth emerged--and it was the -great truth of housemistresses--namely, that it never, -never, never pays to be too kind to servants. -"Servants do not understand kindness." You think they -do; they themselves think they do; but they don't,--they -don't and they don't. Hilda went back into the -immensity of her desolating experience as an employer -of female domestic servants of all kinds, but chiefly -bad--for the landlady of a small boarding house must -take what servants she can get--and she raged at -the persistence of the proof that kindness never paid. -What did pay was severity and inhuman strictness, -and the maintenance of an impassable gulf between -employer and employed. Not again would she make -the mistake which she had made a hundred times. She -hardened herself to the consistency of a slave-driver. -And all the time it was the woman in her, not the -mistress, that the hasty thoughtless Ada had wounded. -To the woman the kitchen was not the same place -without Ada--Ada on whom she had utterly relied in -the dilemma caused by the departure of the cook. As -with angrily wet eyes she went about her new work in -the kitchen, she could almost see the graceful ghost -of Ada tripping to and fro therein.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And all that the world, and the husband, would -know or understand was that a cook had been turned -out for drunkenness, and that a quite sober parlour-maid -had most preposterously walked after her. Hilda -was aware that in Edwin she had a severe, though a -taciturn, critic of her activities as employer of -servants. She had no hope whatever of his sympathy, -and so she closed all her gates against him. She -waited for him as for an adversary, and all the lustre -faded from her conception of their love.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>When Edwin approached his home that frosty evening, -he was disturbed to perceive that there was no -light from the hall-gas shining through the panes of -the front-door, though some light showed at the -dining-room window, the blinds of which had not been -drawn. "What next?" he thought crossly. He was -tired, and the keenness of the weather, instead of -bracing him, merely made him petulant. He was astonished -that several women in a house could all forget such -an important act as the lighting of the hall-gas at -nightfall. Never before had the hall-gas been forgotten, -and the negligence appeared to Edwin as absolutely -monstrous. The effect of it on the street, the -effect on a possible caller, was bad enough (Edwin, -while pretending to scorn social opinion, was really -very deferential towards it), but what was worse was -the revelation of the feminine mentality.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In opening the door with his latchkey he was purposely -noisy, partly in order to give expression to his -justified annoyance, and partly to warn all peccant -women that the male had arrived, threatening.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As his feet fumbled into the interior gloom and he -banged the door, he quite expected a rush of at least -one apologetic woman with a box of matches. But -nobody came. Nevertheless he could hear sharp -movements through the half-open door of the kitchen. -Assuredly women had the irresponsibility of infants. He -glanced for an instant into the dining-room; the white -cloth was laid, but the table was actually not set. -With unusual righteous care he wiped the half-congealed -mud off his boots on the mat; then removed his -hat and his overcoat, took a large new piece of -indiarubher from his pocket and put it on the hall-table, -felt the radiator (which despite all his injunctions -and recommendations was almost cold); and lastly he -lighted the gas himself. This final act was contrary -to his own rule, for he had often told Hilda that half -her trouble with servants arose through her -impatiently doing herself things which they had omitted, -instead of ringing the bell and seeing the things done. -But he was not infrequently inconsistent, both in deed -and in thought. For another example, he would say -superiorly that a woman could never manage women, -ignoring that he the all-wise had never been able to -manage Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He turned to go upstairs. At the same moment -somebody emerged obscurely from the kitchen. It was -Hilda, in a white apron.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! I'm glad you've lighted it," said she curtly, -without the least symptom of apology, but rather -affrontingly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He continued his way.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you seen anything of George?" she asked, -and her tone stopped him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Yet she well knew that he hated to be stopped of -an evening on his way to the bathroom. It could -not be sufficiently emphasized that to accost him -before he had descended from the bathroom was to -transgress one of the most solemn rules of his daily -life.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I haven't seen George," he answered. -"How should I have seen George?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because he's not back from school yet, and I can't -help wondering----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was worrying about George as usual.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He grunted and passed on.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's no light on the landing, either," he said, -over the banisters. "I wish you'd see to those -servants of yours."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"As it happens there aren't any servants."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her tone, getting more peculiar with each phrase, -stopped him again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Aren't any servants? What d'you mean?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I found the attic full of beer bottles, so I -sent her off on the spot."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sent who off?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eliza."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And where's Ada?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's gone too," said Hilda defiantly, and as -though rebutting an accusation before it could be -made.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She seemed to want to. And she was very impertinent -over it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He snorted and shrugged his shoulders.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, it's your affair," he muttered, too scornful -to ask details.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It is," said she, significantly laconic.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the bathroom, vexed and gloomy as he brushed -his nails and splashed in the wash basin, he mused -savagely over the servant problem. The servant -problem had been growing acute. He had predicted several -times that a crisis would arrive; a crisis had arrived; -he was always right; his rightness was positively -uncanny. He had liked Ada; he had not disliked the -cook. He knew that Hilda was to blame. How should -she not be to blame,--losing her entire staff in one -afternoon? It was not merely that she lacked the -gift of authoritative control,--it was also that she had -no feeling for democratic justice as between one -human being and another. And yet among his earliest -recollections of her was her passionate sympathy with -men on strike as against their employers. Totally -misleading manifestations! For her a servant was -nothing but a "servant." She was convinced that all -her servants were pampered and spoilt; and as for -Edwin's treatment of his workpeople she considered -it to be ridiculously, criminally soft. If she had -implied once she had implied a hundred times that the -whole lot of them laughed at him behind his back for -a sentimental simpleton. Occasionally Edwin was -quite outraged by her callousness. The topic of the -eight-hours day, of the ten-hours day, and even of -the twelve-hours day (the last for tramwaymen) had -been lately exciting the district. And Edwin was -distressed that in his own house a sixteen-hour day for -labour was in vogue and that the employer perceived -no shame in it. He did not clearly see how the shame -was to be abolished, but he thought that it ought to -be admitted. It was not admitted. From six in the -morning until ten at night these mysterious -light-headed young women were the slaves of a bell. They -had no surcease except one long weekday evening each -week and a short Sunday evening each fortnight. At -one period Hilda had had a fad for getting them out -of bed at half-past five, to cure them of laziness. He -remembered one cook whose family lived at the village -of Brindley Edge, five miles off. This cook on her -weekday evening would walk to Brindley Edge, spend -three quarters of an hour in her home, and walk back -to Bursley, reaching Trafalgar Road just in time to -get to bed. Hilda saw nothing very odd in that. She -said the girl could always please herself about going -to Brindley Edge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's democratic sense was gradually growing in -force; it disturbed more and more the peace of his -inmost mind. He seldom displayed his sympathies (save -to Tertius Ingpen who, though a Tory, was in some -ways astoundingly open to ideas, which seemed to -interest him as a pretty equation would interest him), -but they pursued their secret activity in his being, -annoying him at his lithographic works, and still more -in his home. He would suppress them, and grin, and -repeat his ancient consoling truth that what was, was. -The relief, however, was not permanent.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In that year the discovery of Rontgen Rays, the -practical invention of the incandescent gas-mantle, the -abolition of the man with the red flag in front of -self-propelled vehicles, and the fact that Consols stood -at 113, had combined to produce in innumerable -hearts the illusion that civilisation was advancing at a -great rate. But Edwin in his soul scarcely thought -so. He was worrying not only about Liberal -principles, but about the world; in his youth he had never -worried about the world. And of his own personal -success he would ask and ask: Is it right? He said to -himself in the bathroom: "There's a million domestic -servants in this blessed country, and not one of them -works less than a hundred hours a week, and nobody -cares. I don't think I really care myself. But there -it is all the same!" And he was darkly resentful against -Hilda on account of the entire phenomenon.... -He foresaw, too, a period of upset and discomfort in -his house. Would there, indeed, ever be any real -tranquillity in his house, with that strange, primeval -cave-woman in charge of it?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he descended the stairs, Hilda came out of the -dining-room with an empty tray.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you'd go out and look for George."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Imagine it--going out into the Five Towns to look -for one boy!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! He'll be all right. I suppose you haven't -forgotten Ingpen's coming to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I haven't. But I want you to go out -and look for George."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He knew what was in her mind,--namely an absurd -vision of George and his new bicycle crushed under -a tramcar somewhere between Bleakridge and -Hanbridge. In that year everybody with any pretension -to youthfulness and modernity rode a bicycle. Both -Edwin and Hilda rode occasionally--such was the -power of fashion. Maternal apprehensions had not -sufficed to keep George from having a bicycle, nor from -riding on it unprotected up and down the greasy -slopes of Trafalgar Road to and from school. Edwin -himself had bought the bicycle, pooh-poohing danger, -and asserting that anyhow normal risks must always -be accepted with an even mind.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was about to declare that he would certainly -not do anything so silly as to go out and look for -George,--and then all of a sudden he had the queer -sensation of being alone with Hilda in the house made -strange and romantic by a domestic calamity. He -gazed at Hilda with her apron, and the calamity had -made her strange and romantic also. He was vexed, -annoyed, despondent, gloomy, fearful of the -immediate future; he had immense grievances; he hated -Hilda, he loathed giving way to her. He thought: -"What is it binds me to this incomprehensible -woman? I will not be bound!" But he felt that -he would be compelled (not by her but by -something in himself) to commit the folly of going out -to look for George. And he felt that though his -existence was an exasperating adventure, still it was an -adventure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Damn!" he exploded, and reached for a cap.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then George came into the hall through the -kitchen. The boy often preferred to enter by the back, -the stalking Indian way.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>George wore spectacles. He had grown considerably. -He was now between fourteen and fifteen years -of age, and he had begun to look his age. His mental -outlook and conversation were on the whole in advance -of his age. Even when he was younger he had -frequently an adult manner of wise talking, but it had -appeared unreal, naïve,--it was amusing rather than -convincing. Now he imposed himself even on his family -as a genuine adolescent, though the idiom he employed -was often schoolboyish and his gestures were immaturely -rough. The fact was he was not the same boy. Everybody -noticed it. His old charm and delicacy seemed to -have gone, and his voice was going. He had become -harsh, defiant, somewhat brutal, and egotistic if not -conceited. He held a very low opinion of all his -school-fellows, and did not conceal it. Yet he was not very -high in his form (the lower fifth); his reports were -mediocre; and he cut no figure in the playfield. In -the home he was charged with idleness, selfishness, and -irresolution. It was pointed out to him that he was -not making the best of his gifts, and that if he only -chose to make the best of them he might easily, etc., -etc. Apparently he did not care a bit. He had marked -facility on the piano, but he had insisted on giving up -his piano lessons and would not open the piano for a -fortnight at a time. He still maintained his intention -of being an architect, but he had ceased to show any -interest in architecture. He would, however, still paint -in water-colours; and he read a lot, but gluttonously, -without taste. Edwin and Hilda, and especially Hilda, -did not hide their discontent. Hilda had outbursts -against him. In regard to Hilda he was disobedient. -Edwin always spoke quietly to him, and was seldom -seriously disobeyed. When disobeyed Edwin would -show a taciturn resentment against the boy, who would -sulk and then melt.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! He'll grow out of it," Edwin would say to -Hilda, yet Edwin, like Hilda, thought that the boy -was deliberately naughty, and they held themselves -towards him as grieved persons of superior righteousness -towards a person of inferior righteousness. Not -even Edwin reflected that profound molecular changes -might be proceeding in George's brain, for which -changes he was in no way responsible. Nevertheless, -despite the blighting disappointment of George's -evolution, the home was by no means deeply engloomed. -No! George had an appealing smile, a mere gawky -boyishness, a peculiar way of existing, that somehow -made joy in the home. Also he was a centre of intense -and continual interest, and of this he was very well -aware.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In passing through the kitchen George had of course -been struck by the astounding absence of the cook; -he had noticed further a fancy apron and a cap lying -on the window sill therein. And when he came into the -hall, the strange aspect of his mother (in a servant's -apron) and his uncle proved to him that something -marvellously unusual, exciting, and uplifting was -afoot. He was pleased, agog, and he had the additional -satisfaction that great events would conveniently -divert attention from his lateness. Still he must be -discreet, for the adults were evidently at loggerheads, -and therefore touchy. He slipped between Edwin and -Hilda with a fairly good imitation of innocent -casualness, as if saying: "Whatever has occurred, I am -guiltless, and going on just as usual."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ooh! Bags I!" he exclaimed loudly, at the -hall-table, and seized the indiarubber, which Edwin had -promised him. His school vocabulary comprised an -extraordinary number of words ending in </span><em class="italics">gs</em><span>. He would -never, for example, say "first," but "foggs"; and never -"second," but "seggs." That very morning, for -example, meeting Hilda on the mat at the foot of the -stairs, he had shocked her by saying: "You go up -foggs, mother, and I'll go seggs."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"George!" Hilda severely protested. Her anxiety -concerning him was now turned into resentment. -"Have you had an accident?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"An accident?" said George, as though at a loss. -Yet he knew perfectly that his mother was referring -to the bicycle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin said curtly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, don't play the fool. Have you fallen off -your bike? Look at your overcoat. Don't leave that -satchel there, and hang your coat up properly."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The overcoat was in a grievous state. A few days -earlier it had been new. Besides money, it had cost -an enormous amount of deliberation and discussion, like -everything else connected with George. Against his -will, Edwin himself had been compelled to conduct -George to Shillitoe's, the tailor's, and superintend a -third trying-on, for further alterations, after the -overcoat was supposed to be finished. And lo, now it had no -quality left but warmth! Efforts in regard to George -were always thus out of proportion to the trifling -results obtained. At George's age Edwin doubtless had -an overcoat, but he positively could not remember -having one, and he was quite sure that no schoolboy -overcoat of his had ever preoccupied a whole household for -two minutes, to say nothing of a week.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George's face expressed a sense of injury, and his -face hardened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother made me take my overcoat. You know I -can't cycle in my overcoat. I've not been on my -bicycle all day. Also my lamp's broken," he said, with -gloomy defiance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His curiosity about wondrous events in the house -was quenched.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin felt angry with Hilda for having quite -unjustifiably assumed that George had gone to school -on his bicycle. Ought she not to have had the ordinary -gumption to assure herself, before worrying, that the -lad's bicycle was not in the shed? Incredible -thoughtlessness! All these alarms for nothing!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then why are you so late?" Hilda demanded, -diverting to George her indignation at Edwin's -unuttered but yet conveyed criticism of herself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Kept in."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All this time?" Hilda questioned, suspiciously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George sullenly nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What for?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Latin."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Homework? Again?" ejaculated Edwin. "Why -hadn't you done it properly?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I had a headache last night. And I've got one -to-day."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Another of your Latin headaches!" said Edwin -sarcastically. There was nothing, except possibly cod -liver oil, that George detested more than Edwin's -serious sarcasm.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The elders glanced at one another and glanced -away. Both had the same fear--the dreadful fear -that George might be developing the worse characteristics -of his father. Both had vividly in mind the fact -that this boy was the son of George Cannon. They -never mentioned to each other either the fear or the -fact; they dared not. But each knew the thoughts of -the other. The boy was undoubtedly crafty; he could -conceal subtle designs under a simple exterior; he was -also undoubtedly secretive. The recent changes in his -disposition had put Edwin and Hilda on their guard, -and every time young George displayed cunning, or -economised the truth, or lied, the fear visited them. -"I hope he'll turn out all right!" Hilda had said once. -Edwin had nearly replied: "What are you worrying -about? The sons of honest men are often rascals. -Why on earth shouldn't the son of a rascal be an -honest man?" But he had only said, with good-humoured -impatience: "Of course he'll turn out all -right!" Not that he himself was convinced.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin now attacked the boy gloomily:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You didn't seem to have much of a headache when -you came in just now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was true.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But George suddenly burst into tears. His -headaches were absolutely genuine. The emptiness of the -kitchen and the general queer look of things in the -house had, however, by their promise of adventurous -happenings, caused him to forget his headache -altogether, and the discovery of the new indiarubber had -been like a tonic to a convalescent. The menacing -attitude of the elders had now brought about a relapse. -The headache established itself as his chief physical -sensation. His chief moral sensation was that of a -terrible grievance. He did not often cry; he had not -indeed cried for about a year. But to-night there was -something nervous in the very air, and the sob took him -unawares. The first sob having prostrated all -resistance, others followed victoriously, and there was no -stopping them. He did not quite know why he should -have been more liable to cry on this particular -occasion than on certain others, and he was rather -ashamed; on the other hand it was with an almost -malicious satisfaction that he perceived the troubling -effect of his tears on the elders. They were obviously -in a quandary. Serve them right!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's my eyes," he blubbered. "I told you these -specs would never suit me. But you wouldn't believe -me, and the headmaster won't believe me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The discovery that George's eyesight was defective, -about two months earlier, had led to a desperate but -of course hopeless struggle on his part against the -wearing of spectacles. It was curious that in the -struggle he had never even mentioned his strongest -objection to spectacles,--namely, the fact that Bert -Benbow wore spectacles.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why didn't you tell us?" Edwin demanded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Between sobs George replied with overwhelming -disillusioned disgust:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the good of telling you anything? You -only think I'm codding."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And he passed upstairs, apparently the broken -victim of fate and parents, but in reality triumphant. -His triumph was such that neither Edwin nor Hilda -dared even to protest against the use of such an -inexcusable word as 'codding.'</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda went into the kitchen, and Edwin rather -aimlessly followed her. He felt incompetent. He could -do nothing except carry trays, and he had no desire to -carry trays. Neither spoke. Hilda was bending over -the fire, then she arranged the grid in front of the -fire to hold a tin, and she greased the tin. He thought -she looked very wistful, for all the somewhat bitter -sturdiness of her demeanour. Tertius Ingpen was due -for the evening; she had no servants--through her -own fault; and now a new phase had arrived in the -unending responsibility for George's welfare. He -knew that she was blaming him on account of George. -He knew that she believed in the sincerity of George's -outburst; he believed in it himself. The spectacles were -wrong; the headache was genuine. And he, Edwin, -was guilty of the spectacles because he had forced -Hilda, by his calm bantering commonsense, to consult -a small local optician of good reputation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda had wanted to go to Birmingham or -Manchester; but Edwin said that such an idea was -absurd. The best local optician was good enough -for the great majority of the inhabitants of the Five -Towns and would be good enough for George. Why -not indeed? Why the craze for specialists? -There could be nothing uniquely wrong with the -boy's eyes,--it was a temporary weakness. And -so on and so on, in accordance with Edwin's -instinct for denying the existence of a crisis. And -the local optician, consulted, had borne him out. The -local optician said that every year he dealt with -dozens of cases similar to George's. And now both -the local optician and Edwin were overthrown by a -boy's sobbing tears.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Suddenly Hilda turned round upon her husband.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall take George to London to-morrow about -his eyes," she said, with immense purpose and -sincerity, in a kind of fierce challenge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This was her amends to George for having often -disbelieved him, and for having suspected him of -taking after his father. She made her amends -passionately, and with all the force of her temperament. In -her eyes George was now a martyr.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"To London?" exclaimed Edwin weakly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. It's no use half doing these things. I shall -ask Charlie Orgreave to recommend me a first-class -oculist."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin dared say nothing. Either Manchester or -Birmingham would have been just as good as London, -perhaps better. Moreover, she had not even consulted -him. She had decided by a violent impulse and -announced her decision. This was not right; she would -have protested against a similar act by Edwin. But -he could not argue with her. She was far beyond -argument.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wouldn't have that boy's eyesight played with -for anything!" she said fiercely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, of course you wouldn't! Who would?" -Edwin thought, but he did not say it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Go and see what he's doing," she said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin slouched off. He was no longer the master -of the house. He was only an economic factor and -general tool in the house. And as he wandered like -a culprit up the stairs of the mysteriously transformed -dwelling he thought again: "What is it that binds me -to her?" But he was abashed and in spite of himself -impressed by the intensity of Hilda's formidable -emotion. Nevertheless as he began vaguely to perceive all -that was involved in her threat to go to London on -the morrow, he stiffened, and said to himself: "We -shall see about that. We shall just see about that!"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>They were at the meal. Hilda had covered George's -portion of fish with a plate and put it before the fire -to keep warm. She was just returning to the table. -Tertius Ingpen, who sat with his back to the fire, looked -at her over his shoulder with an admiring smile and said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I've had some good meals in this house, but -this is certainly the best bit of fish I ever tasted. So -that the catastrophe in the kitchen leaves me unmoved."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, with face suddenly transformed by a responsive -smile, insinuated herself between the table and her -arm-chair, drew forward the chair by its arms, and -sat down. Her keen pleasure in the compliment was -obvious. Edwin noted that the meal was really very -well served, the table brighter than usual, the toast -crisper, and the fish--a fine piece of hake white as -snow within its browned exterior--merely perfect. -There was no doubt that Hilda could be extremely -efficient when she desired; Edwin's criticism was that -she was too often negligent, and that in her moods of -conscientiousness she gave herself too urgently and -completely, producing an unnecessary disturbance in -the atmosphere of the home. Nevertheless Edwin too -felt pleasure in the compliment to Hilda; and he -calmly enjoyed the spectacle of his wife and his friend -side by side on such mutually appreciative terms. The -intimacy of the illuminated table in the midst of the -darker room, the warmth and crackling of the fire, the -grave solidity of the furniture, the springiness of the -thick carpet, and the delicate odours of the repast,--all -these things satisfied in him something that was -profound. And the two mature, vivacious, intelligent -faces under the shaded gas excited his loyal affection.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's right," Hilda murmured, in her clear -enunciation. "I do like praise!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now then, you callous brute," said Ingpen to -Edwin. "What do you say?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Hilda cried with swift, complaining sincerity:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Edwin never praises me!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her sincerity convinced by its very artlessness. The -complaint had come unsought from her heart. And -it was so spontaneous and forcible that Tertius Ingpen, -as a tactful guest, saw the advisability of easing -the situation by laughter.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I do!" Edwin protested, and though he was -shocked, he laughed, in obedience to Ingpen's cue. It -was true; he did praise her; but not frequently, and -almost always in order to flatter her rather than to -express his own emotion. Edwin did not care for praising -people; he would enthusiastically praise a book, but not -a human being. His way was to take efficiency for -granted. "Not so bad," was a superlative of laudation with -him. He was now shocked as much by the girl's outrageous -candour as by the indisputable revelation that she -went hungry for praise. Even to a close friend such as -Ingpen, surely a wife had not the right to be quite so -desperately sincere. Edwin considered that in the -presence of a third person husband and wife should always -at any cost maintain the convention of perfect conjugal -amenity. He knew couples who achieved the feat,--Albert -and Clara, for example. But Hilda, he surmised, -had other ideas, if indeed she had ever consciously -reflected upon this branch of social demeanour. Certainly -she seemed at moments to lose all regard for appearances.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Moreover, she was polluting by acerbity the pure -friendliness of the atmosphere, and endangering cheer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's too wrapped up in the works to think about -praising his wife," Hilda continued, still in the -disconcerting vein of sincerity, but with less violence and a -more philosophical air. The fact was that, although -she had not regained the zest of the mood so rudely -dissipated by the scene with Ada, she was kept cheerful -by the mere successful exercise of her own energy in -proving to these two men that servants were not in the -least essential to the continuance of plenary comfort -in her house; and she somewhat condescended towards -Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"By the way, Teddie," said Ingpen, pulling lightly at -his short beard, "I heard a rumour that you were going -to stand for the Town Council in the South ward. Why -didn't you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin looked a little confused.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who told you that tale?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was about."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It never came from me," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda broke in eagerly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He was invited to stand. But he wouldn't. I -thought he ought to. I begged him to. But no, he -wouldn't. And did you know he refused a J.P.ship -too?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" mumbled Edwin. "That sort o' thing's not -my line."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, isn't it!" Ingpen exclaimed. "Then whose line -is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Look at all the rotters in the Council!" said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All the more reason why you should be on it!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I've got no time," Edwin finished gloomily -and uneasily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen paused, tapping his teeth with his finger, -before proceeding, in a judicial, thoughtful manner -which in recent years he had been developing:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell you what's the matter with you, old man. -You don't know it, but you're in a groove. You go -about like a shuttle from the house to the works and -the works to the house. And you never think beyond -the works and the house."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, don't I?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen went placidly on:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you don't. You've become a good specimen of -the genus 'domesticated business man.' You've -forgotten what life is. You fancy you're at full stretch -all the time, but you're in a coma. I suppose you'll -never see forty again--and have you ever been outside -this island? You went to Llandudno this year because -you went last year. And you'll go next year because -you went this year. If you happen now and then to -worry about the failure of your confounded Liberal -Party you think you're a blooming broad-minded -publicist. Where are your musical evenings? When I -asked you to go with me to a concert at Manchester -last week but one, you thought I'd gone dotty, simply -because it meant your leaving the works early and not -getting to bed until the unheard-of-time of one thirty a.m."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was never told anything about any concert," Hilda -interjected sharply.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Go on! Go on!" said Edwin raising his eyebrows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I will," said Ingpen with tranquillity, as though -discussing impartially and impersonally the conduct -of some individual at the Antipodes. "Where am I? -Well, you're always buying books, and I believe you -reckon yourself a bit of a reader. What d'you get -out of them? I daresay you've got decided views on -the transcendent question whether Emily Brontë was -a greater writer than Charlotte. That's about what -you've got. Why, dash it, you haven't a vice left. A -vice would interfere with your lovely litho. There's -only one thing that would upset you more than a -machinery breakdown at the works----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what's that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's that? If one of the hinges of your -garden-gate came off, or you lost your latchkey! Why, -just look how you've evidently been struck all of a -heap by this servant affair! I expect it occurred to -you your breakfast might be five minutes late in the -morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Stuff!" said Edwin, amiably. He regarded Ingpen's -observations as fantastically unjust and beside -the mark. But his sense of fairness and his admiration -of the man's intellectual honesty would not allow -him to resent them. Ingpen would discuss and dissect -either his friends or himself with equal detachment; the -detachment was complete. And his assumption that -his friends fully shared his own dispassionate, curious -interest in arriving at the truth appealed very strongly -to Edwin's loyalty. That Ingpen was liable to preach -and even to hector was a drawback which he silently -accepted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Struck all of a heap indeed!" muttered Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Wasn't he, Hilda?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should just say he was! And I know he thinks -it's all my fault," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tertius Ingpen glanced at her an instant, and gave -a short half-cynical laugh, which scarcely concealed -his mild scorn of her feminine confusion of the argument.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's the usual thing!" said Ingpen, with scorn still -more marked. At this stage of a dissertation he was -inclined to be less a human being than the trumpet of a -sacred message. "It's the usual thing! I never knew -a happy marriage yet that didn't end in the same -way." Then, perceiving that he was growing too -earnest, and that his emphasis on the phrase 'happy -marriage' had possibly been too sarcastic, he sniggered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I really don't see what marriage has to do with it," -said Hilda, frowning.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, of course you don't," Ingpen agreed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you'd said business----" she added.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now we've had the diagnosis," Edwin sardonically -remarked, looking at his plate, "what's the -prescription?" He was reflecting: "'Happy marriage,' does -he call it! ... Why on earth does she say I think -it's all her fault? I've not breathed a word."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," replied Ingpen. "You live much too close -to your infernal works. Why don't you get away, -right away, and live out in the country like a sensible -man, instead of sticking in this filthy hole--among all -these new cottages? ... Barbarian hordes...."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Hurrah!" cried Hilda. "At last I've got -somebody who takes my side."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course you say it's impossible. You naturally -would----" Ingpen resumed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was interrupted by the entrance of George. Soon -after Tertius Ingpen's arrival, George had been -despatched to summon urgently Mrs. Tams, the -charwoman who had already more than once helped to fill -a hiatus between two cooks. George showed now no -trace of his late martyrdom, nor of a headache. To -conquer George in these latter days you had to -demand of him a service. It was Edwin who had first -discovered the intensity of the boy's desire to take a -useful share in any adult operation whatever. He came -in red-cheeked, red-handed, rough, defiant, shy, proud, -and making a low intermittent "Oo-oo" noise with -protruding lips to indicate the sharpness of the frost -outside. As he had already greeted Ingpen he was able -to go without ceremony straight to his chair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Confidentially, in the silence, Hilda raised her -eyebrows to him interrogatively. In reply he gave one -short nod. Thus in two scarcely perceptible gestures -the assurance was asked for and given that the mission -had been successful and that Mrs. Tams would be -coming up at once. George loved these private and -laconic signallings, which produced in him the illusion -that he was getting nearer to the enigma of life.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he persisted in the "Oo-oo" manifestation, Hilda -amicably murmured:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hsh-hsh!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George pressed his lips swiftly and hermetically -together, and raised his eyebrows in protest against his -own indecorum. He glanced at his empty place; whereupon -Hilda glanced informingly in the direction of the -fire, and George, skilled in the interpretation of minute -signs, skirted stealthily round the table behind his -mother's chair, and snatched his loaded plate from -the hearth.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nobody said a word. The sudden stoppage of the -conversation had indeed caused a slight awkwardness -among the elders. George, for his part, was quite -convinced that they had been discussing his eyesight.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Furnace all right again, sonny?" asked Edwin, -quietly, when the boy had sat down. Hilda was -replenishing Ingpen's plate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Blop!" muttered George, springing up aghast. This -meant that he had forgotten the furnace in the cellar, -source of heat to the radiator in the hall. By a recent -arrangement he received sixpence a week for stoking the -furnace.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind! It'll do afterwards," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But George, masticating fish, shook his head. He -must be stern with himself, possibly to atone for his -tears. And he went off instantly to the cellar.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bit chill," observed Edwin to him as he left the -room. "A bit chilly" was what he meant; but George -delighted to chip the end off a word, and when Edwin -chose to adopt the same practice, the boy took it as a -masonic sign of profound understanding between them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George nodded and vanished. And both Edwin and -Hilda dwelt in secret upon his boyish charm, and -affectionate satisfaction mingled with and softened their -apprehensions and their brooding responsibility and -remorse. They thought: "He is simply exquisite," and -in their hearts apologised to him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tertius Ingpen asked suddenly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's happened to the young man's spectacles?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They don't suit him," said Hilda eagerly. "They -don't suit him at all. They give him headaches. -Edwin would have me take him to the local man, -what's-his-name at Hanbridge. I was afraid it would be risky, -but Edwin would have it. I'm going to take him to -London to-morrow. He's been having headaches for -some time and never said a word. I only found it out -by accident."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Surely," Ingpen smiled, "it's contrary to George's -usual practice to hide his troubles like that, isn't it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" said Hilda. "He's rather secretive, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've never noticed," said Ingpen, "that he was more -secretive than most of us are about a grievance."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, secretly agitated, said in a curious light tone:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you ask me, he kept it quiet just to pay us out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pay you out? What for?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"For making him wear spectacles at all. These -kids want a deuce of a lot of understanding; but that's -my contribution. He simply said to himself: 'Well, -if they think they're going to cure my eyesight for -me with their beastly specs they just aren't, and I -won't tell 'em!'"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin!" Hilda protested warmly. "I wonder you -can talk like that!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tertius Ingpen went off into one of his peculiar long -fits of laughter; and Edwin quizzically smiled, feeling -as if he was repaying Hilda for her unnecessary -insistence upon the fact that he was responsible for the -choosing of an optician. Hilda, suspecting that the -two men saw something droll which was hidden from -her, blushed and then laughed in turn, somewhat -self-consciously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't </span><em class="italics">you</em><span> think it's best to go to London, about -an affair like eyesight?" she asked Ingpen pointedly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The chief thing in these cases," said Ingpen -solemnly, "is to satisfy the maternal instinct. Yes, I -should certainly go to London. If Teddie disagrees, -I'm against him. Who are you going to?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You are horrid!" Hilda exclaimed, and added with -positiveness: "I shall ask Charlie Orgreave first. He'll -tell me the best man."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You seem to have a great belief in Charlie," said Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I have," said Hilda, who had seen Charlie at -George's bedside when nobody knew whether George -would live or die.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And while they were talking about Charlie and about -Janet, who was now living with her brother at Ealing, -the sounds of George stoking the furnace below came -dully up through the floor-boards.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you and George are going away," asked Ingpen, -"what'll happen to his worship--with not a -servant in the house?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This important point had been occupying Edwin's -mind ever since Hilda had first announced her -intention to go to London. But he had not mentioned it -to her, nor she to him, their relations being rather -delicate. It had, for him, only an academic interest, -since he had determined that she should not go to -London on the morrow. Nevertheless he awaited -anxiously the reply.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda answered with composure:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm hoping he'll come with us."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had been prepared for anything but this. The -proposition was monstrously impossible. Could a man -leave his works at a moment's notice? The notion -was utterly absurd.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's quite out of the question," he said at once. -He was absolutely sincere. The effect of Ingpen's -discourse was, however, such as to upset the assured -dignity of his pronouncement; for the decision was simply -an illustration of Ingpen's theory concerning him. -He blushed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why is it out of the question?" demanded Hilda, -inimically gazing at him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had lost her lenient attitude towards him of -the afternoon. Nevertheless, reflecting upon Tertius -Ingpen's indictment of the usual happy marriage, she -had been planning the expedition to London as a -revival of romance in their lives. She saw it as -a marvellous rejuvenating experience. When she -thought of all that she had suffered, and all that -Edwin had suffered, in order that they might come -together, she was quite desolated by the prosaic flatness -of the ultimate result. Was it to attain their present -stolid existence that they had endured affliction for -a decade? She wanted passionately to break the -mysterious bands that held them both back from ecstasy -and romance. And he would not help her. He would not -enter into her desire. She had known that he would -refuse. He refused everything--he was so set in his -own way. Resentment radiated from her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't," said Edwin. "What d'you want to go -to-morrow for? What does a day or two matter?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then she loosed her tongue. Why to-morrow? -Because you couldn't trifle with a child's eyesight. -Already the thing had been dragging on for goodness -knew how long. Every day might be of importance. -And why not to-morrow? They could shut the house -up, and go off together and stay at Charlie's. Hadn't -Janet asked them many a time? Maggie would look -out for new servants. And Mrs. Tams would clean -the house. It was really the best way out of the -servant question too, besides being the best for -George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And there's another thing," she went on without a -pause, speaking rapidly and clearly. "Your eyes want -seeing to as well. Do you think I don't know?" she -sneered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mine!" he exclaimed. "My eyes are as right as -rain." It was not true. His eyes had been troubling -him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then why have you had a double candle-bracket -fixed at your bed-head, when a single one's been enough -for you all these years?" she demanded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I just thought of it, that's all," said Edwin glumly, -and with no attempt to be diplomatic. "Anyhow I -can't go to London to-morrow. And when I want an -oculist," he finished with grimness, "Hanbridge'll be -good enough for me, I'm thinking."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Strange, she had never before said a word to him -about his eyes!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then what shall you do while I'm away?" she asked -implacably.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But if she was implacable, he also could be implacable. -If she insisted on leaving him in the lurch,--well, -she should leave him in the lurch! Tertius Ingpen -was witness of a plain breach between them. It was -unfortunate; it was wholly Hilda's fault; but he had -to face the fact.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," he replied curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The next moment George returned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hasn't Mrs. Tams been quick, mother?" said -George. "She's come."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VI</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>In the drawing-room, after the meal, Edwin could -hear through the half open door the sounds of -conversation between Hilda and Mrs. Tams, with an -occasional word from George, who was going to help -Mrs. Tams to "put the things away" after she had washed -and wiped. The voice of Mrs. Tams was very gentle -and comforting. Edwin's indignant pity went out to -her. Why should Mrs. Tams thus cheerfully bear the -misfortunes of others? Why should she at a moment's -notice leave a cottageful of young children and a -husband liable at any time to get drunk and maim either -them or her, in order to meet a crisis caused by Hilda's -impulsiveness and lack of tact? The answer, as in so -many cases, was of course economic. Mrs. Tams could -not afford not to be at Mrs. Clayhanger's instant call; -also she was born the victim of her own altruism; her -soul was soft like her plump cushionlike body, and -she lived as naturally in injustice as a fish in water. -But could anything excuse those who took advantage of -such an economic system and such a devoted nature? -Edwin's conscience uneasily stirred; he could have -blushed. However, he was helpless; and he was basely -glad that he was helpless, that it was no affair of -his after all, and that Mrs. Tams had thus to work -out her destiny to his own benefit. He saw in her a -seraph for the next world, and yet in this world he -contentedly felt himself her superior. And her voice, -soothing, acquiescent, expressive of the spirit which -gathers in extraneous woes as the mediæval saint drew -to his breast the swords of the executioners, continued -to murmur in the hall.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I alone in this house feel the real significance of -Mrs. Tams. I'm sure she doesn't feel it herself."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But these reflections were only the vague unimportant -background to the great matter in his mind,--the -difficulty with Hilda. When he had entered the -house, questions of gaslight and blinds were enormous -to him. The immense general question of servants had -diminished them to a trifle. Then the question of -George's headache and eyesight had taken precedence. -And now the relations of husband and wife were mightily -paramount over everything else. Tertius Ingpen, -having as usual opened the piano, was idly diverting -himself with strange chords, while cigarette smoke rose -into his eyes, making him blink. Like Edwin, Ingpen -was a little self-conscious after the open trouble in the -dining-room. It would have been absurd to pretend -that trouble did not exist; on the other hand the -trouble was not of the kind that could be referred to, -by even a very intimate friend. The acknowledgment -of it had to be mute. But in addition to being -self-conscious, Ingpen was also triumphant. There was a -peculiar sardonic and somewhat disdainful look on his -face as he mused over the chords, trying to keep the -cigarette smoke out of his eyes. His oblique glance -seemed to be saying to Edwin: "What have I always -told you about women? Well, you've married and -you must take the consequences. Your wife's no worse -than other wives. Here am I, free! And wouldn't you -like to be in my place, my boy! ... How wise I -have been!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin resented these unspoken observations. The -contrast between Ingpen's specious support and -flattery of Hilda when she was present, and his sardonic -glance when she was absent, was altogether too marked. -Himself in revolt against the institution of marriage, -Edwin could not bear that Ingpen should attack it. -Edwin had, so far as concerned the outside world, taken -the institution of marriage under his protection. -Moreover Ingpen's glance was a criticism of Hilda such as -no husband ought to permit. And it was also a -criticism of the husband--that slave and dupe! ... Yet, -at bottom what Edwin resented was Ingpen's contemptuous -pity for the slave and the dupe.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why London--and why to-morrow?" said Edwin, -cheerfully, with a superior philosophical air, as though -impartially studying an argumentative position, as -though he could regard the temporary vagaries of an -otherwise fine sensible woman with bland detachment. -He said it because he was obliged to say something, in -order to prove that he was neither a slave nor a dupe.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ask me another," replied Ingpen curtly, continuing -to produce chords.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, we shall see," said Edwin mysteriously, firmly, -and loftily; meaning that, if his opinion were invited, -his opinion would be that Hilda would not go away -to-morrow and that whenever she went she would not go -to London.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had decided to have a grand altercation with his -wife that night, when Ingpen and Mrs. Tams had -departed and George was asleep and they had the house -to themselves. He knew his ground and he could force -a decisive battle. He felt no doubt as to the result. -The news of his triumph should reach Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen was apparently about to take up the conversation -when George came clumsily and noisily into the -drawing-room. All his charm seemed to have left him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought you were going to help," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So I am," George challenged him; and, lacking the -courage to stop at that point, added: "But they aren't -ready yet."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Let's try those Haydn bits, George," Ingpen suggested.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no!" said George curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen and the boy had begun to play easy fragments -of duets together.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin said with sternness:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sit down to that piano and do as Mr. Ingpen asks -you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George flushed and looked foolish and sat down; and -Ingpen quizzed him. All three knew well that Edwin's -fierceness was only one among sundry consequences of -the mood of the housemistress. The slow movement and -the scherzo from the symphony were played. And while -the music went on, Edwin heard distantly the opening -and shutting of the front-door and an arrival in the -hall, and then chattering. Maggie had called. "What's -she after?" thought Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hoo! There's Auntie Maggie!" George exclaimed, -as soon as the scherzo was finished, and ran off.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That boy is really musical," said Ingpen with conviction.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I suppose he is," Edwin agreed casually, as -though deprecating a talent which however was -undeniable. "But you'd never guess he's got a bad -headache, would you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was a strange kind of social evening, and Hilda--it -seemed to the august Edwin--had a strange notion -of the duties of hostess. Surely, if Mrs. Tams was in -the kitchen, Hilda ought to be in the drawing-room -with their guest! Surely Maggie ought to have been -brought into the drawing-room,--she was not a school -girl, she was a woman of over forty, and yet she had -quite inexcusably kept her ancient awkwardness and -timidities. He could hear chatterings from the -dining-room, scurryings through the hall, and chatterings -from the kitchen; then a smash of crockery, a slight -scream, and girlish gigglings. They were all the same, -all the women he knew, except perhaps Clara,--they had -hours when they seemed to forget that they were adult -and that their skirts were long. And how was it that -Hilda and Maggie were suddenly so intimate, they -whose discreet mutual jealousy was an undeniable -phenomenon of the family life? With all his majesty he -was simpleton enough never to have understood that -two women who eternally suspect each other may yet -dissolve upon occasion into the most touching playful -tenderness. The whole ground-floor was full of the -rumour of an apparent alliance between Hilda and -Maggie. And as he listened Edwin glanced sternly at the -columns of the evening </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span>, while Tertius Ingpen, -absorbed, worked his way bravely through a sonata of -Beethoven.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then George reappeared.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother's going to take me to London to-morrow -about my eyes," said George to Ingpen, stopping the -sonata by his mere sense of the terrific importance of -such tidings. And he proceeded to describe the -projected doings in London, the visit to Charlie and Janet -Orgreave, and possibly to the Egyptian Hall.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not move. He kept an admirable and complete -calm under the blow. Hilda was decided, then, to -defy him. In telling the boy, who during the meal had -been permitted to learn nothing, she had burnt her -boats; she had even burnt Edwin's boats also: which -seemed to be contrary to the rules laid down by society -for conjugal warfare,--but women never could fight -according to rules! The difficulties and dangers of the -great pitched battle which Edwin had planned for the -close of the evening were swiftly multiplied. He had -misgivings.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The chattering, giggling girls entered the -drawing-room. But as Maggie came through the doorway her -face stiffened; her eyes took on a glaze; and when -Ingpen bent over her hand in all the false ardour of his -excessive conventional chivalry, the spinster's terrible -constraint--scourge of all her social existence--gripped -her like a disease. She could scarcely speak.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello, Mag," Edwin greeted her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Impossible to divine in this plump, dowdy, fading, -dumb creature the participator in all those chatterings -and gigglings of a few moments earlier! Nevertheless -Edwin, who knew her profoundly, could see beneath the -glaze of those eyes the commonsense soul of the -sagacious woman protesting against Ingpen's affected -manners and deciding that she did not care for Ingpen at -all.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Auntie Hamps is being naughty again," said Hilda -bluntly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen, and then Edwin, sniggered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">I</em><span> can't do anything with her, Edwin," said Maggie, -speaking quickly and eagerly, as she and Hilda sat -down. "She's bound to let herself in for another attack -if she doesn't take care of herself. And she won't take -care of herself. She won't listen to the doctor or -anybody else. She's always on her feet, and she's got -sewing-meetings on the brain just now. I've got her -to bed early to-night--she's frightfully shaky--and I -thought I'd come up and tell you. You're the only -one that can do anything with her at all, and you -really must come and see her to-morrow on your way -to the works."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie spoke as though she had been urging Edwin -for months to take the urgent matter in hand and was -now arrived at desperation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right! All right!" said he, with amiable -impatience; it was the first he had heard of the matter. -"I'll drop in. But I've got no influence over her," he -added, with sincerity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes, you have!" said Maggie, mildly now. "I'm -very sorry to hear about George's eyes. Seeing it's -absolutely necessary for Hilda to take him to London -to-morrow, and you've got no servants at all, can't you -come and sleep at Auntie's for a night or two? You've -no idea what a relief it would be to me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In an instant Edwin saw that he was beaten, that -Hilda and Maggie, in the intervals of their giggling, -had combined to overthrow him. The tone in which -Maggie uttered the words 'George's eyes,' 'absolutely -necessary' and 'such a relief' precluded argument. -His wife would have her capricious unnecessary way, -and he would be turned out of his own house.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I think you might, dear," said Hilda, with the -angelic persuasiveness of a loving and submissive wife. -Nobody could have guessed from that marvellous -tone that she had been determined to defeat him and -was then, so to speak, standing over his prostrate -form.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie, having said what was necessary to be said, -fell back into the constraint from which no efforts of -her companions could extricate her. Such was the -effect upon her of the presence of Tertius Ingpen, a -stranger. Presently Ingpen was scanning time-tables -for Hilda, and George was finding notepaper for her, -and Maggie was running up and down stairs for her. -She was off to London. "In that woman's head," -thought Edwin, as, observing his wife, he tried in vain -to penetrate the secrets behind her demeanour, "there's -only room for one idea at a time."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VII</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin sat alone in the drawing-room, at the end -of an evening which he declined to call an evening at -all. His eyes regarded a book on his knee, but he was -not reading it. His mind was engaged upon the enigma -of his existence. He had entered his house without the -least apprehension, and brusquely, in a few hours, -everything seemed to be changed for him. Impulse -had conquered commonsense; his ejectment was a -settled thing; and he was condemned to the hated abode -of Auntie Hamps. Events seemed enormous; they -desolated him; his mouth was full of ashes. The -responsibilities connected with George were increasing; -his wife, incalculable and unforeseeable, was getting -out of hand; and the menace of a future removal to -another home in the country was raised again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He looked about the room; and he imagined all the -house, every object in which was familiar and beloved, -and he simply could not bear to think of the disintegration -of these interiors by furniture-removers, and -of the endless rasping business of creating a new home -in partnership with a woman whose ideas about -furnishing were as unsound as they were capricious. He -utterly dismissed the fanciful scheme, as he dismissed the -urgings towards public activity. He deeply resented all -these headstrong intentions to disturb him in his -tranquillity. They were indefensible, and he would not -have them. He would die in sullen obstinacy rather -than yield. Impulse might conquer commonsense, but -not beyond a certain degree. He would never yield.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen had departed, to sleep in a room in the same -building as his office at Hanbridge. He knew that -Ingpen had no comprehension of domestic comfort and a -well-disposed day. Nevertheless he envied the man his -celestial freedom. If he, Edwin, were free, what an -ideal life he could make for himself, a life presided -over by commonsense, regularity, and order! He was -not free; he would never be free; and what had he -obtained in exchange for freedom? ... Ingpen's -immense criticism smote him. He had a wife and her -child; servants--at intervals; a fine works and many -workpeople; a house, with books; money, security. The -organised machinery of his existence was tremendous; -and it was all due to him, made by him in his own -interests and to satisfy his own desires. Without him -the entire structure would crumble in a week; without -him it would have no excuse. And what was the result? -Was he ever, in any ideal sense, happy: that is, free -from foreboding, from friction, from responsibility, -and withal lightly joyous? Was any quarter of an -hour of his day absolutely what he would have wished? -He ranged over his day, and concluded that the best -part of it was the very last.... He got into bed, the -candles in the sconce were lit, the gas diminished to a -blue speck, and most of the room in darkness; he lay -down on his left side, took the marker from the volume -in his hand, and began to read; the house was silent -and enclosed; the rumbling tramcar--to whose sound -he had been accustomed from infancy--did not a bit -disturb him; it was in another world; over the edge of -his book he could see the form of his wife, fast asleep -in the other bed, her plaited hair trailing over the -pillow; the feel of the sheets to his limbs was exquisite; he -read, the book was good; the chill of winter just -pleasantly affected the hand that held the book; nothing -annoyed; nothing jarred; sleep approached.... That -fifteen minutes, that twenty or thirty minutes, was all -that he could show as the result of the tremendous -organised machinery of his existence--his house, his -works, his workpeople, his servants, his wife with her -child....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda came with quick determination into the -drawing-room. They had not spoken to each other alone -since the decision and his defeat. He was aware of his -heart beating resentfully.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm going to bed now, dear," she said in an -ordinary tone. "I've got a frightful headache, and I -must sleep. Be sure and wake me up at seven in the -morning, will you? I shall have such lots to do."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has she a frightful headache?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She bent down and kissed him several times, very -fervently; her lips lingered on his. And all the time -she frowned ever so little; and it was as if she was -conveying to him: "But--each for himself in marriage, -after all."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In spite of himself, he felt just a little relieved; and -he could not understand why. He watched her as she -left the room. How had it come about that the still -finally mysterious creature was living in his house, -imposing her individuality upon him, spoiling his -existence? He considered that it was all disconcertingly -strange.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He rose, lit a cigarette, and opened the window; and -the frosty air, entering, braced him and summoned his -self-reliance. The night was wondrous. And when he -had shut the window and turned again within, the room, -beautiful, withdrawn, peaceful, was wondrous too. He -reflected that soon he would be in bed, calmly reading, -with his wife unconscious as an infant in the other bed. -And then his grievance against Hilda slowly surged up -and he began for the first time to realise how vast it -was.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Confound that woman!" he muttered, meaning -Auntie Hamps.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="auntie-hamps-sentenced"><span class="large">CHAPTER XVIII</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">AUNTIE HAMPS SENTENCED</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>On the next evening it was Maggie who opened -Mrs. Hamps's front-door for Edwin. There was no light in -the lobby, but a faint gleam coming through the open -door of the sitting-room disclosed the silhouette of -Maggie's broad figure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought you'd call in this morning," said Maggie -discontentedly. "I asked you to. I've been expecting -you all day."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't you get my message?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. What message?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"D'you mean to say a lad hasn't been here with my -portmanteau?" demanded Edwin, alarmed and ready -to be annoyed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. A lad's been with your portmanteau. But he -gave no message."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"D--n him. I told him to tell you I couldn't possibly -get here before night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, he didn't!" said Maggie stoutly, throwing back -the blame upon Edwin and his hirelings. "I particularly -wanted you to come early. I told Auntie you'd -be coming."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How's she getting on?" Edwin asked with laconic -gruffness, dismissing Maggie's grievance without an -apology. He might have to stand nonsense from -Hilda; but he would not stand it from Maggie, of -whose notorious mildness he at once began to take -advantage, as in the old days of their housekeeping -together. Moreover, his entrance into this abode was a -favour, exhibiting the condescension of the only human -being who could exercise influence upon Auntie Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's worse," said Maggie, briefly and significantly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In bed?" said Edwin, less casually, marking her tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Had the doctor?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should think so indeed!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hm! Why don't you have a light in this lobby?" -he enquired suddenly, on a drily humorous note, as -he groped to suspend his overcoat upon an unstable -hatstand. It seemed to be a very cold lobby, after -his own radiator-heated half.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She never will have a light here, unless she's doing -the grand for someone. Are you going to wash ye?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. I cleaned up at the works." A presentiment -of the damp chilliness of the Hamps bedroom had -suggested this precaution.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie preceded him into the sitting-room, where -a hexagonal occasional-table was laid for tea.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello! Do you eat here? What's the matter with -the dining-room?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The chimney always smokes when the wind's in the -south-west."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, why doesn't she have a cowl put on it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'd better ask her.... Also she likes to save -a fire. She can't bear to have two fires going as well -as the kitchen-range. I'll bring tea in. It's all ready."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie went away.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin looked round the shabby Victorian room. A -length of featureless linoleum led from the door to the -table. This carpet-protecting linoleum exasperated -him. It expressed the very spirit of his aunt's house. -He glanced at the pictures, the texts, the beady and the -woolly embroideries, the harsh chairs, and the -magnificent morocco exteriors of the photograph-albums in -which Auntie Hamps kept the shiny portraits of all -her relatives, from grand-nieces back to the third and -fourth generation of ancestors. And a feeling of -desolation came over him. He thought: "How many days -shall I have to spend in this deadly hole?" It was -extremely seldom that he visited King Street, and when -he did come the house was brightened to receive him. -He had almost forgotten what the house really was. -And, suddenly thrown back into it at its most -lugubrious and ignoble, after years of the amenities of -Trafalgar Road, he was somehow surprised that that -sort of thing had continued to exist, and he resented -that it should have dared to continue to exist. He had -a notion that, since he had left it behind, it ought to -have perished.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He cautiously lifted the table and carried it to the -hearthrug. Then he sat down in the easy-chair, whose -special property, as he remembered, was slowly and -inevitably to slide the sitter forward to the hard -edge of the seat; and he put his feet inside the fender. -In the grate a small fire burned between two -fire-bricks. He sneezed. Maggie came in with a tray.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you cold?" she asked, seeing the new situation -of the table.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I cold!" Edwin repeated.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said Maggie, "I always think your rooms -are so hot."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin seized the small serviceable tongs which saved -the wear of the large tongs matching the poker and -the shovel, and he dragged both firebricks out of the -grate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No coal here, I suppose!" he exclaimed gloomily, -opening the black japanned coal-scuttle. "Oh! Corn -in Egypt!" The scuttle was full of coal. He threw -on to the fire several profuse shovelfuls of best -household nuts which had cost sixteen shillings a ton even -in that district of cheap coal.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," Maggie murmured, aghast. "It's a good -thing it's you. If it had been anybody else--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What on earth does she do with her money?" he -muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Shrugging her shoulders, Maggie went out again -with an empty tray.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No servant, either?" Edwin asked, when she returned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's sitting with Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Must I go up before I have my tea?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. She won't have heard you come."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was a grilled mutton-chop and a boiled egg -on the crowded small table, with tea, bread-and-butter, -two rounds of dry bread, some cakes, and jam.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Which are you having--egg or chop?" Edwin -demanded as Maggie sat down.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! They're both for you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what about you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I only have bread-and-butter as a rule."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin grunted, and started to eat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's supposed to be the matter with her?" he -enquired.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It seems it's congestion of the lung, and thickened -arteries. It wouldn't matter so much about the lung -being congested, in itself, only it's the strain on her -heart."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I see."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Been in bed all day, I suppose."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, she would get up. But she had to go back to -bed at once. She had a collapse."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hm!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He could not think of anything else to say.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Haven't got to-night's </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span>, have you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no!" said Maggie, astonished at such a strange -demand. "Hilda get off all right?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, they went by the nine train."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She told me that she should, if she could manage -it. I expect Mrs. Tams was up there early."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin nodded, recalling with bitterness certain -moments of the early morning. And then silence ensued. -The brother and sister could not keep the conversation -alive. Edwin thought: "We know each other -intimately, and we respect each other, and yet we cannot -even conduct a meal together without awkwardness and -constraint. Has civilisation down here got no further -than that?" He felt sorry for Maggie, and also kindly -disdainful of her. He glanced at her furtively and -tried to see in her the girl of the far past. She had -grown immensely older than himself. She was now at -home in the dreadful Hamps environment. True, she -had an income, but had she any pleasures? It was -impossible to divine what her pleasures might be, what she -thought about when she lay in bed, to what hours she -looked forward. First his father, then himself, and -lastly Auntie Hamps had subjugated her. And of the -three Auntie Hamps had most ruthlessly succeeded, -and in the shortest time. And yet--Edwin felt--even -Auntie Hamps had not quite succeeded, and the original -individual still survived in Maggie and was silently -critical of all the phenomena which surrounded her -and to which she had apparently submitted. Realising -this, Edwin ceased to be kindly disdainful.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Towards the end of the meal a heavy foot was heard -on the stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Minnie!" Maggie called.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After shuffling and hesitation the sitting-room door -was pushed ever so little open.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, miss," said someone feebly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why have you left Mrs. Hamps? Do you need -anything?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Missis made me go, miss," came the reply, very -loosely articulated.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come in and take your bread," said Maggie, and -aside to Edwin: "Auntie's at it again!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After another hesitation the door opened wide, and -Minnie became visible. She was rather a big girl, quite -young, fat, too fair, undecided, obviously always -between two minds. Her large apron, badly-fitting over -the blue frock, was of a dubious yellow colour. She -wore spectacles. Behind her spectacles she seemed to -be blinking in confusion at all the subtle complexities of -existence. She advanced irregularly to the table with -a sort of nervous desperation, as if saying: "I have -to go through this ordeal." Edwin could not judge -whether she was about to smile or about to weep.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here's your bread," said Maggie, indicating the two -rounds of dry bread. "I've left the dripping on the -kitchen table for you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, revolted, perceived of course in a flash what -the life of Minnie was under the regime of Auntie -Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank ye, miss."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He noticed that the veiled voice was that of a rather -deaf person.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Blushing, Minnie took the bread, and moved away. -Just as she reached the door, she gave a great sob, -followed by a number of little ones; and the bread fell -on to the carpet. She left it there, and vanished, still -violently sobbing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, spellbound, stopped masticating. A momentary -sensation almost of horror seized him. Maggie -turned pale, and he was glad that she turned pale. If -she had shown by no sign that such happenings were -unusual, he would have been afraid of the very house -itself, of its mere sinister walls which seemed to shelter -sick tyrants, miserable victims, and enchanted captives; -he would have begun to wonder whether he himself -was safe in it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What next?" muttered Maggie, intimidated but -plucky, rising and following Minnie. "Just go up to -Auntie, will you?" she called to Edwin over her shoulder. -"She oughtn't really to be left alone for a minute."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin pushed open the door and crept with precautions -into the bedroom. Mrs. Hamps was dozing. In -the half-light of the lowered gas he looked at her and -was alarmed, shocked, for it was at once apparent that -she must be very ill. She lay reclining against -several crumpled and crushed pillows, with her head on -one side and her veined hands limp on the eiderdown, -between the heavy brown side-curtains that hung from -the carved mahogany tester. The posture seemed to -be that of an exhausted animal, surprised by the -unconsciousness of final fatigue, shameless in the intense -need of repose. Auntie Hamps had ceased to be a -Wesleyan, a pillar of society, a champion of the -conventions, and a keeper-up of appearances; she was just -an utterly wearied and beaten creature, breathing -noisily through wide-open mouth. Edwin could not -remember ever having seen her when she was not to -some extent arrayed for the world's gaze; he had not -seen her at the crisis of any of her recent attacks. He -knew that more than once she had recovered when -good judges had pronounced recovery impossible; but -he was quite sure, now, that she would never rise from -that bed. He had the sudden dreadful thought: "She -is done for, sentenced, cut off from the rest of us. -This is the end for her. She won't be able to pretend -any more. All her efforts have come to this." The -thought affected him like a blow. And two somewhat -contradictory ideas sprang from it: first, the entire -absurdity of her career as revealed by its close, and -secondly, the tragic dignity with which its close was -endowing her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At once contemptible and august, she was diminished, -even in size. Her scanty grey hair was tousled. -Her pink flannel night-dress with its long, loose sleeves -was grotesque; the multitude of her patched outer -wrappings, from which peeped her head on its withered -neck, and safety-pins, and the orifice of a hot-water -bag, were equally grotesque. None of the bed-linen was -clean, or of good quality. The eiderdown was old, and -the needle-points of its small white feathers were -piercing it. The table at the bed-head had a strange -collection of poor, odd crockery. The whole room, with -its distempered walls of an uncomfortable green colour, -in spite of several respectable pieces of mahogany -furniture, seemed to be the secret retreat of a graceless and -mean indigence. And above all it was damply cold; -the window stood a little open, and only the tiniest -fire burnt in the inefficient grate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>For decades Auntie Hamps, with her erect figure -and handsome face, her black silks, jet ornaments, and -sealskins, her small regular subscriptions and her -spasmodic splendours of golden generosity, her heroic -relentless hypocrisies and her absolute self-reliance and -independence, had exhibited a glorious front to the -world. With her, person and individuality were almost -everything, and the environment she had made for -herself almost nothing. The ground-floor of her house -was presentable, especially when titivated for -occasional hospitalities, but not more than presentable. The -upper floor was never shown. In particular, Auntie -Hamps was not one of those women who invite other -women to their bedrooms. Her bedroom was guarded -like a fastness. In it, unbeheld, lived the other Auntie -Hamps, complementary to the grand and massive Mrs. Hamps -known to mankind. And now the fastness was -exposed, defenceless, and its squalid avaricious secrets -discovered; and she was too broken to protest. There -was something unbearably pitiful in that. Her pose -was pitiful and her face was pitiful. Those features -were still far from ugly; the contours of the flushed -cheeks, the chin, and the convex eyelids were astonishingly -soft, and recalled the young girl of about half a -century earlier. She was both old and young in her -troubled unconsciousness. The reflection was inevitable: -"She was a young girl--and now she is sentenced." Edwin -felt himself desolated by a terrible gloom which -questioned the justification of all life. The cold of the -room made him shiver. After gazing for a long time -at the sufferer, he tiptoed to the fire. On the painted -iron mantelpiece were a basalt clock and three -photographs; a recent photograph of smirking Clara -surrounded by her brood; a faded photograph of Maggie -as a young girl, intolerably dowdy; and an equally -faded photograph of himself as a young man of twenty,--he -remembered the suit and the necktie in which he -had been photographed. The simplicity, the -ingenuousness, of his own boyish face moved him deeply and -at the same time disgusted him. "Was I like that?" -he thought, astounded, and he felt intensely sorry -for the raw youth. Above the clock was suspended by -a ribbon a new green card, lettered in silver with some -verses entitled "Lean Hard." This card, he knew, -had superseded a booklet of similar tenor that used -to lie on the dressing-table when he was an infant. -The verses began:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">Child of My love, "Lean hard",</em></div> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">And let Me feel the pressure of thy care.</em></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst"><span>And they ended:</span></p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">Thou lovest Me. I knew it. Doubt not then,</em></div> -<div class="line"><em class="italics">But loving Me, LEAN HARD.</em></div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst"><span>All his life he had laughed at the notion of his -Auntie leaning hard upon anything whatever. Yet -she had lived continually with these verses ever since -the year of their first publication; she had never -tired of their message. And now Edwin was touched. -He seemed to see some sincerity, some beauty, in them. -He had a vision of their author, unknown to literature, -but honoured in a hundred thousand respectable homes. -He thought: "Did Auntie only pretend to believe in -them? Or did she think she did believe in them? Or -did she really believe in them?" The last seemed a -possibility. Supposing she did really believe in -them? ... Yes, he was touched. He was ready to admit -that spirituality was denied to none. He seemed to -come into contact with the universal immanent spirituality.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then he stooped to put some bits of coal silently -on the fire.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who's that putting coal on the fire?" said a faint -but sharply protesting voice from the bed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The weakness of the voice gave Edwin a fresh shock. -The voice seemed to be drawing on the very last reserves -of its owner's vitality. Owing to the height of the -foot of the bed, Auntie Hamps could not see anything -at the fireplace lower than the mantelpiece. As she -withdrew from earth she employed her fading faculties -to expostulate against a waste of coal and to identify -the unseen criminal.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I am," said Edwin cheerfully. "It was nearly out."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He stood up, smiling slightly, and faced her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps, lifting her head and frowning in -surprise, gazed at him for a few moments, as if trying -to decide who he was. Then she said, in the same -enfeebled tone as before:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh, Edwin! I never heard you come in. This is -an honour!" And her head dropped back.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sleeping here," said Edwin, with determined -cheerfulness. "Did ye know?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She reflected, and answered deliberately, using her -volition to articulate every syllable:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. Ye're having Maggie's room."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no, Auntie!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, you are. I've told her." The faint voice -became harshly obstinate. "Turn the gas up a bit, -Edwin, so that I can see you. Well, this is an honour. -Did Maggie give ye a proper tea?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes, thanks. Splendid."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He raised the gas. Auntie Hamps blinked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You want something to shade this gas," said Edwin. -"I'll fix ye something."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The gas-bracket was a little to the right of the -fireplace, over the dressing-table, and nearly opposite the -bed. Auntie Hamps nodded. Having glanced about, -Edwin put a bonnet-box on the dressing-table and on -that, upright and open, the Hamps family Bible from -the ottoman. The infirm creation was just lofty -enough to come between the light and the old woman's eyes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That'll be better," said he. "You're not at all -well, I hear, Auntie." He endeavoured to be tactful.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She slowly shook her head as it lay on the pillow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This is one of my bad days.... But I shall pick -up.... Then has Hilda taken George to London?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh, I do hope and pray it'll be all right. I've had -such good eyesight myself, I'm all the more afraid for -others. What a blessing it's been to me! ... Eh, -what a good mother dear Hilda is!" She added after -a pause: "I daresay there never was such a mother -as Hilda, unless it's Clara."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has Clara been in to-day?" Edwin demanded, to -change the subject of conversation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, she hasn't. But she will, as soon as she has a -moment. She'll be popping in. They're such a tie on -her, those children are--and how she looks after -them! ... Edwin!" She called him, as though he were receding.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The frail voice continued, articulating with great -carefulness, and achieving each sentence as though it -were a miracle, as indeed it was:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I think no one ever had such nephews and nieces -as I have. I've never had children of my own--that -was not to be!--but I must say the Lord has made it -up to me in my nephews and nieces. You and Hilda -... and Clara and Albert ... and the little -chicks!" Tears stood in her eyes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're forgetting Maggie," said Edwin, lightly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," Auntie Hamps agreed, but in a quite different -tone, reluctant and critical. "I'm sure Maggie does -her best. Oh! I'm sure she does ... Edwin!" Again -she called him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He approached the tumbled bed, and even sat on -the edge of it, his hands in his pockets. Auntie Hamps, -though breathing now more rapidly and with more -difficulty, seemed to have revitalised herself at some -mysterious source of energy. She was still preoccupied -by the mental concentration and the effort of volition -required for the smallest physical acts incident to her -continued existence; but she had accumulated power for -the furtherance of greater ends.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"D'ye want anything?" Edwin suggested, indicating -the contents of the night-table.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She moved her head to signify a negative. Her -pink-clad arms did not stir. And her whole being seemed -to be suspended while she prepared for an exertion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so relieved you've come," she said at length, -slowly and painfully. "You can't think what a relief -it is to me. I've really no one but you.... It's -about that girl."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What girl?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Minnie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The servant?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Hamps inclined her head, and fetched breath -through the wide-open mouth. "I've only just found -it out. She's in trouble. Oh! She admitted it to -me a bit ago. I sent her downstairs. I wouldn't have -her in my bedroom a minute longer. She's in trouble. -I felt sure she was.... She was at class-meeting -last Wednesday. And only yesterday I paid her her -wages. Only yesterday! Here she lives on the fat of -the land, and what does she do for it? I assure you -I have to see to everything myself. I'm always after -her.... In a month she won't be fit to be seen -... Edwin, I've never been so ashamed.... That I -should have to tell such a thing to my own -nephew!" She ceased, exhausted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was somewhat amused. He could not help -feeling amused at such an accident happening in the -house of Mrs. Hamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who's the man?" he asked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, and that's another thing!" answered Mrs. Hamps -solemnly, in her extreme weakness. "It's the -barman at the Vaults, of all people. She wouldn't -admit it, but I know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What are you going to do?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She must leave my house at once."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where does she live--I mean her people?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She has no parents." Auntie Hamps reflected for -a few moments. "She has an aunt at Axe."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, she can't get to Axe to-night," said Edwin -positively. "Does Maggie know about it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Maggie!" exclaimed Mrs. Hamps scornfully. -"Maggie never notices </span><em class="italics">anything</em><span>." She added in a -graver tone: "And there's no reason why Maggie -should know. It's not the sort of thing that Maggie -ought to know about. You can speak to the girl -herself. It will come much better from you. I shall -simply tell Maggie I've decided the girl must go."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She can't go to-night," Edwin repeated, humouringly, -but firmly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps proved the sincerity of her regard -for him by yielding.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," she murmured, "to-morrow morning, then. -She can turn out the sitting-room, and clean the silver -in the black box, and then she can go--before dinner. -I don't see why I should give her her dinner. Nor her -extra day's wages either."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what shall you do for a servant? Get a -charwoman?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Charwoman? No! Maggie will manage." And -then with a sudden flare of relished violence: "I -always knew that girl was a mopsy slut. And what's -more, if you ask me, she brought him into the -house--and after eleven o'clock at night too!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right!" Edwin muttered, to soothe the patient.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Mrs. Hamps sadly smiled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's such a relief to me," she breathed. "You don't -know what a relief to me it is to put it in your hands."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her eyelids dropped. She said no more. Having -looked back for an instant in a supreme effort on -behalf of the conventions upon which society was -established, Auntie Hamps turned again exhausted -towards the lifting veil of the unknown. And Edwin -began to realise the significance of the scene that was -ended.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"I say," Edwin began, when he had silently closed the -door of the sitting-room. "Here's a lark, if you -like!" And he gave a short laugh. It was under such language -and such demeanour that he concealed his real emotion, -which was partly solemn, partly pleasurable, and -wholly buoyant.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie looked up gloomily. With a bit of pencil -held very close to the point in her heavy fingers, she -was totting up the figures of household accounts in a -penny red-covered cash-book.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin went on:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It seems the girl yon"--he indicated the kitchen -with a jerk of the head--"'s been and got herself into -a mess."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie leaned her chin on her hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has she been talking to you about it?" With a -similar jerk of the head Maggie indicated Mrs. Hamps's -bedroom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose she's only just found it out?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who? Auntie? Yes. Did you know about it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did I know about it?" Maggie repeated with mild -disdainful impatience. "Of course I knew about it. -I've known for weeks. But I wasn't going to tell -</span><em class="italics">her</em><span>." She finished bitterly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin regarded his sister with new respect and not -without astonishment. Never before in their lives had -they discussed any inconvenient sexual phenomenon. -Save for vague and very careful occasional reference -to Clara's motherhood, Maggie had never given any -evidence to her brother that she was acquainted with -what are called in Anglo-Saxon countries "the facts of -life," and he had somehow thought of her as not -having emerged, at the age of forty-four or so, from the -naïve ignorance of the young girl. Now her -perfectly phlegmatic attitude in front of the Minnie -episode seemed to betoken a familiarity that approached -cynicism. And she was not at all tongue-tied; she was -at her ease. She had become a woman of the world. -Edwin liked her; he liked her manner and her tone. -His interest in the episode even increased.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She was for turning her out to-night," said he. -"I stopped that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should think so indeed!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've got her as far as to-morrow morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The girl won't go to-morrow morning either!" said -Maggie. "At least, if she goes, I go." She spoke with -tranquillity, adding: "But we needn't bother about -that. Auntie'll be past worrying about Minnie -to-morrow morning.... I'd better go up to her. She -can't possibly be left alone."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie shut the account-book, and rose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I only came down for a sec to tell you. She was -dozing," said Edwin apologetically. "She's awfully -ill. I'd no idea."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, she's ill right enough."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who'll sit up with her?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you sit up with her last night?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No--only part of the night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We ought to get a nurse."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, we can't get one to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what about Clara? Can't she take a turn? -Surely in a case like this she can chuck her eternal -kids for a bit."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I expect she could. But she doesn't know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Haven't you sent round?" He expressed surprise.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I couldn't," said Maggie with undisturbed -equanimity. "Who could I send? I couldn't spare Minnie. -The thing didn't seem at all serious until this morning. -Since then I've had my hands full."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I can see you have," Edwin agreed appreciatively.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was lucky the doctor called on his own. He -does sometimes, you know, since she began to have -her attacks."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'll go round to Clara's myself," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't," said Maggie. "At least not to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?" He might have put the question angrily, -overbearingly; but Maggie was so friendly, suave, -confidential, persuasive, and so sure of herself, that with -pleasure he copied her accents. He enjoyed thus -talking to her intimately in the ugly dark house, with the -life-bearing foolish Minnie on the one hand, and the -dying old woman on the other. He thought: "There's -something splendid about Mag. In fact I always knew -there was." And he forgot her terrible social -shortcomings, her utter lack of the feminine seductiveness -that for him ought to be in every woman, and her -invincible stolidity. Her sturdy and yet scarcely -articulate championship of Minnie delighted him and -quickened his pulse.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd sooner not have her here to-night," said Maggie. -"You knew they'd had a tremendous rumpus, didn't you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who? Auntie and Clara?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't. What about? When? Nobody ever said -anything to me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, it must have been two or three months ago. -Auntie said something about Albert not paying me my -interest on my money he's got. And then Clara flared -up, and the fat was in the fire."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"D'you mean to say he's not paying you your -interest? Why didn't you tell me?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! It doesn't matter. I didn't want to bother you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you ought to have bothered me," said -Edwin, with a trace of benevolent severity. He was -astounded, and somewhat hurt, that this great family -event should have been successfully concealed from -him. He felt furious against Albert and Clara, and at -the same time proud that his prognostication about -the investment with Albert had proved correct.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Did Hilda know?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes. Hilda knew."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'm dashed!" The exclamation showed -naïvete. His impression of the chicanery of women was -deepened, so that it actually disquieted him. "But I -suppose," he went on, "I suppose this row isn't going -to stop Clara from coming here, seeing the state -Auntie's in?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, certainly not. Clara would come like a shot -if she knew, and Albert as well. She's a good -nurse--in some ways."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, if they aren't told, and anything happens to -Auntie in the night, there'll be a fine to-do -afterwards,--don't forget that."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing'll happen to Auntie in the night," said -Maggie, with tranquil reassurance. "And I don't think -I could stand 'em to-night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The hint of her nervous susceptibility, beneath that -stolid exterior, appealed to him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie, since closing the account-book, had moved -foot by foot anxiously towards the door, and had only -been kept in the room by the imperative urgency of -the conversation. She now had her hand on the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say!" He held her yet another moment. "What's -this about me taking your room? I don't want to -turn you out of your room."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's all right," she said, with a kind smile. "It's -easiest, really. Moreover, I daresay there won't be such -a lot of sleeping.... I must go up at once. She -can't possibly be left alone."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie opened the door and she had scarcely -stepped forth when Minnie from the kitchen rushed -into the lobby and dropped, intentionally or -unintentionally, on her knees before her. Edwin, unobserved -by Minnie, witnessed the scene through the doorway. -Minnie, agitated almost to the point of hysteria, was -crying violently and as she breathed her shoulders -lifted and fell, and the sound of her sobbing rose -periodically to a shriek and sank to a groan. She knelt with -her body and thighs upright and her head erect, -making no attempt to stem the tears or to hide her face. -In her extreme desolation she was perhaps as -unconscious of herself as she had ever been. Her cap was -awry on her head, and her hair disarranged; the -blinking spectacles made her ridiculous; only the blue print -uniform, and the sinister yellowish apron drawn down -tight under her knees, gave a certain respectable -regularity to her extraordinary and grotesque appearance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>To Edwin she seemed excessively young and yet far -too large and too developed for her age. The girl was -obviously a fool. Edwin could perceive in her no charm -whatever, except that of her innocence; and it was not -easy to imagine that any man, even the barman at the -Vaults, could have mistaken her, even momentarily, -for the ideal. And then some glance of her spectacled -eyes, or some gesture of the great red hand, showed him -his own blindness and mysteriously made him realise -the immensity of the illusion and the disillusion through -which she had passed in her foolish and incontinent -simplicity. What had happened to her was miraculous, -exquisite, and terrible. He felt the magic of her -illusion and the terror of her disillusion. Already in her -girlishness and her stupidity she had lived through -supreme hours. "Compared to her," he thought, "I don't -know what life is. No man does." And he not only -suffered for her sorrow, he gave her a sacred quality. -It seemed to him that heaven itself ought to endow -her with beauty, grace, and wisdom, so that she might -meet with triumphant dignity the ordeals that awaited -her; and that mankind should supplement the work of -heaven by clothing her richly and housing her in -secluded splendour, and offering her the service which -only victims merit. Surely her caprices ought to be -indulged and honoured! ... Edwin was indignant; -indignation positively burnt his body. She was -helpless and defenceless and she had been exploited by -Auntie Hamps. And after having been exploited she -had been driven out by ukase on week-night to -class-meeting and on Sunday night to chapel, to find Christ, -with the result that she had found the barman at -the Vaults. The consequences were inevitable. She -was definitely ruined, unless the child should bereave -her by dying; and even then she might still be ruined. -And what about the child, if the child lived? And -although Edwin had never seen the silly girl before, he -said to himself, while noticing that a crumb or two of -the bread dropped by her still remained on the floor: -"I'll see that girl through whatever it costs!" He was -not indignant against Auntie Hamps. How could he -be indignant against an expiring old creature already -desperate in the final dilemma. He felt nearly as sorry -for Auntie Hamps as for Minnie. He was indignant -against destiny, of which Auntie Hamps was only the -miserable, unimaginative instrument.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd better go to-night, miss. Let me go to-night!" -cried Minnie. And she cried so loudly that Edwin was -afraid Auntie Hamps might hear and might make an -apparition at the head of the stairs and curse Minnie -with fearful Biblical names. And the old woman in the -curtained bed upstairs was almost as present to him -as the girl kneeling before his eyes on the linoleum -of the lobby.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Minnie! Minnie! Don't be foolish!" said Maggie, -standing over her and soothing her, not with her hands -but with her voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie had shown no perturbation or even surprise -at Minnie's behaviour. She stood looking down at her -benevolent, deprecating, and calm. And by contrast -with Minnie she seemed to be quite middle-aged. Her -tone was exactly right. It reminded Edwin of the -tone which she would use to himself when, she was -sixteen and the housekeeper, and he was twelve. Maggie -had long since lost authority over him; she had lost -everything; she would die without having lived; she -had never begun to live--(No, perhaps once she had -just begun to live!)--Minnie had prime knowledge far -exceeding hers. And yet she had power over Minnie -and could exercise it with skill.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Minnie, hesitating, sobbed more slowly, and then -ceased to sob.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Go back into the kitchen and have something to -eat, and then you can go to bed. You'll feel differently -in the morning," said Maggie with the same gentle -blandness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Minnie, as though fascinated, rose from her knees.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, surmising what had passed between the two -in the kitchen while he was in the bedroom, was aware -of a fresh, intense admiration for Maggie. She might -be dowdy, narrow, dull, obstinate, virgin,--but she -was superb. She had terrific reserves. He was proud -of her. The tone merely of her voice as she spoke -to the girl seemed to prove the greatness of her -deeply-hidden soul.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Suddenly Minnie caught sight of Edwin through the -doorway, flushed red, had the air of slavishly -apologising to the unapproachable male for having disturbed -him by her insect-woes, and vanished. Maggie -hurried upstairs to the departing. Edwin was alone with -the chill draught from the lobby into the room, and -with the wonder of life.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>In the middle of the night Edwin kept watch over -Auntie Hamps, who was asleep. He sat in a rocking-chair, -with his back to the window and the right side of -his face to the glow of the fire. The fire was as -effective as the size and form of the grate would allow; -it burnt richly red; but its influence did not seem to -extend beyond a radius of four feet outwards from its -centre. The terrible damp chill of the Five Towns -winter hung in the bedroom like an invisible miasma. -He could feel the cold from the window, which was -nevertheless shut, through the shawl with which he had -closed the interstices of the back of the chair, and, -though he had another thick shawl over his knees, the -whole of his left side felt the creeping attack of the -insidious miasma. A thermometer which he had found -and which lay on the night-table five yards from the -fire registered only fifty-two degrees. His expelled -breath showed in the air. It was as if he were fighting -with all resources against frigidity, and barely holding -his own.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the half-light of the gas, still screened from the -bed by the bonnet-box and the Bible, he glanced round -amid the dark meadows at the mean and sinister -ugliness of the historic chamber, the secret nest and -withdrawing place of Auntie Hamps; and the real asceticism -of her life and of the life of all her generation -almost smote him. Half a century earlier such a room had -represented comfort; in some details, as for instance -in its bed, it represented luxury; and in half a century -Auntie Hamps had learnt nothing from the material -progress of civilisation but the use of the hot-water -bag; her vanished and forgotten parents would have -looked askance at the enervating luxuriousness of her -hot-water bag--unknown even to the crude wistful boy -Edwin on the mantelpiece. And Auntie Hamps herself -was wont as it were to atone for it by using the still -tepid water therefrom for her morning toilet instead -of having truly hot water brought up from the kitchen. -Edwin thought: "Are we happier for these changes -brought about by the mysterious force of evolution?" And -answered very emphatically: "Yes, we are." He -would not for anything have gone back to the austerities -of his boyhood.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He rocked gently to and fro in the chair, excited -by events and by the novel situation, and he was not -dissatisfied with himself. Indeed he was aware of a -certain calm complacency, for his commonsense had -triumphed over Maggie's devoted silly womanishness. -Maggie was for sitting up through the night; she was -anxious to wear herself out for no reason whatever; -but he had sent her to bed until three o'clock, promising -to call her if she should be needed. The exhausted -girl was full of sagacity save on that one point of -martyrdom to the fullest--apparently with her a point -of honour. For the sake of the sensation of having -martyrised herself utterly she was ready to imperil her -fitness for the morrow. She secretly thought it was -unfair to call upon him, a man, to share her fatigues. -He regarded himself as her superior in wisdom, and -he was relieved that anyone so wise and balanced as -Edwin Clayhanger had taken supreme charge of the -household organism.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Restless, he got up from the chair and looked at -the bed. He had heard no unusual sound therefrom, -but to excuse his restlessness he had said: "Suppose -some change had occurred and I didn't notice it!" No -change had occurred. Auntie Hamps lay like a -mite, like a baby forlorn, senile and defenceless, amid -the heaped pillows and coverings of the bed. Within -the deep gloom of the canopy and the over-arching -curtains only her small, soft face was alive; even her -hair was hidden in the indentation made by the weight -of her head in the pillows. She was unconscious, -either in sleep or otherwise,--he could not tell how. -And in her unconsciousness the losing but obstinate -fight against the power which was dragging her over -the edge of eternity still went on. It showed in the -apprehensive character of her breathing, which made -a little momentary periodic cloud above her face, and -in the uneasy muscular movements of the lips and -jaws, and in the vague noises in her throat. A -tremendous pity for her re-entered his heart, almost -breaking it, because she was so beaten, and so fallen from -the gorgeousness of her splendour. Even Minnie could -have imposed her will upon Auntie Hamps now; each -hour she weakened.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He had no more resentment against her on account -of Minnie, no accusation to formulate. He was merely -grieved, with a compassionate grief, that Auntie Hamps -had learnt so little while living so long. He knew that -she was cruel only because she was incapable of -imagining what it was to be Minnie. He understood. She -worshipped God under the form of respectability, but -she did worship God. Like all religious votaries she -placed religion above morality; hence her chicane, her -inveterate deceit and self-deceit. It was with a -religious aim that she had concealed from him the -estrangement between herself and Clara. The unity of -the family was one of her major canons (as indeed -it was one of Edwin's). She had a passion for her -nephew and nieces. It was a grand passion. Her -pride in them must have been as terrific as her longing -that they and all theirs should conform to the sole -ideal that she comprehended. Undeniably there was -something magnificent in her religion--her unscrupulousness -in the practice of it, and the mighty consistency -of her career. She had lived. He ceased to pity -her, for she towered above pity. She was dying, but -only for an instant. He would smile at his aunt's -primeval notions of a future life, yet he had to admit that -his own notions, though far less precise, could not -be appreciably less crude. He and she were anyhow -at one in the profound and staggering conviction of -immortality. Enlightened by that conviction, he was able -to reduce the physical and mental tragedy of the -death-bed to its right proportions as a transiency -between the heroic past and the inconceivable future. -And in the stillness of the room and the stillness of -the house, perfumed by the abnegation of Maggie and -the desolate woe of the ruined Minnie whom the -Clayhangers would save, and in the outer stillness of the -little street with the Norman church-tower sticking up -out of history at the bottom of its slope, Edwin felt -uplifted and serene.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He returned to the rocking-chair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's asleep now in some room I've never seen!" -he reflected.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was suddenly thinking of his wife. During the -previous night, lying sleepless close to her while she -slept soundly, he had reflected long and with increasing -pessimism. The solace of Hilda's kiss had proved -fleeting. She had not realised--he himself was then only -realising little by little--the enormity of the thing -she had done. What she had deliberately and -obstinately done was to turn him out of his house. No -injury that she might have chosen could have touched -him more closely, more painfully,--for his house to -him was sacred. Her blundering with the servants -might be condoned, but what excuse was it possible to -find for this precipitate flight to London involving the -summary ejectment from the home of him who had -created the home and for and by whom the home chiefly -existed? True the astounding feat of wrong-headedness -had been aided by the mere chance of Maggie's -calling (capricious women were always thus lucky!),--Maggie's -suggestion and request had given some afterglow -of reason to the mad project. But the justification -was still far from sufficient. And the odious idea -haunted him that, even if Maggie had not called with -her tale, Hilda would have persisted in her scheme all -the same. Yes, she was capable of that! The argument -that George's eyes (of whose condition she had -learnt by mere hazard) could not wait until domestic -affairs were arranged, was too grotesque to deserve an -answer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Lying thus close to his wife in the dark, he had -perceived that the conflict between his individuality -and hers could never cease. No diplomatic devices -of manner could put an end to it. And he had seen -also that as they both grew older and developed more -fully, the conflict was becoming more serious. He -assumed that he had faults, but he was solemnly -convinced that the faults of Hilda were tremendous, -essential, and ineradicable. She had a faculty for acting -contrary to justice and contrary to sense which was -simply monstrous. And it had always been so. Her -whole life had been made up of impulsiveness and -contumacy in that impulsiveness. Witness the incredible -scenes of the strange Dartmoor episode--all due to her -stubborn irrationality! The perspective of his -marriage was plain to him in the night,--and it ended in -a rupture. He had been resolutely blind to Hilda's -peculiarities, dismissing incident after incident as an -isolated misfortune. But he could be blind no more. His -marriage was all of a piece, and he must and would -recognise the fact.... The sequel would be a -scandal! ... Well, let it be a scandal! As the minutes -and hours passed in grim meditation, the more attractive -grew the lost freedom of the bachelor and the more -ready he felt to face any ordeal that lay between him -and it.... And just as it was occurring to him -that his proper course was to have fought a terrific -open decisive battle with her in front of both Maggie -and Ingpen he had fallen asleep.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Upon awaking, barely in time to arouse Hilda, he -knew that the mood of the night had not melted away -as such moods are apt to melt when the window begins -to show a square of silver-grey. The mood was even -intensified. Hilda had divined nothing. She never did -divine the tortures which she inflicted in his heart. She -did not possess the gumption to divine. Her demeanour -had been amazing. She averred that she had not -slept at all. Instead of cajoling, she bullied. Instead -of tacitly admitting that she was infamously -wronging him, she had assumed a grievance of her -own--without stating it. Once she had said discontentedly -about some trifle: "You might </span><em class="italics">at any rate</em><span>----" as -though the victim should caress the executioner. She -had kissed him at departure, but not as usual effusively, -and he had suffered the kiss in enmity; and after an -unimaginable general upset and confusion, in which -George had shown himself strangely querulous, she -had driven off with her son,--unconscious, stupidly -unaware, that she was leaving a disaster behind her. And -last of all Edwin, solitary, had been forced to -perform the final symbolic act, that of locking him out -of his own sacred home! The affair had transcended -belief.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All day at the works his bitterness and melancholy -had been terrible, and the works had been shaken with -apprehension, for no angry menaces are more -disconcerting than those of a man habitually mild. Before -evening he had decided to write to his wife from Auntie -Hamps's,--a letter cold, unanswerable, crushing, that -would confront her unescapably with the alternatives -of complete submission or complete separation. The -phrases of the letter came into his mind.... He -would see who was master.... He had been full of -the letter when he entered Auntie Hamps's lobby. But -the strange tone in which Maggie had answered his -questions about the sick woman had thrust the letter -and the crisis right to the back of his mind, where -they had uneasily remained throughout the evening. -And now in the rocking-chair he was reflecting:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's asleep in some room I've never seen!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He smiled, such a smile, candid, generous, and affectionate, -as was Hilda's joy, such a smile as Hilda dwelt -on in memory when she was alone. The mood of -resentment passed away, vanished like a nightmare at -dawn, and like one of his liverish headaches dispersed -suddenly after the evening meal. He saw everything -differently. He saw that he had been entirely wrong in -his estimate of the situation, and of Hilda. Hilda was -a mother. She had the protective passion of maternity. -She was carried away by her passions; but her passions -were noble, marvellous, unique. He himself could -never--he thought, humbled--attain to her emotional -heights. He was incapable of feeling about anything -or anybody as she felt about George. The revelation -concerning George's eyesight had shocked her, -overwhelmed her with remorse, driven every other idea out -of her head. She must atone to George instantly; -instantly she must take measures--the most drastic and -certain--to secure him from the threatened danger. -She could not count the cost till afterwards. She was -not a woman in such moments,--she was an instinct, a -desire, a ruthless purpose. And as she felt towards -George, so she must feel, in other circumstances, -towards himself. Her kisses proved it, and her soothing -hand when he was unwell. Mrs. Hamps had said: "Eh, -dear! What a good mother dear Hilda is!" A -sentimental outcry! But there was profound truth in it, -truth which the old woman had seen better than he -had seen it. "I daresay there never was such a -mother--unless it's Clara!" Hyperbole! And yet he himself -now began to think that there never could have been -such a mother as Hilda. Clara too in her way was -wonderful.... Smile as you might, these mothers -were tremendous. The mysterious sheen of their -narrow and deep lives dazzled him. For the first time, -perhaps, he bowed his head to Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Hilda was far beyond Clara. She was not -only a mother but a lover. Would he cut himself off -from her loving? Why? For what? To live alone -in the arid and futile freedom of a Tertius Ingpen? -Such a notion was fatuous. Where lay the difficulty -between himself and Hilda? There was no difficulty. -How had she harmed him? She had not harmed him. -Everything was all right. He had only to understand. -He understood. As for her impulsiveness, -her wrongheadedness, her bizarre ratiocination,--he -knew how to accept them, for was he not a philosopher? -They were indeed part of the incomparable romance -of existence with these prodigious and tantalising -creatures. He admitted that Hilda in some aspects -transcended him, but in others he was comfortably -confident of his own steady, conquering superiority. He -thought of her with the most exquisite devotion. He -pictured the secret tenderness of their reunion amid the -conventional gloom of Auntie Hamps's death-bed.... -He was confident of his ability to manage Hilda, -at any rate in the big things,--for example the -disputed points of his entry into public activity and their -removal from Trafalgar Road into the country. The -sturdiness of the male inspired him. At the same time -the thought of the dark mood from which he had -emerged obscurely perturbed him, like a fearful danger -passed; and he argued to himself with satisfaction, -and yet not quite with conviction, that he had yielded -to Maggie, and not to Hilda, in the affair of the -journey to London, and that therefore his masculine -marital dignity was intact.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then he started at a strange sound below, which -somehow recalled him to the nervous tension of the -house. It was a knocking at the front-door. His heart -thumped at the formidable muffled noise in the middle -of the night. He jumped up, and glanced at the bed. -Auntie Hamps was not wakened. He went downstairs -where the gas which he had lighted was keeping watch.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="death-and-burial"><span class="large">CHAPTER XIX</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">DEATH AND BURIAL</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Albert Benbow was at the front-door. Edwin -curbed the expression of his astonishment.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello, Albert!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! You aren't gone to bed?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not likely. Come in. What's up?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert, with the habit of one instructed never to -tread actually on a doorstep lest it should be newly -whitened, stepped straight on to the inner mat. He -seemed excited, and Edwin feared that he had just -learnt of Auntie Hamps's illness and had come in the -middle of the night ostensibly to make enquiries, but -really to make a grievance of the fact that the -Benbows had been "kept in ignorance." He could already -hear Albert demanding: "Why have you kept us in -ignorance?" It was quite a Benbow phrase.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin shut the door and shut out the dark and -windy glimpse of the outer world which had emphasised -for a moment the tense seclusion of the house.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You've heard of course about the accident to -Ingpen?" said Albert. His hands were deep in his -overcoat pockets; the collar of the thin, rather shabby -overcoat was turned up; an old cap adhered to the -back of his head. While talking he slowly lifted his -feet one after the other, as though desiring to get -warmth by stamping but afraid to stamp in the night.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I haven't," said Edwin, with false calmness. -"What accident?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The perspective of events seemed to change; Auntie -Hamps's illness to recede, and a definite and familiar -apprehension to be supplanted by a fear more -formidable because it was a fear of the unknown.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was all in the late special </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span>!" Benbow -protested, as if his pride had been affronted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I haven't seen the </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span>. What is it?" And -Edwin thought: "Is somebody else dying too?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Fly-wheel broke. Ingpen was inspecting the slip-house -next to the engine-house. Part of the fly-wheel -came through and knocked a loose nut off the blunger -right into his groin."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Whose works?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert answered in a light tone:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mine."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And how's he going on?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, he's had an operation and Sterling's got the -nut out. Of course they didn't know what it was till -they got it out. And now Ingpen wants to see you at -once. That's why I've come."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where is he?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"At the hospital."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Pirehill?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. The Clowes--Moorthorne Road, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is he going on all right?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's very weak. He can scarcely whisper. But -he wants you. I've been up there all the time, -practically."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin seized his overcoat from the rack.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I had a rare job finding ye," Benbow went on. "I'd -no idea you weren't all at home. I wakened most of -Hulton Street over it. It was Smiths next door came -out at last and told me missis and George had gone -to London and you were over here."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder who told them!" Edwin mumbled as -Albert helped him with the overcoat. "I must tell -Maggie. We've got some illness here, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. Auntie. Very sudden. Seemed to get worse -to-night. Fact is I was sitting up while Maggie has a -bit of sleep. She was going to send round for Clara -in the morning. I'll just run up to Mag."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Having thus by judicious misrepresentation deprived -the Benbows of a grievance, Edwin moved towards the -stairs. Maggie, dressed, already stood at the top of -them, alert, anxious, adequate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Albert, is that you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After a few seconds of quick murmured explanation, -Edwin and Albert departed, and as they went Maggie, -in a voice doubly harassed but cheerful and oily called -out after them how glad she would be, and what a help -it would be, if Clara could come round early in the -morning.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The small Clowes Hospital was high up in the town -opposite the Park, near the station and the -railway-cutting and not far from the Moorthorne ridge. -Behind its bushes, through which the wet night-wind -swished and rustled, it looked still very new and red -in the fitful moonlight. And indeed it was scarcely -older than the Park and swimming-baths close by, and -Bursley had not yet lost its naïve pride in the -possession of a hospital of its own. Not much earlier in -the decade this town of thirty-five thousand inhabitants -had had to send all its "cases" five miles in cabs to -Pirehill Infirmary. Albert Benbow, with the satisfaction -of a habitué, led Edwin round through an aisle -of bushes to the side-entrance for out-patients. He -pushed open a dark door, walked into a gaslit vestibule, -and with the assured gestures of a proprietor invited -Edwin to follow. A fat woman who looked like a -char-woman made tidy sat in a windsor-chair in the vestibule, -close to a radiator. She signed to Albert as an old -acquaintance to go forward, and Albert nodded in the -manner of one conspirator to another. What struck -Edwin was that this middle-aged woman showed no -sign of being in the midst of the unusual. She was -utterly casual and matter-of-fact. And Edwin had the -sensation of moving in a strange nocturnal world--a -world which had always co-existed with his own, but of -which he had been till then most curiously ignorant. -His passage through the town listening absently to -Albert's descriptions of the structural damage to -Ingpen and to the works, and Albert's defence against -unbrought accusations, had shown him that the silent -streets lived long after midnight in many a lighted -window here and there and in the movements of mysterious -but not furtive frequenters. And he seemed to have been -impinging upon half-veiled enigmas of misfortune or of -love. At the other end of the thread of adventure -was his aunt's harsh bedroom with Maggie stolidly -watching the last ebb of senile vitality, and at this -end was the hospital, full of novel and disturbing -vibrations and Tertius Ingpen waiting to impose upon -him some charge or secret.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the top of the naked stairs which came after a -dark corridor was a long naked resounding passage -lighted by a tiny jet at either end. A cough from -behind a half-open door came echoing out and filled the -night and the passage. And then at another door -appeared a tall, thin, fair nurse in blue and white, with -thin lips and a slight smile hard and disdainful.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here's Mr. Clayhanger, nurse!" muttered Albert -Benbow, taking off his cap, with a grimace at once -sycophantic and grandiose.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin imagined that he knew by sight everybody in -the town above a certain social level, but he had no -memory of the face of the nurse.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How is he?" he asked awkwardly, fingering his hat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The girl merely raised her eyebrows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You mustn't stay," said she, in a mincing but rather -loud voice that matched her lips.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no, I won't!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose </span><em class="italics">I'd</em><span> better stop outside!" said Benbow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin followed the nurse into a darkened room, of -which the chief article of furniture appeared to be a -screen. Behind the screen was a bed, and on the bed -in the deep obscurity lay a form under creaseless -bedclothes. Edwin first recognised Ingpen's beard, then -his visage very pale and solemn, and without the -customary spectacles. Of the whole body only the eyes -moved. As Edwin approached the bed he cast across -Ingpen a shadow from the distant gas.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, old chap!" he began with constraint. "This -is a nice state of affairs! How are you getting on?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen's enquiring apprehensive dumb glance silenced -the clumsy greeting. It was just as if he had rebuked: -"This is no time for How d'ye do's." When he had -apparently made sure that Edwin was Edwin, Ingpen -turned his eyes to the nurse.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Water," he whispered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The nurse shook her head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Net yet," she replied, with tepid indifference.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen's eyes remained on her a moment and then -went back to Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ed," he whispered, and gazed once more at the -nurse, who, looking away from the bed, did not move.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin bent over the bed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ed," Ingpen demanded, speaking very deliberately. -"Go to my office. In the top drawer of the -desk in the bedroom there's some photos and letters.... -Burn them.... Before morning.... Understand?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was profoundly stirred. In his emotion was -pride at Ingpen's trust, astonishment at the sudden, -utterly unexpected revelation, and the thrill of romance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The man is dying!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And the tragic sensation of the vigil of the nocturnal -world almost overcame him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," he said. "Anything else?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What about keys?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen gave him another long glance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Trousers."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are his clothes?" Edwin asked the nurse, -whose lips were ironic.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! They'll tell you downstairs. You'd better go now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As he went from the room he could feel Ingpen's -glance following him. He raged inwardly against the -callousness of the nurse. It seemed monstrous that -he should abandon Ingpen for the rest of the night, -defenceless, to the cold tyranny of the nurse, whose -power over the sufferer was as absolute as that of an -eastern monarch, who had never heard of public -opinion, over the meanest slave. He could not bear -to picture to himself Ingpen and the nurse alone -together.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Isn't he allowed to drink?" he could not help -murmuring, at the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. At intervals."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He wanted to chastise the nurse. He imagined an -endless succession of sufferers under her appalling, -inimical nonchalance. Who had allowed her to be a -nurse? Had she become a nurse in order to take some -needed revenge against mankind? And then he thought -of Hilda's passionate, succouring tenderness when he -himself was unwell,--he had not been really ill for -years. What was happening to Ingpen could never -happen to him, because Hilda stood everlastingly -between him and such a horror. He considered that a -bachelor was the most pathetic creature on the earth. -He was drenched in the fearful, wistful sadness of all -life.... The sleeping town; Auntie Hamps on the -edge of eternity; Minnie trembling at the menaces of -her own body; Hilda lying in some room that he had -never seen; and Ingpen...!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Soon over!" observed Albert Benbow in the corridor.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin could have winced at the words.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How do you think he is?" asked Albert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't know!" Edwin replied. "Look here, I've got -to get hold of his clothes--downstairs."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! That's it, is it? Pocket-book! Keys! Eh?"</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Edwin had once been in Tertius Ingpen's office at the -bottom of Crown Square, Hanbridge, but never in the -bedroom which Ingpen rented on the top floor of the -same building. It had been for seventy or eighty years -a building of four squat storeys; but a new landlord, -seeing the architectural development of the town as a -local metropolis and determined to join in it at a -minimum of expense, had knocked the two lower storeys -into one, fronted them with fawn-coloured terra cotta, -and produced a lofty shop whose rent exceeded the -previous rent of the entire house.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The landlord knew that passers-by would not look -higher up the façade than the ground-floor, and that -therefore any magnificence above that level was merely -wasted. The shop was in the occupation of a -tea-dealer who gave away beautiful objects such as vases -and useful objects such as tea-trays, to all purchasers. -Ingpen's office, and a solicitor's office, were on the first -floor, formerly the second; the third floor was the -headquarters of the Hanbridge and District Ethical -Society; the top floor was temporarily unlet, save for -Ingpen's room. Nobody except Ingpen slept in the -building, and he very irregularly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The latchkey for the sidedoor was easy to choose -in the glittering light of the latest triple-jetted and -reflectored gaslamps which the corporation, to match -the glories of the new town-hall, had placed -in Crown Square. The lock, strange to say, worked -easily. Edwin entered somewhat furtively, and as -it were guiltily, though in Crown Square and the -streets and the other squares visible therefrom, not -a soul could be seen. The illuminated clock of the -Old Town Hall at the top of the square showed twenty-five -minutes to four. Immediately within the door began -a new, very long and rather mean staircase, with which -Edwin was acquainted. He closed the door, shutting -out the light and the town, and struck a match in the -empty building. He had walked into Hanbridge from -Bursley, and as soon as he began to climb the stairs he -was aware of great fatigue, both physical and mental. -The calamity to Ingpen had almost driven Auntie -Hamps out of his mind; it had not, however, driven -Minnie out of his mind. He was gloomy and indignant -on behalf of both Ingpen and Minnie. They were both -victims. Minnie was undoubtedly a fool, and he was -about to learn, perhaps, to what extent Ingpen had -been a fool.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Each footstep sounded loud on the boards of -deserted house. Having used several matches and -arrived at the final staircase, Edwin wondered how -he was to distinguish Ingpen's room there from the -others without trying keys in all of them till he got to -the right one. But on the top landing he had no -difficulty, for Ingpen's card was fastened with a -drawing-pin on to the first door he saw. A match burnt his -fingers and expired just as he was shaking out a likely -key from Ingpen's bunch. And then, in the black -darkness, he perceived a line of light under the door in front -of which he stood. He forgot his fatigue in an instant. -His heart leaped. A burglar? Or had Ingpen left the -gas burning? Ingpen could not have left the gas -burning since, according to Albert Benbow, he had been in -Bursley all afternoon. With precautions, and feeling -very desperate and yet also craven, he lit a fresh match -and managed quietly to open the door, which was not -locked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As soon as he beheld the illuminated interior of the -room, all his skin crept and flushed as though he had -taken a powerful stimulant. A girl reclined asleep in -a small basket lounge-chair by the gas-fire. He could -not see her face, which was turned towards the wall -and away from the gas-jet that hung from the ceiling -over an old desk; but she seemed slim and graceful, -and there was something in the abandonment of -unconsciousness that made her marvellously alluring. -Her hat and gloves had been thrown on the desk, and -a cloak lay on a chair. These coloured and intimate -objects--extensions of the veritable personality of the -girl--had the effect of delightfully completing the -furniture of a room which was in fact rather bare. A -narrow bed in the far corner, disguised under a green rug -as a sofa; a green square of carpet, showing the -unpolished boards at the sides; the desk, and three chairs; -a primitive hanging wardrobe in another corner, -hidden by a bulging linen curtain; a portmanteau; a few -unframed prints on the walls; an alarm-clock on the -mantelpiece,--there was nothing else in the chamber -where Ingpen slept when it was too late, or he was too -slack, to go to his proper home. But nothing else -was needed. The scene was perfect; the girl rendered -it so. And immense envy of, and admiration for, -Ingpen surged through Edwin, who saw here the realisation -of a dream that was to marriage what poetry is -to prose. Ingpen might rail against women and against -marriage in a manner exaggerated and indefensible; but -he had at any rate known how to arrange his life and -how to keep his own counsel. He had all the careless -masculine freedom of his condition,--and in the -background this exquisite phenomenon! The girl, her -trustfulness, her abandonment, her secrecy, that white -ear peeping out of her hair,--were his! It was -staggering that such romance could exist in the Five Towns, -of all places--for Edwin had the vague notion, -common to all natives, that his own particular district fell -short of full human nature in certain characteristics. -For example, he could credit a human nature dying for -love in Manchester, but never in the Five Towns. Even -the occasional divorces that gave piquancy to life in -the Five Towns seemed to lack the mysterious glamour -of all other divorces.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Was it because he was expecting her that he sent -me? Perhaps the desk was only a blind--and he -couldn't tell me any more. Anyhow I shall have to -break it to her."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He felt exceedingly awkward and unequal to the situation -so startling in its novelty. Yet he did not wish -himself away.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As timidly, hat in hand, he went forward into the -room, the girl stirred and woke up, to the creaking -of the chair.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Tert!" she murmured between sleeping and -waking.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin did not like her voice. It reminded him of -the voice of the nurse whom he had just left.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The girl, looking round, perceived that it was not -Tertius Ingpen who had come in. She gave a short, -faint scream, then gathered herself together and with -a single movement stood up, perfectly collected and -on the defensive.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's all right! It's all right!" said Edwin. "Mr. Ingpen -gave me his keys and asked me to come over -and get some papers he wants.... I hope I didn't -frighten you. I'd no idea----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She was old! She was old! That is to say, she was -not the girl he had seen asleep. Before his marriage -he would have put her age at thirty-two, but now he -knew enough to be sure that she must be more than -that. She was not graceful in movement. The -expression of her pale face was not agreeable. Her -gestures were not distinguished. And she could not act -her part in the idyll. Moreover her frock was shabby -and untidy. But chiefly she was old. Had she been -young, Edwin would have excused all the rest. -Romance was not entirely destroyed, but very little -remained.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought, disdainfully, and as if resenting a -deception:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is this the best he can do?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And the Five Towns sank back to its ancient humble -place in his esteem.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The woman said with a silly nervous giggle:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I called to see Mr. Ingpen. He wasn't expecting -me. And I suppose while I was waiting I must have -dropped off to sleep."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It might have been true, but to Edwin it was -inexpressibly inane.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She seized her hat and then her cloak.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sorry to say Mr. Ingpen's had an accident," -said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She stopped, both hands above her head fingering -her hat.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"An accident? Nothing serious?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no! I don't think so," he lied. "A machinery -accident. They had to take him to the Clowes -Hospital at Bursley. I've just come from there."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She asked one or two more questions, all the time -hurrying her preparations to leave. But Edwin judged -with disgust that she was not deeply interested in the -accident. True, he had minimised it, but she ought not -to have allowed him to minimise it. She ought to have -obstinately believed that it was very grave.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I do hope he'll soon be all right," she said, snatching -at her gloves and going to the door. "Good night!" She -gave another silly giggle, preposterous in a woman -of her age. Then she stopped. "I think you're -gentleman enough not to say anything about me being -here," she said, rather nastily. "It was quite an -accident. I could easily explain it, but you know what -people are!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>What a phrase--"I think you're gentleman enough!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He blushed and offered the required assurance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can I let you out?" he started forward.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, thanks!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But you can't open the door."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes I can."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The stairs are all dark."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please don't trouble yourself," she said drily, in the -tone of a woman who sees offence in the courtesy of -a male travelling companion on the railway.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He heard her steps </span><em class="italics">diminuendo</em><span> down the stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Closing the door, he went to the window, and drew -aside the blind. Perhaps she would pass up the Square. -But she did not pass up the Square which was peopled -by nothing but meek gaslamps under the empire of the -glowing clock in the pediment of the Old Town Hall. -Where had she gone? Where did she come from? Her -accent had no noticeable peculiarity. Was she -married, or single, or a widow? Perhaps there was hidden -in her some strange and seductive quality which he -had missed.... He saw the slim girl again reclining -in the basket-chair.... After all, she was a -woman, and she had been in Ingpen's room, waiting for him!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Later, seated in front of the open drawer in the -old desk, gathering together letters and -photographs--photographs of her in adroitly managed poses, taken -at Oldham; letters in a woman's hand--he was -penetrated to the marrow by the disastrous and yet -beautiful infelicity of things. The mere sight of the -letters (of which he forebore to decipher a single word, -even a signature) nearly made him cry; the photographs -were tragic with the intolerable evanescence of -life. By the will of Tertius Ingpen helpless on the -bed in the hospital, these documents of a passion or -of a fancy were to be burnt. Why? Was it true that -Ingpen was dying? Better to keep them. No, they -must be burnt. He rose, and, with difficulty, burnt -them by instalments in a shovel over the tiny fender -that enclosed the gas-stove,--the room was soon half -full of smoke.... Why had he deceived the woman -as to the seriousness of Ingpen's accident? To simplify -and mitigate the interview, to save himself trouble; that -was all! Well, she would learn soon enough!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His eye caught a print on the wall above the -bed,--a classic example of the sentimentality of Marcus -Stone: departing cavalier, drooping maiden, terraced -garden. It was a dreadful indictment of the Tertius -Ingpen who talked so well, with such intellectual -aplomb, with such detachment and exceptional cynicism. -It was like a ray exposing some secret sinister corner -in the man's soul. He had hung up that print because -it gave him pleasure! Poor chap! But Edwin loved -him. He decided that he would call again at the -hospital before returning to Auntie Hamps's. Impossible -that the man was dying! If the doctor or the matron -had thought he was in danger they would have -summoned his relatives. He might be dying. He might be -dead. He must have immediately feared death, or he -would not have imposed upon Edwin such an errand.... -What simple, touching, admirable trust in a -friend's loyalty the man had displayed!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin put out the gas-stove, which exploded, lit a -match, gave a great yawn, put out the gas, and began -the enterprise of leaving the house.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"Look here! I must have some tea, </span><em class="italics">now</em><span>!" said -Edwin curtly and yet appealingly to Maggie, who -opened the door for him at Auntie Hamps's.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was nearly eight o'clock. He had been to the -hospital again, and, having reported in three words to -Ingpen, whose condition was unchanged, had remained there -some time. But he had said nothing to Ingpen about -the woman. At six o'clock the matron had come into -the room, and the nurse thenceforward until seven -o'clock, when she went off duty, was a changed girl. -Edwin slightly knew the matron, who was sympathetic -but strangely pessimistic--considering her healthy, full -figure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The water's boiling," answered Maggie, in a -comforting tone, and disappeared instantly into the -kitchen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There are some things that girl understands!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had shown no curiosity, no desire to impart -news, because she had immediately comprehended that -Edwin was, or imagined himself to be, at the end of his -endurance. Maggie, with simple and surpassing -wisdom had just said to herself: "He's been out all night, -and he's not used to it." For a moment he felt that -Maggie was wiser, and more intimately close to him, -than anybody else in the world.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In the dining-room," she called out from the kitchen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And in the small dining-room there was a fire! It was -like a living, welcoming creature. The cloth was laid, -the gas was lighted. On the table was beautiful fresh -bread and butter. A word, a tone, a glance of his on -the previous evening had been enough to bring back -the dining-room into use! Happily the wind suited the -chimney. He had scarcely sat down in front of the -fire when Maggie entered with the teapot. And at -the sight of the teapot Edwin felt that he was saved. -Before the tea was out of the teapot it had already -magically alleviated the desperate sensations of -physical fatigue and moral weariness which had almost -overcome him on the way from the hospital in the chill and -muddy dawn.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What will you have to eat?" said Maggie.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing. I couldn't eat to save my life."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Perhaps you'll have a bit of bread-and-butter -later," said Maggie blandly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He shook his head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How is she?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Worse," said Maggie. "But she's slept."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who's up with her now? Minnie?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. Clara."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! She's come?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She came at seven."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was drinking the divine tea. After a few -gulps he told Maggie briefly about Tertius Ingpen, -saying that he had had to go "on business" for -Ingpen to Hanbridge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you all right for the present?" she asked after -a few moments.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He nodded. He was eating bread-and-butter.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You had any sleep at all?" he mumbled, munching.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes! A little," she answered cheerfully, leaving -the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He poured out more tea, and then sat down in the -sole easy-chair for a minute's reflection before going -upstairs and thence to the works.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Not until he woke up did he realise that there had -been any danger of his going to sleep. The earthenware -clock on the mantelpiece (a birthday gift from -Clara and Albert) showed five minutes past eleven. -Putting no reliance on the cheap, horrible clock, he -looked at his watch, which had stopped for lack of -winding up. The fire was very low. His chief thought -was: "It can't possibly be eleven o'clock, because I -haven't been down to the works, and I haven't sent -word I'm not coming either!" He got up hurriedly -and had reached the door when a sound of a voice on -the stairs held him still like an enchantment. It seemed -to be the voice, eloquent, and indeed somewhat -Church-of-England, of the Rev. Christian Flowerdew, the new -superintendent of the Bursley Wesleyan Methodist -Circuit. The voice said: "I do hope so!" and then -offered a resounding remark about the weather being -the kind of weather that, bad as it was, people must -expect in view of the time of year. Maggie's voice concurred.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As soon as the front-door closed, Edwin peeped -cautiously out of the dining-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who was that?" he murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Flowerdew. She wanted him. Albert sent for -him early this morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie came into the room and shut the door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've been to sleep," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I know. I wasn't going to have you disturbed. -They're all here."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who are all here?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Clara and the children. Auntie asked to see all of -them. They waited in the drawing-room for Mr. Flowerdew -to go. Bert didn't go to school this morning, -in case--because it was so far off. Clara fetched the -others out of school, except Rupy of course--he doesn't go--"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens! I never came across such a morbid -lot in my life. I believe they like it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara could be heard marshalling the brood up the -stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You'd better go up," said Maggie persuasively.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd better go to the works--I'm no use here. What -time is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"After eleven. I think you'd better go up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Does she ask for me?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes. All the time sometimes. But she forgets -for a bit."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, anyhow I must wash myself and change my -collar."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right. Wash yourself, then."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How is she now?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She isn't taking anything."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When Edwin nervously pushed open the bedroom -door, the room seemed to be crowded. Over the heads -of clustering children towered Clara and Albert. As -soon as the watchful Albert caught sight of Edwin, he -made a conspiratorial sign and hurried to the door, -driving Edwin out again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't know you were here," Edwin muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say," Albert whispered. "Has she made a will?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The bedroom door half opened, and Clara in her -shabby morning dress glidingly joined them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He doesn't know," said Albert to Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Clara's pretty face scowled a little as she asked -sharply and resentfully:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then who does know?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should ha' thought </span><em class="italics">you'd</em><span> know," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Me! I like that! She hasn't spoken to me for -months, has she, Albert? And she was always -frightfully close about all these things."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"About what things?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It was a fact. Auntie Hamps had never discussed -her own finance, or her testamentary dispositions, with -anybody. And nobody had ever dared to mention such -subjects to her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you think you'd better ask her?" said Clara. -"Albert thinks you ought."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I don't," said Edwin, with curt disdain.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, then I shall," Albert decided.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So long as you don't do it while I'm there!" Edwin -said menacingly. "If you want to ask people about -their wills you ought to ask them before they're -actually dying. Can't you see you can't worry her about -her will now?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was intensely disgusted. He thought of Mrs. Hamps's -bed, and of Tertius Ingpen's bed, and of the -woman at dead of night in Ingpen's room, and of -Minnie's case; and the base insensibility of Albert and -Clara made him feel sick. He wondered whether any -occasion would ever have solemnity enough for them -to make them behave with some distinction, some -grandeur. For himself, if he could have secured a fortune -by breathing one business word to Auntie Hamps just -then, he would have let the fortune go.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's nothing more to be said," Clara murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the glance of both Clara and Albert Edwin saw -hatred and envy. Clara especially had never forgiven -him for preventing their father from pouring money -into that sieve, her husband, nor for Hilda's wounding -tongue, nor for his worldly success. And they both -suspected that either Maggie or Auntie Hamps had -told him of Albert's default in the payment of interest, -and so fear was added to their hatred and envy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They all entered the bedroom, the children having -been left alone only a few seconds. Rupert, wearing -a new blue overcoat with gilt buttons, had partially -scrambled on to the bed; the pale veiled hands of -Auntie Hamps could be seen round his right hand; -Rupert had grown enormous, and had already utterly -forgotten the time when he was two years old. The -others, equally altered, stood two on either side of the -bed,--Bert and young Clara to the right, and Amy and -Lucy to the left. Lucy was crying and Amy was -benignantly wiping her eyes. Bert, a great lump of a boy, -was to leave school at Christmas, but he was still ranked -with the other children as a child. Young Clara sharply -and Bert heavily turned round to witness the entrance -of their elders.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Here's Uncle Edwin!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Auntie!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The moral values of the room were instantly changed -by the tone in which Auntie Hamps had murmured -"Edwin." All the Benbows knew, and Edwin himself -knew, that a personage of supreme importance in -Auntie Hamps's eyes had come into the scene. The -Benbows became secondary, and even Auntie Hamps's -grasp of Rupert's hand loosened, and, having already -kissed her, the child slipped off the bed. Edwin -approached, and over the heads of the children, and -between the great darkening curtains, he could at last -see the face of the dying woman like a senile doll's face -amid the confusion of wrappings and bedclothes. The -deep-set eyes seemed to burn beneath the white -forehead and sparse grey hair; the cheeks, still rounded, -were highly flushed over a very small part of their -surface; the mouth, always open, was drawn in, and the -chin, still rounded like the cheeks, protruded. The -manner of Auntie Hamps's noisy breathing, like the -puzzled gaze of her eyes, indicated apprehension of the -profoundest, acutest sort.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh!" said she, in a somewhat falsetto voice, jerky -and excessively feeble. "I thought--I'd--lost you." Her -hand was groping about.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no," said Edwin, leaning over between young -Clara and Rupert.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's feeling for your hand, Edwin," said Clara.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He quickly took her hot, brittle fingers; they seemed -to cling to his for essential support.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you--been to the works?" Auntie Hamps -asked the question as though the answer to it would -end all trouble.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," he said. "Not yet."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh! That's right! That's right!" she murmured, -apparently much impressed by a new proof of Edwin's -wisdom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've had a sleep."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've been having a sleep," he repeated more loudly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh! That's right! That's right.... I'm so -glad--the children have been to see me.... Amy--did -you kiss me?" Auntie Hamps looked at Amy hard, -as if for the first time.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then Amy began to cry.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Better take them away," Edwin suggested aside to -Albert. "It's as much as she can stand. The -parson's only just gone, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert, obedient, gave the word of command, and -the room was full of movement.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh, children--children!" Auntie Hamps appealed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Everybody stood stockstill, gazing attendant.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh, children, bless you all for coming. If you -grow up--as good as your mother--it's all I ask--all -I ask.... Your mother and I--have never had a -cross word--have we, mother?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, auntie," said Clara, with a sweet, touching -smile that accentuated the fragile charm of her face.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Never--since mother was--as tiny as you are."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps looked up at the ceiling during a few -strained breaths, and then smiled for an instant at the -departing children, who filed out of the room. Rupert -loitered behind, gazing at his mother. The mere -contrast between the infant so healthy and the dying old -woman was pathetic to Edwin. Clara, with an exquisite -reassuring gesture and smile picked up the stout -Rupert and kissed him and carried him to the door, while -Auntie Hamps looked at mother and son, ecstatic.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Auntie?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They were alone now. She had not loosed his hand. -Her voice was very faint, and he bent over her still -lower in the alcove of the curtains, which seemed to -stretch very high above them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you heard from Hilda?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not yet. By the second post, perhaps."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's about George's eyes--isn't it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's done quite right--quite right. It's just--like -Hilda. I do hope--and pray--the boy's eyesight--is -safe."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes!" said Edwin. "Safe enough."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You really think so?" She had the air of hanging -on his words.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a blessing!" She sighed deeply with relief.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe her relations must have been her passion." And -he was impressed by the intensity of that passion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Auntie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has--that girl--gone yet?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Who?" he questioned, and added more softly: -"Minnie d'you mean?" His own voice sounded too -powerful, too healthy and dominating, in comparison -with her failing murmurs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps nodded. "Yes--Minnie."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Not yet."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's going?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because I can't trust--Maggie--to see to it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll see to it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Has she done--the silvers--d'you know?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's doing them," answered Edwin, who thought it -would be best to carry out the deception with artistic -completeness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She needn't have her dinner before she goes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No." Auntie Hamps's face and tone hardened. -"Why should she?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And if she asks--for her wages--tell her--I say -there's nothing due--under the circumstances."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right, Auntie," Edwin agreed, desperate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie, followed by Clara, softly entered the room. -Auntie Hamps glanced at them with a certain -cautious suspicion, as though one or other of them was -capable of thwarting her in the matter of Minnie. -Then her eyes closed, and Edwin was aware of a -slackening of her hold on his hand. The doctor, who called -half an hour later, said that she might never speak -again, and she never did. Her last conscious moments -were moments of satisfaction.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin slowly released his hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where's Albert?" he asked Clara, merely for the -sake of saying something.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's taking the children home, and then he's going -to the works. He ought to have gone long ago. There's -a dreadful upset there."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose there is," said Edwin, who had forgotten -that the fly-wheel accident must have almost brought -Albert's manufactory to a standstill. And he -wondered whether it was the family instinct, or anxiety -about Auntie Hamps's will, that had caused Albert to -absent himself from business on such a critical morning.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I ought to go too," he muttered, as a full picture -of a lithographic establishment masterless swept into -his mind.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you telegraphed to Hilda?" Clara demanded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Haven't you!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the use?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I should have thought you would."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no!" he said, falsely mild. "I shall write." He -was immensely glad that Hilda was not present in -the house to complicate still further the human equation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie was silently examining the face obscured in -the gloom of the curtains.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Instead of remaining late that night at the works, -Edwin came back to the house before six o'clock. He -had had word that the condition of Tertius Ingpen -was still unchanged. Clara had gone home to see to -her children's evening meal. Maggie sat alone in the -darkened bedroom, where Auntie Hamps, her features -a mere pale blur between the over-arching curtains, -still withheld the secret of her soul's reality from the -world. Even in the final unconsciousness there was -something grandiose which lingered from her crowning -magnificent deceptions and obstinate effort to -safeguard the structure of society. The sublime obstinacy -of the woman had transformed hypocrisy into a virtue, -and not the imminence of the infinite unknown had -sufficed to make her apostate to the steadfast -principles of her mortal career.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What about to-night?" Edwin asked.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Clara and I will manage."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was a tap at the door. Edwin opened it. -Minnie, abashed but already taking courage, stood there -blinking with a letter in her hand. "Ah!" he breathed. -Hilda's scrawling calligraphy was on the envelope.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The letter read: "Darling boy. George has influenza, -Charlie says. Temp. 102 anyway. So of course -he can't go out to-morrow. I knew this morning there -was something wrong with him. Janet and Charlie -send their love. Your ever loving wife, Hilda."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was exceedingly uplifted and happy and -exhausted. Hilda's handwriting moved him. The whole -missive was like a personal emanation from her. It -lived with her vitality. It fought for the mastery of -the household interior against the mysterious, -far-reaching spell of the dying woman. "Your loving -wife." Never before, during their marriage, had she written -a phrase so comforting and exciting. He thought: -"My faith in her is never worthy of her." And his -faith leaped up and became worthy of her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"George has got influenza," he said indifferently.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"George! But influenza's very serious for him, isn't -it?" Maggie showed alarm.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why should it be?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Considering he nearly died of it at Orgreaves'!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! </span><em class="italics">Then</em><span>! ... He'll be all right."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But Maggie had put fear into Edwin,--a superstitious -fear. Influenza indeed might be serious for -George. Suppose he died of it. People did die of -influenza. Auntie Hamps--Tertius Ingpen--and now -George! ... All these anxieties mingling with his -joy in the thought of Hilda! And all the brooding -rooms of the house waiting in light or in darkness for -a decisive event!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I must go and lie down," he said. He could -contain no more sensations.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Do," said Maggie.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>At two o'clock in the afternoon of Auntie Hamps's -funeral, a procession consisting of the following people -moved out of the small, stuffy dining-room of her house -across the lobby into the drawing-room:--the -Rev. Christian Flowerdew, the Rev. Guy Cliffe (second -minister), the aged Reverend Josiah Higginbotham -(supernumerary minister), the chapel and the circuit -stewards, the doctor, Edwin, Maggie, Clara, Bert and -young Clara (being respectively the eldest nephew and -the eldest niece of the deceased), and finally Albert -Benbow; Albert came last because he had constituted -himself the marshal of the ceremonies. In the drawing-room -the coffin with its hideous brass plate and handles -lay upon two chairs, and was covered with white -wreaths. At the head of the coffin was placed a small -table with a white cloth; on the cloth a large inlaid -box (in which Auntie Hamps had kept odd -photographs), and on the box a black book. The drawn -blinds created a beautiful soft silvery gloom which -solemnised everything and made even the clumsy -carving on the coffin seem like the finest antique work. The -three ministers ranged themselves round the small -table; the others stood in an irregular horseshoe about -the coffin, nervous, constrained, and in dread of -catching each other's glances. Mr. Higginbotham, by -virtue of his age, began to read the service, and Auntie -Hamps became "she," "her," and "our sister,"--nameless. -In the dining-room she had been the paragon of -all excellences,--in the drawing-room, packed securely -and neatly in the coffin, she was a sinner snatched from -the consequences of sin by a miracle of divine sacrifice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The interment thus commenced was the result of a -compromise between two schools of funebrial manners -sharply divergent. Edwin, immediately after the -demise, had become aware of influences far stronger than -those which had shaped the already half-forgotten -interment of old Darius Clayhanger into a form -repugnant to him. Both Albert and Clara, but especially -Albert, had assumed an elaborate funeral, with a -choral service at the Wesleyan chapel, numerous guests, -a superb procession, and a substantial and costly meal -in the drawing-room to conclude. Edwin had at once -and somewhat domineeringly decided: no guests -whatever outside the family, no service at the chapel, every -rite reduced to its simplest. When asked why, he had -no logical answer. He soon saw that it would be -impossible not to invite a minister and the doctor. He -yielded, intimidated by the sacredness of custom. Then -not only the Wesleyan chapel but its Sunday School -sent dignified emissaries, who so little expected a No -to their honorific suggestions that the No was -unuttered and unutterable. Certain other invitations were -agreed upon. The Sunday School announced that it -would "walk," and it prepared to "walk."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>All the emissaries spoke of Auntie Hamps as a saint; -they all averred with restrained passion that her death -was an absolutely irreparable loss to the circuit; and -their apparent conviction was such that Edwin's whole -estimate of Auntie Hamps and of mankind was -momentarily shaken. Was it conceivable that none of these -respectable people had arrived at the truth concerning -Auntie Hamps? Had she deceived them all? Or -were they simply rewarding her in memory for her -ceaseless efforts on behalf of the safety of society?</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin stood like a rock against a service in the -Wesleyan Chapel. Clara cunningly pointed out to him -that the Wesleyan Chapel would be heated for the -occasion, whereas the chapel at the cemetery, where -scores of persons had caught their deaths in the few -years of its existence, was never heated. His reply -showed genius. He would have the service at the -house itself. The decision of the chief mourner might -be regretted, and was regretted, but none could -impugn its correctitude, nor its social distinction; some -said approvingly that it was 'just like' Edwin. -Thenceforward the arrangements went more smoothly, -the only serious difficulty being about the route to the -cemetery. Edwin was met by a saying that "the last -journey must be the longest," which meant that the -cortège must go up St. Luke's Square and along the -Market Place past the Town Hall and the Shambles, -encountering the largest number of sightseers, instead -of taking the nearest way along Wedgwood Street. -Edwin chose Wedgwood Street.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the discussions, Maggie was neutral, thus losing -part of the very little prestige which she possessed. -Clara and Albert considered Edwin to be excessively -high-handed. But they were remarkably moderate in -criticism, for the reason that no will had been found. -Maggie and Clara had searched the most secret places -of the house for a will, in vain. All that they had -found was a brass and copper paper-knife wrapped in -tissue-paper and labelled "For Edwin, with Auntie's -love," and a set of tortoise-shell combs equally wrapped -in tissue-paper and labelled "For Maggie, with Auntie's -love." Naught for Clara! Naught for the chicks.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Albert (who did all the running about) had been to -see Mr. Julian Pidduck, the Wesleyan solicitor, who -had a pew at the back of the chapel and was famous -for invariably arriving at morning service half an -hour late. Mr. Pidduck knew of no will. Albert had -also been to the Bank--that is to say, the Bank, at the -top of St. Luke's Square, whose former manager had -been a buttress of Wesleyanism. The new manager -(after nearly eight years he was still called the "new" -manager, because the previous manager, old Lovatt, -had been in control for nearly thirty years), Mr. Breeze, -was ill upstairs on the residential floor with -one of his periodic attacks of boils; the cashier, -however, had told Albert that certain securities, but no -testament, were deposited at the Bank; he had offered -to produce the securities, but only to Edwin, as the -nearest relative. Albert had then secretly looked up -the pages entitled "Intestates' Estates" in Whitaker's -Almanac and had discovered that whereas Auntie -Hamps being intestate, her personal property would -be divided equally between Edwin, Maggie, and Clara, -her real property would go entirely to Edwin. -(Edwin also had secretly looked up the same pages.) This -gross injustice nearly turned Albert from a Tory -into a Land Laws reformer. It accounted for the -comparative submissiveness of Clara and Albert before -Edwin's arrogance as the arbiter of funerals. They -hoped that, if he was humoured, he might forego his -rights. They could not credit, and Edwin maliciously -did not tell them, that no matter what they did he -was incapable of insisting on such rights.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While the ministers succeeded each other in the -conduct of the service, each after his different manner, -Edwin scrutinised the coffin, and the wreaths, and the -cards inscribed with mournful ecstatic affection that -nestled amid the flowers, and the faces of the audience, -and his thought was: "This will soon be over -now!" Beneath his gloomy and wearied expression he was -unhappy, but rather hopeful and buoyant, looking -forward to approaching felicity. His reflections upon -the career of Auntie Hamps were kind, and utterly -uncritical; he wondered what her spirit was doing in -that moment; the mystery ennobled his mind. Yet he -wondered also whether the ministers believed all they -were saying, why the superintendent minister read so -well and prayed with such a lack of distinction, how -much the wreaths cost, whether the Sunday School -deputation had silently arrived in the street, and why -men in overcoats and hatless looked so grotesque in a -room, and why when men and women were assembled -on a formal occasion the women always clung together.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Probing his left-hand pocket, he felt a letter. He -had received it that morning from Hilda. George -was progressing very well, and Charlie Orgreave had -actually brought the oculist with his apparatus to -see him at Charlie's house. Charlie would always do -impossibilities for Hilda. It was Charlie who had -once saved George's life--so Hilda was convinced. -The oculist had said that George's vision was normal, -and that he must not wear glasses, but that on -account of a slight weakness he ought to wear a shade -at night in rooms which were lighted from the top. -In a few days Hilda and George would return. Edwin -anticipated their arrival with an impatience almost -gleeful, so anxious was he to begin the new life with -Hilda. Her letters had steadily excited him. He -pictured the intimacies of their reunion. He saw her -ideally. His mind rose to the finest manifestations of -her individuality, and the inconveniences of that -individuality grew negligible. Withal, he was relieved that -George's illness had kept her out of Bursley during the -illness, death, and burial of Auntie Hamps. Had she -been there, he would have had three persons to -manage instead of two, and he could not have asserted -himself with the same freedom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then there was a sound of sobbing outside the -door. Minnie, sharing humbly but obstinately in the -service according to her station, had broken down in -irrational grief at the funeral of the woman whose -dying words amounted to an order for her execution. -Edwin, though touched, could have smiled; and he felt -abashed before the lofty and incomprehensible -marvels of human nature. Several outraged bent heads -twisted round in the direction of the door, but the -minister intrepidly continued with the final prayer. -Maggie slipped out, the door closed, and the sound of -sobbing receded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After the benediction Albert resumed full activity, -while the remainder of the company stared and cleared -their throats without exchanging a word. The news -that the hearse and coaches had not arrived helped -them to talk a little. The fault was not that of the -undertaker, but Edwin's. The service had finished too -soon, because in response to Mr. Flowerdew's official -question: "How much time do you give me?" he had -replied: "Oh! A quarter of an hour," whereas Albert -the organiser had calculated upon half an hour. The -representatives of the Sunday School were already -lined up on the pavement and on the opposite -pavement and in the roadway were knots of ragged, -callously inquisitive spectators. The vehicles could at -length be described on the brow of Church Street. -They descended the slope in haste. The four mutes -nipped down with agility from the hammer cloths, hung -their greasy top-hats on the ornamental spikes of the -hearse, and sneaked grimly into the house. In a -second the flowers were shifted from the coffin, and with -startling accomplished swiftness the coffin was darted -out of the room without its fraudulent brass handles -even being touched, and down the steps into the hearse, -and the flowers replaced. The one hitch was due to -Edwin attempting to get into the first coach instead of -waiting for the last one. Albert, putting on his new -black gloves, checked him. The ministers and the -doctor had to go first, the chapel officials next, and -the chief mourners--Edwin, Albert, and Bert--had -the third coach. The women stayed behind at the -door, frowning at the murmurous crowd of shabby -idlers. Albert gave a supreme glance at the vehicles -and the walkers, made a signal, and joined Edwin -and Bert in the last coach, buttoning his left hand -glove. Edwin would only hold his gloves in his hand. -The cortège moved. Rain was threatening, and the -street was muddy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the cemetery it was raining, and the walkers -made a string of glistening umbrellas; only the paid -mutes had no umbrellas. Near the gates, under an -umbrella, stood a man with a protruding chin and a -wiry grey moustache. He came straight to Edwin and -shook hands. It was Mr. Breeze, the Bank manager. -His neck, enveloped in a white muffler, showed a large -excrescence behind, and he kept his head very -carefully in one position.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He said, in his defiant voice:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I only had the news this morning, and I felt that -I should pay the last tribute of respect to the -deceased. I had known her in business and privately for -many years."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His greeting of Albert was extremely reserved, and -Albert showed him a meek face. Albert's overdraft -impaired the cordiality of their relations.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sorry to hear you've got your old complaint!" said -Edwin, astounded at this act of presence by the -terrible bank-manager.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Vehicles, by some municipal caprice, were forbidden -to enter the cemetery. And in the rain, between the -stone-perpetuated great names of the town's history--the -Boultons, the Lawtons, the Blackshaws, the -Beardmores, the Dunns, the Longsons, the Hulmes, -the Suttons, the Greenes, the Gardiners, the Calverts, -the Dawsons, the Brindleys, the Baineses, and the -Woods--the long procession preceded by Auntie Hamps -tramped for a third of a mile along the asphalted -path winding past the chapel to the graveside. And -all the way Mr. Breeze, between Edwin and Albert, -with Bert a yard to the rear, talked about boils, and -Edwin said "Yes" and "No," and Albert said nothing. -And at the graveside the three ministers removed their -flat round hats and put on skull-caps while skilfully -holding their umbrellas aloft.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And while Mr. Flowerdew was reading from a little -book in the midst of the large encircling bare-headed -crowd with umbrellas, and the gravedigger with absolute -precision accompanied his words with three castings -of earth into the hollow of the grave, Edwin scanned an -adjoining tombstone, which marked the family vault -of Isaac Plant, a renowned citizen. He read, chased -in gilt letters on the Aberdeen granite, the following -lines:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Sacred to the memory of Adelaide Susan, wife of -Isaac Plant, died 27th June, 1886, aged 47 years. -And of Mary, wife of Isaac Plant, died 11th December, -1890, aged 33 years. And of Effie Harriet, wife -of Isaac Plant, died 9th December, 1893, aged 27 -years. </span><em class="italics">The Flower Fadeth</em><span>. And of Isaac Plant, -died 9th February, 1894, aged 79 years. </span><em class="italics">I know that -my Redeemer Liveth</em><span>." And the passionate career of -the aged and always respectable rip seemed to Edwin -to have been a wondrous thing. The love of life was in -Isaac Plant. He had risen above death again and -again. After having detested him, Edwin now liked -him on the tombstone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And even in that hilly and bleak burial ground, -with melancholy sepulchral parties and white -wind-blown surplices dotted about the sodden slopes, and -the stiff antipathetic multitude around the pit which -held Auntie Hamps, and the terrible seared, harsh, -grey-and-brown industrial landscape of the great -smoking amphitheatre below, Edwin felt happy in the -sensation of being alive and of having to contend with -circumstance. He was inspired by the legend of Isaac -Plant and of Auntie Hamps, who in very different -ways had intensely lived. And he thought in the -same mood of Tertius Ingpen, who was now understood -to be past hope. If he died,--well, he also had -intensely lived! And he thought too of Hilda, whose -terrific vitality of emotion had caused him such hours -of apprehension and exasperation. He exulted in all -those hours. It seemed almost a pity that, by reason -of his new-found understanding of Hilda, such hours -would not recur. His heart flew impatiently forward -into the future, to take up existence with her again.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When the ministers pocketed their skull-caps and -resumed their hats, everybody except Edwin appeared -to feel relief in turning away from the grave. Faces -brightened; footsteps were more alert. In the -drawing-room Edwin had thought: "It will soon be over," -and every face near him was saying, "It is over"; but -now that it was over Edwin had a pang of depression -at the eagerness with which all the mourners -abandoned Auntie Hamps to her strange and desolate grave -amid the sinister population of corpses.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He lingered, glancing about. Mr. Breeze also -lingered, and then in his downright manner squarely -approached Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll walk down with ye to the gates," said he.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Breeze moved his head round with care. Their -umbrellas touched. In front of them the broken units -of a procession tramped in disorder, chatting.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've got that will for you," said Mr. Breeze in a -confidential tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What will?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Hamps's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But your cashier said there was no will at your place!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My cashier doesn't know everything," remarked -Mr. Breeze. And in his voice was the satisfied grimness -of a true native of the district, and a Longshaw man. -"Mrs. Hamps deposited her will with me as much as a -friend as anything else. The fact is I had it in my -private safe. I should have called with it this morning, -but I knew that you'd be busy, and what's more I -can't go paying calls of a morning. Here it is."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Breeze drew an endorsed foolscap envelope from -the breast pocket of his overcoat, and handed it to -Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Thanks," said Edwin very curtly. He could be as -native as any native. But beneath the careful -imperturbability of his demeanour he was not unagitated.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've got a receipt for you to sign," said Mr. Breeze. -"It's slipped into the envelope. Here's an ink-pencil."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin comprehended that he must stand still in the -rain and sign a receipt for the will as best he could -under an umbrella. He complied. Mr. Breeze said no -more.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-bye, Mr. Breeze," said Edwin at the gates.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-day to you, Mr. Clayhanger."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The coaches trotted down the first part of the hill -into Bursley but as soon as the road became a street, -with observant houses on either side, the pace was -reduced to a proper solemnity. Edwin was amused -and even uplifted by the thought of the will in his -pocket; his own curiosity concerning it diverted him; -he anticipated complications with a light heart. To -Albert he said nothing on the subject, which somehow -he could not bring himself to force bluntly into the -conversation. Albert talked about his misfortunes at -the works, including the last straw of the engine -accident; and all the time he was vaguely indicating -reasons--the presence of Bert in the carriage necessitated -reticence--for his default in the interest-paying to -Maggie. At intervals he gave out that he was -expecting much from Bert, who at the New Year was -to leave school for the works--and Bert taciturn -behind his spectacles had to seem loyal, earnest, and -promising.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As they approached the Clowes Hospital Edwin -saw a nurse in a bonnet, white bow, and fluent blue -robe emerging from the shrubbery and putting up an -umbrella. She looked delightful,--at once modest and -piquant, until he saw that she was the night-nurse; and -even then she still looked delightful. He thought: -"I'd no idea she could look like that!" and began to -admit to himself that perhaps in his encounters with -her in the obscurity of the night he had not envisaged -the whole of her personality. Involuntarily he leaned -forward. Her eyes were scintillant and active, and -they caught his. He saluted; she bowed, with a most -inviting, challenging and human smile.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's Nurse Faulkner!" he exclaimed to Albert. -"I must just ask her how Ingpen is. I haven't heard -to-day." He made as if to lean out of the window.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But you can't stop the procession!" Albert protested -in horror, unable to conceive such an enormity.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll just slip out!" said Edwin, guiltily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He spoke to the coachman and the coach halted.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In an instant he was on the pavement.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Drive on," he instructed the coachman, and to the -outraged Albert: "I'll walk down."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nurse Faulkner, apparently flattered by the proof -of her attractiveness, stopped and smiled upon the -visitor. She had a letter in one hand.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good afternoon, nurse."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good morning, Mr. Clayhanger. I'm just going out -for my morning walk before breakfast," said she.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had dimples. These dimples quite ignored -Edwin's mourning and the fact that he had quitted a -funeral in order to speak to her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How is Mr. Ingpen to-day?" Edwin asked. He -could read on the envelope in her hand the words "The Rev."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She grew serious, and said in a low, cheerful tone: -"I think he's going on pretty well."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was startled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"D'you mean he's getting better?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Slowly. He's taking food more easily. He was -undoubtedly better this morning. I haven't seen him -since, of course."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But the matron seemed to think----" He stopped, -for the dimples began to reappear.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Matron always fears the worst, you know," said -Nurse Faulkner, not without irony.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Does she?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The matron had never held out hope to Edwin; and -he had unquestioningly accepted her opinion. It had -not occurred to him that the matron of a hospital -could be led astray by her instinctive unconscious -appetite for gloom and disaster.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The nurse nodded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you think he'll pull through?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm pretty sure he will. But of course I've not -seen the doctor--I mean since the first night."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm awfully glad."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"His brother came over from Darlington to see -him yesterday evening, you know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. I just missed him."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The nurse gave a little bow as she moved up the road.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Just going to the pillar-box," she explained. -"Dreadful weather we're having!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He left her, feeling that he had made a new acquaintance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's in love with a parson, I bet," he said to -himself. And he had to admit that she had -charm--when off duty.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The news about Ingpen filled him with bright joy. -Everything was going well. Hilda would soon be home; -George's eyes were not seriously wrong; the awful -funeral was over; and his friend was out of -danger--marvellously restored to him. Then he thought of the -will. He glanced about to see whether anybody of -importance was observing him. There was nobody. -The coaches were a hundred yards in front. He drew -out the envelope containing the will, managed to -extract the will from the envelope, and opened the -document,--not very easily because he was holding his -umbrella.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A small printed slip fluttered to the muddy pavement. -He picked it up; it was a printed form of attestation -clause, seemingly cut from Whitaker's Almanac:--"Signed -by the testator (or testatrix as the case may -be) in the presence of us, both present at the same -time," etc.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"She's got that right, anyhow," he murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Then, walking along, he read the will of Auntie -Hamps. It was quickly spotted with raindrops.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At the house the blinds were drawn up, and the -women sedately cheerful. Maggie was actually teasing -Bert about his new hat, and young Clara, active among -the preparations for tea for six, was intensely and -seriously proud at being included in the ceremonial -party of adults. She did not suspect that the adults -themselves had a novel sensation of being genuinely -adult, and that the last representative of the older -generation was gone, and that this common sensation -drew them together rather wistfully.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! By the way, there's a telegram for you," -said Maggie, as Minnie left the dining-room after -serving the last trayful of hot dishes and pots.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin took the telegram. It was from Hilda, to say -that she and George would return on the morrow.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But what about the house being cleaned, and what -about servants?" cried Edwin, affecting, in order to -conceal his pleasure, an annoyance which he did not in -the least feel.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Mrs. Tams has been looking after the house--I -shall go round and see her after tea. I've got -one servant for Hilda."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never told me anything about it," said Edwin, -who was struck, by no means for the first time, -by the concealment which all the women practised.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't I?" Maggie innocently murmured. "And -then Minnie can go and help if necessary until you're -all settled again. Hadn't we better have the gas lighted -before we begin?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And in the warm cosiness of the small, ugly, -dining-room shortly to be profaned by auctioneers and -furniture-removers, amid the odours of tea and hot -tea-cakes, and surrounded by the family faces intimate, -beloved, and disdained, Edwin had an exciting vision -of the new life with Hilda, and the vision was shot -through with sharp flitting thoughts of the once -gorgeous Auntie Hamps forlorn in the cemetery and -already passing into oblivion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After tea, immediately the children had been sent -home, he said, self-consciously to Albert:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've got something for you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And offered the will. Maggie and Clara were upstairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's Auntie's will. Breeze had it. He gave it to -me in the cemetery. It seems he only knew this morning -Auntie was dead. I think that was why he came up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'm----!" Albert muttered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His hand trembled as he opened the paper.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Auntie Hamps had made Edwin sole executor, and -had left all her property in trust for Clara's children. -Evidently she had reasoned that Edwin and Maggie -had all they needed, and that the children of such a -father as Albert could only be effectually helped in -one way, which way she had chosen. The will was -seven years old, and the astounding thing was that -she had drawn it herself, having probably copied -some of the wording from some source unknown. It -was a wise if a rather ruthless will; and its provisions, -like the manner of making it, were absolutely -characteristic of the testatrix. Too mean to employ a -lawyer, she had yet had a magnificent gesture of -generosity towards that Benbow brood which she adored -in her grandiose way. And further she had been clever -enough not to invalidate the will by some negligent -informality. It was as tight as if Julian Pidduck -himself had drawn it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And she had managed to put Albert in a position -highly exasperating. For he was both very pleased -and very vexed. In slighting him, she had aggrandized -his children.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What of it?" he asked nervously.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's all right so far as I'm concerned," said -Edwin, with a short laugh. And he was sincere, for he -had no desire whatever to take a share of his aunt's -modest wealth. He shrank from the trusteeship, but -he knew that he could not avoid it, and he was getting -accustomed to power and dominion. Albert would have -to knuckle down to him, and Clara too.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Maggie and Clara came back together into the -room, noticeably sisterly. They perceived at once -from the men's faces that they were in the presence -of a historic event.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Clary," Albert began; his voice quavered.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst" id="the-discovery"><span class="large">CHAPTER XX</span></p> -<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">THE DISCOVERY</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">I</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>Hilda showed her smiling, flattering face at the door -of Edwin's private office at a few minutes to one on -Saturday morning, and she said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I had to go to the dressmaker's after my shopping, -so I thought I might as well call for you." She added -with deference: "But I can wait if you're busy."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>True that the question of mourning had taken her -to the dressmaker's, and that the dressmaker lived in -Shawport Lane, not four minutes from the works; but -such accidents had nothing to do with her call, which, -being part of a scheme of Hilda's, would have -occurred in any case.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm ready," said Edwin, pleased by the vision of -his wife in the stylish wide-sleeved black jacket and -black hat which she had bought in London. "What -have you got in that parcel?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's your new office-coat," Hilda replied, -depositing on the desk the parcel which had been partly -concealed behind her muff. "I've mended the sleeves."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Aha!" Edwin lightly murmured. "Let's have a look -at it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His benevolent attitude towards the new office-coat -surprised and charmed her. Before her journey to -London with George he would have jealously resented -any interfering hand among his apparel, but since her -return he had been exquisitely amenable. She thought, -proud of herself:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's really quite easy to manage him. I never used -to go quite the right way about it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her new system, which was one of the results of -contact with London and which had been inaugurated -a week earlier on the platform of Knype station when -she stepped down from the London train, consisted -chiefly in smiles, voice-control, and other devices to -make Edwin believe in any discussion that she fully -appreciated his point of view. Often (she was startled -to find) this simulation had the unexpected result -of causing her actually to appreciate his point of view. -Which was very curious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>London indeed had had its effect on Hilda. She -had seen the Five Towns from a distance, and as -something definitely provincial. Having lived for years -at Brighton, which is almost a suburb of London, and -also for a short time in London itself, she could not -think of herself as a provincial, in the full sense in -which Edwin, for example, was a provincial. She had -gone to London with her son, not like a staring and -intimidated provincial, but with the confidence of an -initiate returning to the scene of initiation. And once -she was there, all her old condescensions towards the -dirty and primitive ingenuous Five Towns had very -quickly revived. She discovered Charlie Orgreave, the -fairly successful doctor in Ealing (a suburb rich in -doctors), to be the perfect Londoner, and Janet, no -longer useless and forlorn, scarcely less so. These two, -indeed, had the air of having at length reached their -proper home after being born in exile. The same was -true of Johnnie Orgreave, now safely through the -matrimonial court and married to his blonde Adela -(formerly the ripping Mrs. Chris Hamson), whose money -had bought him a junior partnership in an important -architectural firm in Russell Square. Johnnie and -Adela had come over from Bedford Park to Ealing -to see Hilda, and Hilda had dined with them at -Bedford Park at a table illuminated by crimson-shaded -night-lights,--a repast utterly different in its -appointments and atmosphere from anything conceivable in -Trafalgar Road. The current Five Towns notion of -Johnnie and his wife as two morally ruined creatures -hiding for the rest of their lives in shame from an -outraged public opinion, seemed merely comic in Ealing -and Bedford Park. These people referred to the Five -Towns with negligent affection, but with disdain, as to -a community that, with all its good qualities, had not -yet emerged from barbarism. They assumed that their -attitude was also Hilda's, and Hilda, after a moment's -secret resentment, had indeed made their attitude her -own. When she mentioned that she hoped soon to -move Edwin into a country house, they applauded and -implied that no other course was possible. Withal, -their respect, to say nothing of their regard, for -Edwin, the astute and successful man of business, was -obvious and genuine. The two brothers Orgreave, amid -their possibly superficial splendours of professional -men, hinted envy of the stability of Edwin's trade -position. And both Janet and Adela, shopping with Hilda, -showed her, by those inflections and eyebrow-liftings of -which women possess the secret, that the wife of a -solid and generous husband had quite as much economic -importance in London as in the Five Towns.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Thus when Hilda got into the train at Euston, she -had in her head a plan of campaign compared to -which the schemes entertained by her on the -afternoon of the disastrous servants episode seemed -amateurish and incomplete. And also she was like a -returning adventurer, carrying back to his savage land the -sacred torch of civilisation. She had perceived, as -never before, the superior value of the suave and refined -social methods of the metropolitan middle-classes, -compared with the manners of the Five Towns, and it -seemed to her, in her new enthusiasm for the art of -life, that if she had ever had a difficulty with Edwin, -her own clumsiness was to blame. She saw Edwin as an -instrument to be played upon, and herself as a -virtuoso. In such an attitude was necessarily a -condescension. Yet this condescension somehow did not in -the least affect the tenderness and the fever of her -longing for Edwin. Her excitement grew as the train -passed across the dusky December plain towards him. -She thought of the honesty of his handshake and of -his wistful glance. She knew that he was better than -any of the people she had left,--either more capable, or -more reliable, or more charitable, or all three. She -knew that most of the people she had left were at -heart snobs. "Am I getting a snob?" she asked -herself. She had asked herself the question before. "I -don't care if it is snobbishness. I want certain things, -and I will have them, and they can call it what they -like." Like the majority of women, she was incapable -of being frightened by the names of her desires. She -might be snobbish in one part of her, but in another -she had the fiercest scorn for all that Ealing stood -for. And in Edwin she admired nothing more than -the fact that success had not modified his politics, -which were as downright as they had ever been; she -could not honestly say the same for herself; and -assuredly the Orgreaves could not say the same for -themselves. In politics, Edwin was an inspiration to her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And when the train entered the fiery zone of -industry, and slackened speed amid the squalid twilit -streets, and stopped at Knype station in front of a -crowd of local lowering faces and mackintoshed and -gaitered forms, and the damp chill of the Five Towns -came in through the opened door of the compartment, -her heart fell, and she regretted the elegance of -Ealing. But simultaneously her heart was beating with -ecstatic expectation. She saw Edwin's face. It was a -local face. He wore mourning. He saw her; his eye -lighted; his wistful smile appeared. "Yes," she -thought, "he is the same as my image of him. He -is better than any of them. I am safe. What a -shame to have left him all alone! He was quite -right--there was no need for it. But I am so impulsive. -He must have suffered terribly with those Benbows, -and shut out of his own house too." ... His hand -thrilled her. In the terrible sincerity and outpouring of -her kiss she sought to compensate him for all wrongs -past and future. Her joy in being near him again made -her tingle. His matter-of-fact calmness pleased her. -She thought: "I know him, with his matter-of-fact -calmness!" "Hello, kid," Edwin addressed George with -man-to-man negligence. "Been looking after your -mother?" George answered like a Londoner. She -had them side by side. It was the fact that George -had looked after her. London had matured him; he -had picked up a little Ealing. He was past Edwin's -shoulder. Indeed he was surprisingly near to being a -man. She had both of them. On the platform they -surrounded her with their masculine protection. -George's secret deep respect for Edwin was not -hidden from her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And yet, all the time, in her joy, reliance, love, -admiration, eating him with her eyes, she was condescending -to Edwin,--because she had plans for his good. -She knew better than he did what would be for his -good. And he was a provincial and didn't suspect it. -"My poor boy!" she had said gleefully in the cab, -pulling suddenly at a loose button of the old grey -coat which he wore surreptitiously under his new black -overcoat. "My poor boy, what a state you are in!" -implying in her tone of affectionate raillery that -without her he was a lost man. Through this loose -button, she was his mother, his good angel, his saviour. -The trifle had led to a general visitation of his -wardrobe, conducted by her with metropolitan skill in -humouring his susceptibilities.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin now tried on the new office-coat with the -self-consciousness that none but an odious dandy can avoid -on such occasions.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It seems warmer than it used to be," he said, -pleased to have her beholding him and interesting -herself in him, especially in his office. Her presence -there, unless it happened to arouse his jealousy for his -business independence, always pleasurably excited -him. Her muff on the desk had the air of being the -muff of a woman who was amorously interested in him, -but his relations with whom were not regularised by -the law or the church.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said she. "I've put some wash-leather inside -the lining at the back."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, didn't you say you felt the cold from the -window, and it's bad for your liver?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her glance said:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I not a clever woman?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And his replied:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You are."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's the end of that, I hope, darling," she -remarked, picking up the old office-coat and dropping it -with charming affected disgust into the waste-paper -basket.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He shouted for the clerk, who entered with some -letters for signature. Under the eyes of his wife -Edwin signed them with the demeanour of a secretary of -state signing the destiny of provinces, while the clerk -respectfully waited.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I've asked Maggie to come up for the week-end," -said Hilda carelessly, when they were alone together, -and Edwin was straightening the desk preparatory to -departure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Since her return she had become far more friendly -with Maggie than ever before,--not because Maggie -had revealed any new charm, but because she saw in -Maggie a victim of injustice. Nothing during the week -had more severely tested Hilda's new methods of -intercourse with Edwin than the disclosure of the -provisions of Auntie Hamps's will, which she had at once -and definitely set down as monstrous. She simply -could not comprehend Edwin's calm acceptance of them, -and a month earlier she would have been bitter about -it. It was not (she was convinced) that she coveted -money, but that she hated unfairness. Why should -the Benbows have all Auntie Hamps's possessions, and -Edwin and Maggie, who had done a thousand times -more for her than the Benbows, nothing? Hilda's -conversation implied that the Benbows ought to be -ashamed of themselves, and when Edwin pointed out -that their good luck was not their fault, only a -miracle of self-control had enabled her to say nicely: -"That's quite true," instead of sneering: "That's -you all over, Edwin!" When she learnt that Edwin -would receive not a penny for his labours as executor -and trustee for the Benbow children, she was -speechless. Perceiving that he did not care for her to -discourse upon what she considered to be the wrong done -to him, she discoursed upon the wrong done to -Maggie--Maggie who was already being deprived by the -wicked Albert of interest due to her. And Edwin had -to agree with her about Maggie's case. It appeared -that Maggie also agreed with her about Maggie's case. -As for the Benbows, Hilda had not deigned to say one -word to them on the matter. A look, a tone, a silence, -had sufficed to express the whole of Hilda's mind to -those Benbows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" said Edwin. "So Maggie's coming for the -week-end, is she? Well, that's not a bad scheme." He -knew that Maggie had been very helpful about -servants, and that, the second servant having not yet -arrived, she would certainly do much more work in -the house than she "made." He pictured her and -Hilda becoming still more intimate as they turned -sheets and blankets and shook pillows on opposite sides -of beds, and he was glad.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Hilda. "I've called there this morning."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And what's she doing with Minnie?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We've settled all that," said Hilda proudly. -Edwin had told her in detail the whole story of Minnie, -and she had behaved exactly as he had anticipated. -Her championship of Minnie had been as passionate -as her ruthless verdict upon Minnie's dead mistress. -"The girl's aunt was there when I called. We've -settled she is to go to Stone, and Maggie and I shall do -something for her, and when it's all over I may take -her on as housemaid. Maggie says she probably -wouldn't make a bad housemaid. Anyhow it's all -arranged for the present."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Then Maggie'll be without a servant?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, she won't. We shall manage that. Besides, -I suppose Maggie won't stay on in that house all by -herself for ever! ... It's just the right size, I see."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Just!" said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was spreading over his desk a dust-sheet with a -red scolloped edging which Hilda had presented to -him three days earlier.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She gazed at him with composed and justifiable -self-satisfaction, as if saying: "Leave absolutely to me -everything in my department, and see how smooth your -life will be!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He would never praise her, and she had a very -healthy appetite for praise, which appetite always -went hungry. But now, instead of resenting his -niggardly reserve, she said to herself: "Poor boy! He -can't bring himself to pay compliments; that's it. But -his eyes are full of delicious compliments." She was -happy, even if apprehensive for the immediate future. -There she was, established and respected in his office, -which was his church and the successful rival of her -boudoir. Her plans were progressing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She approached the real business of her call:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was thinking we might have gone over to see -Ingpen this afternoon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, let's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen, convalescent, had insisted, two days earlier, -on being removed to his own house, near the village of -Stockbrook, a few miles south of Axe. The departure -was a surprising example of the mere power of -volition on the part of a patient. The routine of -hospital life had exasperated the recovering soul of -this priest of freedom to such a point that doctor, -matron, and friends had had to yield to a mere instinct.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"There's no decent train to go, and none at all to -come back until nearly nine o'clock. And we can't -cycle in this weather--at least I can't, especially in the -dark."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, what about Sunday?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The Sunday trains are worse."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a ghastly line!" said Edwin. "And they -have the cheek to pay five per cent! I remember -Ingpen telling me there was one fairish train into Knype -in the morning, and one out in the afternoon. And -there wouldn't be that if the Locomotive -Superintendent didn't happen to live at Axe."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a pity you haven't got a dog-cart, isn't it?" -said Hilda, lightly smiling. "Because then we could -use the works horse now and then, and it wouldn't -really cost anything extra, would it?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her heart was beating perceptibly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin shook his head, agreeably, but with firmness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't mix up two different things like that!" he said.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She knew it. She was aware of the whole theory -of horse-owning among the upper trading-class in the -Five Towns. A butcher might use his cob for -pleasure on Sundays--he never used it for pleasure on any -other day--but traders on a higher plane than -butchers drew between the works and the house a line -which a works horse was not permitted to cross. One -or two, perhaps,--but not the most solid--would put -a carter into a livery overcoat and a shabby top-hat -and describe him as a coachman while on rare -afternoons he drove a landau or a victoria picked up cheap -at Axe or Market Drayton. But the majority had -no pretensions to the owning of private carriages. -The community was not in fact a carriage community. -Even the Orgreaves had never dreamed of a carriage. -Old Darius Clayhanger would have been staggered into -profanity by the suggestion of such a thing. Indeed, -until some time after old Clayhanger's death the -printing business had been content to deliver all its orders -in a boy-pushed handcart. Only when Edwin discovered -that, for instance, two thousand catalogues on -faced clay paper could not be respectably delivered in -a handcart, had he steeled himself to the prodigious -move of setting up a stable. He had found an entirely -trustworthy ostler-carter with the comfortable name -of Unchpin, and, an animal and a tradesman's -covered cart having been bought, he had left the affair -to Unchpin. Naturally he had never essayed to drive -the tradesman's cart. And Edwin Clayhanger could -not be seen on the insecure box of a tradesman's cart. -He had learnt nothing about horses except that a horse -should be watered before, and not after, being fed, that -shoeing cost a shilling a week and fodder a shilling a -day, and that a horse driven over a hundred and fifty -miles a week was likely to get "a bit over" at the -knees. At home the horse and cart had always been -regarded as being just as exclusively a works item as -the printing-machines or the steam-engine.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose," said Hilda carefully, "you've got all -the work one horse can do?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And more."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, then, why don't you buy another one?" She -tried to speak carelessly, without genuine interest.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, no doubt!" Edwin answered drily. "And -build fresh stables, too."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Haven't you got room for two?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come along and look, and then perhaps you'll be -satisfied."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Buzzers, syrens, and whistles began to sound in the -neighbourhood. It was one o'clock.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall I? ... Your overcoat collar's turned up -behind. Let me do it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She straightened the collar.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They went out, through the clerk's office. Edwin -gave a sideways nod to Simpson. In the passage some -girls and a few men were already hurrying forth. None -of them took notice of Edwin and Hilda. They all -plunged for the street as though the works had been -on fire.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"They are in a hurry, my word!" Hilda murmured, -with irony.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And why shouldn't they be?" the employer -protested almost angrily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the small yard stood the horseless cart, with -"Edwin Clayhanger, Lithographer and Steam Printer, -Bursley," on both its sides. The stable and cart-shed -were in one penthouse, and to get to the stable it was -necessary to pass through the cart-shed. Unchpin, -a fat man of forty with a face marked by black seams, -was bending over a chaff-cutter in the cart-shed. He -ignored the intruders. The stable consisted of one -large loose-box, in which a grey animal was restlessly -moving.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You see!" Edwin muttered curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! What a beautiful horse! I've never seen him -before."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Her," Edwin corrected.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it a mare?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So they say!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I never knew you'd got a fresh one."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I haven't--yet. I've taken this one for a -fortnight's trial, from Chawner.... How's she doing, -Unchpin?" he called to the cart-shed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Unchpin looked round and stared.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bit light," he growled and turned back to the -chaff-cutter, which he seemed to be repairing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought so," said Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But her's a good 'un," he added.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But where's the old horse?" asked Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"With God," Edwin replied. "Dropped down dead -last week."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What of?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin shook his head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a privilege of horses to do that sort of thing," -he said. "They're always doing it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You never told me."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you weren't here, for one thing."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The mare inquisitively but cautiously put her -muzzle over the door of the box. Hilda stroked her. The -animal's mysterious eyes, her beautiful coat, her broad -back, her general bigness relatively to Hilda, the sound -of her feet among the litter on the paving stones, the -smell of the stable,--these things enchanted Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I should adore horses!" she breathed, half to -herself, ecstatically; and wondered whether she would -ever be able to work her will on Edwin in the matter -of a dog-cart. She pictured herself driving the grey -mare, who had learnt to love her, in a flashing -dog-cart, Edwin by her side on the front-seat. Her mind -went back enviously to Tavy Mansion and Dartmoor. -But she felt that Edwin had not enough elasticity to -comprehend the rapture of her dream. She foresaw -nearly endless trouble and altercation and chicane -before she could achieve her end. She was ready to -despair, but she remembered her resolutions and took -heart.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Unchpin," said Edwin. "I suppose this -box couldn't be made into two stalls?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Unchpin on his gaitered legs clumped towards the -stable, and gazed gloomily into the box. When he -had gazed for some time, he touched his cap to Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It could," he announced.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Could you get a trap into the shed as well as the -cart?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ay! If ye dropped th' shafts o' th' trap under th' -cart. What of it, mester?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing. Only missis is going to have this mare."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>After a pause, Unchpin muttered:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Missis, eh!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda had moved a little away into the yard. Edwin -approached her, flushing slightly, and with a -self-consciousness which he tried to dissipate with one wink. -Hilda's face was set hard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I must just go back to the office," she said, in a -queer voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She walked quickly, Edwin following. Simpson -beheld their return with gentle surprise. In the private -office Hilda shut the door. She then ran to the -puzzled Edwin, and kissed him with the most startling -vehemence, clasping her arms--in one hand she still held -the muff--round his neck. She loved him for being -exactly as he was. She preferred his strange, uncouth -method of granting a request, of yielding, of flattering -her caprice, to any politer, more conventional methods -of the metropolis. She thought that no other man -could be as deeply romantic as Edwin. She despised -herself for ever having been misled by the surface of -him. And even the surface of him she saw now as it -were, through the prism of passionate affection, to be -edged with the blending colours of the rainbow. And -when they came again out of the office, after the sacred -rite, and Edwin, as uplifted as she, glanced back -nevertheless at the sheeted desk and the safe and the other -objects in the room with the half-mechanical habitual -solicitude of a man from whom the weight of responsibility -is never lifted, she felt saddened because she -could not enter utterly into his impenetrable soul, -and live through all his emotions, and comprehend -like a creator the always baffling wistfulness of -his eyes. This sadness was joy; it was the aura of her -tremendous satisfaction in his individuality and in her -triumph and in the thought: "I alone stand between -him and desolation."</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">II</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"Wo!" exclaimed Hilda broadly, bringing the mare -and the vehicle to a standstill in front of the "Live -and Let Live" inn in the main street of the village of -Stockbrook, which lay about a mile and a half off the -high road from the Five Towns to Axe. And immediately -the mare stopped she was enveloped in her -own vapour.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" exclaimed Edwin, with faint benevolent irony. -"And no bones broken!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>A man came out from the stable-yard.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The village of Stockbrook gave the illusion that -hundreds of English villages were giving that Christmas -morning,--the illusion that its name was Arcadia, -that finality had been reached, and that the forces of -civilisation could go no further. More suave than a -Dutch village, incomparably neater and cleaner and -more delicately finished than a French village, it -presented, in the still, complacent atmosphere of long -tradition, a picturesque medley of tiny architectures -nearly every aspect of which was beautiful. And if -seven people of different ages and sexes lived in a -two-roomed cottage under a thatched roof hollowed by the -weight of years, without drains and without water, and -also without freedom, the beholder was yet bound to -conclude that by some mysterious virtue their -existence must be gracious, happy, and in fact -ideal--especially on Christmas Day, though Christmas Day was -also Quarter Day--and that they would not on any -account have it altered in the slightest degree. Who -could believe that fathers of families drank away their -children's bread in the quaint tap-room of that creeper-clad -hostel--a public-house fit to produce ecstasy in -the heart of every American traveller--"The Live -and Let Live"? Who could have believed that -the Wesleyan Methodists already singing a Christmas -hymn inside the dwarf Georgian conventicle, and their -fellow-Christians straggling under the lych into the -church-yard, scorned one another with an immortal -detestation, each claiming a monopoly in knowledge of the -unknowable? But after all the illusion of Arcadia was -not entirely an illusion. In this calm, rime-decked, -Christmas-imbued village, with its motionless trees -enchanted beneath a vast grey impenetrable cloud, a sort -of relative finality had indeed been reached,--the end -of an epoch that was awaiting dissolution.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had not easily agreed to the project of -shutting up house for the day and eating the Christmas -dinner with Tertius Ingpen. Although customarily -regarding the ritual of Christmas, with its family visits, -its exchange of presents, its feverish kitchen activity, -its somewhat insincere gaiety, its hours of boredom, -and its stomachic regrets, as an ordeal rather than a -delight, he nevertheless abandoned it with reluctance -and a sense of being disloyal to something sacred. -But the situation of Ingpen, Hilda's strong desire and -her teasing promise of a surprise, and the still -continuing dearth of servants had been good arguments to -persuade him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And though he had left Trafalgar Road moody and -captious, thinking all the time of the deserted and -cold home, he had arrived in Stockbrook tingling and -happy, and proud of Hilda,--proud of her verve, her -persistency, and her success. She had carried him very -far on the wave of her new enthusiasm for horse-traction. -She had beguiled him into immediately spending -mighty sums on a dog-cart, new harness, rugs, a -driving-apron, and a fancy whip. She had exhausted -Unchpin, upset the routine of the lithographic business, -and gravely overworked the mare, in her determination -to learn to drive. She had had the equipage out at -night for her lessons. On the other hand she had not -in the least troubled herself about the purchase of a -second horse for mercantile purposes, and a second -horse had not yet been bought.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When she had announced that she would herself drive -her husband and son over to Stockbrook, Edwin had -absolutely negatived the idea; but Unchpin had been -on her side; she had done the double journey with -Unchpin, who judged her capable and the mare (eight -years old) quite reliable, and who moreover wanted -Christmas as much as possible to himself. And Hilda -had triumphed. Walking the mare uphill--and also -downhill--she had achieved Stockbrook in safety; and -the conquering air with which she drew up at the "Live -and Let Live" was delicious. The chit's -happiness and pride radiated out from her. It seemed -to Edwin that by the mere strength of violition -she had actually created the dog-cart and its -appointments, and the mare too! And he thought that he -himself had not lived in vain if he could procure her -such sensations as her glowing face then displayed. -Her occasionally overbearing tenacity, and the little -jars which good resolutions several weeks old had -naturally not been powerful enough to prevent, were -forgotten and forgiven. He would have given all his -savings to please her caprice, and been glad. A horse and -trap, or even a pair of horses and a landau, were a -trifling price to pay for her girlish joy and for his own -tranquillity in his beloved house and business.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Catch me, both of you!" cried Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had got down, and walked round behind the -vehicle to the footpath, where George stood grinning. -The stableman, in classic attitude, was at the mare's -head.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda jumped rather wildly. It was Edwin who -countered the shock of her descent. The edge of her -velvet hat knocked against his forehead, disarranging -his cap. He could smell the velvet, as for an instant -he held his wife--strangely acquiescent and yielding--in -his arms, and there was something intimately -feminine in the faint odour. All Hilda's happiness seemed -to pass into him, and that felicity sufficed for him. He -did not desire any happiness personal to himself. He -wanted only to live in her. His contentment was -profound, complete, rapturous.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And yet in the same moment, reflecting that Hilda -would certainly have neglected the well-being of the -mare, he could say to the stableman:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Put the rug over her, will you?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello! Here's Mr. Ingpen!" announced George, as -he threw the coloured rug on the mare.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen, pale and thickly enveloped, came slowly -round the bend of the road, waving and smiling. He -had had a relapse, after a too early sortie, and was -recovering from it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I made sure you'd be about here," he said, shaking -hands. "Merry Christmas, all!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ought you to be out, my lad?" Edwin asked heartily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Out? Yes. I'm as fit as a fiddle. And I've been -ordered mild exercise." He squared off gaily against -George and hit the stout adolescent in the chest.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What about all your parcels, Hilda?" Edwin enquired.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! We'll call for them afterwards."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Afterwards?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. Come along--before you catch a chill." She -winked openly at Ingpen, who returned the wink. -"Come along, dear. It's not far. We have to walk -across the fields."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Put her up, sir?" the stableman demanded of Edwin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes. And give her a bit of a rub down," he replied -absently, remembering various references of -Hilda's to a surprise. His heart misgave him. Ingpen -and Hilda looked like plotters, very intimate and -mischievous. He had a notion that living with a woman -was comparable to living with a volcano--you never -knew when a dangerous eruption might not occur.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Within three minutes the first and minor catastrophe -had occurred.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bit sticky, this field path of yours," said Edwin, -uneasily.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They were all four slithering about in brown clay -under a ragged hedge in which a few red berries -glowed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was as hard as iron the day before yesterday," -said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! So you were here the day before yesterday, -were you? ... What's that house there?" Edwin -turned to Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's guessed it in one!" Ingpen murmured, and -then went off into his characteristic crescendo laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The upper part of a late eighteenth-century house, -squat and square, with yellow walls, black uncurtained -windows, high slim chimney, and a blue slate roof, -showed like a gigantic and mysterious fruit in a -clump of variegated trees, some of which were evergreen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ladderedge Hall, my boy," said Ingpen. "Seat of -the Beechinors for about a hundred years."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"'Seat', eh!" Edwin murmured sarcastically.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's been empty for two years," remarked Hilda -brightly. "So we thought we'd have a look at it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin said to himself that he had divined all -along what the surprise was. It was astounding that -a man could pass with such rapidity as Edwin from -vivid joy to black and desolate gloom. She well knew -that the idea of living in the country was extremely -repugnant to him, and that nothing would ever induce -him to consent to it. And yet she must needs lay -this trap for him, prepare this infantile surprise, and -thereby spoil his Christmas, she who a few moments -earlier had been the embodiment of surrender in his -arms! He said no word. He hummed a few notes and -glanced airily to right and left with an effort after -unconcern. The presence of Ingpen and the boy, and the -fact of Christmas, forbade him to speak freely. He -could not suddenly stop and drive his stick into the -earth and say savagely:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now listen to me! Once for all, I won't have this -country house idea! So let it be understood,--if you -want a row, you know how to get it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The appearance of amity--and the more high-spirited -the better--must be kept up throughout the day. -Nevertheless in his heart he challenged Hilda desperately. -All her good qualities became insignificant, all -his benevolent estimates of her seemed ridiculous. She -was the impossible woman. He saw a tremendous vista -of unpleasantness, for her obstinacy in warfare was -known to him, together with her perfect lack of scruple, -of commonsense, and of social decency. He had made -her a present of a horse and trap--solely to please -her--and this was his reward! The more rope you -gave these creatures, the more they wanted! But he -would give no more rope. Compromise was at an end. -The battle would be joined that night.... In -his grim and resolute dejection there was something -almost voluptuous. He continued to glance airily -about, and at intervals to hum a few notes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Over a stile they dropped into a rutty side-road, -and opposite was the worn iron gate of Ladderedge -Hall, with a house-agent's board on it. A short curved -gravel drive, filmed with green, led to the front-door -of the house. In front were a lawn and a flower-garden, -beyond a paddock, and behind a vegetable garden -and a glimpse of stabling; a compact property! -Ingpen drew a great key from his pocket. The plotters -were all prepared; they took their victim for a -simpleton, a ninny, a lamb!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the damp echoing interior Edwin gazed without -seeing, and heard as in a dream without listening. -This was the hall, this the dining-room, this the -drawing-room, this the morning-room.... White marble -mantelpieces, pre-historic grates, wall-paper hanging -in strips, cobwebs, uneven floors, scaly ceilings, the -invisible vapour of human memories! This was the -kitchen, enormous; then the larder, enormous, and the -scullery still more enormous (with a pump-handle -flanking the slopstone)! No water. No gas. And what -was this room opening out of the kitchen? Oh! That -must be the servants' hall.... Servants' hall indeed! -Imagine Edwin Clayhanger living in a "Hall," with a -servants' hall therein! Snobbishness unthinkable! He -would not be able to look his friends in the face.... -On the first floor, endless bedrooms, but no bath-room. -Here, though, was a small bedroom that would make a -splendid bath-room.... Ingpen, the ever expert, -conceived a tank-room in the roof, and traced routes for -plumbers' pipes. George, excited, and comprehending -that he must conduct himself as behoved an architect, -ran up to the attic floor to study on the spot the -problem of the tank-room, and Ingpen followed. Edwin -stared out of a window at the prospect of the Arcadian -village lying a little below across the sloping fields.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Come along, Edwin," Hilda coaxed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Yes, she had pretended a deep concern for the -welfare of the suffering feckless bachelor, Tertius -Ingpen. She had paid visit after visit in order to watch -over his convalescence. Choosing to ignore his scorn -for all her sex, she had grown more friendly with him -than even Edwin had ever been. Indeed by her -sympathetic attentions she had made Edwin seem callous in -comparison. And all the time she had merely been -pursuing a private design--with what girlish deceitfulness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the emptiness of the house the voices of Ingpen -and George echoed from above down the second flight of -stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No good going to the attics," muttered Edwin, on -the landing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda, half cajoling, half fretful, protested:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, Edwin, don't be disagreeable."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He followed her on high, martyrised. The front -wall of the house rose nearly to the top of the attic -windows, screening and darkening them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Cheerful view!" Edwin growled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He heard Ingpen saying that the place could be had -on a repairing lease for sixty-five pounds a year, and -that perhaps £1,200 would buy it. Dirt cheap.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" Edwin murmured. "I know those repairing -leases. £1,000 wouldn't make this barn fit to live in."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He knew that Ingpen and Hilda exchanged glances.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's larger than Tavy Mansion," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Tavy Mansion! There was the secret! Tavy -Mansion was at the bottom of her scheme. Alicia -Hesketh had a fine house, and Hilda must have a finer. -She, Hilda, of all people, was a snob. He had long -suspected it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He rejoined sharply: "Of course it isn't larger than -Tavy Mansion! It isn't as large."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Edwin. How can you say such things!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the portico, as Ingpen was re-locking the door, -the husband said negligently, superiorly, cheerfully:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's not so bad. I expect there's hundreds of places -like this up and down the country--going cheap."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The walk back to the "Live and Let Live" was irked -by constraint, against which everyone fought nobly, -smiling, laughing, making remarks about cockrobins, -the sky, the Christmas dinner.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So I hear it's settled you're going to London when -you leave school, kiddie," said Tertius Ingpen, to -bridge over a fearful hiatus in the prittle-prattle.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George, so big now and so mannishly dressed as to -be amused and not a bit hurt by the appellation -"kiddie," confirmed the statement in his deepening voice.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It's more than </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> hear, anyway!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda had told him that during the visit to London -the project for articling George to Johnnie Orgreave -had been revived, but she had not said that a decision -had been taken. Though Edwin from careful pride -had not spoken freely--George being Hilda's affair -and not his--he had shown no enthusiasm. Johnnie -Orgreave had sunk permanently in his esteem--scarcely -less so than Jimmie, whose conjugal eccentricities had -scandalised the Five Towns and were achieving the -ruin of the Orgreave practice; or than Tom, who was -developing into a miser. Moreover, he did not at all -care for George going to London. Why should it be -thought necessary for George to go to London? The -sagacious and successful provincial in Edwin was -darkly jealous of London, as a rival superficial and -brilliant. And now he learnt from Ingpen that -George's destiny was fixed.... A matter of small -importance, however!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Did "they" seriously expect him to travel from -Ladderedge Hall to his works, and from his works to -Ladderedge Hall every week-day of his life? He laughed -sardonically to himself.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Out came the sun, which George greeted with a -cheer. And Edwin, to his own surprise, began to feel -hungry.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">III</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>"I shan't take that house, you know," said Edwin, -casually and yet confidentially, in a pause which -followed a long analysis, by Ingpen, of Ingpen's -sensations in hospital before he was out of danger.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>They sat on opposite sides of a splendid extravagant -fire in Ingpen's dining-room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen, sprawling in a shabby, uncomfortable easychair, -and flushed with the activity of digestion, raised -his eyebrows, squinted down at the cigarette between -his lips, and answered impartially:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No. So I gather. Of course you must understand -it was Hilda's plan to go up there. I merely fell in -with it,--simplest thing to do in these cases!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Thus they both condescended to the feather-headed -capricious woman, dismissed her, and felt a marked -access of sincere intimacy on a plane of civilisation -exclusively masculine.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the succeeding silence of satisfaction and relief -could be heard George, in the drawing-room above, -practising again the piano part of a Haydn violin -sonata which he had very nervously tried over with -Ingpen while they were awaiting dinner.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen said suddenly:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, old chap! Why have you never mentioned -that you happened to meet a certain person in my -room at Hanbridge that night you went over there -for me?" He frowned.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had a thrill, pleasurable and apprehensive, -at the prospect of a supreme confidence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was no earthly business of mine," he answered -lightly. But his tone conveyed: "You surely ought -to be aware that my loyalty and my discretion are -complete."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Ingpen, replying to Edwin's tone, said with a -simple directness that flattered Edwin to the heart:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Naturally I knew I was quite safe in your hands.... -I've reassured the lady." Ingpen smiled slightly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was too proud to tell Ingpen that he had not -said a word to Hilda, and Ingpen was too proud to tell -Edwin that he assumed as much.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At that moment Hilda came into the room, murmuring -a carol that some children of Stockbrook had -sung on the doorstep during dinner.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't be afraid--I'm not going to interrupt. I -know you're in the thick of it," said she archly, not -guessing how exactly truthful she was.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen, keeping his presence of mind in the most -admirable manner, rejoined with irony:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't mean to say you've finished already -explaining to Mrs. Dummer how she ought to run my -house for me!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How soon do you mean to have this table cleared?" -asked Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The Christmas dinner, served by a raw girl in a -large bluish-white pinafore, temporarily hired to -assist Mrs. Dummer the housekeeper, had been a good -one. Its only real fault was that it had had a little too -much the air of being a special and mighty effort; and -although it owed something to Hilda's parcels, -Ingpen was justified in the self-satisfaction which he did -not quite conceal as a bachelor host. But now, under -Hilda's quizzing gaze, not merely the table but the -room and the house sank to the tenth-rate. The coarse -imperfections of the linen and the cutlery grew very -apparent; the disorder of bottles and glasses and cups -recalled the refectory of an inferior club. And the -untidiness of the room, heaped with accumulations of -newspapers, magazines, documents, books, boxes and -musical-instrument cases, loudly accused the solitary -despot whose daily caprices of arrangement were -perpetuated and rendered sacred by the ukase that -nothing was to be disturbed. Hilda's glinting eyes seemed -to challenge each corner and dark place to confess -its shameful dirt, and the malicious poise of her head -mysteriously communicated the fact that in the past -fortnight she had spied out every sinister secret in -the whole graceless, primitive wigwam.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"This table," retorted Ingpen bravely, "is going -to be cleared when it won't disturb me to have it -cleared."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," said Hilda. "But Mrs. Dummer does -want to get on with her washing-up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Look here, madam," Ingpen replied. "You're a -little ray of sunshine, and all that, and I'm the first -to say so; but I'm not your husband." He made a -warning gesture. "Now don't say you'd be sorry for -any woman I was the husband of. Think of something -more original." He burst out laughing.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda went to the window and looked out at the -fading day.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Please, I only popped in to say it's nearly a quarter -to three, and George and I will go down to the inn and -bring the dog-cart up here. I want a little walk. We -shan't get home till dark as it is."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Chance it and stop for tea, and all will be -forgiven."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Drive home in the dark? Not much!" Edwin murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He's afraid of my driving," said Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When Edwin and Ingpen were alone together once -more, Ingpen's expression changed back instantly to -that which Hilda had disturbed, and Edwin's impatience, -which had uneasily simmered during the -interruption, began to boil.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Her husband's in a lunatic asylum, I may tell you," -said Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Whose?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"The young woman's in question."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>For Edwin, it was as if a door had opened in a wall -and disclosed a vast unsuspected garden of romance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Really!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, my boy," Ingpen went on, quietly, with -restraint, but not without a naïve and healthy pride in -the sudden display of the marvellous garden. "And -I didn't meet her at a concert, or on the Grand Canal, -or anything of that sort. I met her in a mill at -Oldham while I was doing my job. He was the boss of the -mill; I walked into an office and he was lying on the -floor on the flat of his back, and she was wiping her -feet on his chest. He was saying in a very anxious -tone: 'You aren't half wiping them. Harder! -Harder!' That was his little weakness, you see. He -happened to be convinced that he was a doormat. -She had been hiding the thing for weeks, coming with -him to the works, and so on, to calm him." Ingpen -spoke more quickly and excitedly: "I never saw a -more awful thing in my life! I never saw a more -awful thing in my life! And coming across it -suddenly, you see.... There was something absolutely -odious in him lying down like that, and her trying to -soothe him in the way he wanted. You should have -seen the serious expression of his face, simply bursting -with anxiety for her to wipe her boots properly on -him. And her face when she caught sight of me. Oh! -Dreadful! Dreadful!" Ingpen paused, and then -continued calmly: "Of course I soon tumbled to it. For -the matter of that, it didn't want much tumbling to. -He went raving mad the same afternoon. And he's -been more or less raving mad ever since."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a ghastly business.... Any children?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, thank God!" Ingpen answered with fresh -emotion. "But don't you forget that she's still the wife -of that lunatic, and he'll probably live for ever. She's -tied up to him just as if she was tied up to a post. -Those are our Divorce Laws! Isn't it appalling? Isn't -it inconceivable? Just think of the situation of that -woman!" Ingpen positively glared at Edwin in the -intensity of his indignation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Awful!" Edwin murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Quite alone in the world, you know!" said Ingpen. -"I'm hanged if I know what she'd have done without me. -She hadn't a friend--at any rate she hadn't a friend -with a grain of sense. Astonishing how solitary some -couples are! ... It aged her frightfully. She's much -younger than she looks. Happily there was a bit of -money--enough in fact."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Deeply as Edwin had been impressed by his -romantic discovery of a woman in Ingpen's room at -Hanbridge, he was still more impressed by it now. He saw -the whole scene again, and saw it far more poetically. -He accused himself of blindness, and also of a -certain harshness of attitude towards the woman. He -endowed her now with wondrous qualities. The -adventure, in its tragicalness and its clandestine tenderness, -was enchanting. How exquisite must be the relations -between Ingpen and the woman if without warning she -could go to his lair at night and wait confidently for -his return! How divine the surprise for him, how -ardent the welcome! He envied Ingpen. And also he -admired him, for Ingpen had obviously conducted the -affair with worthy expertise. And he had known how -to win devotion.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With an air of impartiality Ingpen proceeded:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You wouldn't see her quite at her best, I'm afraid. -She's very shy--and naturally she'd be more shy than -ever when you saw her. She's quite a different woman -when the shyness has worn off. The first two or three -times I met her I must say I didn't think she was -anything more than a nice well-meaning creature,--you -know what I mean. But she's much more than that. -Can't play, but I believe she has a real feeling for -music. She has time for reading, and she does read. -And she has a more masculine understanding than -nearly any other woman I've ever come across."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You wait a bit!" thought Edwin. This simplicity -on the part of a notable man of the world pleased him -and gave him a comfortable sense of superiority.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Aloud he responded sympathetically:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Good! ... Do I understand she's living in the -Five Towns now?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Ingpen, after a hesitation. He spoke -in a peculiar, significant voice, carefully modest. The -single monosyllable conveyed to Edwin: "I cannot -deny it. I was necessary to this woman, and in the end -she followed me!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin was impressed anew by the full revelation of -romance which had concealed itself in the squalid -dailiness of the Five Towns.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"In fact," said Ingpen, "you never know your -luck. If she'd been free I might have been fool enough -to get married."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why do you say a thing like that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Because I think I should be a fool to marry." Ingpen -tapping his front teeth with his finger-nail, spoke -reflectively, persuasively, and with calm detachment.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" asked Edwin, persuasively also, but nervously, -as though the spirit of adventure in the search -for truth was pushing him to fatal dangers.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Marriage isn't worth the price--for me, that is. -I daresay I'm peculiar." Ingpen said this quite -seriously, prepared to consider impartially the -proposition that he was peculiar. "The fact is, my boy, I -think my freedom is worth a bit more than I could -get out of any marriage."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"That's all very well," said Edwin, trying to speak -with the same dispassionate conviction as Ingpen, and -scarcely succeeding. "But look what you miss! Look -how you live!" Almost involuntarily he glanced with -self-complacence round the unlovely, unseemly room, -and his glance seemed to penetrate ceilings and walls, -and to discover and condemn the whole charmless house -from top to bottom.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why? What's the matter with it?" Ingpen -replied uneasily; a slight flush came into his cheeks. -"Nobody has a more comfortable bed or more -comfortable boots than I have. How many women can -make coffee as good as mine? No woman ever born -can make first-class tea. I have all I want."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you don't. And what's the good of talking -about coffee, and tea, and beds?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, what else is there I want that I haven't -got? If you mean fancy cushions and draperies, no, -thanks!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You know what I mean all right.... And then -'freedom' as you say. What do you mean by freedom?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't specially mean," said Ingpen, tranquil and -benevolent, "what I may call physical freedom. I'd -give that up. I like a certain amount of untidiness, -for instance, and I don't think an absence of dust is -the greatest thing in the world; but I wouldn't in the -least mind giving all that up. It wouldn't really -matter to me. What I won't give up is my intellectual -freedom. Perhaps I mean intellectual honesty. I'd -give up even my intellectual freedom if I could be -deprived of it fairly and honestly. But I shouldn't be. -There's almost no intellectual honesty in marriage. -There can't be. The entire affair is a series of -compromises, chiefly base on the part of the man. The -alternative is absolute subjection of the woman, which -is offensive. No woman not absolutely a slave ever -hears the truth except in anger. You can't say the -same about men, and you know it. I'm not blaming; -I'm stating. Even assuming a married man gets a -few advantages that I miss, they're all purely physical----"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no! Not at all."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My boy," Ingpen insisted, sitting up, and gazing -earnestly at Edwin. "Analyse them down, and they're -all physical--all! And I tell you I won't pay the -price for them. I won't. I've no grievance against -women; I can enjoy being with women as much as -anybody, but I won't--I will not--live permanently on -their level. That's why I say I might have been fool -enough to get married. It's quite simple."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hm!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin, although indubitably one of those who had -committed the vast folly of marriage, and therefore -subject to Ingpen's indictment, felt not the least -constraint, nor any need to offer an individual defence. -Ingpen's demeanour seemed to have lifted the -argument above the personal. His assumption that Edwin -could not be offended was positively inspiring to -Edwin. The fear of truth was exorcised. Freedom of -thought existed in that room in England. Edwin -reflected: "If he's right and I'm condemned accordingly,--well, -I can't help it. Facts are facts, and they're -extremely interesting."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He also reflected:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Why on earth can't Hilda and I discuss like that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He did not know why, but he profoundly and sadly -knew that such discussion would be quite impossible -with Hilda.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The red-hot coals in the grate subsided together.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And I'll tell you another thing----" Ingpen commenced.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was stopped by the entrance of Mrs. Dummer, -a fat woman, with an old japanned tray. Mrs. Dummer -came in like a desperate forlorn hope. Her aged, -grim, and yet somewhat hysterical face seemed to say: -"I'm going to clear this table and get on with my work, -even if I die for it at the hands of a brutal tyrant." Her -gestures as she made a space for the tray and -set it down on the table were the formidable gestures of -the persecuted at bay.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Dummer," said Ingpen, in a weak voice, -leaning back in his chair, "would you mind fetching me -my tonic off my dressing-table? I've forgotten it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Dummer.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>As she had hurried out, Ingpen winked placidly at -Edwin in the room in which the shadows were already -falling.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Nevertheless, when the dog-cart arrived at the -front-door, Ingpen did seem to show some signs of -exhaustion. Hilda would not get down. She sent word into -the house by George that the departure must occur at -once. Ingpen went out with Edwin, plaintively teased -Hilda about the insufferable pride of those who sit in -driving-seats, and took leave of her with the most -punctilious and chivalrous ceremonial, while Hilda -inscrutably smiling bent down to him with condescension -from her perch.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll sit behind going home, I think," said Edwin. -"George, you can sit with your mother."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tchik! Tchik!" Hilda signalled.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The mare with a jerk started off down the misty and -darkening road.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">IV</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>The second and major catastrophe occurred very -soon after the arrival in Trafalgar Road. It was -three-quarters of an hour after sunset and the street -lamps were lighted. Unchpin, with gloomy fatalism, -shivered obscurely in the dark porch, waiting to drive -the dog-cart down to the stable. Hilda had requested -his presence; it was she also who had got him to bring -the equipage up to the house in the morning. She -had implied, but not asserted, that to harness the mare -and trot up to Bleakridge was the work of a few -minutes, and that a few minutes' light labour could make -no real difference to Unchpin's Christmas Day. -Edwin, descrying Unchpin in the porch, saw merely a -defenceless man who had been robbed of the most sacred -holiday of the year in order to gratify the selfish -caprice of an overbearing woman. When asked how long -he had been in the porch, Unchpin firmly answered -that he had been there since three o'clock, the hour -appointed by Mrs. Clayhanger. Edwin knew nothing -of this appointment, and in it he saw more evidence of -Hilda's thoughtless egotism. He perceived that he -would be compelled to stop her from using his -employees as her private servants, and that the -prohibition would probably cause trouble. Hilda demanded -curtly of Unchpin why he had not waited in the warm -kitchen, according to instructions, instead of catching -his death of cold in the porch. The reply was that -he had rung and knocked fifteen times without getting -a response.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At this Hilda became angry, not only with Emmie, -the defaulting servant, but with the entire servant -class and with the world. Emmie, the new cook, and -temporarily the sole resident servant, was to have gone -to Maggie's for her Christmas dinner, and to have -returned at half past two without fail in order to light -the drawing-room fire and prepare for tea-making. -But, Maggie at the last moment having decided to go to -Clara's for the middle of the day, Emmie was told to -go with her and be as useful as she could at -Mrs. Benbow's until a quarter past two.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I hope you've got your latch-key, Edwin," said -Hilda threateningly, as if ready to assume that with -characteristic and inexcusable negligence he had left -his latch-key at home.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I have," he said drily, drawing the key from his -pocket.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" she muttered, as if saying: "Well, after -all, you're no better than you ought to be." And -took the key.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>While she opened the door, Edwin surreptitiously -gave half a crown to Unchpin, who was lighting the -carriage-lamps.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George, with the marvellous self-preserving instinct -of a small animal unprotected against irritated -prowling monsters, had become invisible.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The front-doorway yawned black like the portal of -a tomb. The place was a terrible negation of -Christmas. Edwin felt for the radiator; it was as cold to -the touch as a dead hand. He lit the hall-lamp, and -the decorations of holly and mistletoe contrived by -Hilda and George with smiles and laughter on -Christmas Eve stood revealed as the very symbol of -insincerity. Without taking off his hat and coat, he went -into the unlighted glacial drawing-room, where Hilda -was kneeling at the grate and striking matches. A -fragment of newspaper blazed, and then the flame -expired. The fire was badly laid.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sick of servants!" Hilda exclaimed with fury. -"Sick! They're all alike!" Her tone furiously blamed -Edwin and everybody.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And Edwin knew that the day was a pyramid of -which this moment was the dreadful apex. At -intervals during the drive home Hilda had talked -confidentially to George of the wondrous things he and she -could do if they only resided in the country--things -connected with flowers, vegetables, cocks, hens, ducks, -cows, rabbits, horses. She had sketched out the life -of a mistress of Ladderedge Hall, and she had sketched -it out for the benefit of the dull, hard man sitting -behind. Her voice, so persuasive and caressing to George, -had been charged with all sorts of accusations against -the silent fellow whose back now and then collided with -hers. She had exasperated him. She had wilfully and -deliberately exasperated him.... Her treatment of -Unchpin, her childish outburst concerning servants, -her acutely disagreeable demeanour, all combined now -to exhaust the poor remainder of Edwin's patience. -Not one word had been said about Ladderedge Hall, -but Ladderedge Hall loomed always between them. -Deadly war was imminent. Let it come! He would -prefer war to a peace which meant for him nothing -but insults and injustice. He would welcome war. He -turned brusquely and lit the chandelier. On the table -beneath it lay the writing-case that Hilda had given to -George, and the edition of Matthew Arnold that she had -given to Edwin, for a Christmas present. One of -Edwin's Christmas presents to her, an ermine stole, she was -wearing round her neck. Tragic absurdities, these -false tokens of love.... There they were, both of -them in full street attire, she kneeling at the grate -and he standing at the table, in the dank drawing-room -which now had no resemblance to a home.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin said with frigid and disdainful malevolence:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you could control yourself, Hilda. The fact -that a servant's a bit late on Christmas Day is no -reason for you to behave like a spoilt child. You're -offensive."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His words, righteously and almost murderously -resentful, seemed to startle and frighten the very -furniture, which had the air of waiting, enchanted, for -disaster.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda turned her head and glared at Edwin. She -threw back her shoulders, and her thick eyebrows -seemed to meet in a passionate frown.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," she said, with her clear, stinging articulation. -"That's just like you, that is! I lend my servant to -your sister. She doesn't send her back,--and it's my -fault! I should have thought the Benbows twisted -you round their little finger enough, without you -having to insult me because of them. Goodness knows -what tricks they didn't play to get your Aunt's -money--every penny of it! And now they make you do all -the work of the estate, for their benefit, and of course -you do it like a lamb! You can never spare a minute -from the works for me, but you can spare hours and -hours for Auntie Hamps's estate and the Benbows! -It's always like that." She paused and spoke more -thickly: "But I don't see why you should insult me on -the top of it!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Her features went awry. She sobbed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You make me ill!" said Edwin savagely.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He walked out of the room and pulled the door to.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George was descending the stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are you going to, uncle?" demanded George, -as Edwin opened the front-door.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm going down to see Auntie Maggie," Edwin -answered, forcing himself to speak very gently. "Tell -your mother if she asks." The boy guessed the -situation. It was humiliating that he should guess it, and -still more humiliating to be compelled to make use of -him in the fatal affair.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">V</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>He walked at a moderate pace down Trafalgar -Road. He did not know where he was going. -Certainly he was not going to see Maggie. He had -invented the visit to Maggie instantly in answer to -George's question, and he could not understand why he -had invented it. Maggie would be at Clara's; and, in -a misfortune, he would never go to Clara's; only when -he was successful and triumphant could he expose -himself to the Benbows.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The weather was damp and chill without rain. The -chilliness was rather tonic and agreeable to his body, -and he felt quite warm, though on getting down from -the dog-cart a few minutes earlier he had been cold -almost to the point of numbness. He could not -remember how, nor when, the change had occurred.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Every street lamp was the centre of a greenish-grey -sphere, which presaged rain as though the street-lamp -were the moon. The pavements were greasy with black -slime, the road deep in lamp-reflecting mire through -which the tram-lines ran straight and gleaming. Far -down the slope a cage of light moving obscurely -between the glittering avenue of lamps indicated the -steam-tram as it lifted towards the further hill into -the heart of the town. Where the lamps merged -together and vanished, but a little to the left, the -illuminated dial of the clock in the Town Hall tower -glowed in the dark heavens. The street was deserted; -no </span><em class="italics">Signal</em><span> boys, no ragged girls staring into sweet -shops, no artisans returning from work, no rattling -carts, no vehicles of any kind save the distant tram. -All the little shops were shut; even the little -greengrocer's shop, which never closed, was shut now, and its -customary winter smell of oranges and apples withdrawn. -The little inns, not yet open, showed through -their lettered plate windows one watching jet of gas -amid blue-and-red paper festoons and bunches of holly. -The gloomy fronts of nearly all the houses were pierced -with oblongs of light on which sometimes appeared -transient shadows of human beings. A very few other -human beings, equally mysterious, passed furtive and -baffling up and down the slope. Melancholy, familiar, -inexplicable, and piteous--the melancholy of existence -itself--rose like a vapour out of the sodden ground, -ennobling all the scene. The lofty disc of the Town -Hall clock solitary in the sky was somehow so -heart-rending, and the lives of the people both within and -without the houses seemed to be so woven of futility and -sorrow, that the menace of eternity grew intolerable.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's brain throbbed and shook like an engine-house -in which the machinery was his violent thoughts. -He no longer saw his marriage as a chain of disconnected -episodes; he saw it as a drama the true meaning -of which was at last revealed by the climax now upon -him. He had had many misgivings about it, and had -put them away, and they all swept back presenting -themselves as a series of signs that pointed to inevitable -disaster. He had been blind, from wilfulness or -cowardice. He now had vision. He had arrived at -honesty. He said to himself, as millions of men and -women have said to themselves, with awestruck calm: -"My marriage was a mistake." And he began to face -the consequences of the admission. He was not such a -fool as to attach too much importance to the immediate -quarrel, nor even to the half-suppressed but supreme -dissension concerning a place of residence. He -assumed, even, that the present difficulties would -somehow, with more or less satisfaction, be adjusted. What, -however, would not and could not be adjusted was the -temperament that produced them. Those difficulties, -which had been preceded by smaller difficulties, would -be followed by greater. It was inevitable. To hope -otherwise would be weakly sentimental, as his optimism -during the vigil in Auntie Hamps's bedroom had been -weakly sentimental. He must face the truth: "She -won't alter her ways--and I shan't stand them." No -matter what their relations might in future superficially -appear to be, their union was over. Or, if it was not -actually over, it soon would be over, for the forces to -shatter it were uncontrollable and increasing in -strength.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course she can't help being herself!" he said -impartially. "But what's that got to do with me?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His indictment of his wife was terrific and not to be -answered. She had always been a queer girl. On the -first night he ever saw her, she had run after him into -his father's garden, and stood with him in the -garden-porch that he had since done away with, and spoken -to him in the strangest manner. She was abnormal. -The dismal and perilous adventure with George Cannon -could not have happened to a normal woman. She -could not see reason, and her sense of justice was -non-existent. If she wanted a thing she must have it. In -reality she was a fierce and unscrupulous egotist, -incapable of understanding a point of view other than -her own. Imagine her bursting out like that about -Auntie Hamps's will! It showed how her mind ran. -That Auntie Hamps had an absolute right to dispose -of her goods as she pleased; that there was a great -deal to be said for Auntie Hamps's arrangements; that -in any case the Benbows were not to blame; that -jealousy was despicable and the mark of a mean mind; -that the only dignified course for himself was to -execute the trust imposed upon him without complaining,--these -things were obvious; but not to her! No human -skill could ever induce her to grant them. She did -not argue,--she felt; and the disaster was that she -did not feel rightly.... Imagine her trying to -influence Ingpen's housekeeping, to worry the man,--she -the guest and he the host! What would she say -if anybody played the same game on her?...</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She could not be moderate. She expected every -consideration from others, but she would yield none. She -had desired a horse and trap. She had received it. And -how had she used the gift? She had used it in defiance -of the needs of the works. She had upset everybody -and everything, and assuredly Unchpin had a very -legitimate grievance.... She had said that she could -not feel at home in her own house while the house -belonged to Maggie. Edwin had obediently bought the -house,--and now she wanted another house. She -scorned her husband's convenience and preferences, -and she wanted a house that was preposterously -inaccessible. The satisfaction of her caprice for a -dog-cart had not in the slightest degree appeased her -egotism. On the contrary it had further excited her -egotism and sharpened its aggressiveness. And by what -strange infantile paths had she gone about the -enterprise of shifting Edwin into the country! Not a frank -word to Edwin of the house she had found and decided -upon! Silly rumours of a "surprise!" And she had -counted upon the presence of Ingpen to disarm Edwin -and to tie his hands. The conspiracy was simply -childish. And because Edwin had at once shown his -distaste for her scheme, she had taken offence. Her -acrimony had gradually increased throughout the day, -hiding for a time under malicious silences and -enigmatic demeanours, darting out in remarks to third -persons and drawing back, and at last displaying -itself openly, cruelly, monstrously. The injustice of it -all passed belief. There was no excuse for Hilda, and -there never would be any excuse for her. She was -impossible; she would be still more impossible. He did -not make her responsible; he admitted that she was not -responsible. But at the same time, with a disdainful -and cold resentment, he condemned and hated her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He recalled Ingpen's: "I won't pay the price."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And I won't!" he said. "The end has come!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He envied Ingpen.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And there flitted through his mind the dream of -liberty--not the liberty of ignorant youth, but liberty -with experience and knowledge to use it. Ravishing -prospect! Marriage had advantages. But he could -retain those advantages in freedom. He knew what a -home ought to be; he had the instinct of the interior; -he considered that he could keep house as well as any -woman, and better than most; he was not, in that -respect, at all like Ingpen, who suffered from his inability -to produce and maintain comfort.... He remembered -Ingpen's historic habitual phrase about the -proper place for women,--"behind the veil." It was a -phrase which intensely annoyed women; but nevertheless -how true! And Ingpen had put it into practice. -Ingpen, even in the banal Five Towns, had shown the way.... -He saw the existence of males, with its rationality -and its dependableness, its simplicity, its directness, -its honesty, as something ideal. And as he pictured -such an existence--with or without the romance of -mysterious and interesting creatures ever modestly -waiting for attention behind the veil--further souvenirs -of Hilda's wilful naughtiness and injustice rushed into -his mind by thousands; in formulating to himself his -indictment against her, he had overlooked ninety per -cent of them; they were endless, innumerable. He -marshalled them again and again, with the fiercest -virulence, the most sombre gloom, with sardonic, bitter -pleasure.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the hollow where Trafalgar Road begins to be -known as Duck Bank, he turned to the left and, -crossing the foot of Woodisun Bank, arrived at one of the -oldest quarters of the town, where St. Luke's Church -stands in its churchyard amid a triangle of little -ancient houses. By the light of a new and improved -gas-lamp at the churchyard gates could be seen the -dark silhouette of the Norman tower and the -occasional white gleam of gravestones.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>One solitary couple, arm-in-arm, and bending slightly -towards each other, came sauntering in the mud past -the historic National Schools towards the illumination -of the lamp. The man was a volunteer, with a brilliant -vermilion tunic, white belt, and black trousers; he -wore his hat jauntily and carried a diminutive cane; -pride was his warm overcoat. The girl was stout and -short, with a heavily flowered hat and a dark -amorphous cloak; under her left arm she carried a -parcel. They were absorbed in themselves. Edwin -discerned first the man's face, in which was a gentle and -harmless coxcombry, and then the girl's face, ecstatic, -upward-gazing, seeing absolutely naught but the youth.... -It was Emmie's face, as Edwin perceived after a -momentary doubt due to his unfamiliarity with the -inhabitants of his own house. Emmie, so impatiently -and angrily awaited by her mistress, had lost her head -about a uniform. Emmie, whose place was in the -kitchen among saucepans and crockery, dish-clouts and -brushes, had escaped into another realm, where time -is not. That she had no immediate intention of -returning to her kitchen was shown by the fact that she -was moving deliberately in a direction away from it. -She was not pretty, for Hilda had perforce long since -ceased to insist upon physical charm in her servants. -She was not even young,--she was probably older than -the adored soldier. But her rapt ecstasy, her fearful -bliss, made a marvellous sight, rendered touching by -the girl's coarse gawkiness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It seemed lamentable, pathetic, to Edwin that -destiny should not permit her to remain forever in that -dream. "Can it be possible," he thought, "that a -creature capable of such surpassing emotion is -compelled to cook my bacon and black my boots?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The couple, wordless, strolled onwards, sticking -close to the railings. The churchyard was locked, but -Emmie and the soldier were doing the best they could -to satisfy that instinct which in the Five Towns seems -to drive lovers to graves for their pleasure. The little -houses cast here and there a blind yellow eye on the -silent and tranquil scene. Edwin turned abruptly back -into Woodisun Bank, feeling that he was a disturber -of the peace.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Suddenly deciding to walk up to Hillport "for the -sake of exercise," he quickened his pace. After a -mile and a half, when he had crossed the railway at -Shawport and was on the Hillport rise, and the Five -Towns had begun to spread out in a map behind him, -he noticed that he was perspiring. He very seldom -perspired, and therefore he had the conviction that -the walk was "doing him good." He felt exhilarated, -and moved still faster.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>His mood was now changed. The spectacle of Emmie -and the soldier had thrown him violently out of -resentment into wonder. His indignation was somewhat -exhausted, and though he tried again and again to flick -it back into full heat and activity, he could not. He -kept thinking of the moment in the morning when, -standing ready to jump from the dog-cart, his wife had -said: "Catch me, both of you," and he recalled vividly -the sensation of her acquiescence, her momentary -yielding--imperceptible yet unforgettable--as he supported -her strongly in his arms; and with this memory was -mingled the smell of velvet. Strange that a woman so -harsh, selfish and overbearing, could thus contradict -her whole character in an instant of surrender! Was -she in that gesture confiding to him the deepest -secret? ... Rubbish! But now he no longer looked down on -her disdainfully. Honesty made him admit that it was -puerile to affect disdain of an individuality so powerful -and so mysterious. If she was a foe, she was at any -rate a dangerous fighter, and not to be played with. -And yet she could be a trifle, a wisp of fragile flesh -in his arms!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He saw the beatific face of Emmie against the -churchyard gates under the lamp.... Why not humour -Hilda? Why not let her plant their home according -to her caprice? ... Certainly not! Never would he -do it! Why should he? Time after time he angrily -rejected the idea. Time after time it returned. What -did it matter to Hilda where she lived? And had he -not bought their present house solely in order to please -her? The first consideration in choosing a home ought -to be and must be the consideration of business -convenience.... Yet, what did it matter to him where -his home was? (He remembered a phrase of Ingpen's: -"I don't live on that plane.") Could he not adapt -himself? He dreamt of very rapid transit between -Ladderedge Hall and the works. Motor-cars had just -become lawful; but he had never happened to see one, -though he had heard of several in the district, or -passing through. His imagination could not rise so high as -a motor-car. That he could ever use or possess one did -not even occur to him. He thought only of a -fast-trotting horse, and a trap with indiarubber tyres; -himself the driver; sometimes Hilda the driver.... An -equipage to earn renown in the district. "Clayhanger's -trap,"--"He drives in from Ladderedge in thirty-five -minutes. The horse simply won't walk; doesn't know -how to!" And so on. He had heard such talk of -others. Why should not others hear it of him? ... Then, -the pleasure, the mere pleasure--call it sensual -or what you like--of granting a caprice to the -capricious creature! If a thing afforded her joy, why -not give it? ... To see her in the rôle of mistress of -a country-house, delicately horsey, excited about -charitable schemes, protecting the poor, working her will -upon gardeners and grooms, stamping her foot in the -violence of her resolution to have her own way, offering -sugar to a horse, nursing a sick dog! Amusing; -Agreeable! ... And all that activity of hers a mere -dependence of his own! Flattering to his pride! ... He -could afford it easily, for he was richer even than -his wife supposed. To let the present house ought not -to be difficult. To sell it advantageously ought not -to be impossible. In this connection, he thought, though -not seriously, of Tom Swetman, who had at last got -himself engaged to one of those Scandinavian women -about whom he had been chaffed for years; Tom would -be wanting an abode, and probably a good one.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was carried away by his own dream. To realise -that dream he had only to yield, to nod negligently, -to murmur with benevolent tolerance: "All right. Do -as you please." He would have nothing to withdraw, -for he had uttered no refusal. Not a word had passed -between them as to Ladderedge Hall since they had -quitted it. He had merely said that he did not like -it,--"poured cold water on it" as the phrase was. True, -his demeanour had plainly intimated that he was still -opposed in principle to the entire project of living in -the country; but a demeanour need not be formally -retracted; it could be negatived without any humiliation....</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>No, he would never yield, though yielding seemed to -open up a pleasant, a delicious prospect. He could -not yield. It would be wrong, and it would be -dangerous, to yield. Had he not already quite clearly -argued out with himself the whole position? And yet -why not yield? ... He was afraid as before a temptation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He re-crossed the railway, and crossed Fowlea Brook, -a boundary, back into the borough. The dark path -lay parallel with the canal, but below it. He had gone -right through Hillport and round Hillport Marsh and -returned down the flank of the great ridge that -protects the Five Towns on the West. He could not -recollect the details of the walk; he only knew that he -had done it all, that time and the miles had passed with -miraculous rapidity, and that his boots were very -muddy. A change in the consistency of the mud caused -him to look up at the sky, which was clearing and -showed patches of faint stars. A frost had set in, -despite the rainy prophecy of street-lamps. In a few -moments he had climbed the short steep curving slope -on to the canal-bridge. He was breathless and very hot.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He stopped and sat on the parapet. In his school-days -he had crossed this bridge twice a day on the -journey to and from Oldcastle. Many times he had -lingered on it. But he had forgotten the little episodes -of his schooldays, which seemed now almost to belong -to another incarnation. He did, however, recall that -as a boy he could not sit on the parapet unless he -vaulted up to it. He thought he must have been -ridiculously small and boyish. The lights of Bursley, -Bleakridge, Hanbridge and Cauldon hung round the eastern -horizon in an arc. To the north presided the clock of -Bursley Town Hall, and to the south the clock of -Cauldon Church; but both were much too far off to be -deciphered. Below and around the Church clock the -vague fires of Cauldon Bar Ironworks played, and the -tremendous respiration of the blast-furnaces filled the -evening. Beneath him gleamed the foul water of the -canal.... He trembled with the fever that precedes -a supreme decision. He trembled as though he was -about to decide whether or not he would throw -himself into the canal. Should he accept the country-house -scheme? Ought he to accept it? The question -was not simply that of a place of residence,--it -concerned all his life.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He admitted that marriage must be a mutual -accommodation. He was, and always had been, ready -to accommodate. But Hilda was unjust, monstrously -unjust. Of that he was definitely convinced.... -Well, perhaps not monstrously unjust, but very unjust. -How could he excuse such injustice as hers? He -obviously could not excuse it.... On previous -occasions he had invented excuses for her conduct, but they -were not convincing excuses. They were compromises -between his intellectual honesty and his desire for -peace. They were, at bottom, sentimentalism.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>And then there flashed into his mind, complete, the -great discovery of all his career. It was banal; it -was commonplace; it was what everyone knew. Yet -it was the great discovery of all his career. If Hilda -had not been unjust in the assertion of her own -individuality, there could be no merit in yielding to her. To -yield to a just claim was not meritorious, though to -withstand it would be wicked. He was objecting to -injustice as a child objects to rain on a holiday. -Injustice was a tremendous actuality! It had to be -faced and accepted. (He himself was unjust. At any -rate he intellectually conceived that he must be -unjust, though honestly he could remember no instance -of injustice on his part.) To reconcile oneself to -injustice was the master achievement. He had read it; -he had been aware of it; but he had never really felt -it till that moment on the dark canal-bridge. He was -awed, thrilled by the realisation. He longed ardently -to put it to the test. He did put it to the test. He -yielded on the canal-bridge. And in yielding, it seemed -to him that he was victorious.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought confidently and joyously:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not going to be beaten by Hilda! And I'm not -going to be beaten by marriage. Dashed if I am! A -nice thing if I had to admit that I wasn't clever enough -to be a husband!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was happy, but somewhat timorously so. He had -the sense to suspect that his discovery would scarcely -transform marriage into an everlasting Eden, and that -serious trouble would not improbably recur. "Marriage -keeps on all the time till you're dead!" he said -to himself. But he profoundly knew that he had -advanced a stage, that he had acquired new wisdom and -new power, and that no danger in the future could -equal the danger that was past.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I know where I am!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>It had taken him years to discover where he was. -Why should the discovery occur just then? He could -only suppose that the cumulative battering of -experience had at length knocked a hole through his thick -head, and let saving wisdom in. The length of time -necessary for the operation depended upon the -thickness of the head. Some heads were impenetrable and -their owners came necessarily to disaster. His head -was probably of an average thickness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>When he got into Trafalgar Road, at the summit of -Bleakridge, he hesitated to enter his own house, on -account of the acute social difficulties that awaited him -there, and passed it like a beggar who is afraid. One -by one he went by all the new little streets of cottages -with drawing-rooms--Millett Street, Wilcox Street, -Paul Street, Oak Street, Hulton Street,--and the two -old little streets, already partly changed--Manor -Street and Higginbotham Street. Those mysterious -newcoming families from nowhere were driving him -out--through the agency of his wife! The Orgreaves had -gone, and been succeeded by excellent people with whom -it was impossible to fraternise. There were rumours -that in view of Tom Swetnam's imminent defection the -Swetnam household might be broken up and the home -abandoned. The Suttons, now that Beatrice Sutton -had left the district, talked seriously of going. Only -Dr. Sterling was left on that side of the road, and -he stayed because he must. The once exclusive -Terraces on the other side were losing their quality. Old -Darius Clayhanger had risen out of the mass, but he -was fiercely exceptional. Now the whole mass seemed -to be rising, under the action of some strange leaven, -and those few who by intelligence, by manners, or by -money counted themselves select were fleeing as from an -inundation.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin had not meant to join in the exodus. But -he too would join it. Destiny had seized him. Let -him be as democratic in spirit as he would, his fate -was to be cut off from the democracy, with which, for -the rest, he had very little of speech or thought or -emotion in common, but in which, from an implacable -sense of justice, he was religiously and unchangeably -determined to put his trust.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He braced himself, and, mounting the steps of the -porch, felt in his pocket for his latchkey. It was not -there. Hilda had taken it and not returned it. She -never did return it when she borrowed it, and probably -she never would. He had intended to slip quietly into -the house, and prepare if possible an astute opening -to minimise the difficulty of the scenes which must -inevitably occur. For his dignity would need some -protection. In the matter of his dignity, he wished that -he had not said quite so certainly to Ingpen: "I shan't -take that house."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>With every prim formality, Emmie answered his -ring. She was wearing the mask and the black frock -and the white apron and cap of her vocation. Not -the slightest trace of the beatified woman in the -flowered hat under the lamp at the gates of the -churchyard! No sign of a heart or of passion or of -ecstasy! Incredible creatures--they were all incredible!</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He thought, nervous:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall meet Hilda in half a second."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George ran into the hall, wearing his new green shade -over his eyes.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here he is, mother!" cried George. "I say, nunks, -Emmie brought up a parcel for you from Uncle Albert, -and Auntie Clara. Here it is. It wasn't addressed -outside, so I opened it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He indicated the hall-table, on which, in a bed of -tissue paper and brown paper, lay a dreadful flat -ink-stand of blue glass and bronze, with a card: "Best -wishes to Edwin from Albert and Clara."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>George and Edwin gazed at each other with understanding.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Just my luck isn't it, sonny?" said Edwin. "It's -worse than last year's."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You poor dear!" said Hilda, appearing, all smiles -and caressing glances. She was in a pale grey dress. -"Whatever shall you do with it? You know you'll have -to put it on view when they come up. Emmie----" -to the maid vanishing into the kitchen--"We'll have -supper now."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Edwin to himself, with light but -sardonic tolerance. "Yes, my lady. You're all smiles -because you're bent on getting Ladderedge Hall out of -me. But you don't know what a near shave you've had -of getting something else."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He was elated. The welcome of his familiar home -was beautiful to him. And the incalculable woman with -a single gesture had most unexpectedly annihilated the -unpleasant past and its consequences. He could yield -upon the grand contention how and when he chose. He -had his acquiescence waiting like a delightful surprise -for Hilda. As he looked at her lovingly, with all her -crimes of injustice thick upon her, he clearly realised -that he saw her as no other person saw her, and that -because it was so she in her entirety was indispensable -to him. And when he tried to argue impartially and -aloofly with himself about rights and wrongs, asinine -reason was swamped by an entirely irrational and wise -joy in the simple fact of the criminal's existence.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">VI</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst"><span>In the early spring of 1897 there was an evening -party at the Clayhangers'. But it was not called a -party; it was not even called a reception. The theory -of the affair was that Hilda had "just asked a few -people to come in, without any fuss." The inhabitants -of the Five Towns had, and still have, an aversion for -every sort of formal hospitality, or indeed for any -hospitality other than the impulsive and the haphazard. -One or two fathers with forceful daughters agitated by -newly revealed appetites in themselves, might hire a -board-schoolroom in January, and give a dance at -which sharp exercise and hot drinks alone kept bodies -warm in the icy atmosphere. Also musical and -dramatic societies and games clubs would have annual -conversaziones and dances, which however were -enterprises of coöperation rather than of hospitality. -Beyond these semi-public entertainments there was almost -nothing, in the evening, save card-parties and the small -regular reunions of old friends who had foregathered -on a certain night of the week for whiskey or tea and -gossip ever since the beginning of time, and would -continue to do so till some coffin or other was ordered. -Every prearranged assemblage comprising more than -two persons beyond the family was a "function"--a -term implying both contempt and respect for -ceremonial; and no function could be allowed to occur -without an excuse for it,--such as an anniversary. The -notion of deliberately cultivating human intercourse for -its own sake would have been regarded as an affectation -approaching snobbishness. Hundreds of well-to-do and -socially unimpeachable citizens never gave or received -an invitation to a meal. The reason of all this was -not meanness, for no community outside America has -more generous instincts than the Five Towns; it was -merely a primitive self-consciousness striving to -conceal itself beneath breezy disdain for those more highly -developed manners which it read about with industry -and joy in the weekly papers, but which it lacked the -courage to imitate.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The break-up of the Orgreave household had been a -hard blow to the cult of hospitality in Bleakridge. -Lane End House in the old days was a creative centre -of hospitality; for the force of example, the desire to -emulate, and the necessity of paying in kind for what -one has permitted oneself to receive will make hosts of -those who by their own initiative would never have -sent out an invitation. When the Orgreaves vanished, -sundry persons in Bleakridge were discouraged,--and -particularly Edwin and Hilda, whose musical evenings -had never recovered from the effect of the circumstances -of the first one. They entertained only by fits -and starts, when Hilda happened to remember that she -held a high position in the suburb. Hilda was -handicapped by the fact that she could not easily strike up -friendships with other women. She had had one friend, -and after Janet's departure she had fully confided in -no woman. Moreover it was only at intervals that -Hilda felt the need of companionship. Her present -party was due chiefly to what Edwin in his more bitter -moods would have called snobbishness,--to-wit, partly -a sudden resolve not to be outshone by the Swetnams, -who in recent years, as the younger generation of the -family grew up, had beyond doubt increased their -ascendancy; and partly the desire to render memorable -the last months of her residence in Bleakridge.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The list of Hilda's guests, and the names absent -from it, gave an indication of the trend of social -history. The Benbows were not asked; the relations of -the two families remained as friendly as ever they -were, but the real breach between them, caused by -profound differences of taste and intelligence, was now -complete. Maggie would have been asked, had she not -refused in advance, from a motive of shyness. In all -essential respects Maggie had been annexed by Clara -and Albert. She had given up Auntie Hamps's house -(of which the furniture had been either appropriated -or sold) and gone to live with the Benbows as a -working aunt,--this in spite of Albert's default in the -matter of interest; she forewent her rights, slept in a -small room with Amy, paid a share of the household -expenses, and did the work of a nursemaid and servant -combined--simply because she was Maggie. She might, -had she chosen, have lived in magnificence with the -Clayhangers, but she would not face the intellectual -and social strain of doing so. Jim Orgreave was not -invited; briefly he had become impossible, though he -was still well-dressed. More strange--Tom Orgreave -and his wife had only been invited after some discussion, -and had declined! Tom was growing extraordinarily -secretive, solitary, and mysterious. It was reported -that Mrs. Tom had neither servant nor nursemaid, -and that she dared not ask her husband for money to -buy clothes. Yet Edwin and Tom when they met in -the street always stopped for a talk, generally about -books. Daisy Marrion, who said openly that Tom and -Mrs. Tom were a huge disappointment to everybody, -was invited and she accepted. Janet Orgreave had -arrived in Bursley on a visit to the Clayhangers on the -very day of the party. The Cheswardines were asked, -mainly on account of Stephen, whose bluff, utterly -unintellectual, profound good-nature, and whose -adoration of his wife, were gradually endearing him to the -perceptive. Mr. and Mrs. Fearns were requested to -bring their daughter Annunciata, now almost -marriageable, and also Mademoiselle Renée Souchon, the -French governess, newly arrived in the district, of the -Fearns younger children. Folks hinted their astonishment -that Alma Fearns should have been imprudent -enough to put so exotic a woman under the same roof -with her husband. Ingpen needed no invitation; -nothing could occur at the Clayhangers' without him. -Doctor Stirling was the other mature bachelor. Finally in -the catalogue were four Swetnams, the vigorous and -acute Sarah (who was a mere acquaintance), aged -twenty-five, Tom Swetnam, and two younger brothers. -Tom had to bring with him the prime excuse for the -party,--namely, Miss Manna Höst of Copenhagen, to -whom Hilda intended to show that the Swetnams were -not the only people on earth. There were thus eight -women, eight men (who had put on evening dress out of -respect for the foreigner), and George.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At eleven o'clock, when the musical part of the -entertainment was over, Miss Höst had already fully -secured for herself the position which later she was to -hold as the wife of Tom Swetnam. Bleakridge had -been asked to meet her and inspect her, and the -opinion of Bleakridge was soon formed that Copenhagen -must be a wondrous and a romantic place and that -Tom Swetnam knew his way about. In the earliest -years when the tourist agencies first discovered the -advertising value of the phrase "Land of the Midnight -Sun," Tom the adventurous had made the Scandinavian -round trip, and each subsequent Summer he had gone -off again in the same direction. The serpents of the -Hanbridge and the Bursley Conservative clubs, and of -the bar of the Five Towns Hotel, had wagered that -there was a woman at the bottom of it. There was. -He had met her at Marienlyst, the watering-place near -Helsingor (called by the tourist agencies Elsinore). -Manna Höst was twenty-three, tall and athletically -slim, and more blonde than any girl ever before seen -in the Five Towns. She had golden hair and she wore -white. It was understood that she spoke Danish, -Swedish and Norwegian. She talked French with -facility to Renée Souchon. And Tom said that her -knowledge of German surpassed her knowledge of either -French or English. She spoke English excellently, with -a quaint, endearing accent, but with correctness. -Sometimes she would use an idiom (picked up from the -Swetnam boys), exquisitely unaware that it was -not quite suited to the lips of a young woman in -a strange drawing-room; her innocence, however, purified it.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She sang classical songs in German, with dramatic -force, and she could play accompaniments. She was -thoroughly familiar with all the music haltingly -performed by Ingpen, Janet, Annunciata, and young -George. Ingpen was very seriously interested in her -views thereon. She knew about the French authors -from whose works Renée Souchon chose her recitations. -And standing up at the buffet table in the dining-room, -she had fabricated astounding sandwiches in the -Danish style. She stated that Danish cooks reckoned -ninety-three sorts of sandwiches. She said in her light, -eager voice, apropos of cooking: "There is one thing -I cannot understand. I cannot understand why you -English throw your potatoes to melt in cold water -for an hour before you boil them." "Nor I!" -interjected Renée Souchon. No other woman standing -round the table had ever conceived the propriety of -boiling potatoes without first soaking them in cold -water, and Manna was requested to explain. -"Because," she said, "it--it lets go the salts of potassium -which are so necessary for the pheesical deve*lop*ment -of the body." Whereupon Tertius Ingpen had been -taken by one of his long </span><em class="italics">crescendo</em><span> laughs, a laugh that -ended by his being bent nearly double below the level -of the table. Everybody was much impressed, and -Ingpen himself not the least. Ingpen wondered what -a girl so complex could see in a man like Tom -Swetnam, who, although he could talk about the arts, had -no real feeling for any of them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But what impressed the company even more than -Miss Höst's accomplishments was the candid fervour -of her comprehensive interest in life, which was -absolutely without self-consciousness or fear. She talked -with the same disarming ingenuous eager directness to -hard-faced Charles Fearns, the secret rake; to his wife, -the ageing and sweetly-sad mother of a family; to -Renée Souchon, who despite her plainness and her -rumoured bigotry seemed to attract all the men in the -room by something provocative in her eye and the -carriage of her hips; to the simple and powerful Stephen -Cheswardine; to Vera, the delicious and elegant cat; -to Doctor Stirling with his Scotch mysticism, and to -Tertius Ingpen the connoisseur and avowed bachelor. -She spoke to Hilda, Janet and Daisy Marrion as one -member of a secret sisterhood to other members, to -Annunciata as a young girl, and to George as an -initiated sister. She left them to turn to Edwin with a -trustful glance as to one whose special reliability she -had divined from the first. "Have a liqueur, Miss -Höst," Edwin enjoined her. In a moment she was -sipping Chartreuse. "I love it!" she murmured.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>But somehow beneath all such freedoms and frankness -she did not cease to be a maiden with reserves of -mystery. Her assumption that nobody could misinterpret -her demeanour was remarkable to the English -observers, and far more so to Renée Souchon. All gazed -at her piquant blonde face, scarcely pretty, with its -ardent restless eyes, and felt the startling compliment -of her quick, searching sympathy. And she, tinglingly -aware of her success, proved easily equal to the ordeal -of it. Only at rare intervals did she give a look at -the betrothed, as if for confirmation of her security. -As for Tom, he was positively somewhat unnerved by -the brilliance of the performance. He left her alone, -without guidance, as a ring-master who should stand -aside during a turn and say: "See this marvel! I am -no longer necessary." When people glanced at him -after one of her effects, he would glance modestly -away, striving to hide from them his illusion that he -himself had created the bewitching girl. At half past -eleven, when the entire assemblage passed into the -drawing-room, she dropped on to the piano-stool and began -a Waldteufel waltz with irresistible seductiveness.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda's heart leaped. In a minute the carpet was up, -and the night, which all had supposed to be at an -end, began.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>At nearly one o'clock in the morning the party was -moving strongly by its own acquired momentum and -needed neither the invigoration nor the guidance which -hosts often are compelled to give. Hilda, having -finished a schottische with Dr. Stirling, missed Janet -from the drawing-room. Leaving the room in search -of her, she saw Edwin with Tom Swetnam and the -glowing Manna at the top of the stairs.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello!" she called out. "What are you folks doing?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Manna's light laugh descended like a shower of crystals.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Just taking a constitutional," Edwin answered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda waved to them in passing. She was extremely -elated. Among other agreeable incidents was the -success of her new black lace frock. Edwin's voice pleased -her,--it was so calm, wise, and kind, and at the same -time mysteriously ironical. She occasionally admitted, -at the sound of that voice when Edwin was in high -spirits, that she had never been able to explore -completely the more withdrawn arcana of his nature. He -had behaved with perfection that evening. She -admitted that he was the basis of the evening, that -without him she could never have such triumphs. It was -strange that a man by spending so many hours per -day at a works could create the complicated ease and -luxury of a home. She perceived how steadily and -surely he had progressed since their marriage, and how -his cautiousness always justified itself, and how he had -done all that he had said he would do. And she had a -vision of that same miraculous creative force of his at -work, by her volition, in the near future upon -Ladderedge Hall. Her mood became a strange compound -of humility before him and of self-confident pride in -her own power to influence him.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>In the boudoir Janet was reclining in the sole easy -chair. Dressed in grey (she had abandoned white), -she was as slim as ever, and did not look her age. With -face flushed, eyes glinting under drooping lids, and -bosom heaving rather quickly, she might have passed -in the half-light for a young married woman still under -the excitement of matrimony, instead of a virgin of -forty.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was so done up I had to come and hide myself!" -she murmured in a dreamy tone.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, of course you've had the journey to-day and -everything..."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I never did come across such a dancer as Charles -Fearns!" Janet went on.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Hilda, standing with her back to the -fire, with one hand on the mantelpiece. "He's a great -dancer--or at least he makes you think so. But I'm -sure he's a bad man."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I suppose he is!" Janet agreed with a sigh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Neither of the women spoke for a moment, and each -looked away.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Through the closed door came the muffled sound of -the piano, played by Annunciata. No melody was -distinguishable,--only the percussion of the bass chords -beating out the time of a new mazurka. It was as if -the whole house faintly but passionately pulsed in the -fever of the dance.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I see you've got a Rossetti," said Janet at last, -fingering a blue volume that lay on the desk.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Edwin gave it me," Hilda replied. "He's gradually -giving me all my private poets. But somehow -I haven't been able to read much lately. I expect it's -the idea of moving into the country that makes me -restless."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But is it settled, all that?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course it's settled, my dear. I'm determined to -take him away--" Hilda spoke of her husband as of -a parcel or an intelligent bear on a chain, as loving -wives may--"right out of all this. I'm sure it will be -a good thing for him. He doesn't mind, really. He's -promised me. Only he wants to make sure of either -selling or letting this house first. He's always very -cautious, Edwin is. He simply hates doing a thing -straight off."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, he is rather that way inclined," said Janet.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I wanted him to take Ladderedge at once, even if we -didn't move into it. Anyhow we couldn't move into it -immediately, because of the repairs and things. They'll -take a fine time, I know. We can get it for sixty pounds -a year. And what's sixty pounds more or less to -Edwin? It's no more than what the rent of this house -would be. But no, he wouldn't! He must see where -he stands with this house before he does anything else! -You can't alter him, you know!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The door was cautiously pushed, and Ingpen entered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So you're discussing her!" he said, low, with a -satiric grin.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Discussing who?" Hilda sharply demanded.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You know."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tertius," said Hilda, "you're worse than a woman."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He giggled with delight.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I suppose you mean that to be very severe."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"If you want to know, we were talking about Ladderedge."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So apologise!" added Janet, sitting up.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Ingpen's face straightened, and he began to tap his -teeth with his thumb.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Curious! That's just what I came in about. I've -been trying to get a chance to tell you all the evening. -There's somebody else after Ladderedge, a man from -Axe. He's been to look over it twice this week. I -thought I'd tip you the wink."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Hilda stood erect, putting her shoulders back.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you told Edwin?" she asked very curtly.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What did he say?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"He said it was only a dodge of the house-agent's -to quicken things up."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And do you think it is?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I doubt it," Ingpen answered apprehensively. -"That's why I wanted to warn you--his lordship being -what he is."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Voices, including Edwin's, could be heard in the hall.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Here, I'm not going to be caught conspiring with -you!" Ingpen whispered. "It's more than my place -is worth." And he departed.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The voices receded, and Hilda noiselessly shut the -door. Everything was now changed for her by a -tremendous revulsion. The beating of the measure of the -mazurka seemed horrible and maddening. Her thought -was directed upon Edwin with the cold fury of which -only love is capable. It was not his fault that some -rival was nibbling at Ladderedge, but it was his fault -that Ladderedge should still be in peril. She saw all -her grandiose plan ruined. She felt sure that the rival -was powerful and determined, and that Edwin would -let him win, either by failing to bid against him, or by -mere shilly-shallying. Ladderedge was not the only -suitable country residence in the county; there were -doubtless many others; but Ladderedge was just what -she wanted, and--more important with her--it had -become a symbol. She had a misgiving that if they did -not get Ladderedge they would remain in Trafalgar -Road, Bursley, for ever and ever. Yet, angry and -desperate though she was, she somehow did not accuse -and arraign Edwin--any more than she would have -accused and arraigned a climate. He was in fact the -climate in which she lived. A moment ago she had -said: "You can't alter him!" But now all the energy -of her volition cried out that he must be altered.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My girl," she said, turning to Janet, "do you -think you can stand a scene to-morrow?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"A scene?" Janet repeated the word guardedly. The -look on Hilda's face somewhat alarmed her.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Between Edwin and me. I'm absolutely determined -that we shall take Ladderedge, and I don't care how -much of a row we have over it."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It isn't as bad as all that?" Janet softly murmured, -with her skill to soothe.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes it is!" said Hilda violently.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I was wondering the other day, after one of your -letters," Janet proceeded gently, "why after all you -were so anxious to go into the country. I thought you -wanted Edwin to be on the Town Council or something -of that kind. How can he do that if you're right -away at a place like Stockbrook?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"So I should like him to be on the Town Council! -But all I really want is to get him away from his -business. You don't know, Janet!" she spoke bitterly, and -with emotion. "Nobody knows except me. He'll soon -be the slave of his business if he keeps on. Oh! I don't -mean he stays at nights at it. He scarcely ever does. -But he's always thinking about it. He simply can't -bear being a minute late for it, everything must give -way to it,--he takes that as a matter of course, and -that's what annoys me, especially as there's no reason -for it, seeing how much he trusts Big James and -Simpson. I believe he'd do anything for Big James. He'd -listen to Big James far sooner than he'd listen to me.... -Disagreeable fawning old man, and quite stupid. -Simpson isn't so bad. I tell you Edwin only looks on -his home as a nice place to be quiet in when he isn't at -the works. I've never told him so, and I don't think he -suspects it, but I will tell him one of these days. He's -very good, Edwin is, in all the little things. He -always tries to be just. But he isn't just in the big thing. -He's most frightfully unjust. I sometimes wonder -where he imagines I come in. Of course he'd do any -mortal thing for me--except spare half a minute from -the works.... What do I care about money? I don't -care that much about money. When there's money I -can spend it, that's all. But I'd prefer to be poor, and -him to be rude and cross and impatient--which he -scarcely ever is--than have this feeling all the time -that it's the works first, and everything else second. -I don't mind for myself--no, really I don't, at least -very little! But I do mind for him. I call it -humiliating for a man to get like that. It puts everything -upside down. Look at Stephen Cheswardine, for -instance. There's a pretty specimen! And Edwin'll -be as bad as him soon."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"But everyone says how fond Stephen is of his wife!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"And isn't Edwin fond of me? Stephen Cheswardine -despises his wife--only he can't do without her. That's -all. And he treats her accordingly. And I shall be -the same."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! Hilda!'</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I shall. Yes, I shall. But I won't have it. -I'd as lief be married to a man like Charles Fearns. -He isn't a slave to his business anyhow. I shall get -Edwin further away. And when I've got him away -I shall see he doesn't go to the works on Saturdays, -too. I've quite made up my mind about that. And if -he isn't on the Town Council he can be on the County -Council--that's quite as good, I hope!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Never before had Hilda spoken so freely to anyone, -not even to Janet. Fierce pride had always kept her -self-contained. But now she had no feeling of shame at -her outburst. Tears stood in her eyes--and yet she -faced Janet, making no effort to hide them.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear!" breathed the deprecating Janet, shocked -out of her tepid virginal calm by a revelation of -conjugal misery such as had never been vouchsafed to -her. She was thinking: "How can the poor thing face -her guests after this? Everybody will see that -something's happened--it will be awful! She really ought -to think of her position."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>There was a silence.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>The door opened with a sharp sound, and Hilda -turned away her head as from the suddenly visible -mouth of a cannon. The music could be heard plainly, -and beneath it the dull shuffling of feet on the bare -boards of the drawing-room. Manna Höst came in -radiant, followed by Edwin and Tom Swetnam.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, Hilda," said Edwin, with a slight timid -constraint. "I've got rid of your house for you. Here -are the deluded victims."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We have seen every corner of it, Mrs. Clayhanger," -said Manna Höst, enthusiastically. "It is lovely. But -how can you wish to leave it? It is so practical!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Perceiving the agitation of Hilda's face, Edwin -added in a lower voice to his wife:</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought I wouldn't say anything until it was settled, -for fear you might be let in for a disappointment. -He'll buy it if I leave fifteen hundred on mortgage. -So I shall. But of course he wanted her to have a -good look at it first."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"How unfair I am!" thought Hilda, as she made -some banal remark to Miss Höst. "Don't I know I -can always rely on him?"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Clayhanger made us promise not to----" Miss -Höst began to explain.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"It was just like him!" Hilda interrupted, smiling.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She had a strong desire to jump at Edwin and kiss -him. She was saved. Her grandiose plan would -proceed. The house sold, Edwin was bound to secure -Ladderedge Hall against no matter what rival; and he -would do it. But it was the realisation of her power -over her husband that gave her the profoundest joy.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>About an hour later, when everyone felt that the -party was over, the guests, reluctant to leave, and -excited afresh by the news that the house had changed -hands during the revel, were all assembled in the -drawing-room. A few were seated on the chairs which, with -the tables, had been pushed against the walls. George -had squatted on the carpet rolled up into the hearth, -where the fire was extinct; he was not wearing his -green shade. The rest were grouped around Manna -Höst in the middle of the room.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Miss Höst, the future mistress of the abode, was now -more than ever the centre of regard. Apparently as -fresh as at the start, and picking delicately at a sweet -biscuit, the flushed blonde stood answering questions -about her views on England and especially on the Five -Towns. She was quite sure of herself, and utterly -charming in her confidence. Annunciata Fearns envied -her acutely. The other women were a little saddened -by the thought of all the disillusions that inevitably lay -before her. It was touching to see her glance at Tom -Swetnam, convinced that she understood him to the -core, and in him all the psychology of his sex.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Everybody knows," she was saying, "that the English -are the finest nation, and I think the Five Towns -are much more English than London. That's why I -adore the Five Towns. You do not know how English -you are here. It makes me laugh because you are so -English, and you do not know it. I love you."</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"You're flattering us," said Stephen Cheswardine, -enchanted with the girl.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Everybody waited in eager delight for her next -words. Such tit-bits of attention and laudation did -not often fall to the district. It occurred to people -that after all the local self-conceit might not be -entirely unjustified.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" Manna pouted. "But you have spots!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Spots!" repeated young Paul Swetnam, amid a general laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>She turned to him: "You said there were no spots -on Knype Football Club, did you not? Well, there -is a spot on you English. You are dreadfully -exasperating to us Danes. Oh, I mean it! You are -exasperating because you will not show your feelings!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Tom, that must be one for you," said Charlie Fearns.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We're too proud," said Dr. Stirling.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"No," replied Manna maliciously. "It is not pride. -You are afraid to show your feelings. It is because -you are cowards--in that!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"We aren't!" cried Hilda, inspired. And yielding to -the temptation which had troubled her incessantly ever -since she left the boudoir, she put her arms round -Edwin and kissed him. "So there!"</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"Loud applause!" said young George on the roll of -carpet. He said it kindly, but with a certain -superiority, perhaps due to the facts that he was wearing -a man's "long trousers" for the first time that night, -and that he regarded himself as already almost a -Londoner. There was some handclapping.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Edwin's eyes had seduced Hilda. Looking at them -surreptitiously she had suddenly recalled another of his -tricks,--tricks of goodness. When she had told him one -evening that Minnie was prematurely the mother of a -girl, he had said: "Well, we'll put £130 in the savings -bank for the kid." "£130? Whatever are you -talking about?" "£130. I received it from America this -very morning as ever is." And he showed her a draft -on Brown, Shipley & Co. He said 'from America.' He -was too delicate to say 'from George Cannon.' It -had been a triumphant moment for him. And now, -as before them all Hilda held him to her, the delicious -thought that she had power over him, that she was -shaping the large contours of his existence, made her -feel solemn in her bliss. And yet simultaneously she -was reflecting with a scarcely perceptible hardness: -"It's each for himself in marriage after all, and I've -got my own way." And then she noticed the whiteness -of his shirt-front under her chin, and that -reminded her of his mania for arranging his linen -according to his own ideas in his own drawer, and the -absurd tidiness of his linen; and she wanted to laugh.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>"What a romance she has made of my life!" thought -Edwin, confused and blushing, as she loosed him. And -though he looked round with affection at the walls -which would soon no longer be his, the greatness of the -adventure of existence with this creature, to him unique, -and the eternal expectation of some new ecstasy, left no -room in his heart for a regret.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>He caught sight of Ingpen alone in a corner by the -piano, nervously stroking his silky beard. The -memory of the secret woman in Ingpen's -room came back to him. Without any -process of reasoning, he felt very -sorry for both of them, and he was -aware of a certain condescension in -himself towards Ingpen.</span></p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 6em"> -</div> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="backmatter"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst" id="pg-end-line"><span>*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>THESE TWAIN</span><span> ***</span></p> -<div class="cleardoublepage"> -</div> -<div class="language-en level-2 pgfooter section" id="a-word-from-project-gutenberg" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<span id="pg-footer"></span><h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><span>A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span>We will update this book if we find any errors.</span></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>This book can be found under: </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40483"><span>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40483</span></a></p> -<p class="pnext"><span>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. -Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this -license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works to protect the Project Gutenberg™ concept and -trademark. 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