Clayhanger, by Arnold Bennett_______________________________________________________________________This book is one of several written by Bennett about life in theStaffordshire Potteries in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The hero is Edwin Clayhanger, and we see him through his childhood, adolescence, early working life, when he was working for his martinetold father, and to the point where he inherits the business, which isprinting. Bennett comes from that area of industrial Britain, and the book ringstrue on every page. NH_______________________________________________________________________ CLAYHANGER BY ARNOLD BENNETT VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ONE. BOOK ONE--HIS VOCATION. THE LAST OF A SCHOOLBOY. Edwin Clayhanger stood on the steep-sloping, red-bricked canal bridge, in the valley between Bursley and its suburb Hillport. In thatneighbourhood the Knype and Mersey canal formed the western boundary ofthe industrialism of the Five Towns. To the east rose pitheads, chimneys, and kilns, tier above tier, dim in their own mists. To thewest, Hillport Fields, grimed but possessing authentic hedgerows andwinding paths, mounted broadly up to the sharp ridge on which stoodHillport Church, a landmark. Beyond the ridge, and partly protected byit from the driving smoke of the Five Towns, lay the fine and ancientTory borough of Oldcastle, from whose historic Middle School EdwinClayhanger was now walking home. The fine and ancient Tory boroughprovided education for the whole of the Five Towns, but the relentlessignorance of its prejudices had blighted the district. A hundred yearsearlier the canal had only been obtained after a vicious Parliamentaryfight between industry and the fine and ancient borough, which saw incanals a menace to its importance as a centre of traffic. Fifty yearsearlier the fine and ancient borough had succeeded in forcing thegreatest railway line in England to run through unpopulated country fivemiles off instead of through the Five Towns, because it loathed the mereconception of a railway. And now, people are inquiring why the FiveTowns, with a railway system special to itself, is characterised by aperhaps excessive provincialism. These interesting details haveeverything to do with the history of Edwin Clayhanger, as they haveeverything to do with the history of each of the two hundred thousandsouls in the Five Towns. Oldcastle guessed not the vast influences ofits sublime stupidity. It was a breezy Friday in July 1872. The canal, which ran north andsouth, reflected a blue and white sky. Towards the bridge, from thenorth came a long narrow canal-boat roofed with tarpaulins; and towardsthe bridge, from the south came a similar craft, sluggishly creeping. The towing-path was a morass of sticky brown mud, for, in the way ofrain, that year was breaking the records of a century and a half. Thirty yards in front of each boat an unhappy skeleton of a horsefloundered its best in the quagmire. The honest endeavour of one of theanimals received a frequent tonic from a bare-legged girl of seven whoheartily curled a whip about its crooked large-jointed legs. The raggedand filthy child danced in the rich mud round the horse's flanks withthe simple joy of one who had been rewarded for good behaviour by theunrestricted use of a whip for the first time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Edwin, with his elbows on the stone parapet of the bridge, stareduninterested at the spectacle of the child, the whip, and the skeleton. He was not insensible to the piquancy of the pageant of life, but hismind was preoccupied with grave and heavy matters. He had left schoolthat day, and what his eyes saw as he leaned on the bridge was not awilling beast and a gladdened infant, but the puzzling world and theadvance guard of its problems bearing down on him. Slim, gawky, untidy, fair, with his worn black-braided clothes, and slung over his shouldersin a bursting satchel the last load of his schoolbooks, and on hisbright, rough hair a shapeless cap whose lining protruded behind, he hadthe extraordinary wistful look of innocence and simplicity which marksmost boys of sixteen. It seemed rather a shame, it seemed even tragic, that this naive, simple creature, with his straightforward and friendlyeyes so eager to believe appearances, this creature immaculate ofworldly experience, must soon be transformed into a man, wary, incredulous, detracting. Older eyes might have wept at the simplicityof those eyes. This picture of Edwin as a wistful innocent would have made Edwin laugh. He had been seven years at school, and considered himself a hardenedsort of brute, free of illusions. And he sometimes thought that hecould judge the world better than most neighbouring mortals. "Hello! The Sunday!" he murmured, without turning his eyes. Another boy, a little younger and shorter, and clothed in a superioruntidiness, had somehow got on to the bridge, and was leaning with hisback against the parapet which supported Edwin's elbows. His eyes werefranker and simpler even than the eyes of Edwin, and his lips seemed tobe permanently parted in a good-humoured smile. His name was CharlieOrgreave, but at school he was invariably called "the Sunday"--not"Sunday, " but "the Sunday"--and nobody could authoritatively explain howhe had come by the nickname. Its origin was lost in the prehistoricages of his childhood. He and Edwin had been chums for several years. They had not sworn fearful oaths of loyalty; they did not constitute asecret society; they had not even pricked forearms and written certainwords in blood; for these rites are only performed at Harrow, andpossibly at the Oldcastle High School, which imitates Harrow. Theirfellowship meant chiefly that they spent a great deal of time together, instinctively and unconsciously enjoying each other's mere presence, andthat in public arguments they always reinforced each other, whatever thedegree of intellectual dishonesty thereby necessitated. "I'll bet you mine gets to the bridge first, " said the Sunday. With aningenious movement of the shoulders he arranged himself so that theparapet should bear the weight of his satchel. Edwin Clayhanger slowly turned round, and perceived that the objectwhich the Sunday had appropriated as "his" was the other canal-boat, advancing from the south. "Horse or boat?" asked Edwin. "Boat's nose, of course, " said the Sunday. "Well, " said Edwin, having surveyed the unconscious competitors, andcounting on the aid of the whipping child, "I don't mind laying youfive. " "That be damned for a tale!" protested the Sunday. "We said we'd neverbet less than ten--you know that. " "Yes, but--" Edwin hesitatingly drawled. "But what?" "All right. Ten, " Edwin agreed. "But it's not fair. You've got a rarestart on me. " "Rats!" said the Sunday, with finality. In the pronunciation of thisword the difference between his accent and Edwin's came out clear. TheSunday's accent was less local; there was a hint of a short "e" sound inthe "a, " and a briskness about the consonants, that Edwin could neverhave compassed. The Sunday's accent was as carelessly superior as hisclothes. Evidently the Sunday had some one at home who had not learntthe art of speech in the Five Towns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He began to outline a scheme, in which perpendicular expectorationfigured, for accurately deciding the winner, and a complicated argumentmight have ensued about this, had it not soon become apparent thatEdwin's boat was going to be handsomely beaten, despite the joyousefforts of the little child. The horse that would die but would notgive up, was only saved from total subsidence at every step by hisindomitable if aged spirit. Edwin handed over the ten marbles evenbefore the other boat had arrived at the bridge. "Here, " he said. "And you may as well have these, too, " adding fivemore to the ten, all he possessed. They were not the paltry marble ofto-day, plaything of infants, but the majestic "rinker, " black withwhite spots, the king of marbles in an era when whole populationspractised the game. Edwin looked at them half regretfully as they layin the Sunday's hands. They seemed prodigious wealth in those hands, and he felt somewhat as a condemned man might feel who bequeaths hisjewels on the scaffold. Then there was a rattle, and a tumour grew outlarger on the Sunday's thigh. The winning boat, long preceded by its horse, crawled under the bridgeand passed northwards to the sea, laden with crates of earthenware. Andthen the loser, with the little girl's father and mother and herbrothers and sisters, and her kitchen, drawing-room, and bedroom, andher smoking chimney and her memories and all that was hers, in the sternof it, slid beneath the boys' down-turned faces while the whip crackedaway beyond the bridge. They could see, between the whitenedtarpaulins, that the deep belly of the craft was filled with clay. "Where does that there clay come from?" asked Edwin. For not merely washe honestly struck by a sudden new curiosity, but it was meet for him tobehave like a man now, and to ask manly questions. "Runcorn, " said the Sunday scornfully. "Can't you see it painted allover the boat?" "Why do they bring clay all the way from Runcorn?" "They don't bring it from Runcorn. They bring it from Cornwall. Itcomes round by sea--see?" He laughed. "Who told you?" Edwin roughly demanded. "Anybody knows that!" said the Sunday grandly, but always maintaininghis gay smile. "Seems devilish funny to me, " Edwin murmured, after reflection, "thatthey should bring clay all that roundabout way just to make crocks of ithere. Why should they choose just this place to make crocks in? Ialways understood--" "Oh! Come on!" the Sunday cut him short. "It's blessed well oneo'clock and after!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. They climbed the long bank from the canal up to the Manor Farm, at whichhigh point their roads diverged, one path leading direct to Bleakridgewhere Orgreave lived, and the other zigzagging down through neglectedpasturage into Bursley proper. Usually they parted here without a word, taking pride in such Spartan taciturnity, and they would doubtless havedone the same this morning also, though it were fifty-fold their lastwalk together as two schoolboys. But an incident intervened. "Hold on!" cried the Sunday. To the south of them, a mile and a half off, in the wreathing mist ofthe Cauldon Bar Ironworks, there was a yellow gleam that even thecapricious sunlight could not kill, and then two rivers of fire sprangfrom the gleam and ran in a thousand delicate and lovely hues down theside of a mountain of refuse. They were emptying a few tons of moltenslag at the Cauldon Bar Ironworks. The two rivers hung slowly dying inthe mists of smoke. They reddened and faded, and you thought they hadvanished, and you could see them yet, and then they escaped the baffledeye, unless a cloud aided them for a moment against the sun; and theirephemeral but enchanting beauty had expired for ever. "Now!" said Edwin sharply. "One minute ten seconds, " said the Sunday, who had snatched out hiswatch, an inestimable contrivance with a centre-seconds hand. "By Jove!That was a good 'un. " A moment later two smaller boys, both laden with satchels, appeared overthe brow from the canal. "Let's wait a jiff, " said the Sunday to Edwin, and as the smaller boysshowed no hurry he bawled out to them across the interveningcinder-waste: "Run!" They ran. They were his younger brothers, Johnnieand Jimmie. "Take this and hook it!" he commanded, passing the strap ofhis satchel over his head as they came up. In fatalistic silence theyobeyed the smiling tyrant. "What are you going to do?" Edwin asked. "I'm coming down your way a bit. " "But I thought you said you were peckish. " "I shall eat three slices of beef instead of my usual brace, " said theSunday carelessly. Edwin was touched. And the Sunday was touched, because he knew he hadtouched Edwin. After all, this was a solemn occasion. But neitherwould overtly admit that its solemnity had affected him. Hence, firstone and then the other began to skim stones with vicious force over thesurface of the largest of the three ponds that gave interest to theManor Farm. When they had thus proved to themselves that the daydiffered in no manner from any other breaking-up day, they went forward. On their left were two pitheads whose double wheels revolved rapidly insmooth silence, and the puffing engine-house and all the trucks and gearof a large ironstone mine. On their right was the astonishing farm, with barns and ricks and cornfields complete, seemingly quite unaware ofits forlorn oddness in that foul arena of manufacture. In front, on alittle hill in the vast valley, was spread out the Indian-redarchitecture of Bursley--tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, thenew scarlet market, the grey tower of the old church, the high spire ofthe evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflexions, andthe crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amberchimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping thewhole. The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition, allnetted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonised exquisitely with thechill blues of the chequered sky. Beauty was achieved, and none saw it. The boys descended without a word through the brick-strewn pastures, where a horse or two cropped the short grass. At the railway bridge, which carried a branch mineral line over the path, they exchanged abrief volley of words with the working-lads who always playedpitch-and-toss there in the dinner-hour; and the Sunday added to thecollection of shawds and stones lodged on the under ledges of the lowiron girders. A strange boy, he had sworn to put ten thousand stones onthose ledges before he died, or perish in the attempt. Hence Edwinsometimes called him "Old Perish-in-the-attempt. " A little farther onthe open gates of a manufactory disclosed six men playing the noble gameof rinkers on a smooth patch of ground near the weighing machine. Thesesix men were Messieurs Ford, Carter, and Udall, the three partnersowning the works, and three of their employees. They were celebratedmarble-players, and the boys stayed to watch them as, bending with oneknee almost touching the earth, they shot the rinkers from their stubbythumbs with a canon-like force and precision that no boy could ever hopeto equal. "By gum!" mumbled Edwin involuntarily, when an impossibleshot was accomplished; and the bearded shooter, pleased by this tributefrom youth, twisted his white apron into a still narrower ring round hiswaist. Yet Edwin was not thinking about the game. He was thinkingabout a battle that lay before him, and how he would be weakened in thefight by the fact that in the last school examination, Charlie Orgreave, younger than himself by a year, had ousted him from the second place inthe school. The report in his pocket said: "Position in class nextterm: third;" whereas he had been second since the beginning of theyear. There would of course be no "next term" for him, but the reportremained. A youth who has come to grips with that powerful enemy, hisfather, cannot afford to be handicapped by even such a trifle as areport entirely irrelevant to the struggle. Suddenly Charlie Orgreave gave a curt nod, and departed, in nonchalantgood-humour, doubtless considering that to accompany his chum anyfarther would be to be guilty of girlish sentimentality. And Edwinnodded with equal curtness and made off slowly into the maze of Bursley. The thought in his heart was: "I'm on my own, now. I've got to face itnow, by myself. " And he felt that not merely his father, but theleagued universe, was against him. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWO. THE FLAME. The various agencies which society has placed at the disposal of aparent had been at work on Edwin in one way or another for at least adecade, in order to equip him for just this very day when he should stepinto the world. The moment must therefore be regarded as dramatic, thefirst crucial moment of an experiment long and elaborately prepared. Knowledge was admittedly the armour and the weapon of one about to tryconclusions with the world, and many people for many years had beenengaged in providing Edwin with knowledge. He had received, in fact, "agood education"--or even, as some said, "a thoroughly sound education;"assuredly as complete an equipment of knowledge as could be obtained inthe county, for the curriculum of the Oldcastle High School was less inaccord with common sense than that of the Middle School. He knew, however, nothing of natural history, and in particular ofhimself, of the mechanism of the body and mind, through which his soulhad to express and fulfil itself. Not one word of information abouteither physiology or psychology had ever been breathed to him, nor hadit ever occurred to any one around him that such information wasneedful. And as no one had tried to explain to him the mysteries whichhe carried about with him inside that fair skin of his, so no one hadtried to explain to him the mysteries by which he was hemmed in, eithermystically through religion, or rationally through philosophy. Never inchapel or at Sunday school had a difficulty been genuinely faced. Andas for philosophy, he had not the slightest conception of what it meant. He imagined that a philosopher was one who made the best of a bad job, and he had never heard the word used in any other sense. He had greatpotential intellectual curiosity, but nobody had thought to stimulate itby even casually telling him that the finest minds of humanity had beentrying to systematise the mysteries for quite twenty-five centuries. Ofphysical science he had been taught nothing, save a grotesque perversionto the effect that gravity was a force which drew things towards thecentre of the earth. In the matter of chemistry it had been practicallydemonstrated to him scores of times, so that he should never forget thisgrand basic truth, that sodium and potassium may be relied upon to fizzflamingly about on a surface of water. Of geology he was perfectlyignorant, though he lived in a district whose whole livelihood dependedon the scientific use of geological knowledge, and though the existenceof Oldcastle itself was due to a freak of the earth's crust whichgeologists call a "fault. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Geography had been one of his strong points. He was aware of the riversof Asia in their order, and of the principal products of Uruguay; and hecould name the capitals of nearly all the United States. But he hadnever been instructed for five minutes in the geography of his nativecounty, of which he knew neither the boundaries nor the rivers nor theterrene characteristics. He could have drawn a map of the Orinoco, buthe could not have found the Trent in a day's march; he did not even knowwhere his drinking-water came from. That geographical considerationsare the cause of all history had never been hinted to him, nor thathistory bears immediately upon modern life and bore on his own life. For him history hung unsupported and unsupporting in the air. In thecourse of his school career he had several times approached thenineteenth century, but it seemed to him that for administrative reasonshe was always being dragged back again to the Middle Ages. Once hisform had "got" as far as the infancy of his own father, and concerningthis period he had learnt that "great dissatisfaction prevailed amongthe labouring classes, who were led to believe by mischievousdemagogues, " etcetera. But the next term he was recoiling round Henrythe Eighth, who "was a skilful warrior and politician, " but "unfortunatein his domestic relations;" and so to Elizabeth, than whom "fewsovereigns have been so much belied, but her character comes outunscathed after the closest examination. " History indeed resolveditself into a series of more or less sanguinary events arbitrarilygrouped under the names of persons who had to be identified with theassistance of numbers. Neither of the development of national life, norof the clash of nations, did he really know anything that was notinessential and anecdotic. He could not remember the clauses of MagnaCharta, but he knew eternally that it was signed at a place amusinglycalled Runnymede. And the one fact engraved on his memory about thebattle of Waterloo was that it was fought on a Sunday. And as he had acquired absolutely nothing about political economy orabout logic, and was therefore at the mercy of the first agreeablesophistry that might take his fancy by storm, his unfitness to commencethe business of being a citizen almost reached perfection. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. For his personal enjoyment of the earth and air and sun and stars, andof society and solitude, no preparation had been made, or dreamt of. The sentiment of nature had never been encouraged in him, or evenmentioned. He knew not how to look at a landscape nor at a sky. Ofplants and trees he was as exquisitely ignorant as of astronomy. It hadnot occurred to him to wonder why the days are longer in summer, and hevaguely supposed that the cold of winter was due to an increaseddistance of the earth from the sun. Still, he had learnt that Saturnhad a ring, and sometimes he unconsciously looked for it in thefirmament, as for a tea-tray. Of art, and the arts, he had been taught nothing. He had never seen agreat picture or statue, nor heard great orchestral or solo music; andhe had no idea that architecture was an art and emotional, though itmoved him in a very peculiar fashion. Of the art of English literature, or of any other literature, he had likewise been taught nothing. But heknew the meaning of a few obsolete words in a few plays of Shakespeare. He had not learnt how to express himself orally in any language, butthrough hard drilling he was so genuinely erudite in accidence andsyntax that he could parse and analyse with superb assurance the mostmagnificent sentences of Milton, Virgil, and Racine. This skill, together with an equal skill in utilising the elementary properties ofnumbers and geometrical figures, was the most brilliant achievement ofhis long apprenticeship. And now his education was finished. It had cost his father twenty-eightshillings a term, or four guineas a year, and no trouble. In youngerdays his father had spent more money and far more personal attention onthe upbringing of a dog. His father had enjoyed success with dogsthrough treating them as individuals. But it had not happened to him, nor to anybody in authority, to treat Edwin as an individual. Nevertheless it must not be assumed that Edwin's father was a callousand conscienceless brute, and Edwin a martyr of neglect. Old Clayhangerwas, on the contrary, an average upright and respectable parent who hadgiven his son a thoroughly sound education, and Edwin had had the goodfortune to receive that thoroughly sound education, as a preliminary toentering the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. He was very far from realising the imperfections of his equipment forthe grand entry; but still he was not without uneasiness. In particularthe conversation incident to the canal-boat wager was disturbing him. It amazed him, as he reflected, that he should have remained, to such anadvanced age, in a state of ignorance concerning the origin of the clayfrom which the crocks of his native district were manufactured. Thatthe Sunday should have been able to inform him did not cause him anyshame, for he guessed from the peculiar eager tone of voice in which thefacts had been delivered, that the Sunday was merely retailing someknowledge recently acquired by chance. He knew all the Sunday's tonesof voice; and he also was well aware that the Sunday's brain was not onthe whole better stored than his own. Further, the Sunday was satisfiedwith his bit of accidental knowledge. Edwin was not. Edwin wanted toknow why, if the clay for making earthenware was not got in the FiveTowns, the Five Towns had become the great seat of the manufacture. Whywere not pots made in the South, where the clay came from? He could notthink of any answer to this enigma, nor of any means of arriving byhimself at an answer. The feeling was that he ought to have been ableto arrive at the answer as at the answer to an equation. He did not definitely blame his education; he did not think clearlyabout the thing at all. But, as a woman with a vague discomfort dimlyfears cancer, so he dimly feared that there might be somethingfundamentally unsound in this sound education of his. And he hadremorse for all the shirking that he had been guilty of during all hisyears at school. He shook his head solemnly at the immense and nearlyuniversal shirking that continually went on. He could only acquit threeor four boys, among the hundreds he had known, of the shameful sin. Andall that he could say in favour of himself was that there were manyworse than Edwin Clayhanger. Not merely the boys, but the masters, weresinners. Only two masters could he unreservedly respect as having actedconscientiously up to their pretensions, and one of these was anunpleasant brute. All the cleverness, the ingenuities, the fakes, theinsincerities, the incapacitaties, the vanities, and the dishonesties ofthe rest stood revealed to him, and he judged them by the mere essentialforce of character alone. A schoolmaster might as well attempt todeceive God as a boy who is watching him every day with the inhuman eyeof youth. "All this must end now!" he said to himself, meaning all that could beincluded in the word "shirk. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. He was splendidly serious. He was as splendidly serious as a reformer. By a single urgent act of thought he would have made himself a man, andchanged imperfection into perfection. He desired--and there was realpassion in his desire--to do his best, to exhaust himself in doing hisbest, in living according to his conscience. He did not know of what hewas capable, nor what he could achieve. Achievement was not the matterof his desire; but endeavour, honest and terrific endeavour. Headmitted to himself his shortcomings, and he did not under-estimate thedifficulties that lay before him; but he said, thinking of his father:"Surely he'll see I mean business! Surely he's bound to give in when hesees how much in earnest I am!" He was convinced, almost, thatpassionate faith could move mountainous fathers. "I'll show 'em!" he muttered. And he meant that he would show the world. .. He was honouring theworld; he was paying the finest homage to it. In that head of his aflame burnt that was like an altar-fire, a miraculous and beautifulphenomenon, than which nothing is more miraculous nor more beautifulover the whole earth. Whence had it suddenly sprung, that flame? Afteryears of muddy inefficiency, of contentedness with the second-rate andthe dishonest, that flame astoundingly bursts forth, from a hidden, unheeded spark that none had ever thought to blow upon. It bursts forthout of a damp jungle of careless habits and negligence that could notpossibly have fed it. There is little to encourage it. The veryarchitecture of the streets shows that environment has done naught forit: ragged brickwork, walls finished anyhow with saggars and slag;narrow uneven alleys leading to higgledy-piggledy workshops and kilns;cottages transformed into factories and factories into cottages, clumsily, hastily, because nothing matters so long as "it will do;"everywhere something forced to fulfil, badly, the function of somethingelse; in brief, the reign of the slovenly makeshift, shameless, filthy, and picturesque. Edwin himself seemed no tabernacle for that singularflame. He was not merely untidy and dirty--at his age such defectsmight have excited in a sane observer uneasiness by their absence; buthis gestures and his gait were untidy. He did not mind how he walked. All his sprawling limbs were saying: "What does it matter, so long as weget there?" The angle of the slatternly bag across his shoulders was aninsult to the flame. And yet the flame burned with serene and terriblepureness. It was surprising that no one saw it passing along the mean, black, smoke-palled streets that huddle about Saint Luke's Church. Sundryexperienced and fat old women were standing or sitting at their cottagedoors, one or two smoking cutties. But even they, who in child-bed andat gravesides had been at the very core of life for long years, they, who saw more than most, could only see a fresh lad passing along, withfair hair and a clear complexion, and gawky knees and elbows, a fierce, rapt expression on his straightforward, good-natured face. Some knewthat it was "Clayhanger's lad, " a nice-behaved young gentleman, and thespitten image of his poor mother. They all knew what a lad is--the feelof his young skin under his "duds, " the capricious freedom of hismovements, his sudden madnesses and shoutings and tendernesses, and theexceeding power of his unconscious wistful charm. They could divine allthat in a glance. But they could not see the mysterious and holy flameof the desire for self-perfection blazing within that tousled head. Andif Edwin had suspected that anybody could indeed perceive it, he wouldhave whipped it out for shame, though the repudiation had meanteverlasting death. Such is youth in the Five Towns, if not elsewhere. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE. ENTRY INTO THE WORLD. Edwin came steeply out of the cinder-strewn back streets by WoodisunBank [hill] into Duck Square, nearly at the junction of Trafalgar Roadand Wedgwood Street. A few yards down Woodisun Bank, cocks and henswere scurrying, with necks horizontal, from all quarters, and were evenflying, to the call of a little old woman who threw grain from the topstep of her porch. On the level of the narrow pavement stood an immenseconstable, clad in white trousers, with a gun under his arm for thekilling of mad dogs; he was talking to the woman, and their two headswere exactly at the same height. On a pair of small double gates nearthe old woman's cottage were painted the words, "Steam Printing Works. No admittance except on business. " And from as far as Duck Square couldbe heard the puff-puff which proved the use of steam in this works towhich idlers and mere pleasure-seekers were forbidden access. Duck Square was one of the oldest, if the least imposing, of all thepublic places in Bursley. It had no traffic across it, being only asloping rectangle, like a vacant lot, with Trafalgar Road and WedgwoodStreet for its exterior sides, and no outlet on its inner sides. Thebuildings on those inner sides were low and humble and, as it were, withdrawn from the world, the chief of them being the ancient Duck Inn, where the hand-bell ringers used to meet. But Duck Square looked outupon the very birth of Trafalgar Road, that wide, straight thoroughfare, whose name dates it, which had been invented, in the lifetime of a fewthen living, to unite Bursley with Hanbridge. It also looked out uponthe birth of several old pack-horse roads which Trafalgar Road hadsupplanted. One of these was Woodisun Bank, that wound slowly up hilland down dale, apparently always choosing the longest and hardest route, to Hanbridge; and another was Aboukir Street, formerly known as WarmLane, that reached Hanbridge in a manner equally difficult andunhurried. At the junction of Trafalgar Road and Aboukir Street stoodthe Dragon Hotel, once the great posting-house of the town, from whichall roads started. Duck Square had watched coaches and waggons stop atand start from the Dragon Hotel for hundreds of years. It had seen theDragon rebuilt in brick and stone, with fine bay windows on each storey, in early Georgian times, and it had seen even the new structure becomeold and assume the dignity of age. Duck Square could remember stringsof pack-mules driven by women, `trapesing' in zigzags down Woodisun Bankand Warm Lane, and occasionally falling, with awful smashes of thecrockery they carried, in the deep, slippery, scarce passable mire ofthe first slants into the valley. Duck Square had witnessed the slowdeclension of these roads into mere streets, and slum streets at that, and the death of all mules, and the disappearance of all coaches and allneighing and prancing and whipcracking romance; while Trafalgar Road, simply because it was straight and broad and easily graded, flourishedwith toll-bars and a couple of pair-horsed trams that ran on lines. Andmany people were proud of those cushioned trams; but perhaps they hadnever known that coach-drivers used to tell each other about the stateof the turn at the bottom of Warm Lane (since absurdly renamed in honourof an Egyptian battle), and that Woodisun Bank (now unnoticed save bydoubtful characters, policemen, and schoolboys) was once regularly`taken' by four horses at a canter. The history of human manners iscrunched and embedded in the very macadam of that part of the borough, and the burgesses unheedingly tread it down every day and talk gloomilyabout the ugly smoky prose of industrial manufacture. And yet theDragon Hotel, safely surviving all revolutions by the mighty virtue andattraction of ale, stands before them to remind them of theinterestingness of existence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. At the southern corner of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street, with DuckSquare facing it, the Dragon Hotel and Warm Lane to its right, andWoodisun Bank creeping inconspicuously down to its left, stood athree-storey building consisting of house and shop, the frontage beingin Wedgwood Street. Over the double-windowed shop was a discreetsignboard in gilt letters, "D. Clayhanger, Printer and Stationer, " butabove the first floor was a later and much larger sign, with the singleword, "Steam-printing. " All the brickwork of the facade was paintedyellow, and had obviously been painted yellow many times; the woodworkof the plate-glass windows was a very dark green approaching black. Theupper windows were stumpy, almost square, some dirty and some clean andcurtained, with prominent sills and architraves. The line of theprojecting spouting at the base of the roof was slightly curved throughsubsidence; at either end of the roof-ridge rose twin chimneys each withthree salmon-coloured chimney-pots. The gigantic word `Steam-printing'could be seen from the windows of the Dragon, from the porch of the bigWesleyan chapel higher up the slope, from the Conservative Club and theplayground at the top of the slope; and as for Duck Square itself, itcould see little else. The left-hand shop window was alluringly set outwith the lighter apparatus of writing and reading, and showedincidentally several rosy pictures of ideal English maidens; that to theright was grim and heavy with ledgers, inks, and variegated specimens ofsteam-printing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. In the wedge-shaped doorway between the windows stood two men, onemiddle-aged and one old, one bareheaded and the other with a beaver hat, engaged in conversation. They were talking easily, pleasantly, withfree gestures, the younger looking down in deferential smiles at theelder, and the elder looking up benignantly at the younger. You couldsee that, having begun with a business matter, they had quitted it for atopic of the hour. But business none the less went forward, the shopfunctioned, the presses behind the shop were being driven by steam asadvertised; a customer emerged, and was curtly nodded at by theproprietor as he squeezed past; a girl with a small flannel apron over alarge cotton apron went timidly into the shop. The trickling, calmcommerce of a provincial town was proceeding, bit being added to bit anditem to item, until at the week's end a series of apparent nothings hadswollen into the livelihood of near half a score of people. And nobodyperceived how interesting it was, this interchange of activities, thisebb and flow of money, this sluggish rise and fall of reputations andfortunes, stretching out of one century into another and towards athird! Printing had been done at that corner, though not by steam, since the time of the French Revolution. Bibles and illustrated herbalshad been laboriously produced by hand at that corner, and hawked on thebacks of asses all over the county; and nobody heard romance in thepuffing of the hidden steam-engine multiplying catalogues and billheadson the self-same spot at the rate of hundreds an hour. The younger and bigger of the two men chatting in the doorway was DariusClayhanger, Edwin's father, and the first printer to introduce steaminto Bursley. His age was then under forty-five, but he looked more. He was dressed in black, with an ample shirt-front and a narrow blackcravat tied in an angular bow; the wristbands were almost tight on thewrists, and, owing to the shortness of the alpaca coat-sleeves, theywere very visible even as Darius Clayhanger stood, with his two handsdeep in the horizontal pockets of his `full-fall' trousers. They werenot precisely dirty, these wristbands, nor was the shirt-front, nor theturned-down pointed collar, but all the linen looked as though it wouldscarcely be wearable the next day. Clayhanger's linen invariably lookedlike that, not dirty and not clean; and further, he appeared to weareternally the same suit, ever on the point of being done for and neverbeing done for. The trousers always had marked transverse creases; thewaistcoat always showed shiningly the outline of every article in thepockets thereof, and it always had a few stains down the front (andnever more than a few), and the lowest button insecure. The coat, faintly discoloured round the collar and fretted at the cuffs, fittedhim easily and loosely like the character of an old crony; it was as ifit had grown up with him, and had expanded with his girth. His head wasa little bald on the top, but there was still a great deal of mixedbrown and greyish hair at the back and the sides, and the moustache, hanging straight down with an effect recalling the mouth of a seal, wasplenteous and defiant--a moustache of character, contradicting the fullplacidity of the badly shaved chin. Darius Clayhanger had a habit, whenreflective or fierce, of biting with his upper teeth as far down as hecould on the lower lip; this trick added emphasis to the moustache. Hestood, his feet in their clumsy boots planted firmly about sixteeninches apart, his elbows sticking out, and his head bent sideways, listening to and answering his companion with mien now eager, nowroguish, now distinctly respectful. The older man, Mr Shushions, was apparently very old. He was one ofthose men of whom one says in conclusion that they are very old. Heseemed to be so fully occupied all the time in conducting those physicaloperations which we perform without thinking of them, that each in hiscase became a feat. He balanced himself on his legs with consciouscraft; he directed carefully his shaking and gnarled hand to his beardin order to stroke it. When he collected his thoughts into a sentenceand uttered it in his weak, quavering voice, he did something wonderful;he listened closely, as though to an imperfectly acquired foreignlanguage; and when he was not otherwise employed, he gave attention tothe serious business of breathing. He wore a black silk stock, in astyle even more antique than his remarkable headgear, and his trouserswere very tight. He had survived into another and a more fortunate agethan his own. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Edwin, his heavy bag on his shoulders, found the doorway blocked bythese two. He hesitated with a diffident charming smile, feeling, as heoften did in front of his father, that he ought to apologise for hisexistence, and yet fiercely calling himself an ass for such a sentiment. Darius Clayhanger nodded at him carelessly, but not without asurprising benevolence, over his shoulder. "This is him, " said Darius briefly. Edwin was startled to catch a note of pride in his father's voice. Little Mr Shushions turned slowly and looked up at Edwin's face (for hewas shorter even than the boy), and gradually acquainted himself withthe fact that Edwin was the son of his father. "Is this thy son, Darius?" he asked; and his ancient eyes were shining. Edwin had scarcely ever heard any one address his father by hisChristian name. Darius nodded; and then, seeing the old man's hand creeping out towardshim, Edwin pulled off his cap and took the hand, and was struck by thehot smooth brittleness of the skin and the earnest tremulous weakness ofthe caressing grasp. Edwin had never seen Mr Shushions before. "Nay, nay, my boy, " trembled the old man, "don't bare thy head to me . .. Not to me! I'm one o' th' ould sort. Eh, I'm rare glad to see thee!"He kept Edwin's hand, and stared long at him, with his withered facetransfigured by solemn emotion. Slowly he turned towards Darius, andpulled himself together. "Thou'st begotten a fine lad, Darius! . .. Afine, honest lad!" "So-so!" said Darius gruffly, whom Edwin was amazed to see in a state ofagitation similar to that of Mr Shushions. The men gazed at each other; Edwin looked at the ground and otherunresponsive objects. "Edwin, " his father said abruptly, "run and ask Big James for th' proofof that Primitive Methodist hymn-paper; there's a good lad. " And Edwin hastened through the shadowy shop as if loosed from acaptivity, and in passing threw his satchel down on a bale of goods. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. He comprehended nothing of the encounter; neither as to the origin ofthe old man's status in his father's esteem, nor as to the cause of hisfather's strange emotion. He regarded the old man impatiently as anaged simpleton, probably over pious, certainly connected with thePrimitive Methodists. His father had said `There's a good lad' almostcajolingly. And this was odd; for, though nobody could be morepersuasively agreeable than his father when he chose, the occasions whenhe cared to exert his charm, especially over his children, wereinfrequent, and getting more so. Edwin also saw something symbolicallyominous in his being sent direct to the printing office. It was noaffair of his to go to the printing office. He particularly did notwant to go to the printing office. However, he met Big James, with flowing beard and flowing apron, crossing the yard. Big James was brushing crumbs from the beard. "Father wants the proof of some hymn-paper--I don't know what, " he said. "I was just coming--" "So was I, Mister Edwin, " replied Big James in his magnificent voice, and with his curious humorous smile. And he held up a sheet of paper inhis immense hand, and strode majestically on towards the shop. Here was another detail that struck the boy. Always Big James hadaddressed him as `Master Edwin' or `Master Clayhanger. ' Now it was`Mister. ' He had left school. Big James was, of course, aware of that, and Big James had enough finesse and enough gentle malice to changeinstantly the `master' to `mister. ' Edwin was scarcely sure if BigJames was not laughing at him. He could not help thinking that BigJames had begun so promptly to call him `mister' because the foremancompositor expected that the son of the house would at once begin totake a share in the business. He could not help thinking that hisfather must have so informed Big James. And all this vaguely disturbedEdwin, and reminded him of his impending battle and of the complexforces marshalled against him. And his hand, wandering in his pockets, touched that unfortunate report which stated that he had lost one placeduring the term. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. He lingered in the blue-paved yard, across which cloud-shadows sweptcontinually, and then Big James came back and spectacularly ascended theflight of wooden steps to the printing office, and disappeared. Edwinknew that he must return to the shop to remove his bag, for his fatherwould assuredly reprimand him if he found it where it had been untidilyleft. He sidled, just like an animal, to the doorway, and then slippedup to the counter, behind the great mahogany case of `artists'materials. ' His father and the old man were within the shop now, andEdwin overheard that they were discussing a topic that had lately beenrife in religious circles, namely, Sir Henry Thompson's ingenious devicefor scientifically testing the efficacy of prayer, known as the `PrayerGauge. ' The scheme was to take certain hospitals and to pray for thepatients in particular wards, leaving other wards unprayed for, and thento tabulate and issue the results. Mr Shushions profoundly resented the employment of such a dodge; themere idea of it shocked him, as being blasphemous; and Darius Clayhangerdeferentially and feelingly agreed with him, though Edwin had at leastonce heard his father refer to the topic with the amused andnon-committal impartiality of a man who only went to chapel when hespecially felt like going. "I've preached in the pulpits o' our Connexion, " said Mr Shushions withsolemn, quavering emotion, "for over fifty year, as you know. But I'dne'er gi' out another text if Primitives had ought to do wi' such aflouting o' th' Almighty. Nay, I'd go down to my grave dumb afore God!" He had already been upset by news of a movement that was on foot fordeferring Anniversary Sermons from August to September, so that peopleshould be more free to go away for a holiday, and collections be morefruitful. What! Put off God's ordinance, to enable chapel-members togo `a-wakesing'! Monstrous! Yet September was tried, in spite of MrShushions, and when even September would not work satisfactorily, God'sordinance was shifted boldly to May, in order to catch people, and theirpockets well before the demoralisation incident to holidays. Edwin thought that his father and the mysterious old man would talk forever, and timorously he exposed himself to obtain possession of hissatchel, hoping to escape unseen. But Mr Shushions saw him, and calledhim, and took his hand again. "Eh, my boy, " he said, feebly shaking the hand, "I do pray as you'llgrow up to be worthy o' your father. That's all as I pray for. " Edwin had never considered his father as an exemplar. He was a just andunmerciful judge of his father, against whom he had a thousandgrievances. And in his heart he resentfully despised Mr Shushions, anddecided again that he was a simpleton, and not a very tactful one. Butthen he saw a round yellow tear slowly form in the red rim of the oldman's eye and run crookedly down that wrinkled cheek. And his impatientscorn expired. The mere sight of him, Edwin, had brought the old man toweeping! And the tear was so genuine, so convincing, so majestic thatit induced in Edwin a blank humility. He was astounded, mystified; buthe was also humbled. He himself was never told, and he never learnt, the explanation of that epic tear. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR. THE CHILD-MAN. The origin of the tear on the aged cheek of Mr Shushions went backabout forty years, and was embedded in the infancy of Darius Clayhanger. The earliest memory of Darius Clayhanger had to do with the capitalletters Q W and S. Even as the first steam-printer in Bursley, even asthe father of a son who had received a thoroughly sound middle-classeducation, he never noticed a capital Q W or S without recalling theWidow Susan's school, where he had wonderingly learnt the significanceof those complicated characters. The school consisted of the entireground floor of her cottage, namely, one room, of which the far cornerwas occupied by a tiny winding staircase that led to the ancient widow'sbedchamber. The furniture comprised a few low forms for scholars, atable, and a chair; and there were some brilliant coloured prints on thewhitewashed walls. At this school Darius acquired a knowledge of thealphabet, and from the alphabet passed to Reading-Made-Easy, and then tothe Bible. He made such progress that the widow soon singled him outfor honour. He was allowed the high and envied privilege of raking theashes from under the fire-place and carrying them to the ash-pit, whichash-pit was vast and lofty, being the joint production of many cottages. To reach the summit of the ash-pit, and thence to fling backwards downits steep sides all assailants who challenged your supremacy, was aprecious joy. The battles of the ash-pit, however, were not battles ofgiants, as no children had leisure for ash-carrying after the age ofseven. A still greater honour accorded to Darius was permission to sit, during lessons, on the topmost visible step of the winding stair. Thewidow Susan, having taught Darius to read brilliantly, taught him toknit, and he would knit stockings for his father, mother, and sister. At the age of seven, his education being complete, he was summoned intothe world. It is true that he could neither write nor deal with themultiplication table; but there were always night-schools which studiousadults of seven and upwards might attend if business permitted. Further, there was the Sunday school, which Darius had joyouslyfrequented since the age of three, and which he had no intention ofleaving. As he grew older the Sunday school became more and moreenchanting to him. Sunday morning was the morning which he lived forduring six days; it was the morning when his hair was brushed andcombed, and perfumed with a delightful oil, whose particular fragrancehe remembered throughout his life. At Sunday school he was petted andcaressed. His success at Sunday school was shining. He passed over theheads of bigger boys, and at the age of six he was in a Bible class. Upon hearing that Darius was going out into the world, thesuperintendent of the Sunday school, a grave whiskered young man ofperhaps thirty, led him one morning out of the body of the PrimitiveMethodist Chapel which served as schoolroom before and after chapelservice, up into the deserted gallery of the chapel, and there seatedhim on a stair, and knelt on the stair below him, and caressed his head, and called him a good boy, and presented him with an old battered Bible. This volume was the most valuable thing that Darius had ever possessed. He ran all the way home with it, half suffocated by his triumph. Sunday school prizes had not then been invented. The youngsuperintendent of the Sunday school was Mr Shushions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The man Darius was first taken to work by his mother. It was the winterof 1835, January. They passed through the marketplace of the town ofTurnhill where they lived. Turnhill lies a couple of miles north ofBursley. One side of the market-place was barricaded with stacks ofcoal, and the other with loaves of a species of rye and straw bread. This coal and these loaves were being served out by meticulous andhaughty officials, all invisibly, braided with red-tape, to a crowd ofshivering, moaning, and weeping wretches, men, women and children--thebasis of the population of Turnhill. Although they, were allendeavouring to make a noise they, made scarcely any noise, from merelack of strength. Nothing could be heard, under the implacable brightsky, but faint ghosts of sound, as though people were sighing and cryingfrom within the vacuum of a huge glass bell. The next morning, at half-past five, Darius began his career in earnest. He was `mould-runner' to a `muffin-maker, ' a muffin being not acomestible but a small plate, fashioned by its maker on a mould. Thebusiness of Darius was to run as hard as he could with the mould, and anewly, created plate adhering thereto, into the drying-stove. This`stove' was a room lined with shelves, and having a red-hot stove andstove-pipe in the middle. As no man of seven could reach the uppershelves, a pair of steps was provided for Darius, and up these he had toscamper. Each mould with its plate had to be leaned carefully againstthe wall and if the soft clay of a new-born plate was damaged, Dariuswas knocked down. The atmosphere outside the stove was chill, but owingto the heat of the stove, Darius was obliged to work half naked. Hissweat ran down his cheeks, and down his chest, and down his back, makingwhite channels, and lastly it soaked his hair. When there were no moulds to be sprinted into the drying-stove, and nomoulds to be carried less rapidly out, Darius was engaged inclay-wedging. That is to say, he took a piece of raw clay weighing morethan himself, cut it in two with a wire, raised one half above his headand crashed it down with all his force upon the other half, and herepeated the process until the clay was thoroughly soft and even intexture. At a later period it was discovered that hydraulic machinerycould perform this operation more easily and more effectually than thebrawny arms of a man of seven. At eight o'clock in the evening Dariuswas told that he had done enough for that day, and that he must arriveat five sharp the next morning to light the fire, before his master themuffin-maker began to work. When he inquired how he was to light thefire his master kicked him jovially on the thigh and suggested that heshould ask another mould-runner. His master was not a bad man at heart, it was said, but on Tuesdays, after Sunday, and Saint Monday, masterswere apt to be capricious. Darius reached home at a quarter to nine, having eaten nothing but breadall day. Somehow he had lapsed into the child again. His mother tookhim on her knee, and wrapped her sacking apron round his ragged clothes, and cried over him and cried into his supper of porridge, and undressedhim and put him to bed. But he could not sleep easily because he wasafraid of being late the next morning. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. And the next morning wandering about the yards of the manufactory in astorm of icy sleet a little before five o'clock, he learnt from a moreexperienced companion that nobody would provide him with kindling forhis fire, that on the contrary everybody who happened to be on the placeat that hour would unite to prevent him from getting kindling, and thathe must steal it or expect to be thrashed before six o'clock. Near thema vast kiln of ware in process of firing showed a white flaming glow ateach of its mouths in the black winter darkness. Darius's mentor creptup to the archway of the great hovel which protected the kiln, andpointed like a conspirator to the figure of the guardian fireman dozingnear his monster. The boy had the handle-less remains of an old spade, and with it he crept into the hovel, dangerously abstracted fire fromone of the scorching mouths, and fled therewith, and the fireman neverstirred. Then Darius, to whom the mentor kindly lent his spade, attempted to do the same, but being inexpert woke the fireman, who heldhim spellbound by his roaring voice and then flung him like a sack ofpotatoes bodily into the slush of the yard, and the spade after him. Happily the mentor, whose stove was now alight, lent fire to Darius, sothat Darius's stove too was cheerfully burning when his master came. And Darius was too excited to feel fatigue. By six o'clock on Saturday night Darius had earned a shilling for hisweek's work. But he could only possess himself of the shilling by goingto a magnificent public-house with his master the muffin-maker. Thiswas the first time that he had ever been inside a public-house. Theplace was crowded with men, women, and children eating the most lovely, hot rolls and drinking beer, in an atmosphere exquisitely warm. Andbehind a high counter a stout jolly man was counting piles and piles andpiles of silver. Darius's master, in company, with other boys' masters, gave this stout man four sovereigns to change, and it was an hour beforehe changed them. Meanwhile Darius was instructed that he must eat aroll like the rest, together with cheese. Never had he tasted anythingso luscious. He had a match with his mentor, as to which of them couldspin out his roll the longer, honestly chewing all the time; and he won. Some one gave him half a glass of beer. At half-past seven he receivedhis shilling which consisted of a sixpenny-piece and four pennies; andleaving the gay, public-house, pushed his way through a crowd of tearfulwomen with babies in their arms at the doors, and went home. And suchwas the attraction of the Sunday school that he was there the nextmorning, with scented hair, two minutes before the opening. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In about a year Darius's increasing knowledge of the world enabled himto rise in it. He became a handle-maker in another manufactory, andalso he went about with the pride of one who could form the letters ofthe alphabet with a pen. In his new work he had to put a bit of claybetween two moulds, and then force the top mould on to the bottom one bymeans of his stomach which it was necessary to press downwards and atthe same time to wriggle with a peculiar movement. The workman to whomhe was assigned, his new `master, ' attached these handles, with strangerapid skill, to beer-mugs. For Darius the labour was much lighter thanthat of mould-running and clay-wedging, and the pay was somewhat higher. But there were minor disadvantages. He descended by twenty steps tohis toil, and worked in a long cellar which never received any airexcept by way of the steps and a passage, and never any daylight at all. Its sole illumination was a stove used for drying. The `throwers'' andthe `turners'' rooms were also subterranean dungeons. When in fullactivity all these stinking cellars were full of men, boys, and youngwomen, working close together in a hot twilight. Certain boys weretrained contrabandists of beer, and beer came as steadily into thedungeons as though it had been laid on by a main pipe. It was nothonourable even on the part of a young woman, to refuse beer, particularly when the beer happened to arrive in the late afternoon. Onsuch occasions young men and women would often entirely omit to go homeof a night, and seasoned men of the world aged eight, on descending intothe dungeons early the next morning, would have a full view ofpandemonium, and they would witness during the day salutary scenes ofremorse, and proofs of the existence of a profound belief in thehomeopathic properties of beer. But perhaps the worst drawback of Darius's new position was the long andirregular hours, due partly to the influences of Saint Monday and of thescenes above indicated but not described, and partly to the fact thatthe employes were on piece-work and entirely unhampered by grandmotherlylegislation. The result was that six days' work was generally done infour. And as the younger the workman the earlier he had to start in themorning, Darius saw scarcely enough of his bed. It was not of course tobe expected that a self-supporting man of the world should rigorouslyconfine himself to an eight-hour day or even a twelve-hour day, butDarius's day would sometimes stretch to eighteen and nineteen hours:which on hygienic grounds could not be unreservedly defended. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. One Tuesday evening his master, after three days of debauch, ordered himto be at work at three o'clock the next morning. He quickly and eveneagerly agreed, for he was already intimate with his master's rope-lash. He reached home at ten o'clock on an autumn night, and went to bed andto sleep. He woke up with a start, in the dark. There was no watch orclock in the house, from which nearly all the furniture had graduallyvanished, but he knew it must be already after three o'clock; and hesprang up and rushed out. Of course he had not undressed; his life wastoo strenuous for mere formalities. The stars shone above him as he ranalong, wondering whether after all, though late, he could byunprecedented effort make the ordained number of handles before hismaster tumbled into the cellar at five o'clock. When he had run a mile he met some sewage men on their rounds, who inreply, to his question told him that the hour was half after midnight. He dared not risk a return to home and bed, for within two and a halfhours he must be at work. He wandered aimlessly over the surface of theearth until he came to a tile-works, more or less unenclosed, whoseprimitive ovens showed a glare. He ventured within, and in spite ofhimself sat down on the ground near one of those heavenly ovens. Andthen he wanted to get up again, for he could feel the strong breath ofhis enemy, sleep. But he could not get up. In a state of terror heyielded himself to his enemy. Shameful cowardice on the part of a mannow aged nine! God, however, is merciful, and sent to him an angel inthe guise of a night-watchman, who kicked him into wakefulness and offthe place. He ran on limping, beneath the stellar systems, and reachedhis work at half-past four o'clock. Although he had never felt so exhausted in his long life, he set to workwith fury. Useless! When his master arrived he had scarcely gotthrough the preliminaries. He dully faced his master in the narrowstifling cellar, lit by candles impaled on nails and already peopled bythe dim figures of boys, girls, and a few men. His master was oftaciturn habit and merely told him to kneel down. He knelt. Two biggerboys turned hastily from their work to snatch a glimpse of the affair. The master moved to the back of the cellar and took from a box a pieceof rope an inch thick and clogged with clay. At the same moment acompanion offered him, in silence, a tin with a slim neck, out of whichhe drank deep; it contained a pint of porter owing on loan from theprevious day. When the master came in due course with the rope to dojustice upon the sluggard he found the lad fallen forward and breathingheavily and regularly. Darius had gone to sleep. He was awakened withsome violence, but the public opinion of the dungeon saved him from atorn shirt and a bloody back. This was Darius's last day on a pot-bank. The next morning he and hiswent in procession to the Bastille, as the place was called. Hisfather, having been too prominent and too independent in a strike, hadbeen black-listed by every manufacturer in the district; and Darius, though nine, could not keep the family. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE. MR. SHUSHIONS'S TEAR EXPLAINED. The Bastille was on the top of a hill about a couple of miles long, andthe journey thither was much lengthened by the desire of the family toavoid the main road. They were all intensely ashamed; Darius wasashamed to tears, and did not know why; even his little sister wept andhad to be carried, not because she was shoeless and had had nothing toeat, but because she was going to the Ba-ba-bastille; she had no notionwhat the place was. It proved to be the largest building that Dariushad ever seen; and indeed it was the largest in the district; they stoodagainst its steep sides like flies against a kennel. Then there wasrattling of key-bunches, and the rasping voices of sour officials, whodid not inquire if they would like a meal after their stroll. And theywere put into a cellar and stripped and washed and dressed in otherpeople's clothes, and then separated, amid tears. And Darius waspitched into a large crowd of other boys, all clothed like himself. Henow understood the reason for shame; it was because he could have nodistinctive clothes of his own, because he had somehow lost his identityAll the boys had a sullen, furtive glance, and when they spoke it was inwhispers. In the low room where the boys were assembled there fell a silence, andDarius heard some one whisper that the celebrated boy who had run awayand been caught would be flogged before supper. Down the long room rana long table. Some one brought in three candles in tin candlesticks andset them near the end of this table. Then somebody else brought in apickled birch-rod, dripping with the salt water from which it had beentaken, and also a small square table. Then came some officials, and aclergyman, and then, surpassing the rest in majesty, the governor of theBastille, a terrible man. The governor made a speech about the crime ofrunning away from the Bastille, and when he had spoken for a fair time, the clergyman talked in the same sense; and then a captured tiger, dressed like a boy, with darting fierce eyes, was dragged in by two men, and laid face down on the square table, and four boys were commanded tostep forward and hold tightly the four members of this tiger. And, hisclothes having previously been removed as far as his waist, his breecheswere next pulled down his legs. Then the rod was raised and itdescended swishing, and blood began to flow; but far more startling thanthe blood were the shrill screams of the tiger; they were so loud anddeafening that the spectators could safely converse under their shelter. The boys in charge of the victim had to cling hard and grind theirteeth in the effort to keep him prone. As the blows succeeded eachother, Darius became more and more ashamed. The physical spectacle didnot sicken nor horrify him, for he was a man of wide experience; but hehad never before seen flogging by lawful authority. Flogging in theworkshop was different, a private if sanguinary affair between freehuman beings. This ritualistic and cold-blooded torture was infinitelymore appalling in its humiliation. The screaming grew feebler, thenceased; then the blows ceased, and the unconscious infant (cured ofbeing a tiger) was carried away leaving a trail of red drops along thefloor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. After this, supper was prepared on the long table, and the clergymancalled down upon it the blessing of God, and enjoined the boys to bethankful, and departed in company with the governor. Darius, who hadnot tasted all day, could not eat. The flogging had not nauseated him, but the bread and the skilly revolted his pampered tastes. Never hadhe, with all his experience, seen nor smelt anything so foullydisgusting. When supper was completed, a minor official interceded withthe Almighty in various ways for ten minutes, and at last the boys weremarched upstairs to bed. They all slept in one room. The night alsocould be set down in words, but must not be, lest the setting-downshould be disastrous. .. Darius knew that he was ruined; he knew that he was a workhouse boy forevermore, and that the bright freedom of sixteen hours a day in a cellarwas lost to him for evermore. He was now a prisoner, branded, hopeless. He would never be able to withstand the influences that had closedaround him and upon him. He supposed that he should become desperate, become a tiger, and then. .. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. But the following afternoon he was forcibly reclothed in his ownbeautiful and beloved rags, and was pushed out of the Bastille, andthere he saw his pale father and his mother, and his little sister, andanother man. And his mother was on her knees in the cold autumnsunshine, and hysterically clasping the knees of the man, and weeping;and the man was trying to raise her, and the man was weeping too. Darius wept. The man was Mr Shushions. Somehow, in a way that Dariuscomprehended not, Mr Shushions had saved them. Mr Shushions, in abeaver tall-hat and with an apron rolled round his waist under his coat, escorted them back to their house, into which some fresh furniture hadbeen brought. And Darius knew that a situation was waiting for hisfather. And further, Mr Shushions, by his immense mysterious power, found a superb situation for Darius himself as a printer's devil. Allthis because Mr Shushions, as superintendent of a Sunday school, wasemotionally interested in the queer, harsh boy who had there picked upthe art of writing so quickly. Such was the origin of the tear that ran down Mr Shushions's cheek whenhe beheld Edwin, well-nourished, well-dressed and intelligent, the sonof Darius the successful steam-printer. Mr Shushions's tear was thetear of the creator looking upon his creation and marvelling at it. MrShushions loved Darius as only the benefactor can love the benefited. He had been out of the district for over thirty years, and, havingreturned there to die, the wonder of what he had accomplished by merelysaving a lad from the certain perdition of a prolonged stay in theworkhouse, struck him blindingly in the face and dazzled him. Darius had never spoken to a soul of his night in the Bastille. All hisinfancy was his own fearful secret. His life, seen whole, had been amiracle. But none knew that except himself and Mr Shushions. Assuredly Edwin never even faintly suspected it. To Edwin Mr Shushionswas nothing but a feeble and tedious old man. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX. IN THE HOUSE. To return to Edwin. On that Friday afternoon of the breaking-up he was, in the local phrase, at a loose end. That is, he had no task, noprogramme, and no definite desires. Not knowing, when he started out inthe morning, whether school would formally end before or after thedinner-hour, he had taken his dinner with him, as usual, and had eatenit at Oldcastle. Thus, though the family dinner had not begun when hereached home, he had no share in it, partly because he was not hungry, and partly because he was shy about having left school. The fact thathe had left school affected him as he was affected by the wearing of anew suit for the first time, or by the cutting of his hair after aprolonged neglect of the barber. It inspired him with a wish to avoidhis kind, and especially his sisters, Maggie and Clara. Clara mightmake some facetious remark. Edwin could never forget the Red Indianglee with which Clara had danced round him when for the first time--andquite unprepared for the exquisite shock--she had seen him in longtrousers. There was also his father. He wanted to have a plain talkwith his father--he knew that he would not be at peace until he had hadthat talk--and yet in spite of himself he had carefully kept out of hisfather's way during all the afternoon, save for a moment when, strollingwith affected nonchalance up to Darius's private desk in the shop, hehad dropped thereon his school report, and strolled off again. Towards six o'clock he was in his bedroom, an attic with a floor verymuch more spacious than its ceiling, and a window that commanded theslope of Trafalgar Road towards Bleakridge. It had been his room, hiscastle, his sanctuary, for at least ten years, since before his mother'sdeath of cancer. He did not know that he loved it, with all itsinconveniences and makeshifts; but he did love it, and he was jealousfor it; no one should lay a hand on it to rearrange what he had oncearranged. His sisters knew this; the middle-aged servant knew it; evenhis father, with a curt laugh, would humorously acquiesce in the theoryof the sacredness of Edwin's bedroom. As for Edwin, he saw nothingextraordinary in his attitude concerning his bedroom; and he could notunderstand, and he somewhat resented, that the household should perceiveanything comic in it. He never went near his sisters' bedroom, neverwished to go near it, never thought about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Now he sat idly on the patchwork counterpane of his bed and gazed at thesky. He was feeling a little happier, a little less unsettled, for hisstomach was empty and his mind had begun to fix itself with pleasure onthe images of hot toast and jam. He `wanted his tea:' the manner inwhich he glanced at his old silver watch proved that. He wished onlythat before six o'clock struck he could settle upon the necessarychanges in his bedroom. A beautiful schooner, which for over a year, with all sails spread, had awaited the breeze in a low dark corner tothe right of the window, would assuredly have to be dismissed to thesmall, empty attic. Once that schooner had thrilled him; the slightrake of its masts and the knotted reality of its rigging had thrilledhim; and to navigate it had promised the most delicious sensationsconceivable. Now, one moment it was a toy as silly as a doll, and thenext moment it thrilled him once more, and he could believe again itspromises of bliss--and then he knew that it was for ever a vain toy, andhe was sad, and his sadness was pleasure. He had already stacked mostof his school-books in the other attic. He would need a table and alamp; he knew not for what precise purpose; but a table and a lamp werenecessary to the continuance of his self-respect. The only questionwas, Should he remodel his bedroom, or should he demand the other attic, and plant his flag in it and rule over it in addition to his bedroom?Had he the initiative and the energy to carry out such an enterprise?He was not able to make up his mind. And, moreover, he could not decideanything until after that plain talk with his father. His sister Clara's high voice sounded outside, on the landing, orhalf-way up the attic stairs. "Ed-win! Ed-win!" "What's up?" he called in answer, rising with a nervous start. The doorof the room was unlatched. "You're mighty mysterious in your bedroom, " said Clara's voice behindthe door. "Come in! Come in! Why don't you come in?" he replied, withgood-natured impatience. But somehow he could not speak in a naturaltone. The mere fact that he had left school that day and that the worldawaited him, and that everybody in the house knew this, rendered himself-conscious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Clara entered, with a curious sidelong movement, half-winning andhalf-serpentine. She was aged fourteen, a very fair and very slightgirl, with a thin face and thin lips, and extraordinarily slender hands;in general appearance fragile. She wore a semi-circular comb on thecrown of her head, and her abundant hair hung over her shoulders in twotight pigtails. Edwin considered that Clara was harsh and capricious;he had much fault to find with her; but nevertheless the sight of herusually affected him pleasurably (of course without his knowing it), andhe never for long sat definitely in adverse judgement upon her. Hergestures had a charm for him which he felt but did not realise. Andthis charm was similar to his own charm. But nothing would have sosurprised him as to learn that he himself had any charm at all. Hewould have laughed, and been ashamed--to hear that his gestures and theplay of his features had an ingratiating, awkward, and wistful grace; hewould have tried to cure that. "Father wants you, " said Clara, her hand on the handle of the thinattic-door hung with odd garments. Edwin's heart fell instantly, and all the agreeable images of teavanished from his mind. His father must have read the school report andperceived that Edwin had been beaten by Charlie Orgreave, a boy youngerthan himself! "Did he send you up for me?" Edwin asked. "No, " said Clara, frowning. "But I heard him calling out for you allover. So Maggie told me to run up. Not that I expect any thanks. " Sheput her head forward a little. The episode, and Clara's tone, showed clearly the nature and force ofthe paternal authority in the house. It was an authority with the giftof getting its commands anticipated. "All right! I'm coming, " said Edwin superiorly. "I know what you want, " Clara said teasingly as she turned towards thepassage. "What do I want?" "You want the empty attic all to yourself, and a fine state it would bein in a month, my word!" "How do you know I want the empty attic?" Edwin repelled the onslaught;but he was considerably taken aback. It was a mystery to him how thosegirls, and Clara in particular, got wind of his ideas before he had evenformulated them definitely to himself. It was also a mystery to him howthey could be so tremendously interested in matters which did notconcern them. "You never mind!" Clara gibed, with a smile that was malicious, butcharmingly malicious. "I know!" She had merely seen him staring into the empty attic, and from thatbrief spectacle she had by divination constructed all his plans. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. The Clayhanger sitting-room, which served as both dining-room anddrawing-room, according to the more primitive practices of those days, was over one half of the shop, and looked on Duck Square. Owing to itsnorthern aspect it scarcely ever saw the sun. The furniture followedthe universal fashion of horse-hair, mahogany, and wool embroidery. There was a piano, with a high back-fretted wood over silk pleated inrays from the centre; a bookcase whose lower part was a cupboard; asofa; and a large leather easy-chair which did not match the rest of theroom. This easy-chair had its back to the window and its front legs alittle towards the fireplace, so that Mr Clayhanger could read hisnewspaper with facility in daytime. At night the light fell a littleawkwardly from the central chandelier, and Mr Clayhanger, if hehappened to be reading, would continually shift his chair an inch or twoto left or right, backwards or forwards, and would also continuallyglance up at the chandelier, as if accusing it of not doing its best. Acommon sight in the sitting-room was Mr Clayhanger balanced on a chair, the table having been pushed away, screwing the newest burner into thechandelier. When he was seated in his easy-chair the piano could not beplayed, because there was not sufficient space for the stool between thepiano and his chair; nor could the fire be made up without disturbinghim, because the japanned coal-box was on the same side of thehearth-rug as the chair. Thus, when the fire languished and MrClayhanger neglected it, the children had either to ask permission tostep over his legs, or suggest that he should attend to the firehimself. Occasionally, when he was in one of his gay moods, he wouldhumorously impede the efforts of the fire-maker with his feet, and ifthe fire-maker was Clara or Edwin, the child would tickle him, whichbrought him to his senses and forced him to shout: "None o' that! Noneo' that!" The position of Mr Clayhanger's easy-chair--a detail apparentlytrifling--was in reality a strongly influencing factor in the familylife, for it meant that the father's presence obsessed the room. And itcould not be altered, for it depended on the window; the window was toosmall to be quite efficient. When the children reflected upon thehistory of their childhood they saw one important aspect of it as a longseries of detached hours spent in the sitting-room, in a state of desireto do something that could not be done without disturbing father, and ina state of indecision whether or not to disturb him. If by chance, assometimes occurred, he chose to sit on the sofa, which was unobtrusivein the corner away from the window, between the fireplace and the door, the room was instantly changed into something larger, freer, and lessinconvenient. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. As the hour was approaching six, Edwin, on the way downstairs, looked inat the sitting-room for his father; but Darius was not there. "Where's father?" he demanded. "I don't know, I'm sure, " said Maggie, at the sewing-machine. Maggiewas aged twenty; dark, rather stout, with an expression at oncebenevolent and worried. She rarely seemed to belong to the samegeneration as her brother and sister. She consorted on equal terms withmarried women, and talked seriously of the same things as they did. MrClayhanger treated her somewhat differently from the other two. Yet, though he would often bid them accept her authority, he would now andthen impair that authority by roughly `dressing her down' at themeal-table. She was a capable girl; she had much less firmness, andmuch more good-nature, than she seemed to have. She could not assertherself adequately. She `managed' very well; indeed she had `donewonders' in filling the place of the mother who had died when Clara wasfour and Edwin six, and she herself only ten. Responsibility, apprehension, and strained effort had printed their marks on herfeatures. But the majority of acquaintances were more impressed by hergood intention than by her capacity; they would call her `a nice thing. 'The discerning minority, while saying with admiring conviction that shewas `a very fine girl, ' would regret that somehow she had not thefaculty of `making the best of herself, ' of `putting her best footforemost. ' And would they not heartily stand up for her with thesuperficial majority! A thin, grey-haired, dreamy-eyed woman hurried into the room, bearing anoisy tray and followed by Clara with a white cloth. This was MrsNixon, the domestic staff of the Clayhanger household for years. Claraand Mrs Nixon swept Maggie's sewing materials from the corner of thetable on to a chair, put Maggie's flower-glasses on to the ledge of thebookcase, folded up the green cloth, and began rapidly to lay the tea. Simultaneously Maggie, glancing at the clock, closed up hersewing-machine, and deposited her work in a basket. Clara, leaving thetable, stooped to pick up the bits of cotton and white stuff thatlittered the carpet. The clock struck six. "Now, sharpy!" she exclaimed curtly to Edwin, who stood hesitatinglywith his hands in his pockets. "Can't you help Maggie to push thatsewing-machine into the corner?" "What on earth's up?" he inquired vaguely, but starting forward to helpMaggie. "She'll be here in a minute, " said Maggie, almost under her breath, asshe fitted on the cover of the sewing-machine. "Who?" asked Edwin. "Oh! Auntie! I'd forgotten it was her night. " "As if anyone could forget!" murmured Clara, with sarcastic unbelief. By this time the table was completely set. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. Edwin wondered mildly, as he often wondered, at the extremely bittertone in which Clara always referred to their Aunt Clara Hamps, --whenMrs Hamps was not there. Even Maggie's private attitude to AuntieClara was scarcely more Christian. Mrs Hamps was the widowed youngersister of their mother, and she had taken a certain share in thesupervision of Darius Clayhanger's domestic affairs after the death ofMrs Clayhanger. This latter fact might account, partially but notwholly, for the intense and steady dislike in which she was held byMaggie, Clara, and Mrs Nixon. Clara hated her own name because she hadbeen `called after' her auntie. Mr Clayhanger `got on' excellentlywith his sister-in-law. He `thought highly' of her, and was indeedproud to have her for a relative. In their father's presence the girlsnever showed their dislike of Mrs Hamps; it was a secret pleasureshared between them and Mrs Nixon, and only disclosed to Edwin becausethe girls were indifferent to what Edwin might think. They casuallydespised him for somehow liking his auntie, for not seeing through herwiles; but they could count on his loyalty to themselves. "Are you ready for tea, or aren't you?" Clara asked him. Shefrequently spoke to him as if she was the elder instead of the younger. "Yes, " he said. "But I must find father. " He went off, but he did not find his father in the shop, and after a fewfutile minutes he returned upstairs. Mrs Nixon preceded him, carryingthe tea-urn, and she told him that his father had sent word into thekitchen that they were not to `wait tea' for him. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN. AUNTIE HAMPS. Mrs Hamps had splendidly arrived. The atmosphere of the sitting-roomwas changed. Maggie, smiling, wore her second-best black silk apron. Clara, smiling and laughing, wore a clean long white pinafore. MrsNixon, with her dreamy eyes less vacant than usual, greeted Mrs Rampseffusively, and effusively gave humble thanks for kind inquiries afterher health. A stranger might have thought that these women werestrongly attached to one another by ties of affection and respect. Edwin never understood how his sisters, especially Maggie, couldpractise such vast and eternal hypocrisy with his aunt. As for him, hisaunt acted on him now, as generally, like a tonic. Some effluence fromher quickened him. He put away the worry in connection with his father, and gave himself up to the physical pleasures of tea. Aunt Clara was a handsome woman. She had been called--but not by menwhose manners and code she would have approved--`a damned fine woman. 'Her age was about forty, which at that period, in a woman's habit ofmind, was the equivalent of about fifty to-day. Her latest photographwas considered to be very successful. It showed her standing behind avelvet chair and leaning her large but still shapely bust slightly overthe chair. Her forearms, ruffled and braceleted, lay along the fringedback of the chair, and from one negligent hand depended a rose. A heavycurtain came downwards out of nothing into the picture, and the end ofit lay coiled and draped on the seat of the chair. The great dress wasof slate-coloured silk, with sleeves tight to the elbow, and thence, from a ribbon-bow, broadening to a wide, triangular climax that revealedquantities of lace at the wrists. The pointed ends of the sleeves werepicked out with squares of velvet. A short and highly ornamentalfringed and looped flounce waved grandly out behind from the waist tothe level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the ornamentation ofthe flounce; and both the stomacher and flounce gave contrasting valueto the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasise the qualityof the silk. Round the neck was a lace collarette to match thefurniture of the wrists, and the broad ends of the collarette werecrossed on the bosom and held by a large jet brooch. Above that you sawa fine regular face, with a firm hard mouth and a very straight nose anddark eyebrows; small ears weighted with heavy jet ear-rings. The photograph could not render the clear perfection of Aunt Clara'srosy skin; she had the colour and the flashing eye of a girl. But itdid justice to her really magnificent black hair. This hair was all herown, and the coiffure seemed as ample as a judge's wig. From the lowforehead the hair was parted exactly in the middle for about two inches;then plaited bands crossed and recrossed the scalp in profusion, formingbehind a pattern exceedingly complicated, and down either side of thehead, now behind the ear, now hiding it, now resting on the shoulders, now hanging clear of them, fell long multitudinous glossy curls. Thesecurls--one of them in the photograph reached as far as the stomacher--could not have been surpassed in Bursley. She was a woman of terrific vitality. Her dead sister had been nothingin comparison with her. She had a glorious digestion, and was the envyof her brother-in-law--who suffered much from biliousness--because shecould eat with perfect impunity hot buttered toast and raw celery inlarge quantities. Further, she had independent means, and no childrento cause anxieties. Yet she was always, as the phrase went, `bearingup, ' or, as another phrase went, `leaning hard. ' Frances RidleyHavergal was her favourite author, and Frances Ridley Havergal's littlebook Lean Hard, was kept on her dressing-table. (The girls, however, averred that she never opened it. ) Aunt Clara's spiritual life must beimagined as a continual, almost physical leaning on Christ. Nevertheless she never complained, and she was seldom depressed. Herdesire, and her achievement, was to be bright, to take everythingcheerfully, to look obstinately on the best side of things, and toinstil this religion into others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Thus, when it was announced that father had been called outunexpectedly, leaving an order that they were not to wait for him, shesaid gaily that they had better be obedient and begin, though it wouldhave been more agreeable to wait for father. And she said how beautifulthe tea was, and how beautiful the toast, and how beautiful thestrawberry-jam, and how beautiful the pikelets. She would herself poursome hot water into the slop basin, and put a pikelet on a platethereon, covered, to keep warm for father. She would not hear a wordabout the toast being a little hard, and when Maggie in her curiousquiet way `stuck her out' that the toast was in fact hard, she said thatthat precise degree of hardness was the degree which she, for herself, preferred. Then she talked of jams, and mentioned gooseberry-jam, whereupon Clara privately put her tongue out, with the quickness of asnake, to signal to Maggie. "Ours isn't good this year, " said Maggie. "I told auntie we weren't so set up with it, a fortnight ago, " saidClara simply, like a little angel. "Did you, dear?" Mrs Hamps exclaimed, with great surprise, almost withshocked surprise. "I'm sure it's beautiful. I was quite lookingforward to tasting it; quite! I know what your gooseberry-jam is. " "Would you like to try it now?" Maggie suggested. "But we've warnedyou. " "Oh, I don't want to trouble you now. We're all so cosy here. Anytime--" "No trouble, auntie, " said Clara, with her most captivating and innocentsmile. "Well, if you talk about `warning' me, of course I must insist on havingsome, " said Auntie Clara. Clara jumped up, passed behind Mrs Hamps, making a contemptuous face atthose curls as she did so, and ran gracefully down to the kitchen. "Here, " she said crossly to Mrs Nixon. "A pot of that gooseberry, please. A small one will do. She knows it's short of sugar, and soshe's determined to try it, just out of spite; and nothing will stopher. " Clara returned smiling to the tea-table, and Maggie neatly unsealed thejam; and Auntie Clara, with a face beaming with pleasurableanticipation, helped herself circumspectly to a spoonful. "Beautiful!" she murmured. "Don't you think it's a bit tart?" Maggie asked. "Oh no!" protestingly. "Don't you?" asked Clara, with an air of delighted deferentialastonishment. "Oh no!" Mrs Hamps repeated. "It's beautiful!" She did not smack herlips over it, because she would have considered it unladylike to smackher lips, but by less offensive gestures she sought to convey herunbounded pleasure in the jam. "How much sugar did you put in?" sheinquired after a while. "Half and half?" "Yes, " said Maggie. "They do say gooseberries were a tiny bit sour this year, owing to theweather, " said Mrs Hamps reflectively. Clara kicked Edwin under the table, as it were viciously, but herdelightful innocent smile, directed vaguely upon Mrs Hamps, did notrelax. Such duplicity passed Edwin's comprehension; it seemed to himpurposeless. Yet he could not quite deny that there might be a certainsting, a certain insinuation, in his auntie's last remark. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Then Mr Clayhanger entered, blowing forth a long breath as if trying torepulse the oppressive heat of the July afternoon. He came straight tothe table, with a slightly preoccupied air, quickly, his arms motionlessat his sides, and slanting a little outwards. Mr Clayhanger alwayswalked like this, with motionless arms so that in spite of a ratherclumsy and heavy step, the upper part of him appeared to glide along. He shook hands genially with Auntie Clara, greeting her almost asgrandiosely as she greeted him, putting on for a moment the grandmanner, not without dignity. Each admired the other. Each often saidthat the other was `wonderful. ' Each undoubtedly flattered the other, made a fuss of the other. Mr Clayhanger's admiration was the greater. The bitterest thing that Edwin had ever heard Maggie say was: "It'ssomething to be thankful for that she's his deceased wife's sister!"And she had said the bitter thing with such quiet bitterness! Edwin hadnot instantly perceived the point of it. Darius Clayhanger then sat down, with a thud, snatched at the cup of teawhich Maggie had placed before him, and drank half of it with aconsiderable in-drawing noise. No one asked where or why he had beendetained; it was not etiquette to do so. If father had been `calledaway, ' or had `had to go away, ' or was `kept somewhere, ' the detailswere out of deference allowed to remain in mystery, respected bycuriosity . .. `Father-business. ' . .. All business was sacred. Hehimself had inculcated this attitude. In a short silence the sound of the bell that the carman rang before thetram started for Hanbridge floated in through the open window. "There's the tram!" observed Auntie Clara, apparently with warm andspecial interest in the phenomena of the tram. Then another littlesilence. "Auntie, " said Clara, writhing about youthfully on her chair. "Can't ye sit still a bit?" the father asked, interrupting her roughly, but with good humour. "Ye'll be falling off th' chair in a minute. " Clara blushed swiftly, and stopped. "Yes, love?" Auntie Clara encouraged her. It was as if Auntie Clarahad said: "Your dear father is of course quite right, more than right, to insist on your sitting properly at table. However, do not take thecorrection too much to heart. I sympathise with all your difficulties. " "I was only going to ask you, " Clara went on, in a weaker, stammeringvoice, "if you knew that Edwin's left school to-day. " Her archness haddeserted her. "Mischievous little thing!" thought Edwin. "Why must she deliberatelygo and draw attention to that?" And he too blushed, feeling as if heowed an apology to the company for having left school. "Oh yes!" said Auntie Clara with eager benevolence. "I've got somethingto say about that to my nephew. " Mr Clayhanger searched in a pocket of his alpaca, and drew forth anopen envelope. "Here's the lad's report, auntie, " said he. "Happen ye'd like to lookat it. " "I should indeed!" she replied fervently. "I'm sure it's a very goodone. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. She took the paper, and assumed her spectacles. "Conduct--Excellent, " she read, poring with enthusiasm over thedocument. And she read again: "Conduct--Excellent. " Then she went downthe list of subjects, declaiming the number of marks for each; and atthe end she read: "Position in class next term: Third. Splendid, Eddy!"she exclaimed. "I thought you were second, " said Clara, in her sharp manner. Edwin blushed again, and hesitated. "Eh? What's that? What's that?" his father demanded. "I didn't noticethat. Third?" "Charlie Orgreave beat me in the examination, " Edwin muttered. "Well, that's a pretty how d'ye do!" said his father. "Going down one!Ye ought to ha' been first instead o' third. And would ha' been, happen, if ye'd pegged at it. " "Now I won't have that! I won't have it!" Auntie Clara protested, laughingly showing her fine teeth and gazing first at Darius, and thenat Edwin, from under her spectacles, her head being thrown back and thecurls hanging far behind. "No one shall say that Edwin doesn't work, not even his father, while his auntie's about! Because I know he doeswork! And besides, he hasn't gone down. It says, `position nextterm'--not this term. You were still second to-day, weren't you, myboy?" "I suppose so. Yes, " Edwin answered, pulling himself together. "Well! There you are!" Auntie Clara's voice rang triumphantly. Shewas opening her purse. "And there you are!" she repeated, popping halfa sovereign down in front of him. "That's a little present from yourauntie on your leaving school. " "Oh, auntie!" he cried feebly. "Oh!" cried Clara, genuinely startled. Mrs Hamps was sometimes thus astoundingly munificent. It was she whohad given the schooner to Edwin. And her presents of elaboratelyenveloped and costly toilet soap on the birthdays of the children, andat Christmas, were massive. Yet Clara always maintained that she wasthe meanest old thing imaginable. And Maggie had once said that sheknew that Auntie Clara made her servant eat dripping instead of butter. To give inferior food to a servant was to Maggie the unforgivable inparsimony. "Well, " Mr Clayhanger warningly inquired, "what do you say to youraunt?" "Thank you, auntie, " Edwin sheepishly responded, fingering the coin. It was a princely sum. And she had stuck up for him famously in thematter of the report. Strange that his father should not have read thereport with sufficient attention to remark the fall to third place!Anyway, that aspect of the affair was now safely over, and it seemed tohim that he had not lost much prestige by it. He would still be able toargue with his father on terms not too unequal, he hoped. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. As the tea drew to an end, and the plates of toast, bread and butter, and tea-cake grew emptier, and the slop-basin filled, and only Maggie'sflowers remained fresh and immaculate amid the untidy debris of themeal; and as Edwin and Clara became gradually indifferent to jam, andthen inimical to it; and as the sounds of the street took on the softerquality of summer evening, and the first filmy shades of twilightgathered imperceptibly in the corners of the room, and Mr Clayhangerperformed the eructations which signified that he had had enough; soMrs Hamps prepared herself for one of her classic outbursts of feeling. "Well!" she said at last, putting her spoon to the left of her cup as afinal indication that seriously she would drink no more. And she gave agreat sigh. "School over! And the only son going out into the world!How time flies!" And she gave another great sigh, implying an immensemelancholy due to this vision of the reality of things. Then sheremembered her courage, and the device of leaning hard, and all herphilosophy. "But it's all for the best!" she broke forth in a new brave tone. "Everything is ordered for the best. We must never forget that! AndI'm quite sure that Edwin will be a very great credit to us all, withhelp from above. " She proceeded powerfully in this strain. She brought in God, Christ, and even the Holy Spirit. She mentioned the dangers of the world, andthe disguises of the devil, and the unspeakable advantages of a goodhome, and the special goodness of Mr Clayhanger and of Maggie, yes, andof her little Clara; and the pride which they all had in Edwin, and theunique opportunities which he had of doing good, by example, and also, soon, by precept, for others younger than himself would begin to look upto him; and again her personal pride in him, and her sure faith in him;and what a solemn hour it was. .. Nothing could stop her. The girls loathed these exhibitions. Maggiealways looked at the table during their progress, and she felt as thoughshe had done something wrong and was ashamed of it. Clara not merelyfelt like a criminal--she felt like an unrepentant criminal; sheblushed, she glanced nervously about the room, and all the time sherepeated steadily in her heart a highly obscene word which she had heardat school. This unspoken word, hurled soundlessly but savagely at heraunt in that innocent heart, afforded much comfort to Clara in theaffliction. Even Edwin, who was more lenient in all ways than hissisters, profoundly deplored these moralisings of his aunt. They filledhim with a desire to run fast and far, to be alone at sea, or to be deepsomewhere in the bosom of the earth. He could not understand this sideof his auntie's individuality. But there was no delivery from MrsHamps. The only person who could possibly have delivered them seemed toenjoy the sinister thraldom. Mr Clayhanger listened with appreciativeand admiring nods; he appeared to be quite sincere. And Edwin could notunderstand his father either. "How simple father must be!" he thoughtvaguely. Whereas Clara fatalistically dismissed her father's attitudeas only one more of the preposterously unreasonable phenomena which shewas constantly meeting in life; and she persevered grimly with herobscene word. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. "Eh!" said Mrs Hamps enthusiastically, after a trifling pause. "Itdoes me good when I think what a help you'll be to your father in thebusiness, with that clever head of yours. " She gazed at him fondly. Now this was Edwin's chance. He did not wish to be any help at all tohis father in the business. He had other plans for himself He had nevermentioned them before, because his father had never talked to him abouthis future career, apparently assuming that he would go into thebusiness. He had been waiting for his father to begin. "Surely, " hehad said to himself "father's bound to speak to me sometime about whatI'm going to do, and when he does I shall just tell him. " But hisfather never had begun; and by timidity, negligence, and perhapsill-luck, Edwin had thus arrived at his last day at school with thesupreme question not merely unsolved but unattacked. Oh he blamedhimself! Any ordinary boy (he thought) would have discussed such aquestion naturally long ago. After all it was not a crime it was nocause for shame, to wish not to be a printer. Yet he was ashamed!Absurd! He blamed himself. But he also blamed his father. Now, however, in responding to his auntie's remark, he could remedy all thepast by simply and boldly stating that he did not want to follow hisfather. It would be unpleasant, of course, but the worst shock would beover in a moment, like the drawing of a tooth. He had merely to uttercertain words. He must utter them. They were perfectly easy to say, and they were also of the greatest urgency. "I don't want to be aprinter. " He mumbled them over in his mind. "I don't want to be aprinter. " What could it matter to his father whether he was a printeror not? Seconds, minutes, seemed to pass. He knew that if he was soinconceivably craven as to remain silent, his self-respect would neverrecover from the blow. Then, in response to Mrs Hamps's predictionabout his usefulness to his father in the business, he said, with afalse-jaunty, unconvinced, unconvincing air-- "Well, that remains to be seen. " This was all he could accomplish. It seemed as if he had looked deathitself in the face, and drawn away. "Remains to be seen?" Auntie Clara repeated, with a hint of startledpain, due to this levity. He was mute. No one suspected, as he sat there, so boyish, wistful, anduneasily squirming, that he was agonised to the very centre of hisbeing. All the time, in his sweating soul, he kept trying to persuadehimself: "I've given them a hint, anyhow! I've given them a hint, anyhow!" "Them" included everybody at the table. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. Mr Clayhanger, completely ignoring Edwin's reply to his aunt and hersomewhat shocked repetition of it, turned suddenly towards his son andsaid, in a manner friendly but serious, a manner that assumedeverything, a manner that begged the question, unconscious even thatthere was a question-- "I shall be out the better part o' to-morrow. I want ye to be sure tobe in the shop all afternoon--I'll tell you what for downstairs. " Itwas characteristic of him thus to make a mystery of business in front ofthe women. Edwin felt the net closing about him. Then he thought of one of those`posers' which often present themselves to youths of his age. "But to-morrow's Saturday, " he said, perhaps perkily. "What about theBible class?" Six months previously a young minister of the Wesleyan Circuit, to whomHeaven had denied both a sense of humour and a sense of honour, hadcommitted the infamy of starting a Bible class for big boys on Saturdayafternoons. This outrage had appalled and disgusted the boyhood ofWesleyanism in Bursley. Their afternoon for games, their only fairafternoon in the desert of the week, to be filched from them and usedagainst them for such an odious purpose as a Bible class! Not onlySunday school on Sunday afternoon, but a Bible class on Saturdayafternoon! It was incredible. It was unbearable. It was grosstyranny, and nothing else. Nevertheless the young minister had his way, by dint of meanly calling upon parents and invoking their help. Thescurvy worm actually got together a class of twelve to fifteen boys, tothe end of securing their eternal welfare. And they had to attend theclass, though they swore they never would, and they had to sing hymns, and they had to kneel and listen to prayers, and they had to listen tothe most intolerable tedium, and to take notes of it. All this, whilethe sun was shining, or the rain was raining, on fields and streets andopen spaces and ponds! Edwin had been trapped in the snare. His father, after only three wordsfrom the young minister, had yielded up his son like a burnt sacrifice--and with a casual nonchalance that utterly confounded Edwin. In vainEdwin had pointed out to his elders that a Saturday afternoon ofconfinement must be bad for his health. His attention had been directedto his eternal health. In vain he had pointed out that on wet Saturdayafternoons he frequently worked at his home-lessons, which thereforemight suffer under the regime of a Bible class. His attention had beendirected to the peace which passeth understanding. So he had beenbeaten, and was secretly twitted by Clara as an abject victim. Hence itwas with a keen and peculiar feeling of triumph, of hopelessly corneringthe inscrutable generation which a few months ago had cornered him, thathe demanded, perhaps perkily: "What about the Bible class?" "There'll be no more Bible classing, " said his father, with a mild butslightly sardonic smile, as who should say: "I'm ready to make allallowances for youth; but I must get you to understand, as gently as Ican, that you can't keep on going to Bible classes for ever and ever. " Mrs Hamps said-- "It won't be as if you were at school. But I do hope you won't neglectto study your Bible. Eh, but I do hope you'll always find time forthat, to your dying day!" "Oh--but I say--" Edwin began, and stopped. He was beaten by the mere effrontery of the replies. His father and hisaunt (the latter of whom at any rate was a firm and confessedreligionist, who had been responsible for converting Mr Clayhanger fromPrimitive Methodism to Wesleyan Methodism) did not trouble to defendtheir new position by argument. They made no effort to reconcile itwith their position of a few months back, when the importance ofheavenly welfare far exceeded the importance of any conceivable earthlywelfare. The fact was that they had no argument. If God tookprecedence of knowledge and of health, he took precedence of a peddlingshop! That was unanswerable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EIGHT. Edwin was dashed. His faith in humanity was dashed. These elders werenot sincere. And as Mrs Hamps continued to embroider the originaltheme of her exhortation about the Bible, Edwin looked at herstealthily, and the doubt crossed his mind whether that majestic andvital woman was ever sincere about anything, even to herself--whetherthe whole of her daily existence, from her getting-up to her down-lying, was not a grandiose pretence. Not that he had the least desire to cling to the Bible class, even as analternative to the shop! No! He was much relieved to be rid of theBible class. What overset him was the crude illogicality of the newdecree, and the shameless tacit admission of previous insincerity. Two hours later, as he stood idly at the window of his bedroom, watchingthe gas lamps of Trafalgar Road wax brighter in the last glooms oftwilight, he was still occupied with the sham and the unreason and thelack of scruple suddenly revealed in the life of the elder generation. Unconsciously imitating a trick of his father's when annoyed but calm, he nodded his head several times, and with his tongue against his teethmade the noise which in writing is represented by `tut-tut. ' Yetsomehow he had always known that it would be so. At bottom, he was onlypretending to himself to be shocked and outraged. His plans were no further advanced; indeed they were put back, for thisSaturday afternoon vigil in the shop would be in some sort a symbolictemporary defeat for him. Why had he not spoken out clearly? Why washe always like a baby in presence of his father? The future was allaskew for him. He had forgotten his tremendous serious resolves. Thetouch of the half-sovereign in his pocket, however, was comforting in auniverse of discomfort. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT. IN THE SHOP. "Here, lad!" said his father to Edwin, as soon as he had scraped up thelast crumbs of cheese from his plate at the end of dinner on thefollowing day. Edwin rose obediently and followed him out of the room. Having waitedat the top of the stairs until his father had reached the foot, heleaned forward as far as he could with one hand on the rail and theother pressing against the wall, swooped down to the mat at the bottom, without touching a single step on the way, and made a rocket-like noisewith his mouth, He had no other manner of descending the staircase, unless he happened to be in disgrace. His father went straight to thedesk in the corner behind the account-book window, assumed hisspectacles, and lifted the lid of the desk. "Here!" he said, in a low voice. "Mr Enoch Peake is stepping in thisafternoon to look at this here. " He displayed the proof--an unusuallyelaborate wedding card, which announced the marriage of Mr Enoch Peakewith Mrs Louisa Loggerheads. "Ye know him as I mean?" "Yes, " said Edwin, "The stout man. The Cocknage Gardens man. " "That's him. Well ye'll tell him I've been called away. Tell him whoye are. Not but what he'll know. Tell him I think it might bebetter"--Darius's thick finger ran along a line of print--"if weput--`widow of the late Simon Loggerheads Esquire, ' instead of--`Esq. 'See? Otherwise it's all right. Tell him I say as otherwise it's allright. And ask him if he'll have it printed in silver, and how many hewants, and show him this sample envelope. Now, d'ye understand?" "Yes, " said Edwin, in a tone to convey, not disrespectfully, that therewas nothing to understand. Curious, how his father had the air ofbracing all his intellect as if to a problem! "Then ye'll take it to Big James, and he can start Chawner on it. Th'job's promised for Monday forenoon. " "Will Big James be working?" asked Edwin, for it was Saturday afternoon, when, though the shop remained open, the printing office was closed. "They're all on overtime, " said Mr Clayhanger; and then he added, in avoice still lower, and with a surreptitious glance at Miss Ingamells, the shop-woman, who was stolidly enfolding newspapers in wrappers at theopposite counter, "See to it yourself, now. He won't want to talk toher about a thing like that. Tell him I told you specially. Just letme see how well ye can do it. " "Right!" said Edwin; and to himself, superciliously: "It might be lifeand death. " "We ought to be doing a lot o' business wi' Enoch Peake, later on, " MrClayhanger finished, in a whisper. "I see, " said Edwin, impressed, perceiving that he had perhaps beensupercilious too soon. Mr Clayhanger returned his spectacles to their case, and taking his hatfrom its customary hook behind him, over the job-files, consulted hiswatch and passed round the counter to go. Then he stopped. "I'm going to Manchester, " he murmured confidentially. "To see if I canpick up a machine as I've heard of. " Edwin was flattered. At the dinner-table Mr Clayhanger had onlyvouchsafed that he had a train to catch, and would probably not be intill late at night. The next moment he glimpsed Darius through the window, his armsmotionless by his sides and sticking slightly out; hurrying in thesunshine along Wedgwood Street in the direction of Shawport station. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. So this was business! It was not the business he desired and meant tohave; and he was uneasy at the extent to which he was already entangledin it; but it was rather amusing, and his father had really been veryfriendly. He felt a sense of importance. Soon afterwards Clara ran into the shop to speak to Miss Ingamells. Thetwo chatted and giggled together. "Father's gone to Manchester, " he found opportunity to say to Clara asshe was leaving. "Why aren't you doing those prizes he told you to do?" retorted Clara, and vanished, She wanted none of Edwin's superior airs. During dinner Mr Clayhanger had instructed his son to go through theSunday school prize stock and make an inventory of it. This injunction from the child Clara, which Miss Ingamells had certainlyoverheard, prevented him, as an independent man, from beginning his workfor at least ten minutes. He whistled, opened his father's desk andstared vacantly into it, examined the pen-nib case in detail, and toreoff two leaves from the date calendar so that it should be ready forMonday. He had a great scorn for Miss Ingamells, who was a personableif somewhat heavy creature of twenty-eight, because she kept companywith a young man. He had caught them arm-in-arm and practically huggingeach other, one Sunday afternoon in the street. He could see naught butsilliness in that kind of thing. The entrance of a customer caused him to turn abruptly to the highshelves where the books were kept. He was glad that the customer wasnot Mr Enoch Peake, the expectation of whose arrival made him curiouslynervous. He placed the step-ladder against the shelves, climbed up, andbegan to finger volumes and parcels of volumes. The dust wasincredible. The disorder filled him with contempt. It was astoundingthat his father could tolerate such disorder; no doubt the whole shopwas in the same condition. "Thirteen Archie's Old Desk, " he read on aparcel, but when he opened the parcel he found seven "From Jest toEarnest. " Hence he had to undo every parcel. However, the work waseasy. He first wrote the inventory in pencil, then he copied it in ink;then he folded it, and wrote very carefully on the back, because hisfather had a mania for endorsing documents in the legal manner:"Inventory of Sunday school prize stock. " And after an instant'shesitation he added his own initials. Then he began to tie up andrestore the parcels and the single volumes. None of all this literaturehad any charm for him. He possessed five or six such books, all giltand chromatic, which had been awarded to him at Sunday school, `suitablyinscribed, ' for doing nothing in particular; and he regarded themwithout exception as frauds upon boyhood. However, Clara had alwaysenjoyed reading them. But lying flat on one of the top shelves hediscovered, nearly at the end of his task, an oblong tome which didinterest him: "Cazenove's Architectural Views of European Capitals, withdescriptive letterpress. " It had an old-fashioned look, and wasprobably some relic of his father's predecessor in the establishment. Another example of the lack of order which prevailed! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He took the volume to the retreat of the desk, and there turned over itspages of coloured illustrations. At first his interest in them, and inthe letterpress, was less instinctive than deliberate. He said tohimself: "Now, if there is anything in me, I ought really to beinterested in this, and I must be interested in it. " And he was. Heglanced carelessly at the clock, which was hung above the shelves ofexercise-books and notebooks, exactly opposite the door. A quarter pastfour. The afternoon was quietly passing, and he had not found it tootedious. In the background of the task which (he considered) he hadaccomplished with extraordinary efficiency, his senses noted faintly thecontinual trickle of customers, all of whom were infallibly drawn toMiss Ingamells's counter by her mere watchful and receptive appearance. He had heard phrases and ends of phrases, such as: "No, we haven'tanything smaller, " "A camel-hair brush, " "Gum but not glue, " "Verysorry, sir. I'll speak firmly to the paper boy, " and the sound of coinsdragged along the counter, the sound of the testing of half a sovereign, the opening and shutting of the till-drawer; and occasionally MissIngamells exclaiming to herself upon the stupidity of customers after acustomer had gone; and once Miss Ingamells crossing angrily to fix thedoor ajar which some heedless customer had closed: "Did they supposethat people didn't want air like other people?" And now it was aquarter past four. Undoubtedly he had a peculiar, and pleasant, feelingof importance. In another half-minute he glanced at the clock again, and it was a quarter to five. What hypnotism attracted him towards the artists' materials cabinetwhich stood magnificent, complicated, and complete in the middle of theshop, like a monument? His father, after one infantile disastrous raid, had absolutely forbidden any visitation of that cabinet, with its glasscase of assorted paints, crayons, brushes and pencils, and itsinnumerable long drawers full of paper and cards and wondrous perfectlyequipped boxes, and T-squares and set-squares, with a hundred othercontrivances. But of course the order had now ceased to have force. Edwin had left school; and, if he was not a man, he was certainly not aboy. He began to open the drawers, at first gingerly, then boldly;after all it was no business of Miss Ingamells's! And, to be just, MissIngamells made no sort of pretence that it was any business of hers. She proceeded with her own business. Edwin opened a rather large woodenwater-colour box. It was marked five and sixpence. It seemed tocomprise everything needed for the production of the most entrancing andmajestic architectural views, and as Edwin took out its upper case anddiscovered still further marvellous devices and apparatus in itsbasement beneath, he dimly but passionately saw, in his heart, brightmasterpieces that ought to be the fruit of that box. There was a key toit. He must have it. He would have given all that he possessed for it, if necessary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "Miss Ingamells, " he said: and, as she did not look up immediately, "Isay, Miss Ingamells! How much does father take off in the shilling toauntie when she buys anything?" "Don't ask me, Master Edwin, " said Miss Ingamells; "I don't know, Howshould I know?" "Well, then, " he muttered, "I shall pay full price for it--that's all. "He could not wait, and he wanted to be on the safe side. Miss Ingamells gave him change for his half-sovereign in a strictlyimpartial manner, to indicate that she accepted no responsibility. Andthe squaring of Edwin's shoulders conveyed to Miss Ingamells that headvised her to keep carefully within her own sphere, and not to makeimpertinent inquiries about the origin of the half-sovereign, which hecould see intrigued her acutely. He now owned the box; it was not a boxof colours, but a box of enchantment. He had had colour-boxes before, but nothing to compare with this, nothing that could have seemed magicalto anybody wiser than a very small boy. Then he bought somecartridge-paper; he considered that cartridge-paper would be good enoughfor preliminary experiments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. It was while he was paying for the cartridge-paper--he being, as wasindeed proper, on the customers' side of the counter--that a heavyloutish boy in an apron entered the shop, blushing. Edwin turned away. This was Miss Ingamells's affair. "If ye please, Mester Peake's sent me. He canna come in thisafternoon--he's got a bit o' ratting on--and will Mester Clayhanger stepacross to th' Dragon to-night after eight, with that there peeper[paper] as he knows on?" At the name of Peake, Edwin started. He had utterly forgotten thematter. "Master Edwin, " said Miss Ingamells drily. "You know all about that, don't you?" Clearly she resented that he knew all about that while shedidn't. "Oh! Yes, " Edwin stammered. "What did you say?" It was his firstpiece of real business. "If you please, Mester Peake sent me. " The messenger blundered throughhis message again word for word. "Very well. I'll attend to it, " said Edwin, as nonchalantly as hecould. Nevertheless he was at a loss what to do, simple though the situationmight have seemed to a person with an experience of business longer thanEdwin's. Just as three hours previously his father had appeared to bebracing all his intellect to a problem that struck Edwin as entirelysimple, so now Edwin seemed to be bracing all his intellect to anotheraspect of the same problem. Time, revenging his father! . .. What! Goacross to the Dragon and in cold blood demand Mr Enoch Peake, and thenparley with Mr Enoch Peake as one man with another! He had never beeninside the Dragon. He had been brought up in the belief that the Dragonwas a place of sin. The Dragon was included in the genericterm--`gin-palace, ' and quite probably in the Siamese-twinterm--`gaming-saloon. ' Moreover, to discuss business with Mr EnochPeake. .. Mr Enoch Peake was as mysterious to Edwin as, say, a Chinesemandarin! Still, business was business, and something would have to bedone. He did not know what. Ought he to go to the Dragon? His fatherhad not foreseen the possibility of this development. He instantlydecided one fundamental: he would not consult Miss Ingamells; no, noreven Maggie! There remained only Big James. He went across to see BigJames, who was calmly smoking a pipe on the little landing at the top ofthe steps leading to the printing office. Big James showed no astonishment. "You come along o' me to the Dragon to-night, young sir, at eighto'clock, or as soon after as makes no matter, and I'll see as you seeMr Enoch Peake. I shall be coming up Woodisun Bank at eight o'clock, or as soon after as makes no matter. You be waiting for me at the backgates there, and I'll see as you see Mr Enoch Peake. " "Are you going to the Dragon?" "Am I going to the Dragon, young sir!" exclaimed Big James, in hismajestic voice. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINE. THE TOWN. James Yarlett was worthy of his nickname. He stood six feet four and ahalf inches in height, and his girth was proportionate; he had enormoushands and feet, large features, and a magnificent long dark brown beard;owing to this beard his necktie was never seen. But the mostmagnificent thing about him was his bass voice, acknowledged to be thefinest bass in the town, and one of the finest even in Hanbridge, where, in his earlier prime, James had lived as a `news comp' on the"Staffordshire Signal. " He was now a `jobbing comp' in Bursley, becauseBursley was his native town and because he preferred jobbing. He madethe fourth and heaviest member of the celebrated Bursley Male GleeParty, the other three being Arthur Smallrice, an old man with astriking falsetto voice, Abraham Harracles, and Jos Rawnpike (pronouncedRampick). These men were accustomed to fame, and Big James was the kingof them, though the mildest. They sang at dinners, free-and-easies, concerts, and Martinmas tea-meetings. They sang for the glory, and whenthere was no demand for their services, they sang to themselves, for thesake of singing. Each of them was a star in some church or chapelchoir. And except Arthur Smallrice, they all shared a certainelasticity of religious opinion. Big James, for example, had varied inten years from Wesleyan, through Old Church, to Roman Catholic up atBleakridge. It all depended on niceties in the treatment accorded tohim, and on the choice of anthems. Moreover, he liked a change. He was what his superiors called `a very superior man. ' Owing to themore careful enunciation required in singing, he had lost a great dealof the Five Towns accent, and one cannot be a compositor for a quarterof a century without insensibly acquiring an education and a store ofknowledge far excelling the ordinary. His manner was gentle, andperhaps somewhat pompous, as is common with very big men; but you couldnever be sure whether an extremely subdued humour did not underlie hispomposity. He was a bachelor, aged forty-five, and lived quietly with amarried sister at the bottom of Woodisun Bank, near the NationalSchools. The wonder was that, with all his advantages, he had not moredeeply impressed himself upon Bursley as an individuality, and notmerely as a voice. But he seemed never to seek to do so. He waswithout ambition; and, though curiously careful sometimes aboutpreserving his own dignity, and beyond question sensitive bytemperament, he showed marked respect, and even humility, to theworldly-successful. Despite his bigness and simplicity there wassomething small about him which came out in odd trifling details. Thusit was characteristic of Big James to ask Edwin to be waiting for him atthe back gates in Woodisun Bank when he might just as easily have methim at the side door by the closed shop in Wedgwood Street. Edwin, who from mere pride had said nothing to his sisters about theimpending visit to the Dragon, was a little surprised and dashed to seeBig James in broadcloth and a high hat; for he had not dreamed ofchanging his own everyday suit, nor had it occurred to him that theDragon was a temple of ceremoniousness. Big James looked enormous. Thewide lapel of his shining frock-coat was buttoned high up under hisbeard and curved downwards for a distance of considerably more than ayard to his knees: it was a heroic frock-coat. The sleeves were wide, but narrowing at the wrists, and the white wristbands were very tight. The trousers fell in ample folds on the uppers of the gigantic boots. Big James had a way of sticking out his chest and throwing his head backwhich would have projected the tip of his beard ten inches forth fromhis body, had the beard been stiff; but the soft silkiness of the beardfrustrated this spectacular phenomenon which would have been veryinteresting to witness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The pair stepped across Trafalgar Road together, Edwin, though he triedto be sedate, nothing but a frisking morsel by the side of the vastmonument. Compared with the architectural grandeur of Mr Varlett, histhin, supple, free-moving limbs had an almost pathetic appearance ofephemeral fragility. Big James directed himself to the archway leading to the Dragon stables, and there he saw an ostler or oddman. Edwin, feeling the imminence ofan ordeal, surreptitiously explored a pocket to be sure that the proofof the wedding-card was safely there. The ostler raised his reddish eyebrows to Big James. Big James jerkedhis head to one side, indicating apparently the entire Dragon, andsimultaneously conveying a query. The ostler paused immobile an instantand then shook his insignificant turnip-pate. Big James turned away. No word had been spoken; nevertheless, the men had exchanged a dialoguewhich might be thus put into words-- "I wasn't thinking to see ye so soon, " from the ostler. "Then nobody of any importance has yet gone into the assembly room?"from Big James. "Nobody worth speaking of, and won't, for a while, " from the other. "Then I'll take a turn, " from Big James. The latter now looked down at Edwin, and addressed him in words-- "Seemingly we're too soon, Mr Edwin. What do you say to a turn roundthe town--playground way? I doubted we should be too soon. " Edwin showed alacrity. As a schoolboy it had been definitely forbiddento him to go out at night; and unless sent on a special and hurriederrand, he had scarcely seen the physiognomy of the streets after eighto'clock. He had never seen the playground in the evening. And thisevening the town did not seem like the same town; it had become a newand mysterious town of adventure. And yet Edwin was not fifty yardsaway from his own bedroom. They ascended Duck Bank together, Edwin proud to be with a celebrity ofthe calibre of Big James, and Big James calmly satisfied to show himselfthus formally with his master's son. It appeared almost incredible thatthose two immortals, so diverse, had issued from the womb practicallyalike; that a few brief years on the earth had given Big James such atremendous physical advantage. Several hours' daily submission to theexact regularities of lines of type and to the unvarying demands ofminutely adjusted machines in motion had stamped Big James's body andmind with the delicate and quasi-finicking preciseness whichcharacterises all compositors and printers; and the continual monotonousperformance of similar tasks that employed his faculties while neverabsorbing or straining them, had soothed and dulled the fever of life inhim to a beneficent calm, a calm refined and beautified by thepleasurable exercise of song. Big James had seldom known a violentemotion. He had craved nothing, sought for nothing, and lost nothing. Edwin, like Big James in progress from everlasting to everlasting, wasall inchoate, unformed, undisciplined, and burning with capriciousfires; all expectant, eager, reluctant, tingling, timid, innocently andwistfully audacious. By taking the boy's hand, Big James might havepoetically symbolised their relation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "Are you going to sing to-night at the Dragon, Mr Yarlett?" askedEdwin. He lengthened his step to Big James's, controlled his ardentbody, and tried to remember that he was a man with a man. "I am, young sir, " said Big James. "There is a party of us. " "Is it the Male Glee Party?" Edwin pursued. "Yes, Mr Edwin. " "Then Mr Smallrice will be there?" "He will, Mr Edwin. " "Why can Mr Smallrice sing such high notes?" Big James slowly shook his head, as Edwin looked up at him. "I tell youwhat it is, young sir. It's a gift, that's what it is, same as I cansing low. " "But Mr Smallrice is very old, isn't he?" "There's a parrot in a cage over at the Duck, there, as is eighty-fiveyears old, and that's proved by record kept, young sir. " "No!" protested Edwin's incredulity politely. "By record kept, " said Big James. "Do you often sing at the Dragon, Mr Yarlett?" "Time was, " said Big James, "when some of us used to sing there everynight, Sundays excepted, and concerts and whatnot excepted. Aye! Forhours and hours every night. And still do sometimes. " "After your work?" "After our work. Aye! And often till dawn in summer. One o'clock, twoo'clock, half-past two o'clock, every night. But now they say that thisnew Licensing Act will close every public-house in this town at eleveno'clock, and a straight-up eleven at that!" "But what do you do it for?" "What do we do it for? We do it to pass the time and the glass, youngsir. Not as I should like you to think as I ever drank, Mr Edwin. Onequart of ale I take every night, and have ever done; no more, no less. " "But"--Edwin's rapid, breaking voice interrupted eagerly the deepmajestic tones--"aren't you tired the next day? I should be!" "Never, " said Big James. "I get up from my bed as fresh as a daisy atsix sharp. And I've known the nights when my bed ne'er saw me. " "You must be strong, Mr Yarlett, my word!" Edwin exclaimed. Theserevelations of the habits and prowess of Big James astounded him. Hehad never suspected that such things went on in the town. "Aye! Middling!" "I suppose it's a free-and-easy at the Dragon, to-night, Mr Yarlett?" "In a manner of speaking, " said Big James. "I wish I could stay for it. " "And why not?" Big James suggested, and looked down at Edwin withhalf-humorous incertitude. Edwin shrugged his shoulders superiorly, indicating by instinct, inspite of himself, that possibly Big James was trespassing over thesocial line that divided them. And yet Big James's father would havecondescended to Edwin's grandfather. Only, Edwin now belonged to theemploying class, whilst Big James belonged to the employed. AlreadyEdwin, whose father had been thrashed by workmen whom a compositor wouldhesitate to call skilled--already Edwin had the mien natural to a ruler, and Big James, with dignified deference, would submit unresentingly tohis attitude. It was the subtlest thing. It was not that Edwinobscurely objected to the suggestion of his being present at thefree-and-easy; it was that he objected (but nicely, and with goodnature) to any assumption of Big James's right to influence him towardsan act that his father would not approve. Instead of saying, "Why not?"Big James ought to have said: "Nobody but you can decide that, as yourfather's away. " James ought to have been strictly impartial. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "Well, " said Big James, when they arrived at the playground, which laynorth of the covered Meat Market or Shambles, "it looks as if theyhadn't been able to make a start yet at the Blood Tub. " His tone wasmarked by a calm, grand disdain, as of one entertainer talking aboutanother. The Blood Tub, otherwise known as Snaggs's, was the centre of nocturnalpleasure in Bursley. It stood almost on the very spot where the jawboneof a whale had once lain, as a supreme natural curiosity. Itrepresented the softened manners which had developed out of the oldmedievalism of the century. It had supplanted the bear-pit and thecock-pit. It corresponded somewhat with the ideals symbolised by thenew Town Hall. In the tiny odorous beer-houses of all the undulating, twisting, reddish streets that surrounded the contiguous open spaces ofDuck Bank, the playground, the market-place, and Saint Luke's Square, the folk no longer discussed eagerly what chance on Sunday morning themunicipal bear would have against five dogs. They had progressed as faras a free library, boxing-gloves, rabbit-coursing, and the Blood Tub. This last was a theatre with wooden sides and a canvas roof, and itwould hold quite a crowd of people. In front of it was a platform, andan orchestra, lighted by oil flares that, as Big James and Edwinapproached, were gaining strength in the twilight. Leaning against theplatform was a blackboard on which was chalked the announcement of twoplays: "The Forty Thieves" (author unstated) and Cruikshank's "TheBottle. " The orchestra, after terrific concussions, fell silent, andthen a troupe of players in costume, cramped on the narrow trestleboards, performed a sample scene from "The Forty Thieves, " just to givethe crowd in front an idea of the wonders of this powerful work. Andfour thieves passed and repassed behind the screen hiding the doors, andreappeared nine times as four fresh thieves until the tale of forty wascomplete. And then old Hammerad, the beloved clown who played the drum(and whose wife kept a barber's shop in Buck Row and shaved for apenny), left his drum and did two minutes' stiff clowning, and then theorchestra burst forth again, and the brazen voice of old Snaggs (in hismoleskin waistcoat) easily rode the storm, adjuring the folk to walk upand walk up: which some of the folk did do. And lastly the band played"God Save the Queen, " and the players, followed by old Snaggs, processionally entered the booth. "I lay they come out again, " said Big James, with grim blandness. "Why?" asked Edwin. He was absolutely new to the scene. "I lay they haven't got twenty couple inside, " said Big James. And in less than a minute the troupe did indeed emerge, and old Snaggsexpostulated with a dilatory public, respectfully but firmly. It hadbeen a queer year for Mr Snaggs. Rain had ruined the Wakes; rain hadruined everything; rain had nearly ruined him. July was obviously not amonth in which a self-respecting theatre ought to be open, but MrSnaggs had got to the point of catching at straws. He stated that inorder to prove his absolute bona fides the troupe would now give a scenefrom that world-renowned and unique drama, "The Bottle, " after which theperformance really would commence, since he could not as a gentlemankeep his kind patrons within waiting any longer. His habit, whichemphasised itself as he grew older, was to treat the staring crowd infront of his booth like a family of nephews and nieces. The device wasquite useless, for the public's stolidity was impregnable. It touchedthe heroic. No more granitic and crass stolidity could have beendiscovered in England. The crowd stood; it exercised no other functionof existence. It just stood, and there it would stand until convincedthat the gratis part of the spectacle was positively at an end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. With a ceremonious gesture signifying that he assumed the young sir'sconsent, Big James turned away. He had displayed to Edwin the povertyand the futility of the Blood Tub. Edwin would perhaps have liked tostay. The scenes enacted on the outer platform were certainly tingedwith the ridiculous, but they were the first histrionics that he hadever witnessed; and he could not help thinking, hoping, in spite of hiscommon sense, that within the booth all was different, miraculouslytransformed into the grand and the impressive. Left to himself, hewould surely have preferred an evening at the Blood Tub to a businessinterview with Mr Enoch Peake at the Dragon. But naturally he had toscorn the Blood Tub with a scorn equal to the massive and silent scornof Big James. And on the whole he considered that he was behaving as aman with another man rather well. He sought by depreciatory remarks tokeep the conversation at its proper adult level. Big James led him through the market-place, where a few vegetable, tripe, and gingerbread stalls--relics of the day's market--were stillattracting customers in the twilight. These slatternly and picturesquegroups, beneath their flickering yellow flares, were encamped at thegigantic foot of the Town Hall porch as at the foot of a precipice. Themonstrous black walls of the Town Hall rose and were merged in gloom;and the spire of the Town Hall, on whose summit stood a gold angelholding a gold crown, rose right into the heavens and was there lost. It was marvellous that this town, by adding stone to stone, had uprearedthis monument which, in expressing the secret nobility of its ideals, dwarfed the town. On every side of it the beer-houses, full of adulled, savage ecstasy of life, gleamed brighter than the shops. BigJames led Edwin down through the mysteries of the Cock Yard and up alongBugg's Gutter, and so back to the Dragon. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN. FREE AND EASY. When Edwin, shyly, followed Big James into the assembly room of theDragon, it already held a fair sprinkling of men, and newcomerscontinued to drop in. They were soberly and respectably clothed, thougha few had knotted handkerchiefs round their necks instead of collars andties. The occasion was a jollity of the Bursley Mutual Burial Club. This Club, a singular example of that dogged private co-operativeenterprise which so sharply distinguishes English corporate life fromthe corporate life of other European countries, had lustily survivedfrom a period when men were far less sure of a decent burial than theywere then, in the very prosperous early seventies. It had helped tomaintain the barbaric fashion of ostentatiously expensive funerals, outof which undertakers and beer-sellers made vast sums; but it had alsoprovided a basis of common endeavour and of fellowship. And itsrespectability was intense, and at the same time broad-minded. To be anestablished subscriber to the Burial Club was evidence of good characterand of social spirit. The periodic jollities of this company of menwhose professed aim was to bury each other, had a high reputation forexcellence. Up till a year previously they had always been held at theDuck, in Duck Square, opposite; but Mr Enoch Peake, Chairman of theClub, had by persistent and relentless chicane, triumphing over immenseinfluences, changed their venue to the Dragon, whose landlady, MrsLouisa Loggerheads, he was then courting. (It must be stated that MrsLouisa's name contained no slur of cantankerousness; it is merely thelocal word for a harmless plant, the knapweed. ) He had now won MrsLoggerheads, after being a widower thrice, and with her the second best`house' in the town. There were long benches down the room, with forms on either side ofthem. Big James, not without pomp, escorted a blushing Edwin to the endof one of these tables, near a small raised platform that occupied theextremity of the room. Over this platform was printed a legend: "As abird is known by its note--"; and over the legend was a full-rigged shipin a glass case, and a pair of antlers. The walls of the room were darkbrown, the ceiling grey with soot of various sorts, and the floor tiledred-and-black and sanded. Smoke rose in spirals from about a score ofchurchwarden pipes and as many cutties, which were charged from tinpouches, and lighted by spills of newspaper from the three doublegas-jets that hung down over the benches. Two middle-aged women, one inblack and the other checked, served beer, porter, and stout in mugs, andgin in glasses, passing in and out through a side door. The companytalked little, and it had not yet begun seriously to drink; but, sprawled about in attitudes of restful abeyance, it was smokingreligiously, and the flat noise of solemn expectorations punctuated theminutes. Edwin was easily the youngest person present--the average ageappeared to be about fifty--but nobody's curiosity seemed to be muchstirred by his odd arrival, and he ceased gradually to blush. When, however, one of the women paused before him in silent question, and hehad to explain that he required no drink because he had only called fora moment about a matter of business, he blushed again vigorously. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Then Mr Enoch Peake appeared. He was a short, stout old man, with fathands, a red, minutely wrinkled face, and very small eyes. Greeted withthe respect due to the owner of Cocknage Gardens, a sporting resortwhere all the best foot-racing and rabbit-coursing took place, heaccepted it in somnolent indifference, and immediately took off his coatand sat down in cotton shirt-sleeves. Then he pulled out a redhandkerchief and his tobacco-box, and set them on the table. Big Jamesmotioned to Edwin. "Evening, Mr Peake, " said Big James, crossing the floor, "and here's ayoung gent wishful for two words with you. " Mr Peake stared vacantly. "Young Mr Clayhanger, " explained Big James. "It's about this card, " Edwin began, in a whisper, drawing thewedding-card sheepishly from his pocket. "Father had to go toManchester, " he added, when he had finished. Mr Enoch Peake seized the card in both hands, and examined it; andEdwin could hear his heavy breathing. Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, a comfortable, smiling administrative woman offifty, showed herself at the service-door, and nodded with dignity to afew of the habitues. "Missis is at door, " said Big James to Mr Peake. "Is her?" muttered Mr Peake, not interrupting his examination of thecard. One of the serving-women, having removed Mr Peake's coat, brought a newchurch warden, filled it, and carefully directed the tip towards histight little mouth: the lips closed on it. Then she lighted a spill andapplied it to the distant bowl, and the mouth puffed; and then the womandeposited the bowl cautiously on the bench. Lastly, she came with asmall glass of sloe gin. Mr Peake did not move. At length Mr Peake withdrew the pipe from his mouth, and after aninterval said-- "Aye!" He continued to stare at the card, now held in one hand. "And is it to be printed in silver?" Edwin asked. Mr Peake took a few more puffs. "Aye!" When he had stared further for a long time at the card, his hand movedslowly with it towards Edwin, and Edwin resumed possession of it. Mrs Louisa Loggerheads had now vanished. "Missis has gone, " said Big James. "Has her?" muttered Mr Peake. Edwin rose to leave, though unwillingly; but Big James asked him inpolite reproach whether he should not stay for the first song. Henodded, encouraged; and sat down. He did not know that the uppermostidea in Big James's mind for an hour past had been that Edwin would hearhim sing. Mr Peake lifted his glass, held it from him, approached his lipstowards it, and emptied it at a draught. He then glanced round and saidthickly-- "Gentlemen all, Mester Smallrice, Mester Harracles, Mester Rampick, andMester Yarlett will now oblige with one o' th' ould favourites. " There was some applause, a few coats were removed, and Mr Peake fixedhimself in a contemplative attitude. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Messrs. Arthur Smallrice, Abraham Harracles, Jos Rawnpike, and JamesYarlett rose, stepped heavily on to the little platform, and stood in aline with their hands in their pockets. "As a bird is known by itsnote--" was hidden by the rampart of their shoulders. They had nomusic. They knew the music; they had sung it a thousand times. Theyknew precisely the effects which they wished to produce, and the meansof production. They worked together like an inspired machine. MrArthur Smallrice gave a rapid glance into a corner, and from that cornera concertina spoke--one short note. Then began, with no hesitatingshuffling preliminaries nor mute consultations, the singing of thatclassic quartet, justly celebrated from Hull to Wigan and fromNorthallerton to Lichfield, "Loud Ocean's Roar. " The thing wasperformed with absolute assurance and perfection. Mr Arthur Smallricedid the yapping of the short waves on the foam-veiled rocks, and BigJames in fullest grandeur did the long and mighty rolling of the deep. It was majestic, terrific, and overwhelming. Many bars before the closeEdwin was thrilled, as by an exquisite and vast revelation. He tingledfrom head to foot. He had never heard any singing like it, or anysinging in any way comparable to it. He had never guessed that songheld such possibilities of emotion. The pure and fine essentialqualities of the voices, the dizzying harmonies, the fugal calls andresponses, the strange relief of the unisons, and above all the free, natural mien of the singers, proudly aware that they were producingsomething beautiful that could not be produced more beautifully, conscious of unchallenged supremacy, --all this enfevered him to anunprecedented and self-astonished enthusiasm. He murmured under his breath, as "Loud Ocean's Roar" died away and thelittle voices of the street supervened: "By Gad! By Gad!" The applause was generous. Edwin stamped and clapped with childlikeviolence and fury. Mr Peake slowly and regularly thumped one fist onthe bench, puffing the while. Glasses and mugs could be seen, but notheard, dancing. Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, Mr JosRawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, entirely inattentive to theacclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down. WhenEdwin caught Big James's eye he clapped again, reanimating the generalapproval, and Big James gazed at him with bland satisfaction. Mr EnochPeake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, asimmobile and brooding as an Indian god. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Edwin did not depart. He reflected that, even if his father should comehome earlier than the last train and prove curious, it would beimpossible for him to know the exact moment at which his son had beenable to have speech with Mr Enoch Peake on the important matter ofbusiness. For aught his father could ever guess he might have beenprevented from obtaining the attention of the chairman of theproceedings until, say, eleven o'clock. Also, he meant to present hisconduct to his father in the light of an enterprising and fearlessaction showing a marked aptitude for affairs. Mr Enoch Peake, whom hisfather was anxious to flatter, had desired his father's company at theDragon, and, to save the situation, Edwin had courageously gone instead:that was it. Besides, he would have stayed in any case. His mind was elevated abovethe fear of consequences. There was some concertina-playing, with a realistic imitation of churchbells borne on the wind from a distance; and then the Bursley PrizeHandbell Ringers (or Campanologists) produced a whole family of realbells from under a form, and the ostler and the two women arranged aspecial table, and the campanologists fixed their bells on it andthemselves round it, and performed a selection of Scotch and Irish airs, without once deceiving themselves as to the precise note which a chosenbell would emit when duly shaken. Singular as was this feat, it was far less so than a young man'sperformance of the ophicleide, a serpentine instrument that coiled roundand about its player, and when breathed into persuasively gave forthprodigious brassy sounds that resembled the night-noises of beasts ofprey. This item roused the Indian god from his umbilicalcontemplations, and as the young ophicleide player, somewhat breathless, passed down the room with his brazen creature in his arms, Mr EnochPeake pulled him by the jacket-tail. "Eh!" said Mr Enoch Peake. "Is that the ophicleide as thy father usedto play at th' owd church?" "Yes, Mr Peake, " said the young man, with bright respect. Mr Peake dropped his eyes again, and when the young man had gone, hemurmured, to his stomach-- "I well knowed it were th' ophicleide as his father used to play at th'owd church!" And suddenly starting up, he continued hoarsely, "Gentlemen all, Mr James Yarlett will now kindly oblige with `TheMiller of the Dee. '" And one of the women relighted his pipe and servedhim with beer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. Big James's rendering of "The Miller of the Dee" had been renowned inthe Five Towns since 1852. It was classical, hallowed. It was the onlypossible rendering of "The Miller of the Dee. " If the greatest bass inthe world had come incognito to Bursley and sung "The Miller of theDee, " people would have said, "Ah! But ye should hear Big James singit!" It suited Big James. The sentiments of the song were hissentiments; he expressed them with natural simplicity; but at the sametime they underwent a certain refinement at his hands; for even when hesang at his loudest Big James was refined, natty, and restrained. Hisinstinctive gentlemanliness was invincible and all-pervading. And thereal beauty and enormous power of his magnificent voice saved him by itsmere distinction from the charge of being finicking. The simple soundof the voice gave pleasure. And the simple production of that sound wasBig James's deepest joy. Amid all the expected loud applause the giantlooked naively for Edwin's boyish mad enthusiasm, and felt it; and wasthrilled, and very glad that he had brought Edwin. As for Edwin, Edwinwas humbled that he should have been so blind to what Big James was. Hehad always regarded Big James as a dull, decent, somewhat peculiarfellow in a dirty apron, who was his father's foreman. He had actuallytalked once to Big James of the wonderful way in which Maggie and Clarasang, and Big James had been properly respectful. But the singing ofMaggie and Clara was less than nothing, the crudest amateurism, comparedto these public performances of Big James's. Even the accompanyingconcertina was far more cleverly handled than the Clayhanger piano hadever been handled. Yes, Edwin was humbled. And he had a great wish tobe able to do something brilliantly himself--he knew not what. Theintoxication of the desire for glory was upon him as he sat amid thoseshirt-sleeved men, near the brooding Indian god, under a crawling bluishcanopy of smoke, gazing absently at the legend: "As a bird is known byits note--" After an interval, during which Mr Enoch Peake was roused more thanonce, a man with a Lancashire accent recited a poem entitled "The PatentHairbrushing Machine, " the rotary hairbrush being at that time anexceedingly piquant novelty that had only been heard of in the barbers'shops of the Five Towns, though travellers to Manchester could boastthat they had sat under it. As the principle of the new machine waseasily grasped, and the sensations induced by it easily imagined, therecitation had a success which was indicated by slappings of thighs andgreat blowings-off of mirth. But Mr Enoch Peake preserved histranquillity throughout it, and immediately it was over he announcedwith haste-- "Gentlemen all, Miss Florence Simcox--or shall us say Mrs Offlow, wifeof the gentleman who has just obliged--the champion female clog-dancerof the Midlands, will now oblige. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. These words put every man whom they surprised into a state of unusualanimation; and they surprised most of the company. It may be doubtedwhether a female clog-dancer had ever footed it in Bursley. Severalpublic-houses possessed local champions--of a street, of a village--butthese were emphatically not women. Enoch Peake had arranged this daringitem in the course of his afternoon's business at Cocknage Gardens, MrOfflow being an expert in ratting terriers, and Mrs Offlow happening tobe on a tour with her husband through the realms of her championship, atour which mingled the varying advantages derivable from terriers, recitations, and clogs. The affair was therefore respectable beyondcavil. Nevertheless when Florence shone suddenly at the service-door, theshortness of her red-and-black velvet skirts, and the undeniablecomplete visibility of her rounded calves produced an uneasy andagreeable impression that Enoch Peake, for a chairman of the MutualBurial Club, had gone rather far, superbly far, and that his moralascendancy over Louisa Loggerheads must indeed be truly astonishing. Louisa now stood gravely behind the dancer, in the shadow of thedoorway, and the contrast between her and Florence was in every waystriking enough to prove what a wonderful and mysterious man Enoch Peakewas. Florence was accustomed to audiences. She was a pretty, doll-likewoman, if inclined to amplitude; but the smile between those shakinggolden ringlets had neither the modesty nor the false modesty nor thedocility that Bursley was accustomed to think proper to the face ofwoman. It could have stared down any man in the place, except perhapsMr Peake. The gestures of Mr Offlow, and her gestures, as he arranged andprepared the surface of the little square dancing-board that was herthrone, showed that he was the husband of Florence Simcox rather thanshe the wife of Offlow the reciter and dog-fancier. Further, it was hisrole to play the concertina to her: he had had to learn the concertina--possibly a secret humiliation for one whose judgement in terriers wasnot excelled in many public-houses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. She danced; and the service-doorway showed a vista of open-mouthedscullions. There was no sound in the room, save the concertina and thechampion clogs. Every eye was fixed on those clogs; even the littleeyes of Mr Peake quitted the button of his waistcoat and burned likediamond points on those clogs. Florence herself chiefly gazed on thoseclogs, but occasionally her nonchalant petulant gaze would wander up anddown her bare arms and across her bosom. At intervals, with her ringedfingers she would lift the short skirt--a nothing, an imperceptibility, half an inch, with glance downcast; and the effect was profound, recondite, inexplicable. Her style was not that of a male dog-dancer, but it was indubitably clog-dancing, full of marvels to the connoisseur, and to the profane naught but a highly complicated series of woodennoises. Florence's face began to perspire. Then the concertina ceasedplaying, so that an undistracted attention might be given to thesupremely difficult final figures of the dance. And thus was rendered back to the people in the charming form of beautythat which the instinct of the artist had taken from the sordid uglinessof the people. The clog, the very emblem of the servitude and thesqualor of brutalised populations, was changed, on the light feet ofthis favourite, into the medium of grace. Few of these men but at sometime of their lives had worn the clog, had clattered in it throughwinter's slush, and through the freezing darkness before dawn, to themanufactory and the mill and the mine, whence after a day of labourunder discipline more than military, they had clattered back to theirlittle candle-lighted homes. One of the slatterns behind the doorwayactually stood in clogs to watch the dancer. The clog meant everythingthat was harsh, foul, and desolating; it summoned images of misery anddisgust. Yet on those feet that had never worn it seriously, it becamethe magic instrument of pleasure, waking dulled wits and forgottenaspirations, putting upon everybody an enchantment. .. And then, suddenly, the dancer threw up one foot as high as her head and broughttwo clogs down together like a double mallet on the board, and stoodstill. It was over. Mrs Louisa Loggerheads turned nervously away, pushing her servants infront of her. And when the society of mutual buriers had recovered fromthe startling shameless insolence of that last high kick, it gave therein to its panting excitement, and roared and stamped. Edwin wasstaggered. The blood swept into his face, a hot tide. He was ravished, but he was also staggered. He did not know what to think of Florence, the champion female clog-dancer. He felt that she was wondrous; he feltthat he could have gazed at her all night; but he felt that she had puthim under the necessity of reconsidering some of his fundamentalopinions. For example, he was obliged to admit within himself alessening of scorn for the attitude toward each other of Miss Ingamellsand her young man. He saw those things in a new light. And hereflected, dazzled by the unforeseen chances of existence: "Yesterday Iwas at school--and to-day I see this!" He was so preoccupied by his ownintimate sensations that the idea of applauding never occurred to him, until he perceived his conspicuousness in not applauding, whereupon heclapped self-consciously. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EIGHT. Miss Florence Simcox, somewhat breathless, tripped away, with simulatedcoyness and many curtseys. She had done her task, and as a woman shehad to go: this was a gathering of members of the Mutual Burial Club, amasculine company, and not meet for females. The men pulled themselvestogether, remembering that their proudest quality was a stoiccallousness that nothing could overthrow. They refilled pipes, orderedmore beer, and resumed the mask of invulnerable solemnity. "Aye!" muttered Mr Enoch Peake. Edwin, with a great effort, rose and walked out. He would have liked tosay good night to Big James; he did not deny that he ought to have doneso; but he dared not complicate his exit. On the pavement outside, inthe warm damp night, a few loitering listeners stood doggedly before anopen window, hearkening, their hands deep in their pockets, motionless. And Edwin could hear Mr Enoch Peake: "Gentlemen all, Mester ArthurSmallrice, Mester Abraham Harracles, Mester Jos Rampick, and MesterJames Yarlett--" VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN. SON AND FATHER. Later that evening, Edwin sat at a small deal table in the embrasure ofthe dormer window of the empty attic next to his bedroom. During theinterval between tea and the rendezvous with Big James he had formallyplanted his flag in that room. He had swept it out with a long-brush, while Clara stood at the door giggling at the spectacle and telling himthat he had no right thus to annex territory in the absence of theoverlord. He had mounted a pair of steps, and put a lot of lumberthrough a trap at the head of the stairs into the loft. And he had gota table, a lamp, and a chair. That was all that he needed for themoment. He had gone out to meet Big James with his head quite half-fullof this vague attic-project, but the night sights of Bursley, andespecially the music at the Dragon, and still more especially thedancing at the Dragon, had almost expelled the attic-project from hishead. When he returned unobtrusively into the house and learnt from adisturbed Mrs Nixon, who was sewing in the kitchen, that he wasunderstood to be in his new attic, and that his sisters had gone to bed, the enchantment of the attic had instantly resumed much of its powerover him, and he had hurried upstairs fortified with a slice of breadand half a cold sausage. He had eaten the food absently in gulps whilestaring at the cover of "Cazenove's Architectural Views of EuropeanCapitals, " abstracted from the shop without payment. Then he had pinnedpart of a sheet of cartridge-paper on an old drawing-board which hepossessed, and had sat down. For his purpose the paper ought to havebeen soaked and stretched on the board with paste, but that would havemeant a delay of seven or eight hours, and he was not willing to wait. Though he could not concentrate his mind to begin, his mind could not bereconciled to waiting. So he had decided to draw his picture in penciloutline, and then stretch the paper early on Sunday morning; it woulddry during chapel. His new box of paints, a cracked T-square, and someindia-rubber also lay on the table. He had chosen "View of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame Paris, from the Pontdes Arts. " It pleased him by the coloration of the old houses in frontof Notre-Dame, and the reflections in the water of the Seine, and theelusive blueness of the twin towers amid the pale grey clouds of aParisian sky. A romantic scene! He wanted to copy it exactly, torecreate it from beginning to end, to feel the thrill of producing eachwonderful effect himself. Yet he sat inactive. He sat and vaguelygazed at the slope of Trafalgar Road with its double row of yellowjewels, beautifully ascending in fire to the ridge of the horizon andthere losing itself in the deep and solemn purple of the summer night;and he thought how ugly and commonplace all that was, and how differentfrom all that were the noble capitals of Europe. Scarcely a sound camethrough the open window; song doubtless still gushed forth at theDragon, and revellers would not for hours awake the street on their wayto the exacerbating atmosphere of home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. He had no resolution to take up the pencil. Yet after the Male GleeParty had sung "Loud Ocean's Roar, " he remembered that he had had a mostclear and distinct impulse to begin drawing architecture at once, and todo something grand and fine, as grand and fine as the singing, somethingthat would thrill people as the singing thrilled. If he had not rushedhome instantly it was solely because he had been held back by thestronger desire to hear more music and by the hope of further novel andexciting sensations. But Florence the clog-dancer had easily divertedthe seeming-powerful current of his mind. He wanted as much as ever todo wondrous things, and to do them soon, but it appeared to him that hemust think out first the enigmatic subject of Florence, Never had heseen any female creature as he saw her, and ephemeral images of her werecontinually forming and dissolving before him. He could come to noconclusion at all about the subject of Florence. Only his boyish pridewas gradually being beaten back by an oncoming idea that up to that veryevening he had been a sort of rather silly kid with no eyes in his head. It was in order to ignore for a time this unsettling and humiliatingidea that, finally, he began to copy the outlines of the Parisian sceneon his cartridge-paper. He was in no way a skilled draughtsman, but hehad dabbled in pencils and colours, and he had lately picked up from ahandbook the hint that in blocking out a drawing the first thing to dowas to observe what points were vertically under what points, and whatpoints horizontal with what points. He seemed to see the whole secretof draughtsmanship in this priceless counsel, which, indeed, with anelementary knowledge of geometry acquired at school, and the familiarityof his fingers with a pencil, constituted the whole of his technicalequipment. All the rest was mere desire. Happily the architecturalnature of the subject made it more amenable than, say, a rural landscapeto the use of a T-square and common sense. And Edwin considered that hewas doing rather well until, quitting measurements and rulings, hearrived at the stage of drawing the detail of the towers. Then at oncethe dream of perfect accomplishment began to fade at the edges, and thecrust of faith to yield ominously. Each stroke was a falling-away fromthe ideal, a blow to hope. And suddenly a yawn surprised him, and recalled him to the existence ofhis body. He thought: "I can't really be tired. It would be absurd togo to bed. " For his theory had long been that the notions of parentsabout bedtime were indeed absurd, and that he would be just asthoroughly reposed after three hours sleep as after ten. And now thathe was a man he meant to practise his theory so far as circumstancesallowed. He looked at his watch. It was turned half-past eleven. Adelicious wave of joy and of satisfaction animated him. He had neverbeen up so late, within his recollection, save on a few occasions wheneven infants were allowed to be up late. He was alone, secreted, masterof his time and his activity, his mind charged with novel impressions, and a congenial work in progress. Alone? . .. It was as if he wasspiritually alone in the vast solitude of the night. It was as if hecould behold the unconscious forms of all humanity, sleeping. Thisfeeling that only he had preserved consciousness and energy, that he wasthe sole active possessor of the mysterious night, affected him in themost exquisite manner. He had not been so nobly happy in his life. Andat the same time he was proud, in a childlike way, of being up so late. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He heard the door being pushed open, and he gave a jump and turned hishead. His father stood in the entrance to the attic. "Hello, father!" he said weakly, ingratiatingly. "What art doing at this time o' night, lad?" Darius Clayhangerdemanded. Strange to say, the autocrat was not angered by the remarkable sight infront of him. Edwin knew that his father would probably come home fromManchester on the mail train, which would stop to set down a passengerat Shawport by suitable arrangement. And he had expected that hisfather would go to bed, as usual on such evenings, after having eatenthe supper left for him in the sitting-room. His father's bedroom wasnext door to the sitting-room. Save for Mrs Nixon in a distant nook, Edwin had the attic floor to himself. He ought to have been as safefrom intrusion there as in the farthest capital of Europe. His fatherdid not climb the attic stairs once in six months. So that he hadregarded himself as secure. Still, he must have positively forgottenthe very existence of his father; he must have been `lost, ' otherwise hecould not but have heard the footsteps on the stairs. "I was just drawing, " said Edwin, with a little more confidence. He looked at his father and saw an old man, a man who for him had alwaysbeen old, generally harsh, often truculent, and seldom indulgent. Hesaw an ugly, undistinguished, and somewhat vulgar man (far lessdignified, for instance, than Big James); a man who had his way by forceand scarcely ever by argument; a man whose arguments for or against agiven course were simply pitiable, if not despicable. He sometimesindeed thought that there must be a peculiar twist in his father's brainwhich prevented him from appreciating an adverse point in a debate; hehad ceased to expect that his father would listen to reason. Latterlyhe was always surprised when, as to-night, he caught a glance of mildbenevolence on that face; yet he would never fail to respond to such amood eagerly, without resentment. It might be said that he regarded hisfather as he regarded the weather, fatalistically. No more than againstthe weather would he have dreamed of bearing malice against his father, even had such a plan not been unwise and dangerous. He was convincedthat his father's interest in him was about the same as the sun'sinterest in him. His father was nearly always wrapped in businessaffairs, and seemed to come to the trifling affairs of Edwin withdifficulty, as out of an absorbing engrossment. Assuredly he would have been amazed to know that his father had beenthinking of him all the afternoon and evening. But it was so. DariusClayhanger had been nervous as to the manner in which the boy wouldacquit himself in the bit of business which had been confided to him. It was the boy's first bit of business. Straightforward as it was, theboy might muddle it, might omit a portion of it, might say the wrongthing, might forget. Darius hoped for the best, but he was afraid. Hesaw in his son an amiable irresponsible fool. He compared Edwin atsixteen with himself at the same age. Edwin had never had a care, neversuffered a privation, never been forced to think for himself. (Dariusmight more justly have put it--never been allowed to think for himself. )Edwin had lived in cotton-wool, and knew less of the world than hisfather had known at half his years; much less. Darius was sure thatEdwin had never even come near suspecting the miracles which his fatherhad accomplished: this was true, and not merely was Edwin stupendouslyignorant, and even pettily scornful, of realities, but he was ignorantof his own ignorance. Education! . .. Darius snorted. To Darius itseemed that Edwin's education was like lying down in an orchard inlovely summer and having ripe fruit dropped into your mouth. .. A cockyinfant! A girl! And yet there was something about Edwin that hisfather admired, even respected and envied . .. An occasional gesture, anattitude in walking, an intonation, a smile. Edwin, his own son, had apersonal distinction that he himself could never compass. Edwin talkedmore correctly than his father. He thought differently from his father. He had an original grace. In the essence of his being he was superiorto both his father and his sisters. Sometimes when his father saw himwalking along the street, or coming into a room, or uttering some simplephrase, or shrugging his shoulders, Darius was aware of a faint thrill. Pride? Perhaps; but he would never have admitted it. An agreeableperplexity rather--a state of being puzzled how he, so common, hadbegotten a creature so subtly aristocratic . .. Aristocratic was theword. And Edwin seemed so young, fragile, innocent, and defenceless! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Darius advanced into the attic. "What about that matter of Enoch Peake's?" he asked, hoping and fearing, really anxious for his son. He defended himself against probabledisappointment by preparing to lapse into savage paternal pessimism anddisgust at the futility of an offspring nursed in luxury. "Oh! It's all right, " said Edwin eagerly. "Mr Peake sent word hecouldn't come, and he wanted you to go across to the Dragon thisevening. So I went instead. " It sounded dashingly capable. He finished the recital, and added that of course Big James had not beenable to proceed with the job. "And where's the proof?" demanded Darius. His relief expressed itselfin a superficial surliness; but Edwin was not deceived. As his fathergazed mechanically at the proof that Edwin produced hurriedly from hispocket, he added with a negligent air-- "There was a free-and-easy on at the Dragon, father. " "Was there?" muttered Darius. Edwin saw that whatever danger had existed was now over. "And I suppose, " said Darius, with assumed grimness, "if I hadn'thappened to ha' seen a light from th' bottom o' th' attic stairs Ishould never have known aught about all this here?" He indicated thecleansed attic, the table, the lamp, and the apparatus of art. "Oh yes, you would, father!" Edwin reassured him. Darius came nearer. They were close together, Edwin twisted on thecane-chair, and his father almost over him. The lamp smelt, and gaveoff a stuffy warmth; the open window, through which came a wanderingair, was a black oblong; the triangular side walls of the dormer shutthem intimately in; the house slept. "What art up to?" The tone was benignant. Edwin had not been ordered abruptly off to bed, with a reprimand for late hours and silly proceedings generally. Hesought the reason in vain. One reason was that Darius Clayhanger hadmade a grand bargain at Manchester in the purchase of a second-handprinting machine. "I'm copying this, " he replied slowly, and then all the details tumbledrashly out of his mouth, one after the other. "Oh, father! I foundthis book in the shop, packed away on a top shelf, and I want to borrowit. I only want to borrow it. And I've bought this paint-box, out ofauntie's half-sovereign. I paid Miss Ingamells the full price. .. Ithought I'd have a go at some of these architecture things. " Darius glared at the copy. "Humph!" "It's only just started, you know. " "Them prize books--have ye done all that?" "Yes, father. " "And put all the prices down, as I told ye?" "Yes, father. " Then a pause. Edwin's heart was beating hard. "I want to do some of these architecture things, " he repeated. Noremark from his father. Then he said, fastening his gaze intensely onthe table: "You know, father, what I should really like to be--I shouldlike to be an architect. " It was out. He had said it. "Should ye?" said his father, who attached no importance of any kind tothis avowal of a preference. "Well, what you want is a bit o' businesstraining for a start, I'm thinking. " "Oh, of course!" Edwin concurred, with pathetic eagerness, and added apiece of information for his father: "I'm only sixteen, aren't I?" "Sixteen ought to ha' been in bed this two hours and more. Off withye!" Edwin retired in an extraordinary state of relief and happiness. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWELVE. MACHINERY. Rather more than a week later, Edwin had so far entered into the life ofhis father's business that he could fully share the excitement caused byan impending solemnity in the printing office. He was somewhat pleasedwith himself, and especially with his seriousness. The memory of schoolwas slipping away from him in the most extraordinary manner. His onlyschool-friend, Charlie Orgreave, had departed, with all themultitudinous Orgreaves, for a month in Wales. He might have written tothe Sunday; the Sunday might have written to him: but the idea ofwriting did not occur to either of them; they were both stillsufficiently childlike to accept with fatalism all the consequences ofparental caprice. Orgreave senior had taken his family to Wales; theboys were thus separated, and there was an end of it. Edwin regrettedthis, because Orgreave senior happened to be a very successfularchitect, and hence there were possibilities of getting into anarchitectural atmosphere. He had never been inside the home of theSunday, nor the Sunday in his--a schoolboy friendship can flourish inperfect independence of home--but he nervously hoped that on the returnof the Orgreave regiment from Wales, something favourable to hisambitions--he knew not what--would come to pass. In the meantime he wasconscientiously doing his best to acquire a business training, as hisfather had suggested. He gave himself with an enthusiasm almostreligious to the study of business methods. All the force of hisresolve to perfect himself went for the moment into this immediateenterprise, and he was sorry that business methods were not morecomplex, mysterious, and original than they seemed to be: he was alsosorry that his father did not show a greater interest in his industryand progress. He no longer wanted to `play' now. He despised play. His unique wishwas to work. It struck him as curious and delightful that he reallyenjoyed work. Work had indeed become play. He could not do enough workto satisfy his appetite. And after the work of the day, scorning allsilly notions about exercise and relaxation, he would spend the eveningin his beautiful new attic, copying designs, which he would sometimesrise early to finish. He thought he had conquered the gross body, andthat it was of no account. Even the desolating failures which hiscopies invariably proved did not much discourage him; besides, one ofthem had impressed both Maggie and Clara. He copied with laboriousardour undiminished. And further, he masterfully appropriated Maggie'sticket for the Free Library, pending the preliminaries to the possessionof a ticket of his own, to procure a volume on architecture. Fromtimidity, from a singular false shame, he kept this volume in the attic, like a crime; nobody knew what the volume was. Evidence of a strangetrait in his character; a trait perhaps not defensible! He argued withhimself that having told his father plainly that he wanted to be anarchitect, he need do nothing else aggressive for the present. He hadagreed to the suggestion about business training, and he must be loyalto his agreement. He pointed out to himself how right his father was. At sixteen one could scarcely begin to be an architect; it was too soon;and a good business training would not be out of place in any career orprofession. He was so wrapped up in his days and his nights that he forgot toinquire why earthenware was made in just the Five Towns. He had growntoo serious for trifles--and all in about a week! True, he was feelingthe temporary excitement of the printing office, which was perhapsexpressed boyishly by the printing staff; but he reckoned that his shareof it was quite adult, frowningly superior, and in a strictly businesssense justifiable and even proper. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Darius Clayhanger's printing office was a fine example of the policy ofmakeshift which governed and still governs the commercial activity ofthe Five Towns. It consisted of the first floor of a nondescriptbuilding which stood at the bottom of the irregularly shaped yard behindthe house and shop, and which formed the southern boundary of theClayhanger premises. The antique building had once been part of anold-fashioned pot-works, but that must have been in the eighteenthcentury. Kilns and chimneys of all ages, sizes, and tints rose behindit to prove that this part of the town was one of the old manufacturingquarters. The ground-floor of the building, entirely inaccessible fromClayhanger's yard, had a separate entrance of its own in an alley thatbranched off from Woodisun Bank, ran parallel to Wedgwood Street, andstopped abruptly at the back gate of a saddler's workshop. In thenarrow entry you were like a creeping animal amid the undergrowth of aforest of chimneys, ovens, and high blank walls. This ground-floor hadbeen a stable for many years; it was now, however, a baker's storeroom. Once there had been an interior staircase leading from the ground-floorto the first-floor, but it had been suppressed in order to save floorspace, and an exterior staircase constructed with its foot inClayhanger's yard. To meet the requirement of the staircase, one of thefirst-floor windows had been transformed into a door. Further, as thestaircase came against one of the ground-floor windows, and asClayhanger's predecessor had objected to those alien windows overlookinghis yard, and as numerous windows were anyhow unnecessary to a stable, all the ground-floor windows had been closed up with oddments of brickand tile, giving to the wall a very variegated and chequered appearance. Thus the ground-floor and the first-floor were absolutely divorced, theformer having its entrance and light from the public alley, the latterfrom the private yard. The first-floor had been a printing office for over seventy years. Allthe machinery in it had had to be manoeuvred up the rickety stairs, orput through one of the windows on either side of the window that hadbeen turned into a door. When Darius Clayhanger, in his audacity, decided to print by steam, many people imagined that he would at last becompelled to rent the ground-floor or to take other premises. But no!The elasticity of the makeshift policy was not yet fully stretched. Darius, in consultation with a jobbing builder, came happily to theconclusion that he could `manage, ' that he could `make things do, ' byadding to the top of his stairs a little landing for an engine-shed. This was done, and the engine and boiler perched in the air; the shaftof the engine went through the wall; the chimney-pipe of the boiler ranup straight to the level of the roof-ridge, and was stayed with piecesof wire. A new chimney had also been pierced in the middle of the roof, for the uses of a heating stove. The original chimneys had been allowedto fall into decay. Finally, a new large skylight added interest to theroof. In a general way, the building resembled a suit of clothes thathad been worn, during four of the seven ages of man, by an untidyhusband with a tidy and economical wife, and then given by the wife to apoor relation of a somewhat different figure to finish. All that couldbe said of it was that it survived and served. But these considerations occurred to nobody. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Edwin, quite unaware that he was an instrument in the hands of hisAuntie Clara's Providence, left the shop without due excuse and passeddown the long blue-paved yard towards the printing office. He imaginedthat he was being drawn thither simply by his own curiosity--acuriosity, however, which he considered to be justifiable, and evenlaudable. The yard showed signs that the unusual had lately beenhappening there. Its brick pavement, in the narrow branch of it thatled to the double gates in Woodisun Bank (those gates which said to thecasual visitor, `No Admittance except on Business'), was muddy, littered, and damaged, as though a Juggernaut had passed that way. Ladders reclined against the walls. Moreover, one of the windows of theoffice had been taken out of its frame, leaving naught but an oblongaperture. Through this aperture Edwin could see the busy, eager formsof his father, Big James, and Chawner. Through this aperture had beenlifted, in parts and by the employment of every possible combination oflever and pulley, the printing machine which Darius Clayhanger had sosuccessfully purchased in Manchester on the day of the free-and-easy atthe Dragon. At the top of the flight of steps two apprentices, one nearly `out ofhis time, ' were ministering to the engine, which that morning did nothappen to be running. The engine, giving glory to the entireestablishment by virtue of the imposing word `steam', was a crotchetyand capricious thing, constant only in its tendency to break down. Nomore reliance could be placed on it than on a pampered donkey. Sometimes it would run, and sometimes it would not run, but nobody couldsafely prophesy its moods. Of the several machines it drove but one, the grand cylinder, the last triumph of the ingenuity of man, and eventhat had to be started by hand before the engine would consent to workit. The staff hated the engine, except during those rare hours when oneof its willing moods coincided with a pressure of business. Then, whenthe steam was sputtering and the smoke smoking and the piston throbbing, and the leathern belt travelling round and round and the completebuilding a-tremble and a-clatter, and an attendant with clean hands wasfeeding the sheets at one end of the machine and another attendant withclean hands taking them off at the other, all at the rate of twentycopies per sixty seconds--then the staff loved the engine and meditatedupon the wonders of their modern civilisation. The engine had beenknown to do its five thousand in an afternoon, and its horse-power wasonly one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Edwin could not keep out of the printing office. He wentinconspicuously and, as it were, by accident up the stone steps, anddisappeared into the interior. When you entered the office you werefirst of all impressed by the multiplicity of odours competing for yourattention, the chief among them being those of ink, oil, and paraffin. Despite the fact that the door was open and one window gone, the smelland heat in the office on that warm morning were notable. Old sheets ofthe "Manchester Examiner" had been pinned over the skylight to keep outthe sun, but, as these were torn and rent, the sun was not kept out. Nobody, however, seemed to suffer inconvenience. After the odours, theremarkable feature of the place was the quantity of machinery on itsuneven floor. Timid employes had occasionally suggested to Darius thatthe floor might yield one day and add themselves and all the machineryto the baker's stores below; but Darius knew that floors never didyield. In the middle of the floor was a huge and heavy heating stove, whosepipe ran straight upwards to the visible roof. The mighty cylindermachine stood to the left hand. Behind was a small rough-and-readybinding department with a guillotine cutting machine, acardboard-cutting machine, and a perforating machine, trifles by theside of the cylinder, but still each of them formidable masses of metalheavy enough to crush a horse; the cutting machines might have served toillustrate the French Revolution, and the perforating machine the HolyInquisition. Then there was what was called in the office the `old machine, ' a relicof Clayhanger's predecessor, and at least eighty years old. It was oneof those machines whose worn physiognomies, full of character, show atonce that they have a history. In construction it carried solidity toan absurd degree. Its pillars were like the piles of a pier. Once, ina historic rat-catching, a rat had got up one of them, and a piece ofsmouldering brown paper had done what a terrier could not do. Themachine at one period of its career had been enlarged, and the neatseaming of the metal was an ecstasy to the eye of a good workman. Longago, it was known, this machine had printed a Reform newspaper atStockport. Now, after thus participating in the violent politics of anage heroic and unhappy, it had been put to printing small posters ofauctions and tea-meetings. Its movement was double: first that of ahandle to bring the bed under the platen, and second, a lever pulledover to make contact between the type and the paper. It still workedperfectly. It was so solid, and it had been so honestly made, that itcould never get out of order nor wear away. And, indeed, theconscientiousness and skill of artificers in the eighteenth century arestill, through that resistless machine, producing their effect in thetwentieth. But it needed a strong hand to bestir its smoothplum-coloured limbs of metal, and a speed of a hundred an hour meantgentle perspiration. The machine was loved like an animal. Near this honourable and lumbering survival stood pertly an Empiretreadle-machine for printing envelopes and similar trifles. It was new, and full of natty little devices. It worked with the lightness ofsomething unsubstantial. A child could actuate it, and it would printdelicately a thousand envelopes an hour. This machine, with the latestpurchase, which was away at the other end of the room near the largedouble-pointed case-rack, completed the tale of machines. Thatcase-rack alone held fifty different founts of type, and there wereother caseracks. The lead-rack was nearly as large, and beneath thelead-rack was a rack containing all those "furnitures" which help tohold a forme of type together without betraying themselves to the readerof the printed sheet. And under the furniture rack was the `random, 'full of galleys. Then there was a table with a top of solid stone, uponwhich the formes were bolted up. And there was the ink-slab, anothersolidity, upon which the ink-rollers were inked. Rollers of variousweightiness lay about, and large heavy cans, and many bottles, and metalgalleys, and nameless fragments of metal. Everything contributed to theimpression of immense ponderosity exceeding the imagination. The fancyof being pinned down by even the lightest of these constructions wasexcruciating. You moved about in narrow alleys among upstanding, unyielding metallic enormities, and you felt fragile and perilouslysoft. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. The only unintimidating phenomena in the crowded place were thelye-brushes, the dusty job-files that hung from the great transversebeams, and the proof-sheets that were scattered about. These printedthings showed to what extent Darius Clayhanger's establishment was achannel through which the life of the town had somehow to pass. Auctions, meetings, concerts, sermons, improving lectures, miscellaneousentertainments, programmes, catalogues, deaths, births, marriages, specifications, municipal notices, summonses, demands, receipts, subscription-lists, accounts, rate-forms, lists of voters, jury-lists, inaugurations, closures, bill-heads, handbills, addresses, visiting-cards, society rules, bargain-sales, lost and found notices:traces of all these matters, and more, were to be found in that office;it was impregnated with the human interest; it was dusty with the humaninterest; its hot smell seemed to you to come off life itself, if thereal sentiment and love of life were sufficiently in you. A grand, stuffy, living, seething place, with all its metallic immobility! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. Edwin sidled towards the centre of interest, the new machine, which, however, was not a new machine. Darius Clayhanger did not buy more newthings than he could help. His delight was to `pick up' articles thatwere supposed to be `as good as new'; occasionally he would even assertthat an object bought second-hand was `better than new, ' because it hadbeen `broken in, ' as if it were a horse. Nevertheless, the latestmachine was, for a printing machine, nearly new: its age was four yearsonly. It was a Demy Columbian Press, similar in conception and movementto the historic `old machine' that had been through the Reformagitation; but how much lighter, how much handier, how much moreingenious and precise in the detail of its working! A beautifuledifice, as it stood there, gazed on admiringly by the expert eyes ofDarius, in his shirt-sleeves, Big James, in his royally flowing apron, and Chawner, the journeyman compositor, who, with the two apprenticesoutside, completed the staff! Aided by no mechanic more skilled than aday-labourer, those men had got the machine piecemeal into the office, and had duly erected it. At that day a foreman had to be equal toanything. The machine appeared so majestic there, so solid and immovable, that itmight ever have existed where it then was. Who could credit that, lessthan a fortnight earlier, it had stood equally majestic, solid, andimmovable in Manchester? There remained nothing to show how the miraclehad been accomplished, except a bandage of ropes round the lower pillarsand some pulley-tackle hanging from one of the transverse beams exactlyoverhead. The situation of the machine in the workshop had been fixedpartly by that beam above and partly by the run of the beams thatsupported the floor. The stout roof-beam enabled the artificers tohandle the great masses by means of the tackle; and as for thefloor-beams, Darius had so far listened to warnings as to take them intoaccount. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. "Take another impress, James, " said Darius. And when he saw Edwin, instead of asking the youth what he was wasting his time there for, hegood-humouredly added: "Just watch this, my lad. " Darius was pleasedwith himself, his men, and his acquisition. He was in one of his moodswhen he could charm; he was jolly, and he held up his chin. Two daysbefore, so interested had he been in the Demy Columbian, he had actuallygone through a bilious attack while scarcely noticing it! And now thewhole complex operation had been brought to a triumphant conclusion. Big James inserted the sheet of paper, with gentle and fine movements. The journeyman turned the handle, and the bed of the machine slidhorizontally forward in frictionless, stately silence. And then BigJames seized the lever with his hairy arm bared to the elbow, and pulledit over. The delicate process was done with minute and levelexactitude; adjusted to the thirty-second of an inch, the great massesof metal had brought the paper and the type together and separated themagain. In another moment Big James drew out the sheet, and the threemen inspected it, each leaning over it. A perfect impression! "Well, " said Darius, glowing, "we've had a bit o' luck in getting thatup! Never had less trouble! Shows we can do better without thoseFoundry chaps than with 'em! James, ye can have a quart brought in, ifye'n a mind, but I won't have them apprentices drinking! No, I won't!Mrs Nixon'll give 'em some nettle-beer if they fancy it. " He was benignant. The inauguration of a new machine deserved solemnrecognition, especially on a hot day. It was an event. "An infant in arms could turn this here, " murmured the journeyman, toying with the handle that moved the bed. It was an exaggeration, butan excusable, poetical exaggeration. Big James wiped his wrists on his apron. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EIGHT. Then there was a queer sound of cracking somewhere, vague, faint, andyet formidable. Darius was standing between the machines and thedismantled window, his back to the latter. Big James and the journeymanrushed instinctively from the centre of the floor towards him. In asecond the journeyman was on the window sill. "What art doing?" Darius demanded roughly; but there was no sincerityin his voice. "Th' floor!" the journeyman excitedly exclaimed. Big James stood close to the wall. "And what about th' floor?" Darius challenged him obstinately. "One o' them beams is a-going, " stammered the journeyman. "Rubbish!" shouted Darius. But simultaneously he motioned to Edwin tomove from the middle of the room, and Edwin obeyed. All four listened, with nerves stretched to the tightest. Darius was biting his lower lipwith his upper teeth. His humour had swiftly changed to the savage. Every warning that had been uttered for years past concerning that floorwas remembered with startling distinctness. Every impatient reassuranceoffered by Darius for years past suddenly seemed fatuous and perverse. How could any man in his senses expect the old floor to withstand such aterrific strain as that to which Darius had at last dared to subject it?The floor ought by rights to have given way years ago! His men oughtto have declined to obey instructions that were obviously insane. Theseand similar thoughts visited the minds of Big James and the journeyman. As for Edwin, his excitement was, on balance, pleasurable. In truth, hecould not kill in his mind the hope that the floor would yield. Thegreatness of the resulting catastrophe fascinated him. He knew that heshould be disappointed if the catastrophe did not occur. That it wouldmean ruinous damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds, and enormousworry, did not influence him. His reason did not influence him, nor hispersonal danger. He saw a large hook in the wall to which he couldcling when the exquisite crash came, and pictured a welter of brokenmachinery and timber ten feet below him, and the immense pother that theaffair would create in the town. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NINE. Darius would not loose his belief in his floor. He hugged it in mutefury. He would not climb on to the window sill, nor tell Big James todo so, nor even Edwin. On the subject of the floor he was religious; hewas above the appeal of the intelligence. He had always heldpassionately that the floor was immovable, and he always would. He hadfinally convinced himself of its omnipotent strength by the long processof assertion and reassertion. When a voice within him murmured that hisbelief in the floor had no scientific basis, he strangled the voice. Sohe remained, motionless, between the window and the machine. No sound! No slightest sound! No tremor of the machine! But Darius'sbreathing could be heard after a moment. He guffawed sneeringly. "And what next?" he defiantly asked, scowling. "What's amiss wi' yeall?" He put his hands in his pockets. "Dun ye mean to tell me as--" The younger apprentice entered from the engine-shed. "Get back there!" rolled and thundered the voice of Big James. It wasthe first word he had spoken, and he did not speak it in frantic, hysteric command, but with a terrible and convincing mildness. Thephrase fell on the apprentice like a sandbag, and he vanished. Darius said nothing. There was another cracking sound, louder, andunmistakably beneath the bed of the machine. And at the same instant aflake of grimy plaster detached itself from the opposite wall anddropped into pale dust on the floor. And still Darius religiously didnot move, and Big James would not move. They might have been under aspell. The journeyman jumped down incautiously into the yard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TEN. And then Edwin, hardly knowing what he did, and certainly not knowingwhy he did it, walked quickly out on to the floor, seized the huge hookattached to the lower pulley of the tackle that hung from the roof-beam, pulled up the slack of the rope-bandage on the hind part of the machine, and stuck the hook into it, then walked quickly back. The hauling-ropeof the tackle had been carried to the iron ring of a trap-door in thecorner near Big James; this trap-door, once the outlet of the interiorstaircase from the ground floor, had been nailed down many yearspreviously. Big James dropped to his knees and tightened and knottedthe rope. Another and much louder noise of cracking followed, the floorvisibly yielded, and the hindpart of the machine visibly sank about aquarter of an inch. But no more. The tackle held. The strain wasdistributed between the beam above and the beam below, and equilibriumestablished. "Out! Lad! Out!" cried Darius feebly, in the wreck, not of hisworkshop, but of his religion. And Edwin fled down the steps, pushingthe mystified apprentices before him, and followed by the men. In theyard the journeyman, entirely self-centred, was hopping about on one legand cursing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ELEVEN. Darius, Big James, and Edwin stared in the morning sunshine at theaperture of the window and listened. "Nay!" said Big James, after an eternity. "He's saved it! He's savedth' old shop! But by gum--by gum--" Darius turned to Edwin, and tried to say something; and then Edwin sawhis father's face working into monstrous angular shapes, and saw thetears spurt out of his eyes, and was clutched convulsively in hisfather's shirt-sleeved arms. He was very proud, very pleased, but hedid not like this embrace; it made him feel ashamed. He thought howClara would have sniggered about it and caricatured it afterwards, hadshe witnessed it. And although he had incontestably done somethingwhich was very wonderful and very heroic, and which proved in him themost extraordinary presence of mind, he could not honestly glorifyhimself in his own heart, because it appeared to him that he had actedexactly like an automaton. He blankly marvelled, and thought thesituation agreeably thrilling, if somewhat awkward. His father let himgo. Then all Edwin's feelings gave place to an immense stupefaction athis father's truly remarkable behaviour. What! His father emotional!He had to begin to revise again his settled views. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN. ONE RESULT OF COURAGE. By the next morning a certain tranquillity was restored. It was only in this relative calm that the Clayhanger family and itsdependants began to realise the intensity of the experience throughwhich they had passed, and, in particular, the strain of waiting forevents after the printing office had been abandoned by its denizens, Therumour of what had happened, and of what might have happened, had spreadabout the premises in an instant, and in another instant all the womenhad collected in the yard; even Miss Ingamells had betrayed the sacredcharge of the shop. Ten people were in the yard, staring at the windowaperture on the first-floor and listening for ruin. Some time hadelapsed before Darius would allow anybody even to mount the steps. Thenthe baker, the tenant of the ground-floor, had had to be fetched. Apleasant, bland man, he had consented in advance to every suggestion; hehad practically made Darius a present of the ground-floor, if Dariuspossessed the courage to go into it, or to send others into it, The seatof deliberation had then been transferred to the alley behind. And thejobbing builder and carpenters had been fetched, and there was a palaverof tremendous length and solemnity. For hours nothing definite seemedto happen; no one ate or drank, and the current of life at the corner ofTrafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street ceased to flow. Boys and men who hadheard of the affair, and who had the divine gift of curiosity, gazed inrapture at the `No Admittance' notice on the ramshackle double gates inWoodisun Bank, It seemed that they might never be rewarded, but theirgreat faith was justified when a hand-cart, bearing several beams threeyards long, halted at the gates and was, after a pause, laboriouslypushed past them and round the corner into the alley and up the alley. The alley had been crammed to witness the taking of the beams into thebaker's storeroom. If the floor above had decided to yield, the noble, negligent carpenters would have been crushed beneath tons of machinery. At length a forest of pillars stood planted on the ground-floor amid thebaker's lumber; every beam was duly supported, and the expertspronounced that calamity was now inconceivable. Lastly, the tackle onthe Demy Columbian had been loosed, and the machine, slightly askew, permitted gently to sink to full rest on the floor: and the resultjustified the experts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. By this time people had started to eat, but informally, as it wereapologetically--Passover meals. Evening was at hand. The Clayhangers, later, had met at table. A strange repast! A strange father! Thechildren had difficulty in speaking naturally. And then Mrs Hamps hadcome, ebulliently thanking God, and conveying the fact that the town wasthrilled and standing utterly amazed in admiration before her heroicalnephew. And yet she had said ardently that she was in no way amazed ather nephew's coolness; she would have been surprised if he had shownhimself even one degree less cool. From a long study of his charactershe had foreknown infallibly that in such a crisis as had supervened hewould behave precisely as he had behaved. This attitude of AuntieHamps, however, though it reduced the miraculous to theordinary-expected, did not diminish Clara's ingenuous awe of Edwin. From a mocker, the child had been temporarily transformed into anunwilling hero-worshipper. Mrs Hamps having departed, all the family, including Darius, had retired earlier than usual. And now, on meeting his father and Big James and Miss Ingamells in thequeer peace of the morning, in the relaxation after tension, and in thecomplete realisation of the occurrence, Edwin perceived from thedemeanour of all that, by an instinctive action extending over perhapsfive seconds of time, he had procured for himself a wondrous andapparently permanent respect. Miss Ingamells, when he went vaguely intothe freshly watered shop before breakfast, greeted him in a new tone, and with startling deference asked him what he thought she had better doin regard to the addressing of a certain parcel. Edwin considered thisodd; he considered it illogical; and one consequence of Miss Ingamells'squite sincere attitude was that he despised Miss Ingamells for a moralweakling. He knew that he himself was a moral weakling, but he was surethat he could never bend, never crouch, to such a posture as MissIngamells's; that she was obviously sincere only increased his secretscorn. But his father resembled Miss Ingamells. Edwin had not dreamt thatmankind, and especially his father, was characterised by suchsimplicity. And yet, on reflection, had he not always found in hisfather a peculiar ingenuousness, which he could not but look down upon?His father, whom he met crossing the yard, spoke to him almost as hemight have spoken to a junior partner. It was more than odd; it wasagainst nature, as Edwin had conceived nature. He was so superior and lofty, yet without intending it, that he made noattempt to put himself in his father's place. He, in the excitingmoments between the first cracking sound and the second, had had avision of wrecked machinery and timber in an abyss at his feet. Hisfather had had a vision far more realistic and terrifying. His fatherhad seen the whole course of his printing business brought to astandstill, and all his savings dragged out of him to pay forreconstruction and for new machinery. His father had seen loss of lifewhich might be accounted to his negligence. His father had seen, withthat pessimism which may overtake anybody in a crisis, the ruin of acareer, the final frustration of his lifelong daring and obstinacy, andthe end of everything. And then he had seen his son suddenly walk forthand save the frightful situation. He had always looked down upon thatson as helpless, coddled, incapable of initiative or of boldness. Hebelieved himself to be a highly remarkable man, and existence had taughthim that remarkable men seldom or never have remarkable sons. Again andagain had he noted the tendency of remarkable men to beget gaping andidle fools. Nevertheless, he had intensely desired to be able to beproud of his son. He had intensely desired to be able, whenacquaintances should be sincerely enthusiastic about the merits of hisson, to pretend, insincerely and with pride only half concealed, thathis son was quite an ordinary youth. Now his desire had been fulfilled; it had been more than fulfilled. Thetown would chatter about Edwin's presence of mind for a week. Edwin'sact would become historic; it already was historic. And not only wasthe act in itself wonderful and admirable and epoch-making; but itproved that Edwin, despite his blondness, his finickingness, hishesitations, had grit. That was the point: the lad had grit; there wasmaterial in the lad of which much could be made. Add to this, thefather's mere instinctive gratitude--a gratitude of such unguessed depththat it had prevented him even from being ashamed of having publicly andimpulsively embraced his son on the previous morning. Edwin, in his unconscious egoism, ignored all that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "I've just seen Barlow, " said Darius confidentially to Edwin. Barlowwas the baker. "He's been here afore his rounds. He's willing tosublet me his storeroom--so that'll be all right! Eh?" "Yes, " said Edwin, seeing that his approval was being sought for. "We must fix that machine plumb again. " "I suppose the floor's as firm as rocks now?" Edwin suggested. "Eh! Bless ye! Yes!" said his father, with a trace of kindlyimpatience. The policy of makeshift was to continue. The floor having been stayedwith oak, the easiest thing and the least immediately expensive thingwas to leave matters as they were. When the baker's stores were clearedfrom his warehouse, Darius could use the spaces between the pillars forlumber of his own; and he could either knock an entrance-way through thewall in the yard, or he could open the nailed-down trap door and patchthe ancient stairway within; or he could do nothing--it would only meanwalking out into Woodisun Bank and up the alley each time he wantedaccess to his lumber! And yet, after the second cracking sound on the previous day, he hadbeen ready to vow to rent an entirely new and common-sense printingoffice somewhere else--if only he should be saved from disaster thatonce! But he had not quite vowed. And, in any case, a vow to oneselfis not a vow to the Virgin. He had escaped from a danger, and therecurrence of the particular danger was impossible. Why then commitfollies of prudence, when the existing arrangement of things `would do'? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. That afternoon Darius Clayhanger, with his most mysterious air ofbusiness, told Edwin to follow him into the shop. Several hours ofmiscellaneous consultative pottering had passed between Darius and hiscompositors round and about the new printing machine, which was oncemore plumb and ready for action. For considerably over a week Edwin hadbeen on his father's general staff without any definite task oroccupation having been assigned to him. His father had been tooexcitedly preoccupied with the arrival and erection of the machine tobestow due thought upon the activities proper to Edwin in the complexdailiness of the business. Now he meant at any rate to begin to put theboy into a suitable niche. The boy had deserved at least that. At the desk he opened before him the daily and weekly newspaper-book, and explained its system. "Let's take the `British Mechanic, '" he said. And he turned to the page where the title `British Mechanic' was writtenin red ink. Underneath that title were written the names and addressesof fifteen subscribers to the paper. To the right of the names werethirteen columns, representing a quarter of the year. With hiscustomary laboriousness, Darius described the entire process ofdistribution. The parcel of papers arrived and was counted, and thename of a subscriber scribbled in an abbreviated form on each copy. Some copies had to be delivered by the errand boy; these were handed tothe errand boy, and a tick made against each subscriber in the columnfor the week: other copies were called for by the subscriber, and aseach of these was taken away, similarly a tick had to be made againstthe name of its subscriber. Some copies were paid for in cash in theshop, some were paid in cash to the office boy, some were paid formonthly, some were paid for quarterly, and some, as Darius said grimly, were never paid for at all. No matter what the method of paying, when acopy was paid for, or thirteen copies were paid for, a crossing tick hadto be made in the book for each copy. Thus, for a single quarter of"British Mechanic" nearly two hundred ticks and nearly two hundredcrossing ticks had to be made in the book, if the work was properlydone. However, it was never properly done--Miss Ingamells being shortof leisure and the errand boy utterly unreliable--and Darius wanted itproperly done. The total gross profit on a quarter of "BritishMechanics" was less than five shillings, and no customers were moreexigent and cantankerous than those who bought one pennyworth of goodsper week, and had them delivered free, and received three months'credit. Still, that could not be helped. A printer and stationer wascompelled by usage to supply papers; and besides, paper subscribersserved a purpose as a nucleus of general business. As with the "British Mechanics, " so with seventeen other weeklies. Thedaily papers were fewer, but the accountancy they caused was even moreelaborate. For monthly magazines there was a separate book with aseparate system; here the sums involved were vaster, ranging as high ashalf a crown. Darius led Edwin with patient minuteness through the whole labyrinth. "Now, " he said, "you're going to have sole charge of all this. " And he said it benevolently, in the conviction that he was awarding adeserved recompense, with the mien of one who was giving dominion to afaithful steward over ten cities. "Just look into it carefully yerself, lad, " he said at last, and leftEdwin with a mixed parcel of journals upon which to practise. Before Edwin's eyes flickered hundreds of names, thousands of figures, and tens of thousands of ticks. His heart protested; it protested withloathing. The prospect stretching far in front of him made him feelsick. But something weak and good-natured in him forced him to smile, and to simulate a subdued ecstasy at receiving this overwhelming proofof his father's confidence in him. As for Darius, Darius was delightedwith himself and with his son, and he felt that he was behaving as abenignant father should. Edwin had proved his grit, proved that he hadthat uncommunicable quality, `character, ' and had well deservedencouragement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. The next morning, in the printing office, Edwin came upon Big Jamesgiving a lesson in composing to the younger apprentice, who in theoryhad `learned his cases. ' Big James held the composing stick in hisgreat left hand, like a match-box, and with his great right thumb andindex picked letter after letter from the case, very slowly in order todisplay the movement, and dropped them into the stick. In his mild, resonant tones he explained that each letter must be picked upunfalteringly in a particular way, so that it would drop face upwardinto the stick without any intermediate manipulation. And he explainedalso that the left hand must be held so that the right hand would haveto travel to and fro as little as possible. He was revealing the basicmysteries of his craft, and was happy, making the while the broad seriesof stock pleasantries which have probably been current in composingrooms since printing was invented. Then he was silent, working more andmore quickly, till his right hand could scarcely be followed in itstwinklings, and the face of the apprentice duly spread in marvel, Whenthe line was finished he drew out the rule, clapped it down on the topof the last row of letters, and gave the composing stick to theapprentice to essay. The apprentice began to compose with his feet, his shoulders, his mouth, his eyebrows--with all his body except his hands, which neverthelesstravelled spaciously far and wide. "It's not in seven year, nor in seventy, as you'll learn, young son of agun!" said Big James. And, having unsettled the youth to his foundations with a bland thwackacross the head, he resumed the composing stick and began again theexposition of the unique smooth movement which is the root of rapidtype-setting. "Here!" said Big James, when the apprentice had behaved worse than ever. "Us'll ask Mr Edwin to have a go. Us'll see what he'll do. " And Edwin, sheepish, had to comply. He was in pride bound to surpassthe apprentice, and did so. "There!" said Big James. "What did I tell ye?" He seemed to imply aprophecy that, because Edwin had saved the printing office fromdestruction two days previously, he would necessarily prove to be a borncompositor. The apprentice deferentially sniggered, and Edwin smiled modestly andawkwardly and departed without having accomplished what he had come todo. By his own act of cool, nonchalant, unconsidered courage in a crisis, hehad, it seemed, definitely proved himself to possess a special aptitudein all branches of the business of printer and stationer. Everybodyassumed it. Everybody was pleased. Everybody saw that Providence hadbeen kind to Darius and to his son. The fathers of the town, and themothers, who liked Edwin's complexion and fair hair, told each otherthat not every parent was so fortunate as Mr Clayhanger, and what ablessing it was that the old breed was not after all dying out in thosenewfangled days. Edwin could not escape from the universal assumption. He felt it round him as a net which somehow he had to cut. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE ARCHITECT. One morning Edwin was busy in the shop with his own private minion, thepaper boy, who went in awe of him. But this was not the same Edwin, though people who could only judge by features, and by the length oftrousers and sleeves on legs and arms, might have thought that it wasthe same Edwin enlarged and corrected. Half a year had passed. Themonth was February, cold. Mr Enoch Peake had not merely married MrsLouisa Loggerheads, but had died of an apoplexy, leaving behind himCocknage Gardens, a widow, and his name painted in large letters overthe word `Loggerheads' on the lintel of the Dragon. The steam-printerhad done the funeral cards, and had gone to the burial of his hopes ofbusiness in that quarter. Many funeral cards had come out of the sameprinting office during the winter, including that of Mr Udall, thegreat marble-player. It seemed uncanny to Edwin that a marble-playerwhom he had actually seen playing marbles should do anything so solemnas expire. However, Edwin had perfectly lost all interest in marbles;only once in six months had he thought of them, and that once through afuneral card. Also he was growing used to funeral cards. He wouldenter an order for funeral cards as nonchalantly as an order forbutterscotch labels. But it was not deaths and the spectacle of life asseen from the shop that had made another Edwin of him. What had changed him was the slow daily influence of a large number oftrifling habitual duties none of which fully strained his faculties, andthe monotony of them, and the constant watchful conventionality of hisdeportment with customers. He was still a youth, very youthful, but youhad to keep an eye open for his youthfulness if you wished to find itbeneath the little man that he had been transformed into. He now tookhis watch out of his pocket with an absent gesture and look exactly likehis father's; and his tones would be a reflection of those of the lastimportant full-sized man with whom he had happened to have been incontact. And though he had not developed into a dandy (financeforbidding), he kept his hair unnaturally straight, and amiably grumbledto Maggie about his collars every fortnight or so. Yes, another Edwin!Yet it must not be assumed that he was growing in discontent, eitherchronic or acute. On the contrary, the malady of discontent troubledhim less and less. To the paper boy he was a real man. The paper boy accepted him withunreserved fatalism, as Edwin accepted his father. Thus the boy stoodpassive while Edwin brought business to a standstill by privatelyperusing the "Manchester Examiner. " It was Saturday morning, themorning on which the "Examiner" published its renowned LiterarySupplement. All the children read eagerly the Literary Supplement; butEdwin, in virtue of his office, got it first. On the first and secondpages was the serial story, by George MacDonald, W. Clark Russell, orMrs Lynn Linton; then followed readable extracts from new books, and onthe fourth page were selected jokes from "Punch. " Edwin somehow alwaysbegan with the jokes, and in so doing was rather ashamed of his levity. He would skim the jokes, glance at the titles of the new books, and lookat the dialogue parts of the serial, while business and the boy waited. There was no hurry then, even though the year had reached 1873 andpeople were saying that they would soon be at the middle of theseventies; even though the Licensing Act had come into force andpublicans were predicting the end of the world. Morning papers were notdelivered till ten, eleven, or twelve o'clock in Bursley, and onSaturdays, owing to Edwin's laudable interest in the best periodicalliterature, they were apt to be delivered later than usual. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. On this particular morning Edwin was disturbed in his studies by agreater than the paper boy, a greater even than his father. Mr OsmondOrgreave came stamping his cold feet into the shop, the floor of whichwas still a little damp from the watering that preceded its sweeping. Mr Orgreave, though as far as Edwin knew he had never been in the shopbefore, went straight to the coke-stove, bent his knees, and began towarm his hands. In this position he opened an interview with Edwin, whodropped the Literary Supplement. Miss Ingamells was momentarily absent. "Father in?" "No, sir. " Edwin did not say where his father was, because he had received generalinstructions never to `volunteer information' on that point. "Where is he?" "He's out, sir. " "Oh! Well! Has he left any instructions about those specifications forthe Shawport Board School?" "No, sir. I'm afraid he hasn't. But I can ask in the printing office. " Mr Orgreave approached the counter, smiling. His face was angular, rather stout, and harsh, with a grey moustache and a short grey beard, and yet his demeanour and his voice had a jocular, youthful quality. And this was not the only contradiction about him. His clothes wereextremely elegant and nice in detail--the whiteness of his linen wouldhave struck the most casual observer--but he seemed to be perfectlyoblivious of his clothes, indeed, to show carelessness concerning them. His finger-nails were marvellously tended. But he scribbled in pencilon his cuff, and apparently was not offended by a grey mark on his handdue to touching the top of the stove. The idea in Edwin's head was thatMr Orgreave must put on a new suit of clothes once a week, and newlinen every day, and take a bath about once an hour. The man had noceremoniousness. Thus, though he had never previously spoken to Edwin, he made no preliminary pretence of not being sure who Edwin was; hechatted with him as though they were old friends and had parted only theday before; he also chatted with him as though they were equals in age, eminence, and wealth. A strange man! "Now look here!" he said, as the conversation proceeded, "thosespecifications are at the Sytch Chapel. If you could come along with menow--I mean now--I could give them to you and point out one or twothings to you, and perhaps Big James could make a start on them thismorning. You see it's urgent. " So he was familiar with Big James. "Certainly, " said Edwin, excited. And when he had curtly told the paper boy to do portions of thenewspaper job which he had always held the paper boy was absolutelyincapable of doing, he sent the boy to find Miss Ingamells, informed herwhere he was going, and followed Mr Orgreave out of the shop. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "Of course you know Charlie's at school in France, " said Mr Orgreave, as they passed along Wedgwood Street in the direction of Saint Luke'sSquare. He was really very companionable. "Er--yes!" Edwin replied, nervously explosive, and buttoning up histight overcoat with an important business air. "At least it isn't a school--it's a university. Besancon, you know. They take university students much younger there. Oh! He has a raretime--a rare time. Never writes to you, I suppose?" "No. " Edwin gave a short laugh. Mr Orgreave laughed aloud. "And he wouldn't to us either, if hismother didn't make a fuss about it. But when he does write, we gatherthere's no place like Besancon. " "It must be splendid, " Edwin said thoughtfully. "You and he were great chums, weren't you? I know we used to hear aboutyou every day. His mother used to say that we had Clayhanger with everymeal. " Mr Orgreave again laughed heartily. Edwin blushed. He was quite startled, and immensely flattered. What onearth could the Sunday have found to tell them every day about him? He, Edwin Clayhanger, a subject of conversation in the household of theOrgreaves, that mysterious household which he had never entered butwhich he had always pictured to himself as being so finely superior!Less than a year ago Charlie Orgreave had been `the Sunday, ' had been`old Perish-in-the-attempt, ' and now he was a student in BesanconUniversity, unapproachable, extraordinarily romantic; and he, Edwin, remained in his father's shop! He had been aware that Charlie had goneto Besancon University, but he had not realised it effectively till thismoment. The realisation blew discontent into a flame, which fed on thefurther perception that evidently the Orgreave family were a gay, jollycrowd of cronies together, not in the least like parents and children;their home life must be something fundamentally different from his. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. When they had crossed the windy space of Saint Luke's Square and reachedthe top of the Sytch Bank, Mr Orgreave stopped an instant in front ofthe Sytch Pottery, and pointed to a large window at the south end thatwas in process of being boarded up. "At last!" he murmured with disgust. Then he said: "That's the mostbeautiful window in Bursley, and perhaps in the Five Towns; and you seewhat's happening to it. " Edwin had never heard the word `beautiful' uttered in quite that tone, except by women, such as Auntie Hamps, about a baby or a valentine or asermon. But Mr Orgreave was not a woman; he was a man of the world, hewas almost the man of the world; and the subject of his adjective was awindow! "Why are they boarding it up, Mr Orgreave?" Edwin asked. "Oh! Ancient lights! Ancient lights!" Edwin began to snigger. He thought for an instant that Mr Orgreave wasbeing jocular over his head, for he could only connect the phrase`ancient lights' with the meaner organs of a dead animal, exposed, forexample, in tripe shops. However, he saw his ineptitude almostsimultaneously with the commission of it, and smothered the snigger inbecoming gravity. It was clear that he had something to learn in thephraseology employed by architects. "I should think, " said Mr Orgreave, "I should think they've been at lawabout that window for thirty years, if not more. Well, it's over now, seemingly. " He gazed at the disappearing window. "What a shame!" "It is, " said Edwin politely. Mr Orgreave crossed the road and then stood still to gaze at the facadeof the Sytch Pottery. It was a long two-storey building, purestGeorgian, of red brick with very elaborate stone facings whichcontrasted admirably with the austere simplicity of the walls. Theporch was lofty, with a majestic flight of steps narrowing to the doors. The ironwork of the basement railings was unusually rich andimpressive. "Ever seen another pot-works like that?" demanded Mr Orgreave, enthusiastically musing. "No, " said Edwin. Now that the question was put to him, he never hadseen another pot-works like that. "There are one or two pretty fine works in the Five Towns, " said MrOrgreave. "But there's nothing elsewhere to touch this. I nearlyalways stop and look at it if I'm passing. Just look at the pointing!The pointing alone--" Edwin had to readjust his ideas. It had never occurred to him to searchfor anything fine in Bursley. The fact was, he had never opened hiseyes at Bursley. Dozens of times he must have passed the Sytch Pottery, and yet not noticed, not suspected, that it differed from any otherpot-works: he who dreamed of being an architect! "You don't think much of it?" said Mr Orgreave, moving on. "Peopledon't. " "Oh yes! I do!" Edwin protested, and with such an air of eagersincerity that Mr Orgreave turned to glance at him. And in truth hedid think that the Sytch Pottery was beautiful. He never would havethought so but for the accident of the walk with Mr Orgreave; he mighthave spent his whole life in the town, and never troubled himself amoment about the Sytch Pottery. Nevertheless he now, by an act of sheerfaith, suddenly, miraculously and genuinely regarded it as anexquisitely beautiful edifice, on a plane with the edifices of thecapitals of Europe, and as a feast for discerning eyes. "I likearchitecture very much, " he added. And this too was said with suchfeverish conviction that Mr Orgreave was quite moved. "I must show you my new Sytch Chapel, " said Mr Orgreave gaily. "Oh! I should like you to show it me, " said Edwin. But he was exceedingly perturbed by misgivings. Here was he wanting tobe an architect, and he had never observed the Sytch Pottery! Surelythat was an absolute proof that he had no vocation for architecture!And yet now he did most passionately admire the Sytch Pottery. And hewas proud to be sharing the admiration of the fine, joyous, superior, luxurious, companionable man, Mr Orgreave. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. They went down the Sytch Bank to the new chapel of which Mr Orgreave, though a churchman, was the architect, in that vague quarter of theworld between Bursley and Turnhill. The roof was not on; thescaffolding was extraordinarily interesting and confusing; they benttheir heads to pass under low portals; Edwin had the delicious smell ofnew mortar; they stumbled through sand, mud, cinders and little pools;they climbed a ladder and stepped over a large block of dressed stone, and Mr Orgreave said-- "This is the gallery we're in, here. You see the scheme of the placenow. .. That hole--only a flue. Now you see what that arch carries--they didn't like it in the plans because they thought it might bemistaken for a church--" Edwin was receptive. "Of course it's a very small affair, but it'll cost less per sittingthan any other chapel in your circuit, and I fancy it'll look less likea box of bricks. " Mr Orgreave subtly smiled, and Edwin tried to equalhis subtlety. "I must show you the elevation some other time--a bitlater. What I've been after in it, is to keep it in character with thestreet. .. Hi! Dan, there!" Now, Mr Orgreave was calling across thehollow of the chapel to a fat man in corduroys. "Have you rememberedabout those blue bricks?" Perhaps the most captivating phenomenon of all was a little lean-to shedwith a real door evidently taken from somewhere else, and a littlestove, and a table and a chair. Here Mr Orgreave had a confabulationwith the corduroyed man, who was the builder, and they pored overimmense sheets of coloured plans that lay on the table, and Mr Orgreavemade marks and even sketches on the plans, and the fat man objected tohis instructions, and Mr Orgreave insisted, "Yes, yes!" And it seemedto Edwin as though the building of the chapel stood still while MrOrgreave cogitated and explained; it seemed to Edwin that he was in thecreating-chamber. The atmosphere of the shed was inexpressibly romanticto him. After the fat man had gone Mr Orgreave took a clothes-brushoff a plank that had been roughly nailed on two brackets to the wall, and brushed Edwin's clothes, and Edwin brushed Mr Orgreave, and thenMr Orgreave, having run his hand through the brush, lightly brushed hishair with it. All this was part of Edwin's joy. "Yes, " he said, "I think the idea of that arch is splendid. " "You do?" said Mr Orgreave quite simply and ingenuously pleased andinterested. "You see--with the lie of the ground as it is--" That was another point that Edwin ought to have thought of by himself--the lie of the ground--but he had not thought of it. Mr Orgreave wenton talking. In the shop he had conveyed the idea that he wastremendously pressed for time; now he had apparently forgotten time. "I'm afraid I shall have to be off, " said Edwin timidly. And he made apreliminary movement as if to depart. "And what about those specifications, young man?" asked Mr Orgreave, drily twinkling. He unlocked a drawer in the rickety table. Edwin hadforgotten the specifications as successfully as Mr Orgreave hadforgotten time. Throughout the remainder of the day he smelt imaginarymortar. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A DECISION. The next day being the day of rest, Mrs Nixon arose from her nook at5:30 a. M. And woke Edwin. She did this from good-nature, and becauseshe could refuse him nothing, and not under any sort of compulsion. Edwin got up at the first call, though he was in no way remarkable forhis triumphs over the pillow. Twenty-five minutes later he was crossingTrafalgar Road and entering the school-yard of the Wesleyan Chapel. Andfrom various quarters of the town, other young men, of ages varying fromsixteen to fifty, were converging upon the same point. Black nightstill reigned above the lamplights that flickered in the wind whichprecedes the dawn, and the mud was frozen. Not merely had these youngmen to be afoot and abroad, but they had to be ceremoniously dressed. They could not issue forth in flannels and sweater, with a towel roundthe neck, as for a morning plunge in the river. The day was Sunday, though Sunday had not dawned, and the plunge was into the river ofintellectual life. Moreover, they were bound by conscience to beprompt. To have arrived late, even five minutes late, would have spoiltthe whole effect. It had to be six o'clock or nothing. The Young Men's Debating Society was a newly formed branch of themultifarous activity of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. It met on Sundaybecause Sunday was the only day that would suit everybody; and at six inthe morning for two reasons. The obvious reason was that at any otherhour its meetings would clash either with other activities or with thesolemnity of Sabbath meals. This obvious reason could not have stood byitself; it was secretly supported by the recondite reason that thepreposterous hour of 6 a. M. Appealed powerfully to something youthful, perverse, silly, fanatical, and fine in the youths. They discovered theascetic's joy in robbing themselves of sleep and in catching chills, andin disturbing households and chapel-keepers. They thought it was agreat thing to be discussing intellectual topics at an hour when a townthat ignorantly scorned intellectuality was snoring in all its heavybrutishness. And it was a great thing. They considered themselves thesalt of the earth, or of that part of the earth. And I have an ideathat they were. Edwin had joined this Society partly because he did not possess the artof refusing, partly because the notion of it appealed spectacularly tothe martyr in him, and partly because it gave him an excuse for ceasingto attend the afternoon Sunday school, which he loathed. Without suchan excuse he could never have told his father that he meant to give upSunday school. He could never have dared to do so. His father had whatEdwin deemed to be a superstitious and hypocritical regard for theSunday school. Darius never went near the Sunday school, and assuredlyin business and in home life he did not practise the precepts inculcatedat the Sunday school, and yet he always spoke of the Sunday school withwhat was to Edwin a ridiculous reverence. Another of those problems inhis father's character which Edwin gave up in disgust! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The Society met in a small classroom. The secretary, arch ascetic, arrived at 5:45 and lit the fire which the chapel-keeper (a man with noenthusiasm whatever for flagellation, the hairshirt, or intellectuality)had laid but would not get up to light. The chairman of the Society, alittle Welshman named Llewelyn Roberts, aged fifty, but a youth becausea bachelor, sat on a chair at one side of the incipient fire, and somedozen members sat round the room on forms. A single gas jet flamed fromthe ceiling. Everybody wore his overcoat, and within the collars ofovercoats could be seen glimpses of rich neckties; the hats, someglossy, dotted the hat-rack which ran along two walls. A hymn was sung, and then all knelt, some spreading handkerchiefs on the dusty floor toprotect fine trousers, and the chairman invoked the blessing of God ontheir discussions. The proper mental and emotional atmosphere was nowestablished. The secretary read the minutes of the last meeting, whilethe chairman surreptitiously poked the fire with a piece of wood fromthe lower works of a chair, and then the chairman, as he signed theminutes with a pen dipped in an excise ink-bottle that stood on thenarrow mantelpiece, said in his dry voice-- "I call upon our young friend, Mr Edwin Clayhanger, to open the debate, `Is Bishop Colenso, considered as a Biblical commentator, a force forgood?'" "I'm a damned fool!" said Edwin to himself savagely, as he stood on hisfeet. But to look at his wistful and nervously smiling face, no onewould have guessed that he was thus blasphemously swearing in theprivacy of his own brain. He had been entrapped into the situation in which he found himself. Itwas not until after he had joined the Society that he had learnt of arule which made it compulsory for every member to speak at every meetingattended, and for every member to open a debate at least once in a year. And this was not all; the use of notes while the orator was `up' wasabsolutely forbidden. A drastic Society! It had commended itself toelders by claiming to be a nursery for ready speakers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Edwin had chosen the subject of Bishop Colenso--the ultimate wording ofthe resolution was not his--because he had been reading about theintellectually adventurous Bishop in the "Manchester Examiner. " And, although eleven years had passed since the publication of the first partof "The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined, " theColenso question was only just filtering down to the thinking classes ofthe Five Towns; it was an actuality in the Five Towns, if in abeyance inLondon. Even Hugh Miller's "The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in anOld Field, " then over thirty years old, was still being looked upon asdangerously original in the Five Towns in 1873. However, the effect ofits disturbing geological evidence that the earth could scarcely havebeen begun and finished in a little under a week, was happily nullifiedby the suicide of its author; that pistol-shot had been a striking proofof the literal inspiration of the Bible. Bishop Colenso had, in Edwin, an ingenuous admirer. Edwin stammeringlyand hesitatingly gave a preliminary sketch of his life; how he had beencensured by Convocation and deposed from his See by his Metropolitan;how the Privy Council had decided that the deposition was null and void;how the ecclesiastical authorities had then circumvented the PrivyCouncil by refusing to pay his salary to the Bishop (which Edwinconsidered mean); how the Bishop had circumvented the ecclesiasticalauthorities by appealing to the Master of the Rolls, who ordered theecclesiastical authorities to pay him his arrears of income withinterest thereon, unless they were ready to bring him to trial forheresy; how the said authorities would not bring him to trial for heresy(which Edwin considered to be miserable cowardice on their part); howthe Bishop had then been publicly excommunicated, without authority; andhow his friends, among whom were some very respectable and powerfulpeople, had made him a present of over three thousand pounds. Afterthis graphic historical survey, Edwin proceeded to the Pentateuchalpuzzles, and, without pronouncing an opinion thereon, argued that anycommentator who was both learned and sincere must be a force for good, as the Bible had nothing to fear from honest inquiry, etcetera, etcetera. Five-sixths of his speech was coloured by phrases and modesof thought which he had picked up in the Wesleyan community, and theother sixth belonged to himself. The speech was moderately bad, but notinferior to many other speeches. It was received in absolute silence. This rather surprised Edwin, because the tone in which the leadingmembers of the Society usually spoke to him indicated that (for reasonswhich he knew not) they regarded him as a very superior intellectindeed; and Edwin was not entirely ashamed of the quality of his speech;in fact, he had feared worse from himself, especially as, since his walkwith Mr Orgreave, he had been quite unable to concentrate his thoughtson Bishop Colenso at all, and had been exceedingly unhappy andapprehensive concerning an affair that bore no kind of relation to thePentateuch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. The chairman began to speak at once. His function was to call upon thespeakers in the order arranged, and to sum up before putting theresolution to the vote. But now he produced surprisingly a speech ofhis own. He reminded the meeting that in 1860 Bishop Colenso hadmemorialised the Archbishop of Canterbury against compelling natives whohad already more than one wife to renounce polygamy as a condition tobaptism in the Christian religion; he stated that, though there wereyoung men present who were almost infants in arms at that period, he forhis part could well remember all the episode, and in particular BishopColenso's amazing allegation that he could find no disapproval ofpolygamy either in the Bible or in the writings of the Ancient Church. He also pointed out that in 1861 Bishop Colenso had argued against thedoctrine of Eternal Punishment. He warned the meeting to beware ofyouthful indiscretions. Every one there assembled of course meant well, and believed what it was a duty to believe, but at the same time. .. "I shall write father a letter!" said Edwin to himself. The idea cameto him in a flash like a divine succour; and it seemed to solve all hisdifficulties--difficulties unconnected with the subject of debate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. The chairman went on crossing t's and dotting i's. And soon even Edwinperceived that the chairman was diplomatically and tactfully, yet veryfirmly, bent upon saving the meeting from any possibility ofscandalising itself and the Wesleyan community. Bishop Colenso must notbe approved beneath those roofs. Evidently Edwin had been morepersuasive than he dreamt of; and daring beyond precedent. He had meantto carry his resolution if he could, whereas, it appeared, he ought tohave meant to be defeated, in the true interests of revealed religion. The chairman kept referring to his young friend the proposer's brilliantbrains, and to the grave danger that lurked in brilliant brains, and theinability of brilliant brains to atone for lack of experience. Themeeting had its cue. Young man after young man arose to snub BishopColenso, to hope charitably that Bishop Colenso was sincere, and toinsist that no Bishop Colenso should lead him to the awful abyss ofpolygamy, and that no Bishop Colenso should deprive him of that uniqueincentive to righteousness--the doctrine of an everlasting burning hell. Moses was put on his legs again as a serious historian, and the subjectof the resolution utterly lost to view. The Chairman then remarked thathis impartial role forbade him to support either side, and the votingshowed fourteen against one. They all sang the Doxology, and theChairman pronounced a benediction. The fourteen forgave the one, as onewho knew not what he did; but their demeanour rather too patently showedthat they were forgiving under difficulty; and that it would be as wellthat this kind of youthful temerariousness was not practised too often. Edwin, in the language of the district, was `sneaped. ' Wondering whaton earth he after all had said to raise such an alarm, he neverthelessdid not feel resentful, only very depressed--about the debate and aboutother things. He knew in his heart that for him attendance at themeetings of the Young Men's Debating Society was ridiculous. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. He allowed all the rest to precede him from the room. When he was alonehe smiled sheepishly, and also disdainfully; he knew that the chasmbetween himself and the others was a real chasm, and not a figment ofhis childish diffidence, as he had sometimes suspected it to be. Thenhe turned the gas out. A beautiful faint silver surged through thewindow. While the debate was in progress, the sun had been going aboutits business of the dawn, unperceived. "I shall write a letter!" he kept saying to himself. "He'll never letme explain myself properly if I start talking. I shall write a letter. I can write a very good letter, and he'll be bound to take notice of it. He'll never be able to get over my letter. " In the school-yard daylight reigned. The debaters had alreadydisappeared. Trafalgar Road and Duck Bank were empty and silent underrosy clouds. Instead of going straight home Edwin went past the TownHall and through the Market Place to the Sytch Pottery. Astounding thathe had never noticed for himself how beautiful the building was! It wasa simply lovely building! "Yes, " he said, "I shall write him a letter, and this very day, too!May I be hung, drawn, and quartered if he doesn't have to read my letterto-morrow morning!" VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE LETTER. Then there was roast goose for dinner, and Clara amused herself bymaking silly facetious faces, furtively, dangerously, under her father'svery eyes. The children feared goose for their father, whose digestionwas usually unequal to this particular bird. Like many fathers offamilies in the Five Towns, he had the habit of going forth on Saturdaymornings to the butcher's or the poulterer's and buying Sunday's dinner. He was a fairly good judge of a joint, but Maggie considered herself tobe his superior in this respect. However, Darius was not prepared tolearn from Maggie, and his purchases had to be accepted withoutcriticism. At a given meal Darius would never admit that anythingchosen and bought by him was not perfect; but a week afterwards, if thefact was so, he would of his own accord recall imperfections in thatwhich he had asserted to be perfect; and he would do this without anyshame, without any apparent sense of inconsistency or weakness. Edwinnoticed a similar trait in other grown-up persons, and it astonishedhim. It astonished him especially in his father, who, despite thefaults and vulgarities which his fastidious son could find in him, always impressed Edwin as a strong man, a man with the heroic quality ofnot caring too much what other people thought. When Edwin saw his father take a second plateful of goose, with thedeadly stuffing thereof--Darius simply could not resist it, like mostdyspeptics he was somewhat greedy--he foresaw an indisposed and perilousfather for the morrow. Which prevision was supported by Clara'spantomimic antics, and even by Maggie's grave and restrained sigh. Still, he had sworn to write and send the letter, and he should do so. A career, a lifetime, was not to be at the mercy of a bilious attack, surely! Such a notion offended logic and proportion, and he scorned itaway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The meal proceeded in silence. Darius, as in duty bound, mentioned thesermon, but neither Clara nor Edwin would have anything to do with thesermon, and Maggie had not been to chapel. Clara and Edwin feltthemselves free of piety till six o'clock at least, and they doggedlywould not respond. And Darius from prudence did not insist, for he hadarrived at chapel unthinkably late--during the second chant--and Clarawas capable of audacious remarks upon occasions. The silence grewstolid. And Edwin wondered what the dinner-table of the Orgreaves was like. Andhe could smell fresh mortar. And he dreamed of a romantic life--he knewnot what kind of life, but something different fundamentally from hisown. He suddenly understood, understood with sympathy, the impulsewhich had made boys run away to sea. He could feel the open sea; hecould feel the breath of freedom on his cheek. He said to himself-- "Why shouldn't I break this ghastly silence by telling father out loudhere that he mustn't forget what I told him that night in the attic?I'm going to be an architect. I'm not going to be any blooming printer. I'm going to be an architect. Why haven't I mentioned it before? Whyhaven't I talked about it all the time? Because I am an ass! Becausethere is no word for what I am! Damn it! I suppose I'm the person tochoose what I'm going to be! I suppose it's my business more than his. Besides, he can't possibly refuse me. If I say flatly that I won't be aprinter--he's done. This idea of writing a letter is just like me!Coward! Coward! What's my tongue for? Can't I talk? Isn't he boundto listen? All I have to do is to open my mouth. He's sitting there. I'm sitting here. He can't eat me. I'm in my rights. Now suppose Istart on it as soon as Mrs Nixon has brought the pudding and pie in?" And he waited anxiously to see whether he indeed would be able to make astart after the departure of Mrs Nixon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Hopeless! He could not bring himself to do it. It was strange! It wasdisgusting! . .. No, he would be compelled to write the letter. Besides, the letter would be more effective. His father could notinterrupt a letter by some loud illogical remark. Thus he salved hisself-conceit. He also sought relief in reflecting savagely upon thespeeches that had been made against him in the debate. He went throughthem all in his mind. There was the slimy idiot from Baines's (it wasin such terms that his thoughts ran) who gloried in never having read aword of Colenso, and called the assembled company to witness thatnothing should ever induce him to read such a godless author, goingabout in the mask of a so-called Bishop. But had any of them readColenso, except possibly Llewellyn Roberts, who in his Welsh way wouldpretend ignorance and then come out with a quotation and refer you tothe exact page? Edwin himself had read very little of Colenso--and thatlittle only because a customer had ordered the second part of the"Pentateuch" and he had stolen it for a night. Colenso was not in theFree Library. .. What a world! What a debate! Still, he could not helpdwelling with pleasure on Mr Roberts's insistence on the brilliantquality of his brains. Astute as Mr Roberts was, the man was clearlyin awe of Edwin's brains! Why? To be honest, Edwin had never beendeeply struck by his own brain power. And yet there must be somethingin it! "Of course, " he reflected sardonically, "father doesn't show thefaintest interest in the debate. Yet he knew all about it, and that Ihad to open it. " But he was glad that his father showed no interest inthe debate. Clara had mentioned it in the presence of Maggie, with herusual ironic intent, and Edwin had quickly shut her up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In the afternoon, the sitting-room being made uninhabitable by hisfather's goose-ridden dozes, he went out for a walk; the weather wascold and fine. When he returned his father also had gone out; the twogirls were lolling in the sitting-room. An immense fire, built up byDarius, was just ripe for the beginning of decay, and the room verywarm. Clara was at the window, Maggie in Darius's chair reading a novelof Charlotte M Yonge's. On the table, open, was a bound volume of "TheFamily Treasury of Sunday Reading, " in which Clara had been perusing"The Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family" with feverish interest. Edwin had laughed at her ingenuous absorption in the adventures of theSchonberg-Cotta family, but the fact was that he had found them ratherinteresting, in spite of himself, while pretending the contrary. Therewas an atmosphere of high obstinate effort and heroical foreign-nessabout the story which stimulated something secret in him that seldomresponded to the provocation of a book; more easily would this secretsomething respond to a calm evening or a distant prospect, or thesilence of early morning when by chance he looked out of his window. The volume of "The Family Treasury, " though five years old, was a recentacquisition. It had come into the house through the total disappearanceof a customer who had left the loose numbers to be bound in 1869. Edwindropped sideways on to a chair at the table, spread out his feet to theright, pitched his left elbow a long distance to the left, and, his headresting on his left hand, turned over the pages with his right handidly. His eye caught titles such as: "The Door was Shut, " "My Mother'sVoice, " "The Heather Mother, " "The Only Treasure, " "Religion andBusiness, " "Hope to the End, " "The Child of our Sunday School, " "Satan'sDevices, " and "Studies of Christian Life and Character, Hannah More. "Then he saw an article about some architecture in Rome, and he read: "Inthe Sistine picture there is the struggle of a great mind to reducewithin the possibilities of art a subject that transcends it. That mindwould have shown itself to be greater, truer, at least, in its judgementof the capabilities of art, and more reverent to have let it alone. "The seriousness of the whole magazine intimidated him into acceptingthis pronouncement for a moment, though his brief studies in variousencyclopaedias had led him to believe that the Sistine Chapel (shown inan illustration in Cazenove) was high beyond any human criticism. Hiselbow slid on the surface of the table, and in recovering himself hesent "The Family Treasury" on the floor, wrong side up, with a greatnoise. Maggie did not move. Clara turned and protested sharply againstthis sacrilege, and Edwin, out of mere caprice, informed her that herprecious magazine was the most stinking silly `pi' [pious] thing thatever was. With haughty and shocked gestures she gathered up the volumeand took it out of the room. "I say, Mag, " Edwin muttered, still leaning his head on his hand, andstaring blankly at the wall. The fire dropped a little in the grate. "What is it?" asked Maggie, without stirring or looking up. "Has father said anything to you about me wanting to be an architect?"He spoke with an affectation of dreaminess. "About you wanting to be an architect?" repeated Maggie in surprise. "Yes, " said Edwin. He knew perfectly well that his father would neverhave spoken to Maggie on such a subject. But he wanted to open aconversation. "No fear!" said Maggie. And added in her kindest, most encouraging, elder-sisterly tone: "Why?" "Oh!" He hesitated, drawling, and then he told her a great deal of whatwas in his mind. And she carefully put the wool-marker in her book andshut it, and listened to him. And the fire dropped and dropped, comfortably. She did not understand him; obviously she thought hisdesire to be an architect exceedingly odd; but she sympathised. Herattitude was soothing and fortifying. After all (he reflected) Maggie'sall right--there's some sense in Maggie. He could `get on' with Maggie. For a few moments he was happy and hopeful. "I thought I'd write him a letter, " he said. "You know how he is totalk to. " There was a pause. "What d'ye think?" he questioned. "I should, " said Maggie. "Then I shall!" he exclaimed. "How d'ye think he'll take it?" "Well, " said Maggie, "I don't see how he can do aught but take it allright. .. Depends how you put it, of course. " "Oh, you leave that to me!" said Edwin, with eager confidence. "I shallput it all right. You trust me for that!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. Clara danced into the room, flowing over with infantile joy. She hadbeen listening to part of the conversation behind the door. "So he wants to be an architect! Arch-i-tect! Arch-i-tect!" Shehalf-sang the word in a frenzy of ridicule. She really did dance, andwaved her arms. Her eyes glittered, as if in rapture. These singularmanifestations of her temperament were caused solely by the strangenessof the idea of Edwin wanting to be an architect. The strange sight ofhim with his hair cut short or in a new neck-tie affected her in asimilar manner. "Clara, go and put your pinafore on this instant!" said Maggie. "Youknow you oughtn't to leave it off. " "You needn't be so hoity-toity, miss, " Clara retorted. But she moved toobey. When she reached the door she turned again and gleefully tauntedEdwin. "And it's all because he went for a walk yesterday with MrOrgreave! I know! I know! You needn't think I didn't see you, becauseI did! Arch-i-tect! Arch-i-tect!" She vanished, on all her springs, spitefully graceful. "You might almost think that infernal kid was right bang off her head, "Edwin muttered crossly. (Still, it was extraordinary how that infernalkid hit on the truth. ) Maggie began to mend the fire. "Oh, well!" murmured Maggie, conveying to Edwin that no importance mustbe attached to the chit's chittishness. He went up to the next flight of stairs to his attic. Dust on the tableof his work-attic! Shameful dust! He had not used that attic sinceChristmas, on the miserable plea that winter was cold and there was nofireplace! He blamed himself for his effeminacy. Where had flown hisseriousness, his elaborate plans, his high purposes? A touch of winterhad frightened them away. Yes, he blamed himself mercilessly. True itwas--as that infernal kid had chanted--a casual half-hour with MrOrgreave was alone responsible for his awakening--at any rate, for hisawakening at this particular moment. Still, he was awake--that was thegreat fact. He was tremendously awake. He had not been asleep; he hadonly been half-asleep. His intention of becoming an architect had neverleft him. But, through weakness before his father, through a cowardlydesire to avoid disturbance and postpone a crisis, he had let the weeksslide by. Now he was in a groove, in a canyon. He had to get out, andthe sooner the better. A piece of paper, soiled, was pinned on his drawing-board; one or twosketches lay about. He turned the drawing-board over, so that he mightuse it for a desk on which to write the letter. But he had no habit ofwriting letters. In the attic was to be found neither ink, pen, paper, nor envelope. He remembered a broken quire of sermon paper in hisbedroom; he had used a few sheets of it for notes on Bishop Colenso. These notes had been written in the privacy and warmth of bed, inpencil. But the letter must be done in ink; the letter was tooimportant for pencil; assuredly his father would take exception topencil. He descended to his sister's room and borrowed Maggie's ink anda pen, and took an envelope, tripping like a thief. Then he sat down tothe composition of the letter; but he was obliged to stop almostimmediately in order to light the lamp. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. This is what he wrote: "Dear Father, --I dare say you will think it queer me writing you aletter like this, but it is the best thing I can do, and I hope you willexcuse me. I dare say you will remember I told you that night when youcame home late from Manchester here in the attic that I wanted to be anarchitect. You replied that what I wanted was business experience. Ifyou say that I have not had enough business experience yet, I agree tothat, but I want it to be understood that later on, when it is theproper time, I am to be an architect. You know I am very fond ofarchitecture, and I feel that I must be an architect. I feel I shallnot be happy in the printing business because I want to be an architect. I am now nearly seventeen. Perhaps it is too soon yet for me to beapprenticed to an architect, and so I can go on learning businesshabits. But I just want it to be understood. I am quite sure you wishme to be happy in life, and I shan't be happy if I am always regrettingthat I have not gone in for being an architect. I know I shall likearchitecture. --Your affectionate son, Edwin Clayhanger. " Then, as an afterthought, he put the date and his address at the top. He meditated a postscript asking for a reply, but decided that this wasunnecessary. As he was addressing the envelope Mrs Nixon called out tohim from below to come to tea. He was surprised to find that he hadspent over an hour on the letter. He shivered and sneezed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. During tea he felt himself absurdly self-conscious, but nobody seemed tonotice his condition. The whole family went to chapel. The letter layin his pocket, and he might easily have slipped away to the post-officewith it, but he had had no opportunity to possess himself of a stamp. There was no need to send the letter through the post. He might get upearly and put it among the morning's letters. He had decided, however, that it must arrive formally by the postman, and he would not alter hisdecision. Hence, after chapel, he took a match, and, creeping into theshop, procured a crimson stamp from his father's desk. Then he wentforth, by the back way, alone into the streets. The adventure was notso hazardous as it seemed and as it felt. Darius was incurious bynature, though he had brief fevers of curiosity. Thus the life of thechildren was a demoralising mixture of rigid discipline and freedom. They were permitted nothing, but, as the years passed, they might takenearly anything. There was small chance of Darius discovering his son'sexcursion. In crossing the road from chapel Edwin had opined to his father that thefrost was breaking. He was now sure of it. The mud, no longer brittle, yielded to pressure, and there was a trace of dampness in theinterstices of the pavement bricks. A thin raw mist was visible in hugespheres round the street lamps. The sky was dark. The few people whomhe encountered seemed to be out upon mysterious errands, seemed toemerge strangely from one gloom and strangely to vanish into another. In the blind, black facades of the streets the public-houses blazedinvitingly with gas; they alone were alive in the weekly death of thetown; and they gleamed everywhere, at every corner; the town appeared toconsist chiefly of public-houses. He dropped the letter into the box inthe market-place; he heard it fall. His heart beat. The deed was nowirrevocable. He wondered what Monday held for him. The quiescentmelancholy of the town invaded his spirit, and mingled with his ownremorseful sorrow for the unstrenuous past, and his apprehensivesolicitude about the future. It was not unpleasant, this broodingsadness, half-despondency and half-hope. A man and a woman, arm-in-arm, went by him as he stood unconscious of his conspicuousness under thegas-lamp that lit the post-office. They laughed the smothered laugh ofintimacy to see a tall boy standing alone there, with no overcoat, gazing at naught. Edwin turned to go home. It occurred to him thatnearly all the people he met were couples, arm-in-arm. And he suddenlythought of Florence, the clog-dancer. He had scarcely thought of herfor months. The complexity of the interests of life, and theinterweaving of its moods, fatigued his mind into an agreeably gravevacuity. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. END OF A STRUGGLE. It was not one of his official bilious attacks that Darius had on thefollowing day; he only yielded himself up in the complete grand mannerwhen nature absolutely compelled. The goose had not formally beatenhim, but neither had he formally beaten the goose. The battle wasdrawn, and this meant that Darius had a slight headache, a feeling ofheavy disgust with the entire polity of the universe, and adisinclination for food. The first and third symptoms he hid as far aspossible, from pride: at breakfast he toyed with bacon, from pride, hating bacon. The children knew from his eyes and his guilty gesturesthat he was not well, but they dared not refer to his condition; theywere bound to pretend that the health of their father flourished in thehighest perfection. And they were glad that things were no worse. On the other hand Edwin had a sneezing cold which he could not conceal, and Darius inimically inquired what foolishness he had committed to havebrought this on himself. Edwin replied that he knew of no cause for it. A deliberate lie! He knew that he had contracted a chill while writinga letter to his father in an unwarmed attic, and had intensified thechill by going forth to post the letter without his overcoat in a rawevening mist. Obviously, however, he could not have stated the truth. He was uncomfortable at the breakfast-table, but, after the first fewmoments, less so than during the disturbed night he had feared to be. His father had neither eaten him, nor jumped down his throat, norperformed any of those unpleasant miraculous feats which fathers usuallydo perform when infuriated by filial foolishness. The letter thereforehad not been utterly disastrous; sometimes a letter would ruin abreakfast, for Mr Clayhanger, with no consideration for the success ofmeals, always opened his post before bite or sup. He had had theletter, and still he was ready to talk to his son in the ordinary grimtone of a goose-morrow. Which was to the good. Edwin was now convincedthat he had done well to write the letter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. But as the day passed, Edwin began to ask himself: "Has he had theletter?" There was no sign of the letter in his father's demeanour, which, while not such as to make it credible that he ever had moods ofpositive gay roguishness, was almost tolerable, considering his headacheand his nausea. Letters occasionally were lost in the post, or delayed. Edwin thought it would be just his usual bad luck if that particularletter, that letter of all letters, should be lost. And the strangething is that he could not prevent himself from hoping that it indeedwas lost. He would prefer it to be lost rather than delayed. He feltthat if the postman brought it by the afternoon delivery while he andhis father were in the shop together, he should drop down dead. The daycontinued to pass, and did pass. And the shop was closed. "He'll speakto me after supper, " said Edwin. But Darius did not speak to him aftersupper. Darius put on his hat and overcoat and went out, saying no wordexcept to advise the children to be getting to bed, all of them. As soon as he was gone Edwin took a candle and returned to the shop. Hewas convinced now that the letter had not been delivered, but he wishedto make conviction sure. He opened the desk. His letter was nearly thefirst document he saw. It looked affrighting, awful. He dared not readit, to see whether its wording was fortunate or unfortunate. Hedeparted, mystified. Upstairs in his bedroom he had a new copy of anEnglish translation of Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame, " which had beenordered by Lawyer Lawton, but would not be called for till the followingweek, because Lawyer Lawton only called once a fortnight. He had meantto read that book, with due precautions, in bed. But he could not fixattention on it. Impossible for him to follow a single paragraph. Heextinguished the candle. Then he heard his father come home. Hethought that he scarcely slept all night. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. The next morning, Tuesday, the girls, between whom and their whisperingfriend Miss Ingamells something feminine was evidently afoot, left thebreakfast-table sooner than usual, not without stifled giggles: uponoccasion Maggie would surprisingly meet Clara and Miss Ingamells ontheir own plane; since Sunday afternoon she had shown no furtherinterest in Edwin's important crisis; she seemed, so far as he couldjudge, to have fallen back into her customary state of busy apathy. The man and the young man were alone together. Darius, in hissatisfaction at having been delivered so easily from the goose, hadtaken an extra slice of bacon. Edwin's cold was now fully developed;and Maggie had told him to feed it. "I suppose you got that letter I wrote you, father, about me going infor architecture, " said Edwin. Then he blew his nose to hide hisconfusion. He was rather startled to hear himself saying those boldwords. He thought that he was quite calm and in control of hisimpulses; but it was not so; his nerves were stretched to the utmost. Darius said nothing. But Edwin could see his face darkening, and hislower lip heavily falling. He glowered, though not at Edwin. With eyesfixed on the window he glowered into vacancy. The pride went out ofEdwin's heart. "So ye'd leave the printing?" muttered Darius, when he had finishedmasticating. He spoke in a menacing voice thick with ferocious emotion. "Well--" said Edwin, quaking. He thought he had never seen his father so ominously intimidating. Hewas terrorised as he looked at that ugly and dark countenance. He couldnot say any more. His voice left him. Thus his fear was physical aswell as moral. He reflected: "Well, I expected a row, but I didn'texpect it would be as bad as this!" And once more he was completelypuzzled and baffled by the enigma of his father. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. He did not hold the key, and even had he held it he was too young, tooinexperienced, to have used it. As with gathering passion the eyes ofDarius assaulted the window-pane, Darius had a painful intense vision ofthat miracle, his own career. Edwin's grand misfortune was that he wasblind to the miracle. Edwin had never seen the little boy in theBastille. But Darius saw him always, the infant who had begun life at arope's-end. Every hour of Darius's present existence was really anastounding marvel to Darius. He could not read the newspaper withoutthinking how wonderful it was that he should be able to read thenewspaper. And it was wonderful! It was wonderful that he had threedifferent suits of clothes, none of them with a single hole. It waswonderful that he had three children, all with complete outfits of goodclothes. It was wonderful that he never had to think twice about buyingcoal, and that he could have more food than he needed. It was wonderfulthat he was not living in a two-roomed cottage. He never came into hishouse by the side entrance without feeling proud that the door gave onto a preliminary passage and not direct into a living-room; he wouldnever lose the idea that a lobby, however narrow, was the greatdistinguishing mark of wealth. It was wonderful that he had a piano, and that his girls could play it and could sing. It was wonderful thathe had paid twenty-eight shillings a term for his son's schooling, inaddition to book-money. Twenty-eight shillings a term! And once apenny a week was considered enough, and twopence generous! Throughsheer splendid wilful pride he had kept his son at school till the ladwas sixteen, going on seventeen! Seventeen, not seven! He had had thesort of pride in his son that a man may have in an idle, elegant, andabsurdly expensive woman. It even tickled him to hear his son called`Master Edwin, ' and then `Mister Edwin'; just as the fine ceremoniousmanners of his sister-in-law Mrs Hamps tickled him. His marriage!With all its inevitable disillusions it had been wonderful, incredible. He looked back on it as a miracle. For he had married far above him, and had proved equal to the enormously difficult situation. Never hadhe made a fool of himself. He often took keen pleasure in speculatingupon the demeanour of his father, his mother, his little sister, couldthey have seen him in his purple and in his grandeur. They were alldead. And those days were fading, fading, gone, with their unutterable, intolerable shame and sadness, intolerable even in memory. And his wifedead too! All that remained was Mr Shushions. And then his business? Darius's pride in the achievement of hisbusiness was simply indescribable. If he had not built up thatparticular connexion he had built up another one whose sale had enabledhim to buy it. And he was waxing yearly. His supremacy as a printercould not be challenged in Bursley. Steam! A double-windowed shop! Aforeman to whom alone he paid thirty shillings a week! Four otheremployees! (Not to mention a domestic servant. ) . .. How had he doneit? He did not know. Certainly he did not credit himself withbrilliant faculties. He knew he was not brilliant; he knew that once ortwice he had had luck. But he had the greatest confidence in hisrough-hewing common sense. The large curves of his career werecorrectly drawn. His common sense, his slow shrewdness, had been richlyjustified by events. They had been pitted against foes--and look now atthe little boy from the Bastille! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. To Darius there was no business quite like his own. He admitted thatthere were businesses much bigger, but they lacked the miraculousquality that his own had. They were not sacred. His was, genuinely. Once, in his triumphant and vain early manhood he had had a fancy forbulldogs; he had bred bulldogs; and one day he had sacrificed even thatgreat delight at the call of his business; and now no one could guessthat he knew the difference between a setter and a mastiff! It was this sacred business (perpetually adored at the secret altar inDarius's heart), this miraculous business, and not another, that Edwinwanted to abandon, with scarcely a word; just casually! True, Edwin had told him one night that he would like to be anarchitect. But Darius had attached no importance to the boyish remark. Darius had never even dreamed that Edwin would not go into the business. It would not have occurred to him to conceive such a possibility. Andthe boy had shown great aptitude. The boy had saved the printing officefrom disaster. And Darius had proved his satisfaction therein, not bywords certainly, but beyond mistaking in his general demeanour towardsEdwin. And after all that, a letter--mind you, a letter!--proposingwith the most damnable insolent audacity that he should be an architect, because he would not be `happy' in the printing business! . .. Anarchitect! Why an architect, specially? What in the name of God wasthere to attract in bricks and mortar? He thought the boy had gone offhis head for a space. He could not think of any other explanation. Hehad not allowed the letter to upset him. By his armour of thickcallousness, he had protected the tender places in his soul from beingwounded. He had not decided how to phrase his answer to Edwin. He hadnot even decided whether he would say anything at all, whether it wouldnot be more dignified and impressive to make no remark whatever toEdwin, to let him slowly perceive, by silence, what a lamentable errorhe had committed. And here was the boy lightly, cheekily, talking at breakfast about`going in for architecture'! The armour of callousness was pierced. Darius felt the full force of the letter; and as he suffered, so hebecame terrible and tyrannic in his suffering. He meant to save hisbusiness, to put his business before anything. And he would have hisown way. He would impose his will. And he would have treated argumentas a final insult. All the heavy, obstinate, relentless force of hisindividuality was now channelled in one tremendous instinct. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. "Well, what?" he growled savagely, as Edwin halted. In spite of his advanced age Edwin began to cry. Yes, the tears cameout of his eyes. "And now you begin blubbing!" said his father. "You say naught for six months--and then you start writing letters!"said his father. "And what's made ye settle on architecting, I'd like to be knowing?"Darius went on. Edwin was not able to answer this question. He had never put it tohimself. Assuredly he could not, at the pistol's point, explain why hewanted to be an architect. He did not know. He announced this truthingenuously-- "I don't know--I--" "I sh'd think not!" said his father. "D'ye think architecting'll be anybetter than this?" `This' meant printing. "I don't know--" "Ye don't know! Ye don't know!" Darius repeated testily. Histestiness was only like foam on the great wave of his resentment. "Mr Orgreave--" Edwin began. It was unfortunate, because Darius hadhad a difficulty with Mr Orgreave, who was notoriously somewhatexacting in the matter of prices. "Don't talk to me about Mester Orgreave!" Darius almost shouted. Edwin didn't. He said to himself: "I am lost. " "What's this business o' mine for, if it isna' for you?" asked hisfather. "Architecting! There's neither sense nor reason in it!Neither sense nor reason!" He rose and walked out. Edwin was now sobbing. In a moment his fatherreturned, and stood in the doorway. "Ye've been doing well, I'll say that, and I've shown it! I wasbeginning to have hopes of ye!" It was a great deal to say. He departed. "Perhaps if I hadn't stopped his damned old machine from going throughthe floor, he'd have let me off!" Edwin muttered bitterly. "I've beentoo good, that's what's the matter with me!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. He saw how fantastic was the whole structure of his hopes. He wonderedthat he had ever conceived it even wildly possible that his father wouldconsent to architecture as a career! To ask it was to ask absurdly toomuch of fate. He demolished, with a violent and resentful impulse, thestructure of his hopes; stamped on it angrily. He was beaten. Whatcould he do? He could do nothing against his father. He could no morechange his father than the course of a river. He was beaten. He sawhis case in its true light. Mrs Nixon entered to clear the table. He turned away to hide his face, and strode passionately off. Two hours elapsed before he appeared inthe shop. Nobody asked for him, but Mrs Nixon knew he was in theattic. At noon, Maggie, with a peculiar look, told him that AuntieHamps had called and that he was to go and have dinner with her at oneo'clock, and that his father consented. Obviously, Maggie knew thefacts of the day. He was perturbed at the prospect of the visit. Buthe was glad; he thought he could not have lived through a dinner at thesame table as Clara. He guessed that his auntie had been made aware ofthe situation and wished to talk to him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EIGHT. "Your father came to see me in such a state last night!" said AuntieHamps, after she had dealt with his frightful cold. Edwin was astonished by the news. Then after all his father had beenafraid! . .. After all perhaps he had yielded too soon! If he had heldout. .. If he had not been a baby! . .. But it was too late. Theincident was now closed. Mrs Hamps was kind, but unusually firm in her tone; which reached asort of benevolent severity. "Your father had such high hopes of you. Has--I should say. Hecouldn't imagine what on earth possessed you to write such a letter. And I'm sure I can't. I hope you're sorry. If you'd seen your fatherlast night you would be, I'm sure. " "But look here, auntie, " Edwin defended himself, sneezing and wiping hisnose; and he spoke of his desire. Surely he was entitled to ask, tosuggest! A son could not be expected to be exactly like his father. And so on. No! no! She brushed all that aside. She scarcely listened to it. "But think of the business! And just think of your father's feelings!" Edwin spoke no more. He saw that she was absolutely incapable ofputting herself in his place. He could not have explained her attitudeby saying that she had the vast unconscious cruelty which always goeswith a perfect lack of imagination; but this was the explanation. Heleft her, saddened by the obvious conclusion that his auntie, whom hehad always supported against his sisters, was part author of hisundoing. She had undoubtedly much strengthened his father against him. He had a gleam of suspicion that his sisters had been right, and hewrong, about Mrs Hamps. Wonderful, the cruel ruthless insight ofgirls--into some things! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NINE. Not till Saturday did the atmosphere of the Clayhanger household resumethe normal. But earlier than that Edwin had already lost hisresentment. It disappeared with his cold. He could not continue tobear ill-will. He accepted his destiny of immense disappointment. Heshouldered it. You may call him weak or you may call him strong. Maggie said nothing to him of the great affair. What could she havesaid? And the affair was so great that even Clara did not dare toexercise upon it her peculiar faculties of ridicule. It abashed her byits magnitude. On Saturday Darius said to his son, good-humouredly-- "Canst be trusted to pay wages?" Edwin smiled. At one o'clock he went across the yard to the printing office with alittle bag of money. The younger apprentice was near the door scrubbingtype with potash to cleanse it. The backs of his hands were horriblyraw and bleeding with chaps, due to the frequent necessity of washingthem in order to serve the machines, and the impossibility of dryingthem properly. Still, winter was ending now, and he only worked elevenhours a day, in an airy room, instead of nineteen hours in a cellar, like the little boy from the Bastille. He was a fortunate youth. Thejourneyman stood idle; as often, on Saturdays, the length of thejourneyman's apron had been reduced by deliberate tearing during theweek from three feet to about a foot--so imperious and sudden was theneed for rags in the processes of printing. Big James was folding uphis apron. They all saw that Edwin had the bag, and their facesrelaxed. "You're as good as the master now, Mr Edwin, " said Big James withceremonious politeness and a fine gesture, when Edwin had finishedpaying. "Am I?" he rejoined simply. Everybody knew of the great affair. Big James's words were his gentleintimation to Edwin that every one knew the great affair was nowsettled. That night, for the first time, Edwin could read "Notre Dame" withunderstanding and pleasure. He plunged with soft joy into the river ofthe gigantic and formidable narrative. He reflected that after all thesources of happiness were not exhausted. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ONE. BOOK TWO--HIS LOVE. THE VISIT. We now approach the more picturesque part of Edwin's career. Sevenyears passed. Towards the end of April 1880, on a Saturday morning, Janet Orgreave, second daughter of Osmond Orgreave, the architect, entered the Clayhanger shop. All night an April shower lasting ten hours had beaten with persistentimpetuosity against the window-panes of Bursley, and hence half the townhad slept ill. But at breakfast-time the clouds had been mysteriouslydrawn away, the winds had expired, and those drenched streets began todry under the caressing peace of bright soft sunshine; the sky was paleblue of a delicacy unknown to the intemperate climes of the south. Janet Orgreave, entering the Clayhanger shop, brought into it with herthe new morning weather. She also brought into it Edwin's fate, or partof it, but not precisely in the sense commonly understood when the word`fate' is mentioned between a young man and a young woman. A youth stood at the left-hand or `fancy' counter, very nervous. MissIngamells (that was) was married and the mother of three children, andhad probably forgotten the difference between `demy' and `post' octavos;and this youth had taken her place and the place of two unsatisfactorymaids in black who had succeeded her. None but males were now employedin the Clayhanger business, and everybody breathed more freely; round, sound oaths were heard where never oaths had been heard before. Theyoung man's name was Stifford, and he was addressed as `Stiff. ' He wasa proof of the indiscretion of prophesying about human nature. He hadbeen the paper boy, the minion of Edwin, and universally regarded asunreliable and almost worthless. But at sixteen a change had come overhim; he parted his hair in the middle instead of at the side, arrived inthe morning at 7:59 instead of at 8:05, and seemed to see theearnestness of life. Every one was glad and relieved, but every onetook the change as a matter of course; the attitude of every one to theyouth was: "Well, it's not too soon!" No one saw a romantic miracle. "I suppose you haven't got `The Light of Asia' in stock?" began JanetOrgreave, after she had greeted the youth kindly. "I'm afraid we haven't, miss, " said Stifford. This was anunderstatement. He knew beyond fear that "The Light of Asia" was not instock. "Oh!" murmured Janet. "I think you said `The Light of Asia'?" "Yes. `The Light of Asia, ' by Edwin Arnold. " Janet had a persuasivehumane smile. Stifford was anxious to have the air of obliging this smile, and heturned round to examine a shelf of prize books behind him, well awarethat "The Light of Asia" was not among them. He knew "The Light ofAsia, " and was proud of his knowledge; that is to say, he knew byvisible and tactual evidence that such a book existed, for it had beenordered and supplied as a Christmas present four months previously, soonafter its dazzling apparition in the world. "Yes, by Edwin Arnold--Edwin Arnold, " he muttered learnedly, running hisfinger along gilded backs. "It's being talked about a great deal, " said Janet as if to encouragehim. "Yes, it is. .. No, I'm very sorry, we haven't it in stock. " Stiffordfaced her again, and leaned his hands wide apart on the counter. "I should like you to order it for me, " said Janet Orgreave in a lowvoice. She asked this exactly as though she were asking a personal favour fromStifford the private individual. Such was Janet's way. She could nothelp it. People often said that her desire to please, and her methodsof pleasing, were unconscious. These people were wrong. She wasperfectly conscious and even deliberate in her actions. She liked toplease. She could please easily and she could please keenly. Thereforeshe strove always to please. Sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, and saw that charming, good-natured face with its rich vermilion lipseager to part in a nice, warm, sympathetic smile, she could accuseherself of being too fond of the art of pleasing. For she was aconscientious girl, and her age being twenty-five her soul was at itsprime, full, bursting with beautiful impulses towards perfection. Yes, she would accuse herself of being too happy, too content, and wouldwonder whether she ought not to seek heaven by some austerity ofscowling. Janet had everything: a kind disposition, some brains, somebeauty, considerable elegance and luxury for her station, fine shouldersat a ball, universal love and esteem. Stifford, as he gazed diffidently at this fashionable, superior, and yetexquisitely beseeching woman on the other side of the counter, was in avery unpleasant quandary. She had by her magic transformed him into aprivate individual, and he acutely wanted to earn that smile which shewas giving him. But he could not. He was under the obligation to say`No' to her innocent and delightful request; and yet could he say `No'?Could he bring himself to desolate her by a refusal? (She had producedin him the illusion that a refusal would indeed desolate her, though shewould of course bear it with sweet fortitude. ) Business was a barbaricthing at times. "The fact is, miss, " he said at length, in his best manner, "MrClayhanger has decided to give up the new book business. I'm verysorry. " Had it been another than Janet he would have assuredly said with pride:"We have decided--" "Really!" said Janet. "I see!" Then Stifford directed his eyes upon a square glazed structure ofebonised wood that had been insinuated and inserted into the oppositecorner of the shop, behind the ledger-window. And Janet's eyes followedhis. "I don't know if--" he hesitated. "Is Mr Clayhanger in?" she demanded, as if wishful to help him in theformulation of his idea, and she added: "Or Mr Edwin?" Deliciouslypersuasive! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The wooden structure was a lair. It had been constructed to hold DariusClayhanger; but in practice it generally held Edwin, as his father'sschemes for the enlargement of the business carried him abroad more andmore. It was a device of Edwin's for privacy; Edwin had planned it andseen the plan executed. The theory was that a person concealed in thestructure (called `the office') was not technically in the shop and mustnot be disturbed by anyone in the shop. Only persons of authority--Darius and Edwin--had the privilege of the office, and since itsoccupant could hear every whisper in the shop, it was always for theoccupant to decide when events demanded that he should emerge. On Janet's entrance, Edwin was writing in the daybook: "April 11th. Turnhill Oddfellows. 400 Contrib. Cards--" He stopped writing. He heldhimself still like a startled mouse. With satisfaction he observed thatthe door of the fortress was closed. By putting his nose near thecrystal wall he could see, through the minute transparent portions ofthe patterned glass, without being seen. He watched Janet's gracefulgestures, and examined with pleasure the beauties of her half-seasontoilet; he discerned the modishness of her umbrella handle. Hissensations were agreeable and yet disagreeable, for he wished both toremain where he was and to go forth and engage her in brilliant smalltalk. He had no small talk, except that of the salesman and thetradesman; his tongue knew not freedom; but his fancy dreamed of light, intellectual conversations with fine girls. These dreams of fancy hadof late become almost habitual, for the sole reason that he had raisedhis hat several times to Janet, and once had shaken hands with her andsaid, "How d'you do, Miss Orgreave?" in response to her "How d'you do, Mr Clayhanger?" Osmond Orgreave, in whom had originated theirencounter, had cut across the duologue at that point and spoilt it. ButEdwin's fancy had continued it, when he was alone late at night, in avery diverting and witty manner. And now, he had her at his disposal;he had only to emerge, and Stiff would deferentially recede, and hecould chat with her at ease, starting comfortably from "The Light ofAsia. " And yet he dared not; his faint heart told him in loud beatsthat he could only chat cleverly with a fine girl when absolutely alonein his room, in the dark. Still, he surveyed her; he added her up; he pronounced, with a touch ofconventional male patronage (caught possibly from the Liberal Club), that Janet was indubitably a nice girl and a fine girl. He would notadmit that he was afraid of her, and that despite all theoreticalargufying, he deemed her above him in rank. And if he had known the full truth, he might have regretted that he hadnot caused the lair to be furnished with a trap-door by means of whichthe timid could sink into the earth. The truth was that Janet had called purposely to inspect Edwin atleisure. "The Light of Asia" was a mere poetical pretext. "The Lightof Asia" might as easily have been ordered at Hanbridge, where herfather and brothers ordered all their books--in fact, more easily. Janet, with all her niceness, with all the reality of her immensegood-nature, loved as well as anybody a bit of chicane where a man wasconcerned. Janet's eyes could twinkle as mischievously as her quietmother's. Mr Orgreave having in the last eight months been inprofessional relations with Darius and Edwin, the Orgreave household hadbegun discussing Edwin again. Mr Orgreave spoke of him favourably. Mrs Orgreave said that he looked the right sort of youth, but that hehad a peculiar manner. Janet said that she should not be surprised ifthere was something in him. Janet said also that his sister Clara wasan impossible piece of goods, and that his sister Maggie was born an oldmaid. One of her brothers then said that that was just what was thematter with Edwin too! Mr Orgreave protested that he wasn't so sure ofthat, and that occasionally Edwin would say things that were reallyrather good. This stimulated Mrs Orgreave's curiosity, and shesuggested that her husband should invite the young man to their house. Whereupon Mr Orgreave pessimistically admitted that he did not thinkEdwin could be enticed. And Janet, piqued, said, "If that's all, I'llhave him here in a week. " They were an adventurous family, always readyfor anything, always on the look-out for new sources of pleasure, fullof zest in life. They liked novelties, and hospitality was their chiefhobby. They made fun of nearly every body, but it was not mean fun. Such, and not "The Light of Asia, " was the cause of Janet's visit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Be it said to Edwin's shame that she would have got no further with thefamily plot that morning, had it not been for the chivalry of Stifford. Having allowed his eyes to rest on the lair, Stifford allowed his memoryto forget the rule of the shop, and left the counter for the door of thelair, determined that Miss Orgreave should see the genuineness of hisanxiety to do his utmost for so sympathetic a woman. Edwin, perceivingthe intention from his lair, had to choose whether he would go out or befetched out. Of course he preferred to go out. But he would never havegone out on his own initiative; he would have hesitated until Janet haddeparted, and he would then have called himself a fool. He regretted, and I too regret, that he was like that; but like that he was. He emerged with nervous abruptness. "Oh, how d'you do, Miss Orgreave?" he said; "I thought it was yourvoice. " After this he gave a little laugh, which meant nothing, certainly not amusement; it was merely a gawky habit that he hadunconsciously adopted. Then he took his handkerchief out of his pocketand put it back again. Stifford fell back and had to pretend thatnothing interested him less than the interview which he hadprecipitated. "How d'you do, Mr Clayhanger?" said Janet. They shook hands. Edwin wrung Janet's hand; another gawky habit. "I was just going to order a book, " said Janet. "Oh yes! `The Light of Asia, '" said Edwin. "Have you read it?" Janet asked. "Yes--that is, a lot of it. " "Have you?" exclaimed Janet. She was impressed, because really theperusal of verse was not customary in the town. And her delightfulfeatures showed generously the full extent to which she was impressed:an honest, ungrudging appreciation of Edwin's studiousness. She said toherself: "Oh! I must certainly get him to the house. " And Edwin saidto himself, "No mistake, there's something very genuine about thisgirl. " Edwin said aloud quickly, from an exaggerated apprehensiveness lest sheshould be rating him too high-- "It was quite an accident that I saw it. I never read that sort ofthing--not as a rule. " He laughed again. "Is it worth buying?" Now she appealed to him as an authority. Shecould not help doing so, and in doing so she was quite honest, for hergood-nature had momentarily persuaded her that he was an authority. "I--I don't know, " Edwin answered, moving his neck as though his collarwas not comfortable; but it was comfortable, being at least a size toolarge. "It depends, you know. If you read a lot of poetry, it's worthbuying. But if you don't, it isn't. It's not Tennyson, you know. Seewhat I mean?" "Yes, quite!" said Janet, smiling with continued and growingappreciation. The reply struck her as very sagacious. She suddenly sawin a new light her father's hints that there was something in this youngman not visible to everybody. She had a tremendous respect for herfather's opinion, and now she reproached herself in that she had notattached due importance to what he had said about Edwin. "How rightfather always is!" she thought. Her attitude of respect for Edwin wasnow more securely based upon impartial intelligence than before; it owedless to her weakness for seeing the best in people. As for Edwin, hewas saying to himself: "I wish to the devil I could talk to her withoutspluttering! Why can't I be natural? Why can't I be glib? Some chapscould. " And Edwin could be, with some chaps. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. They were standing close together in the shop, Janet and Edwin, near thecabinet of artists' materials. Janet, after her manner at once frankand reassuring, examined Edwin; she had come on purpose to examine him. She had never been able to decide whether or not he was good-looking, and she could not decide now. But she liked the appeal in his eyes. She did not say to herself that there was an appeal in his eyes; shesaid that there was `something in his eyes. ' Also he was moderatelytall and he was slim. She said to herself that he must be very wellshaped. Beginning at the bottom, his boots were clumsy, his trouserswere baggy and even shiny, and they had transverse creases, not to beseen in the trousers of her own menkind; his waistcoat showed plainlythe forms of every article in the pockets thereof--watch, penknife, pencil, etcetera, it was obvious that he never emptied his pockets atnight; his collar was bluish-white instead of white, and its size wasmonstrous; his jacket had `worked up' at the back of his neck, completely hiding his collar there; the side-pockets of his jacket wereweighted and bulged with mysterious goods; his fair hair was rough butnot curly; he had a moustache so trifling that one could not be surewhether it was a moustache or whether he had been too busy to think ofshaving. Janet received all these facts into her brain, and thencarelessly let them all slip out again, in her preoccupation with hiseyes. She said they were sad eyes. The mouth, too, was somewhat sad(she thought), but there was a drawing down of the corners of it thatseemed to make gentle fun of its sadness. Janet, perhaps out of hergood-nature, liked his restless, awkward movements and the gesture ofhis hands, of which the articulations were too prominent, and thefinger-nails too short. "Tom reads rather a lot of poetry, " said Janet. "That's my eldestbrother. " "That might justify you, " said Edwin doubtfully. They both laughed. And as with Janet, so with Edwin, when he laughed, all the kindest and honestest part of him seemed to rise into his face. "But if you don't supply new books any more?" "Oh!" Edwin stuttered, blushing slightly. "That's nothing. I shall bevery pleased to get it for you specially, Miss Orgreave. It's fatherthat decided--only last month--that the new book business was moretrouble than it's worth. It was--in a way; but I'm sorry, myself, we'vegiven it up, poor as it was. Of course there are no book-buyers in thistown, especially now old Lawton's dead. But still, what with one thingor another, there was generally some book on order, and I used to seethem. Of course there's no money in it. But still. .. Father says thatpeople buy less books than they used to--but he's wrong there. " Edwinspoke with calm certainty. "I've shown him he's wrong by ourorder-book, but he wouldn't see it. " Edwin smiled, with a general mildindulgence for fathers. "Well, " said Janet, "I'll ask Tom first. " "No trouble whatever to us to order it for you, I assure you. I can getit down by return of post. " "It's very good of you, " said Janet, genuinely persuading herself forthe moment that Edwin was quite exceeding the usual bounds ofcomplaisance. She moved to depart. "Father told me to tell you if I saw you that the glazing will be allfinished this morning, " said she. "Up yonder?" Edwin jerked his head to indicate the south. And Janet delicately confirmed his assumption with a slight declensionof her waving hat. "Oh! Good!" Edwin murmured. Janet held out her hand, to be wrung again, and assured him of hergratitude for his offer of taking trouble about the book; and he assuredher that it would not be trouble but pleasure. He accompanied her tothe doorway. "I think I must come up and have a look at that glazing this afternoon, "he said, as she stood on the pavement. She nodded, smiling benevolence and appreciation, and departed round thecorner in the soft sunshine. Edwin put on a stern, casual expression for the benefit of Stifford, aswho should say: "What a trial these frivolous girls are to a manimmersed in affairs!" But Stifford was not deceived. Safe within hislair, Edwin was conscious of quite a disturbing glow. He smiled tohimself--a little self-consciously, though alone. Then he scribbleddown in pencil "Light of Asia. Miss J. Orgreave. " VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO. FATHER AND SON AFTER SEVEN YEARS. Darius came heavily, and breathing heavily, into the little office. "Now as all this racketing's over, " he said crossly--he meant by`racketing' the general election which had just put the Liberal partyinto power--"I'll thank ye to see as all that red and blue ink iscleaned off the rollers and slabs, and the types cleaned too. I've told'em ten times if I've told 'em once, but as far as I can make out, they've done naught to it yet. " Edwin grunted without looking up. His father was now a fattish man, and he had aged quite as much asEdwin. Some of his scanty hair was white; the rest was grey. Whitehair sprouted about his ears; gold gleamed in his mouth; and a pair ofspectacles hung insecurely balanced half-way down his nose; hiswaistcoat seemed to be stretched tightly over a perfectly smoothhemisphere. He had an air of somewhat gross and prosperous untidiness. Except for the teeth, his bodily frame appeared to have fallen intodisrepair, as though he had ceased to be interested in it, as though hehad been using it for a long time as a mere makeshift lodging. And thisimpression was more marked at table; he ate exactly as if throwing foodto a wild animal concealed somewhere within the hemisphere, an animalwhich was never seen, but which rumbled threateningly from time to timein its dark dungeon. Of all this, Edwin had definitely noticed nothing save that his fatherwas `getting stouter. ' To Edwin, Darius was exactly the same father, and for Darius, Edwin was still aged sixteen. They both of them went onliving on the assumption that the world had stood still in those sevenyears between 1873 and 1880. If they had been asked what had happenedduring those seven years, they would have answered: "Oh, nothingparticular!" But the world had been whizzing ceaselessly from one miracle intoanother. Board schools had been opened in Bursley, wondrous affairs, with ventilation; indeed ventilation had been discovered. A Jew hadbeen made Master of the Rolls: a spectacle at which England shivered, and then, perceiving no sign of disaster, shrugged its shoulders. Irishmembers had taught the House of Commons how to talk for twenty-fourhours without a pause. The wages of the agricultural labourer hadsprung into the air and leaped over the twelve shilling bar into regionsof opulence. Moody and Sankey had found and conquered England forChrist. Landseer and Livingstone had died, and the provinces could notdecide whether "Dignity and Impudence" or the penetration of Africa wasthe more interesting feat. Herbert Spencer had published his "Study ofSociology"; Matthew Arnold his "Literature and Dogma"; and FredericFarrar his Life of his Lord; but here the provinces had no difficulty indeciding, for they had only heard of the last. Every effort had beenmade to explain by persuasion and by force to the working man that tradeunions were inimical to his true welfare, and none had succeeded, sostupid was he. The British Army had been employed to put reason intothe noddle of a town called Northampton which was furious because anatheist had not been elected to Parliament. Pullman cars, "The Piratesof Penzance, " Henry Irving's "Hamlet, " spelling-bees, and Captain Webb'schannel swim had all proved that there were novelties under the sun. Bishops, archbishops, and dissenting ministers had met at Lambeth toinspect the progress of irreligious thought, with intent to arrest it. Princes and dukes had conspired to inaugurate the most singular schemethat ever was, the Kyrle Society, --for bringing beauty home to thepeople by means of decorative art, gardening, and music. The BulgarianAtrocities had served to give new life to all penny gaffs andblood-tubs. The "Eurydice" and the "Princess Alice" had foundered inorder to demonstrate the uncertainty of existence and the courage of theisland-race. The "Nineteenth Century" had been started, a little latein the day, and the "Referee. " Ireland had all but died of hunger, buthad happily been saved to enjoy the benefits of Coercion. The YoungMen's Christian Association had been born again in the splendour ofExeter Hall. Bursley itself had entered on a new career as a charteredborough, with Mayor, alderman, and councillors, all in chains of silver. And among the latest miracles were Northampton's success in sending theatheist to Parliament, the infidelity of the Tay Bridge three days afterChristmas, the catastrophe of Majuba Hill, and the discovery thatsoldiers objected to being flogged into insensibility for a peccadillo. But, in spite of numerous attempts, nobody had contrived to make Englandsee that her very existence would not be threatened if museums wereopened on Sunday, or that Nonconformists might be buried according totheir own rites without endangering the constitution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Darius was possibly a little uneasy in his mind about the world. Possibly there had just now begun to form in his mind the conviction, inwhich most men die, that all was not quite well with the world, and thatin particular his native country had contracted a fatal malady since hewas a boy. He was a printer, and yet the General Election had not put sunshine inhis heart. And this was strange, for a general election is the briefmillennium of printers, especially of steam-printers who for dispatchcan beat all rivals. During a general election the question put by acustomer to a printer is not, "How much will it be?" but "How soon can Ihave it?" There was no time for haggling about price; and indeed tohaggle about price would have been unworthy, seeing that every customer(ordinary business being at a standstill), was engaged in the salvationof England. Darius was a Liberal, but a quiet one, and he waspatronised by both political parties--blue and red. As a fact, neitherparty could have done without him. His printing office had clatteredand thundered early and late, and more than once had joined the end ofone day's work to the beginning of another; and more than once had BigJames with his men and his boy (a regiment increased since 1873), stoodlike plotters muttering in the yard at five minutes to twelve on Sundayevening, waiting for midnight to sound, and Big James had unlocked thedoor of the office on the new-born Monday, and work had instantlycommenced to continue till Monday was nearly dead of old age. Once only had work been interrupted, and that was on a day when, a lotof `blue jobs' being about, a squad of red fire-eaters had come up theback alley with intent to answer arguments by thwackings and wreckings;but the obstinacy of an oak door had fatigued them. The staff hadenjoyed that episode. Every member of it was well paid for overtime. Darius could afford to pay conscientiously. In the printing trade, prices were steadier then than they are now. But already the discoveryof competition was following upon the discovery of ventilation. PerhapsDarius sniffed it from a distance, and was disturbed thereby. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. For though he was a Liberal in addition to being a printer, and he hadvoted Liberal, and his party had won, yet the General Election had notput sunshine in his heart. No! The tendencies of England worried him. When he read in a paper about the heretical tendencies of RobertsonSmith's Biblical articles in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica, " he said tohimself that they were of a piece with the rest, and that such thingswere to be expected in those modern days, and that matters must havecome to a pretty pass when even the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" wasinfected. (Still, he had sold a copy of the new edition. ) He wasexceedingly bitter against Ireland; and also, in secret, behind BigJames's back, against trade unions. When Edwin came home one night andannounced that he had joined the Bursley Liberal Club, Darius lost histemper. Yet he was a member of the club himself. He gave no reason forhis fury, except that it was foolish for a tradesman to mix himself upwith politics. Edwin, however, had developed a sudden interest inpolitics, and had made certain promises of clerical aid, which promiseshe kept, saying nothing more to his father. Darius's hero was SirRobert Peel, simply because Sir Robert Peel had done away with the CornLaws. Darius had known England before and after the repeal of the CornLaws, and the difference between the two Englands was so strikinglydramatic to him that he desired no further change. He had only onedate--1846. His cup had been filled then. Never would he forget thescenes of anguishing joy that occurred at midnight of the day before thenew Act became operative. From that moment he had finished withprogress. .. If Edwin could only have seen those memories, shining inlayers deep in his father's heart, and hidden now by all sorts ofPliocene deposits, he would have understood his father better. ButEdwin did not see into his father's heart at all, nor even into hishead. When he looked at his father he saw nothing but an ugly, stertorous old man (old, that is, to Edwin), with a peculiar andincalculable way of regarding things and a temper of growingcapriciousness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Darius was breathing and fidgeting all over him as he sat bent at thedesk. His presence overwhelmed every other physical phenomenon. "What's this?" asked Darius, picking up the bit of paper on which Edwinhad written the memorandum about "The Light of Asia. " Edwin explained, self-consciously, lamely. When the barometer of Darius's temper was falling rapidly, there was asign: a small spot midway on the bridge of his nose turned ivory-white. Edwin glanced upwards now to see if the sign was there, and it was. Heflushed slightly and resumed his work. Then Darius began. "What did I tell ye?" he shouted. "What in the name of God's the use o'me telling ye things? Have I told ye not to take any more orders forbooks, or haven't I? Haven't I said over and over again that I wantthis shop to be known for wholesale?" He raved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. Stifford could hear. Any person who might chance to come into the shopwould hear. But Darius cared neither for his own dignity nor for thatof his son. He was in a passion. The real truth was that this celibateman, who never took alcohol, enjoyed losing his temper; it was his oneoutlet; he gave himself up almost luxuriously to a passion; he lookedforward to it as some men look forward to brandy. And Edwin had neverstopped him by some drastic step. At first, years before, Edwin hadsaid to himself, trembling with resentment in his bedroom, "The nexttime, the very next time, he humiliates me like that in front of otherpeople, I'll walk out of his damned house and shop, and I swear I won'tcome back until he's apologised. I'll bring him to his senses. Hecan't do without me. Once for all I'll stop it. What! He forces meinto his business, and then insults me!" But Edwin had never done it. Always, it was `the very next time'!Edwin was not capable of doing it. His father had a sort of moralbrute-force, against which he could not stand firm. He soon recognisedthis, with his intellectual candour. Then he had tried to argue withDarius, to `make him see'! Worse than futile! Argument simply putDarius beside himself. So that in the end Edwin employed silence andsecret scorn, as a weapon and as a defence. And somehow without a wordhe conveyed to Stifford and to Big James precisely what his attitude inthese crises was, so that he retained their respect and avoided theirpity. The outbursts still wounded him, but he was wonderfully inured. As he sat writing under the onslaught, he said to himself, "By God! Ifever I get the chance, I'll pay you out for this some day!" And hemeant it. A peep into his mind, then, would have startled JanetOrgreave, Mrs Nixon, and other persons who had a cult for thewistfulness of his appealing eyes. He steadily maintained silence, and the conflagration burnt itself out. "Are you going to look after the printing shop, or aren't you?" Dariusgrowled at length. Edwin rose and went. As he passed through the shop, Stifford, who hadin him the raw material of fine manners, glanced down, but not tooostentatiously, at a drawer under the counter. The printing office was more crowded than ever with men and matter. Some of the composing was now done on the ground-floor. The wholeorganism functioned, but under such difficulties as could not be allowedto continue, even by Darius Clayhanger. Darius had finally recognisedthat. "Oh!" said Edwin, in a tone of confidential intimacy to Big James, "Isee they're getting on with the cleaning! Good. Father's beginning toget impatient, you know. It's the bigger cases that had better be donefirst. " "Right it is, Mr Edwin!" said Big James. The giant was unchanged. Nosign of grey in his hair; and his cheek was smooth, apparently hisphilosophy put him beyond the touch of time. "I say, Mr Edwin, " he inquired in his majestic voice. "When are wegoing to rearrange all this?" He gazed around. Edwin laughed. "Soon, " he said. "Won't be too soon, " said Big James. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THREE. THE NEW HOUSE. A house stood on a hill. And that hill was Bleakridge, the summit ofthe little billow of land between Bursley and Hanbridge. Trafalgar Roadpassed over the crest of the billow. Bleakridge was certainly not morethan a hundred feet higher than Bursley; yet people were now talking alot about the advantages of living `up' at Bleakridge, `above' thesmoke, and `out' of the town, though it was not more than five minutesfrom the Duck Bank. To hear them talking, one might have fancied thatBleakridge was away in the mountains somewhere. The new steam-carswould pull you up there in three minutes or so, every quarter of anhour. It was really the new steam-cars that were to be the making ofBleakridge as a residential suburb. It had also been predicted thateven Hanbridge men would come to live at Bleakridge now. Land waschanging owners at Bleakridge, and rising in price. Complete streets oflobbied cottages grew at angles from the main road with the rapidity ofthat plant which pushes out strangling branches more quickly than a mancan run. And these lobbied cottages were at once occupied. Cottage-property in the centre of the town depreciated. The land fronting the main road was destined not for cottages, but forresidences, semi-detached or detached. Osmond Orgreave had a good dealof this land under his control. He did not own it, he hawked it. Likeall provincial, and most London, architects, he was a land-broker inaddition to being an architect. Before obtaining a commission to builda house, he frequently had to create the commission himself by selling aconvenient plot, and then persuading the purchaser that if he wished toretain the respect of the community he must put on the plot a houseworthy of the plot. The Orgreave family all had expensive tastes, andit was Osmond Orgreave's task to find most of the money needed for thesatisfaction of those tastes. He always did find it, because thenecessity was upon him, but he did not always find it easily. Janetwould say sometimes, "We mustn't be so hard on father this month;really, lately we've never seen him with his cheque-book out of hishand. " Undoubtedly the clothes on Janet's back were partly responsiblefor the celerity with which building land at Bleakridge was `developed, 'just after the installation of steam-cars in Trafalgar Road. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Mr Orgreave sold a corner plot to Darius. He had had his eye on Dariusfor a long time before he actually shot him down; but difficultiesconnected with the paring of estimates for printing had somewhatestranged them. Orgreave had had to smooth out these difficulties, offer to provide a portion of the purchase money on mortgage fromanother client, produce a plan for a new house that surpassed allrecords of cheapness, produce a plan for the transforming of Darius'spresent residence into business premises, talk poetically about thefuture of printing in the Five Towns, and lastly, demonstrate by digitsthat Darius would actually save money by becoming a property-owner--hehad had to do all this, and more, before Darius would buy. The two were regular cronies for about a couple of months--that is tosay, between the payment of the preliminary deposit and the signing ofthe contract for building the house. But, the contract signed, theirrelations were once more troubled. Orgreave had nothing to fear, then, and besides, he was using his diplomacy elsewhere. The house went up toan accompaniment of scenes in which only the proprietor was irate. Osmond Orgreave could not be ruffled; he could not be deprived of hisair of having done a favour to Darius Clayhanger; his social and moralsuperiority, his real aloofness, remained absolutely unimpaired. Theclear image of him as a fine gentleman was never dulled nor distortedeven in the mind of Darius. Nevertheless Darius `hated the sight' ofthe house ere the house was roofed in. But this did not diminish hispride in the house. He wished he had never `set eyes on' OsmondOrgreave. Yes! But the little boy from the Bastille was immenselycontent at the consequences of having set eyes on Osmond Orgreave. Thelittle boy from the Bastille was achieving the supreme peak ofgreatness--he was about to live away from business. Soon he would be`going down to business' of a morning. Soon he would be receiving twoseparate demand-notes for rates. Soon he would be on a plane with thevainest earthenware manufacturer of them all. Ages ago he had got asfar as a house with a lobby to it. Now, it would be a matter of twoestablishments. Beneath all his discontents, moodiness, temper, andbiliousness, lay this profound satisfaction of the little boy from theBastille. Moreover, in any case, he would have been obliged to do somethingheroic, if only to find the room more and more imperiously demanded byhis printing business. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. On the Saturday afternoon of Janet Orgreave's visit to the shop, Edwinwent up to Bleakridge to inspect the house, and in particular thecoloured `lights' in the upper squares of the drawing-room anddining-room windows. He had a key to the unpainted front door, andhaving climbed over various obstacles and ascended an inclined bendingplank, he entered and stood in the square hall of the deserted, damp, and inchoate structure. The house was his father's only in name. In emotional fact it wasEdwin's house, because he alone was capable of possessing it by enjoyingit. To Darius, to Bursley in general, it was just a nice house, of redbrick with terra-cotta facings and red tiles, in the second-VictorianStyle, the style that had broken away from Georgian austerity andfirst-Victorian stucco and smugness, and wandered off vaguely intonothing in particular. To the plebeian in Darius it was of coursegrandiose, and vast; to Edwin also, in a less degree. But to Edwin itwas not a house, it was a work of art, it was an epic poem, it was anemanation of the soul. He did not realise this. He did not realise howthe house had informed his daily existence. All that he knew abouthimself in relation to the house was that he could not keep away fromit. He went and had a look at it, nearly every morning beforebreakfast, when the workmen were fresh and lyrical. When the news came down to the younger generation that Darius had boughtland and meant to build on the land, Edwin had been profoundly movedbetween apprehension and hope; his condition had been one of simple butintense expectant excitement. He wondered what his own status would bein the great enterprise of house-building. All depended on MrOrgreave. Would Mr Orgreave, of whom he had seen scarcely anything inseven years, remember that he was intelligently interested inarchitecture? Or would Mr Orgreave walk right over him and talkexclusively to his father? He had feared, he had had a suspicion, thatMr Orgreave was an inconstant man. Mr Orgreave had remembered in the handsomest way. When the plans werebeing discussed, Mr Orgreave with one word, a tone, a glance, hadraised Edwin to the consultative level of his father. He had let Dariussee that Edwin was in his opinion worthy to take part in discussions, and quite privately he had let Edwin see that Darius must not be treatedtoo seriously. Darius, who really had no interest in ten thousandexquisitely absorbing details, had sometimes even said, with impatience, "Oh! Settle it how you like, with Edwin. " Edwin's own suggestions never seemed very brilliant, and Mr Orgreavewas always able to prove to him that they were inadvisable; but theywere never silly, like most of his father's. And he acquired leadingideas that transformed his whole attitude towards architecture. Forexample, he had always looked on a house as a front-wall diversified bydoors and windows, with rooms behind it. But when Mr Orgreave producedhis first notions for the new house Edwin was surprised to find that hehad not even sketched the front. He had said, "We shall be able to seewhat the elevation looks like when we've decided the plan a bit. " AndEdwin saw in a flash that the front of a house was merely the expressionof the inside of it, merely a result, almost accidental. And he wasastounded and disgusted that he, with his professed love of architectureand his intermittent study of it, had not perceived this obvious truthfor himself. He never again looked at a house in the old irrationalway. Then, when examining the preliminary sketch-plan, he had put his fingeron a square space and asked what room that was. "That isn't a room;that's the hall, " said Mr Orgreave. "But it's square!" Edwinexclaimed. He thought that in houses (houses to be lived in) the hallor lobby must necessarily be long and narrow. Now suddenly he saw noreason why a hall should not be square. Mr Orgreave had made nofurther remark about halls at the time, but another day, without anypreface, he re-opened the subject to Edwin, in a tone good-naturedlyinforming, and when he had done Edwin could see that the shape of thehall depended on the shape of the house, and that halls had only beencrushed and pulled into something long and narrow because thedisposition of houses absolutely demanded this ugly negation of the veryidea of a hall. Again, he had to begin to think afresh, to see afresh. He conceived a real admiration for Osmond Orgreave; not more for hisoriginal and yet common-sense manner of regarding things, than for hisaristocratic deportment, his equality to every situation, and hisextraordinary skill in keeping his dignity and his distance duringencounters with Darius. (At the same time, when Darius would grumblesavagely that Osmond Orgreave `was too clever by half, ' Edwin could notdeny that. ) Edwin's sisters got a good deal of Mr Orgreave, throughEdwin; he could never keep Mr Orgreave very long to himself. He gaveaway a great deal of Mr Orgreave's wisdom without mentioning the originof the gift. Thus occasionally Clara would say cuttingly, "I know whereyou've picked that up. You've picked that up from Mr Orgreave. " Theyoung man Benbow to whom the infant Clara had been so queerly engaged, also received from Edwin considerable quantities of Mr Orgreave. Butthe fellow was only a decent, dull, pushing, successful ass, and quiteunable to assimilate Mr Orgreave; Edwin could never comprehend howClara, so extremely difficult to please, so carping and captious, couldmate herself to a fellow like Benbow. She had done so, however; theywere recently married. Edwin was glad that that was over; for it haddisturbed him in his attentions to the house. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. When the house began to `go up, ' Edwin lived in an ecstasy ofcontemplation. I say with deliberateness an `ecstasy. ' He had seenhouses go up before; he knew that houses were constructed brick bybrick, beam by beam, lath by lath, tile by tile; he knew that they didnot build themselves. And yet, in the vagueness of his mind, he hadnever imaginatively realised that a house was made with hands, and handsthat could err. With its exact perpendiculars and horizontals, itsgeometric regularities, and its Chinese preciseness of fitting, a househad always seemed to him--again in the vagueness of his mind--assomething superhuman. The commonest cornice, the most ordinary pillarof a staircase-balustrade--could that have been accomplished in itsawful perfection of line and contour by a human being? How easy tobelieve that it was `not made with hands'! But now he saw. He had to see. He saw a hole in the ground, with waterat the bottom, and the next moment that hole was a cellar; not anamateur cellar, a hole that would do at a pinch for a cellar, but aprofessional cellar. He appreciated the brains necessary to put a brickon another brick, with just the right quantity of mortar in between. Hethought the house would never get itself done--one brick at a time--andeach brick cost a farthing--slow, careful; yes, and even finicking. Butsoon the bricklayers had to stand on plank-platforms in order to reachthe raw top of the wall that was ever rising above them. Themeasurements, the rulings, the plumbings, the checkings! He was humbledand he was enlightened. He understood that a miracle is only the resultof miraculous patience, miraculous nicety, miraculous honesty, miraculous perseverance. He understood that there was no golden andmagic secret of building. It was just putting one brick on another andagainst another--but to a hair's breadth. It was just like anythingelse. For instance, printing! He saw even printing in a new light. And when the first beams were bridged across two walls. .. The funny thing was that the men's fingers were thicky and clumsy. Never could such fingers pick up a pin! And still they would manoeuvrea hundredweight of timber to a pin's point. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. He stood at the drawing-room bay-window (of which each large pane hadbeen marked with the mystic sign of a white circle by triumphantglaziers), and looked across the enclosed fragment of clayey field thatultimately would be the garden. The house was at the corner ofTrafalgar Road and a side-street that had lobbied cottages down itsslope. The garden was oblong, with its length parallel to TrafalgarRoad, and separated from the pavement only by a high wall. The upperend of the garden was blocked by the first of three new houses whichOsmond Orgreave was building in a terrace. These houses had their mainfronts on the street; they were quite as commodious as the Clayhangers', but much inferior in garden-space; their bits of flower-plots lay behindthem. And away behind their flower-plots, with double entrance-gates inanother side street, stretched the grounds of Osmond Orgreave, his housein the sheltered middle thereof. He had got, cheaply, one of the olderresidential properties of the district, Georgian, of a recognisablestyle, relic of the days when manufacturers formed a class entirelyapart from their operatives; even as far back as 1880 any operativemight with luck become an employer. The south-east corner of theClayhanger garden touched the north-west corner of the domains ofOrgreave; for a few feet the two gardens were actually contiguous, withnaught but an old untidy thorn hedge between them; this hedge was to bereplaced by a wall that would match the topmost of the lobbied cottageswhich bounded the view of the Clayhangers to the east. From the bay-window Edwin could see over the hedge, and also through it, on to the croquet lawn of the Orgreaves. Croquet was then in its firstavatar; nothing was more dashing than croquet. With rag-balls andhome-made mallets the Clayhanger children had imitated croquet in theiryard in the seventies. The Orgreaves played real croquet; one of themhad shone in a tournament at Buxton. Edwin noticed a figure on thegravel between the lawn and the hedge. He knew it to be Janet, by thecrimson frock. But he had no notion that Janet had stationed herself inthat quarter with intent to waylay him. He could not have credited herwith such a purpose. Nor could his modesty have believed that he wasimportant enough to employ the talent of the Orgreaves for agreeablechicane. The fact was that Janet had been espying him for a quarter ofan hour. When at length she waved her hand to him, it did not occur tohim to suppose that she was waving her hand to him; he merely wonderedwhat peculiar thing she was doing. Then he blushed as she waved again, and he knew first from the blood in his face that Janet was making asignal, and that it was to himself that the signal was directed: hisbody had told his mind; this was very odd. Of course he was obliged to go out; and he went, muttering to himself. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR. THE TWO GARDENS. In the full beauty of the afternoon they stood together, only thescraggy hedge between them, he on grass-tufted clay, and she on orderlygravel. "Well, " said Janet, earnestly looking at him, "how do you like theeffect of that window, now it's done?" "Very nice!" he laughed nervously. "Very nice indeed!" "Father said it was, " she remarked. "I do hope Mr Clayhanger will likeit too!" And her voice really was charged with sympathetic hope. Itwas as if she would be saddened and cast down if Darius did not approvethe window. It was as if she fervently wished that Darius should not bedisappointed with the window. The unskilled spectator might haveassumed that anxiety for the success of the window would endanger hersleep at nights. She was perfectly sincere. Her power of emotionalsympathy was all-embracing and inexhaustible. If she heard that anacquaintance of one of her acquaintances had lost a relative or broken alimb, she would express genuine deep concern, with a tremor of herhonest and kindly voice. And if she heard the next moment that anacquaintance of one of her acquaintances had come into five thousandpounds or affianced himself to a sister-spirit, her eyes would sparklewith heartfelt joy and her hands clasp each other in sheer delight. "Oh!" said Edwin, touched. "It'll be all right for the dad. No fear!" "I haven't seen it yet, " she proceeded. "In fact I haven't been in yourhouse for such a long time. But I do think it's going to be very nice. All father's houses are so nice, aren't they?" "Yes, " said Edwin, with that sideways shake of the head that in thevocabulary of his gesture signified, not dissent, but emphatic assent. "You ought to come and have a look at it. " He could not say less. "Do you think I could scramble through here?" she indicated the sparsehedge. "I-- I--" "I know what I'll do. I'll get the steps. " She walked off sedately, and came back with a small pair of steps, which she opened out on thenarrow flower-bed under the hedge. Then she picked up her skirt anddelicately ascended the rocking ladder till her feet were on a levelwith the top of the hedge. She smiled charmingly, savouring theharmless escapade, and gazing at Edwin. She put out her free hand, Edwin took it, and she jumped. The steps fell backwards, but she wassafe. "What a good thing mother didn't see me!" she laughed. Her grave, sympathetic, almost handsome face was now alive everywhere with a sortof challenging merriment. She was only pretending that it was a goodthing her mother had not seen her: a delicious make-believe. Why, shewas as motherly as her mother! In an instant her feet were choosingtheir way and carrying her with grace and stateliness across the mire ofthe unformed garden. She was the woman of the world, and Edwin the rawboy. The harmony and dignity of her movements charmed and intimidatedEdwin. Compare her to Maggie. .. That she was hatless added piquancy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. They went into the echoing bare house, crunching gravel and dry clay onthe dirty, new floors. They were alone together in the house. And allthe time Edwin was thinking: "I've never been through anything like thisbefore. Never been through anything like this!" And he recalled for asecond the figure of Florence Simcox, the clog-dancer. And below these images and reflections in his mind was the thought: "Ihaven't known what life is! I've been asleep. This is life!" The upper squares of the drawing-room window were filled with smallleaded diamond-shaped panes of many colours. It was the latest fashionin domestic glazing. The effect was at once rich and gorgeous. Sheliked it. "It will be beautiful on this side in the late afternoon, " she murmured. "What a nice room!" Their eyes met, and she transmitted to him her joy in his joy at theadmirableness of the house. He nodded. "By Jove!" he thought. "She's a splendid girl. There can'tbe many girls knocking about as fine as she is!" "And when the garden's full of flowers!" she breathed in rapture. Shewas thinking, "Strange, nice boy! He's so romantic. All he wants isbringing out. " They wandered to and fro. They went upstairs. They saw the bathroom. They stood on the landing, and the unseen spaces of the house were busywith their echoes. They then entered the room that was to be Edwin's. "Mine!" he said self-consciously. "And I see you're having shelves fixed on both sides of the mantelpiece!You're very fond of books, aren't you?" she appealed to him. "Yes, " he said judicially. "Aren't they wonderful things?" Her glowing eyes seemed to beexpressing gratitude to Shakespeare and all his successors in thedynasty of literature. "That shelving is between your father and me, " said Edwin. "The daddoesn't know. It'll go in with the house-fittings. I don't expect thedad will ever notice it. " "Really!" She laughed, eager to join the innocent conspiracy. "Fatherinvented an excellent dodge for shelving in the hall at our house, " sheadded. "I'm sure he'd like you to come and see it. The dear thing'smost absurdly proud of it. " "I should like to, " Edwin answered diffidently. "Would you come in some evening and see us? Mother would be delighted. We all should. " "Very kind of you. " In his diffidence he was now standing on one leg. "Could you come to-night? . .. Or to-morrow night?" "I'm afraid I couldn't come to-night, or to-morrow night, " he answeredwith firmness. A statement entirely untrue! He had no engagement; henever did have an engagement. But he was frightened, and his spiritsprang away from the idea, like a fawn at a sudden noise in the brake, and stood still. He did not suspect that the unconscious gruffness of his tone hadrepulsed her. She blamed herself for a too brusque advance. "Well, I hope some other time, " she said, mild and benignant. "Thanks! I'd like to, " he replied more boldly, reassured now that hehad heard again the same noise but indefinitely farther off. She departed, but by the front door, and hatless and dignified upTrafalgar Road in the delicate sunshine to the next turning. She wasless vivacious. He hoped he had not offended her, because he wanted very much--not to goin cold blood to the famed mansion of the Orgreaves--but by some magicto find himself within it one night, at his ease, sharing in brilliantconversation. "Oh no!" he said to himself. "She's not offended. Afine girl like that isn't offended for nothing at all!" He had beeninvited to visit the Orgreaves! He wondered what his father would say, or think. The unexpressed basic idea of the Clayhangers was that theClayhangers were as good as other folks, be they who they might. Still, the Orgreaves were the Orgreaves. .. In sheer absence of mind heremounted the muddy stairs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He regarded the shabbiness of his clothes; he had been preoccupied bytheir defects for about a quarter of an hour; now he examined them indetail, and said to himself disgusted, that really it was ridiculous fora man about to occupy a house like that to be wearing garments likethose. Could he call on the Orgreaves in garments like those? HisSunday suit was not, he felt, in fact much better. It was newer, lesstumbled, but scarcely better. His suits did not cost enough. Financewas at the root of the crying scandal of his career as a dandy. Thefinancial question must be reopened and settled anew. He should attackhis father. His father was extremely dependent on him now, and must bebrought to see reason. (His father who had never seen reason!) But theattack must not be made with the weapon of clothes, for on that subjectDarius was utterly unapproachable. Whenever Darius found himself in aconversation about clothes, he gave forth the antique and well-triedwitticism that as for him he didn't mind what he wore, because if he wasat home everybody knew him and it didn't matter, and if he was away fromhome nobody knew him and it didn't matter. And he always repeated thesaying with gusto, as if it was brand-new and none could possibly haveheard it before. No, Edwin decided that he would have to found his attack on theprinciple of abstract justice; he would never be able to persuade hisfather that he lacked any detail truly needful to his happiness. To gointo details would be to invite defeat. Of course it would be a bad season in which to raise the financialquestion. His father would talk savagely in reply about the enormousexpenses of house-building, house-furnishing, and removing, --andarchitects' and lawyers' fees; he would be sure to mention the rapacityof architects and lawyers. Nevertheless Edwin felt that at just thisseason, and no other, must the attack be offered. Because the inauguration of the new house was to be for Edwin, in a verydeep and spiritual sense, the beginning of the new life! He had settledthat. The new house inspired him. It was not paradise. But it was atemple. You of the younger generation cannot understand that--withoutimagination. I say that the hot-water system of the new house, simpleand primitive as it was, affected and inspired Edwin like a poem. Therewas a cistern-room, actually a room devoted to nothing but cisterns, andthe main cistern was so big that the builders had had to install itbefore the roof was put on, for it would never have gone through a door. This cistern, by means of a ball-tap, filled itself from the mainnearly as quickly as it was emptied. Out of it grew pipes, creeping insecret downwards between inner walls of the house, penetratingeverywhere. One went down to a boiler behind the kitchen-range andfilled it, and as the fire that was roasting the joint heated theboiler, the water mounted again magically to the cistern-room and filledanother cistern, spherical and sealed, and thence descended, on a thirdjourneying, to the bath and to the lavatory basin in the bathroom. Allthis was marvellous to Edwin; it was romantic. What! A room solely forbaths! And a huge painted zinc bath! Edwin had never seen such athing. And a vast porcelain basin, with tiles all round it, in whichyou could splash! An endless supply of water on the first floor! At the shop-house, every drop of water on the first floor had to becarried upstairs in jugs and buckets; and every drop of it had to becarried down again. No hot water could be obtained until it had beenboiled in a vessel on the fire. Hot water had the value of champagne. To take a warm hip-bath was an immense enterprise of heating, fetching, decanting, and general derangement of the entire house; and at best thebath was not hot; it always lost its virtue on the stairs and landing. And to splash--one of the most voluptuous pleasures in life--wasforbidden by the code. Mrs Nixon would actually weep at a splashing. Splashing was immoral. It was as wicked as amorous dalliance in amonastery. In the shop-house godliness was child's play compared tocleanliness. And the shop-house was so dark! Edwin had never noticed how dark it wasuntil the new house approached completion. The new house was radiantwith light. It had always, for Edwin, the somewhat blinding brilliancewhich filled the sitting-room of the shop-house only when Duck Bankhappened to be covered with fresh snow. And there was a dining-room, solely for eating, and a drawing-room. Both these names seemed `grand'to Edwin, who had never sat in any but a sitting-room. Edwin had neverdined; he had merely had dinner. And, having dined, to walkceremoniously into another room! (Odd! After all, his father was a manof tremendous initiative. ) Would he and Maggie be able to do the thingnaturally? Then there was the square hall--positively a room! Thatalone impelled him to a new life. When he thought of it all, thereception-rooms, the scientific kitchen, the vast scullery, the fourlarge bedrooms, the bathroom, the three attics, the cistern-roommurmurous with water, and the water tirelessly, inexhaustibly coursingup and down behind walls--he thrilled to fine impulses. He took courage. He braced himself. The seriousness which he had felton the day of leaving school revisited him. He looked back across theseven years of his life in the world, and condemned them unsparingly. He blamed no one but Edwin. He had forgiven his father for havingthwarted his supreme ambition; long ago he had forgiven his father;though, curiously, he had never quite forgiven Mrs Hamps for her sharein the catastrophe. He honestly thought he had recovered from thecatastrophe undisfigured, even unmarked. He knew not that he wouldnever be the same man again, and that his lightest gesture and hislightest glance were touched with the wistfulness of resignation. Hehad frankly accepted the fate of a printer. And in business he wasconvinced, despite his father's capricious complaints, that he hadacquitted himself well. In all the details of the business heconsidered himself superior to his father. And Big James wouldinvariably act on his secret instructions given afterwards to counteractsome misguided hasty order of the old man's. It was the emptiness of the record of his private life that hecondemned. What had he done for himself? Nothing large! Nothingheroic and imposing! He had meant to pursue certain definite courses ofstudy, to become the possessor of certain definite groups of books, tocontinue his drawing and painting, to practise this, that and the other, to map out all his spare time, to make rules and to keep them, --all tothe great end of self-perfecting. He had said: "What does it matterwhether I am an architect or a printer, so long as I improve myself tothe best of my powers?" He hated young men who talked about improvingthemselves. He spurned the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Society(which had succeeded the Debating Society--defunct throughover-indulgence in early rising). Nevertheless in his heart he was farmore enamoured of the idea of improvement than the worst prig of themall. He could never for long escape from the dominance of the idea. Hemight violently push it away, arguing that it could lead to nothing andwas futile and tedious; back it would come! It had always worried him. And yet he had accomplished nothing. His systems of reading neverworked for more than a month at a time. And for several months at atime he simply squandered his spare hours, the hours that were his veryown, in a sort of coma of crass stupidity, in which he seemed to bethinking of nothing whatever. He had not made any friends whom he couldesteem. He had not won any sort of notice. He was remarkable fornothing. He was not happy. He was not content. He had theconsciousness of being a spendthrift of time and of years. .. A fairquantity of miscellaneous reading--that was all he had done. He was nota student. He knew nothing about anything. He had stood still. Thus he upbraided himself. And against this futility was his couragenow braced by the inspiration of the new house, and tightened to asmarting tension by the brief interview with Janet Orgreave. He wasgoing to do several feats at once: tackle his father, develop into aright expert on some subject, pursue his painting, and--for the momentthis had the chief importance--`come out of his shell. ' He meant to besocial, to impress himself on others, to move about, to formconnections, to be Edwin Clayhanger, an individuality in the town, --tolive. Why had he refused Janet's invitation? Mere silliness. The oldself nauseated the new. But the next instant he sought excuses for theold self. .. Wait a bit! There was time yet. He was happy in the stress of one immense and complex resolve. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE. CLOTHES. He heard voices below. And his soul seemed to shrink back, as if intothe recesses of the shell from which it had been peeping. His soul wastremendous, in solitude; but even the rumour of society intimidated it. His father and another were walking about the ground floor; the roughvoice of his father echoed upwards in all its crudity. He listened forthe other voice; it was his Auntie Clara's. Darius too had taken hisSaturday afternoon for a leisurely visit to the house, and somehow hemust have encountered Mrs Hamps, and brought her with him to view. Without giving himself time to dissipate his courage in reflection, hewalked to the landing, and called down the stairs, "Hello, Auntie!" Why should his tone have been self-conscious, forced? He was engaged inno crime. He had told his father where he was going, and his father hadnot contradicted his remark that even if both of them happened to be outtogether, the shop would take no harm under the sole care of Stiffordfor an hour in the quiet of Saturday afternoon. Mrs Hamps replied, in her coaxing, sweet manner. "What did ye leave th' front door open for?" his father demanded curtly, and every room in the house heard the question. "Was it open?" he said lamely. "Was it open! All Trafalgar Road could have walked in and madethemselves at home. " Edwin stood leaning with his arms on the rail of the landing. Presentlythe visitors appeared at the foot of the stairs, and Darius climbedcarefully, having first shaken the balustrade to make sure that it wasgenuine, stout, and well-founded. Mrs Hamps followed, the fripperiesof her elegant bonnet trembling, and her black gown rustling. Edwinsmiled at her, and she returned his smile with usurious interest. Therewas now a mist of grey in her fine hair. "Oh, Edwin!" she began, breathing relief on the top stair. "What abeautiful house! Beautiful! Quite perfect! The latest of everything!Do you know what I've been thinking while your dear father has beenshowing me all this. So that's the bathroom! Bless us! Hot! Cold!Waste! That cupboard under the lavatory is very handy, but what a snarefor a careless servant! Maggie will have to look at it every day, orit'll be used for anything and everything. You tell her what her auntiesays. .. I was thinking--if but your mother could have seen it all!" Father and son said nothing. Auntie Hamps sighed. She was the onlyperson who ever referred to the late Mrs Clayhanger. The procession moved on from room to room, Darius fingering andgrunting, Mrs Hamps discovering in each detail the fine flower of utterperfection, and Edwin strolling loosely in the wake of her curls, hermantle, and her abundant black petticoats. He could detect the odour ofher kid gloves; it was a peculiar odour that never escaped him, and itreminded him inevitably of his mother's funeral. He was glad that they had not arrived during the visit of JanetOrgreave. In due course Edwin's bedroom was reached, and here Auntie Clara'secstasy was redoubled. "I'm sure you're very grateful to your father, aren't you, Edwin?" shemajestically assumed, when she had admired passionately the window, thedoor, the pattern of the hearth-tiles, and the spaciousness. Edwin could not speak. Inquiries of this nature from Mrs Hampsparalysed the tongues of the children. They left nothing to be said. Asheepish grin, preceded by an inward mute curse, was all that Edwincould accomplish. How in heaven's name could the woman talk in thatstrain? His attitude towards his auntie was assuredly hardening withyears. "What's all this?" questioned his father suddenly, pointing to uprightboards that had been fastened to the walls on either side of themantelpiece, to a height of about three feet. Then Edwin perceived the clumsiness of his tactics in remainingupstairs. He ought to have gone downstairs to meet his father andauntie, and left them to go up alone. His father was in an inquisitivemood. "It's for shelves, " he said. "Shelves?" "For my books. It's Mr Orgreave's idea. He says it'll cost less. " "Cost less! Mr Orgreave's got too many ideas--that's what's the matterwith him. He'll idea me into the bankruptcy court if he keeps on. " Edwin would have liked to protest against the savagery of the tone, toinquire firmly why, since shelves were necessary for books and he hadbooks, there need be such a display of ill-temper about a few feet ofdeal plank. The words were ready, the sentences framed in his mind. But he was silent. The door was locked on these words, but it was notEdwin who had turned the key; it was some force within him, over whichhe had no control. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. "Now, now, father!" intervened Mrs Hamps. "You know you've said overand over again how glad you are he's so fond of books, and never goesout. There isn't a better boy in Bursley. That I will say, and to hisface. " She smiled like an angel at both of them. "You say! You say!" Darius remarked curtly, trying to control himself. A few years ago he would never have used such violent demeanour in herpresence. "And how much easier these shelves will be to keep clean than abookcase! No polishing. Just a rub, and a wipe with a damp cloth nowand then. And no dirt underneath. They will do away with four corners, anyhow. That's what I think of--eh, poor Maggie! Keeping all thisclean. There'll be work for two women night and day, early and late, and even then--But it's a great blessing to have water on every floor, that it is! And people aren't so particular nowadays as they used tobe, I fancy. I fancy that more and more. " Mrs Hamps sighed, cheerfully bearing up. Without a pause she stepped quickly across to Edwin. He wondered whatshe was at. She merely straightened down the collar of his coat, which, unknown to him, had treacherously allowed itself to remain turned upbehind. It had probably been thus misbehaving itself since beforedinner, when he had washed. "Now, I do like my nephew to be tidy, " said Mrs Hamps affectionately. "I'm very jealous for my nephew. " She caressed the shoulders of thecoat, and Edwin had to stand still and submit. "Let me see, it's yourbirthday next month, isn't it?" "Yes, auntie. " "Well, I know he hasn't got a lot of money. And I know his fatherhasn't any money to spare just now--what with all these expenses--thehouse--" "Ye may well say it, sister!" Darius growled. "I saw you the day before yesterday. My nephew didn't see me, but hisauntie saw him. Oh, never mind where. And I said to myself; `I shouldlike my only nephew to have a suit a little better than that when hegoes up and down on his father's business. What a change it would be ifhis old auntie gave him a new suit for a birthday present this year!'" "Oh, auntie. " She spoke in a lower voice. "You come and see me tomorrow, and I shallhave a little piece of paper in an envelope waiting for you. And youmust choose something really good. You've got excellent taste, we allknow that. And this will be a new start for you. A new year, and a newstart, and we shall see how neat and spruce you'll keep yourself infuture, eh?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. It was insufferable. But it was fine. Who could deny that Auntie Clarawas not an extraordinary, an original, and a generous woman? What amasterly reproof to both father and son! Perhaps not delicatelyadministered. Yet Auntie Clara had lavished all the delicacy of hernature on the administering! To Edwin, it seemed like an act of God in his favour. It seemed to seta divine seal on his resolutions. It was the most astonishing andapposite piece of luck that had ever happened to him. When he hadlamely thanked the benefactor, he slipped away as soon as he could. Already he could feel the crinkling of the five-pound note in his hand. Five pounds! He had never had a suit that cost more than fiftyshillings. He slipped away. A great resolve was upon him. Shillitoeclosed at four o'clock on Saturday afternoons. There was just time. Hehurried down Trafalgar Road in a dream. And when he had climbed DuckBank he turned to the left, and without stopping he burst intoShillitoe's. Not from eagerness to enter Shillitoe's, but because if hehad hesitated he might never have entered at all: he might have slunkaway to the old undistinguished tailor in Saint Luke's Square. Shillitoe was the stylish tailor. Shillitoe made no display of goods, scorning such paltry devices. Shillitoe had wire blinds across thelower part of his window, and on the blinds, in gold, "Gentlemen'stailor and outfitter. Breeches-maker. " Above the blind could be seen afew green cardboard boxes. Shillitoe made breeches for men who hunted. Shillitoe's lowest price for a suit was notoriously four guineas. Shillitoe's was the resort of the fashionable youth of the town anddistrict. It was a terrific adventure for Edwin to enter Shillitoe's. His nervousness was painful. He seemed to have a vague idea thatShillitoe might sneer at him. However, he went in. The shop was empty. He closed the door, as he might have closed the door of a dentist's. He said to himself; "Well, I'm here!" He wondered what his father wouldsay on hearing that he had been to Shillitoe's. And what would Clarahave said, had she been at home? Then Shillitoe in person came forwardfrom the cutting-out room and Shillitoe's tone and demeanour reassuredhim. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIX. JANET LOSES HER BET. Accident--that is to say, a chance somewhat more fortuitous than thecommon hazards which we group together and call existence--pushed Edwininto the next stage of his career. As, on one afternoon in late June, he was turning the corner of Trafalgar Road to enter the shop, hesurprisingly encountered Charlie Orgreave, whom he had not seen forseveral years. And when he saw this figure, at once fashionably andcarelessly dressed, his first thought was one of deep satisfaction thathe was wearing his new Shillitoe suit of clothes. He had scarcely wornthe suit at all, but that afternoon his father had sent him over toHanbridge about a large order from Bostocks, the recently establisheddrapers there whose extravagant advertising had shocked and pained thecommerce of the Five Towns. Darius had told him to `titivate himself, 'a most startling injunction from Darius, and thus the new costly suithad been, as it were, officially blessed and henceforth could not becondemned. "How do, Teddy?" Charlie greeted him. "I've just been in to see you atyour shop. " Edwin paused. "Hello! The Sunday!" he said quietly. And he kept thinking, as hiseyes noted details of Charlie's raiment, "It's a bit of luck I've gotthese clothes on. " And he was in fact rather sorry that Charlieprobably paid no real attention to clothes. The new suit had causedEdwin to look at everybody's clothes, had caused him to walkdifferently, and to put his shoulders back, and to change the style ofhis collars; had made a different man of Edwin. "Come in, will you?" Edwin suggested. They went into the shop together. Stifford smiled at them both, as ifto felicitate them on the chance which had brought them together. "Come in here, " said Edwin, indicating the small office. "The lion's den, eh?" observed the Sunday. He, as much as Edwin, was a little tongue-tied and nervous. "Sit down, will you?" said Edwin, shutting the door. "No, take thearm-chair. I'll absquatulate on the desk. I'd no idea you were down. When did you come?" "Last night, last train. Just a freak, you know. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. They were within a foot of each other in the ebonised cubicle. Edwin'slegs were swinging a few inches away from the arm-chair. His hat was atthe back of his head, and Charlie's hat was at the back of Charlie'shead. This was their sole point of resemblance. As Edwinsurreptitiously examined the youth who had once been his intimatefriend, he experienced the half-sneering awe of the provincial for theprovincial who has become a Londoner. Charlie was changed; even hisaccent was changed. He and Edwin belonged to utterly different worldsnow. They seldom saw the same scenes or thought the same things. Butof course they were obliged by loyalty to the past to pretend thatnothing was changed. "You've not altered much, " said Edwin. And indeed, when Charlie smiled, he was almost precisely the old Sunday, despite his metropolitan mannerisms. And there was nothing whatever inhis figure or deportment to show that he had lived for several years inFrance and could chatter in a language whose verbs had fourconjugations. After all, he was less formidable than Edwin might haveanticipated. "You have, anyhow, " said Charlie. Edwin grinned self-consciously. "I suppose you've got this place practically in your own hands now, "said Charlie. "I wish I was on my own, I can tell you that. " An instinctive gesture from Edwin made Charlie lower his voice in themiddle of a sentence. The cubicle had the appearance, but not thereality, of being private. "Don't you make any mistake, " Edwin murmured. He, who depended on hisaunt's generosity for clothes, the practical ruler of the place! Stillhe was glad that Charlie supposed that he ruled, even though thesupposition might be mere small-talk. "You're in that hospital, aren'tyou?" "Bart's. " "Bart's, is it? Yes, I remember. I expect you aren't thinking ofsettling down here?" Charlie was about to reply in accents of disdain: "Not me!" But hisnatural politeness stayed his tongue. "I hardly think so, " he said. "Too much competition here. So there is everywhere, for the matter ofthat. " The disillusions of the young doctor were already upon Charlie. And yet people may be found who will assert that in those days there wasno competition, that competition has been invented during the past tenyears. "You needn't worry about competition, " said Edwin. "Why not?" "Why not, man! Nothing could ever stop you from getting patients--withthat smile! You'll simply walk straight into anything you want. " "You think so?" Charlie affected an ironic incredulity, but he waspleased. He had met the same theory in London. "Well, you didn't suppose degrees and things had anything to do with it, did you?" said Edwin, smiling a little superiorly. He felt, withpleasure, that he was still older than the Sunday; and it pleased himalso to be able thus to utilise ideas which he had formed fromobservation but which by diffidence and lack of opportunity he had neverexpressed. "All a patient wants is to be smiled at in the right way, "he continued, growing bolder. "Just look at 'em!" "Look at who?" "The doctors here. " He dropped his voice further. "Do you know why thedad's gone to Heve?" "Gone to Heve, has he? Left old Who-is-it?" "Yes. I don't say Heve isn't clever, but it's his look that does thetrick for him. " "You seem to go about noticing things. Any charge?" Edwin blushed and laughed. Their nervousness was dissipated. Each wasreassured of the old basis of `decency' in the other. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "Look here, " said Charlie. "I can't stop now. " "Hold on a bit. " "I only called to tell you that you've simply got to come up to-night. " "Come up where?" "To our place. You've simply got to. " The secret fact was that Edwin had once more been under discussion inthe house of the Orgreaves. And Osmond Orgreave had lent Janet ashilling so that she might bet Charlie a shilling that he would notsucceed in bringing Edwin to the house. The understanding was that ifJanet won, her father was to take sixpence of the gain. Janet herselfhad failed to lure Edwin into the house. He was so easy to approach andso difficult to catch. Janet was slightly piqued. As for Edwin, he was postponing the execution of all his goodresolutions until he should be installed in the new house. He could notachieve highly difficult tasks under conditions of expectancy andderangement. The whole Clayhanger premises were in a suppressed stateof being packed up. In a week the removal would occur. Until theremoval was over and the new order was established Edwin felt that hecould still conscientiously allow his timidity to govern him, and so hehad remained in his shell. The sole herald of the new order was the newsuit. "Oh! I can't come--not to-night. " "Why not?" "We're so busy. " "Bosh to that!" "Some other night. " "No. I'm going back to-morrow. Must. Now look here, old man, come on. I shall be very disappointed if you don't. " Edwin wondered why he could not accept and be done with it, instead ofpersisting in a sequence of insincere and even lying hesitations. Buthe could not. "That's all right, " said Charlie, as if clinching the affair. Then helowered his voice to a scarce audible confidential whisper. "Fine girlstaying up there just now!" His eyes sparkled. "Oh! At your place?" Edwin adopted the same cautious tone. Stifford, outside, strained his ears--in vain. The magic word `girl' had in aninstant thrown the shop into agitation. The shop was no longerprovincial; it became a part of the universal. "Yes. Haven't you seen her about?" "No. Who is she?" "Oh! Friend of Janet's. Hilda Lessways, her name is. I don't knowmuch of her myself. " "Bit of all right, is she?" Edwin tried in a whisper to be a man ofvast experience and settled views. He tried to whisper as though hewhispered about women every day of his life. He thought that theseLondoners were terrific on the subject of women, and he did his best toreach their level. He succeeded so well that Charlie, who, as a man, knew more of London than of the provinces, thought that after all Londonwas nothing in comparison to the seeming-quiet provinces. Charlieleaned back in his chair, drew down the corners of his mouth, nodded hishead knowingly, and then quite spoiled the desired effect of doggishnessby his delightfully candid smile. Neither of them had the leastintention of disrespect towards the fine girl who was on their lips. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Edwin said to himself: "Is it possible that he has come down speciallyto see this Hilda?" He thought enviously of Charlie as a free bird ofthe air. "What's she like?" Edwin inquired. "You come up and see, " Charlie retorted. "Not to-night, " said the fawn, in spite of Edwin. "You come to-night, or I perish in the attempt, " said Charlie, in hisnatural voice. This phrase from their school-days made them both laughagain. They were now apparently as intimate as ever they had been. "All right, " said Edwin. "I'll come. " "Sure?" "Yes. " "Come for a sort of supper at eight. " "Oh!" Edwin drew back. "Supper? I didn't--Suppose I come after supperfor a bit?" "Suppose you don't!" Charlie snorted, sticking his chin out. "I'm offnow. Must. " They stood a moment together at the door of the shop, in the decliningwarmth of the summer afternoon, mutually satisfied. "So-long!" "So-long!" The Sunday elegantly departed. Edwin had given his word, and he felt ashe might have felt had surgeons just tied him to the operating-table. Nevertheless he was not ill-pleased with his own demeanour in front ofCharlie. And he liked Charlie as much as ever. He should rely onCharlie as a support during this adventure into the worldly regionspeopled by fine girls. He pictured this Hilda as being more romanticand strange than Janet Orgreave; he pictured her as mysteriouslysuperior. And he was afraid of his own image of her. At tea in the dismantled sitting-room, though he was going out tosupper, he ate quite as much tea as usual, from sheer poltroonery. Hesaid as casually as he could-- "By the way, Charlie Orgreave called this afternoon. " "Did he?" said Maggie. "He's off back to London to-morrow. He would have me slip up thereto-night to see him. " "And shall you?" "I think so, " said Edwin, with an appearance of indecision. "I may aswell. " It was the first time that there had ever been question of him visitinga private house, except his aunt's, at night. To him the moment markedan epoch, the inception of freedom; but the phlegmatic Maggie showed nosign of excitement--("Clara would have gone into a fit!" he reflected)--and his father only asked a casual question about Charlie. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVEN. LANE END HOUSE. Here was another of those impressive square halls, on the other side ofthe suddenly opened door of Lane End House. But Edwin was now gettingaccustomed to square halls. Nevertheless he quaked as he stood on thethreshold. An absurd young man! He wondered whether he would everexperience the sensation of feeling authentically grown-up. Behind himin the summer twilight lay the large oval lawn, and the gates which oncehad doubtless marked the end of Manor Lane--now Oak Street. Andactually he had an impulse to rush back upon his steps, and bring onhimself eternal shame. The servant, however, primly held him with hereyes alone, and he submitted to her sway. "Mr Charles in?" he inquired glumly, affecting nonchalance. The servant bowed her head with a certain condescending deference, aswho should say: "Do not let us pretend that they are not expecting you. " A door to the right opened. Janet was revealed, and, behind her, Charlie. Both were laughing. There was a sound of a piano. As soon asCharlie caught sight of Edwin he exclaimed to Janet-- "Where's my bob?" "Charlie!" she protested, checking her laughter. "Why! What have I said?" Charlie inquired, with mock innocence, perceiving that he had been indiscreet, and trying to remedy his rashmistake. "Surely I can say `bob'!" Edwin understood nothing of this brief passage. Janet, ignoring Charlieand dismissing the servant with an imperceptible sign, advanced to thevisitor. She was dressed in white, and Edwin considered her to beextraordinarily graceful, dignified, sweet, and welcoming. There was apeculiar charm in the way in which her skirts half-reluctantly followedher along the carpet, causing beautiful curves of drapery from thewaist. And her smile was so warm and so sincere! For the moment shereally felt that Edwin's presence in the house satisfied the keenest ofher desires, and of course her face generously expressed what she felt. "Well, Miss Orgreave, " Edwin grinned. "Here I am, you see!" "And we're delighted, " said Janet simply, taking his hand. She mighthave amiably teased him about the protracted difficulties of gettinghim. She might have hinted an agreeable petulance against the fact thatthe brother had succeeded where the sister had failed. Her sisterlymanner to Charlie a little earlier had perhaps shown flashes of suchthoughts in her mind. But no. In the presence of Edwin, Janet'sextreme good-nature forgot everything save that he was there, a strangerto be received and cherished. "Here! Give us that tile, " said Charlie. "Beautiful evening, " Edwin observed. "Oh! Isn't it!" breathed Janet, in ecstasy, and gazed from the frontdoor into the western sky. "We were out on the lawn, but mother said itwas damp. It wasn't, " she laughed. "But if you think it's damp, it isdamp, isn't it? Will you come and see mother? Charlie, you can leavethe front door open. " Edwin said to himself that she had all the attractiveness of a girl andof a woman. She preceded him towards the door to the right. Charliehovered behind, on springs. Edwin, nervously pulling out hishandkerchief and putting it back, had a confused vision of the hall fullof little pictures, plates, stools, rugs, and old sword-sheaths. Thereseemed to him to be far more knick-knacks in that hall than in the wholeof his father's house; Mr Orgreave's ingeniously contrived bookshelveswere simply overlaid and smothered in knick-knacks. Janet pushed at thedoor, and the sound of the piano suddenly increased in volume. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. There was no cessation of the music as the three entered. As it werebeneath the music, Mrs Orgreave, a stout and faded calm lady, greetedhim kindly: "Mr Edwin!" She was shorter than Janet, but Edwin couldsee Janet in her movements and in her full lips. "Well, Edwin!" saidOsmond Orgreave with lazy and distinguished good-nature, shaking hands. Jimmie and Johnnie, now aged nineteen and eighteen respectively, were inthe room; Johnnie was reading; their blushing awkwardness in salutationand comic efforts to be curtly benevolent in the manner of clubmensomewhat eased the tension in Edwin. They addressed him as`Clayhanger. ' The eldest and the youngest child of the family sat atthe piano in the act of performing a duet. Tom, pale, slight, near-sighted and wearing spectacles, had reached the age of thirty-two, and was junior partner in a firm of solicitors at Hanbridge; Bursleyseldom saw him. Alicia had the delightful gawkiness of twelve years. One only of the seven children was missing. Marian, aged thirty, andmarried in London, with two little babies; Marian was adored by all herbrothers and sisters, and most by Janet, who, during visits of themarried sister, fell back with worshipping joy into her originalsituation of second daughter. Edwin, Charles, and Janet sat down on a sofa. It was not until after amoment that Edwin noticed an ugly young woman who sat behind the playersand turned over the pages of music for them. "Surely that can't be hiswonderful Hilda!" Edwin thought. In the excitement of arrival he hadforgotten the advertised Hilda. Was that she? The girl could be noother. Edwin made the reflection that all men make: "Well, it'sastonishing what other fellows like!" And, having put down Charlieseveral points in his esteem, he forgot Hilda. Evidently loud and sustained conversation was not expected nor desiredwhile the music lasted. And Edwin was glad of this. It enabled him toget his breath and his bearings in what was to him really a tremendousordeal. And in fact he was much more agitated than even he imagined. The room itself abashed him. Everybody, including Mr Orgreave, had said that the Clayhangerdrawing-room with its bay-window was a fine apartment. But the Orgreavedrawing-room had a bay-window and another large window; it was twice asbig as the Clayhangers' and of an interesting irregular shape. Althoughthere were in it two unoccupied expanses of carpet, it neverthelesscontained what seemed to Edwin immense quantities of furniture of allsorts. Easy-chairs were common, and everywhere. Several bookcases roseto the low ceiling; dozens and dozens of pictures hid the walls; eachcorner had its little society of objects; cushions and candlesticksabounded; the piano was a grand, and Edwin was astounded to see anotherpiano, a small upright, in the farther distance; there were even twofireplaces, with two mirrors, two clocks, two sets of ornaments, and twoembroidered screens. The general effect was of extraordinary lavishprofusion--of wilful, splendid, careless extravagance. Yet the arm of the sofa on which Edwin leaned was threadbare in twodifferent places. The room was faded and worn, like its mistress. Likeits mistress it seemed to exhale a silent and calm authority, based onhistoric tradition. And the room was historic; it had been the theatre of history. Fortwenty-five years--ever since Tom was seven--it had witnessed theadventurous domestic career of the Orgreaves, so quiet superficially, soexciting in reality. It was the drawing-room of a man who hadconsistently used immense powers of industry for the satisfaction of hisprodigal instincts; it was the drawing-room of a woman whose placidityno danger could disturb, and who cared for nothing if only her husbandwas amused. Spend and gain! And, for a change, gain and spend! Thatwas the method. Work till sheer exhaustion beat you. Plan, scheme, devise! Satisfy your curiosity and your other instincts! Experiment!Accept risks! Buy first, order first, pledge yourself first; and thensplit your head in order to pay and to redeem! When chance aids you toaccumulate, let the pile grow, out of mere perversity, and then scatterit royally! Play heartily! Play with the same intentness as you work!Live to the uttermost instant and to the last flicker of energy! Suchwas the spirit of Osmond Orgreave, and the spirit which reigned in thehouse generally, if not in every room of the house. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. For each child had its room--except Jimmie and Johnnie, who shared one. And each room was the fortress of an egoism, the theatre of a separatedrama, mysterious, and sacred from the others. Jimmie could notremember having been in Janet's room--it was forbidden by Alicia, whowas jealous of her sole right of entree--and nobody would have dreamedof violating the chamber of Jimmie and Johnnie to discover the origin ofpeculiar noises that puzzled the household at seven o'clock in themorning. As for Tom's castle--it was a legend to the younger children;it was supposed to be wondrous. All the children had always cost money, and a great deal of money, untilMarian had left the family in deep gloom for her absence, and Tom, witha final wrench of a vast sum from the willing but wincing father, hadsettled into a remunerative profession. Tom was now keeping himself andrepaying the weakened parent. The rest cost more and more every year astheir minds and bodies budded and flowered. It was endless, it wasstaggering, it would not bear thinking about. The long and variedchronicle of it was somehow written on the drawing-room as well as onthe faces of the father and mother--on the drawing-room which had thesame dignified, childlike, indefatigable, invincible, jolly expressionas its owners. Threadbare in places? And why not? The very identicalTurkey carpet at which Edwin gazed in his self-consciousness--on thatcarpet Janet the queenly and mature had sprawled as an infant while hermother, a fresh previous Janet of less than thirty, had cooed and saidincomprehensible foolishness to her. Tom was patriarchal because he hadvague memories of an earlier drawing-room, misted in far antiquity. Threadbare? By heaven, its mere survival was magnificent! I say thatit was a miraculous drawing-room. Its chairs were humanised. Itslittle cottage piano that nobody ever opened now unless Tom had gone madon something for two pianos, because it was so impossibly tinny--thecottage piano could humanly recall the touch of a perfect baby whenMarian the wife sat down to it. Marian was one of your sillysentimental nice things; on account of its associations, she reallypreferred the cottage piano to the grand. The two carpets were bothresigned, grim old humanities, used to dirty heels, and not caring, orpretending not to care. What did the curtains know of history? Naught. They were always new; they could not last. But even the newestcurtains would at once submit to the influence of the room, and take onsomething of its physiognomy, and help to express its comfortableness. You could not hang a week in front of one of those windows without beingsubtly informed by the tradition of adventurous happiness that presidedover the room. It was that: a drawing-room in which a man and a woman, and boys and girls, had been on the whole happy, if often apprehensive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. The music began to engage Edwin's attention. It was music of a kindquite novel to him. Most of it had no meaning for him, but at intervalssome fragment detached itself from the mass, and stood out beautiful. It was as if he were gazing at a stage in gloom, but lighted momentarilyby fleeting rays that revealed a lovely detail and were bafflingly cutoff. Occasionally he thought he noticed a recurrence of the samefragment. Murmurs came from behind the piano. He looked cautiously. Alicia was making faces of alarm and annoyance. She whispered: "Ohdear! . .. It's no use! . .. We're all wrong, I'm sure!" Tom kept hiseyes on the page in front of him, doggedly playing. Then Edwin wasconscious of dissonances. And then the music stopped. "Now, Alicia, " her father protested mildly, "you mustn't be nervous. " "Nervous!" exclaimed Alicia. "Tom's just as nervous as I am! So heneedn't talk. " She was as red as a cock's crest. Tom was not talking. He pointed several times violently to a place onAlicia's half of the open book--she was playing the bass part. "There!There!" The music recommenced. "She's always nervous like that, " Janet whispered kindly, "when anyone's here. But she doesn't like to be told. " "She plays splendidly, " Edwin responded. "Do you play?" Janet shook her head. "Yes, she does, " Charlie whispered. "Keep on, darling. You're at the end now. " Edwin heard a low, sternvoice. That must be the voice of Hilda. A second later, he lookedacross, and surprised her glance, which was intensely fixed on himself. She dropped her eyes quickly; he also. Then he felt by the nature of the chords that the piece was closing. The music ceased. Mr Orgreave clapped his hands. "Bravo! Bravo!" "Why, " cried Charlie to the performers, "you weren't within ten bars ofeach other!" And Edwin wondered how Charlie could tell that. As forhim, he did not know enough of music to be able to turn over the pagesfor others. He felt himself to be an ignoramus among a company ofbrilliant experts. "Well, " said Mr Orgreave, "I suppose we may talk a bit now. It's morethan our place is worth to breathe aloud while these Rubinsteins aredoing Beethoven!" He looked at Edwin, who grinned. "Oh! My word!" smiled Mrs Orgreave, supporting her hand. "Beethoven, is it?" Edwin muttered. He was acquainted only with thename, and had never heard it pronounced as Mr Orgreave pronounced it. "One symphony a night!" Mr Orgreave said, with irony. "And we're onlyat the second, it seems. Seven more to come; What do you think of that, Edwin?" "Very fine!" "Let's have the `Lost Chord, ' Janet, " Mr Orgreave suggested. There was a protesting chorus of "Oh, dad!" "Very well! Very well!" the father murmured, acting humility. "I'msnubbed!" Tom had now strolled across the room, smiling to himself, and looking atthe carpet, in an effort to behave as one who had done nothing inparticular. "How d'ye do, Clayhanger?" He greeted Edwin, and grasped his hand in afeverish clutch. "You must excuse us. We aren't used to audiences. That's the worst of being rotten amateurs. " Edwin rose. "Oh!" he deprecated. He had never spoken to Tom Orgreavebefore, but Tom seemed ready to treat him at once as an establishedacquaintance. Then Alicia had to come forward and shake hands. She could not get aword out. "Now, baby!" Charlie teased her. She tossed her mane, and found refuge by her mother's side. MrsOrgreave caressed the mane into order. "This is Miss Lessways. Hilda--Mr Edwin Clayhanger. " Janet drew thedark girl towards her as the latter hovered uncertainly in the middle ofthe room, her face forced into the look of elaborate negligenceconventionally assumed by every self-respecting person who waits to beintroduced. She took Edwin's hand limply, and failed to meet hisglance. Her features did not soften. Edwin was confirmed in theimpression of her obdurate ugliness. He just noticed her olive skin andblack eyes and hair. She was absolutely different in type from any ofthe Clayhangers. The next instant she and Charlie were talkingtogether. Edwin felt the surprised relief of one who has plunged into the sea anddiscovers himself fairly buoyant on the threatening waves. "Janet, " asked Mrs Orgreave, "will supper be ready?" In the obscurer corners of the room grey shadows gathered furtively, waiting their time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. "Seen my latest, Charlie?" asked Tom, in his thin voice. "No, what is it?" Charlie replied. The younger brother was flatteredby this proof of esteem from the elder, but he did his best bycasualness of tone to prevent the fact from transpiring. All the youths were now standing in a group in the middle of thedrawing-room. Their faces showed pale and more distinct than theirbodies in the darkening twilight. Mrs Orgreave, her husband, and thegirls had gone into the dining-room. Tom Orgreave, with the gestures of a precisian, drew a bunch of keysfrom his pocket, and unlocked a rosewood bookcase that stood between thetwo windows. Jimmie winked to Johnnie, and included Edwin in thefellowship of the wink, which meant that Tom was more comic than Tomthought, with his locked bookcases and his simple vanities of acollector. Tom collected books. As Edwin gazed at the bookcase heperceived that it was filled mainly with rich bindings. And suddenlyall his own book-buying seemed to him petty and pitiful. He saw booksin a new aspect. He had need of no instruction, of no explanation. Theamorous care with which Tom drew a volume from the bookcase was enoughin itself to enlighten Edwin completely. He saw that a book might bemore than reading matter, might be a bibelot, a curious jewel, tosatisfy the lust of the eye and of the hand. He instantly condemned hisown few books as being naught; he was ashamed of them. Each book inthat bookcase was a separate treasure. "See this, my boy?" said Tom, handing to Charlie a calf-bound volume, with a crest on the sides. "Six volumes. Picked them up at Stafford--Assizes, you know. It's the Wilbraham crest. I never knew they'd beenselling their library. " Charlie accepted the book with respect. Its edges were gilt, and thepaper thin and soft. Edwin looked over his shoulder, and saw thetitle-page of Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris, " in French. Thevolume had a most romantic, foreign, even exotic air. Edwin desired itfervently, or something that might rank equal with it. "How much did they stick you for this lot?" asked Charlie. Tom held up one finger. "Quid?" Charlie wanted to be sure. Tom nodded. "Cheap as dirt, of course!" said Tom. "Binding's worth more than that. Look at the other volumes. Look at them!" "Pity it's only a second edition, " said Charlie. "Well, damn it, man! One can't have everything. " Charlie passed the volume to Edwin, who fingered it with the strangestdelight. Was it possible that this exquisitely delicate and uncustomarytreasure, which seemed to exhale all the charm of France and the savourof her history, had been found at Stafford? He had been to Staffordhimself. He had read "Notre-Dame" himself, but in English, out of acommon book like any common book--not out of a bibelot. "You've read it, of course, Clayhanger?" Tom said. "Oh!" Edwin answered humbly. "Only in a translation. " Yet there was acertain falseness in his humility, for he was proud of having read thework. What sort of a duffer would he have appeared had he been obligedto reply `No'? "You ought to read French in French, " said Tom, kindly authoritative. "Can't, " said Edwin. "Bosh!" Charlie cried. "You were always spiffing in French. You couldsimply knock spots off me. " "And do you read French in French, the Sunday?" Edwin asked. "Well, " said Charlie, "I must say it was Thomas put me up to it. Yousimply begin to read, that's all. What you don't understand, you miss. But you soon understand. You can always look at a dictionary if youfeel like it. I usually don't. " "I'm sure you could read French easily in a month, " said Tom. "Theyalways gave a good grounding at Oldcastle. There's simply nothing init. " "Really!" Edwin murmured, relinquishing the book. "I must have a shot, I never thought of it. " And he never thought of reading French forpleasure. He had construed Xavier de Maistre's "Voyage autour de maChambre" for marks, assuredly not for pleasure. "Are there any books inthis style to be got on that bookstall in Hanbridge Market?" he inquiredof Tom. "Sometimes, " said Tom, wiping his spectacles. "Oh yes!" It was astounding to Edwin how blind he had been to the romance ofexistence in the Five Towns. "It's all very well, " observed Charlie reflectively, fingering one ortwo of the other volumes--"it's all very well, and Victor Hugo is VictorHugo; but you can say what you like--there's a lot of this that'll bearskipping, your worships. " "Not a line!" said a passionate, vibrating voice. The voice so startled and thrilled Edwin that he almost jumped, as helooked round. To Edwin it was dramatic; it was even dangerous andthreatening. He had never heard a quiet voice so charged with intenseemotion. Hilda Lessways had come back to the room, and she stood nearthe door, her face gleaming in the dusk. She stood like an Amazoniandefender of the aged poet. Edwin asked himself, "Can any one be soexcited as that about a book?" The eyes, lips, and nostrils were arevelation to him. He could feel his heart beating. But the girlstrongly repelled him. Nobody else appeared to be conscious thatanything singular had occurred. Jimmie and Johnnie sidled out of theroom. "Oh! Indeed!" Charlie directed his candid and yet faintly ironic smileupon Hilda Lessways. "Don't you think that some of it's dullish, Teddy?" Edwin blushed. "Well, ye-es, " he answered, honestly judicial. "Mrs Orgreave wants to know when you're coming to supper, " said Hilda, and left. Tom was relocking the bookcase. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT. THE FAMILY SUPPER. "Now father, let's have a bottle of wine, eh?" Charlie vociferouslysuggested. Mr Orgreave hesitated: "You'd better ask your mother. " "Really, Charlie--" Mrs Orgreave began. "Oh yes!" Charlie cut her short. "Right you are, Martha!" The servant, who had stood waiting for a definite command during thisbrief conflict of wills, glanced interrogatively at Mrs Orgreave and, perceiving no clear prohibition in her face, departed with a smile toget the wine. She was a servant of sound prestige, and had theinexpressible privilege of smiling on duty. In her time she had foughtlively battles of repartee with all the children from Charlie downwards. Janet humoured Martha, and Martha humoured Mrs Orgreave. The whole family (save absent Marian) was now gathered in thedining-room, another apartment on whose physiognomy were written incipher the annals of the vivacious tribe. Here the curtains were drawn, and all the interest of the room centred on the large white gleamingtable, about which the members stood or sat under the downward radianceof a chandelier. Beyond the circle illuminated by the shaded chandeliercould be discerned dim forms of furniture and of pictures, with a glintof high light here and there burning on the corner of some gold frame. Mr and Mrs Orgreave sat at either end of the table. Alicia stood byher father, with one arm half round his neck. Tom sat near his mother. Janet and Hilda sat together, flanked by Jimmie and Johnnie, who stood, having pushed chairs away. Charlie and Edwin stood opposite. The tableseemed to Edwin to be heaped with food: cold and yet rich remains ofbird and beast; a large fruit pie, opened; another intact; somepuddings; cheese; sandwiches; raw fruit; at Janet's elbow were cups andsaucers and a pot of coffee; a large glass jug of lemonade shone nearby; plates, glasses, and cutlery were strewn about irregularly. Theeffect upon Edwin was one of immense and careless prodigality; itintoxicated him; it made him feel that a grand profuseness was thefinest thing in life. In his own home the supper consisted of cheese, bread, and water, save on Sundays, when cold sausages were generallyadded, to make a feast. But the idea of the price of living as theOrgreaves lived seriously startled the prudence in him. Imagine thatexpense always persisting, day after day, night after night! There werecertainly at least four in the family who bought clothes at Shillitoe's, and everybody looked elaborately costly, except Hilda Lessways, who didnot flatter the eye. But equally, they all seemed quite unconscious oftheir costliness. "Now, Charlie darling, you must look after Mr Edwin, " said MrsOrgreave. "She never calls us darling, " said Johnnie, affecting disgust. "She will, as soon as you've left home, " said Janet, ironicallysoothing. "I do, I often do!" Mrs Orgreave asserted. "Much oftener than youdeserve. " "Sit down, Teddy, " Charlie enjoined. "Oh! I'm all right, thanks, " said Edwin. "Sit down!" Charlie insisted, using force. "Do you talk to your poor patients in that tone?" Alicia inquired, fromthe shelter of her father. "Here I come down specially to see them, " Charlie mused aloud, as hetwisted the corkscrew into the cork of the bottle, unceremoniouslyhanded to him by Martha, "and not only they don't offer to pay my fares, but they grudge me a drop of claret! Plupp!" He grimaced as the corkcame out. "And my last night, too! Hilda, this is better than coffee, as Saint Paul remarked on a famous occasion. Pass your glass. " "Charlie!" his mother protested. "I'll thank you to leave Saint Paulout. " "Charlie! Your mother will be boxing your ears if you don't mind, " hisfather warned him. "I'll not have it!" said his mother, shaking her head in a fashion thatshe imagined to be harsh and forbidding. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Towards the close of the meal, Mr Orgreave said-- "Well, Edwin, what does your father say about Bradlaugh?" "He doesn't say much, " Edwin replied. "Let me see, does he call himself a Liberal?" "He calls himself a Liberal, " said Edwin, shifting on his chair. "Yes, he calls himself a Liberal. But I'm afraid he's a regular old Tory. " Edwin blushed, laughing, as half the family gave way to more or lessviolent mirth. "Father's a regular old Tory too, " Charlie grinned. "Oh! I'm sorry, " said Edwin. "Yes, father's a regular old Tory, " agreed Mr Orgreave. "Don'tapologise! Don't apologise! I'm used to these attacks. I've beennearly kicked out of my own house once. But some one has to keep theflag flying. " It was plain that Mr Orgreave enjoyed the unloosing of the hurricanewhich he had brought about. Mrs Orgreave used to say that he employedthat particular tone from a naughty love of mischief. In a moment allthe boys were upon him, except Jimmie, who, out of sheer intellectualsnobbery, as the rest averred, supported his father. AtheisticalBradlaugh had been exciting the British public to disputation for a longtime, and the Bradlaugh question happened then to be acute. In thatvery week the Northampton member had been committed to custody foroutraging Parliament, and released. And it was known that Gladstonemeant immediately to bring in a resolution for permitting members toaffirm, instead of taking oath by appealing to a God. Than thiscomplication of theology and politics nothing could have been betterdevised to impassion an electorate which had but two genuine interests--theology and politics. The rumour of the feverish affair had spread tothe most isolated communities. People talked theology, and peopletalked politics, who had till then only felt silently on these subjects. In loquacious families Bradlaugh caused dissension and division, morereal perhaps than apparent, for not all Bradlaugh's supporters had thecourage to avow themselves such. It was not easy, at any rate it wasnot easy in the Five Towns, for a timid man in reply to the question, "Are you in favour of a professed Freethinker sitting in the House ofCommons?" to reply, "Yes, I am. " There was something shameless in thatword `professed. ' If the Freethinker had been ashamed of hisfreethinking, if he had sought to conceal it in phrases, --theimplication was that the case might not have been so bad. This was whatastonished Edwin: the candour with which Bradlaugh's position was upheldin the dining-room of the Orgreaves. It was as if he were witnessingdeeds of wilful perilous daring. But the conversation was not confined to Bradlaugh, for Bradlaugh wasnot a perfect test for separating Liberals and Tories. Nobody in theroom, for example, was quite convinced that Mr Orgreave wasanti-Bradlaugh. To satisfy their instincts for father-baiting, the boyshad to include other topics, such as Ireland and the proposal for HomeRule. As for Mr Orgreave, he could and did always infuriate them byrefusing to answer seriously. The fact was that this was his device formaintaining his prestige among the turbulent mob. Dignified andbrilliantly clever as Osmond Orgreave had the reputation of being in thetown, he was somehow outshone in cleverness at home, and he never putthe bar of his dignity between himself and his children. Thus he couldonly keep the upper hand by allowing hints to escape from him of thesecret amusement roused in him by the comicality of the spectacle of hisfilial enemies. He had one great phrase, which he would drawl out atthem with the accents of a man who is trying politely to hide hiscontempt: "You'll learn better as you get older. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Edwin, who said little, thought the relationship between father and sonsutterly delightful. He had not conceived that parents and children everwere or could be on such terms. "Now what do you say, Edwin?" Mr Orgreave asked. "Are you a--Charlie, pass me that bottle. " Charlie was helping himself to another glass of wine. The father, thetwo elder sons, and Edwin alone had drunk of the wine. Edwin had nevertasted wine in his life, and the effect of half a glass on him was veryagreeable and strange. "Oh, dad! I just want a--" Charlie objected, holding the bottle in theair above his glass. "Charlie, " said his mother, "do you hear your father?" "Pass me that bottle, " Mr Orgreave repeated. Charlie obeyed, proclaiming himself a martyr. Mr Orgreave filled hisown glass, emptying the bottle, and began to sip. "This will do me more good than you, young man, " he said. Then turningagain to Edwin: "Are you a Bradlaugh man?" And Edwin, uplifted, said: "All I say is--you can't help what youbelieve. You can't make yourself believe anything. And I don't see whyyou should, either. There's no virtue in believing. " "Hooray, " cried the sedate Tom. "No virtue in believing! Eh, Mr Edwin! Mr Edwin!" This sad expostulation came from Mrs Orgreave. "Don't you see what I mean?" he persisted vivaciously, reddening. Buthe could not express himself further. "Hooray!" repeated Tom. Mrs Orgreave shook her head, with grieved good-nature. "You mustn't take mother too seriously, " said Janet, smiling. "She onlyputs on that expression to keep worse things from being said. She'sonly pretending to be upset. Nothing could upset her, really. She'spast being upset--she's been through so much--haven't you, you poordear?" In looking at Janet, Edwin caught the eyes of Hilda blazing on himfixedly. Her head seemed to tremble, and he glanced away. She hadadded nothing to the discussion. And indeed Janet herself had taken nopart in the politics, content merely to advise the combatants upon theirdemeanour. "So you're against me too, Edwin!" Mr Orgreave sighed with mockmelancholy. "Well, this is no place for me. " He rose, lifted Aliciaand put her into his arm-chair, and then went towards the door. "You aren't going to work, are you, Osmond?" his wife asked, turning herhead. "I am, " said he. He disappeared amid a wailing chorus of "Oh, dad!" VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINE. IN THE PORCH. When the front door of the Orgreaves interposed itself that nightbetween Edwin and a little group of gas-lit faces, he turned awaytowards the warm gloom of the garden in a state of happy excitement. Hehad left fairly early, despite protests, because he wished to give hisfather no excuse for a spectacular display of wrath; Edwin's desire fora tranquil existence was growing steadily. But now that he was in theopen air, he did not want to go home. He wanted to be in fullpossession of himself, at leisure and in freedom, and to examine thetreasure of his sensations. "It's been rather quiet, " the Orgreaves hadsaid. "We generally have people dropping in. " Quiet! It was the leastquiet evening he had ever spent. He was intoxicated; not with wine, though he had drunk wine. A group ofwell-intentioned philanthropists, organised into a powerful society forcombating the fearful evils of alcoholism, had seized Edwin at the ageof twelve and made him bind himself with solemn childish signature andceremonies never to taste alcohol save by doctor's orders. He thoughtof this pledge in the garden of the Orgreaves. "Damned rot!" hemurmured, and dismissed the pledge from his mind as utterly unimportant, if not indeed fatuous. No remorse! The whole philosophy of asceticisminspired him, at that moment, with impatient scorn. It was the hope ofpleasure that intoxicated him, the vision which he had had of thepossibilities of being really interested in life. He saw new avenuestoward joy, and the sight thereof made him tingle, less with the desireto be immediately at them than with the present ecstasy of contemplatingthem. He was conscious of actual physical tremors and agreeablesmartings in his head; electric disturbances. But he did not reason; hefelt. He was passive, not active. He would not even, just then, attempt to make new plans. He was in a beatitude, his mouth unawarethat it was smiling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Behind him was the lighted house; in front the gloom of the lawn endingin shrubberies and gates, with a street-lamp beyond. And there wassilence, save for the vast furnace-breathings, coming over undulatingmiles, which the people of the Five Towns, hearing them always, neverhear. A great deal of diffused light filtered through the cloudy sky. The warm wandering airs were humid on the cheek. He must return home. He could not stand dreaming all the night in the garden of theOrgreaves. To his right uprose the great rectangular mass of hisfather's new house, entirely free of scaffolding, having all the aspectof a house inhabited. It looked enormous. He was proud of it. In suchan abode, and so close to the Orgreaves, what could he not do? Why go to gaze on it again? There was no common sense in doing so. Andyet he felt: "I must have another glance at it before I go home. " Fromhis attitude towards it, he might have been the creator of that house. That house was like one of his more successful drawings. When he haddone a drawing that he esteemed, he was always looking at it. He wouldlook at it before running down to breakfast; and after breakfast, instead of going straight to the shop, he would rush upstairs to havestill another look at it. The act of inspection gave him pleasure. Sowith the house. Strange, superficially; but the simple explanation wasthat for some things he had the eyes of love. .. Yes, in his dancing andhappy brain the impulse to revisit the house was not to be conquered. The few battered yards of hedge between his father's land and that ofMr Orgreave seemed more passable in the night. He crunched along thegravel, stepped carefully with noiseless foot on the flower-bed, andthen pushed himself right through the frail bushes, forgetting therespect due to his suit. The beginning of summer had dried the stickyclay of the new garden; paths had already been traced on it, andtrenches cut for the draining of the lawn that was to be. Edwin in thenight saw the new garden finished, mellow, blooming with such blossomsas were sold in Saint Luke's Market; he had scarcely ever seen flowersgrowing in the mass. He saw himself reclining in the garden with a rareand beautiful book in his hand, while the sound of Beethoven's musiccame to him through the open window of the drawing-room. In so far ashe saw Maggie at all, he saw her somehow mysteriously elegant andvivacious He did not see his father. His fancy had little relation toreality. But this did not mar his pleasure. .. Then he saw himselftalking over the hedge, wittily, to amiable and witty persons in thegarden of the Orgreaves. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He had not his key to the new house, but he knew a way of getting intoit through the cellar. No reason in doing so; nevertheless he must getinto it, must localise his dream in it! He crouched down under theblank east wall, and, feet foremost, disappeared slowly, as though thehouse were swallowing him. He stood on the stillage of the cellar, andstruck a match. Immense and weird, the cellar; and the doorlessdoorway, leading to the cellar steps, seemed to lead to affrightingmatters. He was in the earth, in it, with the smells of damp mortar andof bricks and of the earth itself about him, and above him rose thehouse, a room over him, and a room over that and another over that, andthen the chimney-cowl up in the sky. He jumped from the stillage, andwent quickly to the doorway and saw the cellar steps. His heart wasbeating. He trembled, he was afraid, exquisitely afraid, acutelyconscious of himself amid the fundamental mysteries of the universe. Hereached the top of the steps as the match expired. After a moment hecould distinguish the forms of things in the hall, even the mainfeatures of the pattern of the tiles. The small panes in the glazedfront door, whose varied tints repeated those of the drawing-room windowin daytime, now showed a uniform dull grey, lifeless. The cellar wasformidable below, and the stairs curved upwards into the formidable. But he climbed them. The house seemed full of inexplicable noises. When he stopped to listen he could hear scores of differentinfinitesimal sounds. His spine thrilled, as if a hand delicate andterrible had run down it in a caress. All the unknown of the night andof the universe was pressing upon him, but it was he alone who hadcreated the night and the universe. He reached his room, the room inwhich he meant to inaugurate the new life and the endeavour towardsperfection. Already, after his manner, he had precisely settled wherethe bed was to be, and where the table, and all the other objects of hisworld. There he would sit and read rare and beautiful books in theoriginal French! And there he would sit to draw! And to the right ofthe hearth over bookshelves would be such and such a picture, and to theleft of the hearth over bookshelves such and such another picture. .. Only, now, he could not dream in the room as he had meant to dream;because beyond the open door was the empty landing and the well of thestairs and all the terror of the house. The terror came and mingledwith the delicious sensations that had seized him in the solitude of thegarden of the Orgreaves. No! Never had he been so intensely alive asthen! He went cautiously to the window and looked forth. Instantly the terrorof the house was annihilated. It fell away, was gone. He was not alonein his fancy-created universe. The reassuring illusion of reality cameback like a clap of thunder. He could see a girl insinuating herselfthrough the gap in the hedge which he had made ten minutes earlier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "What the deuce is she after?" he muttered. He wondered whether, if shehappened to glance upwards, she would be able to see him. He stood awaya little from the window, but as in the safer position he could nolonger distinguish her he came again close to the glass. After all, there could be no risk of her seeing him. And if she did see him, --thefright would be hers, not his. Having passed through the hedge, she stopped, bent down, leaningbackward and to one side, and lifted the hem of her skirt to examine it;possibly it was torn; then she dropped it. By that black, tight skirtand by something in her walk he knew she was Hilda; he could notdecipher her features. She moved towards the new house, very slowly, asif she had emerged for an aimless nocturnal stroll. Strange anddisquieting creature! He peered as far as he could leftwards, to seethe west wall of Lane End House. In a window of the upper floor a lightburned. The family had doubtless gone to bed, or were going. .. And shehad wandered forth solitary and was trespassing in his garden. "Cheek!"If ever he got an opportunity he should mysteriously tease her on thesubject of illegal night excursions! Yes, he should be very witty andironic. "Nothing but cheek!" He was confirmed in his hostility to her. She had no charm, and yet the entire Orgreave family was apparentlyinfatuated about her. Her interruption on behalf of Victor Hugo seemedto be savage. Girls ought not to use that ruthless tone. And her eyeswere hard, even cruel. She was less feminine than masculine. Her hairwas not like a girl's hair. She still came on, until the projecting roof of the bay-window beneathhim hid her from sight. He would have opened his window and leaned outto glimpse her, could he have done so without noise. Where was she? Inthe garden porch? She did not reappear. She might be capable ofgetting into the house! She might even then actually be getting intothe house! She was queer, incalculable. Supposing that she was in thehabit of surreptitiously visiting the house, and had found a key to fitone of the doors, or supposing that she could push up a window, --shewould doubtless mount the stairs and trap him! Absurd, thesespeculations; as absurd as a nightmare! But they influenced hisconduct. He felt himself forced to provide against the wildest hazards. Abruptly he departed from the bedroom and descended the stairs, stamping, clumping, with all possible noise; in addition he whistled. This was to warn her to fly. He stopped in the hall until she had hadtime to fly, and then he lit a match as a signal which surely nocarelessness could miss. He could have gone direct by the front doorinto the street, so leaving her to her odd self; but, instead, he drewback the slip-catch of the garden door and opened it, self-consciouslyhumming a tune. She was within the porch. She turned deliberately to look at him. Hecould feel his heart-beats. His cheeks burned, and yet he was chilled. "Who's there?" he asked. But he did not succeed to his own satisfactionin acting alarmed surprise. "Me!" said Hilda, challengingly, rudely. "Oh!" he murmured, at a loss. "Did you want me? Did any one want me?" "Yes, " she said. "I just wanted to ask you something, " she paused. Hecould not see her scowling, but it seemed to him that she must be. Heremembered that she had rather thick eyebrows, and that when she broughtthem nearer together by a frown, they made almost one continuous line, the effect of which was not attractive. "Did you know I was in here?" "Yes. That's my bedroom window over there--I've left the gas up--and Isaw you get through the hedge. So I came down. They'd all gone off tobed except Tom, and I told him I was just going a walk in the garden fora bit. They never worry me, you know. They let me alone. I knew you'dgot into the house, by the light. " "But I only struck a match a second ago, " he protested. "Excuse me, " she said coldly; "I saw a light quite five minutes ago. " "Oh yes!" he apologised. "I remember. When I came up the cellarsteps. " "I dare say you think it's very queer of me, " she continued. "Not at all, " he said quickly. "Yes you do, " she bitterly insisted. "But I want to know. Did you meanit when you said--you know, at supper--that there's no virtue inbelieving?" "Did I say there was no virtue in believing?" he stammeringly demanded. "Of course you did!" she remonstrated. "Do you mean to say you can saya thing like that and then forget about it? If it's true, it's one ofthe most wonderful things that were ever said. And that's why I wantedto know if you meant it or whether you were only saying it because itsounded clever. That's what they're always doing in that house, youknow, being clever!" Her tone was invariably harsh. "Yes, " he said simply, "I meant it. Why?" "You did?" Her voice seemed to search for insincerity. "Well, thankyou. That's all. It may mean a new life to me. I'm always trying tobelieve; always! Aren't you?" "I don't know, " he mumbled. "How do you mean?" "Well--you know!" she said, as if impatiently smashing his pretence ofnot understanding her. "But perhaps you do believe?" He thought he detected scorn for a facile believer. "No, " he said, "Idon't. " "And it doesn't worry you? Honestly? Don't be clever! I hate that!" "No, " he said. "Don't you ever think about it?" "No. Not often. " "Charlie does. " "Has he told you?" ("So she talks to the Sunday too!" he reflected. ) "Yes; but of course I quite see why it doesn't worry you--if youhonestly think there's no virtue in believing. " "Well, " said Edwin. "Is there?" The more he looked at it through hereyes, the more wonderful profundities he discovered in that remark ofhis, which at the time of uttering it had appeared to him a simpleplatitude. It went exceedingly deep in many directions. "I hope you are right, " she replied. Her voice shook. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. There was silence. To ease the strain of his self-consciousness Edwinstepped down from the stone floor of the porch to the garden. He feltrain. And he noticed that the sky was very much darker. "By Jove!" he said. "It's beginning to rain, I do believe. " "I thought it would, " she answered. A squall of wind suddenly surged rustling through the high trees in thegarden of the Orgreaves, and the next instant threw a handful of wildraindrops on his cheek. "You'd better stand against the other wall, " he suggested. "You'llcatch it there, if it keeps on. " She obeyed. He returned to the porch, but remained in the exposedportion of it. "Better come here, " she said, indicating somehow her side. "Oh! I'm all right. " "You needn't be afraid of me, " she snapped. He grinned awkwardly, but said nothing, for he could not express hissecret resentment. He considered the girl to be of exceedinglyunpleasant manners. "Would you mind telling me the time?" she asked. He took out his watch, but peer as he might, he could not discern theposition of the hands. "Half a second, " he said, and struck a match. The match was blown outbefore he could look at the dial, but by its momentary flash he sawHilda, pressed against the wall. Her lips were tight, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched. She frowned; she was pale, and especially pale bycontrast with the black of her plain austere dress. "If you'll come into the house, " he said, "I can get a light there. "The door was ajar. "No thanks, " she declined. "It doesn't really matter what time it is, does it? Good night!" He divined that she was offering her hand. He clasped it blindly in thedark. He could not refuse to shake hands. Her hand gave his a feverishand lingering squeeze, which was like a contradicting message in thedark night; as though she were sending through her hand a secret denialof her spoken accents and her frown. He forgot to answer her `goodnight. ' A trap rattled furiously up the road. (Yes; only six yardsoff, on the other side of the boundary wall, was the public road! Andhe standing hidden there in the porch with this girl whom he had seenfor the first time that evening!) It was the mail-cart, rushing toKnype. She did not move. She had said `good night' and shaken hands; and yetshe remained. They stood speechless. Then without warning, after perhaps a minute that seemed like tenminutes, she walked away, slowly, into the rain. And as she did so, Edwin could just see her straightening her spine and throwing back hershoulders with a proud gesture. "I say, Miss Lessways!" he called in a low voice. But he had no notionof what he wanted to say. Only her departure had unlocked his throat. She made no sign. Again he grinned awkwardly, a little ashamed of herand a little ashamed of himself, because neither had behaved as woman orman of the world. After a short interval he followed in her steps as far as the gap in thehedge, which he did not find easily. There was no sign of her. The gasburned serenely in her bedroom, and the window was open. Then he sawthe window close up a little, and an arm in front of the drawn blind. The rain had apparently ceased. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. "Well, that's an eye-opener, that is!" he murmured, and therebyexpressed the situation. "Of all the damned impudence!" He somewhatoverstated his feelings, because he was posing a little to himself: anaccident that sooner or later happens to every man! "And she'll go backand make out to Master Tom that she's just had a stroll in the garden!Garden, indeed! And yet they're all so fearfully stuck on her. " He nodded his head several times reflectively, as if saying, "Well, well! What next?" And he murmured aloud: "So that's how they carry on, is it!" He meant, of course, women. .. He was very genuinely astounded. But the chief of all his acute sensations in that moment was pride:sheer pride. He thought, what ninety-nine men out of a hundred wouldhave thought in such circumstances: "She's taken a fancy to me!"Useless to call him a conceited coxcomb, from disgust that he did notconform to a sentimentally idealistic standard! He thought: "She'staken a fancy to me!" And he was not a conceited coxcomb. He exultedin the thought. Nothing had ever before so startled and uplifted him. It constituted the supreme experience of his career as a human being. The delightful and stimulating experience of his evening in the house ofthe Orgreaves sank into unimportance by the side of it. The new avenuestowards joy which had been revealed to him appeared now to be quiteunexciting paths; he took them for granted. And he forgot the high andserious mood of complex emotion in which he had entered the new house. Music and the exotic flavours of a foreign language seemed a littlething, in comparison with the feverish hand-clasp of the girl whom he sopeculiarly disliked. The lifeless hand which he had taken in thedrawing-room of the Orgreaves could not be the same hand as that whichhad closed intimately on his under the porch. She must have two righthands! And, even more base than his coxcombry, he despised her because it washe, Edwin, to whom she had taken a fancy. He had not sufficientself-confidence to justify her fancy in his own eyes. His argumentactually was that no girl worth having could have taken a fancy to himat sight. Thus he condemned her for her faith in him. As for hishistoric remark about belief, --well, there might or might not besomething in that; perhaps there was something in it. One instant headmired it, and the next he judged it glib and superficial. Moreover, he had conceivably absorbed it from a book. But even if it were anoriginal epigrammatic pearl--was that an adequate reason for herfollowing him to an empty house at dead of night? Of course, anoverwhelming passion might justify such behaviour! He could recallcases in literature. .. Yes, he had got so far as to envisage thepossibility of overwhelming passion. .. Then all these speculationsdisconcertingly vanished, and Hilda presented herself to his mind as agirl intensely religious, who would shrink from no unconventionality inthe pursuit of truth. He did not much care for this theory of Hilda, nor did it convince him. "Imagine marrying a girl like that!" he said to himself disdainfully. And he made a catalogue of her defects of person and of character. Shewas severe, satiric, merciless. "And I suppose--if I were to put myfinger up!" Thus ran on his despicable ideas. "Janet Orgreave, now!"Janet had every quality that he could desire, that he could even thinkof. Janet was balm. "You needn't be afraid, " that unpleasant girl had said. And he had onlybeen able to grin in reply! Still, pride! Intense masculine pride! There was one thing he had liked about her: that straightening of thespine and setting back of the shoulders as she left him. She had in hersome tinge of the heroic. He quitted the garden, and as soon as he was in the street he rememberedthat he had not pulled-to the garden door of the house. "Dash theconfounded thing!" he exploded, returning. But he was not reallyannoyed. He would not have been really annoyed even if he had had toreturn from half-way down Trafalgar Road. Everything was a trifle savethat a girl had run after him under such romantic circumstances. Thecircumstances were not strictly romantic, but they so seemed to him. Going home, he did not meet a soul; only in the middle distance of oneof the lower side streets he espied a policeman. Trafalgar Road was asolitude of bright and forlorn gas lamps and dark, excluding facades. Suddenly he came to the corner of Wedgwood Street. He had started fromBleakridge; he had arrived at home: the interval between these twoevents was a perfect blank, save for the policeman. He could not recallhaving walked all the way down the road. And as he put the key into thedoor he was not in the least disturbed by the thought that his fathermight not have gone to bed. He went upstairs with a certain swaggeringclatter, as who should say to all sleepers and bullies: "You be damned!I don't care for any of you! Something's happened to me. " And he mused: "If anybody had told me this afternoon that beforemidnight I should--" VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN. THE CENTENARY. It was immediately after this that the "Centenary"--mispronounced inevery manner conceivable--began to obsess the town. Superior and aloofpersons, like the Orgreaves, had for weeks heard a good deal of vaguetalk about the Centenary from people whom intellectually they despised, and had condescended to the Centenary as an amiable and excusable affairwhich lacked interest for them. They were wrong. Edwin had gonefurther, and had sniffed at the Centenary, to everybody except hisfather. And Edwin was especially wrong. On the antepenultimate day ofJune he first uneasily suspected that he had committed a fault ofappraisement. That was when his father brusquely announced that byrequest of the Mayor all places of business in the town would be closedin honour of the Centenary. It was the Centenary of the establishmentof Sunday schools. Edwin hated Sunday schools. Nay, he venomously resented them, thoughthey had long ceased to incommode him. They were connected in hismemory with atrocious tedium, pietistic insincerity, and humiliatingcontacts. At the bottom of his mind he still regarded them as amalicious device of parents for wilfully harassing and persecutinginoffensive, helpless children. And he had a particular grudge againstthem because he alone of his father's offspring had been chosen for thenauseating infliction. Why should his sisters have been spared and hedoomed? He became really impatient when Sunday schools were underdiscussion, and from mere irrational annoyance he would not admit thatSunday schools had any good qualities whatever. He knew nothing oftheir history, and wished to know nothing. Nevertheless, when the day of the Centenary dawned--and dawned insplendour--he was compelled, even within himself, to treat Sundayschools with more consideration. And, in fact, for two or three dayspreviously the gathering force of public opinion had been changing hisattitude from stern hatred to a sort of half-hearted derision. Now, thederision was mysteriously transformed into an inimical respect. Bywhat? By he knew not what. By something without a name in the airwhich the mind breathes. He felt it at six o'clock, ere he arose. Lying in bed he felt it. The day was to be a festival. The shop wouldnot open, nor the printing office. The work of preparing for theremoval would be suspended. The way of daily life would be quitechanged. He was free--that was, nearly free. He said to himself thatof course his excited father would expect him to witness thecelebrations and to wear his best clothes, and that was a bore. Buttherein he was not quite honest. For he secretly wanted to witness thecelebrations and to wear his best clothes. His curiosity was hungry. He admitted, what many had been asserting for weeks, that the Centenarywas going to be a big thing; and his social instinct wished him to sharein the pride of it. "It's a grand day!" exclaimed his father, cheerful and all glossy as helooked out upon Duck Square before breakfast, "It'll be rare and hot!"And it was a grand day; one of the dazzling spectacular blue-and-golddays of early summer. And Maggie was in finery. And Edwin too!Useless for him to pretend that a big thing was not afoot--and hisfather in a white waistcoat! Breakfast was positively talkative, thoughthe conversation was naught but a repeating and repeating of what thearrangements were, and of what everybody had decided to do. The threelingered over breakfast, because there was no reason to hurry. And theneven Maggie left the sitting-room without a care, for though Clara wascoming for dinner Mrs Nixon could be trusted. Mrs Nixon, if she hadtime, would snatch half an hour in the afternoon to see what remained tobe seen of the show. Families must eat. And if Mrs Nixon was stoppedby duty from assisting at this Centenary, she must hope to be more atliberty for the next. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. At nine o'clock, in a most delicious mood of idleness, Edwin strolledinto the shop. His father had taken down one shutter from the doorway, and slanted it carelessly against another on the pavement. A blind manor a drunkard might have stumbled against it and knocked it over. Theletters had been hastily opened. Edwin could see them lying in disorderon the desk in the little office. The dust-sheets thought the day wasSunday. He stood in the narrow aperture and looked forth. Duck Squarewas a shimmer of sunshine. The Dragon and the Duck and the otherpublic-house at the top corner seemed as usual, stolidly confident inthe thirst of populations. But the Borough Dining Rooms, next door butone to the corner of Duck Square and Wedgwood Street, were not as usual. The cart of Doy, the butcher, had halted laden in front of the BoroughDining Rooms, and the anxious proprietor, attended by his two littledaughters (aproned and sleeved for hard work in imitation of theirstout, perspiring mother), was accepting unusual joints from it. Ticklish weather for meat--you could see that from the man's gestures. Even on ordinary days those low-ceiled dining-rooms, stretching far backfrom the street in a complicated vista of interiors, were apt to becrowded; for the quality of the eightpenny dinner could be relied upon. Edwin imagined what a stifling, deafening inferno of culinary odours andclatter they would be at one o'clock, at two o'clock. Three hokey-pokey ice-cream hand-carts, one after another, turned thecorner of Trafalgar Road and passed in front of him along WedgwoodStreet. Three! The men pushing them, one an Italian, seemed to wearnothing but shirt and trousers, with a straw hat above and vagueslippers below. The steam-car lumbered up out of the valley of the roadand climbed Duck Bank, throwing its enormous shadow to the left. It washalf full of bright frocks and suits. An irregular current of finerywas setting in to the gates of the Wesleyan School yard at the top ofthe Bank. And ceremoniously bedecked individuals of all ages hurried inthis direction and in that, some with white handkerchiefs over floweredhats, a few beneath parasols. All the town's store of Sunday clotheswas in use. The humblest was crudely gay. Pawnbrokers had full tillsand empty shops, for twenty-four hours. Then a procession appeared, out of Moorthorne Road, from behind theWesleyan Chapel-keeper's house. And as it appeared it burst into music. First a purple banner, upheld on crimson poles with gildedlance-points; then a brass band in full note; and then children, children, children--little, middling, and big. As the procession curveddown into Trafalgar Road, it grew in stature, until, towards the end ofit, the children were as tall as the adults who walked fussily as hens, proudly as peacocks, on its flank. And last came a railway lorry onwhich dozens of tiny infants had been penned; and the horses of thelorry were ribboned and their manes and tails tightly plaited; on thatgrand day they could not be allowed to protect themselves against flies;they were sacrificial animals. A power not himself drew Edwin to the edge of the pavement. He couldread on the immense banner: "Moorthorne Saint John's Sunday School. "These, then, were church folk. And indeed the next moment he descried acurate among the peacocks. The procession made another curve intoWedgwood Street, on its way to the supreme rendezvous in Saint Luke'sSquare. The band blared; the crimson cheeks of the trumpeters sucked inand out; the drum-men leaned backwards to balance his burden, andbanged. Every soul of the variegated company, big and little, was in aperspiration. The staggering bearers of the purple banner, who held thegreat poles in leathern sockets slung from the shoulders, and theiracolytes before and behind who kept the banner upright by straining atcrimson halyards, sweated most of all. Every foot was grey with dust, and the dark trousers of boys and men showed dust. The steamy whiff ofhumanity struck Edwin's nostrils. Up hill and down dale the processionhad already walked over two miles. Yet it was alert, joyous, andexpectant: a chattering procession. From the lorry rose a continuousfaint shriek of infantile voices. Edwin was saddened as by pathos. Ibelieve that as he gazed at the procession waggling away along WedgwoodStreet he saw Sunday schools in a new light. And that was the opening of the day. There were to be dozens of suchprocessions. Some would start only in the town itself; but others werecoming from the villages like Red Cow, five sultry miles off. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. A young woman under a sunshade came slowly along Wedgwood Street. Shewas wearing a certain discreet amount of finery, but her clothes did notfit well, and a thin mantle was arranged so as to lessen as much aspossible the obviousness of the fact that she was about to become amother. The expression of her face was discontented and captious. Edwin did not see her until she was close upon him, and then heimmediately became self-conscious and awkward. "Hello, Clara!" he greeted her, with his instinctive warm, transientsmile, holding out his hand sheepishly. It was a most extraordinary andamazing thing that he could never regard the ceremony of shaking handswith a relative as other than an affectation of punctilio. Happily hewas not wearing his hat; had it been on his head he would never havetaken it off, and yet would have cursed himself for not doing so. "We are grand!" exclaimed Clara, limply taking his hand and dropping itas an article of no interest. In her voice there was still some echo offormer sprightliness. The old Clara in her had not till that momentbeheld the smart and novel curves of Edwin's Shillitoe suit, and thesatiric cry came unbidden from her heart. Edwin gave an uneasy laugh, which was merely the outlet for his disgust. Not that he was specially disgusted with Clara, for indeed marriage hadassuaged a little the tediousness of some of her mannerisms, even if ithad taken away from her charm. He was disgusted more comprehensively bythe tradition, universal in his class and in most classes, according towhich relatives could not be formally polite to one another. He obeyedthe tradition as slavishly as anyone, but often said to himself that hewould violate the sacred rule if only he could count on a suitableresponse; he knew that he could not count on a suitable response; and hehad no mind to be in the excruciating position of one who, havingstarted "God save the Queen" at a meeting, finds himself alone in thesong. Why could not he and Clara behave together as, for instance, heand Janet Orgreave would behave together, with dignity, withworldliness, with mutual deference? But no! It was impossible, andwould ever be so. They had been too brutally intimate, and the resultwas irremediable. "She's got no room to talk about personal appearance, anyway!" hethought sardonically. There was another extraordinary and amazing thing. He was ashamed ofher condition! He could not help the feeling. In vain he said tohimself that her condition was natural and proper. In vain heremembered the remark of the sage that a young woman in her conditionwas the most beautiful sight in the world. He was ashamed of it. Andhe did not think it beautiful; he thought it ugly. It worried him. What, --his sister? Other men's sisters, yes; but his! He forgot thathe himself had been born. He could scarcely bear to look at Clara. Herface was thin, and changed in colour; her eyes were unnaturally lustrousand large, bold and fatigued; she looked ill, really ill; and she wasincredibly unornamental. And this was she whom he could remember as agraceful child! And it was all perfectly correct and even laudable! Somuch so that young Clara undoubtedly looked down, now, as from asuperior height, upon both himself and Maggie! "Where's father?" she asked. "Just shut my sunshade. " "Oh! Somewhere about. I expect he'll be along in a minute. Albertcoming?" He followed her into the shop. "Albert!" she protested, shocked. "Albert can't possibly come till oneo'clock. Didn't you know he's one of the principal stewards in SaintLuke's Square? He says we aren't to wait dinner for him if he isn'tprompt. " "Oh!" Edwin replied, and put the sunshade on the counter. Clara sat down heavily on a chair, and began to fan herself with ahandkerchief. In spite of the heat of exercise her face was of a pallidyellow. "I suppose you're going to stay here all morning?" Edwin inquired. "Well, " said Clara, "you don't see me walking up and down the streetsall morning, do you? Albert said I was to be sure and go upstairs atonce and not move. He said there'd be plenty to see for a long time yetfrom the sitting-room window, and then afterwards I could lie down. " Albert said! Albert said! Clara's intonation of this frequent phrasealways jarred on Edwin. It implied that Albert was the supreme fount ofwisdom and authority in Bursley. Whereas to Edwin, Albert was in fact amere tedious, self-important manufacturer in a small way, with whom hehad no ideas in common. "A decent fellow at bottom, " the fastidiousEdwin was bound to admit to himself by reason of slight glimpses whichhe had had of Albert's uncouth good-nature; but pietistic, overbearing, and without humour. "Where's Maggie?" Clara demanded. "I think she's putting her things on, " said Edwin. "But didn't she understand I was coming early?" Clara's voice wasquerulous, and she frowned. "I don't know, " said Edwin. He felt that if they remained together for hours, he and Clara wouldnever rise above this plane of conversation--personal, factual, perfectly devoid of wide interest. They would never reach an exchangeof general ideas; they never had done. He did not think that Clara hadany general ideas. "I hear you're getting frightfully thick with the Orgreaves, " Claraobserved, with a malicious accent and smile, as if to imply that he wasgetting frightfully above himself, and--simultaneously--that theOrgreaves were after all no better than other people. "Who told you that?" He walked towards the doorway uneasily. The worstwas that he could not successfully pretend that these sisterly attackswere lost on him. "Never mind who told me, " said Clara. Her voice took on a sudden charming roguish quality, and he could hearagain the girl of fourteen. His heart at once softened to her. Theimpartial and unmoved spectator that sat somewhere in Edwin, as ineverybody who possesses artistic sensibility, watching his secret lifeas from a conning tower, thought how strange this was. He stared outinto the street. And then a face appeared at the aperture left by theremoved shutter. It was Janet Orgreave's, and it hesitated. Edwin gavea nervous start. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Janet was all in white again, and her sunshade was white, with regularcircular holes in it to let through spots of sunlight which flecked herface. Edwin had not recovered from the blow of her apparition just atthat moment, when he saw Hilda Lessways beyond her. Hilda wasslate-coloured, and had a black sunshade. His heart began to thump; itmight have been a dramatic and dangerous crisis that had suddenly comeabout. And to Edwin the situation did in fact present itself ascritical: his sister behind, and these two so different girls in front. Yet there was nothing critical in it whatsoever. He shook hands as in adream, wondering what he should do, trying to summon out of himself theman of the world. "Do come in, " he urged them, hoping they would refuse. "Oh no. We mustn't come in, " said Janet, smiling gratefully. Hilda didnot smile; she had not even smiled in shaking hands; and she had shakenhands without conviction. Edwin heard a hurried step in the shop, and then the voice of Maggie, maternal and protective, in a low exclamation of surprise: "You, dear!"And then the sound of a smacking kiss, and Clara's voice, thin, weak, and confiding: "Yes, I've come. " "Come upstairs, do!" said Maggieimploringly. "Come and be comfortable. " Then steps, ceasing to beheard as the sisters left the shop at the back. The solicitude ofMaggie for Clara during the last few months had seemed wonderful toEdwin, as also Clara's occasional childlike acceptance of it. "But you must come in!" he said more boldly to the visitors, askinghimself whether either Janet on Hilda had caught sight of his sisters inthe gloom of the shop. They entered, Hilda stiffly. Each with the same gesture closed herparasol before passing through the slit between the shutters into thedeep shade. But whereas Janet smiled with pleasant anticipation asthough she was going into heaven, Hilda wrinkled her forehead when herparasol would not subside at the first touch. Janet talked of the Centenary; said they had decided only that morningto come down into the town and see whatever was to be seen; said with anangelic air of apologising to the Centenary that up at Lane End Housethey had certainly been under-estimating its importance and its interestas a spectacle; said that it was most astonishing to see all the shopsclosed. And Edwin interjected vague replies, pulling the chair out ofthe little ebonised cubicle so that they could both sit down. And Hildaremained silent. And Edwin's thoughts were diving darkly beneathJanet's chatter as in a deep sea beneath light waves. He heard andanswered Janet with a minor part of his being that functionedautomatically. "She's a caution!" reflected the main Edwin, obsessed in secret by HildaLessways. Who could have guessed, by looking at her, that only threeevenings before she had followed him in the night to question him, tosqueeze his hand, and to be rude to him? Did Janet know? Did anyone?No! He felt sure that he and she had the knowledge of that interview tothemselves. She sat down glum, almost glowering. She was no moreworldly than Maggie and Clara were worldly. Than they, she had no moreskill to be sociable. And in appearance she was scarcely more stylish. But she was not as they, and it was useless vindictively to disparageher by pretending that she was. She could be passionate concerningVictor Hugo. She was capable of disturbing herself about the abstractquestion of belief. He had not heard her utter a single word in the wayof common girlish conversation. The doubt again entered his mind whether indeed her visit to the porchof the new house had been due to a genuine interest in abstractquestions and not to a fancy for himself. "Yes, " he reflected, "thatmust have been it. " In two days his pride in the affair had lost its first acuteness, thoughit had continued to brighten every moment of his life, and though he hadnot ceased to regret that he had no intimate friend to whom he couldrecount it in solemn and delicious intimacy. Now, philosophically, hestamped on his pride as on a fire. And he affected to be relieved atthe decision that the girl had been moved by naught but a sort offanaticism. But he was not relieved by the decision. The decisionitself was not genuine. He still clung to the notion that she hadfollowed him for himself. He preferred that she should have taken afancy to him, even though he discovered no charm in her, no beauty, nosolace, nothing but matter for repulsion. He wanted her to think ofhim, in spite of his distaste for her; to think of him hopelessly. "Youare an ass!" murmured the impartial watcher in the conning tower. Andhe was. But he did not care. It was agreeable thus to be an ass. .. His pride flared up again, and instead of stamping he blew on it. "By Jove!" he thought, eyeing her slyly, "I'll make you show your hand--you see if I don't! You think you can play with me, but you can't!" Hewas as violent against her as if she had done him an injury instead ofhaving squeezed his hand in the dark. Was it not injurious to havesnapped at him, when he refused her invitation to stand by her againstthe wall in the porch, "You needn't be afraid"? Janet would never havesaid such a thing. If only she resembled Janet! . .. During all this private soliloquising, Edwin's mien of mild nervousnessnever hardened to betray his ferocity, and he said nothing that mightnot have been said by an innocuous idiot. The paper boy, arrayed richly, slipped apologetically into the shop. Hehad certain packets to take out for delivery, and he was late. Edwinnodded to him distantly. The conversation languished. Then the head of Mr Orgreave appeared in the aperture. The architectseemed amused. Edwin could not understand how he had ever stood in aweof Mr Orgreave, who, with all his distinction and expensiveness, wasthe most companionable person in the world. "Oh! Father!" cried Janet. "What a deceitful thing you are! Do youknow, Mr Edwin, he pooh-poohed us coming down: he said he was far toobusy for such childish things as Centenaries! And look at him!" Mr Orgreave, whose suit, hat, and necktie were a harmony of elegantgreys, smiled with paternal ease, and swung his cane. "Come along now!Don't let's miss anything. Come along. Now, Edwin, you're coming, aren't you?" "Did you ever see such a child?" murmured Janet, adoring him. Edwin turned to the paper boy. "Just find my father before you go, " hecommanded. "Tell him I've gone, and ask him if you are to put theshutter up. " The paper boy respectfully promised obedience. And Edwinwas glad that the forbidding Hilda was there to witness his authority. Janet went out first. Hilda hesitated; and Edwin, having taken his hatfrom its hook in the cubicle, stood attending her at the aperture. Hewas sorry that he could not run upstairs for a walking-stick. At lastshe seemed to decide to leave, yet left with apparent reluctance. Edwinfollowed, giving a final glance at the boy, who was tying a parcelhurriedly. Mr Orgreave and his daughter were ten yards off, arm-in-arm. Edwin fell into step with Hilda Lessways. Janet lookedround, and smiled and beckoned. "I wonder, " said Edwin to himself, "what the devil's going to happen now? I'll take my oath she stayedbehind on purpose! Well--" This swaggering audacity was within. Without, even a skilled observer could have seen nothing but a faint, sheepish smile. And his heart was thumping again. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE BOTTOM OF THE SQUARE. Another procession--that of the Old Church Sunday school--came up, withstandards floating and drums beating, out of the steepness of WoodisunBank, and turned into Wedgwood Street, which thenceforward was looselythronged by procession and sightseers. The importance of the festivalwas now quite manifest, for at the end of the street could be seen SaintLuke's Square, massed with human beings in movement. Osmond Orgreaveand his daughter were lost to view in the brave crowd; but after alittle, Edwin distinctly saw Janet's sunshade leave Wedgwood Street atthe corner of the Wedgwood Institution and bob slowly into the CockYard, which was a narrow thoroughfare leading to the market-place andthe Town Hall, and so to the top of Saint Luke's Square. He saidnothing, and kept straight on along Wedgwood Street past the CoveredMarket. "I hope you didn't catch cold in the rain the other night, " heremarked--grimly, as he thought. "I should have thought it would have been you who were more likely tocatch cold, " Hilda replied, in her curt manner. She looked in front ofher. The words seem to him to carry a double meaning. Suddenly shemoved her head, glanced full at him for an instant, and glanced behindher. "Where are they?" she inquired. "The others? Aren't they in front? They must be some where about. " Unless she also had marked their deviation into the Cock Yard, why hadshe glanced behind her in asking where they were? She knew as well ashe that they had started in front. He could only deduce that she hadbeen as willing as himself to lose Mr Orgreave and Janet. Just then anacquaintance raised his hat to Edwin in acknowledgement of the lady'spresence, and he responded with pride. Whatever his private attitude toHilda, he was undeniably proud to be seen in the streets with adisdainful, aloof girl unknown to the town. It was an experienceentirely new to him, and it flattered him. He desired to look long ather face, to examine her expression, to make up his mind about her; buthe could not, because they were walking side by side. The solemanifestation of her that he could judge was her voice. It was aremarkable voice, rather deep, with a sort of chiselled intonation. Thecadences of it fell on the ear softly and yet ruthlessly, and when shehad finished speaking you became aware of silence, as after a solemnutterance of destiny. What she happened to have been saying seemed tobe immaterial to the effect, which was physical, vibratory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. At the border of Saint Luke's Square, junction of eight streets, truecentre of the town's traffic, and the sole rectangular open spaceenclosed completely by shops, they found a line of constables whichyielded only to processions and to the bearers of special rosettes. `The Square, ' as it was called by those who inhabited it, had beenchosen for the historic scene of the day because of its pre-eminentclaim and suitability; the least of its advantages--its slope, from thetop of which it could be easily dominated by a speaker on a platform--would alone have secured for it the honours of the Centenary. As the police cordon closed on the procession from the Old Church, definitely dividing the spectators from the spectacle, it grew clearthat the spectators were in the main a shabby lot; persons without anysocial standing: unkempt idlers, good-for-nothings, wastrels, clay-whitened pot-girls who had to work even on that day, and who hadrun out for a few moments in their flannel aprons to stare, and a fewscore ragamuffins, whose parents were too poor or too careless to makethem superficially presentable enough to figure in a procession. Nearlythe whole respectability of the town was either fussily marshallingprocessions or gazing down at them in comfort from the multitudinousopen windows of the Square. The `leads' over the projecting windows ofBaines's, the chief draper's, were crowded with members of the rulingcaste. And even within the Square, it could be seen, between the towering backsof constables, that the spectacle itself was chiefly made up ofindigence bedecked. The thousands of perspiring children, penned likesheep, and driven to and fro like sheep by anxious and officiousrosettes, nearly all had the air of poverty decently putting the bestface on itself; they were nearly all, beneath their vague sense ofimportance, wistful with the resigned fatalism of the young and of thegoverned. They knew not precisely why they were there; but merely thatthey had been commanded to be there, and that they were hot and thirsty, and that for weeks they had been learning hymns by heart for thisoccasion, and that the occasion was glorious. Many of the rosettesthemselves had a poor, driven look. None of these bought suits atShillitoe's, nor millinery at Baines's. None of them gave orders forprinting, nor had preferences in the form of ledgers, nor held views onVictor Hugo, nor drank wine, nor yearned for perfection in the art ofsocial intercourse. To Edwin, who was just beginning to touch theplanes of worldliness and of dilettantism in art, to Edwin, with themysterious and haughty creature at his elbow, they seemed to have nomore in common with himself and her than animals had. And he wonderedby virtue of what decree he, in the Shillitoe suit, and the grand housewaiting for him up at Bleakridge, had been lifted up to splendid easeabove the squalid and pitiful human welter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Such musings were scarcely more than subconscious in him. He stood nowa few inches behind Hilda, and, above these thoughts, and beneath thestir and strident glitter and noise of the crawling ant-heap, his mindwas intensely occupied with Hilda's ear and her nostril. He could watchher now at leisure, for the changeful interest of the scene madeconversation unnecessary and even inept. What a lobe! What a nostril!Every curve of her features seemed to express a fine arrogant acrimonyand harsh truculence. At any rate she was not half alive; she was alivein every particle of herself. She gave off antipathies as a liquidgives off vapour. Moods passed across her intent face like a wind overa field. Apparently she was so rapt as to be unaware that her sunshadewas not screening her. Sadness prevailed among her moods. The mild Edwin said secretly: "By Jove! If I had you to myself, my lady, I'd soon teach you a thingor two!" He was quite sincere, too. His glance, roving, discovered Mrs Hamps above him, ten feet over hishead, at the corner of the Baines balcony. He flushed, for he perceivedthat she must have been waiting to catch him. She was at her moststately and most radiant, wonderful in lavender, and she poured out onhim the full opulence of a proud recognition. Everybody should be made aware that Mrs Hamps was greeting her adorednephew, who was with a lady friend of the Orgreaves. She leaned slightly from her cane chair. "Isn't it a beautiful sight?" she cried. Her voice sounded thin andweak against the complex din of the Square. He nodded, smiling. "Oh! I think it's a beautiful sight!" she cried once more, ecstatic. People turned to see whom she was addressing. But though he nodded again he did not think it was a beautiful sight. He thought it was a disconcerting sight, a sight vexatious andtroublesome. And he was in no way tranquillised by the reflection thatevery town in England had the same sight to show at that hour. And moreover, anticipating their next interview, he could, in fancy, plainly hear his Aunt Clara saying, with hopeless, longing benignancy:"Oh, Edwin, how I do wish I could have seen you in the Square, bearingyour part!" Hilda seemed to be oblivious of Mrs Hamps's ejaculations, butimmediately afterwards she straightened her back, with a gesture thatEdwin knew, and staring into his eyes said, as it were resentfully-- "Well, they evidently aren't here!" And looked with scorn among the sightseers. It was clear that the crowdcontained nobody of the rank and stamp of the Orgreaves. "They may have gone up the Cock Yard--if you know where that is, " saidEdwin. "Well, don't you think we'd better find them somehow?" VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE. THE TOP OF THE SQUARE. In making the detour through the Cock Yard to reach Saint Luke's Squareagain at the top of it, the only members of the Orgreave clan whom theyencountered were Jimmie and Johnnie, who, on hearing of thedisappearance of their father and Janet, merely pointed out that theirfather and Janet were notoriously always getting themselves lost, owingto gross carelessness about whatever they happened to be doing. Theyouths then departed, saying that the Bursley show was nothing, and thatthey were going to Hanbridge; they conveyed the idea that Hanbridge wasthe only place in the world for self-respecting men of fashion. Butbefore leaving they informed Edwin that a fellow at the corner of theSquare was letting out rather useful barrels on lease. This fellowproved to be an odd-jobman who had been discharged from the Duke ofWellington Vaults in the market-place for consistently intemperatelanguage, but whose tongue was such that he had persuaded the landlordon this occasion to let him borrow a dozen stout empty barrels, and thepolice to let him dispose them on the pavement. Every barrel wasoccupied, and, perceiving this, Edwin at once became bold with thebarrel-man. He did not comfortably fancy himself perched prominent on abarrel with Hilda Lessways by his side, but he could enjoy talking aboutit, and he wished to show Hilda that he could be as dashing as thoseyoung sparks, Jimmie and Johnnie. "Now, mester!" shouted the barrel-man thickly, in response to Edwin'sairy remark, "these 'ere two chaps'll shunt off for th' price of aquart!" He indicated a couple of barrel-tenants of his own tribe, whoinstantly jumped down, touching their soiled caps. They were part ofthe barrel-man's machinery for increasing profits. Edwin could notwithdraw. His very cowardice forced him to be audacious. By the timehe had satisfied the clawing greed of three dirty hands, the two barrelshad cost him a shilling. Hilda's only observation was, as Edwin helpedher to the plateau of the barrel: "I do wish they wouldn't spit on theirmoney. " All barrels being now let to bona fide tenants and paid for, the three men sidled hastily away in order to drink luck to Sundayschools in the Duke of Wellington's Entire. And Edwin, mounting thebarrel next to Hilda's, was thinking: "I've been done over that job. Iought to have got them for sixpence. " He saw how expensive it was, going about with delicately nurtured women. Never would he have offereda barrel to Maggie, and even had he done so Maggie would assuredly havesaid that she could make shift well enough without one. "It's simply perfect for seeing, " exclaimed Hilda, as he achieved heraltitude. Her tone was almost cordial. He felt surprisingly at ease. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The whole Square was now suddenly revealed as a swarming mass of heads, out of which rose banners and pennons that were cruder in tint even thanthe frocks and hats of the little girls and the dresses and bonnets oftheir teachers; the men, too, by their neckties, scarves, and rosettes, added colour to colour. All the windows were chromatic with the hues ofbright costumes, and from many windows and from every roof that had aflagstaff flags waved heavily against the gorgeous sky. At the bottomof the Square the lorries with infants had been arranged, and eachlooked like a bank of variegated flowers. The principal bands--that isto say, all the bands that could be trusted--were collected round thered baize platform at the top of the Square, and the vast sun-reflectingeuphoniums, trumpets, and comets made a glittering circle about theofficials and ministers and their wives and women. All denominations, for one day only, fraternised effusively together on that platform; forprinces of the royal house, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and theLord Mayor of London had urged that it should be so. The PrimitiveMethodists' parson discovered himself next but one to Father Milton, whoon any other day would have been a Popish priest, and whose woodensubstitute for a wife was the queen on a chessboard. And on all thesethe sun blazed torridly. And almost in the middle of the Square an immense purple banner belliedin the dusty breeze, saying in large gold letters, "The Blood of theLamb, " together with the name of some Sunday school, which Edwin fromhis barrel could not decipher. Then a hoary white-tied notability on the platform raised his might armvery high, and a bugle called, and a voice that had filled fields inexciting times of religious revival floated in thunder across theenclosed Square, easily dominating it-- "Let us sing. " And the conductor of the eager massed bands set them free with agesture, and after they had played a stave, a small stentorian choir atthe back of the platform broke forth, and in a moment the entiremultitude, at first raggedly, but soon in good unison, was singing-- Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure: Cleanse from guilt and make me pure. The volume of sound was overwhelming. Its crashing force was enough tosweep people from barrels. Edwin could feel moisture in his eyes, andhe dared not look at Hilda. "Why the deuce do I want to cry?" he askedhimself angrily, and was ashamed. And at the beginning of the secondverse, when the glittering instruments blared forth anew, and theinnumerable voices, high and loud, infantile and aged, flooded swiftlyover their brassy notes, subduing them, the effect on Edwin was the sameagain: a tightening of the throat, and a squeezing down of the eyelids. Why was it? Through a mist he read the words "The Blood of the Lamb, "and he could picture the riven trunk of a man dying, and a torrent ofblood flowing therefrom, and people like his Auntie Clara and hisbrother-in-law Albert plunging ecstatically into the liquid in order tobe white. The picture came again in the third verse, --the red fountainsand the frantic bathers. Then the notability raised his arm once more, and took off his hat, andall the males on the platform took off their hats, and presently everyboy and man in the Square had uncovered his head to the strong sunshine;and at last Edwin had to do the same, and only the policemen, by virtueof their high office, could dare to affront the majesty of God. And thereverberating voice cried-- "Oh, most merciful Lord! Have pity upon us. We are brands plucked fromthe burning. " And continued for several minutes to descant upon thetheme of everlasting torture by incandescence and thirst. Nominallyaddressing a deity, but in fact preaching to his audience, he announcedthat, even for the veriest infant on a lorry, there was no escape fromthe eternal fires save by complete immersion in the blood. And he wasso convinced and convincing that an imaginative nose could have detectedthe odour of burnt flesh. And all the while the great purple bannerwaved insistently: "The Blood of the Lamb. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. When the prayer was finished for the benefit of the little ones, anotherold and favourite hymn had to be sung. (None but the classical lyricsof British Christianity had found a place in the programme of the greatday. ) Guided by the orchestra, the youth of Bursley and the maturitythereof chanted with gusto-- There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. . .. Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood-- Edwin, like everybody, knew every line of the poem. With the purplebanner waving there a bloody motto, he foresaw each sanguinary detail ofthe verse ere it came to him from the shrill childish throats. And aphrase from another hymn jumped from somewhere in his mind just asWilliam Cowper's ended and a speech commenced. The phrase was `India'scoral strand. ' In thinking upon it he forgot to listen to the speech. He saw the flags, banners, and pennons floating in the sunshine and inthe heavy breeze; he felt the reverberation of the tropic sun on hishead; he saw the crowded humanity of the Square attired in its crude, primary colours; he saw the great brass serpentine instruments gleaming;he saw the red dais; he saw, bursting with infancy, the immense cams towhich were attached the fantastically plaited horses; he saw thevenerable zealots on the dais raving lest after all the institutionswhose centenary they had met to honour should not save these childrenfrom hopeless and excruciating torture for ever and ever; he saw thosemajestic purple folds in the centre embroidered with the legend of theblood of the mystic Paschal Lamb; he saw the meek, stupid, andsuperstitious faces, all turned one way, all for the moment under theempire of one horrible idea, all convinced that the consequences of sinscould be prevented by an act of belief, all gloating over inexhaustibletides of blood. And it seemed to him that he was not in England anylonger. It seemed to him that in the dim cellars under the shamblesbehind the Town Hall, where he had once been, there dwelt, squatting, astrange and savage god who would blast all those who did not enter hispresence dripping with gore, be they child or grandfather. It seemed tohim that the drums were tom-toms, and Baines's a bazaar. He could fitevery detail of the scene to harmonise with a vision of India's coralstrand. There was no mist before his eyes now. His sight was so clear that hecould distinguish his father at a window of the Bank, at the other topcorner of the Square. Part of his mind was so idle that he could wonderhow his father had contrived to get there, and whether Maggie wasstaying at home with Clara. But the visualisation of India's coralstrand in Saint Luke's Square persisted. A phrase in the speech loosedsome catch in him and he turned suddenly to Hilda, and in an intimatehalf-whisper murmured-- "More blood!" "What?" she harshly questioned. But he knew that she understood. "Well, " he said audaciously, "look at it! It only wants the Ganges atthe bottom of the Square!" No one heard save she. But she put her hand on his arm protestingly. "Even if we don't believe, " said she--not harshly, but imploringly, "weneedn't make fun. " "We don't believe!" And that new tone of entreaty! She hadcomprehended without explanation. She was a weird woman. Was thereanother creature, male or female, to whom he would have dared to saywhat he had said to her? He had chosen to say it to her because hedespised her, because he wished to trample on her feelings. She rousedthe brute in him, and perhaps no one was more astonished than himself towitness the brute stirring. Imagine saying to the gentle and sensitiveJanet: "It only wants the Ganges at the bottom of the Square--" He couldnot. They stood silent, gazing and listening. And the sun went higher in thesky and blazed down more cruelly. And then the speech ended, and thespeaker wiped his head with an enormous handkerchief. And themultitude, led by the brazen instruments, which in a moment itoverpowered, was singing to a solemn air-- When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died, Myrichest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. Hilda shook her head. "What's the matter?" he asked, leaning towards her from his barrel. "That's the most splendid religious verse ever written!" she saidpassionately. "You can say what you like. It's worth while believinganything, if you can sing words like that and mean them!" She had an air of restrained fury. But fancy exciting herself over a hymn! "Yes, it is fine, that is!" he agreed. "Do you know who wrote it?" she demanded menacingly. "I'm afraid I don't remember, " he said. The hymn was one of hisearliest recollections, but it had never occurred to him to be curiousas to its authorship. Her lips sneered. "Dr Watts, of course!" she snapped. He could hear her, beneath the tremendous chanting from the Square, repeating the words to herself with her precise and impressivearticulation. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE OLDEST SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. From the elevation of his barrel Edwin could survey, in the lordly andnegligent manner of people on a height, all the detail of his immediatesurroundings. Presently, in common with Hilda and the other aristocratsof barrels, he became aware of the increased vivacity of a scene whichwas passing at a little distance, near a hokey-pokey barrow. The chiefactors in the affair appeared to be a young policeman, the owner of thehokey-pokey barrow, and an old man. It speedily grew into one of thoseepisodes which, occurring on the outskirts of some episode immenselygreater, draw too much attention to themselves and thereby outrage thesense of proportion residing in most plain men, and especially in mostpolicemen. "Give him a ha'porth o' hokey, " said a derisive voice. "He hasn't got atooth in his head, but it wants no chewing, hokey does na'. " There wasa general guffaw from the little rabble about the barrow. "Aye! Give us some o' that!" said the piping, silly voice of the oldman. "But I mun' get to that there platform, I'm telling ye. I'mtelling all of ye. " He made a senile plunge against the body of thepoliceman, as against a moveless barricade, and then his hat was awryand it fell off, and somebody lifted it into the air with a neat kick sothat it dropped on the barrow. All laughed. The old man laughed. "Now, old sodger, " said the hot policeman curtly. "None o' this! Noneo' this! I advise ye civilly to be quiet; that's what I advise ye. Youcan't go on th' platform without a ticket. " "Nay!" piped the old man. "Don't I tell ye I lost it down th' Sytch!" "And where's yer rosette?" "Never had any rosette, " the old man replied. "I'm th' oldestSunday-schoo' teacher i' th' Five Towns. Aye! Fifty years and moresince I was Super at Turnhill Primitive Sunday schoo', and all Turnhillknows on it. And I've got to get on that there platform. I'm th'oldest Sunday schoo' teacher i' th' Five Towns. And I was Super--" Two ribald youngsters intoned `Super, Super, ' and another personunceremoniously jammed the felt hat on the old man's head. "It's nowt to me if ye was forty Supers, " said the policeman, withmenacing disdain. "I've got my orders, and I'm not here to be knockedabout. Where did ye have yer last drink?" "No wine, no beer, nor spirituous liquors have I tasted for sixty-oneyears come Martinmas, " whimpered the old man. And he gave another lurchagainst the policeman. "My name's Shushions!" And he repeated in afrantic treble, "My name's Shushions!" "Go and bury thysen, owd gaffer!" a Herculean young collier advised him. "Why, " murmured Hilda, with a sharp frown, "that must be poor old MrShushions from Turnhill, and they're guying him! You must stop it. Something must be done at once. " She jumped down feverishly, and Edwin had to do likewise. He wonderedhow he should conduct himself so as to emerge creditably from thesituation. He felt himself, and had always felt himself, to be the lastman in the world capable of figuring with authority in a publicaltercation. He loathed public altercations. The name of Shushionsmeant nothing to him; he had forgotten it, if indeed he had everwittingly heard it. And he did not at first recognise the old man. Descended from the barrel, he was merely an item in the loose-packedcrowd. As, in the wake of Hilda, he pushed with false eagerness betweenstubborn shoulders, he heard the bands striking up again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Approaching, he saw that the old man was very old. And then memorystirred. He began to surmise that he had met the wizened face before, that he knew something about it. And the face brought up a picture ofthe shop door and of his father standing beside it, a long time ago. Herecalled his last day at school. Yes, of course! This was the old mannamed Shushions, some sort of an acquaintance of his father's. This wasthe old man who had wept a surprising tear at sight of him, Edwin. Theincident was so far off that it might have been recorded in historybooks. He had never seen Mr Shushions since. And the old man waschanged, nearly out of recognition. The old man had lived too long; hehad survived his dignity; he was now nothing but a bundle of capriciousand obstinate instincts set in motion by ancient souvenirs remembered athazard. The front of his face seemed to have given way in generalcollapse. The lips were in a hollow; the cheeks were concave; the eyeshad receded; and there were pits in the forehead. The pale silverystraggling hairs might have been counted. The wrinkled skin was of acurious brown yellow, and the veins, instead of being blue, wereoutlined in Indian red. The impression given was that the flesh wouldbe unpleasant and uncanny to the touch. The body was bent, and the necketernally cricked backward in the effort of the eyes to look up. Moreover the old man was in a state of neglect. His beard alone provedthat. His clothes were dirty and had the air of concealing dirt. Andhe was dressed with striking oddness. He wore boots that were not apair. His collar was only fastened by one button, behind; the endsoscillated like wings; he had forgotten to fasten them in front; he hadforgotten to put on a necktie; he had forgotten the use of buttons onall his garments. He had grown down into a child again, but Providencehad not provided him with a nurse. Worse than these merely material phenomena was the mumbling toothlessgibber of his shrill protesting; the glassy look of idiocy from hisfatigued eyes; and the inane smile and impotent frown that alternated onhis features. He was a horrible and offensive old man. He was Time'sobscene victim. Edwin was revolted by the spectacle of the younger menbaiting him. He was astonished that they were so short-sighted as notto be able to see the image of themselves in the old man, so imprudentas not to think of their own future, so utterly brutalised. He wanted, by the simple force of desire, to seclude and shelter the old man, toprotect the old man not only from the insults of stupid and crassbullies, but from the old man himself, from his own fatuous senility. He wanted to restore to him, by a benevolent system of pretences, thedignity and the self-respect which he had innocently lost, and so tokeep him decent to the eye, if not to the ear, until death came torepair its omission. And it was for his own sake, for the sake of hisown image, as much as for the sake of the old man, that he wanted to dothis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. All that flashed through his mind and heart in a second. "I know this old gentleman, at least I know him by sight, " Hilda wassaying to the policeman. "He's very well known in Turnhill as an oldSunday school teacher, and I'm sure he ought to be on that platform. " Before her eye, and her precise and haughty voice, which had no trace ofthe local accent, the young policeman was secretly abashed, and thelouts fell back sheepishly. "Yes, he's a friend of my father's, --Mr Clayhanger, printer, " saidEdwin, behind her. The old man stood blinking in the glare. The policeman, ignoring Hilda, glanced at Edwin, and touched his cap. "His friends hadn't ought to let him out like this, sir. Just look athim. " He sneered, and added: "I'm on point duty. If you ask me, Ishould say his friends ought to take him home. " He said this with apeculiar mysterious emphasis, and looked furtively at the louts formoral support in sarcasm. They encouraged him with grins. "He must be got on to the platform, somehow, " said Hilda, and glanced atEdwin as if counting absolutely on Edwin. "That's what he's come for. I'm sure it means everything to him. " "Aye!" the old man droned. "I was Super when we had to teach 'em theiralphabet and give 'em a crust to start with. Many's the man walkingabout in these towns i' purple and fine raiment as I taught his lettersto, and his spellings, aye, and his multiplication table, --in themdays!" "That's all very well, miss, " said the policeman, "but who's going toget him to the platform? He'll be dropping in a sunstroke afore ye cansay knife. " "Can't we?" She gazed at Edwin appealingly. "Tak' him into a pub!" growled the collier, audacious. At the same moment two rosettes bustled up authoritatively. One of themwas the burly Albert Benbow. For the first time Edwin was conscious ofgenuine pleasure at the sight of his brother-in-law. Albert was a bornrosette. "What's all this? What's this? What is it?" he asked sharply. "Hello!What? Mr Shushions!" He bent down and looked close at the old man. "Where you been, old gentleman?" He spoke loud in his ear. "Everybody's been asking for you. Service is well-nigh over, but yemust come up. " The old man did not appear to grasp the significance of Albert'spatronage. Albert turned to Edwin and winked, not only for Edwin'sbenefit but for that of the policeman, who smiled in a manner thatinfuriated Edwin. "Queer old stick!" Albert murmured. "No doing anything with him. He'squarrelled with everybody at Turnhill. That's why he wanted to come tous. And of course we weren't going to refuse the oldest Sunday schoolteacher in th' Five Towns. He's a catch. .. Come along, old gentleman!" Mr Shushions did not stir. "Now, Mr Shushions, " Hilda persuaded him in a voice exquisitely mild, and with a lovely gesture she bent over him. "Let these gentlemen takeyou up to the platform. That's what you've come for, you know. " The transformation in her amazed Edwin, who could see the tears in hereyes. The tableau of the little, silly old man looking up, and Hildalooking down at him, with her lips parted in a heavenly invitation, andone gloved hand caressing his greenish-black shoulder and the othermechanically holding the parasol aloft, --this tableau was imprinted forever on Edwin's mind. It was a vision blended in an instant and in aninstant dissolved, but for Edwin it remained one of the epochal thingsof his experience. Hilda gave Edwin her parasol and quickly fastened Mr Shushions'scollar, and the old man consented to be led off between the tworosettes. The bands were playing the Austrian hymn. "Like to come up with your young lady friend?" Albert whispered toEdwin importantly as he went. "Oh no, thanks. " Edwin hurriedly smiled. "Now, old gentleman, " he could hear Albert adjuring Mr Shushions, andhe could see him broadly winking to the other rosettes and embracing theyielding crowd in his wink. Thus was the doddering old fool who had given his youth to Sundayschools when Sunday schools were not patronised by princes, archbishops, and lord mayors, when Sunday schools were the scorn of the intelligent, and had sometimes to be held in public-houses for lack of betteraccommodation, --thus was he taken off for a show and a museum curiosityby indulgent and shallow Samaritans who had not even the wit to guessthat he had sown what they were reaping. And Darius Clayhanger stoodoblivious at a high window of the sacred Bank. And Edwin, who, allunconscious, owed the very fact of his existence to the doting imbecile, regarded him chiefly as a figure in a tableau, as the chance instrumentof a woman's beautiful revelation. Mr Shushions's sole crime againstsociety was that he had forgotten to die. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Hilda Lessways would not return to the barrels. She was taciturn, andthe only remark which she made bore upon the advisability of discoveringJanet and Mr Orgreave. They threaded themselves out of the movingcrowd and away from the hokey-pokey stall and the barrels into thetranquillity of the market-place, where the shadow of the gold angel atthe top of the Town Hall spire was a mere squat shapeless stain on theirregular paving-stones. The sound of the Festival came diminished fromthe Square. "You're very fond of poetry, aren't you?" Edwin asked her, thinking, among many other things, of her observation upon the verse of IsaacWatts. "Of course, " she replied disagreeably. "I can't imagine anybody wantingto read anything else. " She seemed to be ashamed of her kindness to MrShushions, and to wish to efface any impression of amiability that shemight have made on Edwin. But she could not have done so. "Well, " he said to himself, "there's no getting over it. You're thebiggest caution I've ever come across!" His condition was one ofvarious agitation. Then, just as they were passing the upper end of the Cock Yard, whichwas an archway, Mr Orgreave and Janet appeared in the archway. "We've been looking for you everywhere. " "And so have we. " "What have you been doing?" "What have you been doing?" Father and daughter were gay. They had not seen much, but they weregay. Hilda Lessways and Edwin were not gay, and Hilda wouldcharacteristically make no effort to seem that which she was not. Edwin, therefore, was driven by his own diffidence into a nervous lightloquacity. He began the tale of Mr Shushions, and Hilda punctuated itwith stabs of phrases. Mr Orgreave laughed. Janet listened with eager sympathy. "Poor old thing! What a shame!" said Janet. But to Edwin, with the vision of Hilda's mercifulness in his mind, eventhe sympathy of Janet for Mr Shushions had a quality ofuncomprehending, facile condescension which slightly jarred on him. The steam-car loitered into view, discharged two passengers, and beganto manoeuvre for the return journey. "Oh! Do let's go home by car, father!" cried Janet. "It's too hot foranything!" Edwin took leave of them at the car steps. Janet was the smilingincarnation of loving-kindness. Hilda shook hands grudgingly. Throughthe windows of the car he saw her sternly staring at the advertisementsof the interior. He went down the Cock Yard into Wedgwood Street, whence he could hear the bands again and see the pennons. He thought, "This is a funny way of spending a morning!" and wondered what he shoulddo with himself till dinner-time. It was not yet a quarter past twelve. Still, the hours had passed with extraordinary speed. He stood aimlessat the corner of the pavement, and people who, having had their fill ofthe sun and the spectacle in the Square, were strolling slowly away, sawa fair young man, in a stylish suit, evidently belonging to the aloofclasses, gazing at nothing whatever, with his hands elegantly in hispockets. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOURTEEN. MONEY. Things sometimes fall out in a surprising way, and the removal of theClayhanger household from the corner of Duck Square to the heights ofBleakridge was diversified by a circumstance which Edwin, the personwhom alone it concerned, had not in the least anticipated. It was the Monday morning after the Centenary. Foster's largestfurniture-van, painted all over with fine pictures of the van itselftravelling by road, rail, and sea, stood loaded in front of the shop. One van had already departed, and this second one, in its crammedinterior, on its crowded roof, on a swinging platform beneath its floor, and on a posterior ledge supported by rusty chains, contained all thatwas left of the furniture and domestic goods which Darius Clayhanger hadcollected in half a century of ownership. The moral effect of Foster'sactivity was always salutary, in that Foster would prove to any man howsmall a space the acquisitions of a lifetime could be made to occupywhen the object was not to display but to pack them. Foster could putall your pride on to four wheels, and Foster's driver would crack a whipand be off with the lot of it as though it were no more than a load ofcoal. The pavement and the road were littered with straw, and the strawstraggled into the shop, and heaped itself at the open side door. Onelarge brass saucepan lay lorn near the doorstep, a proof that Foster washuman. For everything except that saucepan a place had been found. That saucepan had witnessed sundry ineffectual efforts to lodge it, andhad also suffered frequent forgetfulness. A tin candlestick had takenrefuge within it, and was trusting for safety to the might of theobstinate vessel. In the sequel, the candlestick was pitched by Edwinon to the roof of the van, and Darius Clayhanger, coming fussily out ofthe shop, threw a question at Edwin and then picked up the saucepan andwent off to Bleakridge with it, thus making sure that it would not beforgotten, and demonstrating to the town that he, Darius, was at last`flitting' into his grand new house. Even weighted by the saucepan, inwhich Mrs Nixon had boiled hundredweights of jam, he still managed tokeep his arms slanted outwards and motionless, retaining his appearanceof a rigid body that swam smoothly along on mechanical legs. Darius, though putting control upon himself, was in a state of high complexemotion, partly due to apprehensiveness about the violent changing ofthe habits of a quarter of a century, and partly due to nervous pride. Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to the new house half an hour earlier, todevise encampments therein for the night; for the Clayhangers woulddefinitely sleep no more at the corner of Duck Square; the rooms inwhich they had eaten and slept and lain awake, and learnt what life andwhat death was, were to be transformed into workshops and stores for anincreasing business. The premises were not abandoned empty. The shophad to function as usual on that formidable day, and the printing had toproceed. This had complicated the affair of the removal; but it hadhelped everybody to pretend, in an adult and sedate manner, that nothingin the least unusual was afoot. Edwin loitered on the pavement, with his brain all tingling, andexcitedly incapable of any consecutive thought whatever. It was hisduty to wait. Two of Foster's men were across in the vaults of theDragon; the rest were at Bleakridge with the first and smaller van. Only one of Foster's horses was in the dropped double-shafts, and evenhe had his nose towards the van, and in a nosebag; two others were tocome down soon from Bleakridge to assist. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. A tall, thin, grey-bearded man crossed Trafalgar Road from AboukirStreet. He was very tall and very thin, and the peculiarity of his walkwas that the knees were never quite straightened, so that his height wasreally greater even than it seemed. His dark suit and his boots and hatwere extraordinarily neat. You could be sure at once that he was aperson of immutable habits. He stopped when, out of the corner of hiseye, whose gaze was always precisely parallel to the direction of hisfeet, he glimpsed Edwin. Deflecting his course, he went close to Edwin, and, addressing the vacant air immediately over Edwin's pate, he said ina mysterious, confidential whisper--"when are you coming in for thatmoney?" He spoke as though he was anxious to avoid, by a perfect air ofnonchalance, arousing the suspicions of some concealed emissary of theRussian secret police. Edwin started. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Is it ready?" "Yes. Waiting. " "Are you going to your office now?" "Yes. " Edwin hesitated. "It won't take a minute, I suppose. I'll slip alongin two jiffs. I'll be there almost as soon as you are. " "Bring a receipt stamp, " said the man, and resumed his way. He was the secretary of the Bursley and Turnhill Permanent 50 poundsBenefit Building Society, one of the most solid institutions of thedistrict. And he had been its secretary for decades. No stories of thedefalcation of other secretaries of societies, no rumours as to theperils of the system of the more famous Starr-Bowkett BuildingSocieties, ever bred a doubt in Bursley or Turnhill of the eternalsoundness of the Bursley and Turnhill Permanent 50 pounds BenefitBuilding Society. You could acquire a share in it by an entrance fee ofone shilling, and then you paid eighteen-pence per week for ten years, making something less than 40 pounds, and then, after an inactive periodof three months, the Society gave you 50 pounds, and you began therewithto build a house, if you wanted a house, and, if you were prudent, youinstantly took out another share. You could have as many shares as youchose. Though the Society was chiefly nourished by respectable artisanswith stiff chins, nobody in the district would have consideredmembership to be beneath him. The Society was an admirable device forstrengthening an impulse towards thrift, because, once you had putyourself into its machinery, it would stand no nonsense. Prosperoustradesmen would push their children into it, and even themselves. Thiswas what had happened to Edwin in the dark past, before he had leftschool. Edwin had regarded the trick with indifference at first, because, except the opening half crown, his father had paid thesubscriptions for him until he left school and became a wage-earner. Thereafter he had regarded it as simple parental madness. His whole life seemed to be nothing but a vista of Friday evenings onwhich he went to the Society's office, between seven and nine, to `paythe Club. ' The social origin of any family in Bursley might have beendecided by the detail whether it referred to the Society as the`Building Society' or as `the Club. ' Artisans called it the Club, because it did resemble an old-fashioned benefit club. Edwin hadinvariably heard it called `Club' at home, and he called it `Club, ' andhe did not know why. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. On ten thousand Friday evenings, as it seemed to him, he had gone intothe gas-lit office with the wire-blinds, in the Cock Yard. And theprocedure never varied. Behind a large table sat two gentlemen, thesecretary and a subordinate, who was, however, older than the secretary. They had enormous ledgers in front of them, and at the lower corners ofthe immense pages was a transverse crease, like a mountain range on theleft and like a valley on the right, caused by secretarial thumbs inturning over. On the table were also large metal inkstands and woodenmoney-coffers. The two officials both wore spectacles, and they bothlooked above their spectacles when they talked to members across thetable. They spoke in low tones; they smiled with the most scrupulouspoliteness; they never wasted words. They counted money with prim andefficient gestures, ringing gold with the mien of judges inaccessible tohuman emotions. They wrote in the ledgers, and on the membership-cards, in a hand astoundingly regular and discreetly flourished; the pages ofthe ledgers had the mystic charm of ancient manuscripts, and thefinality of decrees of fate. Apparently the scribes never mademistakes, but sometimes they would whisper in colloquy, and one, withoutleaning his body, would run a finger across the ledger of the other;their fingers knew intimately the geography of the ledgers, and moved asthough they could have found a desired name, date, or number, in thedark. The whole ceremony was impressive. It really did impress Edwin, as he would wait his turn among the three or four proud and respectablemembers that the going and coming seemed always to leave in the room. The modest blue-yellow gas, the vast table and ledgers, and the twosober heads behind; the polite murmurings, the rustle of leaves, thechink of money, the smooth sound of elegant pens: all this madesomething not merely impressive, but beautiful; something that had atrue if narrow dignity; something that ministered to an ideal if a lowone. But Edwin had regarded the operation as a complete loss of the moneywhose payment it involved. Ten years! It was an eternity! And eventhen his father would have some preposterous suggestion for renderinguseless the unimaginable fifty pounds! Meanwhile the weekly deductionof eighteenpence from his miserable income was an exasperating strain. And then one night the secretary had told him that he was entering onhis last month. If he had possessed any genuine interest in money, hewould have known for himself; but he did not. And then the payments hadceased. He had said nothing to his father. And now the share had matured, and there was the unimaginable sumwaiting for him! He got his hat and a stamp, and hurried to the CockYard. The secretary, in his private room now, gave him five notes asthough the notes had been naught but tissue paper, and he accepted themin the same inhuman manner. The secretary asked him if he meant to takeout another share, and from sheer moral cowardice he said that he didmean to do so; and he did so, on the spot. And in less than ten minuteshe was back at the shop. Nothing had happened there. The other horseshad not come down from Bleakridge, and the men had not come out of theDragon. But he had fifty pounds in his pocket, and it was lawfully his. A quarter of an hour earlier he positively could not have conceived themiracle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Two days later, on the Wednesday evening, Edwin was in his new bedroom, overlooking his father's garden, with a glimpse of the garden of LaneEnd House. His chamber, for him, was palatial, and it was at once thesymbol and the scene of his new life. A stranger entering would havebeheld a fair-sized room, a narrow bed, two chairs, an old-fashionedtable, a new wardrobe, an old dressing-table, a curious carpet andhearthrug, low bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and a fewprints and drawings, not all of them framed, on the distempered walls. A stranger might have said in its praise that it was light and airy. But a stranger could not have had the divine vision that Edwin had. Edwin looked at it and saw clearly, and with the surest conviction, thatit was wonderful. He stood on the hearthrug, with his back to thehearth, bending his body concavely and then convexly with the idle easysinuousness of youth, and he saw that it was wonderful. As an organicwhole it was wonderful. Its defects were qualities. For instance, ithad no convenience for washing; but with a bathroom a few yards off, whowould encumber his study (it was a study) with washing apparatus? Hehad actually presented his old ramshackle washstand to the attic whichwas to be occupied by Mrs Nixon's niece, a girl engaged to aid her auntin the terrible work of keeping clean a vast mansion. And the bedroom could show one or two details that in a bedroom wereluxurious. Chief of these were the carpet, the hearthrug, and thetable. Edwin owed them to a marvellous piece of good fortune. He hadfeared, and even Maggie had feared, that their father would impair thepractical value and the charm of the new house by parsimony in thematter of furniture. The furniture in the domestic portion of the olddwelling was quite inadequate for the new one, and scarcely fit for iteither. Happily Darius had heard of a houseful of furniture for sale atOldcastle by private treaty, and in a wild, adventurous hour he hadpurchased it, exceedingly cheap. Edwin had been amazed at his luck (heaccepted the windfall as his own private luck) when he first saw thebought furniture in the new house, before the removal. Out of it he hadselected the table, the carpet, and the rug for his bedroom, and nonehad demurred. He noticed that his father listened to him, in affairs ofthe new house, as to an individuality whose views demanded some trifleof respect. Beyond question his father was proving himself to possess amind equal to the grand situation. What with the second servant and thefurniture, Edwin felt that he would not have to blush for the house, nomatter who might enter it to spy it out. As for his own room, he wouldnot object to the Sunday seeing it. Indeed he would rather like theSunday to see it, on his next visit. Already it was in nearly completeorder, for he had shown a singular, callous disregard for the progressof the rest of the house: against which surprising display ofselfishness both Maggie and Mrs Nixon had glumly protested. The truthwas that he was entirely obsessed by his room; it had disabled hisconscience. When he had oscillated on his heels and toes for a few moments with hisgaze on the table, he faced about, and stared in a sort of vacantbeatitude at the bookshelves to the left hand; those to the right handwere as yet empty. Twilight was deepening. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. He heard his father's heavy and clumsy footstep on the landing. The oldman seemed to wander uncertainly a little, and then he pushed openEdwin's door with a brusque movement and entered the room. The twoexchanged a look. They seldom addressed each other, save for animmediate practical purpose, and they did not address each other now. But Darius ejaculated "Um!" as he glanced around. They had no intimacy. Darius never showed any interest in his son as an independent humanbeing with a developing personality, though he might have felt such aninterest; and Edwin was never conscious of a desire to share any of hisideas or ideals with his father, whom he was content to accept as acreature of inscrutable motives. Now, he resented his father'sincursion. He considered his room as his castle, whereof his rightfulexclusive dominion ran as far as the door-mat; and to placate his prideDarius should have indicated by some gesture or word that he admittedbeing a visitor on sufferance. It was nothing to Edwin that Dariusowned the room and nearly everything in it. He was generally nervous inhis father's presence, and his submissiveness only hid a spiritualindependence that was not less fierce for being restrained. He thoughtDarius a gross fleshly organism, as he indeed was, and he privatelyobjected to many paternal mannerisms, of eating, drinking, breathing, eructation, speech, deportment, and garb. Further, he had noted, andfelt, the increasing moroseness of his father's demeanour. He couldremember a period when Darius had moods of grim gaiety, displaying roughhumour; these moods had long ceased to occur. "So this is how ye've fixed yerself up!" Darius observed. "Yes, " Edwin smiled, not moving from the hearthrug, and not ceasing tooscillate on heels and toes. "Well, I'll say this. Ye've got a goodish notion of looking afteryerself. When ye can spare a few minutes to do a bit downstairs--" Thissentence was sarcastic and required no finishing. "I was just coming, " said Edwin. And to himself, "What on earth does hewant here, making his noises?" With youthful lack of imagination and of sympathy, he quite failed toperceive the patent fact that his father had been drawn into the room bythe very same instinct which had caused Edwin to stand on the hearthrugin an idle bliss of contemplation. It did not cross his mind that hisfather too was during those days going through wondrous mentalexperiences, that his father too had begun a new life, that his fathertoo was intensely proud of the house and found pleasure in merelylooking at it, and looking at it again, and at every corner of it. A glint of gold attracted the eye of Darius to the second shelf of theleft-hand bookcase, and he went towards it with the arrogance of anautocrat whose authority recognises no limit. Fourteen fine calf-backedvolumes stood on that shelf in a row; twelve of them were uniform, theother two odd. These books were taller and more distinguished than anyof their neighbours. Their sole possible rivals were half a dozengarishly bound Middle School prizes, machine-tooled, and to be mistakenfor treasures only at a distance of several yards. Edwin trembled, and loathed himself for trembling. He walked to thewindow. "What be these?" Darius inquired. "Oh! Some books I've been picking up. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. That same morning Edwin had been to the Saint Luke's Covered Market tobuy some apples for Maggie, who had not yet perfected the organisationnecessary to a house-mistress who does not live within half a minute ofa large central source of supplies. And, to his astonishment, he hadobserved that one of the interior shops was occupied by a second-handbookseller with an address at Hanbridge. He had never noticed the shopbefore, or, if he had noticed it, he had despised it. But the chat withTom Orgreave had awakened in him the alertness of a hunter. The shopwas not formally open--Wednesday's market being only half a market. Theshopkeeper, however, was busy within. Edwin loitered. Behind the pilesof negligible sermons, pietisms, keepsakes, schoolbooks, and`Aristotles' (tied up in red twine, these last), he could descry, in thefarther gloom, actual folios and quartos. It was like seeing the gleamof nuggets on the familiar slopes of Mow Cop, which is the Five Towns'mountain. The proprietor, an extraordinarily grimy man, invited him toexamine. He could not refuse. He found Byron's "Childe Harold" in onevolume and "Don Juan" in another, both royal octavo editions, slightlystained, but bound in full calf. He bought them. He knew that to keephis resolutions he must read a lot of poetry. Then he saw Voltaire'sprose tales in four volumes, in French, --an enchanting Didot edition, with ink as black as Hades and paper as white as snow; also bound infull calf. He bought them. And then the proprietor showed him, ineight similar volumes, Voltaire's "Dictionnaire Philosophique. " He didnot want it; but it matched the tales and it was impressive to the eye. And so he bought the other eight volumes. The total cost was seventeenshillings. He was intoxicated and he was frightened. What a nucleusfor a collection of real books, of treasures! Those volumes would do noshame even to Tom Orgreave's bookcase. And they had been lying in theCovered Market, of all places in the universe. .. Blind! How blind hehad been to the possibilities of existence! Laden with a bag of applesin one hand and a heavy parcel of books in the other, he had had to goup to dinner in the car. It was no matter; he possessed riches. Thecar stopped specially for him at the portals of the new house. He hadintroduced the books into the new house surreptitiously, because he wasin fear, despite his acute joy. He had pushed the parcel under the bed. After tea, he had passed half an hour in gazing at the volumes, as atprecious contraband. Then he had ranged them on the shelf, and hadgazed at them for perhaps another quarter of an hour. And now hisfather, with the infallible nose of fathers for that which is no concernof theirs, had lighted upon them and was peering into them, andfingering them with his careless, brutal hands, --hands that could notdifferentiate between a ready reckoner and a treasure. As the lightfailed, he brought one of them and then another to the window. "Um!" he muttered. "Voltaire!" "Um! Byron!" And: "How much did they ask ye for these?" "Fifteen shillings, " said Edwin, in a low voice. "Here! Take it!" said his father, relinquishing a volume to him. Hespoke in a queer, hard voice; and instantly left the room. Edwinfollowed him shortly, and assisted Maggie to hang pictures in thatwilderness, the drawing-room. Supper was eaten in silence; and Maggielooked askance from her father to her brother, both of whom had astrained demeanour. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE INSULT. The cold bath, the early excursion into the oblong of meadow that wasbeginning to be a garden, the brisk stimulating walk down Trafalgar Roadto business, --all these novel experiences, which for a year Edwin hadbeen anticipating with joyous eagerness as bliss final and sure, hadlost their savour on the following morning. He had been ingenuousenough to believe that he would be happy in the new house--that the newhouse somehow meant the rebirth of himself and his family. Strangedelusion! The bath-splashings and the other things gave him nopleasure, because he was saying to himself all the time, "There's goingto be a row this morning. There's going to be a regular shindy thismorning!" Yet he was accustomed to his father's scenes. .. Not a wordat breakfast, for which indeed Darius was very late. But a thick cloudover the breakfast-table! Maggie showed that she felt the cloud. Sodid even Mrs Nixon. The niece alone, unskilled in the science ofmeteorology, did not notice it, and was pertly bright. Edwin departedbefore his father, hurrying. He knew that his father, starting from theluxurious books, would ask him brutally what he meant by daring to drawout his share from the Club without mentioning the affair, andparticularly without confiding to his safe custody the whole sumwithdrawn. He knew that his father would persist in regarding the fiftypounds as sacred, as the ark of the covenant, and on the basis of thealleged outrage would build one of those cold furies that seemed to givehim so perverse a delight. On the other hand, despite his father'speculiar intonation of the names of Edwin's authors--Voltaire andByron--he did not fear to be upbraided for possessing himself of looseand poisonous literature. It was a point to his father's credit that henever attempted any kind of censorship. Edwin never knew whether thisattitude was the result of indifference or due to a grim sportinginstinct. There was no sign of trouble in the shop until noon. Darius was verybusy superintending the transformation of the former living-roomsupstairs into supplementary workshops, and also the jobbing builder wasat work according to the plans of Osmond Orgreave. But at five minutespast twelve--just before Stifford went out to his dinner--Darius enteredthe ebonised cubicle, and said curtly to Edwin, who was writing there-- "Show me your book. " This demand surprised Edwin. `His' book was the shop-sales book. Hewas responsible for it, and for the petty cash-book, and for the shoptill. His father's private cash-book was utterly unknown to him, and hehad no trustworthy idea of the financial totality of the business; butthe management of the shop till gave him the air of being in hisfather's confidence accustomed him to the discipline of anxiety, andalso somewhat flattered him. He produced the book. The last complete page had not been added up. "Add this, " said his father. Darius himself added up the few lines on the incomplete page. "Stiff;" he shouted, "bring me the sales-slip. " The amounts of sales conducted by Stifford himself were written on aslip of paper from which Edwin transferred the items at frequentintervals to the book. "Go to yer dinner, " said Darius to Stifford, when he appeared at thedoor of the cubicle with the slip. "It's not quite time yet, sir. " "Go to yer dinner, I tell ye. " Stifford had three-quarters of an hour for his dinner. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Darius combined the slip with the book and made a total. "Petty cash, " he muttered shortly. Edwin produced the petty cash-book, a volume of very triflingimportance. "Now bring me the till. " Edwin went out of the cubicle and brought the till, which was a largeand battered japanned cash-box with a lid in two independent parts, fromits well-concealed drawer behind the fancy-counter. Darius counted thecoins in it and made calculations on blotting-paper, breathingstertorously all the time. "What on earth are you trying to get at?" Edwin asked, with innocentfamiliarity. He thought that the Club-share crisis had been postponedby one of his father's swift strange caprices. Darius turned on him glaring: "I'm trying to get at where ye got thebrass from to buy them there books as I saw last night. Where did yeget it from? There's nowt wrong here, unless ye're a mighty lotcleverer than I take ye for. Where did ye get it from? Ye don't meanto tell me as ye saved it up!" Edwin had had some shocks in his life. This was the greatest. He couldfeel his cheeks and his hands growing dully hot, and his eyes smarting;and he was suddenly animated by an almost murderous hatred and aninexpressible disgust for his father, who in the grossness of hisperceptions and his notions had imagined his son to be a thief. "Loathsome beast!" he thought savagely. "I'm waiting, " said his father. "I've drawn my Club money, " said Edwin. For an instant the old man was at a loss; then he understood. He hadentirely forgotten the maturing of the Club share, and assuredly he hadnot dreamed that Edwin would accept and secrete so vast a sum as fiftypounds without uttering a word. Darius had made a mistake, and a badone; but in those days fathers were never wrong; above all they neverapologised. In Edwin's wicked act of concealment Darius could choosenew and effective ground, and he did so. "And what dost mean by doing that and saying nowt? Sneaking--" "What do you mean by calling me a thief?" Edwin and Darius were equallystartled by this speech. Edwin knew not what had come over him, andDarius, never having been addressed in such a dangerous tone by his son, was at a loss. "I never called ye a thief. " "Yes, you did! Yes, you did!" Edwin nearly shouted now. "You starveme for money, until I haven't got sixpence to bless myself with. Youcouldn't get a man to do what I do for twice what you pay me. And thenyou call me a thief. And then you jump down my throat because I spend abit of money of my own. " He snorted. He knew that he was quite mad, but there was a strange drunken pleasure in this madness. "Hold yer tongue, lad!" said Darius, as stiffly as he could. ButDarius, having been unprepared, was intimidated. Darius vaguelycomprehended that a new and disturbing factor had come into his life. "Make a less row!" he went on more strongly. "D'ye want all th' streetto hear ye?" "I won't make a less row. You make as much noise as you want, and I'llmake as much noise as I want!" Edwin cried louder and louder. And thenin bitter scorn, "Thief, indeed!" "I never called ye a--" "Let me come out!" Edwin shouted. They were very close together. Darius saw that his son's face was all drawn. Edwin snatched his hatoff its hook, pushed violently past his father and, sticking his handsdeep in his pockets, strode into the street. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. In four minutes he was hammering on the front door of the new house. Maggie opened, in alarm. Edwin did not see how alarmed she was by hisappearance. "What--" "Father thinks I've been stealing his damned money!" Edwin snapped, ina breaking voice. The statement was not quite accurate, but it suitedhis boiling anger to put it in the present tense instead of in the past. He hesitated an instant in the hall, throwing a look behind at Maggie, who stood entranced with her hand on the latch of the open door. Thenhe bounded upstairs, and shut himself in his room with a tremendous bangthat shook the house. He wanted to cry, but he would not. Nobody disturbed him till about two o'clock, when Maggie knocked at thedoor, and opened it, without entering. "Edwin, I've kept your dinner hot. " "No, thanks. " He was standing with his legs wide apart on the hearthrug. "Father's had his dinner and gone. " "No, thanks. " She closed the door again. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE SEQUEL. "I say, Edwin, " Maggie called through the door. "Well, come in, come in, " he replied gruffly. And as he spoke he spedfrom the window, where he was drumming on the pane, to the hearthrug, sothat he should have the air of not having moved since Maggie's previousvisit. He knew not why he made this manoeuvre, unless it was that hethought vaguely that Maggie's impression of the seriousness of thecrisis might thereby be intensified. She stood in the doorway, evidently placatory and sympathetic, andbehind her stood Mrs Nixon, in a condition of great mental turmoil. "I think you'd better come and have your tea, " said Maggie firmly, andyet gently. She was soft and stout, and incapable of asserting herselfwith dignity; but she was his elder, and there were moments when anunusual, scarce-perceptible quality in her voice would demand from him aparticular attention. He shook his head, and looked sternly at his watch, in the manner of onewho could be adamant. He was astonished to see that the hour was aquarter past six. "Where is he?" he asked. "Father? He's had his tea and gone back to the shop. Come along. " "I must wash myself first, " said Edwin gloomily. He did not wish toyield, but he was undeniably very hungry indeed. Mrs Nixon could not leave him alone at tea, worrying him with offers ofspecialities to tempt him. He wondered who had told the old thing aboutthe affair. Then he reflected that she had probably heard his outburstwhen he entered the house. Possibly the pert, nice niece also had heardit. Maggie remained sewing at the bow-window of the dining-room whilehe ate a plenteous tea. "Father said I could tell you that you could pay yourself an extrahalf-crown a week wages from next Saturday, " said Maggie suddenly, whenshe saw he had finished. It was always Edwin who paid wages in theClayhanger establishment. He was extremely startled by this news, with all that it implied ofsurrender and of pacific intentions. But he endeavoured to hide what hefelt, and only snorted. "He's been talking, then? What did he say?" "Oh! Not much! He told me I could tell you if I liked. " "It would have looked better of him, if he'd told me himself, " saidEdwin, determined to be ruthless. Maggie offered no response. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. After about a quarter of an hour he went into the garden, and kickedstones in front of him. He could not classify his thoughts. Heconsidered himself to be perfectly tranquillised now, but he wasmistaken. As he idled in the beautiful August twilight near thegarden-front of the house, catching faintly the conversation of MrsNixon and her niece as it floated through the open window of thekitchen, round the corner, together with quiet soothing sounds ofwashing-up, he heard a sudden noise in the garden-porch, and turnedswiftly. His father stood there. Both of them were off guard. Theireyes met. "Had your tea?" Darius asked, in an unnatural tone. "Yes, " said Edwin. Darius, having saved his face, hurried into the house, and Edwin moveddown the garden, with heart sensibly beating. The encounter renewed hisagitation. And at the corner of the garden, over the hedge, which had beenrepaired, Janet entrapped him. She seemed to have sprung out of theground. He could not avoid greeting her, and in order to do so he hadto dominate himself by force. She was in white. She appeared always towear white on fine summer days. Her smile was exquisitely benignant. "So you're installed?" she began. They talked of the removal, she asking questions and commenting, and hegiving brief replies. "I'm all alone to-night, " she said, in a pause, "except for Alicia. Father and mother and the boys are gone to a fete at Longshaw. " "And Miss Lessways?" he inquired self-consciously. "Oh! She's gone, " said Janet. "She's gone back to London. Wentyesterday. " "Rather sudden, isn't it?" "Well, she had to go. " "Does she live in London?" Edwin asked, with an air of indifference. "She does just now. " "I only ask because I thought from something she said she came fromTurnhill way. " "Her people do, " said Janet. "Yes, you may say she's a Turnhill girl. " "She seems very fond of poetry, " said Edwin. "You've noticed it!" Janet's face illuminated the dark. "You shouldhear her recite!" "Recites, does she?" "You'd have heard her that night you were here. But when she knew youwere coming, she made us all promise not to ask her. " "Really!" said Edwin. "But why? She didn't know me. She'd never seenme. " "Oh! She might have just seen you in the street. In fact I believe shehad. But that wasn't the reason, " Janet laughed. "It was just that youwere a stranger. She's very sensitive, you know. " "Ye-es, " he admitted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He took leave of Janet, somehow, and went for a walk up to Toft End, where the wind blows. His thoughts were more complex than ever in thedarkness. So she had made them all promise not to ask her to recitewhile he was at the Orgreaves'! She had seen him, previous to that, inthe street, and had obviously discussed him with Janet. .. And then, atnearly midnight, she had followed him to the new house! And on the dayof the Centenary she had manoeuvred to let Janet and Mr Orgreave go infront. .. He did not like her. She was too changeable, too dark, andtoo light. .. But it was exciting. It was flattering. He saw again andagain her gesture as she bent to Mr Shushions; and the straightening ofher spine as she left the garden-porch on the night of his visit to theOrgreaves. .. Yet he did not like her. Her sudden departure, however, was a disappointment; it was certainly too abrupt. .. Probably verycharacteristic of her. .. Strange day! He had been suspected of theft. He had stood up to his father. He had remained away from the shop. Andhis father's only retort was to give him a rise of half a crown a week! "The old man must have had a bit of a shock!" he said to himself, grimlyvain. "I lay I don't hear another word about that fifty pounds. " Yes, amid his profound resentment, there was some ingenuous vanity atthe turn which things had taken. And he was particularly content aboutthe rise of half a crown a week, because that relieved him from the mostdifficult of all the resolutions the carrying out of which was to markthe beginning of the new life. It settled the financial question, forthe present at any rate. It was not enough, but it was a great deal--from his father. He was ashamed that he could not keep his righteousresentment pure from this gross satisfaction at an increase of income. The fineness of his nature was thereby hurt. But the gross satisfactionwould well up in his mind. And in the night, with the breeze on his cheek, and the lamps of theFive Towns curving out below him, he was not unhappy, despite what hehad suffered and was still suffering. He had a tingling consciousnessof being unusually alive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Later, in his bedroom, shut in, and safe and independent, with the newblind drawn, and the gas fizzing in its opaline globe, he tried to read"Don Juan. " He could not. He was incapable of fixity of mind. Hecould not follow the sense of a single stanza. Images of his father andof Hilda Lessways mingled with reveries of the insult he had receivedand the triumph he had won, and all the confused wonder of the day andevening engaged his thoughts. He dwelt lovingly on the supremedisappointment of his career. He fancied what he would have been doing, and where he would have been then, if his appalling father had not madeit impossible for him to be an architect. He pitied himself. But hesaw the material of happiness ahead, in the faithful execution of hisresolves for self-perfecting. And Hilda had flattered him. Hilda hadgiven him a new conception of himself. .. A tiny idea arose in his brainthat there was perhaps some slight excuse for his father's suspicion ofhim. After all, he had been secretive. He trampled on that idea, andit arose again. He slept very heavily, and woke with a headache. A week elapsed beforehis agitation entirely disappeared, and hence before he could realisehow extreme that agitation had been. He was ashamed of having so madlyand wildly abandoned himself to passion. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE. Time passed, like a ship across a distant horizon, which moves but whichdoes not seem to move. One Monday evening Edwin said that he was goinground to Lane End House. He had been saying so for weeks, andhesitating. He thoroughly enjoyed going to Lane End House; there was noreason why he should not go frequently and regularly, and there wereseveral reasons why he should. Yet his visitings were capriciousbecause his nature was irresolute. That night he went, sticking a hatcarelessly on his head, and his hands deep into his pockets. Down theslope of Trafalgar Road, in the biting November mist, between the tworows of gas-lamps that flickered feebly into the pale gloom, came a longstraggling band of men who also, to compensate for the absence ofovercoats, stuck hands deep into pockets, and strode quickly. Withreluctance they divided for the passage of the steam-car, and closedgrowling together again on its rear. The potters were on strike, and aBursley contingent was returning in embittered silence from a massmeeting at Hanbridge. When the sound of the steam-car subsided, as thecar dipped over the hill-top on its descent towards Hanbridge, nothingcould be heard but the tramp-tramp of the procession on the road. Edwin hurried down the side street, and in a moment rang at the frontdoor of the Orgreaves'. He nodded familiarly to the servant who opened, stepped on to the mat, and began contorting his legs in order to wipethe edge of his boot-soles. "Quite a stranger, sir!" said Martha, bridling, and respectfully awareof her attractiveness for this friend of the house. "Yes, " he laughed. "Anybody in?" "Well, sir, I'm afraid Miss Janet and Miss Alicia are out. " "And Mr Tom?" "Mr Tom's out, sir. He pretty nearly always is now, sir. " The factwas that Tom was engaged to be married, and the servant indicated, by ascarcely perceptible motion of the chin, that fiances were and everwould be all the same. "And Mr John and Mr James are out too, sir. "They also were usually out. They were both assisting their father inbusiness, and sought relief from his gigantic conception of a day's workby evening diversions at Hanbridge. These two former noisy Liberals hadjoined the Hanbridge Conservative Club because it was a club, and had abilliard-table that could only be equalled at the Five Towns Hotel atKnype. "And Mr Orgreave?" "He's working upstairs, sir. Mrs Orgreave's got her asthma, and sohe's working upstairs. " "Well, tell them I've called. " Edwin turned to depart. "I'm sure Mr Orgreave would like to know you're here, sir, " said themaid firmly. "If you'll just step into the breakfast-room. " That maiddid as she chose with visitors for whom she had a fancy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. She conducted him to the so-called breakfast-room and shut the door onhim. It was a small chamber behind the drawing-room, and shabbier thanthe drawing-room. In earlier days the children had used it for theirlessons and hobbies. And now it was used as a sitting-room when merecosiness was demanded by a decimated family. Edwin stooped down andmended the fire. Then he went to the wall and examined a framedwater-colour of the old Sytch Pottery, which was signed with hisinitials. He had done it, aided by a photograph, and by JohnnieOrgreave in details of perspective, and by dint of preprandialfrequentings of the Sytch, as a gift for Mrs Orgreave. It alwaysseemed to him to be rather good. Then he bent to examine bookshelves. Like the hall, the drawing-room, and the dining-room, this apartment too was plenteously full ofeverything, and littered over with the apparatus of variouspersonalities. Only from habit did Edwin glance at the books. He knewtheir backs by heart. And books in quantity no longer intimidated him. Despite his grave defects as a keeper of resolves, despite his paltrytrick of picking up a newspaper or periodical and reading it allthrough, out of sheer vacillation and mental sloth, before startingserious perusals, despite the human disinclination which he had tobracing himself, and keeping up the tension, in a manner necessary forthe reading of long and difficult works, and despite sundry ignominiousbackslidings into original sluggishness--still he had accomplishedcertain literary adventures. He could not enjoy "Don Juan. " Expectingfrom it a voluptuous and daring grandeur, he had found in it nothingwhatever that even roughly fitted into his idea of what poetry was. Buthe had had a passion for "Childe Harold, " many stanzas of which thrilledhim again and again, bringing back to his mind what Hilda Lessways hadsaid about poetry. And further, he had a passion for Voltaire. InVoltaire, also, he had been deceived, as in Byron. He had expectedsomething violent, arid, closely argumentative; and he found gaiety, grace, and really the funniest jokes. He could read "Candide" almostwithout a dictionary, and he had intense pride in doing so, and for sometime afterwards "Candide" and "La Princesse de Babylone, " and a fewsimilar witty trifles, were the greatest stories in the world for him. Only a faint reserve in Tom Orgreave's responsive enthusiasm made himcautiously reflect. He could never be intimate with Tom, because Tom somehow never came outfrom behind his spectacles. But he had learnt much from him, and inespecial a familiarity with the less difficult of Bach's preludes andfugues, which Tom loved to play. Edwin knew not even the notes ofmusic, and he was not sure that Bach gave him pleasure. Bach affectedhim strangely. He would ask for Bach out of a continually renewedcuriosity, so that he could examine once more and yet again thesensations which the music produced; and the habit grew. As regards thefugues, there could be no doubt that, the fugue begun, a desire wasthereby set up in him for the resolution of the confusing problemcreated in the first few bars, and that he waited, with a pleasant andyet a trying anxiety, for the indications of that resolution, and thatthe final reassuring and utterly tranquillising chords gave him deepjoy. When he innocently said that he was `glad when the end came of afugue, ' all the Orgreaves laughed heartily, but after laughing, Tom saidthat he knew what Edwin meant and quite agreed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. It was while he was glancing along the untidy and crowded shelves withsophisticated eye that the door brusquely opened. He looked up mildly, expecting a face familiar, and saw one that startled him, and heard avoice that aroused disconcerting vibrations in himself. It was HildaLessways. She had in her hand a copy of the "Signal. " Over fifteenmonths had gone since their last meeting, but not since he had lastthought of her. Her features seemed strange. His memory of them hadnot been reliable, He had formed an image of her in his mind, and hadoften looked at it, and he now saw that it did not correspond with thereality. The souvenir of their brief intimacy swept back upon him, Incredible that she should be there, in front of him; and yet there shewas! More than once, after reflecting on her, he had laughed, and saidlightly to himself: "Well, the chances are I shall never see her again!Funny girl!" But the recollection of her gesture with Mr Shushionsprevented him from dismissing her out of his head with quite thatlightness. .. "I'm ordered to tell you that Mr Orgreave will be down in a fewminutes, " she said. "Hello!" he exclaimed. "I'd no idea you were in Bursley!" "Came to-day!" she replied. "How odd, " he thought, "that I should call like this on the very day shecomes!" But he pushed away that instinctive thought with the rationalthought that such a coincidence could not be regarded as in any waysignificant. They shook hands in the middle of the room, and she pressed his hand, while looking downwards with a smile. And his mind was suddenly filledwith the idea that during all those months she had been existingsomewhere, under the eye of some one, intimate with some one, andconstantly conducting herself with a familiar freedom that doubtless shewould not use to him. And so she was invested, for him, withmysteriousness. His interest in her was renewed in a moment, and in aform much more acute than its first form. Moreover, she presentedherself to his judgement in a different aspect. He could scarcelycomprehend how he had ever deemed her habitual expression to beforbidding. In fact, he could persuade himself now that she wasbeautiful, and even nobly beautiful. From one extreme he flew to theother. She sat down on an old sofa; he remained standing. And in themidst of a little conversation about Mrs Orgreave's indisposition, andthe absence of the members of the family (she said she had refused aninvitation to go with Janet and Alicia to Hillport), she broke thethread, and remarked-- "You would have known I was coming if you'd been calling here recently. "She pushed her feet near the fender, and gazed into the fire. "Ah! But you see I haven't been calling recently. " She raised her eyes to his. "I suppose you've never thought about meonce since I left!" she fired at him. An audacious and discomposinggirl! "Oh yes, I have, " he said weakly. What could you reply to suchspeeches? Nevertheless he was flattered. "Really? But you've never inquired about me. " "Yes, I have. " "Only once. " "How do you know?" "I asked Janet. " "Damn her!" he said to himself, but pleased with her. And aloud, in atone suddenly firm, "That's nothing to go by. " "What isn't?" "The number of times I've inquired. " He was blushing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In the smallness of the room, sitting as it were at his feet on thesofa, surrounded and encaged by a hundred domestic objects and by theglow of the fire and the radiance of the gas, she certainly did seem toEdwin to be an organism exceedingly mysterious. He could follow withhis eye every fold of her black dress, he could trace the waving of herhair, and watch the play of light in her eyes. He might have physicallyhurt her, he might have killed her, she was beneath his hand--and yetshe was most bafflingly withdrawn, and the essence of her could not betouched nor got at. Why did she challenge him by her singular attitude?Why was she always saying such queer things to him? No other girl (hethought, in the simplicity of his inexperience) would ever talk as shetalked. He wanted to test her by being rude to her. "Damn her!" hesaid to himself again. "Supposing I took hold of her and kissed her--Iwonder what sort of a face she'd pull then!" (And a moment ago he hadbeen appraising her as nobly beautiful! A moment ago he had beendwelling on the lovely compassion of her gesture with Mr Shushions!)This quality of daring and naughty enterprise had never before shownitself in Edwin, and he was surprised to discover in himself suchimpulses. But then the girl was so provocative. And somehow the sightof the girl delivered him from an excessive fear of consequences. Hesaid to himself, "I'll do something or I'll say something, before Ileave her to-night, just to show her!" He screwed up his resolution tothe point of registering a private oath that he would indeed do or saysomething. Without a solemn oath he could not rely upon his valour. Heknew that whatever he said or did in the nature of a bold advance wouldbe accomplished clumsily. He knew that it would be unpleasant. He knewthat inaction suited much better his instinct for tranquillity. Nomatter! All that was naught. She had challenged, and he had torespond. Besides, she allured. .. And, after her scene with him in theporch of the new house, had he not the right? . .. A girl who hadbehaved as she did that night cannot effectively contradict herself! "I was just reading about this strike, " she said, rustling thenewspaper. "You've soon got into local politics. " "Well, " she said, "I saw a lot of the men as we were driving from thestation. I should think I saw two thousand of them. So of course I wasinterested. I made Mr Orgreave tell me all about it. Will they win?" "It depends on the weather. " He smiled. She remained silent, and grave. "I see!" she said, leaning her chin onher hand. At her tone he ceased smiling. She said "I see, " and sheactually had seen. "You see, " he repeated. "If it was June instead of November! But thenit isn't June. Wages are settled every year in November. So if thereis to be a strike it can only begin in November. " "But didn't the men ask for the time of year to be changed?" "Yes, " he said. "But you don't suppose the masters were going to agreeto that, do you?" He sneered masculinely. "Why not?" "Because it gives them such a pull. " "What a shame!" Hilda exclaimed passionately. "And what a shame it isthat the masters want to make the wages depend on selling prices! Can'tthey see that selling prices ought to depend on wages?" Edwin said nothing. She had knocked suddenly out of his head all ideasof flirting, and he was trying to reassemble them. "I suppose you're like all the rest?" she questioned gloomily. "How like all the rest?" "Against the men. Mr Orgreave is, and he says your father is verystrongly against them. " "Look here, " said Edwin, with an air of resentment as to which hehimself could not have decided whether it was assumed or genuine, "whatearthly right have you to suppose that I'm like all the rest?" "I'm very sorry, " she surrendered. "I knew all the time you weren't. "With her face still bent downwards, she looked up at him, smiling sadly, smiling roguishly. "Father's against them, " he proceeded, somewhat deflated. And hethought of all his father's violent invective, and of Maggie's blandacceptance of the assumption that workmen on strike were rascals--howdifferent the excellent simple Maggie from this feverish creature on thesofa! "Father's against them, and most people are, because they brokethe last arbitration award. But I'm not my father. If you ask me, I'lltell you what I think--workmen on strike are always in the right; atbottom I mean. You've only got to look at them in a crowd together. They don't starve themselves for fun. " He was not sure if he was convinced of the truth of these statements;but she drew them out of him by her strange power. And when he haduttered them, they appeared fine to him. "What does your father say to that?" "Oh!" said Edwin uneasily. "Him--and me--we don't argue about thesethings. " "Why not?" "Well, we don't. " "You aren't ashamed of your own opinions, are you?" she demanded, with ahint in her voice that she was ready to be scornful. "You know all the time I'm not. " He repeated the phrase of her previousconfession with a certain acrimonious emphasis. "Don't you?" he addedcurtly. She remained silent. "Don't you?" he said more loudly. And as she offered no reply, he wenton, marvelling at what was coming out of his mouth. "I'll tell you whatI am ashamed of. I'm ashamed of seeing my father lose his temper. Soyou know!" She said-- "I never met anybody like you before. No, never!" At this he really was astounded, and most exquisitely flattered. "I might say the same of you, " he replied, sticking his chin out. "Oh no!" she said. "I'm nothing. " The fact was that he could not foretell their conversation even tenseconds in advance. It was full of the completely unexpected. Hethought to himself, "You never know what a girl like that will saynext. " But what would he say next? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. They were interrupted by Osmond Orgreave, with his, "Well, Edwin, "jolly, welcoming, and yet slightly quizzical. Edwin could not look himin the face without feeling self-conscious. Nor dared he glance atHilda to see what her demeanour was like under the good-natured scrutinyof her friend's father. "We thought you'd forgotten us, " said Mr Orgreave. "But that's alwaysthe way with neighbours. " He turned to Hilda. "It's true, " hecontinued, jerking his head at Edwin. "He scarcely ever comes to seeus, except when you're here. " "Steady on!" Edwin murmured. "Steady on, Mr Orgreave!" And hastilyhe asked a question about Mrs Orgreave's asthma; and from that theconversation passed to the doings of the various absent members of thefamily. "You've been working, as usual, I suppose, " said Edwin. "Working!" laughed Mr Orgreave. "I've done what I could, with Hildathere! Instead of going up to Hillport with Janet, she would stop hereand chatter about strikes. " Hilda smiled at him benevolently as at one to whom she permittedeverything. "Mr Clayhanger agrees with me, " she said. "Oh! You needn't tell me!" protested Mr Orgreave. "I could see youwere as thick as thieves over it. " He looked at Edwin. "Has she toldyou she wants to go over a printing works?" "No, " said Edwin. "But I shall be very pleased to show her over ours, any time. " She made no observation. "Look here, " said Edwin suddenly, "I must be off. I only slipped in fora minute, really. " He did not know why he said this, for his greatestwish was to probe more deeply into the tantalising psychology of HildaLessways. His tongue, however, had said it, and his tongue reiteratedit when Mr Orgreave urged that Janet and Alicia would be back soon andthat food would then be partaken of. He would not stay. Desiring tostay, he would not. He wished to be alone, to think. Clearly Hilda hadbeen talking about him to Mr Orgreave, and to Janet. Did she discusshim and his affairs with everybody? Nor would he, in response to Mr Orgreave's suggestion, promisedefinitely to call again on the next evening. He said he would try. Hilda took leave of him nonchalantly. He departed. And as he made the half-circuit of the misty lawn, on his way to thegates, he muttered in his heart, where even he himself could scarcelyhear: "I swore I'd do something, and I haven't. Well, of course, whenshe talked seriously like that, what could I do?" But he was disgustedwith himself and ashamed of his namby-pambiness. He strolled thoughtfully up Oak Street, and down Trafalgar Road; andwhen he was near home, another wayfarer saw him face right about and goup Trafalgar Road and disappear at the corner of Oak Street. The Orgreave servant was surprised to see him at the front door againwhen she answered a discreet ring. "I wish you'd tell Miss Lessways I want to speak to her a moment, willyou?" "Miss Lessways?" "Yes. " What an adventure! "Certainly, sir. Will you come in?" She shut the door. "Ask her to come here, " he said, smiling with deliberate confidentialpersuasiveness. She nodded, with a brighter smile. The servant vanished, and Hilda came. She was as red as fire. He beganhurriedly. "When will you come to look over our works? To-morrow? I should likeyou to come. " He used a tone that said: "Now don't let's have anynonsense! You know you want to come. " She frowned frankly. There they were in the hall, like a couple ofconspirators, but she was frowning; she would not meet him half-way. Hewished he had not permitted himself this caprice. What importance had aprivate oath? He felt ridiculous. "What time?" she demanded, and in an instant transformed his disgustinto delight. "Any time. " His heart was beating with expectation. "Oh no! You must fix the time. " "Well, after tea. Say between half-past six and a quarter to seven. That do?" She nodded. "Good, " he murmured. "That's all! Thanks, Goodnight!" He hastened away, with a delicate photograph of the palm of her handprinted in minute sensations on the palm of his. "I did it, anyhow!" he muttered loudly, in his heart. At any rate hewas not shamed. At any rate he was a man. The man's face was burning, and the damp noxious chill of the night only caressed him agreeably. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. CURIOSITY. He was afraid that, from some obscure motive of propriety orself-protection, she would bring Janet with her, or perhaps Alicia. Onthe other hand, he was afraid that she would come alone. That sheshould come alone seemed to him, in spite of his reason, too brazen. Moreover, if she came alone would he be equal to the situation? Wouldhe be able to carry the thing off in a manner adequate? He lackedconfidence. He desired the moment of her arrival, and yet he feared it. His heart and his brain were all confused together in a turmoil ofemotion which he could not analyse nor define. He was in love. Love had caught him, and had affected his vision sothat he no longer saw any phenomenon as it actually was; neitherhimself, nor Hilda, nor the circumstances which were uniting them. Hecould not follow a train of thought. He could not remain of one opinionnor in one mind. Within himself he was perpetually discussing Hilda, and her attitude. She was marvellous! But was she? She admired him!But did she? She had shown cunning! But was it not simplicity? He didnot even feel sure whether he liked her. He tried to remember what shelooked like, and he positively could not. The one matter upon which hecould be sure was that his curiosity was hotly engaged. If he had hadto state the case in words to another he would not have gone furtherthan the word `curiosity. ' He had no notion that he was in love. Hedid not know what love was; he had not had sufficient opportunity oflearning. Nevertheless the processes of love were at work within him. Silently and magically, by the force of desire and of pride, therefracting glass was being specially ground which would enable him, which would compel him, to see an ideal Hilda when he gazed at the realHilda. He would not see the real Hilda any more unless some cataclysmshould shatter the glass. And he might be likened to a prisoner on whomthe gate of freedom is shut for ever, or to a stricken sufferer of whomit is known that he can never rise again and go forth into the fields. He was as somebody to whom the irrevocable had happened. And he knew itnot. None knew. None guessed. All day he went his ways, striving toconceal the whirring preoccupation of his curiosity (a curiosity whichhe thought showed a fine masculine dash), and succeeded fairly well. The excellent, simple Maggie alone remarked in secret that he wasslightly nervous and unnatural. But even she, with all her excellentsimplicity, did not divine his victimhood. At six o'clock he was back at the shop from his tea. It was a wet, chill night. On the previous evening he had caught cold, and he wasbeginning to sneeze. He said to himself that Hilda could not beexpected to come on such a night. But he expected her. When the shopclock showed half-past six, he glanced at his watch, which also showedhalf-past six. Now at any instant she might arrive. The shop dooropened, and simultaneously his heart ceased to beat. But the person whocame in, puffing and snorting, was his father, who stood within the shopwhile shaking his soaked umbrella over the exterior porch. The draughtfrom the shiny dark street and square struck cold, and Edwinresponsively sneezed; and Darius Clayhanger upbraided him for not havingworn his overcoat, and he replied with foolish unconvincingness that hehad got a cold, that it was nothing. Darius grunted his way into thecubicle. Edwin remained in busy idleness at the right-hand counter;Stifford was tidying the contents of drawers behind the fancy-counter. And the fizzing gas-burners, inevitable accompaniment of night at theperiod, kept watch above. Under the heat of the stove, the damp marksof Darius Clayhanger's entrance disappeared more quickly than theminutes ran. It grew almost impossible for Edwin to pass the time. Atmoments when his father was not stirring in the cubicle, and Stiffordhappened to be in repose, he could hear the ticking of the clock, whichhe could not remember ever having heard before, except when he mountedthe steps to wind it. At a quarter to seven he said to himself that he gave up hope, whilepretending that he never had hoped, and that Hilda's presence wasindifferent to him. If she came not that day she would probably comesome other day. What could it matter? He was very unhappy. He said tohimself that he should have a long night's reading, but the prospect ofreading had no savour. He said: "No, I shan't go in to see themto-night, I shall stay in and nurse my cold, and read. " This was merefutile bravado, for the impartial spectator in him, though far lessclear-sighted and judicial now than formerly, foresaw with certaintythat if Hilda did not come he would call at the Orgreaves'. At fiveminutes to seven he was miserable: he had decided to hope until fiveminutes to seven. He made it seven in despair. Then there were signsof a figure behind the misty glass of the door. The door opened. Itcould not be she! Impossible that it should be she! But it was she;she had the air of being a miracle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. His feelings were complex and contradictory, flitting about and crossingeach other in his mind with astounding rapidity. He wished she had notcome, because his father was there, and the thought of his father wouldintensify his self-consciousness. He wondered why he should carewhether she came or not; after all she was only a young woman who wantedto see a printing works; at best she was not so agreeable as Janet, atworst she was appalling, and moreover he knew nothing about her. He hada glimpse of her face as, with a little tightening of the lips, she shuther umbrella. What was there in that face judged impartially? Whyshould he be to so absurd a degree curious about her? He thought howexquisitely delicious it would be to be walking with her by the shore ofa lovely lake on a summer evening, pale hills in the distance. He hadthis momentary vision by reason of a coloured print of the "SilverStrand" of a Scottish loch which was leaning in a gilt frame against theartists' materials cabinet and was marked twelve-and-six. During theday he had imagined himself with her in all kinds of beautiful spots andsituations. But the chief of his sensations was one of exquisiterelief. .. She had come. He could wreak his hungry curiosity upon her. Yes, she was alone. No Janet! No Alicia! How had she managed it?What had she said to the Orgreaves? That she should have come alone, and through the November rain, in the night, affected him deeply. Itgave her the quality of a heroine of high adventure. It was as thoughshe had set sail unaided, in a frail skiff, on a formidable ocean, tomeet him. It was inexpressibly romantic and touching. She came towardshim, her face sedately composed. She wore a small hat, a veil, and amackintosh, and black gloves that were splashed with wet. Certainly shewas a practical woman. She had said she would come, and she had come, sensibly, but how charmingly, protected against the shocking conditionsof the journey. There is naught charming in a mackintosh. And yetthere was, in this mackintosh! . .. Something in the contrast betweenits harshness and her fragility. .. The veil was supremely charming. She had half lifted it, exposing her mouth; the upper part of herflushed face was caged behind the bars of the veil; behind those barsher eyes mysteriously gleamed. .. Spanish! . .. No exaggeration in allthis! He felt every bit of it honestly, as he stood at the counter inthrilled expectancy. By virtue of his impassioned curiosity, theterraces of Granada and the mantillas of senoritas were not moreromantic than he had made his father's shop and her dripping mackintosh. He tried to see her afresh; he tried to see her as though he had neverseen her before; he tried desperately once again to comprehend what itwas in her that piqued him. And he could not. He fell back from theattempt. Was she the most wondrous? Or was she commonplace? Was shedeceiving him? Or did he alone possess the true insight? . .. Useless!He was baffled. Far from piercing her soul, he could scarcely even seeher at all; that is, with intelligence. And it was always so when hewas with her: he was in a dream, a vapour; he had no helm, his facultieswere not under control. She robbed him of judgement. And then the clear tones of her voice fell on the listening shop: "Goodevening, Mr Clayhanger. What a night, isn't it? I hope I'm not toolate. " Firm, business-like syllables. .. And she straightened her shoulders. He suffered. He was not happy. Whatever his feelings, he was not happyin that instant. He was not happy because he was wrung between hope andfear, alike divine. But he would not have exchanged his sensations forthe extremest felicity of any other person. They shook hands. He suggested that she should remove her mackintosh. She consented. He had no idea that the effect of the removal of themackintosh would be so startling as it was. She stood intimatelyrevealed in her frock. The mackintosh was formal and defensive; thefrock was intimate and acquiescent. Darius blundered out of the cubicle and Edwin had a dreadful momentintroducing her to Darius and explaining their purpose. Why had he notprepared the ground in advance? His pusillanimous cowardice again!However, the directing finger of God sent a customer into the shop, andEdwin escaped with his Hilda through the aperture in the counter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. The rickety building at the back of the premises, which was still themain theatre of printing activities, was empty save for Big James, thehour of seven being past. Big James was just beginning to roll hisapron round his waist, in preparation for departure. This happened tobe one of the habits of his advancing age. Up till a year or twopreviously he would have taken off his apron and left it in theworkshop; but now he could not confide it to the workshop; he must carryit about him until he reached home and a place of safety for it. Whenhe saw Edwin and a young lady appear in the doorway, he let the apronfall over his knees again. As the day was only the second of theindustrial week, the apron was almost clean; and even the office towel, which hung on a roller somewhat conspicuously near the door, was notoffensive. A single gas jet burned. The workshop was in the languor ofrepose after toil which had officially commenced at 8 a. M. The perfection of Big James's attitude, an attitude symbolised by theletting down of his apron, helped to put Edwin at ease in the originaland difficult circumstances. "Good evening, Mr Edwin. Good evening, miss, " was all that the man actually said with his tongue, but theformality of his majestic gestures indicated in the most dignified wayhis recognition of a sharp difference of class and his exactcomprehension of his own role in the affair. He stood waiting: he hadbeen about to depart, but he was entirely at the disposal of thecompany. "This is Mr Yarlett, our foreman, " said Edwin, and to Big James: "MissLessways has just come to look round. " Hilda smiled. Big James suavely nodded his head. "Here are some of the types, " said Edwin, because a big case was theobject nearest him, and he glanced at Big James. In a moment the foreman was explaining to Hilda, in his superb voice, the use of the composing-stick, and he accompanied the theory by abeautiful exposition of the practice; Edwin could stand aside and watch. Hilda listened and looked with an extraordinary air of sympatheticinterest. And she was so serious, so adult. But it was the quality ofsympathy, he thought, that was her finest, her most attractive. It waseither that or her proud independence, as of a person not accustomed tobend to the will of others or to go to others for advice. He could notbe sure. .. No! Her finest quality was her mystery. Even now, as hegazed at her comfortably, she baffled him; all her exquisite littlemovements and intonations baffled him. Of one thing, however, he wasconvinced: that she was fundamentally different from other women. Therewas she, and there was the rest of the sex. For appearance's sake he threw in short phrases now and then, to whichBig James, by his mere deportment, gave the importance of the words of amaster. "I suppose you printers did something special among yourselves tocelebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing?"said Hilda suddenly, glancing from Edwin to Big James. And Big Jamesand Edwin glanced at one another. Neither had ever heard of thefour-hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing. In a couple ofseconds Big James's downcast eye had made it clear that he regarded thisportion of the episode as master's business. "When was that?--let me see, " Edwin foolishly blurted out. "Oh! Some years ago. Two or three--perhaps four. " "I'm afraid we didn't, " said Edwin, smiling. "Oh!" said Hilda slowly. "I think they made a great fuss of it inLondon. " She relented somewhat. "I don't really know much about it. But the other day I happened to be reading the new history of printing, you know--Cranswick's, isn't it?" "Oh yes!" Edwin concurred, though he had never heard of Cranswick's newhistory of printing either. He knew that he was not emerging creditably from this portion of theepisode. But he did not care. The whole of his body went hot and thencold as his mind presented the simple question: "Why had she beenreading the history of printing?" Could the reason be any other thanher interest in himself? Or was she a prodigy among young women, whoread histories of everything in addition to being passionate aboutverse? He said that it was ridiculous to suppose that she would read ahistory of printing solely from interest in himself. Nevertheless hewas madly happy for a few moments, and as it were staggered with joy. He decided to read a history of printing at once. Big James came to the end of his expositions of the craft. The stovewas dying out, and the steam-boiler cold. Big James regretted that thelarger machines could not be seen in action, and that the place wasgetting chilly. Edwin began to name various objects that were lyingabout, with their functions, but it was evident that the interest of theworkshop was now nearly exhausted. Big James suggested that if Misscould make it convenient to call, say, on the next afternoon, she couldsee the large new Columbia in motion. Edwin seized the idea andbeautified it. And on this he wavered towards the door, and shefollowed, and Big James in dignity bowed them forth to the elevatedporch, and began to rewind his flowing apron once more. They pattereddown the dark steps (now protected with felt roofing) and ran across sixfeet of exposed yard into what had once been Mrs Nixon's holy kitchen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. After glancing at sundry minor workshops in delicious propinquity andsolitude, they mounted to the first floor, where there was anaccount-book ruling and binding shop: the site of the old sitting-roomand the girls' bedroom. In each chamber Edwin had to light a gas, andthe corridors and stairways were traversed by the ray of matches. Itwas excitingly intricate. Then they went to the attics, because Edwinwas determined that she should see all. There he found a forgottencandle. "I used to work here, " he said, holding high the candle. "There was noother place for me to work in. " They were in his old work attic, now piled with stocks of paper wrappedup in posters. "Work? What sort of work?" "Well--reading, drawing, you know. .. At that very table. " To be sure, there the very table was, thick with dust! It had been too rickety todeserve removal to the heights of Bleakridge. He was touched by thesight of the table now, though he saw it at least once every week. Hisexistence at the corner of Duck Square seemed now to have been beautifuland sad, seemed to be far off and historic. And the attic seemedunhappy in its present humiliation. "But there's no fireplace, " murmured Hilda. "I know, " said Edwin. "But how did you do in winter?" "I did without. " He had in fact been less of a martyr than those three telling wordswould indicate. Nevertheless it appeared to him that he really had beena martyr; and he was glad. He could feel her sympathy and her quietadmiration vibrating through the air towards him. Had she not said thatshe had never met anybody like him? He turned and looked at her. Hereyes glittered in the candle-light with tears too proud to fall. Solemnand exquisite bliss! Profound anxiety and apprehension! He was anarena where all the sensations of which a human being is capablestruggled in blind confusion. Afterwards, he could recall her visit only in fragments. The nextfragment that he recollected was the last. She stood outside the doorin her mackintosh. The rain had ceased. She was going. Behind them hecould feel his father in the cubicle, and Stifford arranging thetoilette of the shop for the night. "Please don't come out here, " she enjoined, half in entreaty, half incommand. Her solicitude thrilled him. He was on the step, she was onthe pavement: so that he looked down at her, with the sodden, light-reflecting slope of Duck Square for a background to her. "Oh! I'm all right. Well, you'll come to-morrow afternoon?" "No, you aren't all right. You've got a cold and you'll make it worse, and this isn't the end of winter, it's the beginning; I think you'revery liable to colds. " "N-no!" he said, enchanted, beside himself in an ecstasy of pleasure. "I shall expect you to-morrow about three. " "Thank you, " she said simply. "I'll come. " They shook hands. "Now do go in!" She vanished round the corner. All the evening he neither read nor spoke. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINETEEN. A CATASTROPHE. At half-past two on the following afternoon he was waiting for thefuture in order to recommence living. During this period, to a greaterextent even than the average individual in average circumstances, he wasincapable of living in the present. Continually he looked eitherforward or back. All that he had achieved, or that had been achievedfor him--the new house with its brightness and its apparatus of luxury, his books, his learning, his friends, his experience: not long sinceregarded by him as the precious materials of happiness--all had becomenegligible trifles, nothings, devoid of import. The sole conditionprecedent to a tolerable existence was now to have sight and speech ofHilda Lessways. He was intensely unhappy in the long stretches of timewhich separated one contact with her from the next. And in the briefmoments of their companionship he was far too distraught, tooapprehensive, too desirous, too puzzled, to be able to call himselfhappy. Seeing her apparently did naught to assuage the pain of hiscuriosity about her--not his curiosity concerning the details of herlife and of her person, for these scarcely interested him, but hiscuriosity concerning the very essence of her being. At seven o'clock onthe previous day, he had esteemed her visit as possessing a decisiveimportance which covered the whole field of his wishes. The visit hadoccurred, and he was not a whit advanced; indeed he had retrograded, forhe was less content and more confused, and more preoccupied. Themedicine had aggravated the disease. Nevertheless, he awaited a seconddose of it in the undestroyed illusion of its curative property. In the interval he had behaved like a very sensible man. Withoutappetite, he had still forced himself to eat, lest his relatives shouldsuspect. Short of sleep, he had been careful to avoid yawning atbreakfast, and had spoken in a casual tone of Hilda's visit. He hadeven said to his father: "I suppose the big Columbia will be running offthose overseer notices this afternoon?" And on the old man asking whyhe was thus interested, he had answered: "Because that girl, MissLessways, thought of coming down to see it. For some reason or othershe's very keen on printing, and as she's such a friend of theOrgreaves--" Nobody, he considered, could have done that better than he had done it. And now that girl, Miss Lessways, was nearly due. He stood behind thecounter again, waiting, waiting. He could not apply himself toanything; he could scarcely wait. He was in a state that approachedfever, if not agony. To exist from half-past two to three o'clockequalled in anguish the dreadful inquietude that comes before a surgicaloperation. He said to himself: "If I keep on like this I shall be in love with herone of these days. " He would not and could not believe that he alreadywas in love with her, though the possibility presented itself to him. "No, " he said, "you don't fall in love in a couple of days. You mustn'ttell me--" in a wise, superior, slightly scornful manner. "I dare saythere's nothing in it at all, " he said uncertainly, after havingstrongly denied throughout that there was anything in it. The recollection of his original antipathy to Hilda troubled him. Shewas the same girl. She was the same girl who had followed him at nightinto his father's garden and merited his disdain. She was the same girlwho had been so unpleasant, so sharp, so rudely disconcerting in herbehaviour. And he dared not say that she had altered. And yet now hecould not get her out of his head. And although he would not admit thathe constantly admired her, he did admit that there were moments when headmired her passionately and deemed her unique and above all women. Whence the change in himself? How to justify it? The problem wasinsoluble, for he was intellectually too honest to say lightly thatoriginally he had been mistaken. He did not pretend to solve the problem. He looked at it withperturbation, and left it. The consoling thing was that the Orgreaveshad always expressed high esteem for Hilda. He leaned on the Orgreaves. He wondered how the affair would end? It could not indefinitelycontinue on its present footing. How indeed would it end? Marriage. .. He apologised to himself for the thought. .. But just for the sake ofargument . .. Supposing. .. Well, supposing the affair went so far thatone day he told her . .. Men did such things, young men! No! . .. Besides, she wouldn't. .. It was absurd. .. No such idea really! . .. And then the frightful worry there would be with his father about money, and so on. .. And the telling of Clara, and of everybody. No! Hesimply could not imagine himself married, or about to be married. Marriage might happen to other young men, but not to him. His case wasspecial, somehow. .. He shrank from such formidable enterprises. Themere notion of them made him tremble. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. He brushed all that away impatiently, pettishly. The intense andterrible longing for her arrival persisted. It was now twenty-five tothree. His father would be down soon from his after-dinner nap. Suddenly the door opened, and he saw the Orgreaves' servant, with acloak over her white apron, and hands red with cold. And also he sawdisaster like a ghostly figure following her. His heart sickeninglysank. Martha smiled and gave him a note, which he smilingly accepted. "Miss Lessways asked me to come down with this, " she saidconfidentially. She was a little breathless, and she had absolutely themanner of a singing chambermaid in light opera. He opened the note, which said: "Dear Mr Clayhanger, so sorry I can't come to-day. --Yours, H. L. " Nothing else. It was scrawled. "It's all right, thanks, " hesaid, with an even brighter smile to the messenger, who nodded anddeparted. It all occurred in an instant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. A catastrophe! He suffered then as he had never suffered. His was no state approaching agony; it was agony itself, black andawful. She was not coming. She had not troubled herself to give areason, nor to offer an excuse. She merely was not coming. She hadshowed no consideration for his feelings. It had not happened to her toreflect that she would be causing him disappointment. Disappointmentwas too mild a word. He had been building a marvellously beautifulcastle, and with a thoughtless, careless stroke of the pen she hadannihilated all his labour; she had almost annihilated him. Surely sheowed him some reason, some explanation! Had she the right to play fastand loose with him like that? "What a shame!" he sobbed violently inhis heart, with an excessive and righteous resentment. He was innocent;he was blameless; and she tortured him thus! He supposed that all womenwere like her. .. "What a shame!" He pitied himself for a victim. Andthere was no glint of hope anywhere. In half an hour he would have beennear her, with her, guiding her to the workshop, discussing the machinewith her; and savouring her uniqueness; feasting on her delicious andadorable personality! . .. `So sorry I can't come to-day!' "She doesn'tunderstand. She can't understand!" he said to himself. "No woman, however cruel, would ever knowingly be so cruel as she has been. Itisn't possible!" Then he sought excuse for her, and then he cast theexcuse away angrily. She was not coming. There was no ground beneathhis feet. He was so exquisitely miserable that he could not face afuture of even ten hours ahead. He could not look at what his existencewould be till bedtime. The blow had deprived him of all force, allcourage. It was a wanton blow. He wished savagely that he had neverseen her. .. No! no! He could not call on the Orgreaves that night. Hecould not do it. She might be out. And then. .. His father entered, and began to grumble. Both Edwin and Maggie hadknown since the beginning of dinner that Darius was quaking on theprecipice of a bad bilious attack. Edwin listened to the rising stormof words. He had to resume the thread of his daily life. He knew whataffliction was. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY. THE MAN. But he was young. Indeed to men of fifty, men just twice his age, heseemed a mere boy and incapable of grief. He was so slim, and his limbswere so loose, and his hair so fair, and his gestures often so naive, that few of the mature people who saw him daily striding up and downTrafalgar Road could have believed him to be acquainted with sorrow liketheir sorrows. The next morning, as it were in justification of thesematurer people, his youth arose and fought with the malady in him, and, if it did not conquer, it was not defeated. On the previous night, after hours of hesitation, he had suddenly walked forth and gone downOak Street, and pushed open the garden gates of the Orgreaves, and gazedat the facade of the house--not at her window, because that was at theside--and it was all dark. The Orgreaves had gone to bed: he hadexpected it. Even this perfectly futile reconnaissance had calmed him. While dressing in the bleak sunrise he had looked at the oval lawn ofthe Orgreaves' garden, and had seen Johnnie idly kicking a football onit. Johnnie had probably spent the evening with her; and it was nothingto Johnnie! She was there, somewhere between him and Johnnie, withinfifty yards of both of them, mysterious and withdrawn as ever, busy atsomething or other. And it was naught to Johnnie! By the thought ofall this the woe in him was strengthened and embittered. Neverthelesshis youth, aided by the astringent quality of the clear dawn, stillstruggled sturdily against it. And he ate six times more breakfast thanhis suffering and insupportable father. At half-past one--it was Thursday, and the shop closed at two o'clock--he had put on courage like a garment, and decided that he would see herthat afternoon or night, `or perish in the attempt. ' And as theremembered phrase of the Sunday passed through his mind, he inwardlysmiled and thought of school; and felt old and sure. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. At five minutes to two, as he stood behind the eternal counter in hiseternal dream, he had the inexpressible and delectable shock of seeingher. He was shot by the vision of her as by a bullet. She came in, hurried and preoccupied, apparently full of purpose. "Have you got a Bradshaw?" she inquired, after the briefest greeting, gazing at him across the counter through her veil, as though imploringhim for Bradshaw. "I'm afraid we haven't one left, " he said. "You see it's getting on forthe end of the month. I could--No, I suppose you want it at once?" "I want it now, " she replied. "I'm going to London by the six express, and what I want to know is whether I can get on to Brighton to-night. They actually haven't a Bradshaw up there, " half in scorn and half inlevity, "and they said you'd probably have one here. So I ran down. " "They'd be certain to have one at the Tiger, " he murmured, reflecting. "The Tiger!" Evidently she did not care for the idea of the Tiger. "What about the railway station?" "Yes, or the railway station. I'll go up there with you now if youlike, and find out for you. I know the head porter. We're justclosing. Father's at home. He's not very well. " She thanked him, relief in her voice. In a minute he had put his hat and coat on and given instructions toStifford, and he was climbing Duck Bank with Hilda at his side. He hadforgiven her. Nay, he had forgotten her crime. The disaster, with allits despair, was sponged clean from his mind like writing off a slate, and as rapidly. It was effaced. He tried to collect his faculties andsavour the new sensations. But he could not. Within him all wasincoherent, wild, and distracting. Five minutes earlier, and he couldnot have conceived the bliss of walking with her to the station. Now hewas walking with her to the station; and assuredly it was bliss, and yethe did not fully taste it. Though he would not have loosed her for amillion pounds, her presence gave an even crueller edge to his anxietyand apprehension. London! Brighton! Would she be that night inBrighton? He felt helpless, and desperate. And beneath all this wasthe throbbing of a strange, bitter joy. She asked about his cold andabout his father's indisposition. She said nothing of her failure toappear on the previous day, and he knew not how to introduce it neatly:he was not in control of his intelligence. They passed Snaggs' Theatre, and from its green, wooden walls came theobscure sound of humanity in emotion. Before the mean and shabbyportals stood a small crowd of ragged urchins. Posters printed byDarius Clayhanger made white squares on the front. "It's a meeting of the men, " said Edwin. "They're losing, aren't they?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I expect they are. " She asked what the building was, and he explained. "They used to call it the Blood Tub, " he said. She shivered. "The Blood Tub?" "Yes. Melodrama and murder and gore--you know. " "How horrible!" she exclaimed. "Why are people like that in the FiveTowns?" "It's our form of poetry, I suppose, " he muttered, smiling at thepavement, which was surprisingly dry and clean in the feeble sunshine. "I suppose it is!" she agreed heartily, after a pause. "But you belong to the Five Towns, don't you?" he asked. "Oh yes! I used to. " At the station the name of Bradshaw appeared to be quite unknown. ButHilda's urgency impelled them upwards from the head porter to the ticketclerk, and from the ticket clerk to the stationmaster; and at lengththey discovered, in a stuffy stove-heated room with a fine view of ashawd-ruck and a pithead, that on Thursday evenings there was a trainfrom Victoria to Brighton at eleven-thirty. Hilda seemed to sighrelief, and her demeanour changed. But Edwin's uneasiness was onlyintensified. Brighton, which he had never seen, was in anotherhemisphere for him. It was mysterious, like her. It was part of hermystery. What could he do? His curse was that he had no initiative. Without her relentless force, he would never have penetrated even as faras the stuffy room where the unique Bradshaw lay. It was she who hadtaken him to the station, not he her. How could he hold her back fromBrighton? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. When they came again to the Blood Tub, she said-- "Couldn't we just go and look in? I've got plenty of time, now I knowexactly how I stand. " She halted, and glanced across the road. He could only agree to theproposition. For himself, a peculiar sense of delicacy would have madeit impossible for him to intrude his prosperity upon the deliberationsof starving artisans on strike and stricken; and he wondered what thepotters might think or say about the invasion by a woman. But he had totraverse the street with her and enter, and he had to do so with an airof masculine protectiveness. The urchins stood apart to let them in. Snaggs', dimly lit by a few glazed apertures in the roof, was nearlycrammed by men who sat on the low benches and leaned standing againstthe sidewalls. In the small and tawdry proscenium, behind a wornpicture of the Bay of Naples, were silhouetted the figures of the men'sleader and of several other officials. The leader was speaking in aquiet, mild voice, the other officials were seated on Windsor chairs. The smell of the place was nauseating, and yet the atmosphere wasbitingly cold. The warm-wrapped visitors could see rows and rows ofdiscoloured backs and elbows, and caps, and stringy kerchiefs. Theycould almost feel the contraction of thousands of muscles in aninvoluntary effort to squeeze out the chill from all these bodies; not ascore of overcoats could be discerned in the whole theatre, and many ofthe jackets were thin and ragged; but the officials had overcoats. Andthe visitors could almost see, as it were in rays, the intense fixedglances darting from every part of the interior, and piercing theupright figure in the centre of the stage. "Some method of compromise, " the leader was saying in his persuasivetones. A young man sprang up furiously from the middle benches. "To hell wi' compromise!" he shouted in a tigerish passion. "Haven't ushad forty pound from Ameriky?" "Order! Order!" some protested fiercely. But one voice cried: "Pitchthe bastard awt, neck and crop!" Hands clawed at the interrupter and dragged him with extreme violence tothe level of the bench, where he muttered like a dying volcano. Angrygrowls shot up here and there, snappish, menacing, and bestial. "It is quite true, " said the leader soothingly, "that our comrades atTrenton have collected forty pounds for us. But forty pounds wouldscarcely pay for a loaf of bread for one man in every ten on strike. " There was more interruption. The dangerous growls continued in runningexplosions along the benches. The leader, ignoring them, turned toconsult with his neighbour, and then faced his audience and called outmore loudly-- "The business of the meeting is at an end. " The entire multitude jumped up, and there was stretching of arms andstamping of feet. The men nearest to the door now perceived Edwin andHilda, who moved backwards as before a flood. Edwin seized Hilda's armto hasten her. "Lads, " bawled an old man's voice from near the stage, "Let's sing `Rockof Ages. '" A frowning and hirsute fellow near the door, with the veins prominent onhis red forehead, shouted hoarsely, "`Rock of Ages' be buggered!" andshifting his hands into his pockets he plunged for the street, headforemost and chin sticking out murderously. Edwin and Hilda escaped atspeed and recrossed the road. The crowd came surging out of the narrowneck of the building and spread over the pavements like a sinisterliquid. But from within the building came the lusty song of "Rock ofAges. " "It's terrible!" Hilda murmured, after a silence. "Just to see them isenough. I shall never forget what you said. " "What was that?" he inquired. He knew what it was, but he wished toprolong the taste of her appreciation. "That you've only got to see the poor things to know they're in theright! Oh! I've lost my handkerchief, unless I've left it in yourshop. It must have dropped out of my muff. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. The shop was closed. As with his latchkey he opened the private doorand then stood on one side for her to precede him into the corridor thatled to the back of the shop, he watched the stream of operativesscattering across Duck Bank and descending towards the Square. It wasas if he and Hilda, being pursued, were escaping. And as Hilda, stopping an instant on the step, saw what he saw, her face took atroubled expression. They both went in and he shut the door. "Turn to the left, " he said, wondering whether the big Columbia machinewould be running, for her to see if she chose. "Oh! This takes you to the shop, does it? How funny to be behind thecounter!" He thought she spoke self-consciously, in the way of small talk: whichwas contrary to her habit. "Here's my handkerchief!" she cried, with pleasure. It was on thecounter, a little white wisp in the grey-sheeted gloom. Stifford musthave found it on the floor and picked it up. The idea flashed through Edwin's head: "Did she leave her handkerchiefon purpose, so that we should have to come back here?" The only illumination of the shop was from three or four diamond-shapedholes in the upper part of as many shutters. No object was at firstquite distinct. The corners were very dark. All merchandise not indrawers or on shelves was hidden in pale dust cloths. A chair wrongside up was on the fancy-counter, its back hanging over the front of thecounter. Hilda had wandered behind the other counter, and Edwin was inthe middle of the shop. Her face in the twilight had become moremysterious than ever. He was in a state of emotion, but he did not knowto what category the emotion belonged. They were alone. Stifford hadgone for the half-holiday. Darius, sickly, would certainly not comenear. The printers were working as usual in their place, and theclanking whirr of a treadle-machine overhead agitated the ceiling. Butnobody would enter the shop. His excitement increased, but did notdefine itself. There was a sudden roar in Duck Square, and then cries. "What can that be?" Hilda asked, low. "Some of the strikers, " he answered, and went through the doors to theletter-hole in the central shutter, lifted the flap, and looked through. A struggle was in progress at the entrance to the Duck Inn. One man wasapparently drunk; others were jeering on the skirts of the lean crowd. "It's some sort of a fight among them, " said Edwin loudly, so that shecould hear in the shop. But at the same instant he felt the wind of thedoor swinging behind him, and Hilda was silently at his elbow. "Let me look, " she said. Assuredly her voice was trembling. He moved, as little as possible, andheld the flap up for her. She bent and gazed. He could hear variousnoises in the Square, but she described nothing to him. After a longwhile she withdrew from the hole. "A lot of them have gone into the public-house, " she said. "The othersseem to be moving away. There's a policeman. What a shame, " she burstout passionately, "that they have to drink to forget their trouble!"She made no remark upon the strangeness of starving workmen being ableto pay for beer sufficient to intoxicate themselves. Nor did shecomment, as a woman, on the misery of the wives and children at home inthe slums and the cheap cottage-rows. She merely compassionated the menin that they were driven to brutishness. Her features showed painfulpity masking disgust. She stepped back into the shop. "Do you know, " she began, in a new tone, "you've quite altered my notionof poetry--what you said as we were going up to the station. " "Really!" He smiled nervously. He was very pleased. He would havebeen astounded by this speech from her, a professed devotee of poetry, if in those instants the capacity for astonishment had remained to him. "Yes, " she said, and continued, frowning and picking at her muff: "Butyou do alter my notions, I don't know how it is. .. So this is yourlittle office!" The door of the cubicle was open. "Yes, go in and have a look at it. " "Shall I?" She went in. He followed her. And no sooner was she in than she muttered, "I must hurry off now. " Yeta moment before she seemed to have infinite leisure. "Shall you be at Brighton long?" he demanded, and scarcely recognisedhis own accents. "Oh! I can't tell! I've no idea. It depends. " "How soon shall you be down our way again?" She only shook her head. "I say--you know--" he protested. "Good-bye, " she said, quavering. "Thanks very much. " She held out herhand. "But--" He took her hand. His suffering was intolerable. It was torture of the most exquisitekind. Her hand pressed his. Something snapped in him. His left handhovered shaking over her shoulder, and then touched her shoulder, and hecould feel her left hand on his arm. The embrace was clumsy in itsinstinctive and unskilled violence, but its clumsiness was redeemed byall his sincerity and all hers. His eyes were within six inches of hereyes, full of delicious shame, anxiety, and surrender. They kissed. .. He had amorously kissed a woman. All his past life sank away, and hebegan a new life on the impetus of that supreme and final emotion. Itwas an emotion that in its freshness, agitating and divine, could neverbe renewed. He had felt the virgin answer of her lips on his. She hadtold him everything, she had yielded up her mystery, in a second oftime. Her courage in responding to his caress ravished and amazed him. She was so unaffected, so simple, so heroic. And the cool, delicatepurity of those lips! And the faint feminine odour of her flesh andeven of her stuffs! Dreams and visions were surpassed. He said tohimself, in the flood-tide of masculinity-- "My God! She's mine. " And it seemed incredible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. She was sitting in the office chair; he on the desk. She said in atrembling voice-- "I should never have come to the Five Towns again, if you hadn't--" "Why not?" "I couldn't have stood it. I couldn't. " She spoke almost bitterly, with a peculiar smile on her twitching lips. To him it seemed that she had resumed her mystery, that he had onlyreally known her for one instant, that he was bound to a womanentrancing, noble, but impenetrable. And this, in spite of the factthat he was close to her, touching her, tingling to her in the confined, crepuscular intimacy of the cubicle. He could trace every movement ofher breast as she breathed, and yet she escaped the inward searching ofhis gaze. But he was happy. He was happy enough to repel all anxietiesand inquietudes about the future. He was steeped in the bliss of themiracle. This was but the fourth day, and they were vowed. "It was only Monday, " he began. "Monday!" she exclaimed. "I have thought of you for over a year. " Sheleaned towards him. "Didn't you know? Of course you did! . .. Youcouldn't bear me at first. " He denied this, blushing, but she insisted. "You don't know how awful it was for me yesterday when you didn't come!"he murmured. "Was it?" she said, under her breath. "I had some very importantletters to write. " She clasped his hand. There it was again! She spoke just like a man of business, immersed insecret schemes. "It's awfully funny, " he said. "I scarcely know anything about you, andyet--" "I'm Janet's friend!" she answered. Perhaps it was the delicatestreproof of imagined distrust. "And I don't want to, " he went on. "How old are you?" "Twenty-four, " she answered sweetly, acknowledging his right to put suchquestions. "I thought you were. " "I suppose you know I've got no relatives, " she said, as if relentingfrom her attitude of reproof. "Fortunately, father left just enoughmoney for me to live on. " "Must you go to Brighton?" She nodded. "Where can I write to?" "It will depend, " she said. "But I shall send you the addressto-morrow. I shall write you before I go to bed whether it's to-nightor to-morrow morning. " "I wonder what people will say!" "Please tell no one, yet, " she pleaded. "Really, I should prefer not!Later on, it won't seem so sudden; people are so silly. " "But shan't you tell Janet?" She hesitated. "No! Let's keep it to ourselves till I come back. " "When shall you come back?" "Oh! Very soon. I hope in a few days, now. But I must go to thisfriend at Brighton. She's relying on me. " It was enough for him, and indeed he liked the idea of a secret. "Yes, yes, " he agreed eagerly. There was the sound of another uproar in Duck Square. It appeared toroll to and fro thunderously. She shivered. The fire was dead out in the stove, and the chill ofnight crept in from the street. "It's nearly dark, " she said. "I must go! I have to pack. .. Oh dear, dear--those poor men! Somebody will be hurt!" "I'll walk up with you, " he whispered, holding her, in owner ship. "No. It will be better not. Let me out. " "Really?" "Really!" "But who'll take you to Knype Station?" "Janet will go with me. " She rose reluctantly. In the darkness they were now only dim forms toeach other. He struck a match, that blinded them and expired as theyreached the passage. .. When she had gone, he stood hatless at the open side door. Right at thetop of Duck Bank, he could discern, under the big lamp there, a knot ofgesticulating and shouting strikers, menacing two policemen; and fartheroff, in the direction of Moorthorne Road, other strikers were running. The yellow-lit blinds of the Duck Inn across the Square seemed to screena house of impenetrable conspiracies and debaucheries. And all thatgrim, perilous background only gave to his emotions a further intensity, troubling them to still stranger ecstasy. He thought: "It has happenedto me, too, now--this thing that is at the bottom of everybody's mind!I've kissed her! I've got her! She's marvellous, marvellous! Icouldn't have believed it. But is it true? Has it happened?" Itpassed his credence. .. "By Jove! I absolutely forgot about the ring!That's a nice how d'ye do!" . .. He saw himself married. He thought ofClara's grotesque antics with her tedious babe. And he thought of hisfather and of vexatious. But that night he was a man. She, Hilda, withher independence and her mystery, had inspired him with a full pride ofmanhood. And he discovered that one of the chief attributes of a man isan immense tenderness. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. THE MARRIAGE. He was more proud and agitated than happy. The romance of the affair, and its secrecy, made him proud; the splendid qualities of Hilda madehim proud. It was her mysteriousness that agitated him, and her absencerendered him unhappy in his triumph. During the whole of Friday he wasthinking: "To-morrow is Saturday and I shall have her address and aletter from her. " He decided that there was no hope of a letter by thelast post on Friday, but as the hour of the last post drew nigh he grewexcited, and was quite appreciably disappointed when it brought nothing. The fear, which had always existed in little, then waxed into enormousdread, that Saturday's post also would bring nothing. His manoeuvres inthe early twilight of Saturday morning were complicated by the fact thatit had not been arranged whether she should write to the shop or to thehouse. However, he prepared for either event by having his breakfast atseven o'clock, on the plea of special work in the shop. He had finishedit at half-past seven, and was waiting for the postman, whose route hecommanded from the dining-room window. The postman arrived. Edwin withfalse calm walked into the hall, saying to himself that if the letterwas not in the box it would be at the shop. But the letter was in thebox. He recognised her sprawling hand on the envelope through thewirework. He snatched the letter and slipped upstairs with it like afox with a chicken. It had come, then! The letter safely in his handshe admitted more frankly that he had been very doubtful of itspromptitude. "59 Preston Street, Brighton, 1 a. M. "Dearest, --This is my address. I love you. Every bit of me isabsolutely yours. Write me. --H. L. " That was all. It was enough. Its tone enchanted him. Also it startledhim. But it reminded him of her lips. He had begun a letter to her. He saw now that what he had written was too cold in the expression ofhis feelings. Hilda's note suddenly and completely altered his viewsupon the composition of love-letters. "Every bit of me is absolutelyyours. " How fine, how untrammelled, how like Hilda! What other girlcould or would have written such a phrase? More than ever was heconvinced that she was unique. The thrill divine quickened in himagain, and he rose eagerly to her level of passion. The romance, thesecrecy, the mystery, the fever! He walked down Trafalgar Road with theletter in his pocket, and once he pulled it out to read it in thestreet. His discretion objected to this act, but Edwin was not his ownmaster. Stifford, hurrying in exactly at eight, was somewhat perturbedto find his employer's son already installed in the cubicle, writing bythe light of gas, as the shutters were not removed. Edwin had finishedand stamped his first love-letter just as his father entered thecubicle. Owing to dyspeptic accidents Darius had not set foot in thecubicle since it had been sanctified by Hilda. Edwin, leaving it, glanced at the old man's back and thought disdainfully: "Ah! You littleknow, you rhinoceros, that less than two days ago, she and I, on thatvery spot--" As soon as his father had gone to pay the morning visit to the printingshops, he ran out to post the letter himself. He could not be contenteduntil it was in the post. Now, when he saw men of about his own classand age in the street, he would speculate upon their experiences in theromance of women. And it did genuinely seem to him impossible thatanybody else in a town like Bursley could have passed through an episodeso exquisitely strange and beautiful as that through which he waspassing. Yet his reason told him that he must be wrong there. Hisreason, however, left him tranquil in the assurance that no girl inBursley had ever written to her affianced: "I love you. Every bit of meis absolutely yours. " Hilda's second letter did not arrive till the following Tuesday, bywhich time he had become distracted by fears and doubts. Yes, doubts!No rational being could have been more loyal than Edwin, but theselittle doubts would keep shooting up and withering away. He could notcontrol them. The second letter was nearly as short as the first. Ittold him nothing save her love and that she was very worried by herfriend's situation, and that his letters were a joy. She had had aletter from him each day. In his reply to her second he gently implied, between two lines, that her letters lacked quantity and frequency. Sheanswered: "I simply cannot write letters. It isn't in me. Can't youtell that from my handwriting? Not even to you! You must take me as Iam. " She wrote each day for three days. Edwin was one of those wholearn quickly, by the acceptance of facts. And he now learnt thatprofound lesson that an individual must be taken or left in entirety, and that you cannot change an object merely because you love it. Indeedhe saw in her phrase, "You must take me as I am, " the accents oforiginal and fundamental wisdom, springing from the very roots of life. And he submitted. At intervals he would say resentfully: "But surelyshe could find five minutes each day to drop me a line! What's fiveminutes?" But he submitted. Submission was made easier when heco-ordinated with Hilda's idiosyncrasy the fact that Maggie, his ownunromantic sister, could never begin to write a letter with less thanfrom twelve to twenty-four hours' bracing of herself to the task. Maggie would be saying and saying: "I really must write that letter. .. Dear me! I haven't written that letter yet. " His whole life seemed to be lived in the post, and postmen were theangels of the creative spirit. His unhappiness increased with thedeepening of the impression that the loved creature was treating himwith cruelty. Time dragged. At length he had been engaged a fortnight. On Thursday a letter should have come. It came not. Nor on Friday norSaturday. On Sunday it must come. But it did not come on Sunday. Hedetermined to telegraph to her on the Monday morning. His loyalty, though valorous, needed aid against all those pricking battalions ofephemeral doubts. On the Sunday evening he suddenly had the idea ofstrengthening himself by a process that resembled boat-burning. Hewould speak to his father. His father's mentality was the core of adifficulty that troubled him exceedingly, and he took it into his headto attack the difficulty at once, on the spot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. For years past Darius Clayhanger had not gone to chapel on Sundayevening. In the morning he still went fairly regularly, but in theevening he would now sit in the drawing-room, generally alone, to read. On weekdays he never used the drawing-room, where indeed there wasseldom a fire. He had been accustomed to only one living-room, and saveon Sunday, when he cared to bend the major part of his mind to thematter, he scorned to complicate existence by utilising all theresources of the house which he had built. His children might do so;but not he. He was proud enough to see to it that his house had adrawing-room, and too proud to employ the drawing-room except on theceremonious day. After tea, at about a quarter to six, whenchapel-goers were hurriedly pulling gloves on, he would begin toestablish himself in a saddle-backed, ear-flapped easy-chair with "TheChristian News" and an ivory paper-knife as long and nearly as deadly asa scimitar. "The Christian News" was a religious weekly of a new type. It belonged to a Mr James Bott, and it gave to God and to the mysteriesof religious experience a bright and breezy actuality. Darius'schildren had damned it for ever on its first issue, in which Clara hadfound, in a report of a very important charitable meeting, the followingwords: "Among those present were the Prince of Wales and Mr JamesBott. " Such is the hasty and unjudicial nature of children that thissingle sentence finished the career of "The Christian News" with theyounger generation. But Darius liked it, and continued to like it. Heenjoyed it. He would spend an hour and a half in reading it. Andfurther, he enjoyed cutting open the morsel. Once when Edwin, in hopeof more laughter, had cut the pages on a Saturday afternoon, and hisfather had found himself unable to use the paper-knife on Sundayevening, there had been a formidable inquiry: "Who's been meddling withmy paper?" Darius saved the paper even from himself until Sundayevening; not till then would he touch it. This habit had flourished forseveral years. It appeared never to lose its charm. And Edwin did notcease to marvel at his father's pleasure in a tedious monotony. It was the hallowed rite of reading "The Christian News" that Edwindisturbed in his sudden and capricious resolve. Maggie and Mrs Nixonhad gone to chapel, for Mrs Nixon, by reason of her years, bearing, mantle and reputation, could walk down Trafalgar Road by the side of hermistress on a Sunday night without offence to the delicate instincts ofthe town. The niece, engaged to be married at an age absurdly youthful, had been permitted by Mrs Nixon the joy of attending evensong at theBleakridge Church on the arm of a male, but under promise to be back ata quarter to eight to set supper. The house was perfectly still whenEdwin came all on fire out of his bedroom and slid down the stairs. Thegas burnt economically low within its stained-glass cage in the hall. The drawing-room door was unlatched. He hesitated a moment on the mat, and he could hear the calm ticking of the clock in the kitchen and seethe red glint of the kitchen fire against the wall. Then he entered, looking and feeling apologetic. His father was all curtained in; his slippered feet on the fender of theblazing hearth, his head cushioned to a nicety, the long paper-knifeacross his knees. And the room was really hot and in a glow of light. Darius turned and, lowering his face, gazed at Edwin over the top of hisnew gold-rimmed spectacles. "Not gone to chapel?" he frowned. "No! . .. I say, father, I just wanted to speak to you. " Darius made no reply, but shifted his glance from Edwin to the fire, andmaintained his frown. He was displeased at the interruption. Edwinfailed to shut the door at the first attempt, and then banged it in hisnervousness. In spite of himself he felt like a criminal. Comingforward, he leaned his loose, slim frame against a corner of the oldpiano. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "Well?" Darius growled impatiently, even savagely. They saw eachother, not once a week, but at nearly every hour of every day, and theywere surfeited of the companionship. "Supposing I wanted to get married?" This sentence shot out of Edwin'smouth like a bolt. And as it flew, he blushed very red. In the privacyof his mind he was horribly swearing. "So that's it, is it?" Darius growled again. And he leaned forward andpicked up the poker, not as a menace, but because he too was nervous. As an opposer of his son he had never had quite the same confidence inhimself since Edwin's historic fury at being suspected of theft, thoughapparently their relations had resumed the old basis of bullying andsubmission. "Well--" Edwin hesitated. He thought, "After all, people do getmarried. It won't be a crime. " "Who'st been running after?" Darius demanded inimically. Instead ofbeing softened by this rumour of love, by this hint that his son hadbeen passing through wondrous secret hours, he instinctively and withoutany reason hardened himself and transformed the news into an offence. He felt no sympathy, and it did not occur to him to recall that he toohad once thought of marrying. He was a man whom life had brutalisedabout half a century earlier. "I was only thinking, " said Edwin clumsily--the fool had not senseenough even to sit down--"I was only thinking, suppose I did want to getmarried. " "Who'st been running after?" "Well, I can't rightly say there's anything--what you may call settled. In fact, nothing was to be said about it at all at present. But it'sMiss Lessways, father--Hilda Lessways, you know. " "Her as came in the shop the other day?" "Yes. " "How long's this been going on?" Edwin thought of what Hilda had said. "Oh! Over a year. " He could notpossibly have said "four days. " "Mind you this is strictly q. T! Nobodyknows a word about it, nobody! But of course I thought I'd better tellyou. You'll say nothing. " He tried wistfully to appeal as one loyalman to another. But he failed. There was no ray of response on hisfather's gloomy features, and he slipped back insensibly into the boywhose right to an individual existence had never been formally admitted. Something base in him--something of that baseness which occasionallyactuates the oppressed--made him add: "She's got an income of her own. Her father left money. " He conceived that this would placate Darius. "I know all about her father, " Darius sneered, with a short laugh. "Andher father's father! . .. Well, lad, ye'll go your own road. " Heappeared to have no further interest in the affair. Edwin was notsurprised, for Darius was seemingly never interested in anything excepthis business; but he thought how strange, how nigh to the incredible, the old man's demeanour was. "But about money, I was thinking, " he said, uneasily shifting his pose. "What about money?" "Well, " said Edwin, endeavouring, and failing, to find courage to put alittle sharpness into his tone, "I couldn't marry on seventeen-and-six aweek, could I?" At the age of twenty-five, at the end of nine years' experience in themanagement and the accountancy of a general printing and stationerybusiness, Edwin was receiving seventeen shillings and sixpence for asixty-five-hour week's work, the explanation being that on his father'sdeath the whole enterprise would be his, and that all money saved wassaved for him. Out of this sum he had to pay ten shillings a week toMaggie towards the cost of board and lodging, so that three half-crownsremained for his person and his soul. Thus he could expect noindependence of any kind until his father's death, and he had a directand powerful interest in his father's death. Moreover, all his future, and all unpaid reward of his labours in the past, hung hazardous on hisfather's goodwill. If he quarrelled with him, he might lose everything. Edwin was one of a few odd-minded persons who did not regard thisarrangement as perfectly just, proper, and in accordance with soundprecedent. But he was helpless. His father would tell him, and didtell him, that he had fought no struggles, suffered no hardship, had noresponsibility, and that he was simply coddled from head to foot incotton-wool. "I say you must go your own road, " said his father. "But at this rate I should never be able to marry!" "Do you reckon, " asked Darius, with mild cold scorn, "as you gettingmarried will make your services worth one penny more to my business?"And he waited an answer with the august calm of one who is aware that heis unanswerable. But he might with equal propriety have tied his son'shands behind him and then diverted himself by punching his head. "I do all I can, " said Edwin meekly. "And what about getting orders?" Darius questioned grimly. "Didn't Ioffer you two and a half per cent on all new customers you got yourself?And how many have you got? Not one. I give you a chance to make extramoney and you don't take it. Ye'd sooner go running about after girls. " This was a particular grievance of the father against the son: that theson brought no grist to the mill in the shape of new orders. "But how can I get orders?" Edwin protested. "How did I get 'em? How do I get 'em? Somebody has to get 'em. " Theold man's lips were pressed together, and he waved "The Christian News"slightly in his left hand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In a few minutes both their voices had risen. Darius, savage, stoopedto replace with the shovel a large burning coal that had dropped on thetiles and was sending up a column of brown smoke. "I tell you what I shall do, " he said, controlling himself bitterly. "It's against my judgement, but I shall put you up to a pound a week atthe New Year, if all goes well, of course. And it's good money, let meadd. " He was entirely serious, and almost sincere. He loathed paying moneyover to his son. He was convinced that in an ideal world sons wouldtoil gratis for their fathers who lodged and fed them and gifted themwith the reversion of excellent businesses. "But what good's a pound a week?" Edwin demanded, with thequerulousness of one who is losing hope. "What good's a pound a week!" Darius repeated, hurt and genuinely hurt. "Let me tell you that in my time young men married on a pound a week, and glad to! A pound a week!" He finished with a sardonic exclamation. "I couldn't marry Miss Lessways on a pound a week, " Edwin murmured, indespair, his lower lip hanging. "I thought you might perhaps beoffering me a partnership by this time!" Possibly in some mad hour athought so wild had indeed flitted through his brain. "Did you?" rejoined Darius. And in the fearful grimness of the man'saccents was concealed all his intense and egoistic sense of possessingin absolute ownership the business which the little boy out of theBastille had practically created. Edwin did not and could notunderstand the fierce strength of his father's emotion concerning thebusiness. Already in tacitly agreeing to leave Edwin the business afterhis own death, Darius imagined himself to be superbly benevolent. "And then there would be house-furnishing, and so on, " Edwin continued. "What about that fifty pounds?" Darius curtly inquired. Edwin was startled. Never since the historic scene had Darius made theslightest reference to the proceeds of the Building Society share. "I haven't spent all of it, " Edwin muttered. Do what he would with his brain, the project of marriage andhouse-tenancy and a separate existence obstinately presented itself tohim as fantastic and preposterous. Who was he to ask so much fromdestiny? He could not feel that he was a man. In his father's presencehe never could feel that he was a man. He remained a boy, with norights, moral or material. "And if as ye say she's got money of her own--" Darius remarked, and wasconsiderably astonished when the boy walked straight out of the room andclosed the door. It was his last grain of common sense that took Edwin in silence out ofthe room. Miserable, despicable baseness! Did the old devil suppose that he wouldbe capable of asking his wife to find the resources which he himselfcould not bring? He was to say to his wife: "I can only supply a pounda week, but as you've got money it won't matter. " The mere notionoutraged him so awfully that if he had stayed in the room there wouldhave been an altercation and perhaps a permanent estrangement. As he stood furious and impotent in the hall, he thought, with hisimagination quickened by the memory of Mr Shushions: "When you're old, and I've got you"--he clenched his fists and his teeth--"when I've gotyou and you can't help yourself, by God it'll be my turn!" And he meant it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. He seized his overcoat and hat, and putting them on anyhow, strode out. The kitchen clock struck half-past seven as he left. Chapel-goers wouldsoon be returning in a thin procession of twos and threes up TrafalgarRoad. To avoid meeting acquaintances he turned down the side street, towards the old road which was a continuation of Aboukir Street. Therehe would be safe. Letting his overcoat fly open, he thrust his handsinto the pockets of his trousers. It was a cold night of mist. Humanity was separated from him by the semi-transparent blinds of thecottage windows, bright squares in the dark and enigmatic facades of thestreet. He was alone. All along he had felt and known that this disgusting crisis would cometo pass. He had hoped against it, but not with faith. And he had noremedy for it. What could he immediately and effectively do? He wasconvinced that his father would not yield. There were frequentoccasions when his father was proof against reason, when his fatherseemed genuinely unable to admit the claim of justice, and this occasionwas one of them. He could tell by certain peculiarities of tone andgesture. A pound a week! Assuming that he cut loose from his father, in a formal and confessed separation, he might not for a long time be ina position to earn more than a pound a week. A clerk was worth no more. And, except as responsible manager of a business, he could only go intothe market as a clerk. In the Five Towns how many printing offices werethere that might at some time or another be in need of a manager?Probably not one. They were all of modest importance, and directedpersonally by their proprietary heads. His father's was one of thelargest. .. No! His father had nurtured and trained, in him, a helplessslave. And how could he discuss such a humiliating question with Hilda? Couldhe say to Hilda: "See here, my father won't allow me more than a pound aweek. What are we to do?" In what terms should he telegraph to herto-morrow? He heard the rapid firm footsteps of a wayfarer overtaking him. He hadno apprehension of being disturbed in his bitter rage. But a hand wasslapped on his shoulder, and a jolly voice said-- "Now, Edwin, where's this road leading you to on a Sunday night?" It was Osmond Orgreave who, having been tramping for exercise in thehigh regions beyond the Loop railway line, was just going home. "Oh! Nowhere particular, " said Edwin feebly. "Working off Sunday dinner, eh?" "Yes. " And Edwin added casually, to prove that there was nothingsingular in his mood: "Nasty night!" "You must come in a bit, " said Mr Orgreave. "Oh no!" He shrank away. "Now, now!" said Mr Orgreave masterfully. "You've got to come in, soyou may as well give up first as last. Janet's in. She's like you andme, she's a bad lot, --hasn't been to church. " He took Edwin by the arm, and they turned into Oak Street at the lower end. Edwin continued to object, but Mr Orgreave, unable to scrutinise hisface in the darkness, and not dreaming of an indiscretion, rode over hisweak negatives, horse and foot, and drew him by force into the garden;and in the hall took his hat away from him and slid his overcoat fromhis shoulders. Mr Orgreave, having accomplished a lot of forbiddenlabour on that Sabbath, was playful in his hospitality. "Prisoner! Take charge of him!" exclaimed Mr Orgreave shortly, as hepushed Edwin into the breakfast-room and shut the door from the outside. Janet was there, exquisitely welcoming, unconsciously pouring balm fromher eyes. But he thought she looked graver than usual. Edwin had toenact the part of a man to whom nothing has happened. He had to behaveas though his father was the kindest and most reasonable of fathers, asthough Hilda wrote fully to him every day, as though he were not evenengaged to Hilda. He must talk, and he scarcely knew what he wassaying. "Heard lately from Miss Lessways?" he asked lightly, or as lightly as hecould. It was a splendid effort. Impossible to expect him to startupon the weather or the strike! He did the best he could. Janet's eyes became troubled. Speaking in a low voice she said, with aglance at the door-- "I suppose you've not heard. She's married. " He did not move. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. "Married?" "Yes. It is rather sudden, isn't it?" Janet tried to smile, but shewas exceedingly self-conscious. "To a Mr Cannon. She's known him fora very long time, I think. " "When?" "Yesterday. I had a note this morning. It's quite a secret yet. Ihaven't told father and mother. But she asked me to tell you if I sawyou. " He thought her eyes were compassionate. Mrs Orgreave came smiling into the room. "Well, Mr Edwin, it seems we can only get you in here by main force. " "Are you quite better, Mrs Orgreave?" he rose to greet her. He had by some means or other to get out. "I must just run in home a second, " he said, after a moment. "I'll beback in three minutes. " But he had no intention of coming back. He would have told any lie inorder to be free. In his bedroom, looking at himself in the glass, he could detect on hisface no sign whatever of suffering or of agitation. It seemed just anordinary mild, unmoved face. And this, too, he had always felt and known would come to pass: thatHilda would not be his. All that romance was unreal; it was not true;it had never happened. Such a thing could not happen to such as hewas. .. He could not reflect. When he tried to reflect, the top of hishead seemed as though it would fly off. .. Cannon! She was with Cannonsomewhere at that very instant. .. She had specially asked that heshould be told. And indeed he had been told before even Mr and MrsOrgreave. .. Cannon! She might at that very instant be in Cannon'sarms. It could be said of Edwin that he fully lived that night. Fate had atany rate roused him from the coma which most men called existence. Simple Maggie was upset because, from Edwin's absence and her father'sdemeanour at supper, she knew that her menfolk had had another terriblediscussion. And since her father offered no remark as to it, sheguessed that this one must be even more serious that the last. There was one thing that Edwin could not fit into any of his theories ofthe disaster which had overtaken him, and that was his memory of Hilda'sdivine gesture as she bent over Mr Shushions on the morning of theCentenary. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER ONE. BOOK THREE--HIS FREEDOM. AFTER A FUNERAL. Four and a half years later, on a Tuesday night in April 1886, Edwin wasreading in an easy-chair in his bedroom. He made a very image ofsolitary comfort. The easy-chair had been taken from the dining-room, silently, without permission, and Darius had apparently not noticed itsremoval. A deep chair designed by some one learned in the poses naturalto the mortal body, it was firm where it ought to be firm, and where itought to yield, there it yielded. By its own angles it threw the headslightly back, and the knees slightly up. Edwin's slippered feet restedon a hassock, and in front of the hassock was a red-glowing gas-stove. That stove, like the easy-chair, had been acquired by Edwin at hisfather's expense without his father's cognisance. It consumed gas whoseprice swelled the quarterly bill three times a year, and Darius observednothing. He had not even entered his son's bedroom for several years. Each month seemed to limit further his interest in surroundingphenomena, and to centralise more completely all his faculties in hisbusiness. Over Edwin's head the gas jet flamed through one of Darius'sspecial private burners, lighting the page of a little book, one ofCassell's "National Library, " a new series of sixpenny reprints whichhad considerably excited the book-selling and the book-reading worlds, but which Darius had apparently quite ignored, though confronted in hishouse and in his shop by multitudinous examples of it. Sometimes Edwinwould almost be persuaded to think that he might safely indulge anycaprice whatever under his father's nose, and then the old man wouldnotice some unusual trifle, of no conceivable importance, and go into apassion about it, and Maggie would say quietly, "I told you what wouldbe happening one of these days, " which would annoy Edwin. His annoyancewas caused less by Maggie's `I told you so, ' than by her lack of logic. If his father had ever overtaken him in some large and desperatecaprice, such as the purchase of the gas-stove on the paternal account, he would have submitted in meekness to Maggie's triumphant reminder; buthis father never did. It was always upon some perfectly innocentnothing, which the timidest son might have permitted himself, that thewrath of Darius overwhelmingly burst. Maggie and Edwin understood each other on the whole very well. Only inminor points did their sympathy fail. And as Edwin would be exasperatedbecause Maggie's attitude towards argument was that of a woman, so wouldMaggie resent a certain mulishness in him characteristic of theunfathomable stupid sex. Once a week, for example, when his room was`done out, ' there was invariably a skirmish between them, because Edwinreally did hate anybody to `meddle among his things. ' The derangementof even a brush on the dressing-table would rankle in his mind. Also hewas very `crotchety about his meals, ' and on the subject of fresh air. Unless he was sitting in a perceptible draught, he thought he was beingpoisoned by nitrogen: but when he could see the curtain or blindtrembling in the wind he was hygienically at ease. His existence was aseries of catarrhal colds, which, however, as he would learnedly explainto Maggie, could not be connected, in the brain of a reasonable person, with currents of fresh air. Maggie mutely disdained his science. This, too, fretted him. Occasionally she would somewhat tartly assert that hewas a regular old maid. The accusation made no impression on him atall. But when, more than ordinarily exacerbated, she sang out that hewas `exactly like his father, ' he felt wounded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The appearance of his bedroom, and the fact that he enjoyed being in italone, gave some ground for Maggie's first accusation. A screen hid thebed, and this screen was half covered with written papers of memoranda;roughly, it divided the room into dormitory and study. The wholechamber was occupied by Edwin's personal goods, great and small, rangedin the most careful order; it was full; in the occupation of a young manwho was not precociously an old maid, it would have been littered. Itwas a complex and yet practical apparatus for daily use, completelyorganised for the production of comfort. Edwin would move about in itwith the loving and assured gestures of a creator; and always he wasimproving its perfection. His bedroom was his passion. Often, during the wilderness of the day, he would think of his bedroomas of a refuge, to which in the evening he should hasten. Ascending thestairs after the meal, his heart would run on in advance of his legs, and be within the room before his hand had opened the door. And then hewould close the door, as upon the whole tedious world, and turn up thegas, and light the stove with an explosive plop, and settle himself. And in the first few minutes of reading he would with distinct, conscious pleasure, allow his attention to circle the room, dwellingupon piled and serried volumes, and delighting in orderliness and inconvenience. And he would reflect: "This is my life. This is what Ishall always live for. This is the best. And why not?" It seemed tohim when he was alone in his bedroom and in the night, that he hadrespectably well solved the problem offered to him by destiny. Heinsisted to himself sharply that he was not made for marriage, that hehad always known marriage to be impossible for him, that what hadhappened was bound to have happened. For a few weeks he had lived in afool's paradise: that was all. .. Fantastic scheme, mad self-deception!In such wise he thought of his love-affair. His profound satisfactionwas that none except his father knew of it, and even his father did notknow how far it had gone. He felt that if the town had been aware ofhis jilting, he could not have borne the humiliation. To himself he hadbeen horribly humiliated; but he had recovered in his own esteem. It was only by very slow processes, by insensible degrees, that he hadarrived at the stage of being able to say to his mirror, "I've got overthat!" And who could judge better than he? He could trace no mark ofthe episode in his face. Save for the detail of a moustache, it seemedto him that he had looked on precisely the same unchangeable face for adozen years. Strange, that suffering had left no sign! Strange, that, in the months just after Hilda's marriage, no acquaintance had taken himon one side and said, "What is the tragedy I can read on your features?" And indeed the truth was that no one suspected. The vision of his facewould remain with people long after he had passed them in the street, orspoken to them in the shop. The charm of his sadness persisted in theirmemory. But they would easily explain it to themselves by saying thathis face had a naturally melancholy cast--a sort of accident that hadhappened to him in the beginning! He had a considerable reputation, ofwhich he was imperfectly aware, for secretiveness, timidity, gentleness, and intellectual superiority. Sundry young women thought of himwistfully when smiling upon quite other young men, and would even kisshim while kissing them, according to the notorious perversity of love. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He was reading Swift's "Tale of a Tub" eagerly, tasting with a palateconsciously fastidious and yet catholic, the fine savour of amasterpiece. By his secret enthusiasm, which would escape from him atrare intervals in a word to a friend, he was continuing the reputationof the "Tale of a Tub" from one century towards the next. A classicremains a classic only because a few hundred Edwins up and down Englandenjoy it so heartily that their pleasure becomes religious. Edwin, according to his programme, had no right to be amusing himself withSwift at that hour. The portly Hallam, whom he found tedious, ought tohave been in his hands. But Swift had caught him and would not let himgo. Herein was one of the consequences of the pocketableness ofCassell's new series. Edwin had been obliged to agree with Tom Orgreave(now a married man) that the books were not volumes for a collector; butthey were so cheap, and they came from the press so often--once a week, and they could be carried so comfortably over the heart, that he couldnot resist most of them. His professed idea was that by their aid hecould read smaller works in odd moments, at any time, thus surpassinghis programme. He had not foreseen that Swift would make a breach inhis programme, which was already in a bad way. But he went on reading tranquilly, despite the damage to it; for in theimmediate future shone the hope of the new life, when programmes wouldnever be neglected. In less than a month he would be thirty years ofage. At twenty, it had seemed a great age, an age of absolute maturity. Now, he felt as young and as boyish as ever, especially before hisfather, and he perceived that his vague early notion about the finalityof such an age as thirty had been infantile. Nevertheless, the entryinto another decade presented itself to him as solemn, and he meant tosignalise it by new and mightier resolutions to execute vasterprogrammes. He was intermittently engaged, during these weeks, in thedelicious, the enchanting business of constructing the ideal programmeand scheming the spare hours to ensure its achievement. He lived in adream and illusion of ultimate perfection. Several times, despite the spell of Swift, he glanced at his watch. Thehand went from nine to ten minutes past ten. And then he thought heheard the sound for which he had been listening. He jumped up, abandoned the book with its marker, opened the window wide, and liftingthe blind by its rod, put his head out. Yes, he could hear the yellingafar off, over the hill, softened by distance into something gentle andattractive. "`Signal!' `Signal!' Special edition! `Signal!'" And then wordsincomprehensible. It came nearer in the night. He drew down the window, and left the room. The mere distant sound ofthe newsboys' voices had roused him to a pleasing excitement. Hefumbled in his pockets. He had neither a halfpenny nor a penny--it wasjust like him--and those newsboys with their valuable tidings would notcare to halt and weigh out change with a balance. "Got a halfpenny? Quick!" he cried, running into the kitchen, whereMaggie and Mrs Nixon were engaged in some calm and endless domesticoccupation amid linen that hung down whitely. "What for?" Maggie mechanically asked, feeling the while under herapron. "Paper, " he said. "At this time of night? You'll never get one at this time of night!"she said, in her simplicity. "Come on!" He stamped his foot with impatience. It was absolutely astonishing, theignorance in which Maggie lived, and lived efficiently and in content. Edwin filled the house with newspapers, and she never looked at them, never had the idea of looking at them, unless occasionally at the`Signal' for an account of a wedding or a bazaar. In which case shewould glance at the world for an instant with mild naivete, shocked bythe horrible things that were apparently going on there, and in fiveminutes would forget all about it again. Here the whole of England, Ireland, and Scotland was at its front doors that night waiting fornewsboys, and to her the night was like any other night! Yet she readmany books. "Here's a penny, " she said. "Don't forget to give it me back. " He ran out bareheaded. At the corner of the street somebody else wasexpectant. He could distinguish all the words now-- "`Signal!' Special edition! Mester Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. Fullreport. Gladstone's speech. Special!" The dark running figures approached, stopping at frequent gates, andtheir hoarse voices split the night. The next moment they had gone by, in a flying column, and Edwin and the other man found themselves withfluttering paper in their hands, they knew not how! It was the mostunceremonious snatch-and-thrust transaction that could be imagined. Bleakridge was silent again, and its gates closed, and the shouts weredescending violently into Bursley. "Where's father?" Maggie called out when she heard Edwin in the hall. "Hasn't he come in yet?" Edwin replied negligently, as he mounted thestairs with his desire. In his room he settled himself once more under the gas, and opened theflimsy newspaper with joy. Yes, there it was--columns, columns, insmall type! An hour or two previously Gladstone had been speaking inParliament, and by magic the whole of his speech, with all the littleconvolutions of his intricate sentences, had got into Edwin's bedroom. Edwin began to read, as it were voluptuously. Not that he had apeculiar interest in Irish politics! What he had was a passion forgreat news, for news long expected. He could thrill responsively to afine event. I say that his pleasure had the voluptuousness of anartistic sensation. Moreover, the attraction of politics in general was increasing for him. Politics occupied his mind, often obsessing it. And this was so inspite of the fact that he had done almost nothing in the last election, and that the pillars of the Liberal Club were beginning to suspect himof being a weakling who might follow his father into the wildernessbetween two frontiers. As he read the speech, slowly disengaging its significance from thethicket of words, it seemed incredible. A parliament in Dublin! TheIrish taxing themselves according to their own caprices! The Irishcontrolling the Royal Irish Constabulary! The Irish members withdrawnfrom Westminster! A separate nation! Surely Gladstone could not meanit! The project had the same air of unreality as that of his marriagewith Hilda. It did not convince. It was too good to be true. It couldnot materialise itself. And yet, as his glance, flitting from left toright and right to left, eagerly, reached the bottom of one column andjumped with a crinkling of paper to the top of the next, and then to thenext after that, the sense of unreality did depart. He agreed with theprinciples of the Bill, and with all its details. Whatever Gladstonehad proposed would have received his sympathy. He was persuaded inadvance; he concurred in advance. All he lacked was faith. And thosesentences, helped by his image of the aged legislator dominating theHouse, and by the wondrous legend of the orator's divine power--thoselong stretching, majestic, misty sentences gave him faith. Henceforwardhe was an ardent Home Ruler. Reason might or might not have enteredinto the affair had the circumstances of it been other; but in factreason did not. Faith alone sufficed. For ever afterwards argumentabout Home Rule was merely tedious to him, and he had difficulty increditing that opponents of it were neither stupid nor insincere. HomeRule was part of his religion, beyond and above argument. He wondered what they were saying at the Liberal Club, and smileddisdainfully at the thought of the unseemly language that would animatethe luxurious heaviness of the Conservative Club, where prominentpublicans gathered after eleven o'clock to uphold the State and arrangea few bets with sporting clients. He admitted, as the supremeimportance of the night leaped out at him from the printed page, that, if only for form's sake, he ought to have been at the Liberal Club thatevening. He had been requested to go, but had refused, because onTuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he always spent the evening in studyor in the semblance of study. He would not break that rule even inhonour of the culmination of the dazzling career of his political idol. Perhaps another proof of the justice of Maggie's assertion that he was aregular old maid! He knew what his father would say. His father would be furious. Hisfather in his uncontrolled fury would destroy Gladstone. And such washis father's empire over him that he was almost ready on Gladstone'sbehalf to adopt an apologetic and slightly shamed attitude to his fatherconcerning this madness of Home Rule--to admit by his self-consciousblushes that it was madness. He well knew that at breakfast the nextmorning, in spite of any effort to the contrary, he would have a guiltyair when his father began to storm. The conception of a separateparliament in Dublin, and of separate taxation, could not stand beforehis father's anger. .. Beneath his window, in the garden, he suddenly heard a faint sound as ofsomebody in distress. "What the deuce--!" he exclaimed. "If that isn't the old man I'm--"Startled, he looked at his watch. It was after midnight. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. As he opened the garden door, he saw, in the porch where had passed hisfirst secret interview with Hilda, the figure of his father as it wereawkwardly rising from the step. The gas had not been turned out in thehall, and it gave a feeble but sufficient illumination to the porch andthe nearest parts of the garden. Darius stood silent and apparentlyirresolute, with a mournful and even despairing face. He wore his bestblack suit, and a new silk hat and new black gloves, and in one hand hecarried a copy of "The Signal" that was very crumpled. He ignoredEdwin. "Hello, father!" said Edwin persuasively. "Anything wrong?" The heavy figure moved itself into the house without a word, and Edwinshut and bolted the door. "Funeral go off all right?" Edwin inquired with as much nonchalance ashe could. (The thought crossed his mind: "I suppose he hasn't beenhaving a drop too much, for once in a way? Why did he come round intothe garden?") Darius loosed a really terrible sigh. "Yes, " he answered, expressingwith a single word the most profound melancholy. Four days previously Edwin and Maggie had seen their father considerablyagitated by an item of gossip, casually received, to which it seemed tothem he attached an excessive importance. Namely, that old Shushions, having been found straying and destitute by the authorities appointed todeal with such matters, had been taken to the workhouse and was dyingthere. Darius had heard the news as though it had been a messagebrought on horseback in a melodrama. "The Bastille!" he exclaimed, in awhisper, and had left the house on the instant. Edwin, while the nameof Shushions reminded him of moments when he had most intensely lived, was disposed to regard the case of Mr Shushions philosophically. Ofcourse it was a pity that Mr Shushions should be in the workhouse; butafter all, from what Edwin remembered and could surmise, the workhousewould be very much the same as any other house to that senile mentality. Thus Edwin had sagely argued, and Maggie had agreed with him. But tothem the workhouse was absolutely nothing but a name. They were no moreafraid of the workhouse than of the Russian secret police; and of theirfather's early history they knew naught. Mr Shushions had died in the workhouse, and Darius had taken his bodyout of the workhouse, and had organised for it a funeral which was to berendered impressive by a procession of Turnhill Sunday school teachers. Edwin's activity in connexion with the funeral had been limited to thefuneral cards, in the preparation of which his father had shown anirritability more than usually offensive. And now the funeral was over. Darius had devoted to it the whole of Home Rule Tuesday, and hadreturned to his house at a singular hour and in a singular condition. And Edwin, loathing sentimentality and full of the wisdom of nearlythirty years, sedately pitied his father for looking ridiculous andgrotesque. He knew for a fact that his father did not see Mr Shushionsfrom one year's end to the next: hence they could not have been intimatefriends, or even friends: hence his father's emotion was throughoutexaggerated and sentimental. His acquaintance with history and withbiography told him that tyrants often carried sentimentality to theabsurd, and he was rather pleased with himself for being able thus tocorrelate the general past and the particular present. What he did notsuspect was the existence of circumstances which made the death of MrShushions in the workhouse the most distressing tragedy that could byany possibility have happened to Darius Clayhanger. "Shall I put the gas out, or will you?" he asked, with kindly secretsuperiority, unaware, with all his omniscience, that the being in frontof him was not a successful steam-printer and tyrannical father, but atiny ragged boy who could still taste the Bastille skilly and still seehis mother weeping round the knees of a powerful god named Shushions. "I--I don't know, " said Darius, with another sigh. The next instant he sat down heavily on the stairs and began openly toblubber. His hat fell off and rolled about undecidedly. "By Jove!" said Edwin to himself, "I shall have to treat this man like ablooming child!" He was rather startled, and interested. He picked upthe hat. "Better not sit there, " he advised. "Come into the dining-room a bit. " "What?" Darius asked feebly. "Is he deaf?" Edwin thought, and half shouted: "Better not sit there. It's chilly. Come into the dining-room a bit. Come on. " Darius held out a hand, with a gesture inexpressibly sad; and Edwin, almost before he realised what he was doing, took it and assisted hisfather to his feet and helped him to the twilit dining-room, whereDarius fell into a chair. Some bread and cheese had been laid for himon a napkin, and there was a gleam of red in the grate. Edwin turned upthe gas, and Darius blinked. His coarse cheeks were all wet. "Better have your overcoat off, hadn't you?" Darius shook his head. "Well, will you eat something?" Darius shook his head again; then hid his face and violently sobbed. Edwin was not equal to this situation. It alarmed him, and yet he didnot see why it should alarm him. He left the room very quietly, wentupstairs, and knocked at Maggie's door. He had to knock several times. "Who's there?" "I say, Mag!" "What is it?" "Open the door, " he said. "You can come in. " He opened the door, and within the darkness of the room he could vaguelydistinguish a white bed. "Father's come. He's in a funny state. " "How?" "Well, he's crying all over the place, and he won't eat, or doanything!" "All right, " said Maggie--and a figure sat up in the bed. "Perhaps I'dbetter come down. " She descended immediately in an ulster and loose slippers. Edwin waitedfor her in the hall. "Now, father, " she said brusquely, entering the dining-room, "what'samiss?" Darius gazed at her stupidly. "Nothing, " he muttered. "You're very late, I think. When did you have your last meal?" He shook his head. "Shall I make you some nice hot tea?" He nodded. "Very well, " she said comfortingly. Soon with her hair hanging about her face and hiding it, she was bendingover the gleam of fire, and insinuating a small saucepan into the middleof it, and encouraging the gleam with a pair of bellows. MeanwhileEdwin uneasily ranged the room, and Darius sat motionless. "Seen Gladstone's speech, I suppose?" Edwin said, daring a fearfultopic in the extraordinary circumstances. Darius paid no heed. Edwin and Maggie exchanged a glance. Maggie madethe tea direct into a large cup, which she had previously warmed byputting it upside down on the saucepan lid. When it was infused andsweetened, she tasted it, as for a baby, and blew on it, and gave thecup to her father, who, by degrees, emptied it, though not exclusivelyinto his mouth. "Will you eat something now?" she suggested. He would not. "Very well, then, Edwin will help you upstairs. " From her manner Darius might have been a helpless and half-daft invalidfor years. The ascent to bed was processional; Maggie hovered behind. But at thedining-room door Darius, giving no explanation, insisted on turningback: apparently he tried to speak but could not. He had forgotten his"Signal. " Snatching at it, he held it like a treasure. All three ofthem went into the father's bedroom. Maggie turned up the gas. Dariussat on the bed, looking dully at the carpet. "Better see him into bed, " Maggie murmured quickly to Edwin, and Edwinnodded--the nod of capability--as who should say, "Leave all that tome!" But in fact he was exceedingly diffident about seeing his fatherinto bed. Maggie departed. "Now then, " Edwin began the business. "Let's get that overcoat off, eh?" To his surprise Darius was most pliant. When the great clumsyfigure, with its wet cheeks, stood in trousers, shirt, and socks, Edwinsaid, "You're all right now, aren't you?" And the figure nodded. "Well, good-night. " Edwin came out on to the landing, shut the door, and walked about alittle in his own room. Then he went back to his father's room. Maggie's door was closed. Darius was already in bed, but the gas wasblazing at full. "You've forgotten the gas, " he said lightly and pleasantly, and turnedit down to a blue point. "I say, lad, " the old man stopped him, as he was finally leaving. "Yes?" "What about that Home Rule?" The voice was weak, infantile. Edwin hesitated. The "Signal" made apatch of white on the ottoman. "Oh!" he answered soothingly, and yet with condescension, "it's muchabout what everybody expected. Better leave that till to-morrow. " He shut the door. The landing received light through the open door ofhis bedroom and from the hall below. He went downstairs, bolted thefront door, and extinguished the hall gas. Then he came softly up, andlistened at his father's door. Not a sound! He entered his own roomand began to undress, and then, half clothed, crept back to his father'sdoor. Now he could hear a heavy, irregular snoring. "Devilish odd, all this!" he reflected, as he got into bed. Assuredlyhe had disconcerting thoughts, not all unpleasant. His excitement hadeven an agreeable, zestful quality. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWO. THE CONCLAVE. The next morning Edwin overslept himself. He seldom rose easily fromhis bed, and his first passage down Trafalgar Road to business wasnotoriously hurried; the whole thoroughfare was acquainted with itsspecial character. Often his father arrived at the shop before him, butEdwin's conscience would say that of course if Darius went down earlyfor his own passion and pleasure, that was Darius's affair. Edwin'sofficial time for beginning work was half-past eight. And at half-pasteight, on this morning, he was barely out of the bath. His lateness, however, did not disturb him; there was an excuse for it. He hoped thathis father would be in bed, and decided that he must go and see, and, ifthe old man was still sufficiently pliant, advise him to stay where hewas until he had had some food. But, looking out of the window over a half-buttoned collar, he saw hisfather dressed and in the garden. Darius had resumed the suit ofbroadcloth, for some strange reason, and was dragging his feet withpainful, heavy slowness along the gravel at the south end of the garden. He carried in his left hand the "Signal, " crumpled. A cloth cap, surmounting the ceremonious suit, gave to his head a ridiculousappearance. He was gazing at the earth with an expression of absorbedand acute melancholy. When he reached the end of the path, he lookedround, at a loss, then turned, as if on an inefficient pivot, and sethimself in motion again. Edwin was troubled by this singular episode. And yet his reason argued with his instinct to the effect that he oughtnot to be troubled. Evidently the sturdy Darius was not ill. Nothingserious could be the matter. He had been harrowed and fatigued by thefuneral; no more. In another day, doubtless, he would be again theharsh employer astoundingly concentrated in affairs and impervious tothe emotional appeal of aught else. Nevertheless he made a strangesight, parading his excessive sadness there in the garden. A knock at Edwin's door! He was startled. "Hold on!" he cried, went tothe door, and cautiously opened it. Maggie was on the mat. "Here's Auntie Clara!" she said in a whisper, perturbed. "She's comeabout father. Shall you be long?" "About father? What about father?" "It seems she saw him last night. He called there. And she wasanxious. " "Oh! I see!" Edwin affected to be relieved. Maggie nodded, alsoaffecting, somewhat eagerly, to be relieved. But neither of them wasrelieved. Auntie Clara calling at half-past eight! Auntie Claraneglecting that which she never neglected--the unalterable and divinelyappointed rites for the daily cleansing and ordering of her abode! "I shall be down in ten secs, " said he. "Father's in the garden, " headded, almost kindly. "Seems all right. " "Yes, " said Maggie, with cheerfulness, and went. He closed the door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Mrs Hamps was in the drawing-room. She had gone into the drawing-roombecause it was more secret, better suited to conversation of anexquisite privacy than the dining-room--a public resort at that hour. Edwin perceived at once that she was savouring intensely the strangenessof the occasion, inflating its import and its importance to the largestpossible. "Good morning, dear, " she greeted him in a low and significant tone. "Ifelt I must come up at once. I couldn't fancy any breakfast till I'dbeen up, so I put on my bonnet and mantle and just came. It's no usefighting against what you feel you must do. " "But--" "Hasn't Maggie told you? Your father called to see me last night justafter I'd gone upstairs. In fact I'd begun to get ready for bed. Iheard the knocking and I came down and lit the gas in the lobby. `Who'sthere?' I said. There wasn't any answer, but I made sure I heard someone crying. And when I opened the door, there was your father. `Oh!'he said. `Happen you've gone to bed, Clara?' `No, ' I said. `Come in, do!' But he wouldn't. And he looked so queer. I never saw him looklike that before. He's such a strong self-controlled man. I knew he'dbeen to poor Mr Shushions's funeral. `I suppose you've been to thefuneral, Darius, ' I said. And as soon as I said that he burst outcrying, and half tumbled down the steps, and off he went! I couldn't goafter him, as I was. I didn't know what to do. If anything happened toyour father, I don't know what I should do. " "What time was that?" Edwin asked, wondering what on earth shemeant--"if anything happened to your father!" "Half-past ten or hardly. What time did he come home? Very, very late, wasn't it?" "A little after twelve, " he said carelessly. He was sorry that he hadinquired as to the hour of the visit to his aunt. Obviously she wasready to build vast and terrible conjectures upon the mysteriousinterval between half-past ten and midnight. "You've cut yourself, my dear, " she said, indicating with her glovedhand Edwin's chin. "And I'm not surprised. How upsetting it is foryou! Of course Maggie's the eldest, and we think a great deal of her, but you're the son--the only son!" "I know, " he said, meaning that he knew he had cut himself, and hepressed his handkerchief to his chin. Within, he was blasphemouslyfuming. The sentimental accent with which she had finally murmured `theonly son' irritated him extremely, What in the name of God was shedriving at? The fact was that, enjoying a domestic crisis with positivesensuality, she was trying to manufacture one! That was it! He knewher. There were times when he could share all Maggie's hatred of MrsHamps, and this was one of those times. The infernal woman, with hershaking plumes and her odour of black kid, was enjoying herself! In thethousandth part of a second he invented horrible and grotesquepunishments for her, as that all the clothes should suddenly fall offthat prim, widowed, odious modesty. Yet, amid the multitude of hissensations--the smarting of his chin, the tingling of all his body afterthe bath, the fresh vivacity of the morning, the increased consciousnessof his own ego, due to insufficient sleep, the queerness of being in thedrawing-room at such an hour in conspiratorial talk, the vague disquietcaused at midnight, and now intensified despite his angry efforts toavoid the contagion of Mrs Hamps's mood, and above all the thought ofhis father gloomily wandering in the garden--amid these confusingsensations, it was precisely an idea communicated to him by his annoyingaunt, an obvious idea, an idea not worth uttering, that emerged clearand dramatic: he was the only son. "There's no need to worry, " he said as firmly as he could "The funeralgot on his nerves, that's all. He certainly did seem a bit knockedabout last night, and I shouldn't have been surprised if he'd stayed inbed to-day. But you see he's up and about. " Both of them glanced atthe window, which gave on the garden. "Yes, " murmured Mrs Hamps, unconvinced. "But what about his crying?Maggie tells me he was--" "Oh!" Edwin interrupted her almost roughly. "That's nothing. I'veknown him cry before. " "Have you?" She seemed taken aback. "Yes. Years ago. That's nothing fresh. " "It's true he's very sensitive, " Mrs Hamps reflected. "That's what wedon't realise, maybe, sometimes. Of course if you think he's allright--" She approached the window, and, leaning over the tripod which held aflower-pot enveloped in pink paper, she drew the white curtain aside, and gazed forth in silence. Darius was still pacing up and down theshort path at the extremity of the garden; his eyes were still on theground, and his features expressive of mournful despair, and at the endof the path he still turned his body round with slow and tedioushesitations. Edwin also could see him through the window. They bothwatched him; it was as if they were spying on him. Maggie entered, and said, in an unusual flutter-- "Here's Clara and Albert!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Clara and her husband came immediately into the drawing-room. The wife, dressed with a certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her armsher third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the earlyautumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite theasperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gesturesand the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow worethe rough, clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer whois away from the works for half an hour. Both of them were electricallycharged with importance. Amid the general self-consciousness Maggie took the baby, and Clara andMrs Hamps kissed each other tenderly, as though saying, "Affliction isupon us. " It was impossible, in the circumstances, to proceed to minuteinquiry about the health of the children, but Mrs Hamps expressed allher solicitude in a look, a tone, a lingering of lip on lip. The yearswere drawing together Mrs Hamps and her namesake. Edwin was oftenastonished at the increasing resemblance of Clara to her aunt, withwhom, thanks to the unconscious intermediacy of babies, she was evenindeed quite intimate. The two would discuss with indefatigable gustoall the most minute physical details of motherhood and infancy: andAuntie Clara's presents were worthy of her reputation. As soon as the kiss was accomplished--no other greeting of any kindoccurred--Clara turned sharply to Edwin-- "What's this about father?" "Oh! He's had a bit of a shock. He's pretty much all right to-day. " "Because Albert's just heard--" She looked at Albert. Edwin was thunderstruck. Was the tale of his father's indispositionspread all over the Five Towns? He had thought that the arrival ofClara and her husband must be due to Auntie Hamps having called at theirhouse on her way up to Bleakridge. But now he could see, even from hisauntie's affrighted demeanour alone, that the Benbows' visit was anindependent affair. "Are you sure he's all right?" Albert questioned, in his superiorlysagacious manner, which mingled honest bullying with a littlegood-nature. "Because Albert just heard--" Clara put in again. The company then heard what Albert had just heard. At his works beforebreakfast an old hollow-ware-presser, who lived at Turnhill, hadcasually mentioned that his father-in-law, Mr Clayhanger, had beencutting a very peculiar figure on the previous evening at Turnhill. Thehollow-ware-presser had seen nothing personally; he had only been told. He could not or would not particularise. Apparently he possessed in ahigh degree the local talent for rousing an apprehension by the offer offood, and then under ingenious pretexts refusing the food. At any rate, Albert had been startled, and had communicated his alarm to Clara. Clara had meant to come up a little later in the morning, but she wantedAlbert to come with her, and Albert, being exceedingly busy, had onlythe breakfast half-hour of liberty. Hence they had set out instantly, although the baby required sustenance; Albert having suggested thatClara could feed the baby just as well at her father's as at home. Before the Benbow story was quite finished it became entangled with thestory of Mrs Hamps, and then with Edwin's story. They were allspeaking at once, except Maggie, who was trying to soothe the baby. Holding forth her arms, Clara, without ceasing to talk rapidly andanxiously to Mrs Hamps, without even regarding what she did, took theinfant from her sister, held it with one hand, and with the other loosedher tight bodice, and boldly exposed to the greedy mouth the magnificentsource of life. As the infant gurgled itself into silence, she glancedwith a fleeting ecstatic smile at Maggie, who smiled back. It wasstrange how Maggie, now midway between thirty and forty, a tall, large-boned, plump, mature woman, efficient, kindly, and full of commonsense--it was strange how she always failed to assert herself. Shelistened now, not seeking notice and assuredly not receiving it. Edwin felt again the implication, first rendered by his aunt, and nowemphasised by Clara and Albert, that the responsibility of the situationwas upon him, and that everybody would look to him to discharge it. Hewas expected to act, somehow, on his own initiative, and to dosomething. "But what is there to do?" he exclaimed, in answer to a question. "Well, hadn't he better see a doctor?" Clara asked, as if sayingironically, "Hasn't it occurred to you even yet that a doctor ought tobe fetched?" Edwin protested with a movement of impatience-- "What on earth for? He's walking about all right. " They had all been surreptitiously watching Darius from behind thecurtains. "Doesn't seem to be much the matter with him now! That I must say!"agreed Albert, turning from the window. Edwin perceived that his brother-in-law was ready to execute one ofthose changes of front which lent variety to his positiveness, and headdressed himself particularly to Albert, with the persuasive tone andgesture of a man to another man in a company of women-- "Of course there doesn't! No doubt he was upset last night. But he'sgetting over it. You don't think there's anything in it, do you, Maggie?" "I don't, " said Maggie calmly. These two words had a great effect. "Of course if we're going to listen to every tale that's flying about apotbank, " said Edwin. "You're right there, Teddy!" the brother-in-law heartily concurred. "But Clary thought we'd better--" "Certainly, " said Edwin pacifically, admitting the entire propriety ofthe visit. "Why's he wearing his best clothes?" Clara demanded suddenly. And MrsHamps showed a sympathetic appreciation of the importance of thequestion. "Ask me another!" said Edwin. "But you can't send for a doctor becausea man's wearing his best clothes. " Maggie smiled, scarce perceptibly. Albert gave a guffaw. Clara wasslightly irritated. "Poor little dear!" murmured Mrs Hamps, caressing the baby. "Well, Imust be going, " she sighed. "We shall see how he goes on, " said Edwin, in his role of responsibleperson. "Perhaps it will be as well if you say nothing about us calling, "whispered Mrs Hamps. "We'll just go quietly away. You can give a hintto Mrs Nixon. Much better he shouldn't know. " "Oh! much better!" said Clara. Edwin could not deny this. Yet he hated the chicane. He hated toobserve on the face of the young woman and of the old their instinctiveimpulses towards chicane, and their pleasure in it. The whole doublevisit was subtly offensive to him. Why should they gather like this atthe first hint that his father was not well? A natural affectionateanxiety. .. Yes, of course, that motive could not be denied. Nevertheless, he did not like the tones and the gestures and thewhisperings and oblique glances of their gathering. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In the middle of a final miscellaneous conversation, Albert said-- "We'll better be off. " "Wait a moment, " said Clara, with a nod to indicate the still busyinfant. Then the door opened, very slowly and cautiously, and as they allobserved the movement of the door, they all fell into silence. Dariushimself appeared. Unobserved, he had left the garden and come into thehouse. He stood in the doorway, motionless, astounded, acutelyapprehensive, and with an expression of the most poignant sadness on hisharsh, coarse, pimpled face. He still wore the ridiculous cap and heldthe newspaper. The broadcloth suit was soiled. His eye wandered amonghis family, and it said, terrorised, and yet feebly defiant, "What arethey plotting against me? Why are they all here like this?" Mrs Hamps spoke first-- "Well, father, we just popped in to see how you were after all thatdreadful business yesterday. Of course I quite understand you didn'twant to come in last night. You weren't equal to it. " The guilty crudesweetness of her cajoling voice grated excruciatingly on both Edwin andMaggie. It would not have deceived even a monarch. Darius screwed himself round, and silently went forth again. "Where are you going, father?" asked Clara. He stopped, but his features did not relax. "To the shop, " he muttered. His accents were of the most dreadfulmelancholy. Everybody was profoundly alarmed by his mere tone and look. This wasnot the old Darius. Edwin felt intensely the futility and thehollowness of all those reassurances which he had just been offering. "You haven't had your breakfast, father, " said Maggie quietly. "Please, father! Please don't go like that. You aren't fit, " Claraentreated, and rushed towards him, the baby in her arms, and with onehand took his sleeve. Mrs Hamps followed, adding persuasions. Albertsaid bluffly, "Now, dad! Now, dad!" Edwin and Maggie were silent in the background. Darius gazed at Clara's face, and then his glance fell, and fixed itselfon her breast and on the head of the powerfully sucking infant, and thenit rose to the plumes of Mrs Hamps. His expression of tragic sorrowdid not alter in the slightest degree under the rain of sugaredremonstrances and cajoleries that the two women directed upon him. Andthen, without any warning, he burst into terrible tears, and, staggering, leaned against the wall. He was half carried to the sofa, and sat there, ineffably humiliated. One after another lookedreproachfully at Edwin, who had made light of his father's condition. And Edwin was abashed and frightened. "You or I had better fetch th' doctor, " Albert muttered. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THREE. THE NAME. "He mustn't go near business, " said Mr Alfred Heve, the doctor, comingto Edwin, who was waiting in the drawing-room, after a long examinationof Darius. Mr Heve was not wearing that gentle and refined smile which was soimportant a factor in the treatment of his patients and their families, and which he seemed to have caught from his elder brother, the vicar ofSaint Peter's. He was a youngish man, only a few years older than Edwinhimself, and Edwin's respect for his ability had limits. There were twoother doctors in the town whom Edwin would have preferred, but Mr Hevewas his father's choice, notable in the successful soothing of querulousstomachs, and it was inevitably Mr Heve who had been summoned. He hadarrived with an apprehensive, anxious air. There had been a mostdistinct nervousness in his voice when, in replying to Edwin's question, he had said, "Perhaps I'd better see him quite alone. " Edwin hadsomehow got it into his head that he would be present at the interview. In shutting the dining-room door upon Edwin, Mr Heve had nodded timidlyin a curious way, highly self-conscious. And that dining-room door hadremained shut for half an hour. And now Mr Heve had emerged with thesame embarrassment. "Whether he wants to or not?" Edwin suggested, with a faint smile. "On no account whatever!" said the doctor, not answering the smile, which died. They were standing together near the door. Edwin had his fingers on thehandle. He wondered how he would prevent his father from going tobusiness, if his father should decide to go. "But I don't think he'll be very keen on business, " the doctor added. "You don't?" Mr Heve slowly shook his head. One of Mr Heve's qualities thatslightly annoyed Edwin was his extraordinary discretion. But then Edwinhad always regarded the discreetness of doctors as exaggerated. Whycould not Heve tell him at once fully and candidly what was in his mind?He had surely the right to be told! . .. Curious! And yet far morecurious than Mr Heve's unwillingness to tell, was Edwin's unwillingnessto ask. He could not bring himself to demand bluntly of Heve: "Well, what's the matter with him?" "I suppose it's shock, " Edwin adventured. Mr Heve lifted his chin. "Shock may have had a little to do with it, "he answered doubtfully. "And how long must he be kept off business?" "I'm afraid there's not much chance of him doing any more business, "said Mr Heve. "Really!" Edwin murmured. "Are you sure?" "Quite. " Edwin did not feel the full impact of this prophecy at the moment. Indeed, it appeared to him that he had known since the previous midnightof his father's sudden doom; it appeared to him that the first glimpseof his father after the funeral had informed him of it positively. Whatimpressed him at the moment was the unusual dignity which characterisedMr Heve's embarrassment. He was beginning to respect Mr Heve. "I wouldn't care to give him more than two years, " said Mr Heve, gazingat the carpet, and then lifting his eyes to Edwin's. Edwin flushed. And this time his `Really!' was startled. "Of course you may care to get other advice, " the doctor went on. "Ishall be delighted to meet a specialist. But I tell you at once myopinion. " This with a gesture of candour. "Oh!" said Edwin. "If you're sure--" Strange that the doctor would not give a name to the disease! Moststrange that Edwin even now could not demand the name. "I suppose he's in his right mind?" said Edwin. "Yes, " said the doctor. "He's in his right mind. " But he gave thereply in a tone so peculiar that the affirmative was almost asdisconcerting as a negative would have been. "Just rest he wants?" said Edwin. "Just rest. And looking after. I'll send up some medicine. He'll likeit. " Mr Heve glanced absently at his watch. "I must be going. " "Well--" Edwin opened the door. Then with a sudden movement Mr Heve put out his hand. "You'll come in again soon?" "Oh yes. " In the hall they saw Maggie about to enter the dining-room with asteaming basin. "I'm going to give him this, " she said simply in a low voice. "It's solong to dinner-time. " "By all means, " said Mr Heve, with his little formal bow. "You've finished seeing him then, doctor?" He nodded. "I'll be back soon, " said Edwin to Maggie, taking his hat from the rack. "Tell father if he asks I've run down to the shop. " She nodded and disappeared. "I'll walk down a bit of the way with you, " said Mr Heve. His trap, which was waiting at the corner, followed them down the road. Edwin could not begin to talk. And Mr Heve kept silence. Behind him, Edwin could hear the jingling of metal on Mr Heve's sprightly horse. After a couple of hundred yards the doctor stopped at a house-door. "Well--" He shook hands again, and at last smiled with sad sweetness. "He'll be a bit difficult to manage, you know, " said Edwin. "I don't think so, " said the doctor. "I'll let you know about the specialist. But if you're sure--" The doctor waved a deprecating hand. It might have been the hand of hisbrother, the Vicar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Edwin proceeded towards the town, absorbed in a vision of his fatherseated in the dining-room, inexpressibly melancholy, and Maggie with herwhite apron bending over him to offer some nice soup. It was adesolating vision--and yet he wondered why it should be! Whenever hereasoned he was always inimical to his father. His reason asked harshlywhy he should be desolated, as he undoubtedly was. The prospect offreedom, of release from a horrible and humiliating servitude--thisprospect ought to have dazzled and uplifted him, in the safe, inviolableprivacy of his own heart. But it did not. .. What a chump the doctorwas, to be so uncommunicative! And he himself! . .. By the way, he hadnot told Maggie. It was like her to manifest no immediate curiosity, tobe content to wait. .. He supposed he must call at his aunt's, and evenat Clara's. But what should he say when they asked him why he had notasked the doctor for a name? Suddenly an approaching man whose face was vaguely familiar but withwhom he had no acquaintance whatever, swerved across the footpath andstopped him. "What's amiss with th' old gentleman?" It was astounding how news flewin the town! "He's not very well. Doctor's ordered him a rest. " "Not in bed, is he?" "Oh no!" Edwin lightly scorned the suggestion. "Well, I do hope it's nothing serious. Good morning. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Edwin was detained a long time in the shop by a sub-manager fromBostocks in Hanbridge who was waiting, and who had come about anestimate for a rather considerable order. This man desired a decreaseof the estimate and an increased speed in execution. He was curt. Hewas one business firm offering an ultimatum to another business firm. He asked Edwin whether Edwin could decide at once. Edwin said`Certainly, ' using a tone that he had never used before. He decided. The man departed, and Edwin saw him spring on to the Hanbridge car as itswept down the hill. The man would not have been interested in the newsthat Darius Clayhanger had been to business for the last time. Edwinwas glad of the incident because it had preserved him from embarrassedconversation with Stifford. Two hours earlier he had called for a fewmoments at the shop, and even then, ere Edwin had spoken, Stifford'sface showed that he knew something sinister had occurred. With a fewwords of instruction to Stifford, he now went through towards theworkshops to speak with Big James about the Bostock order. All the workmen and apprentices were self-conscious. And Edwin couldnot speak naturally to Big James. When he had come to an agreement withBig James as to the execution of the order, the latter said-- "Would you step below a minute, Mr Edwin?" Edwin shuffled. But Big James's majestic politeness gave to hisexpressed wish the force of a command. Edwin preceded Big James downthe rough wooden stair to the ground floor, which was still pillaredwith supporting beams. Big James, with deliberate, careful movements, drew the trap-door horizontal as he descended. "Might I ask, sir, if Master's in a bad way?" he inquired, with solemnand delicate calm. But he would have inquired about the weather in thesame fashion. "I'm afraid he is, " said Edwin, glancing nervously about at the litter, and the cobwebs, and the naked wood, and the naked earth. The vibrationof a treadle-machine above them put the place in a throb. Astounding! Everybody knew or guessed everything! How? Big James wagged his head and his grandiose beard, now more grey thanblack, and he fingered his apron. "I believe in herbs myself, " said Big James. "But this here softeningof the brain--well--" That was it! Softening of the brain! What the doctor had not told himhe had learned from Big James. How it happened that Big James was in aposition to tell him he could not comprehend. But he was ready now tobelieve that the whole town had acquired by magic the information whichfate or original stupidity had kept from him alone. .. Softening of thebrain! "Perhaps I'm making too bold, sir, " Big James went on. "Perhaps it'snot so bad as that. But I did hear--" Edwin nodded confirmingly. "You needn't talk about it, " he murmured, indicating the first floor byan upward movement of the head. "That I shall not, sir, " Big James smoothly replied, and proceeded inthe same bland tone: "And what's more, never will I raise my voice insong again! James Yarlett has sung his last song. " There was silence. Edwin, accustomed though he was to the mildness ofBig James's deportment, did not on the instant grasp that the man wasseriously announcing a solemn resolve made under deep emotion. But ashe understood, tears came into Edwin's eyes, and he thrilled at theswift and dramatic revelation of the compositor's feeling for hisemployer. Its impressiveness was overwhelming and it was humbling. Whythis excess of devotion? "I don't say but what he had his faults like other folk, " said BigJames. "And far be it from me to say that you, Mr Edwin, will not be abetter master than your esteemed father. But for over twenty years I'veworked for him, and now he's gone, never will I lift my voice in songagain!" Edwin could not reply. "I know what it is, " said Big James, after a pause. "What what is?" "This ce-re-bral softening. You'll have trouble, Mr Edwin. " "The doctor says not. " "You'll have trouble, if you'll excuse me saying so. But it's a goodthing he's got you. It's a good thing for Miss Maggie as she isn'talone with him. It's a providence, Mr Edwin, as you're not a marriedman. " "I very nearly was married once!" Edwin cried, with a suddenuncontrollable outburst of feeling which staggered while it satisfiedhim. Why should he make such a confidence to Big James? Between hispleasure in the relief, and his extreme astonishment at the confession, he felt as it were lost and desperate, as if he did not care what mightoccur. "Were you now!" Big James commented, with an ever intensifiedblandness. "Well, sir, I thank you. " VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FOUR. THE VICTIM OF SYMPATHY. On the same evening, Edwin, Albert Benbow, and Darius were smokingAlbert's cigarettes in the dining-room. Edwin sat at the end of adisordered supper-table, Albert was standing, hat in hand, near thesideboard, and Darius leaned against the mantelpiece. Nobody could havesupposed from his appearance that a doctor had responsibly prophesiedthis man's death within two years. Except for a shade of sadness uponhis face, he looked the same as he had looked for a decade. Thoughregarded by his children as an old man, he was not old, being in factstill under sixty. His grey hair was sparse; his spectacles were setupon his nose with the negligence characteristic of age; but thedown-pointing moustache, which, abetted by his irregular teeth, gave himthat curious facial resemblance to a seal, showed great force, and thewhole of his stiff and sturdy frame showed force. His voice, if not hismouth, had largely recovered from the weakness of the morning. Moreover, the fashion in which he smoked a cigarette had somehow theeffect of rejuvenating him. It was Albert who had induced him to smokecigarettes occasionally. He was not an habitual smoker, consumingperhaps half an ounce a week of pipe-tobacco: and assuredly he wouldnever of his own accord have tried a cigarette. For Darius cigaretteswere aristocratic and finicking; they were an affectation. He smoked acigarette with the self-consciousness which usually marks theconsumption of champagne in certain strata of society. His gestures, ashe examined from time to time the end of the cigarette, or audibly blewforth spreading clouds, seemed to signify that in his opinion he wasgoing the pace, cutting a dash, and seeing life. This naivete had itscharm. The three men, left alone by their women, were discussing politics, which then meant nothing but the subject of Home Rule. Darius agreedalmost eagerly with everything that Albert Benbow said. Albert was acalm and utterly sound Conservative. He was one of those politicianswhose conviction of rightness is so strong that they cannot helpcondescending towards an opponent. Albert would say persuasively toLiberal acquaintances: "Now just think a moment!" apparently sure thatthe only explanation of their misguided views was that they never hadthought for a moment. Or he would say: "Surely all patrioticLiberals--" But one day when Edwin had said to him with a peculiaraccent: "Surely all patriotic Conservatives--" he had been politelyoffended for the rest of the evening, and Edwin and he had not mentionedpolitics to each other for a long time. Albert had had much influenceover his father-in-law. And now Albert said, after Darius had concurredand concurred-- "You're one of the right sort, after all, old gentleman. " Throughout the evening he had spoken to Darius in an unusually loudvoice, as though it was necessary to shout to a man who had only twoyears to live. "All I say is, " said Darius, "country before party!" "Why, of course!" Albert smiled, confident and superior. "Haven't Ibeen telling you for years you're one of us?" Edwin, too, smiled, as superiorly as he could, but unhappily not withsufficient superiority to wither Albert's smile. He said nothing, partly from timid discretion, but partly because he was preoccupied withthe thought of the malignant and subtle power working secretly in hisfather's brain. How could the doctor tell? What was the process ofsoftening? Did his father know, in that sick brain of his, that he wascondemned; or did he hope to recover? Now, as he leaned against themantelpiece, protruding his body in an easy posture, he might have beenany ordinary man, and not a victim; he might have been a man of businessrelaxing after a long day of hard and successful cerebral activity. It seemed strange to Edwin that Albert could talk as he did to one whomdestiny had set apart, to one whose being was the theatre of a drama somysterious and tragic. Yet it was the proper thing for Albert to do, and Albert did it perfectly, better than anybody, except possiblyMaggie. "Those women take a deuce of a time putting their bonnets on!" Albertexclaimed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The women came downstairs at last. At last, to Edwin's intense relief, every one was going. Albert went into the hall to meet the women. Edwin rose and followed him. And Darius came as far as the door of thedining-room. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since Edwin hadbegun even to suspect any sort of disaster to his father. But theprevious night seemed an age away. The day had been interminable, andthe evening exasperating in the highest degree. What an evening! Whyhad Albert and Clara and Auntie Hamps all of them come up just atsupper-time? At first they would not be persuaded! No! They had justcalled--sheer accident!--nothing abnormal! And yet the whole of thedemeanour of Auntie Hamps and Clara was abnormal. Maggie herself, catching the infection, had transformed the meal into a kind of abnormalhorrible feast by serving cold beef and pickles--flesh-meat beingunknown to the suppers of the Clayhangers save occasionally on Sundays. Edwin could not comprehend why the visitors had come. That is to say, he understood the reason quite well, but hated to admit it. They hadcome from a mere gluttony of curiosity. They knew all that could beknown--but still they must come and gaze and indulge their lamentablehearts, and repeat the same things again and again, ten million times!Auntie Hamps, indeed, probably knew more than Edwin did, for she hadthought fit to summon Dr Heve that very afternoon for an ailment of herown, and Clara, with an infant or so, had by a remarkable coincidencecalled at Mrs Hamps's house just after the doctor left. "Odious, "thought Edwin. These two had openly treated Darius as a martyr, speaking to him in softand pitiful voices, urging him to eat, urging him to drink, caressinghim, soothing him, humouring him; pretending to be brave and cheerfuland optimistic, but with a pretence so poor, so wilfully poor, that itbecame an insult. When they said fulsomely, "You'll be perfectly allright soon if only you'll take care and do as the doctor says, " Edwincould have risen and killed them both with hearty pleasure. They mightjust as well have said, "You're practically in your grave. " Andassuredly they were not without influence on Maggie's deportment. Thecurious thing was that it was impossible to decide whether Dariusloathed, or whether he liked, to be so treated. His face was an enigma. However, he was less gloomy. Then also the evening had necessarily been full of secret conferences. What would you? Each had to relate privately the things that he or sheknew or had heard or had imagined. And there were questions of urgencyto be discussed. For example the question of the specialist. They wereall positively agreed, Edwin found, that a specialist was unnecessary. Darius was condemned beyond hope or argument. There he sat, eating andtalking, in the large, fine house that he had created out of naught, looking not at all like a corpse; but he was condemned. The doctor hadconvinced them. Besides, did not everybody know what softening of thebrain was? "Of course, if he thinks he would prefer to have aspecialist, if he has the slightest wish--" This from Auntie Hamps. There was the question, further, of domestic service. Mrs Nixon'sniece had committed the folly of marriage, and for many months Maggieand the old servant had been `managing;' but with a crotchety invalidalways in the house, more help would be indispensable. And stillfurther--should Darius be taken away for a period to the sea, or Buxton, or somewhere? Maggie said that nothing would make him go, and Claraagreed with her. All these matters, and others, had to be kept awayfrom the central figure; they were all full of passionate interest, andthey had to be debated, in tones hushed but excited, in the hall, in thekitchen, upstairs, or anywhere except in the dining-room. The excusesinvented by the conspiring women for quitting and entering thedining-room, their fatuous air of innocent simplicity, disgusted Edwin. And he became curter and curter, as he noticed the new deference whicheven Clara practised towards him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. The adieux were distressing. Clara, with her pale sharp face andtroubled eyes, clasped Darius round the neck, and almost hung on it. And Edwin thought: "Why doesn't she tell him straight out he's donefor?" Then she retired and sought her husband's arm with the consciouspride of a wife fruitful up to the limits set by nature. And thenAuntie Hamps shook hands with the victim. These two of course did notkiss. Auntie Hamps bore herself bravely. "Now do do as the doctoradvises!" she said, patting Darius on the shoulder. "And do be guidedby these dear children!" Edwin caught Maggie's eye, and held it grimly. "And you, my pet, " said Auntie Hamps, turning to Clara, who with Albertwas now at the door. "You must be getting back to your babies! It's awonder how you manage to get away! But you're a wonderful arranger! . .. Only don't overdo it. Don't overdo it!" Clara gave a fatigued smile, as of one whom circumstances often forcedto overdo it. They departed, Albert whistling to the night. Edwin observed again, intheir final glances, the queer, new, ingratiating deference for himself. He bolted the door savagely. Darius was still standing at the entrance to the dining-room. And as helooked at him Edwin thought of Big James's vow never to lift his voicein song again. Strange! It was the idea of the secret strangeness oflife that was uppermost in his mind: not grief, not expectancy. In theafternoon he had been talking again to Big James, who, it appeared, hadknown intimately a case of softening of the brain. He did not identifythe case--it was characteristic of him to name no names--but clearly hewas familiar with the course of the disease. He had begun revelations which disconcerted Edwin, and had then stopped. And now as Edwin furtively examined his father, he asked himself: "Willthat happen to him, and that, and those still worse things that BigJames did not reveal?" Incredible! There he was, smoking a cigarette, and the clock striking ten in its daily, matter-of-fact way. Darius let fall the cigarette, which Edwin picked up from the mat, andoffered to him. "Throw it away, " said Darius, with a deep sigh. "Going to bed?" Edwin asked. Darius shook his head, and Edwin debated what he should do. A momentlater, Maggie came from the kitchen and asked-- "Going to bed, father?" Again Darius shook his head. He then went slowly into the drawing-roomand lit the gas there. "What shall you do? Leave him?" Maggie whispered to Edwin in thedining-room, as she helped Mrs Nixon to clear the table. "I don't know, " said Edwin. "I shall see. " In ten minutes both Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to bed. Edwinhesitated in the dining-room. Then he extinguished the gas there, andwent into the drawing-room. Darius, not having lowered the blinds, wasgazing out of the black window. "You needn't wait down here for me, " said he, a little sharply. And histone was so sane, controlled, firm, and ordinary that Edwin could donothing but submit to it. "I'm not going to, " he answered quietly. Impossible to treat a man of such demeanour like a child. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIVE. THE SLAVE'S FEAR. Edwin closed the door of his bedroom with a sense of relief and ofpleasure far greater than he would have admitted; or indeed couldhonestly have admitted, for it surpassed his consciousness. The feelingrecurred that he was separated from the previous evening by a tremendousexpanse of time. He had been flung out of his daily habits. He hadforgotten to worry over the execution of his private programmes. He hadforgotten even that the solemn thirtieth birthday was close upon him. It seemed to him as if his own egoism was lying about in scatteredpieces, which he must collect in the calm of this cloister, andreconstruct. He wanted to resume possession of himself, very slowly, without violent effort. He wound up his watch; the hour was not yethalf-past ten. The whole exquisite night was his. He had brought with him from the shop, almost mechanically, a copy of"Harper's Magazine, " not the copy which regularly once a month he keptfrom a customer during the space of twenty-four hours for his own uses, but a second copy which had been sent down by the wholesale agents inmistake, and which he could return when he chose. He had already seenthe number, but he could not miss the chance of carefully going throughit at leisure. Despite his genuine aspirations, despite his taste whichwas growing more and more fastidious, he found it exceedingly difficultto proceed with his regular plan of reading while there was anillustrated magazine unexplored. Besides, the name of "Harper's" wasaugust. To read "Harper's" was to acquire merit; even the pictures in"Harper's" were too subtle for the uncultivated. He turned over the pages, and they all appeared to promise new andstrange joys. Such preliminary moments were the most ecstatic in hislife, as in the lives of many readers. He had not lost sight of thesituation created by his father's illness, but he could only see it verydimly through the semi-transparent pages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The latch clicked and the door opened slightly. He jumped, supposingthat his father had crept upstairs. And the first thought of the slavein him was that his father had never seen the gas-stove and would nowinfallibly notice it. But Maggie's face showed. She came in veryquietly--she too had caught the conspiratorial manner. "I thought you wouldn't be ready for bed just yet, " she said, in mildexcuse of her entry. "I didn't knock, for fear he might be wanderingabout and hear. " "Oh!" muttered Edwin. "What's up?" Instinctively he resented theinvasion, and was alarmed for the privacy of his sacred room, althoughhe knew that Maggie, and Mrs Nixon also, had it at their mercy everyday. Nobody ever came into that room while he was in it. Maggie approached the hearth. "I think I ought to have a stove too, " she said pleasantly. "Well, why don't you?" he replied. "I can get it for you any time. " IfClara had envied his stove, she would have envied it with scoffingrancour, and he would have used sarcasm in response. "Oh no!" said Maggie quickly. "I don't really want one. " "What's up?" he repeated. He could see she was hesitating. "Do you know what Clara and auntie are saying?" "No! What now? I should have thought they'd both said enough to lastthem for a few days at any rate. " "Did Albert say anything to you?" "What about?" "Well--both Clara and auntie said I must tell you. Albert says he oughtto make his will--they all think so. " Edwin's lips curled. "How do they know he hasn't made it?" "Has he made it?" "How do I know? You don't suppose he ever talks to me about hisaffairs, do you? Not much!" "Well--they meant he ought to be asked. " "Well, let 'em ask him, then. I shan't. " "Of course what they say is--you're the--" "What do I care for that?" he interrupted her. "So that's what you wereyarning so long about in your room!" "I can tell you, " said Maggie, "they're both of them very serious aboutit. So's Albert, it seems. " "They disgust me, " he said briefly. "Here the thing isn't a day old, and they begin worrying about his will! They go slobbering all over himdownstairs, and upstairs it's nothing but his will they think about. .. You can't rush at a man and talk to him about his will like that. Atleast, I can't--it's altogether too thick! I expect some people could. But I can't. Damn it, you must have some sense of decency!" Maggie remained calm and benevolent. After a pause she said-- "You see--their point is that later on he mayn't be able to make awill. " "Look here, " he questioned amicably, meeting her eyes, "what do youthink? What do you think yourself?" "Oh!" she said, "I should never dream of bothering about it. I'm onlytelling you what--" "Of course you wouldn't!" he exclaimed. "No decent person would. Lateron, perhaps, if one could put in a word casually! But not now! . .. Ifhe doesn't make a will he doesn't make one--that's all. " Maggie leaned against the mantelpiece. "Mind your skirt doesn't catch fire, " he warned her, in a murmur. "I told them what you'd say, " she answered his outburst, perfectlyunmoved. "I knew what you'd say. But what they say is--it's all verywell for you. You're the son, and it seems that if there isn't a will, if it's left too late--" This aspect of the case had absolutely not presented itself to Edwin. "If they think, " he muttered, with cold acrimony--"if they think I'm thesort of person to take the slightest advantage of being the son--well, they must think it--that's all! Besides, they can always talk to himthemselves--if they're so desperately anxious. " "You have charge of everything. " "Have I! . .. And I should like to know what it's got to do withauntie!" Maggie lifted her head. "Oh, auntie and Clara, you know--you can'tseparate them. .. Well, I've told you. " She moved to leave. "I say, " he stopped her, with a confidential appeal. "Don't you agreewith me?" "Yes, " she replied simply. "I think it ought to be left for a bit. Perhaps he's made it, after all. Let's hope so. I'm sure it will savea lot of trouble if he has. " "Naturally it ought to be left for a bit! Why--just look at him! . .. He might be on his blooming dying bed, to hear the way some people talk!Let 'em mention it to me, and I'll tell 'em a thing or two!" Maggie raised her eyebrows. She scarcely recognised Edwin. "I suppose he'll be all right, downstairs?" "Right? Of course he'll be all right!" Then he added, in a tone lesspugnacious--for, after all, it was not Maggie who had outraged hisdelicacy, "Don't latch the door. Pull it to. I'll listen out. " She went silently away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Searching with his body for the most comfortable deeps of theeasy-chair, he set himself to savour "Harper's. " This monthlyreassurance that nearly all was well with the world, and that what waswrong was not seriously wrong, waited on his knees to be accepted and todo its office. Unlike the magazines of his youth, its aim was to sootheand flatter, not to disconcert and impeach. He looked at the refinedillustrations of South American capitals and of picturesque corners inProvence, and at the smooth or the rugged portraits of great statesmenand great bridges; all just as true to reality as the brilliantletterpress; and he tried to slip into the rectified and softened worldoffered by the magazine. He did not criticise the presentment. He didnothing so subtle as to ask himself whether if he encountered thereality he would recognise it from the presentment. He wanted theillusions of "Harper's. " He desired the comfort, the distraction, andthe pleasant ideal longings which they aroused. But they were amedicine which he discovered he was not in a condition to absorb, amedicine therefore useless. There was no effective medicine for histrouble. His trouble was that he objected to being disturbed. At first he hadbeen pleasantly excited, but now he shrank away at the call to freedom, to action, to responsibility. All the slave in him protested againstthe knocking off of irons, and the imperative kick into the open air. He saw suddenly that in the calm of regular habit and of subjection, hehad arrived at something that closely resembled happiness. He wishednot to lose it, knowing that it was already gone. Actually, for his ownsake, and quite apart from his father, he would have been ready, were itpossible, to cancel the previous twenty-four hours. Everything wasominous, and he wandering about, lost, amid menaces. .. Why, even hischerished programmes of reading were smashed. .. Hallam! . .. True, to-night was not a night appointed for reading, but to-morrow night was. And would he be able to read to-morrow night? No, a hundred newcomplications would have arisen to harass him and to dispossess him ofhis tranquillity! Destiny was demanding from him a huge effort, unexpected and formidable, and the whole of his being weakly complained, asking to be exempted, butasking without any hope of success; for all his faculties and hisdesires knew that his conscience was ultimately their master. Talk to his father about making a will, eh! Besides being disgusting, it was laughable. Those people did not know his father as he did. Heforesaw that, even in conducting the routine of business, he would havedifficulties with his father over the simplest details. In particularthere was one indispensable preliminary to the old man's completerepose, and his first duty on the morrow would be to endeavour toarrange this preliminary with his father; but he scarcely hoped tosucceed. On the portion of the mantelpiece reserved for books in actual use laythe "Tale of a Tub, " last night so enchanting. And now he hadpositively forgotten it. He yawned, and prepared for bed. If he couldnot read "Harper's, " perhaps he could read Swift. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. He lay in bed. The gas was out, the stove was out, and according to hiscustom he was reading himself to sleep by the light of a candle in asconce attached to the bed's head. His eyes ran along line after lineand down page after page, and transmitted nothing coherent to his brain. Then there were steps on the stair. His father was at last coming tobed. He was a little relieved, though he had been quite prepared to goto sleep and leave his father below. Why not? The steps died at thetop of the stair, but an irregular creaking continued. After a pausethe door was pushed open; and after another pause the figure of hisfather came into view, breathing loudly. "Edwin, are you asleep?" Darius asked anxiously. Edwin wondered whatcould be the matter, but he answered with lightness, "Nearly. " "I've not put th' light out down yon! Happen you'd better put it out. "There was in his father's voice a note of dependence upon him, of appealto him. "Funny!" he thought, and said aloud, "All right. " He jumped up. His father thudded off deliberately to his own room, apparently relieved of a fearful oppression, but still fixed in sadness. On the previous night Edwin had extinguished the hall-gas and come lastto bed; and again to-night. But to-night with what a differentsentiment of genuine, permanent responsibility! The appealingfeebleness of his father's attitude seemed to give him strength. Surelya man so weak and fallen from tyranny could not cause much trouble!Edwin now had some hope that the unavoidable preliminary to theinvalid's retirement might be achieved without too much difficulty. Hebraced himself. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SIX. KEYS AND CHEQUES. Coming up Trafalgar Road at twenty minutes past nine in the bright, astringent morning, Edwin carried by a string a little round parcelwhich for him contained the inspiring symbol of his new life. By mereaccident he had wakened and had risen early, arriving at the shop beforehalf-past seven. He had deliberately lifted on to his shoulders thewhole burden of the shop and the printing business, and as soon as hefelt its weight securely lodged he became extraordinarily animated andvigorous; even gay. He had worked with a most agreeable sense of energyuntil nearly nine o'clock; and then, having first called at theironmonger's, had stepped into the bank at the top of Saint Luke'sSquare a moment after its doors opened, and had five minutes' excitingconversation with the manager. After which, with righteous hunger inhis belly and the symbol in his hand, he had come home to breakfast. The symbol was such as could be obtained at any ironmonger's: an alarmclock. Mrs Nixon had grown less reliable than formerly as an alarmclock; machinery was now supplanting her. Dr Heve came out of the house, and Dr Heve too seemed gay with fineresolutions. The two met on the doorstep, each full of a justifiableself-satisfaction. The doctor explained that he had come thus earlybecause Mr Clayhanger was one of those cases upon which he could lookin casually at any time. In the sunshine they talked under the porch ofearly rising, as men who understood the value of that art. Edwin couldsee that Dr Heve's life was a series of little habits which would neverallow themselves to be interfered with by any large interest, and hedespised the man's womanish smile. Nevertheless his new respect for himdid not weaken; he decided that he was a very decent fellow in his way, and he was more impressed than he would admit by the amount of work thatthe doctor had for years been doing in the morning before hisintellectual superiors had sat up in bed. And he imagined that it mightbe even more agreeable to read in the fresh stillness of the morningthan in the solitary night. Then they returned to the case of Darius. The doctor was morecommunicative, and they were both cheerfully matter-of-fact concerningit. There it was, to be made the best of! And that Darius could neverhandle business again, and that in about two years his doom would beaccomplished--these were basic facts, axiomatic. The doctor had seenhis patient in the garden, and he suggested that if Darius could bepersuaded to interest himself in gardening. .. They discussed hismedicine, his meals, his digestion, and the great, impossible dream of`taking him away, ' `out of it all. ' And every now and then Dr Hevedropped some little hint as to the management of Darius. The ticking parcel drew the discreet attention of the doctor. Themachine was one guaranteed to go in any position, and was much moredifficult to stop than to start. "It's only an alarm, " said Edwin, not without self-consciousness. The doctor went, tripping neatly and optimistically, off towards his ownbreakfast. He got up earlier than his horse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Darius was still in the garden when Edwin went to him. He had put onhis daily suit, and was leisurely digging in an uncultivated patch ofground. He stuck the spade into the earth perpendicularly and deep, andwhen he tried to prise it up and it would not yield because of aconcealed half-brick, he put his tongue between his teeth and then bithis lower lip, controlling himself, determined to get the better of thespade and the brick by persuasively humouring them. He took no noticewhatever of Edwin. "I see you aren't losing any time, " said Edwin, who felt as though hewere engaging in small-talk with a stranger. "Are you?" Darius replied, without turning his head. "I've just come up for a bit of breakfast. Everything's all right, " hesaid. He would have liked to add: "I was in the shop beforeseven-thirty, " but he was too proud. After a pause, he ventured, essaying the casual-- "I say, father, I shall want the keys of the desk, and all that. " "Keys o' th' desk!" Darius muttered, leaning on the spade, as thoughdemanding in stupefaction, "What on earth can you want the keys for?" "Well--" Edwin stammered. But the proposition was too obvious to be denied. Darius left the spadeto stand up by itself, and stared. "Got 'em in your pocket?" Edwin inquired. Slowly Darius drew forth a heavy, glittering bunch of keys, one of thechief insignia of his dominion, and began to fumble at it. "You needn't take any of them off. I expect I know which is which, "said Edwin, holding out his hand. Darius hesitated, and then yielded up the bunch. "Thanks, " said Edwin lightly. But the old man's reluctance to perform this simple and absolutelynecessary act of surrender, the old man's air of having done somethingtremendous--these signs frightened Edwin and shook his courage for thedemand compared to which the demand for the keys was naught. Still, theaffair had to be carried through. "And I say, " he proceeded, jingling the keys, "about signing andendorsing cheques. They tell me at the Bank that if you sign a generalauthority to me to do it for you, that will be enough. " He could not avoid looking guilty. He almost felt guilty, almost feltas if he were plotting against his father's welfare. And as he spokehis words seemed unreal and his suggestion fantastic. At the Bank theplan had been simple, easy, and perfectly natural. But there could beno doubt, that as he had walked up Trafalgar Road, receding from theBank and approaching his father, the plan had gradually lost thoseattractive qualities. And now in the garden it was merely monstrous. Silent, Darius resumed the spade. "Well, " said Edwin desperately. "What about it?" "Do you think"--Darius glowered upon him with heavy, desolatingscorn--"do you think as I'm going to let you sign my cheques for me?You're taking too much on yourself, my lad. " "But--" "I tell ye you're taking too much on yourself!" he began to shoutmenacingly. "Get about your business and don't act the fool! Youneedn't think you're going to be God A'mighty because you've got up abit earlier for once in a way and been down to th' shop beforebreakfast. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. In all his demeanour there was not the least indication of weakness. Hemight never have sat down on the stairs and cried! He might never havesubmitted feebly and perhaps gladly to the caresses of Clara and thesoothings of Auntie Hamps! Impossible to convince him that he was cutoff from the world! Impossible even to believe it! Was this the manthat Edwin and the Bank manager and the doctor and all the others hadbeen disposing of as though he were an automaton accurately responsiveto external suggestion? "Look here, " Edwin knew that he ought to say. "Let it be clearlyunderstood once for all--I'm the boss now! I have the authority in mypocket and you must sign it, and quick too! I shall do my best for you, but I don't mean to be bullied while I'm doing it!" But he could not say it. Nor could his heart emotionally feel it. He turned away sheepishly, and then he faced his father again, with adistressed, apologetic smile. "Well then, " he asked, "who is going to sign cheques?" "I am, " said Darius. "But you know what the doctor said! You know what you promised him!" "What did the doctor say?" "He said you weren't to do anything at all. And you said you wouldn't. What's more, you said you didn't want to. " Darius sneered. "I reckon I can sign cheques, " he said. "And I reckon I can endorsecheques. .. So it's got to that! I can't sign my own name now. I shallshow some of you whether I can't sign my own name!" "You know it isn't simply signing them. You know if I bring cheques upfor you to sign you'll begin worrying about them at once, and--andthere'll be no end to it. You'd much better--" "Shut up!" It was like a clap of thunder. Edwin hesitated an instant and then went towards the house. He couldhear his father muttering "Whipper-snapper!" "And I'll tell you another thing, " Darius bawled across the garden--assuredly his voice would reach the street. "It was like your impudenceto go to the Bank like that without asking me first! `They tell you atthe Bank!' `They tell you at the Bank!' Anything else they told you atthe Bank?" Then a snort. Edwin was humiliated and baffled. He knew not what he could do. Thesituation became impossible immediately it was faced. He felt also veryresentful, and resentment was capturing him, when suddenly an ideaseemed to pull him by the sleeve: "All this is part of his disease. It's part of his disease that he can't see the point of a thing. " Andthe idea was insistent, and under its insistence Edwin's resentmentchanged to melancholy. He said to himself that he must think of hisfather as a child. He blamed himself, in a sort of pleasurable luxuryof remorse, for all the anger which during all his life he had feltagainst his father. His father's unreasonableness had not been a fault, but a misfortune. His father had been not a tyrant, but a victim. Hisbrain must always have been wrong! And now he was doomed, and the worstpart of his doom was that he was unaware of it. And in the thought ofDarius ignorantly blustering within the walled garden, in the springsunshine, condemned, cut off, helpless at the last, pitiable at thelast, there was something inexpressibly poignant. And the sunshineseemed a shame; and Edwin's youth and mental vigour seemed a shame. Nevertheless Edwin knew not what to do. "Master Edwin, " said Mrs Nixon, who was rubbing the balustrade of thestairs, "you munna' cross him like that. " She jerked her head in thedirection of the garden. The garden door stood open. If he had not felt solemn and superior, he could have snapped off thathead of hers. "Is my breakfast ready?" he asked. He hung up his hat, and absentlytook the little parcel which he had left on the marble ledge of theumbrella-stand. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN. LAID ASIDE. The safe, since the abandonment of the business premises by the family, had stood in a corner of a small nondescript room, sometimes vaguelycalled the safe-room, between the shop and what had once been thekitchen. It was a considerable safe, and it had the room practically toitself. As Edwin unlocked it, and the prodigious door swung with silentsmoothness to his pull, he was aware of a very romantic feeling ofexploration. He had seen the inside of the safe before; he had evenopened the safe, and taken something from it, under his father's orders. But he had never had leisure, nor licence, to inspect its interior. From his boyhood had survived the notion that it must contain manymarvels. In spite of himself his attitude was one of awe. The first thing that met his eye was his father's large, black-boundprivate cash-book, which constituted the most sacred and mysteriousdocument in the accountancy of the business. Edwin handled, and kept, all the books save that. At the beginning of the previous week he andStifford had achieved the task of sending out the quarterly accounts, and of one sort or another there were some seven hundred quarterlyaccounts. Edwin was familiar with every detail of the printer'swork-book, the daybook, the combined book colloquially called `invoiceand ledger, ' the `bought' ledger, and the shop cash-book. But he couldform no sure idea of the total dimensions and results of the business, because his father always kept the ultimate castings to himself, andnever displayed his private cash-book under any circumstances. Byingenuity and perseverance Edwin might have triumphed over Darius'smania for secrecy; but he did not care to do so; perhaps pride even morethan honour caused him to refrain. Now he held the book, and saw that only a portion of it was in thenature of a cash-book; the rest comprised summaries and generalstatements. The statement for the year 1885, so far as he could hastilydecipher its meaning, showed a profit of 821 pounds. He was notsurprised, and yet the sight of the figures in his father's heavy, scratchy hand was curiously impressive. His father could keep nothing from him now. The interior of the safewas like a city that had capitulated; no law ran in it but his law, andhe was absolute; he could commit infamies in the city and none mightcriticise. He turned over piles of dusty cheque-counterfoils, and oldpass-books and other old books of account. He saw a linen bag crammedwith four-shilling pieces (whenever Darius obtained a double florin heput it aside), and one or two old watches of no value. Also thetitle-deeds of the house at Bleakridge, their latest parchment stillwhite with pounce; the mortgage, then, had been repaid, a fact whichDarius had managed on principle to conceal from his son. Then he cameto the four drawers, and in some of these he discovered a number ofmiscellaneous share-certificates with their big seals. He knew that hisfather had investments--it was impossible to inhabit the shop-cubiclewith his father and not know that--but he had no conception of theirextent or their value. Always he had regarded all those matters asforeign to himself, refusing to allow curiosity in regard to them toawake. Now he was differently minded, owing to the mere physical weightin his pocket of a bunch of keys! In a hasty examination he gatheredthat the stock was chiefly in railways and shipping, and that itamounted to large sums--anyhow quite a number of thousands. He wasfrankly astonished. How had his father's clumsy, slow intellect beenable to cope with the dangerous intricacies of the Stock Exchange? Itseemed incredible; and yet he had known quite well that his father wasan investor! "Of course he isn't keen on giving it all up!" Edwin exclaimed aloudsuddenly. "I wonder he even forked out the keys as easily as he did!" The view of the safe enabled him to perform a feat which very fewchildren ever achieve; he put himself in his father's place. And it waswith benevolence, not with exasperation, that he puzzled his head toinvent some device for defeating the old man's obstinacy aboutcheque-signing. One drawer was evidently not in regular use. Often, in a series ofdrawers, one of them falls into the idle habit of being overlooked, slipping gradually by custom into desuetude, though other drawers mayoverflow. This drawer held merely a few scraps of sample paper, and amap, all dusty. He drew forth the map. It was coloured, and in shakyRoman characters underneath it ran the legend, "The County ofStaffordshire. " He seemed to recognise the map. On the back he read, in his father's handwriting: "Drawn and coloured without help by my sonEdwin, aged nine. " He had utterly forgotten it. He could in no detail recall thecircumstances in which he had produced the wonderful map. A childish, rude effort! . .. Still, rather remarkable that at the age of nine(perhaps even before he had begun to attend the Oldcastle Middle School)he should have chosen to do a county map instead of a map of thatcountry beloved by all juvenile map-drawers, Ireland! He must havecopied it from the map in Lewis's Gazetteer of England and Wales. .. Twenty-one years ago, nearly! He might, from the peculiar effect onhim, have just discovered the mummy of the boy that once had beenEdwin. .. And his father had kept the map for over twenty years. Theold cock must have been deuced proud of it once! Not that he ever saidso--Edwin was sure of that! "Now you needn't get sentimental!" he told himself. Like Maggie he hada fearful, an almost morbid, horror of sentimentality. But he could notarrest the softening of his heart, as he smiled at the naivete of themap and at his father's parental simplicity. As he was closing the safe, Stifford, agitated, hurried into the room. "Please, sir, Mr Clayhanger's in the Square. I thought I'd better tellyou. " "What? Father?" "Yes, sir. He's standing opposite the chapel and he keeps looking thisway. I thought you'd like--" Edwin turned the key, and ran forth, stumbling, as he entered the shop, against the step-ladder which, with the paper-boy at the summit of it, overtopped the doorway. He wondered why he should run, and whyStifford's face was so obviously apprehensive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Darius Clayhanger was standing at the north-east corner of the littleSquare, half-way up Duck Bank, at the edge of the pavement. And hisgaze, hesitant and feeble, seemed to be upon the shop. He merely stoodthere, moveless, and yet the sight of him was most strangelydisconcerting. Edwin, who kept within the shelter of the doorway, comprehended now the look on Stifford's face. His father had the air ofranging round about the shop in a reconnaissance, like an Indian or awild animal, or like a domestic animal violently expelled. Edwin almostexpected him to creep round by the Town Hall into Saint Luke's Square, and then to reappear stealthily at the other end of Wedgwood Street, andfrom a western ambush stare again at his own premises. A man coming down Duck Bank paused an instant near Darius, and with asmile spoke to him, holding out his hand. Darius gave a slight nod. The man, snubbed and confused, walked on, the smile still on his face, but meaningless now, and foolish. At length Darius walked up the hill, his arms stiff and out-pointing, asof old. Edwin got his hat and ran after him. Instead of turning to theleft along the market-place, Darius kept on farther up the hill, pastthe Shambles, towards the old playground and the vague cinder-wasteswhere the town ended in a few ancient cottages. It was at theplayground that Edwin, going slowly and cautiously, overtook him. "Hello, father!" he began nervously. "Where are you off to?" Darius did not seem to be at all startled to see him at his side. Nevertheless he behaved in a queer fashion. Without saying a word hesuddenly turned at right-angles and apparently aimed himself towards themarket-place, by the back of the Town Hall. When he had walked a fewpaces, he stopped and looked round at Edwin, who could not decide whatought to be done. "If ye want to know, " said Darius, with overwhelming sadness andembittered disgust, "I'm going to th' Bank to sign that authority aboutcheques. " "Oh!" Edwin responded. "Good! I'll go with you if you like. " "Happen it'll be as well, " said Darius, resigning himself. They walked together in silence. The old man was beaten. The old man had surrendered, unconditionally. Edwin's heart lightened as he perceived more and more clearly what thissurprising victory meant. It meant that always in the future he wouldhave the upper hand. He knew now, and Darius knew, that his father hadno strength to fight, and that any semblance of fighting could betreated as bluster. Probably nobody realised as profoundly as Dariushimself, his real and yet mysterious inability to assert his willagainst the will of another. The force of his individuality was gone. He, who had meant to govern tyrannically to his final hour, to die witha powerful and grim gesture of command, had to accept the ignominy ofsubmission. Edwin had not even insisted, had used no kind of threat. He had merely announced his will, and when the first fury had wanedDarius had found his son's will working like a chemical agent in hisdefenceless mind, and had yielded. It was astounding. And always itwould be thus, until the time when Edwin would say `Do this' and Dariuswould do it, and `Do that' and Darius would do it, meekly, unreasoningly, anxiously. Edwin's relief was so great that it might have been mistaken forpositive ecstatic happiness. His mind ranged exultingly over the futureof the business. In a few years, if he chose, he could sell thebusiness and spend the whole treasure of his time upon programmes. Theentire world would be his, and he could gather the fruits of every art. He would utterly belong to himself. It was a formidable thought. Theatmosphere of the marketplace contained too much oxygen to be quitegrateful to his lungs. .. In the meantime there were things he would do. He would raise Stifford's wages. Long ago they ought to have beenraised. And he would see that Stifford had for his dinner a full hour;which in practice Stifford had never had. And he would completely giveup the sale and delivery of newspapers and weeklies, and would train thepaper-boy to the shop, and put Stifford in his own place and perhaps getanother clerk. It struck him hopefully that Stifford might go forth fororders. Assuredly he himself had not one quality of a commercialtraveller. And, most inviting prospect of all, he would stock newbooks. He cared not whether new books were unremunerative. It shouldbe known throughout the Five Towns that at Clayhanger's in Bursley aselection of new books could always be seen. And if people would notbuy them people must leave them. But he would have them. And so histhoughts flew. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. And at the same time he was extremely sad, only less sad than hisfather. When he allowed his thoughts to rest for an instant on hisfather he was so moved that he could almost have burst into a sob--justone terrific sob. And he would say in his mind, "What a damned shame!What a damned shame!" Meaning that destiny had behaved ignobly to hisfather, after all. Destiny had no right to deal with a man sofaithlessly. Destiny should do either one thing or the other. Itseemed to him that he was leading his father by a string to hishumiliation. And he was ashamed: ashamed of his own dominance and ofhis father's craven submissiveness. Twice they were stopped by heartyand curious burgesses, and at each encounter Edwin, far more thanDarius, was anxious to pretend that the harsh hand of Darius stillfirmly held the sceptre. When they entered the shining mahogany interior of the richest Bank inthe Five Towns, hushed save for a discreet shovelling of coins, Edwinwaited for his father to speak, and Darius said not a word, but stoodglumly quiescent, like a victim in a halter. The little wiry dancingcashier looked; every clerk in the place looked; from behind the thirdcounter, in the far recesses of the Bank, clerks looked over theirledgers; and they all looked in the same annoying way, as at a victim ina halter; in their glance was all the pitiful gloating baseness of humannature, mingled with a little of its compassion. Everybody of course knew that `something had happened' to the successfulsteam-printer. "Can we see Mr Lovatt?" Edwin demanded curtly. He was abashed and hewas resentful. The cashier jumped on all his springs into a sudden activity ofdeference. Presently the manager emerged from the glazed door of his room, pullinghis long whiskers. "Oh, Mr Lovatt, " Edwin began nervously. "Father's just come along--" They were swallowed up into the manager's parlour. It might have been acourt of justice, or a dentist's surgery, or the cabinet of an insurancedoctor, or the room at Fontainebleau where Napoleon signed hisabdication--anything but the thing it was. Happily Mr Lovatt had amanner which never varied; he had only one manner for all men and alloccasions. So that Edwin was not distressed either by the deficienciesof amateur acting or by the exhibition of another's self-consciousawkwardness. Nevertheless when his father took the pen to write he wasobliged to look studiously at the window and inaudibly hum an air. Hadhe not done so, that threatening sob might have burst its way out ofhim. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "I'm going this road, " said Darius, when they were safely out of theBank, pointing towards the Sytch. "What for?" "I'm going this road, " he repeated, gloomily obstinate. "All right, " said Edwin cheerfully. "I'll trot round with you. " He did not know whether he could safely leave his father. The old man'seyes resented his assiduity and accepted it. They passed the Old Sytch Pottery, the smoke of whose kilns now nolonger darkened the sky. The senior partner of the firm which leased ithad died, and his sons had immediately taken advantage of his absence tobuild a new and efficient works down by the canal-side at Shawport--amarvel of everything save architectural dignity. Times changed. Edwinremarked on the desolation of the place and received no reply. Then theidea occurred to him that his father was bound for the Liberal Club. Itwas so. They both entered. In the large room two young men wereamusing themselves at the billiard-table which formed the chiefattraction of the naked interior, and on the ledges of the table weretwo glasses. The steward in an apron watched them. "Aye!" grumbled Darius, eyeing the group. "That's Rad, that is! That'sRad! Not twelve o'clock yet!" If Edwin with his father had surprised two young men drinking andplaying billiards before noon in the Conservative Club, he would havebeen grimly pleased. He would have taken it for a further proof of thehollowness of the opposition to the great Home Rule Bill; but thespectacle of a couple of wastrels in the Liberal Club annoyed and shamedhim. His vague notion was that at such a moment of high crisis the twowastrels ought to have had the decency to refrain from wasting. "Well, Mr Clayhanger, " said the steward, in his absurd boniface way, "you're quite a stranger. " "I want my name taken off this Club, " said Darius shortly. "Yeunderstand me! And I reckon I'm not the only one, these days. " The steward did in fact understand. He protested in a low, amiablevoice, while the billiard-players affected not to hear; but he perfectlyunderstood. The epidemic of resignations had already set in, and therehad been talk of a Liberal-Unionist Club. The steward saw that thegrand folly of a senile statesman was threatening his own futureprospects. He smiled. But at Edwin, as they were leaving, he smiled ina quite peculiar way, and that smile clearly meant: "Your father goesdotty, and the first thing he does is to change his politics. " This wasthe steward's justifiable revenge. "You aren't leaving us?" the steward questioned Edwin in a half-whisper. Edwin shook his head. But he could have killed the steward for thatnauseating suggestive smile. The outer door swung to, cutting off thedelicate click of billiard balls. At the top of Duck Bank, Darius silently and without warning mounted thesteps of the Conservative Club. Doubtless he knew how to lay his handinstantly on a proposer and seconder. Edwin did not follow him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. That evening, conscious of responsibility and of virtue, Edwin walked upTrafalgar Road with a less gawky and more dignified mien than ever hehad managed to assume before. He had not only dismissed programmes ofculture, he had forgotten them. After twelve hours as head of abusiness, they had temporarily ceased to interest him. And when hepassed, or was overtaken by, other men of affairs, he thought to himselfnaively in the dark, "I am the equal of these men. " And the image ofFlorence Simcox, the clog-dancer, floated through his mind. He found Darius alone in the drawing-room, in front of an uncustomaryfire, garden-clay still on his boots, and "The Christian News" under hisspectacles. The Sunday before the funeral of Mr Shushions had been sounusual and so distressing that Darius had fallen into arrear with hisperusals. True, he had never been known to read "The Christian News" onany day but Sunday, but now every day was Sunday. Edwin nodded to him and approached the fire, rubbing his hands. "What's this as I hear?" Darius began, with melancholy softness. "Eh?" "About Albert wanting to borrow a thousand pounds?" Darius gazed at himover his spectacles. "Albert wanting to borrow a thousand pounds!" Edwin repeated, astounded. "Aye! Have they said naught to you?" "No, " said Edwin. "What is it?" "Clara and your aunt have both been at me since tea. Some tale asAlbert can amalgamate into partnership with Hope and Carters if he canput down a thousand. Then Albert's said naught to ye?" "No, he hasn't!" Edwin exclaimed, emphasising each word with a peculiarfierceness. It was as if he had said, "I should like to catch himsaying anything to me about it!" He was extremely indignant. It seemed to him monstrous that those twowomen should thus try to snatch an advantage from his father's weakness, pitifully mean and base. He could not understand how people could bringthemselves to do such things, nor how, having done them, they could everlook their fellows in the face again. Had they no shame? They wouldnot let a day pass; but they must settle on the old man instantly, likeflies on a carcass! He could imagine the plottings, the hushedchatterings; the acting-for-the-best demeanour of that cursed womanAuntie Hamps (yes, he now cursed her), and the candid greed of hissister. "You wouldn't do it, would ye?" Darius asked, in a tone that expected anegative answer; but also with a rather plaintive appeal, as though hewere depending on Edwin for moral support against the formidable forcesof attack. "I should not, " said Edwin stoutly, touched by the strange wistful noteand by the glance. "Unless of course you really want to. " He did not care in the least whether the money would or would not bereally useful and reasonably safe. He did not care whose enmity he wasrisking. His sense of fair play was outraged, and he would salve it atany cost. He knew that had his father not been struck down anddefenceless, these despicable people would never have dared to demandmoney from him. That was the only point that mattered. The relief of Darius at Edwin's attitude in the affair was painful. Hoping for sympathy from Edwin, he yet had feared in him another enemy. Now he was reassured, and he could hide his feelings no better than achild. "Seemingly they can't wait till my will's opened!" he murmured, with ascarcely successful affectation of grimness. "Made a will, have you?" Edwin remarked, with an elaborate casualnessto imply that he had never till then given a thought to his father'swill, but that, having thought of the question, he was perhaps a verylittle surprised that his father had indeed made a will. Darius nodded, quite benevolently. He seemed to have forgotten his deepgrievance against Edwin in the matter of cheque-signing. "Duncalf's got it, " he murmured after a moment. Duncalf was the townclerk and a solicitor. So the will was made! And he had submissively signed away all controlover all monetary transactions. What more could he do, except expirewith the minimum of fuss? Truly Darius, in the local phrase, was now`laid aside'! And of all the symptoms of his decay the most strikingand the most tragic, to Edwin, was that he showed no curiosity whateverabout business. Not one single word of inquiry had he uttered. "You'll want shaving, " said Edwin, in a friendly way. Darius passed a hand over his face. He had ceased years ago to shavehimself, and had a subscription at Dick Jones's in Aboukir Street, closeby the shop. "Aye!" "Shall I send the barber up, or shall you let it grow?" "What do you think?" "Oh!" Edwin drawled, characteristically hesitating. Then he rememberedthat he was the responsible head of the family of Clayhanger. "I thinkyou might let it grow, " he decided. And when he had issued the verdict, it seemed to him like a sentence ofsequestration and death on his father. .. `Let it grow! What does itmatter?' Such was the innuendo. "You used to grow a full beard once, didn't you?" he asked. "Yes, " said Darius. That made the situation less cruel. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER EIGHT. A CHANGE OF MIND. One evening, a year later, in earliest summer of 1887, Edwin and MrOsmond Orgreave were walking home together from Hanbridge. When theyreached the corner of the street leading to Lane End House, OsmondOrgreave said, stopping-- "Now you'll come with us?" And he looked Edwin hard in the eyes, andthere was a most flattering appeal in his voice. It was some time sincetheir eyes had met frankly, for Edwin had recently been havingexperience of Mr Orgreave's methods in financial controversy, and ithad not been agreeable. After an instant Edwin said heartily-- "Yes, I think I'll come. Of course I should like to. But I'll let youknow. " "Tonight?" "Yes, to-night. " "I shall tell my wife you're coming. " Mr Orgreave waved a hand, and passed with a certain decorative gaietydown the street. His hair was now silvern, but it still curled in theold places, and his gestures had apparently not aged at all. Mr and Mrs Orgreave were going to London for the Jubilee celebrations. So far as their family was concerned, they were going alone, becauseOsmond had insisted humorously that he wanted a rest from his children. But he had urgently invited Edwin to accompany them. At first Edwin hadinstinctively replied that it was impossible. He could not leave home. He had never been to London; a journey to London presented itself to himas an immense enterprise, almost as a piece of culpable self-indulgence. And then, under the stimulus of Osmond's energetic and adventuroustemperament, he had said to himself, "Why not? Why shouldn't I?" The arguments favoured his going. It was absurd and scandalous that hehad never been to London: he ought for his self-respect to departthither at once. The legend of the Jubilee, spectacular, processional, historic, touched his imagination. Whenever he thought of it, his fancysaw pennons and corselets and chargers winding through stupendousstreets, and, somewhere in the midst, the majesty of England in thefrail body of a little old lady, who had had many children and onesupreme misfortune. Moreover, he could incidentally see Charlie. Moreover, he had been suffering from a series of his customary colds, and from overwork, and Heve had told him that he `would do with achange. ' Moreover, he had a project for buying paper in London: he hadreceived, from London, overtures which seemed promising. He had neverbeen able to buy paper quite as cheaply as Darius had bought paper, forthe mere reason that he could not haggle over sixteenths of a penny withefficient ruthlessness; he simply could not do it, being somehow ashamedto do it. In Manchester, where Darius had bought paper for thirtyyears, they were imperceptibly too brutal for Edwin in the harshrealities of a bargain; they had no sense of shame. He thought that inletters from London he detected a softer spirit. And above all he desired, by accepting Mr Orgreave's invitation, toshow to the architect that the differences between them were reallyexpunged from his mind. Among many confusions in his father'sflourishing but disorderly affairs, Edwin had been startled to find theOrgreave transactions. There were accounts and contra-accounts, andquantities of strangely contradictory documents. Never had a realsettlement occurred between Darius and Osmond. And Osmond did not seemto want one. Edwin, however, with his old-maid's passion for puttingand keeping everything in its place, insisted on one. Mr Orgreave hadto meet him on his strongest point, his love of order. The process ofsettlement had been painful to Edwin; it had seriously marred some ofhis illusions. Nearly the last of the entanglements in his father'sbusiness, the Orgreave matter was straightened and closed now; and theprojected escapade to London would bury it deep, might even restoreagreeable illusions. And Edwin was incapable of nursing malice. The best argument of all was that he had a right to go to London. Hehad earned London, by honest and severe work, and by bearing firmly thehuge weight of his responsibility. So far he had offered himself noreward whatever, not even an increase of salary, not even a week offreedom or the satisfaction of a single caprice. "I shall go, and charge it to the business, " he said to himself. Hebecame excited about going. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. As he approached his house, he saw the elder Heve, vicar of SaintPeter's, coming away from it, a natty clerical figure in a straw hat ofpeculiar shape. Recently this man had called once or twice; notprofessionally, for Darius was neither a churchman nor a parishioner, but as a brother of Dr Heve's, as a friendly human being, and Dariushad been flattered. The Vicar would talk about Jesus with quiethalf-humorous enthusiasm. For him at any rate Christianity was grandfun. He seemed never to be solemn over his religion, like theWesleyans. He never, with a shamed, defiant air, said, "I am notashamed of Christ, " like the Wesleyans. He might have known Christslightly at Cambridge. But his relations with Christ did not make himconceited, nor condescending. And if he was concerned about the welfareof people who knew not Christ, he hid his concern in the politestmanner. Edwin, after being momentarily impressed by him, was nowconvinced of his perfect mediocrity; the Vicar's views on literature haddamned him eternally in the esteem of Edwin, who was still naive enoughto be unable to comprehend how a man who had been to Cambridge couldspeak enthusiastically of "Uncle Tom's Cabin. " Moreover, Edwin despisedhim for his obvious pride in being a bachelor. The Vicar would not saythat a priest should be celibate, but he would, with delicacy, imply asmuch. Then also, for Edwin's taste, the parson was somewhat toochildishly interested in the culture of cellar-mushrooms, which was hishobby. He would recount the tedious details of all his experiments toDarius, who, flattered by these attentions from the Established Church, took immense delight in the Vicar and in the sample mushrooms offered tohim from time to time. Maggie stood in the porch, which commanded the descent into Bursley; shewas watching the Vicar as he receded. When Edwin appeared at the gate, she gave a little jump, and he fancied that she also blushed. "Look here!" he exclaimed to himself, in a flash of suspicion. "Surelyshe's not thinking of the Vicar! Surely Maggie isn't after all!" Hedid not conceive it possible that the Vicar, who had been to Cambridgeand had notions about celibacy, was thinking of Maggie. "Women arequeer, " he said to himself. (For him, this generalisation from factswas quite original. ) Fancy her staring after the Vicar! She must havebeen doing it quite unconsciously! He had supposed that her attitudetowards the Vicar was precisely his own. He took it for granted thatthe Vicar's attitude was the same to both of them, based on a polite andkindly but firm recognition that there could be no genuine sympathybetween him and them. "The Vicar's just been, " said Maggie. "Has he? . .. Cheered the old man up at all?" "Not much. " Maggie shook her head gloomily. Edwin's conscience seemed to be getting ready to hint that he ought notto go to London. "I say, Mag, " he said quietly, as he inserted his stick in theumbrella-stand. She stopped on her way upstairs, and then approachedhim. "Mr Orgreave wants me to go to London with him and Mrs Orgreave. " Heexplained the whole project to her. She said at once, eagerly and benevolently-- "Of course you ought to go. It'll do you all the good in the world. Ishall be all right here. Clara and Albert will come for Jubilee Day, anyhow. But haven't you driven it late? . .. The day after to-morrow, isn't it? Mr Heve was only saying just now that the hotels were allcrammed. " "Well, you know what Orgreave is! I expect he'll look after all that. " "You go!" Maggie enjoined him. "Won't upset him?" Edwin nodded vaguely to wherever Darius might be. "Can't be helped if it does, " she replied calmly. "Well then, I'm dashed if I don't go! What about my collars?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Those three--Darius, Maggie, and Edwin--sat down to tea in silence. Thewindow was open, and the weather very warm and gay. During the previoustwelve months they had sat down to hundreds of such meals. Save for afew brief periods of cheerfulness, Darius had steadily grown moretaciturn, heavy and melancholy. In the winter he had of courseabandoned his attempts to divert himself by gardening--attempts at thebest half-hearted and feeble--and he had not resumed them in the spring. Less than half a year previously he had often walked across the fieldsto Hillport and back, or up the gradual slopes to the height of ToftEnd--he never went townwards, had not once visited the ConservativeClub. But now he could not even be persuaded to leave the garden. Anold wicker arm-chair had been placed at the end of the garden, and hewould set out for that arm-chair as upon a journey, and, having reachedit, would sink into it with a huge sigh, and repose before bracinghimself to the effort of return. And now it seemed marvellous that he had ever had the legs to get toHillport and to Toft End. He existed in a stupor of dull reflection, from pride pretending to read and not reading, or pretending to listenand not listening, and occasionally making a remark which was inappositebut which had to be humoured. And as the weeks passed his children'smanner of humouring him became increasingly perfunctory, and theirmovements in putting right the negligence of his attire increasinglybrusque. Vainly they tried to remember in time that he was a victim andnot a criminal; they would remember after the careless remark and afterthe curt gesture, when it was too late. His malady obsessed them: itwas in the air of the house, omnipresent; it weighed upon them, corroding the nerve and exasperating the spirit. Now and then, whenDarius had vented a burst of irrational anger, they would say to eachother with casual bitterness that really he was too annoying. Once, when his demeanour towards the new servant had strongly suggested thathe thought her name was Bathsheba, Mrs Nixon herself had `flown out' athim, and there had been a scene which the doctor had soothed by discreetprofessional explanations. Maggie's difficulty was that he was alwaysthere, always on the spot. To be free of him she must leave the house;and Maggie was not fond of leaving the house. Edwin meant to inform him briefly of his intention to go to London, butsuch was the power of habit that he hesitated; he could not bringhimself to announce directly this audacious and unprecedented act offreedom, though he knew that his father was as helpless as a child inhis hands. Instead, he began to talk about the renewal of the lease ofthe premises in Duck Square, as to which it would be necessary to givenotice to the landlord at the end of the month. "I've been thinking I'll have it made out in my own name, " he said. "It'll save you signing, and so on. " This in itself was a proposalsufficiently startling, and he would not have been surprised at aviolent instinctive protest from Darius; but Darius seemed not to heed. Then both Edwin and Maggie noticed that he was trying to hold a sausagefirm on his plate with his knife, and to cut it with his fork. "No, no, father!" said Maggie gently. "Not like that!" He looked up, puzzled, and then bent himself again to the plate. Thewhole of his faculties seemed to be absorbed in a great effort toresolve the complicated problem of the plate, the sausage, the knife andthe fork. "You've got your knife in the wrong hand, " said Edwin impatiently, as toa wilful child. Darius stared at the knife and at the fork, and he then sighed, and hissigh meant, "This business is beyond me!" Then he endeavoured tosubstitute the knife for the fork, but he could not. "See, " said Edwin, leaning over. "Like this!" He took the knife, butDarius would not loose it. "No, leave go!" he ordered. "Leave go! Howcan I show you if you don't leave go?" Darius dropped both knife and fork with a clatter. Edwin put the knifeinto his right hand, and the fork into his left; but in a moment theywere wrong again. At first Edwin could not believe that his father wasnot indulging deliberately in naughtiness. "Shall I cut it up for you, father?" Maggie asked, in a mild, persuasive tone. Darius pushed the plate towards her. When she had cut up the sausage, she said-- "There you are! I'll keep the knife. Then you can't get mixed up. " And Darius ate the sausage with the fork alone. His intelligence hadfailed to master the original problem presented to it. He ate steadilyfor a few moments, and then the tears began to roll down his cheek, andhe ate no more. This incident, so simple, so unexpected, and so dramatic, caused themost acute distress. And its effect was disconcerting in the highestdegree. It reminded everybody that what Darius suffered from wassoftening of the brain. For long he had been a prisoner in the houseand garden. For long he had been almost mute. And now, just after avisit which usually acted upon him as a tonic, he had begun to lose theskill to feed himself. Little by little he was demonstrating, by hisslow declension from it, the wonder of the standard of efficiencymaintained by the normal human being. Edwin and Maggie avoided one another, even in their glances. Eachaffected the philosophical, seeking to diminish the significance of theepisode. But neither succeeded. Of the two years allotted to Darius, one had gone. What would the second be? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In his bedroom, after tea, Edwin fought against the gloomy influence, but uselessly. The inherent and appalling sadness of existenceenveloped and chilled him. He gazed at the rows of his books. He haddone no regular reading of late. Why read? He gazed at the screen infront of his bed, covered with neat memoranda. How futile! Why go toLondon? He would only have to come back from London! And then he saidresistingly, "I will go to London. " But as he said it aloud, he knewwell that he would not go. His conscience would not allow him todepart. He could not leave Maggie alone with his father. He yielded tohis conscience unkindly, reluctantly, with no warm gust ofunselfishness; he yielded because he could not outrage his abstractsense of justice. From the window he perceived Maggie and Janet Orgreave talking togetherover the low separating wall. And he remembered a word of Janet's tothe effect that she and Maggie were becoming quite friendly and thatMaggie was splendid. Suddenly he went downstairs into the garden. Theywere talking in attitudes of intimacy; and both were grave and mature, and both had a little cleft under the chin. Their pale frocksharmonised in the evening light. As he approached, Maggie burst into agirlish laugh. "Not really?" she murmured, with the vivacity of a younggirl. He knew not what they were discussing, nor did he care. Whatinterested him, what startled him, was the youthful gesture and tone ofMaggie. It pleased and touched him to discover another Maggie in theMaggie of the household. Those two women had put on for a moment thecharming, chattering silliness of schoolgirls. He joined them. On thelawn of the Orgreaves, Alicia was battling fiercely at tennis with anelegant young man whose name he did not know. Croquet was deposed;tennis reigned. Even Alicia's occasional shrill cry had a mournful quality in thelanguishing beauty of the evening. "I wish you'd tell your father I shan't be able to go tomorrow, " Edwinsaid to Janet. "But he's told all of us you are going!" Janet exclaimed. "Shan't you go?" Maggie questioned, low. "No, " he murmured. Glancing at Janet, he added, "It won't do for me togo. " "What a pity!" Janet breathed. Maggie did not say, "Oh! But you ought to! There's no reason whateverwhy you shouldn't!" By her silence she contradicted the philosophicnonchalance of her demeanour during the latter part of the meal. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER NINE. THE OX. Edwin walked idly down Trafalgar Road in the hot morning sunshine ofJubilee Day. He had left his father tearfully sentimentalising aboutthe Queen. `She's a good 'un!' Then a sob. `Never was one like her!'Another sob. `No, and never will be again!' Then a gush of tears onthe newspaper, which the old man laboriously scanned for details of theofficial programme in London. He had not for months read the newspaperwith such a determined effort to understand; indeed, since the beginningof his illness, no subject, except mushroom-culture, had interested himso much as the Jubilee. Each time he looked at the sky from his shadyseat in the garden he had thanked God that it was a fine day, as hemight have thanked Him for deliverance from a grave personal disaster. Except for a few poor flags, there was no sign of gaiety in TrafalgarRoad. The street, the town, and the hearts of those who remained in it, were wrapped in that desolating sadness which envelops the provinceswhen a supreme spectacular national rejoicing is centralised in London. All those who possessed the freedom, the energy, and the money had goneto London to witness a sight that, as every one said to every one, wouldbe unique, and would remain unique for ever--and yet perhaps less towitness it than to be able to recount to their grandchildren that theyhad witnessed it. Many more were visiting nearer holiday resorts for aday or two days. Those who remained, the poor, the spiritless, theafflicted, and the captive, felt with mournful keenness the shame oftheir utter provinciality, envying the crowds in London with a bitterenvy, and picturing London as the paradise of fashion and splendour. It was from sheer aimless disgust that Edwin went down Trafalgar Road;he might as easily have gone up. Having arrived in the town, awilderness of shut shops, he gazed a moment at his own, and then enteredit by the side door. He had naught else to do. Had he chosen he couldhave spent the whole day in reading, or he might have taken again to hislong-neglected water-colours. But it was not in him to put himself tothe trouble of seeking contentment. He preferred to wallow in utterdesolation, thinking of all the unpleasant things that had ever happenedto him, and occasionally conjecturing what he would have been doing at agiven moment had he accompanied the jolly, the distinguished, and theenterprising Osmond Orgreave to London. He passed into the shop, sufficiently illuminated by the white rays thatstruck through the diamond holes in the shutters. The morning'sletters--a sparse company--lay forlorn on the floor. He picked them upand pitched them down in the cubicle. Then he went into the cubicle, and with the negligent gesture of long habit unlocked a part of thedesk, the part which had once been his father's privacy, and of which hehad demanded the key more than a year ago. It was all now under hisabsolute dominion. He could do exactly as he pleased with a commercialapparatus that brought in some eight hundred pounds a year net. He wasthe unquestioned regent, and yet he told himself that he was no happierthan when a slave. He drew forth his books of account, and began to piece figures togetheron backs of envelopes, using a shorthand of accounts such as a principalwill use when he is impatient and not particular to a few pounds. Alittle wasp of curiosity was teasing Edwin, and to quicken it acomparison was necessary between the result of the first six months ofthat year and the first six months of the previous year. True, June hadnot quite expired, but most of the quarterly accounts were ready, and hecould form a trustworthy estimate. Was he, with his scorn of hisfather, his brains, his orderliness, doing better or worse than hisfather in the business? At the election of 1886, there had beenconsiderably fewer orders than was customary at elections; he had donenothing whatever for the Tories, but that was a point that affectedneither period of six months. Sundry customers had assuredly been lost;on the other hand, Stifford's travelling had seemed to be verysatisfactory. Nor could it be argued that money had been dropped on thenew-book business, because he had not yet inaugurated the new-bookbusiness, preferring to wait; he was afraid that his father might afterall astoundingly walk in one day, and see new books on the counter, andrage. He had stopped the supplying of newspapers, and would deign tonothing lower than a sixpenny magazine; but the profit on newspapers wasnegligible. The totals ought surely to compare in a manner favourable to himself, for he had been extremely and unremittingly conscientious. Neverthelesshe was afraid. He was afraid because he knew, vaguely and still deeply, that he could neither buy nor sell as well as his father. It was not aquestion of brains; it was a question of individuality. A sense ofhonour, of fairness, a temperamental generosity, a hatred of meanness, often prevented him from pushing a bargain to the limit. He could notbring himself to haggle desperately. And even when price was not themain difficulty, he could not talk to a customer, or to a person whosecustomer he was, with the same rough, gruff, cajoling, bullying skill ashis father. He could not, by taking thought, do what his father haddone naturally, by the mere blind exercise of instinct. His father, with all his clumsiness, and his unscientific methods, had a certainquality, unseizable, Unanalysable, and Edwin had not that quality. He caught himself, in the rapid calculating, giving himself the benefitof every doubt; somehow he could not help it, childish as it was. Andeven so, he could see, or he could feel, that the comparison was notgoing to be favourable to the regent. It grew plainer that the volumeof business had barely been maintained, and it was glaringly evidentthat the expenses, especially wages, had sensibly increased. Heabandoned the figures not quite finished, partly from weary disgust, andpartly because Big James most astonishingly walked into the shop, fromthe back. He was really quite glad to encounter Big James, afellow-creature. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. "Seeing the door open, sir, " said Big James cheerfully, through thenarrow doorway of the cubicle, "I stepped in to see as it was no oneunlawful. " "Did I leave the side door open?" Edwin murmured. It was surprisingeven to himself, how forgetful he was at times, he with his mania fororderliness! Big James was in his best clothes, and seemed, with his indestructibleblandness, to be perfectly happy. "I was just strolling up to have a look at the ox, " he added. "Oh!" said Edwin. "Are they cooking it?" "They should be, sir. But my fear is it may turn, in this weather. " "I'll come out with you, " said Edwin, enlivened. He locked the desk, and hurriedly straightened a few things, and thenthey went out together, by Wedgwood Street and the Cock Yard up to themarket-place. No breeze moved, and the heat was tremendous. And thereat the foot of the Town Hall tower, and in its scanty shadow, a dead ox, slung by its legs from an iron construction, was frizzling over a greatprimitive fire. The vast flanks of the animal, all rich yellows andbrowns, streamed with grease, some of which fell noisily on the almostinvisible flames, while the rest was ingeniously caught in a system ofrunnels. The spectacle was obscene, nauseating to the eye, the nose, and the ear, and it powerfully recalled to Edwin the legends of theSpanish Inquisition. He speculated whether he would ever be able totouch beef again. Above the tortured and insulted corpse the airquivered in large waves. Mr Doy, the leading butcher of Bursley, andnow chief executioner, regarded with anxiety the operation which hadbeen entrusted to him, and occasionally gave instructions to a myrmidon. Round about stood a few privileged persons, whom pride helped to bearthe double heat; and farther off on the pavements, a thin scatteredcrowd. The sublime spectacle of an ox roasted whole had not sufficed tokeep the townsmen in the town. Even the sages who had conceived andcommanded this peculiar solemnity for celebrating the Jubilee of a Queenand Empress had not stayed in the borough to see it enacted, though someof them were to return in time to watch the devouring of the animal bythe aged poor at a ceremonial feast in the evening. "It's a grand sight!" said Big James, with simple enthusiasm. "A grandsight! Real old English! And I wish her well!" He meant the Queen andEmpress. Then suddenly, in a different tone, sniffing the air, "I doubtit's turned! I'll step across and ask Mr Doy. " He stepped across, and came back with the news that the greater portionof the ox, despite every precaution, had in fact very annoyingly`turned, ' and that the remainder of the carcass was in serious danger. "What'll the old people say?" he demanded sadly. "But it's a grandsight, turned or not!" Edwin stared and stared, in a sort of sinister fascination. He thoughtthat he might stare for ever. At length, after ages of ennui, he loosedhimself from the spell with an effort and glanced at Big James. "And what are you going to do with yourself to-day, James?" Big James smiled. "I'm going to take my walks abroad, sir. It's seldomas I get about in the town nowadays. " "Well, I must be off!" "I'd like you to give my respects to the old gentleman, sir. " Edwin nodded and departed, very slowly and idly, towards Trafalgar Roadand Bleakridge. He pulled his straw hat over his forehead to avoid thesun, and then he pushed it backwards to his neck to avoid the sun. Theodour of the shrivelling ox remained with him; it was in his nostrilsfor several days. His heart grew blacker with intense gloom; and thecontentment of Big James at the prospect of just strolling about thedamnable dead town for the rest of the day surpassed his comprehension. He abandoned himself to misery voluptuously. The afternoon and eveningstretched before him, an arid and appalling Sahara. The Benbows, andtheir babes, and Auntie Hamps were coming for dinner and tea, to cheerup grandfather. He pictured the repasts with savage gloatingdetestation--burnt ox, and more burnt ox, and the false odiousbrightness of a family determined to be mutually helpful and inspiring. Since his refusal to abet the project of a loan to Albert, Clara hadbeen secretly hostile under her superficial sisterliness, and AuntieHamps had often assured him, in a manner extraordinarily exasperating, that she was convinced he had acted conscientiously for the best. Strange thought, that after eight hours of these people and of hisfather, he would be still alive! VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TEN. MRS. HAMPS AS A YOUNG MAN. On the Saturday afternoon of the week following the Jubilee, Edwin andMrs Hamps were sunning themselves in the garden, when Janet's face andshoulders appeared suddenly at the other side of the wall. At the sightof Mrs Hamps she seemed startled and intimidated, and she bowedsomewhat more ceremoniously than usual. "Good afternoon!" Then Mrs Hamps returned the bow with superb extravagance, like anOriental monarch who is determined to outvie magnificently the gifts ofanother. Mrs Hamps became conscious of the whole of her body and ofevery article of her summer apparel, and nothing of it all was allowedto escape from contributing to the completeness of the bow. Shebridled. She tossed proudly as it were against the bit. And the richruins of her handsomeness adopted new and softer lines in theoverpowering sickly blandishment of a smile. Thus she always greetedany merely formal acquaintance whom she considered to be above herselfin status--provided, of course, that the acquaintance had done nothingto offend her. "Good afternoon, Miss Orgreave!" Reluctantly she permitted her features to relax from the full effort ofthe smile; but they might not abandon it entirely. "I thought Maggie was there, " said Janet. "She was, a minute ago, " Edwin answered. "She's just gone in to father. She'll be out directly. Do you want her?" "I only wanted to tell her something, " said Janet, and then paused. She was obviously very excited. She had the little quick movements of agirl. In her cream-tinted frock she looked like a mere girl. And shewas beautiful in her maturity; a challenge to the world of males. Asshe stood there, rising from behind the wall, flushed, quivering, abandoned to an emotion and yet unconsciously dignified by that peculiarstateliness that never left her--as she stood there it seemed as if shereally was offering a challenge. "I'll fetch Mag, if you like, " said Edwin. "Well, " said Janet, lifting her chin proudly, "it isn't a secret. Alicia's engaged. " And pride was in every detail of her bearing. "Well, I never!" Edwin exclaimed. Mrs Hamps's features resumed the full smile. "Can you imagine it? I can't! It seems only last week that she leftschool!" And indeed it seemed only last week that Alicia was nothing but legs, gawkiness, blushes, and screwed-up shoulders. And now she was adestined bride. She had caught and enchanted a youth by her mysteriousattractiveness. She had been caught and enchanted by the mysteriousattractiveness of the male. She had known the dreadful anxiety thatprecedes the triumph, and the ecstasy of surrender. She had kissed asJanet had never kissed, and gazed as Janet had never gazed. She knewinfinitely more than Janet. She had always been a child to Janet, butnow Janet was the child. No wonder that Janet was excited. "Might one ask who is the fortunate young gentleman?" Mrs Hampsdulcetly inquired. "It's Harry Hesketh, from Oldcastle. .. You've met him here, " she added, glancing at Edwin. Mrs Hamps nodded, satisfied, and the approving nod indicated that shewas aware of all the excellences of the Hesketh family. "The tennis man!" Edwin murmured. "Yes, of course! You aren't surprised, are you?" The fact was that Edwin had not given a thought to the possiblerelations between Alicia and any particular young man. But Janet'sthrilled air so patently assumed his interest that he felt obliged tomake a certain pretence. "I'm not what you'd call staggered, " he said roguishly. "I'm keeping mynerve. " And he gave her an intimate smile. "Father-in-law and son-in-law have just been talking it over, " saidJanet archly, "in the breakfast-room! Alicia thoughtfully went out fora walk. I'm dying for her to come back. " Janet laughed from simplejoyous expectation. "When Harry came out of the breakfast-room he justput his arms round me and kissed me. Yes! That was how I was toldabout it. He's a dear! Don't you think so? I mean really! I felt Imust come and tell some one. " Edwin had never seen her so moved. Her emotion was touching, it wasbeautiful. She need not have said that she had come because she must. The fact was in her rapt eyes. She was under a spell. "Well, I must go!" she said, with a curious brusqueness. Perhaps shehad a dim perception that she was behaving in a manner unusual with her. "You'll tell your sister. " Her departing bow to Mrs Hamps had the formality of courts, and wasequalled by Mrs Hamps's bow. Just as Mrs Hamps, having re-created herelaborate smile, was allowing it finally to expire, she had to bring itinto existence once more, and very suddenly, for Janet returned to thewall. "You won't forget tennis after tea, " said Janet shortly. Edwin said that he should not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. "Well, well!" Mrs Hamps commented, and sat down in the wicker-chair ofDarius. "I wonder she doesn't get married herself, " said Edwin idly, havingnothing in particular to remark. "You're a nice one to say such a thing!" Mrs Hamps exclaimed. "Why?" "Well, you really are!" She raised the structure of her bonnet andcurls, and shook it slowly at him. And her gaze had an extraordinaryquality of fleshly naughtiness that half pleased and half annoyed him. "Why?" he repeated. "Well, " she said again, "you aren't a ninny, and you aren't a simpleton. At least I hope not. You must know as well as anybody the name of theyoung gentleman that she's waiting for. " In spite of himself, Edwin blushed: he blushed more and more. Then hescowled. "What nonsense!" he muttered viciously. He was entirely sincere. Thenotion that Janet was waiting for him had never once crossed his mind. It seemed to him fantastic, one of those silly ideas that a woman suchas Auntie Hamps would be likely to have, or more accurately would belikely to pretend to have. Still, it did just happen that on thisoccasion his auntie's expression was more convincing than usual. Sheseemed more human than usual, to have abandoned, at any rate partially, the baffling garment of effusive insincerity in which she hid her soul. The Eve in her seemed to show herself, and, looking forth from her eyes, to admit that the youthful dalliance of the sexes was alone interestingin this life of strict piety. The revelation was uncanny. "You needn't talk like that, " she retorted calmly, "unless you want togo down in my good opinion. You don't mean to tell me honestly that youdon't know what's been the talk of the town for years and years!" "It's ridiculous, " said Edwin. "Why--what do you know of her--you don'tknow the Orgreaves at all!" "I know that, anyway, " said Auntie Hamps. "Oh! Stuff!" He grew impatient. And yet, in his extreme astonishment, he was flattered and delighted. "Of course, " said Auntie Hamps, "you're so difficult to talk to--" "Difficult to talk to!--Me?" "Otherwise your auntie might have given you a hint long ago. I believeyou are a simpleton after all! I cannot understand what's come over theyoung men in these days. Letting a girl like that wait and wait!" Sheimplied, with a faint scornful smile, that if she were a young man shewould be capable of playing the devil with the maidenhood of the town. Edwin was rather hurt. And though he felt that he ought not to beashamed, yet he was ashamed. He divined that she was asking him how hehad the face to stand there before her, at his age, with his youthunspilled. After all, she was an astounding woman. He remained silent. "Why--look how splendid it would be!" she murmured. "The very thing!Everybody would be delighted!" He still remained silent. "But you can't keep on philandering for ever!" she said sharply. "She'll never see thirty again! . .. Why does she ask you to go and playat tennis? Can you tell me that? . .. Perhaps I'm saying too much, butthis I will say--" She stopped. Darius and Maggie appeared at the garden door. Maggie offered her handto aid her father, but he repulsed it. Calmly she left him, and came upthe garden, out of the deep shadow into the sunshine. She had learntthe news of the engagement, and had fully expressed her feelings aboutit before Darius arrived at his destination and Mrs Hamps vacated thewicker-chair. "I'll get some chairs, " said Edwin gruffly. He could look nobody in theeyes. As he turned away he heard Mrs Hamps say-- "Great news, father! Alicia Orgreave is engaged!" The old man made no reply. His mere physical present deprived thebetrothal of all its charm. The news fell utterly flat and layunregarded and insignificant. Edwin did not get the chairs. He sent the servant out with them. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER ELEVEN. AN HOUR. Janet called out--"Play--no, I think perhaps you'll do better if youstand a little farther back. Now--play!" She brought down her lifted right arm, and smacked the ball into thenet. "Double fault!" she cried, lamenting, when she had done this twice. "Ohdear! Now you go over to the other side of the court. " Edwin would not have kept the rendezvous could he have found an excusesatisfactory to himself for staying away. He was a beginner at tennis, and a very awkward one, having little aptitude for games, and being nowinelastic in the muscles. He possessed no flannels, though for weeks hehad been meaning to get at least a pair of white pants. He was wearingJimmie Orgreave's india-rubber pumps, which admirably fitted him. Moreover, he was aware that he looked better in his jacket than in hisshirt-sleeves. But these reasons against the rendezvous were naught. The only genuine reason was that he had felt timid about meeting Janet. Could he meet her without revealing by his mere guilty glance that hisaunt had half convinced him that he had only to ask nicely in order toreceive? Could he meet her without giving her the impression that hewas a conceited ass? He had met her. She was waiting for him in thegarden, and by dint of starting the conversation in loud tones from adistance, and fumbling a few moments with the tennis balls beforeapproaching her, he had come through the encounter without too muchfoolishness. And now he was glad that he had not been so silly as to stay away. Shewas alone; Mrs Orgreave was lying down, and all the others were out. Alicia and her Harry were off together somewhere. She was alone in thegarden, and she was beautiful, and the shaded garden was beautiful, andthe fading afternoon. The soft short grass was delicate to his feet, and round the oval of the lawn were glimpses of flowers, and behind herclear-tinted frock was the yellow house laced over with green. A columnof thick smoke rose from a manufactory close behind the house, but thetrees mitigated it. He played perfunctorily, uninterested in the game, dreaming. She was a wondrous girl! She was the perfect girl! Nobody had everbeen able to find any fault with her. He liked her exceedingly. Had itbeen necessary, he would have sacrificed his just interests in thealtercation with her father in order to avoid a coolness in which shemight have been involved. She was immensely distinguished and superior. And she was over thirty and had never been engaged, despite the numberand variety of her acquaintances, despite her challenging readiness toflirt, and her occasional coquetries. Ten years ago he had almostregarded her as a madonna on a throne, so high did she seem to be abovehim. His ideas had changed, but there could be no doubt that in analliance between an Orgreave and a Clayhanger, it would be theClayhanger who stood to gain the greater advantage. There she was! Ifshe was not waiting for him, she was waiting--for some one! Why not forhim as well as for another? He said to himself-- "Why shouldn't I be happy? That other thing is all over!" It was, in fact, years since the name of Hilda had ever been mentionedbetween them. Why should he not be happy? There was nothing to preventher from being happy. His father's illness could not endure for ever. One day soon he would be free in theory as well as in practice. With notie and no duty (Maggie was negligible) he would have both money andposition. What might his life not be with a woman like Janet, brilliant, beautiful, elegant, and faithful? He pictured that life, andeven the vision of it dazzled him. Janet his! Janet always there, presiding over a home which was his home, wearing hats that he had paidfor, appealing constantly to his judgement, and meaning him when shesaid, `My husband. ' He saw her in the close and tender intimacy ofmarriage, acquiescent, exquisite, yielding, calmly accustomed to him, modest, but with a different modesty! It was a vision surpassingvisions. And there she was on the other side of the net! With her he could be his finest self. He would not have to hide hisfinest self from ridicule, as often now, among his own family. She was a fine woman! He watched the free movement of her waist, andthe curvings and flyings of her short tennis skirt. And there wassomething strangely feminine about the neck of her blouse, now that heexamined it. "Your game!" she cried. "That's four double faults I've served. Ican't play! I really don't think I can. There's something the matterwith me! Or else it's the net that's too high. Those boys will keepscrewing it up!" She had a pouting, capricious air, and it delighted him. Never had heseen her so enchantingly girlish as, by a curious hazard, he saw hernow. Why should he not he happy? Why should he not wake up out of hisnightmare and begin to live? In a momentary flash he seemed to see hispast in a true perspective, as it really was, as some well-balancedperson not himself would have seen it. Mere morbidity to say, as he hadbeen saying privately for years, that marriage was not for him!Marriage emphatically was for him, if only because he had fine ideals ofit. Most people who married were too stupid to get the value of theiradventure. Celibacy was grotesque, cowardly, and pitiful--no matter howintellectual the celibate--and it was no use pretending the contrary. A masculine gesture, an advance, a bracing of the male in him . .. Probably nothing else was needed. "Well, " he said boldly, "if you don't want to play, let's sit down andrest. " And then he gave a nervous little laugh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. They sat down on the bench that was shaded by the old elderberry tree. Visually, the situation had all the characteristics of an idylliccourtship. "I suppose it's Alicia's engagement, " she said, smiling reflectively, "that's put me off my game. They do upset you, those things do, and youdon't know why. .. It isn't as if Alicia was the first--I mean of usgirls. There was Marian; but then, of course, that was so long ago, andI was only a chit. " "Yes, " he murmured vaguely; and though she seemed to be waiting for himto say more, he merely repeated, "Yes. " Such was his sole contribution to this topic, so suitable to thesituation, so promising, so easy of treatment. They were so friendlythat he was under no social obligation to talk for the sake of talking. That was it: they were too friendly. She sat within a foot of him, reclining against the sloping back of the bench, and idly dangling onewhite-shod foot; her long hands lay on her knees. She was there in allher perfection. But by some sinister magic, as she had approached himand their paths had met at the bench, his vision had faded. Now, shewas no longer a woman and he a man. Now, the curvings of her draperyfrom the elegant waistband were no longer a provocation. She wasimmediately beneath his eye, and he recognised her again for what shewas--Janet! Precisely Janet--no less and no more! But her beauty, hercharm, her faculty for affection--surely. .. No! His instinct was deafto all `buts. ' His instinct did not argue; it cooled. Fancy hadcreated a vision in an instant out of an idea, and in an instant thevision had died. He remembered Hilda with painful intensity. Heremembered the feel of her frock under his hand in the cubicle, and theodour of her flesh that was like fruit. His cursed constancy! . .. Could he not get Hilda out of his bones? Did she sleep in his boneslike a malady that awakes whenever it is disrespectfully treated? He grew melancholy. Accustomed to savour the sadness of existence, hesoon accepted the new mood without resentment. He resigned himself to the destruction of his dream. He was like acaptive whose cell has been opened in mistake, and who is too gentle torave when he sees it shut again. Only in secret he poured anindifferent, careless scorn upon Auntie Hamps. They played a whole interminable set, and then Edwin went home, possiblymarvelling at the variety of experience that a single hour may contain. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWELVE. REVENGE. Edwin re-entered his home with a feeling of dismayed resignation. Therewas then no escape, and never could be any escape, from the existence towhich he was accustomed; even after his father's death, his existencewould still be essentially the same--incomplete and sterile. Heaccepted the destiny, but he was daunted by it. He quietly shut the front door, which had been ajar, and as he did so heheard voices in the drawing-room. "I tell ye I'm going to grow mushrooms, " Darius was saying. "Can't Igrow mushrooms in my own cellar?" Then a snort. "I don't think it'll be a good thing, " was Maggie's calm reply. "Ye've said that afore. Why won't it be a good thing? And what's itgot to do with you?" The voice of Darius, ordinarily weak and languid, was rising and becoming strong. "Well, you'd be falling up and down the cellar steps. You know how darkthey are. Supposing you hurt yourself?" "Ye'd only be too glad if I killed mysen!" said Darius, with a touch ofhis ancient grimness. There was a pause. "And it seems they want a lot of attention, mushrooms do, " Maggie wenton with unperturbed placidity. "You'd never be able to do it. " "Jane could help me, " said Darius, in the tone of one who is ratherpleased with an ingenious suggestion. "Oh no, she couldn't!" Maggie exclaimed, with a peculiar humorousdryness which she employed only on the rarest occasions. Jane was thedesired Bathsheba. "And I say she could!" the old man shouted with surprising vigour. "Herdoes nothing! What does Mrs Nixon do? What do you do? Three greatstrapping women in the house and doing nought! I say she shall!" Thevoice dropped and snarled. "Who's master here? Is it me, or is it thecat? D'ye think as I can't turn ye all out of it neck and crop, if I'vea mind? You and Edwin, and the lot of ye! And to-night too! Give mesome money now, and quicker than that! I've got nought but sovereignsand notes. I'll go down and get the spawn myself--ay! and order theearth too! I'll make it my business to show my childer--But I mun havesome change for my car fares. " He breathed heavily. "I'm sure Edwin won't like it, " Maggie murmured. "Edwin! Hast told Edwin?" Darius also murmured, but it was a murmur ofrage. "No, I haven't. Edwin's got quite enough on his hands as it is, withoutany other worries. " There was the noise of a sudden movement, and of a chair falling. "Bugger you all!" Darius burst out with a fury whose restraint showedthat he had unsuspected reserves of strength. And then he began toswear. Edwin, like many timid men, often used forbidden words with muchferocity in private. Once he had had a long philosophic argument withTom Orgreave on the subject of profanity. They had discussed allaspects of it, from its religious origin to its psychological results, and Edwin's theory had been that it was only improper by a purelysuperstitious convention, and that no man of sense could possibly beoffended, in himself, by the mere sound of words that had been deprivedof meaning. He might be offended on behalf of an unreasoningfellow-listener, such as a woman, but not personally. Edwin nowdiscovered that his theory did not hold. He was offended. He wasalmost horrified. He had never in his life till that moment heardDarius swear. He heard him now. He considered himself to be a fairlyfirst-class authority on swearing; he thought that he was familiar withall the sacred words and with all the combinations of them. He wasmistaken. His father's profanity was a brilliant and appallingrevelation. It comprised words which were strange to him, and strangeperversions that renewed the vigour of decrepit words. For Edwin, itwas a whole series of fresh formulae, brutal and shameless beyond hisexperience, full of images and similes of the most startling candour, and drawing its inspiration always from the sickening bases of life. Darius had remembered with ease the vocabulary to which he was hourlyaccustomed when he began life as a man of seven. For more than fiftyyears he had carried within himself these vestiges of a barbarism whichhis children had never even conceived, and now he threw them out in alltheir crudity at his daughter. And when she did not blench, he began toaccuse her as men were used to accuse their daughters in the bright daysof the Sailor King. He invented enormities which she had committed, andthere would have been no obscene infamy of which Maggie was not guilty, if Edwin--more by instinct than by volition--had not pushed open thedoor and entered the drawing-room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. He was angry, and the sight of the flushed meekness of his sister, asshe leaned quietly with her back against an easy-chair, made himangrier. "Enough of this!" he said gruffly and peremptorily. Darius, with scarcely a break, continued. "I say enough of this!" Edwin cried, with increased harshness. The old man paused, half intimidated. With his pimpled face and glaringeyes, his gleaming gold teeth, his frowziness of a difficult invalid, his grimaces and gestures which were the result of a lifetime devoted togain, he made a loathsome object. Edwin hated him, and there was abitter contempt in his hatred. "I'm going to have that spawn, and I'm going to have some change! Giveme some money!" Darius positively hissed. Edwin grew nearly capable of homicide. All the wrongs that he hadsuffered leaped up and yelled. "You'll have no money!" he said, with brutal roughness. "And you'llgrow no mushrooms! And let that be understood once for all! You've gotto behave in this house. " Darius flickered up. "Do you hear?" Edwin stamped on the conflagration. It was extinguished. Darius, cowed, slowly and clumsily directedhimself towards the door. Once Edwin had looked forward to a momentwhen he might have his father at his mercy, when he might revengehimself for the insults and the bullying that had been his. Once he hadclenched his fist and his teeth, and had said, "When you're old, andI've got you, and you can't help yourself!" That moment had come, andit had even enabled and forced him to refuse money to his father--refusemoney to his father! As he looked at the poor figure fumbling towardsthe door, he knew the humiliating paltriness of revenge. As his angerfell, his shame grew. Maggie lifted her eyebrows when Darius banged the door. "He can't help it, " she said. "Of course he can't help it, " said Edwin, defending himself, less toMaggie than to himself. "But there must be a limit. He's got to bekept in order, you know, even if he is an invalid. " His heart wasperceptibly beating. "Yes, of course. " "And evidently there's only one way of doing it. How long's he been onthis mushroom tack?" "Oh, not long. " "Well, you ought to have told me, " said Edwin, with the air of a masterof the house who is displeased. Maggie accepted the reproof. "He'd break his neck in the cellar before he knew where he was, " Edwinresumed. "Yes, he would, " said Maggie, and left the room. Upon her placid features there was not the slightest trace of theonslaught of profanity. The faint flush had paled away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. The next morning, Sunday, Edwin came downstairs late, to the sound ofsinging. In his soft carpet-slippers he stopped at the foot of thestairs and tapped the weather-glass, after the manner of his father; andlistened. It was a duet for female voices that was being sung, composedby Balfe to the words of the good Longfellow's "Excelsior. " A prettything, charming in its thin sentimentality; one of the few pieces thatDarius in former days really understood and liked. Maggie and Clara hadnot sung it for years. For years they had not sung it at all. Edwin went to the doorway of the drawing-room and stood there. Clara, in Sunday bonnet, was seated at the ancient piano; it had always beenshe who had played the accompaniments. Maggie, nursing one of thebabies, sat on another chair, and leaned towards the page in order tomake out the words. She had half-forgotten the words, and Clara was nolonger at ease in the piano part, and their voices were shaky andunruly, and the piano itself was exceedingly bad. A very indifferentperformance of indifferent music! And yet it touched Edwin. He couldnot deny that by its beauty and by the sentiment of old times it touchedhim. He moved a little forward in the doorway. Clara glanced at him, and winked. Now he could see his father. Darius was standing at somedistance behind his daughters and his grandchild, and staring at them. And the tears rained down from his red eyes, and then his emotionovercame him and he blubbered, just as the duet finished. "Now, father, " Clara protested cheerfully, "this won't do. You know youasked for it. Give me the infant, Maggie. " Edwin walked away. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE JOURNEY UPSTAIRS. Late on another Saturday afternoon in the following March, when Dariushad been ill nearly two years, he and Edwin and Albert were sittinground the remains of high tea together in the dining-room. Clara hadnot been able to accompany her husband on what was now the customarySaturday visit, owing to the illness of her fourth child. Mrs Hampswas fighting chronic rheumatism at home. And Maggie had left the tableto cosset Mrs Nixon, who of late received more help than she gave. Darius sat in dull silence. The younger men were talking about theBursley Society for the Prosecution of Felons, of which Albert had justbeen made a member. Whatever it might have been in the past, theSociety for the Prosecution of Felons was now a dining-club and littleelse. Its annual dinner, admitted to be the chief oratorical event ofthe year, was regarded as strictly exclusive, because no member, exceptthe president, had the right to bring a guest to it. Only `Felons, ' asthey humorously named themselves, and the reporters of the "Signal, "might listen to the eloquence of Felons. Albert Benbow, who for yearshad been hearing about the brilliant funniness of the American Consul atthese dinners, was so flattered by his Felonry that he would have beenready to put the letters S P F after his name. "Oh, you'll have to join!" said he to Edwin, kindly urgent, like a manwho, recently married, goes about telling all bachelors that theypositively must marry at once. "You ought to get it fixed up before thenext feed. " Edwin shook his head. Though he, too, dreamed of the Felons' Dinner asa repast really worth eating, though he wanted to be a Felon, andconsidered that he ought to be a Felon, and wondered why he was notalready a Felon, he repeatedly assured Albert that Felonry was not forhim. "You're a Felon, aren't you, dad?" Albert shouted at Darius. "Oh yes, father's a Felon, " said Edwin. "Has been ever since I canremember. " "Did ye ever speak there?" asked Albert, with an air of good-humouredcondescension. Darius's elbow slipped violently off the tablecloth, and a knife fell tothe floor and a plate after it. Darius went pale. "All right! All right! Don't be alarmed, dad!" Albert reassured him, picking up the things. "I was asking ye, did ye ever speak there--makea speech?" "Yes, " said Darius heavily. "Did you now!" Albert murmured, staring at Darius. And it was exactlyas if he had said, "Well, it's extraordinary that a foolish physical andmental wreck such as you are now, should ever have had wit and courageenough to rise and address the glorious Felons!" Darius glanced up at the gas, with a gesture that was among Edwin'searliest recollections, and then he fixed his eyes dully on the fire, with head bent and muscles lax. "Have a cigarette--that'll cheer ye up, " said Albert. Darius made a negative sign. "He's very tired, seemingly, " Albert remarked to Edwin, as if Darius hadnot been present. "Yes, " Edwin muttered, examining his father. Darius appeared ten yearsolder than his age. His thin hair was white, though the stragglingbeard that had been allowed to grow was only grey. His face was sunkenand pale, but even more striking was the extreme pallor of the handswith their long clean fingernails, those hands that had been red andrough, tools of all work. His clothes hung somewhat loosely on him, anda shawl round his shoulders was awry. The comatose melancholy in hiseyes was acutely painful to see--so much so that Edwin could not bear tolook long at them. "Father, " Edwin asked him suddenly, "wouldn't youlike to go to bed?" And to his surprise Darius said, "Yes. " "Well, come on then. " Darius did not move. "Come on, " Edwin urged. "I'm sure you're overtired, and you'll bebetter in bed. " He took his father by the arm, but there was no responsive movement. Often Edwin noticed this capricious, obstinate attitude; his fatherwould express a wish to do a certain thing, and then would make noeffort to do it. "Come!" said Edwin more firmly, pulling at thelifeless arm. Albert sprang up, and said that he would assist. One oneither side, they got Darius to his feet, and slowly walked him out ofthe room. He was very exasperating. His weight and his inertia wereterrible. The spectacle suggested that either Darius was pretending tobe a carcass, or Edwin and Albert were pretending that a carcass wasalive. On the stairs there was not room for the three abreast. One hadto push, another to pull: Darius seemed wilfully to fall backwards ifpressure were released. Edwin restrained his exasperation; but thoughhe said nothing, his sharp half-vicious pull on that arm seemed to say, "Confound you! Come up--will you!" The last two steps of the stair hada peculiar effect on Darius. He appeared to shy at them, and thenfinally to jib. It was no longer a reasonable creature that they weregetting upstairs, but an incalculable and mysterious beast. They liftedhim on to the landing, and he stood on the landing as if in his sleep. Both Edwin and Albert were breathless. This was the man who since thebeginning of his illness had often walked to Hillport and back! It wasincredible that he had ever walked to Hillport and back. He passed moreeasily along the landing. And then he was in his bedroom. "Father going to bed?" Maggie called out from below. "Yes, " said Albert. "We've just been getting him upstairs. " "Oh! That's right, " Maggie said cheerfully. "I thought he was lookingvery tired to-night. " "He gave us a doing, " said the breathless Albert in a low voice at thedoor of the bedroom, smiling, and glancing at his cigarette to see if itwas still alight. "He does it on purpose, you know, " Edwin whispered casually. "I'll justget him to bed, and then I'll be down. " Albert went, with a `good night' to Darius that received no answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. In the bedroom, Darius had sunk on to the cushioned ottoman. Edwin shutthe door. "Now then!" said Edwin encouragingly, yet commandingly. "I can tell youone thing--you aren't losing weight. " He had recovered from hisannoyance, but he was not disposed to submit to any trifling. For manymonths now he had helped Darius to dress, when he came up from the shopfor breakfast, and to undress in the evening. It was not that hisfather lacked the strength, but he would somehow lose himself in themaze of his garments, and apparently he could never remember the properorder of doffing or donning them. Sometimes he would ask, "Am Idressing or undressing?" And he would be capable of so involvinghimself in a shirt, if Edwin were not there to direct, that muchpatience was needed for his extrication. His misapprehensions andmistakes frequently reached the grotesque. As habit threw them more andmore intimately together, the trusting dependence of Darius on Edwinincreased. At morning and evening the expression of that intenselymournful visage seemed to be saying as its gaze met Edwin's, "Here isthe one clear-sighted, powerful being who can guide me through thiscomplex and frightful problem of my clothes. " A suit, for Darius, hadbecome as intricate as a quadratic equation. And, in Edwin, compassionand irritation fought an interminable guerilla. Now one obtained theadvantage, now the other. His nerves demanded relief from the friction, but he could offer them no holiday, not one single day's holiday. Twiceevery day he had to manoeuvre and persuade that ponderous, irrationalbody in his father's bedroom. Maggie helped the body to feed itself attable. But Maggie apparently had no nerves. "I shall never go down them stairs again, " said Darius, as if infatigued disgust, on the ottoman. "Oh, nonsense!" Edwin exclaimed. Darius shook his head solemnly, and looked at vacancy. "Well, we'll talk about that to-morrow, " said Edwin, and with the skillof regular practice drew out the ends of the bow of his father'snecktie. He had gradually evolved a complete code of rules covering theentire process of the toilette, and he insisted on their observance. Every article had its order in the ceremony and its place in the room. Never had the room been so tidy, nor the rites so expeditious, as in thefinal months of Darius's malady. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. The cumbrous body lay in bed. The bed was in an architecturallycontrived recess, sheltered from both the large window and the door. Over its head was the gas-bracket and the bell-knob. At one side was anight-table, and at the other a chair. In front of the night-table wereDarius's slippers. On the chair were certain clothes. From a hook nearthe night-table, and almost over the slippers, hung his dressing-gown. Seen from the bed, the dressing-table, at the window, appeared to be along way off, and the wardrobe was a long way off in another direction. The gas was turned low. It threw a pale illumination on the bed, andgleamed on a curve of mahogany here and there in the distances. Edwin looked at his father, to be sure that all was in order, thatnothing had been forgotten. The body seemed monstrous and shapelessbeneath the thickly piled clothes; and from the edge of the eider-down, making a valley in the pillow, the bearded face projected, in a mannergrotesque and ridiculous. A clock struck seven in another part of thehouse. "What time's that?" Darius murmured. "Seven, " said Edwin, standing close to him. Darius raised himself slowly and clumsily on one elbow. "Here! But look here!" Edwin protested. "I've just fixed you up--" The old man ignored him, and one of those unnaturally white handsstretched forth to the night-table, which was on the side of the bedopposite to Edwin. Darius's gold watch and chain lay on thenight-table. "I've wound it up! I've wound it up!" said Edwin, a little crossly. "What are you worrying at?" But Darius, silent, continued to manoeuvre his flannelled arm so as topossess the watch. At length he seized the chain, and, shifting hisweight to the other elbow, held out the watch and chain to Edwin, with amost piteous expression. Edwin could see in the twilight that hisfather was ready to weep. "I want ye--" the old man began, and then burst into violent sobs; andthe watch dangled dangerously. "Come now!" Edwin tried to soothe him, forcing himself to be kindly. "What is it? I tell you I've wound it up all right. And it's correcttime to a tick. " He consulted his own silver watch. With a tremendous effort, Darius mastered his sobs, and began once more, "I want ye--" He tried several times, but his emotion overcame him each time before hecould force the message out. It was always too quick for him. Silent, he could control it, but he could not simultaneously control it andspeak. "Never mind, " said Edwin. "We'll see about that tomorrow. " And hewondered what bizarre project affecting the watch had entered hisfather's mind. Perhaps he wanted it set a quarter of an hour fast. Darius dropped the watch on the eider-down, and sighed in despair, andfell back on the pillow and shut his eyes. Edwin restored the watch tothe night-table. Later, he crept into the dim room. Darius was snoring under thetwilight of the gas. Like an unhappy child, he had found refuge insleep from the enormous, infantile problems of his existence. And itwas so pathetic, so distressing, that Edwin, as he gazed at that beardand those gold teeth, could have sobbed too. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE WATCH. When Edwin the next morning, rather earlier than usual on Sundays, cameforth from his bedroom to go into the bathroom, he was startled by avoice from his father's bedroom calling him. It was Maggie's. She hadheard him open his door, and she joined him on the landing. "I was waiting for you to be getting up, " she said in a quiet tone. "Idon't think father's so well, and I was wondering whether I hadn'tbetter send Jane down for the doctor. It's not certain he'll callto-day if he isn't specially fetched. " "Why?" said Edwin. "What's up?" "Oh, nothing, " Maggie answered. "Nothing particular, but you didn'thear him ringing in the night?" "Ringing? No! What time?" "About one o'clock. Jane heard the bell, and she woke me. So I got upto him. He said he couldn't do with being alone. " "What did you do?" "I made him something hot and stayed with him. " "What? All night?" "Yes, " said Maggie. "But why didn't you call me?" "What was the good?" "You ought to have called me, " he said with curt displeasure, not reallyagainst Maggie, but against himself for having heard naught of all thesehappenings. Maggie had no appearance of having passed the night by herfather's bedside. "Oh, " she said lightly, "I dozed a bit now and then. And as soon as thegirl was up I got her to come and sit with him while I spruced myself. " "I'll have a look at him, " said Edwin, in another tone. "Yes, I wish you would. " Now, as often, he was struck by Maggie'ssingular deference to him, her submission to his judgement. In the pasther attitude had been different; she had exercised the moral rights ofan elder sister; but latterly she had mysteriously transformed herselfinto a younger sister. He went towards his father, drawing his dressing-gown more closely roundhim. The chamber had an aspect of freshness and tidiness that made italmost gay--until he looked at the object in the smoothed and rectifiedbed. He nodded to his father, who merely gazed at him. There was nodefinite, definable change in the old man's face, but his bearing, evenas he lay, was appreciably more melancholy and impotent. The mere sightof a man so broken and so sad was humiliating to the humanity whichEdwin shared with him. "Well, father, " he nodded familiarly. "Don't feel like getting up, eh?"And, remembering that he was the head of the house, the source ofauthority and of strength, he tried to be cheerful, casual, andinvigorating, and was disgusted by the futile inefficiency of theattempt. He had not, like Auntie Hamps, devoted a lifetime to the studyof the trick. Darius feebly moved his hopeless head to signify a negative. And Edwin thought, with a lancinating pain, of what the old man hadmumbled on the previous evening: "I shall never go down them stairsagain. " Perhaps the old man never would go down those stairs again! Hehad paid no serious attention to the remark at the moment, but now itpresented itself to him as a solemn and prophetic utterance, of such asare remembered with awe for years and continue to jut up clear in themind when all minor souvenirs of the time have crumbled away. And hewould have given much of his pride to be able to go back and help theold man upstairs once more, and do it with a more loving patience. "I've sent Jane, " said Maggie, returning to the bedroom. "You'd bettergo and finish dressing. " On coming out of the bathroom he discovered Albert on the landing, waiting. "The missis would have me come up and see how he was, " said Albert. "SoI've run in between school and chapel. When I told her what a doing hegave us, getting him upstairs, she was quite in a way, and she wouldhave me come up. The kid's better. " He was exceedingly and quitegenuinely fraternal, not having his wife's faculty for nourishing afeud. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The spectacular developments were rapid. In the afternoon Auntie Hamps, Clara, Maggie, and Edwin were grouped around the bed of Darius. A fireburned in the grate; flowers were on the dressing-table. An extra tablehad been placed at the foot of the bed. The room was a sick-room. Dr Heve had called, and had said that the patient's desire not to beleft alone was a symptom of gravity. He suggested a nurse, and whenMaggie, startled, said that perhaps they could manage without a nurse, he inquired how. And as he talked he seemed to be more persuaded that anurse was necessary, if only for night duty, and in the end he wenthimself to the new Telephone Exchange and ordered a nurse from thePirehill Infirmary Nursing Home. And the dramatic thing was that withintwo hours and a half the nurse had arrived. And in ten minutes afterthat it had been arranged that she should have Maggie's bedroom and thatshe should take night duty, and in order that she might be fresh for thenight she had gone straight off to bed. Then Clara had arrived, in spite of the illness of her baby, and AuntieHamps had forced herself up Trafalgar Road, in spite of her rheumatism. And a lengthy confabulation between the women had occurred in thedining-room, not about the invalid, but about what `she' had said, andabout the etiquette of treating `her, ' and about what `she' looked likeand shaped like; `her' and `she' being the professional nurse. With aprofessional nurse in it, each woman sincerely felt that the house wasno longer itself, that it had become the house of the enemy. Darius lay supine before them, physically and spiritually abased, accepting, like a victim who is too weak even to be ashamed, the cooingsand strokings and prayers and optimistic mendacities of Auntie Hamps, and the tearful tendernesses of Clara. "I've made my will, " he whimpered. "Yes, yes, " said Auntie Hamps. "Of course you have!" "Did I tell you I'd made my will?" he feebly insisted. "Yes, father, " said Clara. "Don't worry about your will. " "I've left th' business to Edwin, and all th' rest's divided between youtwo wenches. " He was weeping gently. "Don't worry about that, father, " Clara repeated. "Why are you thinkingso much about your will?" She tried to speak in a tone that was easyand matter-of-fact. But she could not. This was the first authenticinformation that any of them had had as to the dispositions of the will, and it was exciting. Then Darius began to try to sit up, and there were protests against suchan act. Though he sat up to take his food, the tone of theseapprehensive remonstrances implied that to sit up at any other time wasto endanger his life. Darius, however, with a weak scowl, continued tolift himself, whereupon Maggie aided him, and Auntie Hamps likelightning put a shawl round his shoulders. He sighed, and stretched outhis hand to the night-table for his gold watch and chain, which hedangled towards Edwin. "I want ye--" He stopped, controlling the muscles of his face. "He wants you to wind it up, " said Clara, struck by her own insight. "No, he doesn't, " said Edwin. "He knows it's wound up. " "I want ye--" Darius recommenced. But he was defeated again by hisinsidious foe. He wept loudly and without restraint for a few moments, and then suddenly ceased, and endeavoured to speak, and wept anew, agitating the watch in the direction of Edwin. "Take it, Edwin, " said Mrs Hamps. "Perhaps he wants it put away, " sheadded, as Edwin obeyed. Darius shook his head furiously. "I want him--" Sobs choked him. "I know what he wants, " said Auntie Hamps. "He wants to give dear Edwinthe watch, because Edwin's been so kind to him, helping him to dressevery day, and looking after him just like a professional nurse--don'tyou, dear?" Edwin secretly cursed her in the most horrible fashion. But she wasright. "Ye-hes, " Darius confirmed her, on a sob. "He wants to show his gratitude, " said Auntie Hamps. "Ye-hes, " Darius repeated, and wiped his eyes. Edwin stood foolishly holding the watch with its massive Albert chain. He was very genuinely astonished, and he was profoundly moved. Hisfather's emotion concerning him must have been gathering force formonths and months, increasing a little and a little every day in thosedaily, intimate contacts, until at length gratitude had become, as itwere, a spirit that possessed him, a monstrous demon whose wildeagerness to escape defeated itself. And Edwin had never guessed, forDarius had mastered the spirit till the moment when the spirit masteredhim. It was out now, and Darius, delivered, breathed more freely. Edwin was proud, but his humiliation was greater than his pride. Hesuffered humiliation for his father. He would have preferred thatDarius should never have felt gratitude, or, at any rate, that he shouldnever have shown it. He would have preferred that Darius should haveaccepted his help nonchalantly, grimly, thanklessly, as a right. And ifthrough disease, the old man could not cease to be a tyrant withdignity, could not become human without this appalling ceremonialabasement--better that he should have exercised harshness and oppressionto the very end! There was probably no phenomenon of human nature thatoffended Edwin's instincts more than an open conversion. Maggie turned nervously away and busied herself with the grate. "You must put it on, " said Auntie Hamps sweetly. "Mustn't he, father?" Darius nodded. The outrage was complete. Edwin removed his own watch and dropped itinto the pocket of his trousers, substituting for it the gold one. "There, father!" exclaimed Auntie Hamps proudly, surveying the curve ofthe Albert on her nephew's waistcoat. "Ay!" Darius murmured, and sank back on the pillow with a sigh ofrelief. "Thanks, father, " Edwin muttered, reddening. "But there was nooccasion. " "Now you see what it is to be a good son!" Auntie Hamps observed. Darius murmured indistinctly. "What is it?" she asked, bending down. "I must have his, " said Darius. "I must have a watch here. " "He wants your old one in exchange, " Clara explained eagerly. Edwin smiled, discovering a certain alleviation in this shrewd demand ofhis father's, and he drew out the silver Geneva. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Shortly afterwards the nurse surprised them all by coming into the room. She carried a writing-case. Edwin introduced her to Auntie Hamps andClara. Clara blushed and became mute. Auntie Hamps adopted a tone ofexcessive deference, of which the refrain was "Nurse will know best. "Nurse seemed disinclined to be professional. Explaining that as she wasnot able to sleep she thought she might as well get up, she took a seatnear the fire and addressed herself to Maggie. She was a tall andradiant woman of about thirty. Her aristocratic southern accent provedthat she did not belong to the Five Towns, and to Maggie, in excuse forcertain questions as to the district, she said that she had only been atPirehill a few weeks. Her demeanour was extraordinarily cheerful. Auntie Hamps remarked aside to Clara what a good thing it was that Nursewas so cheerful; but in reality she considered such cheerfulnessexaggerated in a sick-room, and not quite nice. The nurse asked aboutthe posts, and said she had a letter to write and would write it thereif she could have pen and ink. Auntie Hamps, telling her eagerly aboutthe posts, thought that these professional nurses certainly did makethemselves at home in a house. The nurse's accent intimidated all ofthem. "Well, nurse, I suppose we mustn't tire our patient, " said Auntie Hampsat last, after Edwin had brought ink and paper. Edwin, conscious of the glory of a gold watch and chain, and consciousalso of freedom from future personal service on his father, precededAuntie Hamps and Clara to the landing, and Nurse herself sped them fromthe room, in her quality of mistress of the room. And when she andMaggie and Darius were alone together she went to the bedside and spokesoftly to her patient. She was so neat and bright and white andstriped, and so perfect in every detail, that she might have been amodel taken straight from a shop-window. Her figure illuminated thedusk. An incredible luxury for the little boy from the Bastille! Butshe was one of the many wonderful things he had earned. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE BANQUET. It was with a conscience uneasy that Edwin shut the front door one nighta month later, and issued out into Trafalgar Road. Since the arrival ofNurse Shaw, Darius had not risen from his bed, and the household hadcome to accept him as bed-ridden and the nurse as a permanency. Thesick-room was the centre of the house, and Maggie and Edwin and theservants lived, as it were, in a camp round about it, their daysuncomfortably passing in suspense, in expectation of developments whichtarried. "How is he this morning?" "Much the same. " "How is he thisevening?" "Much the same. " These phrases had grown familiar andtedious. But for three days Darius had been noticeably worse, and thedemeanour of Nurse Shaw had altered, and she had taken less sleep andless exercise. Osmond Orgreave had even called in person to inquireafter the invalid, doubtless moved by Janet to accomplish thisformality, for he could not have been without news. Janet wasconstantly in the house, helping Maggie; and Alicia also sometimes. Since her engagement, Alicia had been striving to prove that sheappreciated the gravity of existence. Still, despite the change in the patient's condition, everybody hadinsisted that Edwin should go to the annual dinner of the Society forthe Prosecution of Felons, to which he had been duly elected withflattering dispatch. Why should he not go? Why should he not enjoyhimself? What could he do if he stayed at home? Would not the changebe good for him? At most the absence would be for a few hours, and ifhe could absent himself during ten hours for business, surely forhealthful distraction he might absent himself during five hours! Maggiegrew elder-sisterly at the last moment of decision, and told him he mustgo, and that if he didn't she should be angry. When he asked her `Whatabout her health? What about her needing a change?' she said curtlythat that had nothing to do with it. He went. The persuaders were helped by his own desire. And in spite ofhis conscience, when he was fairly in the street he drew a sigh ofrelief, and deliberately turned his heart towards gaiety. It seemedinexpressibly pathetic that his father was lying behind thosejust-lighted blinds above, and would never again breathe the open air, never again glide along those pavements with his arms fixed and slightlyoutwards. But Edwin was determined to listen to reason and not to bemorbid. The streets were lively with the red and the blue colours of politics. The Liberal member for the Parliamentary borough of Hanbridge, whichincluded Bursley, had died very suddenly, and the seat was beingdisputed by the previously defeated Conservative candidate and a newLabour candidate officially adopted by the Liberal party. The Torieshad sworn not to be beaten again in the defence of the integrity of theEmpire. And though they had the difficult and delicate task ofpersuading a large industrial constituency that an industrialrepresentative would not further industrial interests, and that theyalone were actuated by unselfish love for the people, yet they had madeenormous progress in a very brief period, and publicans were jubilantand bars sloppy. The aspect of the affair that did not quite please the Society for theProsecution of Felons was that the polling had been fixed for the dayafter its annual dinner instead of the day before. Powerful efforts hadbeen made `in the proper quarter' to get the date conveniently arranged, but without success; after all, the seat of authority was Hanbridge andnot Bursley. Hanbridge, sadly failing to appreciate the importance ofBursley's Felonry, had suggested that the feast might be moved a coupleof days. The Felonry refused. If its dinner clashed with the supremenight of the campaign, so much the worse for the campaign! Moreover, the excitement of the campaign would at any rate give zest to thedinner. Ere he reached Duck Bank, the vivacity of the town, loosed after theday's labour to an evening's orgy of oratory and horseplay and beer, hadcommunicated itself to Edwin. He was most distinctly aware of pleasurein the sight of the Tory candidate driving past, at a pace to overtakesteam-cars, in a coach-and-four, with amateur postilions and anorchestra of horns. The spectacle, and the speed of it, somehowthrilled him, and for an instant made him want to vote Tory. Aprocession of illuminated carts, bearing white potters apparentlyengaged in the handicraft which the Labour candidate had practised inhumbler days, also pleased him, but pleased him less. As he passed upDuck Bank the Labour candidate himself was raising loud enthusiasticcheers from a railway lorry in Duck Square, and Edwin's spirits wenteven higher, and he elbowed through the laughing, joking throng withfraternal good-humour, feeling that an election was in itself a grandthing, apart from its result, and apart from the profit which it broughtto steam-printers. In the porch of the Town Hall, a man turned from an eagerly-smilinggroup of hungry Felons and, straightening his face, asked with quietconcern, "How's your father?" Edwin shook his head. "Pretty bad, " heanswered. "Is he?" murmured the other sadly. And Edwin suddenly sawhis father again behind the blind, irrevocably prone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. But by the time the speeches were in progress he was uplifted high oncemore into the joy of life. He had been welcomed by acquaintances and bystrangers with a deferential warmth that positively startled him. Herealised, as never before, that the town esteemed him as a successfulman. His place was not many removes from the chair. Osmond Orgreavewas on his right, and Albert Benbow on his left. He had introduced animpressed Albert to his friend Mr Orgreave, recently made a Justice ofthe Peace. And down the long littered tables stretched the authority and the wealthof the town-aldermen, councillors, members of the school board, guardians of the poor, magistrates, solid tradesmen, and solidmanufacturers, together with higher officials of the borough and somemembers of the learned professions. Here was the oligarchy which, behind the appearances of democratic government, effectively managed, directed, and controlled the town. Here was the handful of people whosettled between them whether rates should go up or down, and to whom itdid not seriously matter whether rates went up or down, provided thatthe interests of the common people were not too sharply set inantagonism to their own interests. Here were the privileged, who didwhat they liked on the condition of not offending each other. Here thepopulace was honestly and cynically and openly regarded as a restlesschild, to be humoured and to be flattered, but also to be ruled firmly, to be kept in its place, to be ignored when advisable, and to be made topay. For the feast, the court-room had been transformed into a banquetinghall, and the magistrates' bench, where habitual criminals were createdand families ruined and order maintained, was hidden in flowers. OsmondOrgreave was dryly facetious about that bench. He exchanged commentswith other magistrates, and they all agreed, with the same dryfacetiousness, that most of the law was futile and some of itmischievous; and they all said, `But what can you do?' and by their toneindicated that you could do nothing. According to Osmond Orgreave'swit, the only real use of a magistrate was to sign the necessary papersfor persons who had lost pawn-tickets. It appeared that such persons indistress came to Mr Orgreave every day for the august signature. "Ihad an old woman come to me this morning at my office, " he said. "Iasked her how it was they were always losing their pawn-tickets. I toldher I never lost mine. " Osmond Orgreave was encircled with laughter. Edwin laughed heartily. It was a good joke. And even mediocre jokeswould convulse the room. Jos Curtenty, the renowned card, a jolly old gentleman of sixty, was inthe chair, and therefore jollity was assured in advance. Rising toinaugurate the oratorical section of the night, he took an enormous redflower from a bouquet behind him, and sticking it with a studiouslyabsent air in his button-hole, said blandly, "Gentlemen, no politics, please!" The uproarious effect was one of his very best. He knew hisaudience. He could have taught Edwin a thing or two. For Edwin in hissimplicity was astonished to find the audience almost all of one colour, frankly and joyously and optimistically Tory. There were not tenLiberals in the place, and there was not one who was vocal. The creamof the town, of its brains, its success, its respectability, wasassembled together, and the Liberal party was practically unrepresented. It seemed as if there was no Liberal party. It seemed impossible thata Labour candidate could achieve anything but complete disaster at thepolls. It seemed incredible that in the past a Liberal candidate hadever been returned. Edwin began, even in the privacy of his own heart, to be apologetic for his Liberalism. All these excellent fellows couldnot be wrong. The moral force of numbers intimidated him. He suspectedthat there was, after all, more to be said for Conservatism than he hadhitherto allowed himself to suppose. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. And the Felons were so good-humoured and kindly and so free-handed, and, with it all, so boyish! They burst into praise of one another on theslenderest excuse. They ordered more champagne as carelessly as thoughchampagne were ginger-beer (Edwin was glad that by an excess ofprecaution he had brought two pounds in his pocket--the scale ofexpenditure was staggering); and they nonchalantly smoked cigars thatwould have made Edwin sick. They knew all about cigars and aboutdrinks, and they implied by their demeanour, though they never said, that a first-class drink and a first-class smoke were the `good things'of life, the ultimate rewards; the references to women were sly. .. Edwin was like a demure cat among a company of splendid curly dogs. The toasts, every one of them, called forth enthusiasm. Even in theearly part of the evening much good-nature had bubbled out when, atintervals, a slim young bachelor of fifty, armed with a violent mallet, had rapped authoritatively on the table and cried: "Mr President wishesto take wine with Mr Vice, " "Mr President wishes to take wine with thebachelors on the right, " "Mr President wishes to take wine with themarried Felons on the left, " and so on till every sort and condition andgeographical situation had been thus distinguished. But the toastsproper aroused displays of the most affectionate loving-kindness. Eachreference to a Felon was greeted with warm cheers, and each referencetouched the superlative of laudation. Every stroke of humour wasnoisily approved, and every exhibition of tender feeling effusivelyendorsed. And all the estates of the realm, and all the institutions ofthe realm and of the town, and all the services of war and peace, andall the official castes were handsomely and unreservedly praised, andtheir health and prosperity pledged with enthusiastic fervour. Theorganism of the Empire was pronounced to be essentially perfect. Nobodyof importance, from the Queen's Majesty to the `ministers of theEstablished Church and other denominations, ' was omitted from thecertificate of supreme excellence and efficiency. And even when analderman, proposing the toast of the `town and trade of Bursley, 'mentioned certain disturbing symptoms in the demeanour of the lowerclasses, he immediately added his earnest conviction that the `heart ofthe country beat true, ' and was comforted with grave applause. Towards the end of the toast-list one of the humorous vocal quartetswhich were designed to relieve the seriousness of the programme, wasinterrupted by the formidable sound of the governed proletariat beyondthe walls of the Town Hall. And Edwin's memory, making him feel veryold, leapt suddenly back into another generation of male glee-singersthat did not disport humorously and that would not have permittedthemselves to be interrupted by the shouting of populations; and herecalled `Loud Ocean's Roar, ' and the figure of Florence Simcox flittedin front of him. The proletariat was cheering somebody. The cheersdied down. And in another moment the Conservative candidate burst intothe room, and was followed by two of his friends (the latter inevening-dress), whom he presented to the President. The ceremoniouscostume impressed the President himself, for at this period of ancienthistory Felons dined in frock-coats or cutaways; it proved that thewearers were so accustomed to wearing evening-dress of a night that theyput it on by sheer habit and inadvertence even for electioneering. Thecandidate only desired to shake hands with a few supporters and toassure the President that nothing but hard necessity had kept him awayfrom the dinner. Amid inspiriting bravos and hurrahs he fled, followedby his friends, and it became known that one of these was a baronet. After this the vote of thanks to the President scarcely escaped being ananticlimax. And several men left, including Albert Benbow, who had onceor twice glanced at his watch. "She won't let you be out afterhalf-past ten, eh, Benbow?" said jocularly a neighbour. And Albert, laughing at the joke, nevertheless looked awkward. And the neighbourperceived that he had been perhaps a trifle clumsy. Edwin, since themysterious influence in the background was his own sister, had to shareAlbert's confusion. He too would have departed. But Osmond Orgreaveabsolutely declined to let him go, and to prevent him from going usedthe force which good wine gives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. The company divided itself into intimate groups, leaving empty whitespaces at the disordered tables. The attendants now served whisky, andmore liqueurs and coffee. Those guests who knew no qualm lighted freshcigars; a few produced beloved pipes; the others were content withcigarettes. Some one ordered a window to be opened, and then, when thefresh night air began to disturb the curtains and scatter the fumes ofthe banquet, some one else crept aside and furtively closed it again. Edwin found himself with Jos Curtenty and Osmond Orgreave and a fewothers. He felt gay and enheartened; he felt that there was a greatdeal of pleasure to be had on earth with very little trouble. Politicshad been broached, and he made a mild joke about the Tory candidate. And amid the silence that followed it he mistily perceived that theremainder of the group, instead of becoming more jolly, had grown grave. For them the political situation was serious. They did not trouble toargue against the Labour candidate. All their reasoning was based onthe assumption, which nobody denied or questioned, that at any cost theLabour candidate must be defeated. The success of the Labour candidatewas regarded as a calamity. It would jeopardise the entire socialorder. It would deliver into the destroying hands of an ignorant, capricious, and unscrupulous rabble all that was best in English life. It would even mean misery for the rabble itself. The tones grew moresolemn. And Edwin, astonished, saw that beneath the egotism of theirsuccess, beneath their unconscious arrogance due to the habit ofauthority, there was a profound and genuine patriotism and sense ofduty. And he was abashed. Nevertheless, he had definitely taken sides, and out of mere self-respect he had gently to remind them of the fact. Silence would have been cowardly. "Then what about `trusting to the people'?" he murmured, smiling. "If trusting to the people means being under the thumb of the Britishworking man, my boy, " said Osmond Orgreave, "you can scratch me out, forone. " Edwin had never heard him speak so colloquially. "I've always found 'em pretty decent, " said Edwin, but lamely. Jos Curtenty fixed him with a grim eye. "How many hands do you employ, Mr Clayhanger?" "Fourteen, " said Edwin. "Do you?" exclaimed another voice, evidently surprised and impressed. Jos Curtenty pulled at his cigar. "I wish I could make as much money asyou make out of fourteen hands!" said he. "Well, I've got two hundredof 'em at my place. And I know 'em! I've known 'em for forty years andmore. There's not ten of 'em as I'd trust to do an honest day's work, of their own accord. .. And after the row in '80, when they'd agreed toarbitration--fifteen thousand of 'em--did they accept the award, ordidn't they? Tell me that, if it isn't troubling ye too much. " Only in the last phase did the irrepressible humorous card in him assertitself. Edwin mumbled inarticulately. His mind was less occupied by politicsthan by the fact that in the view of all these men he had alreadyfinally and definitely taken the place of his father. But for theinquiries made at intervals during the evening, he might have supposedthat Darius, lying in helpless obscurity up there at Bleak ridge, hadbeen erased from the memory of the town. A crony who had not hitherto spoken began to give sarcastic andapparently damning details of the early record of the Labour candidate. Among other delinquencies the fellow had condoned the inexcusablerejection of the arbitrators' award long ago. And then some one said: "Hello! Here's Benbow back again!" Albert, in overcoat and cap, beckoned to Edwin, who sprang up, prickedinto an exaggerated activity by his impatient conscience. "It's nothing particular, " said Albert at the door. "But the missus hasbeen round to your father's to-night, and it seems the nurse has knockedup. She thought I'd perhaps better come along and tell you, in case youhadn't gone. " "Knocked up, has she?" said Edwin. "Well, it's not to be wondered at. Nurse or no nurse, she's got no more notion of looking after herselfthan anybody else has. I was just going. It's only a little aftereleven. " The last thing he heard on quitting the precincts of the banquetingchamber was the violent sound of the mallet. Its wielder seemed to havedeveloped a slight affection for the senseless block of wood. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SIXTEEN. AFTER THE BANQUET. "Yes, yes, " said Edwin, impatiently, in reply to some anxious remark ofMaggie's, "I shall be all right with him. Don't you worry tillmorning. " They stood at the door of the sick-room, Edwin in an attitude almostsuggesting that he was pushing her out. He had hurried home from the festival, and found the doctor just leavingand the house in a commotion. Dr Heve said mildly that he was gladEdwin had come, and he hinted that some general calming influence wasneeded. Nurse Shaw had developed one of the sudden abscesses in the earwhich troubled her from time to time. This radiant and apparentlystrong creature suffered from an affection of the ear. Once her leftear had kept her in bed for six weeks, and she had arisen with the drumpierced. Since which episode there had always been the danger, when theevil recurred, of the region of the brain being contaminated through thetiny orifice in the drum. Hence, even if the acute pain which sheendured had not forced her to abandon other people's maladies for thecare of her own, the sense of her real peril would have done so. Thismasterful, tireless woman, whom no sadness nor abomination of herhabitual environment could depress or daunt, lived under a menace, andwas sometimes laid low, like a child. She rested now in Maggie's room, with a poultice for a pillow. A few hours previously no one in thehouse had guessed that she had any weakness whatever. Her collapse gaveto Maggie an excellent opportunity, such as Maggie loved, to prove thatshe was equal to a situation. Maggie would not permit Mrs Hamps to besent for. Nor would she permit Mrs Nixon to remain up. She wasexcited and very fatigued, and she meant to manage the night with thesole aid of Jane. It was even part of her plan that Edwin should go tobed as usual--poor Edwin, with all the anxieties of business upon hishead! But she had not allowed for Edwin's conscience, nor foreseen whatthe doctor would say to him privately. Edwin had learnt from thedoctor--a fact which the women had not revealed to him--that his fatherduring the day had shown symptoms of `Cheyne-Stokes breathing, ' thefinal and the worst phenomenon of his disease; a phenomenon, too, interestingly rare. The doctor had done all that could be done byinjections, and there was absolutely nothing else for anybody to doexcept watch. "I shall come in in the night, " Maggie whispered. Behind them the patient vaguely stirred and groaned in his recess. "You'll do no such thing, " said Edwin shortly. "Get all the sleep youcan. " "But Nurse has to have a fresh poultice every two hours, " Maggieprotested. "Now, look here!" Edwin was cross. "Do show a little sense. Get--all--the--sleep--you--can. We shall be having you ill next, and thenthere'll be a nice kettle of fish. I won't have you coming in here. Ishall be perfectly all right. Now!" He gave a gesture that she shouldgo at once. "You won't be fit for the shop to-morrow. " "Damn the shop!" "Well, you know where everything is. " She was resigned. "If you wantto make some tea--" "All right, all right!" He forced himself to smile. She departed, and he shut the door. "Confounded nuisance women are!" he thought, half indulgently, as heturned towards the bed. But it was his conscience that was a confoundednuisance. He ought never to have allowed himself to be persuaded to goto the banquet. When his conscience annoyed him, it was usually Maggiewho felt the repercussion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Darius was extremely ill. Every part of his physical organism wasderanged and wearied out. His features combined the expression ofintense fatigue with the sinister liveliness of an acute tragicapprehension. His failing faculties were kept horribly alert by thefear of what was going to happen to him next. So much that wasappalling had already happened to him! He wanted repose; he wantedsurcease; he wanted nothingness. He was too tired to move, but he wasalso too tired to lie still. And thus he writhed faintly on the bed;his body seemed to have that vague appearance of general movement whicha multitude of insects will give to a piece of decaying matter. Hisskin was sick, and his hair, and his pale lips. The bed could not bekept tidy for five minutes. "He's bad, no mistake!" thought Edwin, as he met his father's anxiousand intimidated gaze. He had never seen anyone so ill. He knew nowwhat disease could do. "Where's Nurse?" the old man murmured, with excessive feebleness, hisvoice captiously rising to a shrill complaint. "She's not well. She's lying down. I'm going to sit with you to-night. Have a drink?" As Edwin said these words in his ordinary voice, itseemed to him that in comparison with his father he was a god ofmiraculous proud strength and domination. Darius nodded. "Her's a Tartar!" Darius muttered. "But her's just! Her will have herown way!" He often spoke thus of the nurse, giving people to understandthat during the long nights, when he was left utterly helpless to theharsh mercy of the nurse, he had to accept many humiliations. He seemedto fear and love her as a dog its master. Edwin, using his imaginationto realise the absoluteness of the power which the nurse had over Dariusduring ten hours in every twenty-four, was almost frightened by it. "ByJove!" he thought, "I wouldn't be in his place with any woman on earth!"The old man's lips closed clumsily round the funnel of the invalid'scup that Edwin offered. Then he sank back, and shut his eyes, andappeared calmer. Edwin smoothed the clothes, stared at him a long time, and finally satdown in the arm-chair by the fire. He wound up his watch. It was notyet midnight. He took off his boots and put on the slippers which nowDarius had not worn for over a week and would not wear again. He yawnedheavily. The yawn surprised him. He perceived that his head wasthrobbing and his mouth dry, and that the meats and liquors of thebanquet, having ceased to stimulate, were incommoding him. His mind andbody were in reaction. He reflected cynically upon the facileself-satisfactions of those successful men in whose company he had been. The whole dinner grew unreal. Nothing was real except imprisonment ona bed night and day, day and night for weeks. Every one could havechange and rest save his father. For his father there was no relief, not a moment's. He was always there, in the same recess, prone, insubjection, helpless, hopeless, and suffering. Politics! What werethey? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He closed his eyes, because it occurred to him that to do so would beagreeable. And he was awakened from a doze by a formidable stir on thebed. Darius's breathing was quick and shallow, and growing more so. Helifted his head from the pillow in order to breathe, and leaned on oneelbow. Edwin sprang up and went to him. "Clara! Clara! Don't leave me!" the old man cried in tones of agonisedapprehension. "It's all right; I'm here, " said Edwin reassuringly. And he took thesick man's hot, crackling hand and held it. Gradually the breathing went slower and deeper, and at length Dariussighed very deeply as at a danger past, and relaxed his limbs, and Edwinlet go his hand. But he had not been at ease more than a few secondswhen the trouble recommenced, and he was fighting again, and withappreciably more difficulty, to get air down into his lungs. It enteredin quantities smaller and smaller, until it seemed scarcely to reach histhroat before it was expelled again. The respirations were as rapid asthe ticking of a watch. Despite his feebleness Darius wrenched hislimbs into contortions, and gripped fiercely Edwin's hands. "Clara! Clara!" he cried once more. "It's all right. You're all right. There's nothing to be afraid of, "said Edwin, soothing him. And that paroxysm also passed, and the old man moaned in the melancholysatisfaction of deep breaths. But the mysterious disturbing force wouldnot leave him in peace. In another moment yet a fresh struggle wascommencing. And each was worse than the last. And it was always Clarato whom he turned for succour. Not Maggie, who had spent nearly fortyyears in his service, and never spoke ill-naturedly of him; but Clara, who was officious rather than helpful, who wept for him in his presence, and said harsh things behind his back, and who had never forgiven himsince the refusal of the loan to Albert. After he had passed through a dozen crises of respiration Edwin said tohimself that the next one could not be worse. But it was worse. Dariusbreathed like a blown dog that has fallen. He snatched furiously atbreath like a tiger snatching at meat. He accomplished exertions thatwould have exhausted an athlete, and when he had saved his life in thevery instant of its loss, calling on Clara as on God, he would look atEdwin for confirmation of his hope that he had escaped again. Theparoxysms continued, still growing more critical. Edwin was aghast athis own helplessness. He could do absolutely naught. It was evenuseless to hold the hand or to speak sympathy and reassurance. Dariusat the keenest moment of battle was too occupied with his enemy to hearor feel the presence of a fellow-creature. He was solitary with hisunseen enemy, and if the room had been full of ministering angels hewould still have been alone and unsuccoured. He might have been sealedup in a cell with his enemy who, incredibly cruel, withheld from him hisbreath; and Edwin outside the cell trying foolishly to get in. He askedfor little; he would have been content with very little; but it wasrefused him until despair had reached the highest agony. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "He's dying, I do believe, " thought Edwin, and the wonder of thisnocturnal adventure sent tremors down his spine. He faced theprobability that at the next bout his father would be worsted. Shouldhe fetch Maggie and then go for the doctor? Heve had told him that itwould be `pretty bad, ' and that nothing on earth could be done. No! Hewould not fetch Maggie, and he would not go for the doctor. What use?He would see the thing through. In the solemnity of the night he wasglad that an experience tremendous and supreme had been vouchsafed tohim. He knew now what the will to live was. He saw life naked, stripped of everything unessential. He saw life and death together. What caused his lip to curl when the thought of the Felons' dinnerflashed through his mind was the damned complacency of the Felons. Didany of them ever surmise that they had never come within ten miles oflife itself, that they were attaching importance to the most futiletrifles? Let them see a human animal in a crisis of Cheyne-Stokesbreathing, and they would know something about reality! . .. So this wasCheyne-Stokes breathing, that rare and awful affliction! What was it?What caused it? What controlled its frequency? No answer! Not onlycould he do naught, he knew naught! He was equally useless and ignorantbefore the affrighting mystery. Darius no longer sat up and twisted himself in the agony of thestruggles. He lay flat, resigned but still obstinate, fighting with theonly muscles that could fight now, those of his chest and throat. Theenemy had got him down, but he would not surrender. Time after time hewon a brief armistice in the ruthless altercation, and breathed deep andlong, and sighed as if he would doze, and then his enemy was at himagain, and Darius, aroused afresh to the same terror, summoned Clara inthe extremity of his anguish. Edwin moved away, and surveyed the bed from afar. The old man wasperfectly oblivious of him. He looked at his watch, and timed thecrises. They recurred fairly regularly about every hundred seconds. Thirty-six times an hour Darius, growing feebler, fought unaided andwithout hope of aid an enemy growing stronger, and would not yield. Hewas dragged to his death thirty-six times every hour, and thirty-sixtimes managed to scramble back from the edge of the chasm. Occasionallyhis voice, demanding that Clara should not desert him, made a shriekwhich seemed loud enough to wake the street. Edwin listened for anynoise in the house, but heard nothing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. A curious instinct drove him out of the room for a space on to thelanding. He shut the door on the human animal in its lonely struggle. The gas was burning on the landing and also in the hall, for this wasnot a night on which to extinguish lights. The clock below tickedquietly, and then struck three. He had passed more than three hourswith his father. The time had gone quickly. He crept to Maggie's door. No sound! Utter silence! He crept upstairs to the second storey. Nosound there! Coming down again to the first floor he noticed that thedoor of his own bedroom was open. He crept in there, and startedviolently to see a dim form on the bed. It was Maggie, dressed, butfast asleep under a rug. He left her. The whole world was asleep, andhe was awake with his father. "What an awful shame!" he thought savagely. "Why couldn't we have lethim grow his mushrooms if he wanted to? What harm would it have doneus? Supposing it had been a nuisance, supposing he had tried to kissJane, supposing he had hurt himself, what then? Why couldn't we let himdo what he wanted?" And he passionately resented his own harshness and that of Maggie as hemight have resented the cruelty of some national injustice. He listened. Nothing but the ticking of the clock disturbed the calm ofthe night. Could his father have expired in one of those frantic boutswith his enemy? Brusquely, with false valiance, he re-entered thechamber, and saw again the white square of the blind and the expanse ofcarpet and the tables littered with nursing apparatus, and saw the bedand his father on it, panting in a new and unsurpassable despair, butstill unbeaten, under the thin gas-flame. The crisis eased as he wentin. He picked up the arm-chair and carried it to the bedside and satdown facing his father, and once more took his father's intolerablypathetic hand. "All right!" he murmured, and never before had he spoken with suchtenderness. "All right! I'm here. I'm not leaving you. " The victim grew quieter. "Is it Edwin?" he whispered, scarcely articulate, out of a bottomlessdepth of weakness. "Yes, " said Edwin cheerfully; "you're a bit better now, aren't you?" "Aye!" sighed Darius in hope. And almost immediately the rumour of struggle recommenced, and in aminute the crisis was at its fiercest. Edwin became hardened to the spectacle. He reasoned with himself aboutsuffering. After all, what was its importance? Up to a point it couldbe borne, and when it could not be borne it ceased to be suffering. Thecharacteristic grimness of those latitudes showed itself in him. Therewas nothing to be done. They who were destined to suffer had to suffer, must suffer; and no more could be said. The fight must come to an endsooner or later. Fortitude alone could meet the situation. Nevertheless, the night seemed eternal, and at intervals fortitudelacked. "By Jove!" he would mutter aloud, under the old man's constant appealsto Clara, "I shan't be sorry when this is over. " Then he would interest himself in the periodicity of the attacks, timingthem by his watch with care. Then he would smooth the bed. Once helooked at the fire. It was out. He had forgotten it. He immediatelybegan to feel chilly, and then he put on his father's patcheddressing-gown and went to the window, and, drawing aside the blind, glanced forth. All was black and utterly silent. He thought withdisdain of Maggie and the others unconscious in sleep. He returned tothe chair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. He was startled, at a side glance, by something peculiar in theappearance of the window. It was the first messenger of the dawn. Yes, a faint greyness, very slowly working in secret against the power of thegaslight: timid, delicate, but brightening by imperceptible degrees intostrength. "Some of them will be getting up soon, now, " he said to himself. Thehour was between four and half-past. He looked forward to release. Maggie was sure to come and release him shortly. And even as he heldthe sick man's arm, comforting him, he yawned. But no one came. Five o'clock, half-past five! The first car rumbleddown. And still the victim, unbroken, went through his agony every twominutes or oftener, with the most frightful regularity. He extinguished the gas, and lo! there was enough daylight to seeclearly. He pulled up the blind. The night had gone. He had beenthrough the night. The entire surface of his head was tingling. Now hewould look at the martyrdom of the victim as at a natural curiosity, having no capacity left for feeling. And now his sympathy would gushforth anew, and he would cover with attentions his father, who, fiercelypreoccupied with the business of obtaining breath, gave no heed to them. And now he would stand impressed, staggered, by the magnificence of thestruggle. The suspense from six to seven was the longest. When would somebodycome? Had the entire household taken laudanum? He would go and rouseMaggie. No, he would not. He was too proud. At a quarter-past seven the knob of the door clicked softly. He couldscarcely believe his ears. Maggie entered. Darius was easier betweentwo crises. "Well, " said she tranquilly, "how is he?" She was tying her apron. "Pretty bad, " Edwin answered, with affected nonchalance. "Nurse is a bit better. I've given her three fresh poultices sincemidnight. You'd better go now, hadn't you?" "All right. I've let the fire out. " "I'll tell Jane to light it. She's just making some tea for you. " He went. He did not need twice telling. As he went, carelesslythrowing off the dressing-gown and picking up his boots, Darius began topant afresh, to nerve himself instinctively afresh for another struggle. Edwin, strong and healthy, having done nothing but watch, wascompletely exhausted. But Darius, weakened by disease, having fought acouple of hundred terrific and excruciating encounters, each a supremebattle, in the course of a single night, was still drawing upon theapparently inexhaustible reserves of his volition. "I couldn't have stood that much longer, " said Edwin, out on thelanding. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. THE CHAIN BROKEN. Shortly after eight o'clock Edwin was walking down Trafalgar Road on hisway to the shop. He had bathed, and drunk some tea, and under thestimulation he felt the factitious vivacity of excessive fatigue. Rainhad fallen quietly and perseveringly during the night, and though theweather was now fine the streets were thick with black mire. Paintresses with their neat gloves and their dinner-baskets and theirthin shoes were trudging to work, and young clerks and shop-assistantsand the upper classes of labour generally. Everybody was in a hurry. The humbler mass had gone long ago. Miners had been in the earth forhours. Later, and more leisurely, the magnates would pass by. There were carriages about. An elegant wagonette, streaming with redfavours, dashed down the road behind two horses. Its cargo was ahandful of clay-soiled artisans, gleeful in the naive pride of theirsituation, wearing red and shouting red, and hurrahing for theConservative candidate. "Asses!" murmured Edwin, with acrid and savage disdain. "Do you thinkhe'd drive you anywhere to-morrow?" He walked on a little, and brokeforth again, all to himself: "Of course he's doing it solely in yourinterest, isn't he? Why doesn't he pick some of these paintresses outof the mud and give them a drive?" He cultivated an unreasoning anger against the men who had so impressedhim at the banquet. He did not try to find answers to their arguments. He accused them stoutly of wilful blindness, of cowardice, of bullying, of Pharisaism, and of other sins. He had no wish to hear their defence. He condemned them, and as it were ordered them to be taken away andexecuted. He had a profound conviction that argument was futile, andthat nothing would serve but a pitched battle, in which each fightingman should go to the poll and put a cross against a name in grimsilence. Argue with these gross self-satisfied fellows about theturpitude of the artisans! Why, there was scarcely one of them whosegrandfather had not been an artisan! Curse their patriotism! Then hewould begin bits of argument to himself, and stop them, too impatient tocontinue. .. The shilling cigars of those feasters disgusted him. .. Insuch wise his mind ran. And he was not much kinder to the artisan. Ifscorn could have annihilated, there would have been no proletariat leftin the division. .. Men? Sheep rather! Letting themselves be driven upand down like that, and believing all the yarns that were spun to them!Gaping idiots, they would swallow any mortal thing! There was simplynaught that they were not stupid enough to swallow with a glass of beer. It would serve them right if--However, that could not happen. Idiocyhad limits. At least he presumed it had. Early as it was, the number of carriages was already considerable. Buthe did not see one with the blue of the Labour candidate. Blue rosettesthere were, but the red rosettes bore them down easily. Even dogs hadbeen adorned with red rosettes, and nice clean infants! And on all thehoardings were enormous red posters exhorting the shrewd common-sensepotter not to be misled by paid agitators, but to plump for his truefriend, for the man who was anxious to devote his entire career andgoods to the welfare of the potter and the integrity of the Empire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. "If you can give me three days off, sir, " said Big James, in themajestic humility of his apron, "I shall take it kindly. " Edwin had gone into the composing room with the copy for a demy poster, consisting of four red words to inform the public that the true friendof the public was `romping in. ' A hundred posters were required withinan hour. He had nearly refused the order, in his feverish fatigue andhis disgust, but some remnant of sagacity had asserted itself in him andsaved him from this fatuity. "Why?" he asked roughly. "What's up now, James?" "My old comrade Abraham Harracles is dead, sir, at Glasgow, and I'mwishful for to attend the interment, far as it is. He was living withhis daughter, and she's written to me. If you could make it convenientto spare me--" "Of course, of course!" Edwin interrupted him hastily. In his presentmood, it revolted him that a man of between fifty and sixty should behumbly asking as a favour to be allowed to fulfil a pious duty. "I'm very much obliged to you, sir, " said Big James simply, quiteunaware that captious Edwin found his gratitude excessive and servile. "I'm the last now, sir, of the old glee-party, " he added. "Really!" Big James nodded, and said quietly, "And how's the old gentleman, sir?" Edwin shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, " said Big James. "I've been up with him all night, " Edwin told him. "I wonder if you'd mind dropping me a line to Glasgow, sir, if anythinghappens. I can give you the address. If it isn't--" "Certainly, if you like. " He tried to be nonchalant "When are yougoing?" "I did think of getting to Crewe before noon, sir. As soon as I've seento this--" He cocked his eye at the copy for the poster. "Oh, you needn't bother about that, " said Edwin carelessly. "Go now ifyou want to. " "I've got time, sir. Mr Curtenty's coming for me at nine o'clock todrive me to th' polling-booth. " This was the first time that Edwin had ever heard Big James talk of hisprivate politics. The fact was that Big James was no more anxious thanJos Curtenty and Osmond Orgreave to put himself under the iron heel ofhis fellow working-man. "And what's your colour, James?" His smile was half a sneer. "If you'll pardon me saying so, sir, I'm for Her Most Gracious, " BigJames answered with grave dignity. Three journeymen, pretending to be busy, were listening with all earsfrom the other side of a case. "Oh!" exclaimed Edwin, dashed. "Well, that's all right!" He walked straight out, put on his hat, and went to the Bleakridgepolling-station and voted Labour defiantly, as though with a personalgrievance against the polling-clerk. He had a vote, not as lessee ofthe business premises, but as his father's lodger. He despised Labour;he did not care what happened to Labour. In voting for Labour, heseemed to have the same satisfaction as if from pique he had votedagainst it because its stupidity had incensed him. Then, instead of returning him to the shop, his legs took him home andupstairs, and he lay down in his own room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. He was awakened by the presence of some one at his bedside, and thewhole of his body protested against the disturbance. "I couldn't make you hear with knocking, " said Dr Heve, "so I came intothe room. " "Hello, doctor, is that you?" Edwin sat up, dazed, and with a sensationof large waves passing in slow succession through his head. "I musthave dropped asleep. " "I hear you had a pretty bad night with him, " the doctor remarked. "Yes. It's a mystery to me how he could keep it up. " "I was afraid you would. Well, he's quieter now. In fact, he'sunconscious. " "Unconscious, is he?" "You'll have no more trouble with the old gentleman, " said the doctor. He was looking at the window, as though at some object of great interestto be seen thence. His tone was gentle and unaffected. For thetwentieth time Edwin privately admitted that in spite of the weak, vacuous smile which seemed to delight everybody except himself, therewas a sympathetic quality in this bland doctor. In common moments hewas common, but in the rare moment when a man with such a smile ought tobe at his worst, a certain soft dignity would curiously distinguish hisbearing. "Um!" Edwin muttered, also looking at the window. And then, after apause, he asked: "Will it last long?" "I don't know, " said the doctor. "The fact is, this is the first caseof Cheyne-Stokes breathing I've ever had. It may last for days. " "How's the nurse?" Edwin demanded. They talked about the nurse, and then Dr Heve said that, his brotherthe Vicar and he having met in the street, they had come in together, asthe Vicar was anxious to have news of his old acquaintance's condition. It appeared that the Vicar was talking to Maggie and Janet in thedrawing-room. "Well, " said Edwin, "I shan't come down. Tell him I'm only presentableenough for doctors. " With a faint smile and a nod, the doctor departed. As soon as he hadgone, Edwin jumped off the bed and looked at his watch, which showed twoo'clock. No doubt dinner was over. No doubt Maggie had decided that itwould be best to leave him alone to sleep. But that day neither he noranybody in the household had the sense of time, the continuousconsciousness of what the hour was. The whole systematised conventionof existence was deranged, and all values transmuted. Edwin was awareof no feeling whatever except an intensity of curiosity to see again intranquillity the being with whom he had passed the night. Pushing hishand through his hair, he hurried into the sick-room. It was all tidyand fresh, as though nothing had ever happened in it. Mrs Nixon, shrivelled and deaf, sat in the arm-chair, watching. No responsibilitynow attached to the vigil, and so it could be left to the aged andalmost useless domestic. She gave a gesture which might have meantanything--despair, authority, pride, grief. Edwin stood by the bedside and gazed. Darius lay on his back, with eyeshalf-open, motionless, unseeing, unhearing, and he breathed faintly, with the soft regularity of an infant. The struggle was finished, andhe had emerged from it with the right to breathe. His hair had beenbrushed, and his beard combed. It was uncanny, this tidiness, thiscalm, this passivity. The memory of the night grew fantastic andremote. Surely the old man must spring up frantically in a moment, tobeat off his enemy! Surely his agonised cry for Clara must be ringingthrough the room! But nothing of him stirred. Air came and wentthrough those parted and relaxed lips with the perfect efficiency of ahealthy natural function. And yet he was not asleep. His obstinate andtremendous spirit was now withdrawn somewhere, into some fastness morerecondite than sleep; not far off; not detached, not dethroned; butundiscoverably hidden, and beyond any summons. Edwin gazed and gazed, until his heart could hold no more of the emotion which thismysteriously impressive spectacle, at once majestic and poignant, distilled into it. Then he silently left the old woman sitting dully bythe spirit concealed in its ruined home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. In the evening he was resting on the sofa in the drawing-room. AuntieHamps was near him, at work on some embroidery. In order that her dearEdwin might doze a little if he could, she refrained from speech; fromtime to time she stopped her needle and looked reflectively at themorsel of fire, or at the gas. She had been in the house since beforetea. Clara also had passed most of the day there, with a few intervalsat her own home; but now Clara was gone, and Janet too had gone. Dariuswas tiring them all out, in his mild and senseless repose. He remainedabsolutely still, and the enigma which he so indifferently offered tothem might apparently continue for ever; at any rate the doctor'sstatement that he might keep as he was for days and days, beyond help, hung over the entire household, discouraging and oppressive. The energyof even Auntie Hamps was baffled. Only Alicia, who had come in, as shesaid, to take Janet's place, insisted on being occupied. This was oneof the nights dedicated by family arrangement to her betrothed, butAlicia had found pleasure in sacrificing herself, and him, to her verybusy sense of duty. Suddenly the drawing-room door was pushed open, without a sound, andAlicia, in all the bursting charm of her youthfulness and the deliciousnaivete of her self-importance, stood in the doorway. She made nogesture; she just looked at Edwin with a peculiar ominous and excitedglance, and Edwin rose quickly and left the room. Auntie Hamps hadnoticed nothing. "Maggie wants you upstairs, " said Alicia to Edwin. He made no answer. He did not ask where Maggie was. They went upstairstogether. But at the door of the sick-room Alicia hung back, intimidated, and Edwin entered and shut the door on that beautiful imageof proud, throbbing life. Maggie, standing by the bed under the gas which blazed at full, turnedto him as he approached. "Just come and look at him, " she said quietly. Darius lay in exactly the same position; except that his mouth was opena little wider, he presented exactly the same appearance as in theafternoon. His weary features, pitiful and yet grim, had exactly thesame expression. But there was no sign of breathing. Edwin bent andlistened. "Oh! He's dead!" he murmured. Maggie nodded, her eyes glittering as though set with diamonds. "Ithink so, " she said. "When was it?" "Scarcely a minute ago. I was sitting there, by the fire, and I thoughtI noticed something--" "What did you notice?" "I don't know. .. I must go and tell nurse. " She went, wiping her eyes. Edwin, now alone, looked again at the residue of his father. Thespirit, after hiding within so long, had departed and left no trace. Ithad done with that form and was away. The vast and forlorn adventure ofthe little boy from the Bastille was over. Edwin did not know that thelittle boy from the Bastille was dead. He only knew that his father wasdead. It seemed intolerably tragic that the enfeebled wreck should havehad to bear so much, and yet intolerably tragic also that death shouldhave relieved him. But Edwin's distress was shot through andenlightened by his solemn satisfaction at the fact that destiny hadallotted to him, Edwin, an experience of such profound and overwhelminggrandeur. His father was, and lo! he was not. That was all, but it wasineffable. Maggie returned to the room, followed by Nurse Shaw, whose head wasenveloped in various bandages. Edwin began to anticipate all thetedious formalities, as to which he would have to inform himself, ofregistration and interment. .. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. Ten o'clock. The news was abroad in the house. Alicia had gone tospread it. Maggie had startled everybody by deciding to go down andtell Clara herself, though Albert was bound to call. The nurse had laidout the corpse. Auntie Hamps and Edwin were again in the drawing-roomtogether; the ageing lady was making up her mind to go. Edwin, insearch of an occupation, prepared to write letters to one or two distantrelatives of his mother. Then he remembered his promise to Big James, and decided to write that letter first. "What a mercy he passed away peacefully!" Auntie Hamps exclaimed, notfor the first time. Edwin, at a rickety fancy desk, began to write: "Dear James, my fatherpassed peacefully away at--" Then, with an abrupt movement, he tore thesheet in two and threw it in the fire, and began again: "Dear James, myfather died quietly at eight o'clock to-night. " Soon afterwards, when Mrs Hamps had departed with her genuine but toospectacular grief, Edwin heard an immense commotion coming down the roadfrom Hanbridge: cheers, shouts, squeals, penny whistles, and trumpets. He opened the gate. "Who's in?" he asked a stout, shabby man, who was gesticulating in gleewith a little Tory flag on the edge of the crowd. "Who do you think, mister?" replied the man drunkenly. "What majority?" "Four hundred and thirty-nine. " The integrity of the empire was assured, and the paid agitator hadreceived a proper rebuff. "Miserable idiots!" Edwin murmured, with the most extraordinaryviolence of scorn, as he re-entered the house, and the blare of triumphreceded. He was very much surprised. He had firmly expected his ownside to win, though he was reconciled to a considerable reduction of theold majority. His lips curled. It was in his resentment, in the hard setting of his teeth as heconfirmed himself in the rightness of his own opinions, that he firstbegan to realise an individual freedom. "I don't care if we're beatenforty times, " his thoughts ran. "I'll be a more out-and-out Radicalthan ever! I don't care, and I don't care!" And he felt sturdily thathe was free. The chain was at last broken that had bound together thosetwo beings so dissimilar, antagonistic, and ill-matched--EdwinClayhanger and his father. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER ONE. BOOK FOUR--HIS START IN LIFE. THE BIRTHDAY VISIT. It was Auntie Hamps's birthday. "She must be quite fifty-nine, " said Maggie. "Oh, stuff!" Edwin contradicted her curtly. "She can't be anythinglike as much as that. " Having by this positive and sharp statement disposed of the question ofMrs Hamps's age, he bent again with eagerness to his newspaper. The"Manchester Examiner" no longer existing as a Radical organ, he read the"Manchester Guardian, " of which that morning's issue contained a longand vivid obituary of Charles Stewart Parnell. Brother and sister were at breakfast. Edwin had changed the characterof this meal. He went fasting to business at eight o'clock, openedcorrespondence, and gave orders to the wonderful Stifford, a person nowof real importance in the firm, and at nine o'clock flew by car back tothe house to eat bacon and eggs and marmalade leisurely, like agentleman. It was known that between nine and ten he could not be seenat the shop. "Well, " Maggie continued, with her mild persistence, "Aunt Spenser toldme--" "Who's Aunt Spenser, in God's name?" "You know--mother's and auntie's cousin--the fat old thing!" "Oh! Her!" He recalled one of the unfamiliar figures that had bentover his father's coffin. "She told me auntie was either fifty-five or fifty-six, at father'sfuneral. And that's nearly three and a half years ago. So she mustbe--" "Two and a half, you mean. " Edwin interrupted with a sort ofsavageness. "No, I don't. It's nearly three years since Mrs Nixon died. " Edwin was startled to realise the passage of time. But he said nothing. Partly he wanted to read in peace, and partly he did not want to admithis mistake. Bit by bit he was assuming the historic privileges of theEnglish master of the house. He had the illusion that if only he couldmaintain a silence sufficiently august his error of fact and of mannerwould cease to be an error. "Yes; she must be fifty-nine, " Maggie resumed placidly. "I don't care if she's a hundred and fifty-nine!" snapped Edwin. "Anymore coffee? Hot, that is. " Without moving his gaze from the paper, he pushed his cup a little wayacross the table. Maggie took it, her chin slightly lifting, and her cheeks showing atouch of red. "I hope you didn't forget to order the inkstand, after all, " she saidstiffly. "It's not been sent up yet, and I want to take it down toauntie's myself this morning. You know what a lot she thinks of suchthings!" It had been arranged that Auntie Hamps should receive that year acut-glass double inkstand from her nephew and niece. The shopoccasionally dealt in such articles. Edwin had not willingly assentedto the choice. He considered that a cut-glass double inkstand was avicious concession to Mrs Hamps's very vulgar taste in knick-knacks, and, moreover, he always now discouraged retail trade at the shop. Butstill, he had assented, out of indolence. "Well, it won't come till to-morrow, " he said. "But, Edwin, how's that?" "How's that? Well, if you want to know, I didn't order it tillyesterday. I can't think of everything. " "It's very annoying!" said Maggie sincerely. Edwin put on the martyr's crown. "Some people seem to think I'venothing else to do down at my shop but order birthday presents, " heremarked with disagreeable sarcasm. "I think you might be a little more polite, " said Maggie. "Do you!" "Yes; I do!" Maggie insisted stoutly. "Sometimes you get positivelyunbearable. Everybody notices it. " "Who's everybody?" "You never mind!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Maggie tossed her head, and Edwin knew that when she tossed her head--agesture rare with her--she was tossing the tears back from her eyes. Hewas more than startled, he was intimidated, by that feminine movement ofthe head. She was hurt. It was absurd of her to be so susceptible, buthe had undoubtedly hurt her. He had been clumsy enough to hurt her. She was nearing forty, and he also was close behind her on the road toforty; she was a perfectly decent sort, and he reckoned that he, too, was a perfectly decent sort, and yet they lacked the skill not tobicker. They no longer had the somewhat noisy altercations of old daysconcerning real or fancied interferences with the order and privacy ofEdwin's sacred chamber, but their general demeanour to one another haddully soured. It was as if they tolerated one another, from motives ofself-interest. Why should this be so? They were, at bottom, affectionate and mutually respectful. In a crisis they could and wouldrely on one another utterly. Why should their demeanour be so false anindex to their real feelings? He supposed it was just the fault ofloose habit. He did not blame her. From mere pride he blamed himself. He knew himself to be cleverer, more perceptive, wilier, than she; andhe ought to have been able to muster the diplomatic skill necessary forsmooth and felicitous intercourse. Any friction, whether due to herstupidity or not, was a proof of his incompetence in the art of life. .. "Everybody notices it!" The phrase pricked him. An exaggeration, ofcourse! Still, a phrase that would not be dismissed by a superior curlof the lips. Maggie was not Clara, and she did not invent allegations. His fault! Yes, his fault! Beyond doubt he was occasionally gruff, hewas churlish, he was porcupinish. He did not mean to be so--indeed hemost honestly meant not to be so--but he was. He must change. He mustturn over a new leaf. He wished it had been his own birthday, or, better still, the New Year, instead of his auntie's birthday, so that hemight have turned over a new leaf at once with due solemnity. Heactually remembered a pious saw uttered over twenty years earlier bythat wretch in a white tie who had damnably devised the Saturdayafternoon Bible-class, a saw which he furiously scorned--"Every daybegins a New Year. " Well, every day did begin a New Year! So did everyminute. Why not begin a New Year then, in that minute? He had only tosay in a cajoling, good-natured tone, "All right, all right! Keep yourhair on, my child. I grovel!" He had only to say some such words, andthe excellent, simple, unresentful Maggie would at once be appeased. Itwould be a demonstration of his moral strength to say them. But he could not say them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Nevertheless he did seriously determine to turn over a new leaf at thevery next occasion. His eyes were now following the obituary of Parnellmechanically, without transmitting any message that his preoccupiedbrain would seize. He had been astonished to find that Parnell was onlyforty-five. He thought: "Why, at my age Parnell was famous--a great manand a power!" And there was he, Edwin, eating bacon and eggs oppositehis sister in the humdrum dining-room at Bleakridge. But after all, what was the matter with the dining-room? It was not the dining-roomthat his father had left. He had altered and improved it to suit hisown taste. He was free to do so, and he had done so. He was free inevery way. The division of his father's estate according to the willhad proved unjust to himself; but he had not cared in the least. He hadlet Albert do as Albert and Clara pleased. In the settlement Maggie hadtaken the house (at a figure too high), and he paid her an adequate rentfor it, while she in turn paid him for her board and lodging. They wereall in clover, thanks to the terrible lifelong obstinacy of the littleboy from the Bastille. And Edwin had had the business unburdened. Itwas not growing, but it brought in more than twice as much as he spent. Soon he would be as rich as either of the girls, and that without undueservitude. He bought books surpassing those books of Tom Orgreave whichhad once seemed so hopelessly beyond his reach. He went to the theatre. He went to concerts. He took holidays. He had been to London, andmore than once. He had a few good friends. He was his own master. Nobody dreamed of saying him nay, and no bad habits held him insubjection. Everywhere he was treated with quite notable respect. Evenwhen, partly from negligence, and partly to hide recurring pimples, hehad allowed his beard to grow, Clara herself had not dared to titter. And although he suffered from certain disorders of the blood due to lackof exercise and to his condition, his health could not be called bad. The frequency of his colds had somewhat diminished. His career, whichto others probably seemed dull and monotonous, presented itself to himas almost miraculously romantic in its development. And withal he could uneasily ask himself, "Am I happy?" Maggie did notguess that, as he bent unseeing over his precious "Manchester Guardian, "he was thinking: "I must hold an inquisition upon my whole way ofexistence. I must see where I stand. If ever I am to be alive, I oughtto be alive now. And I'm not at all sure whether I am. " Maggie neverput such questions to herself. She went on in placidness from hour tohour, ruffled occasionally. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. An unusual occurrence gave him the opportunity to turn over a new leafimmediately. The sounds of the front-door bell and of voices in thehall were followed by the proud entrance of Auntie Hamps herself intothe dining-room. "Now don't disturb yourselves, please, " Mrs Hamps entreated. She oftenbegan with this phrase. Maggie sprang up and kissed her, somewhat effusively for Maggie, andsaid in a quiet, restrained tone-- "Many happy returns of the day, auntie. " Then Edwin rose, scraping his arm-chair backwards along the floor, andshook hands with her, and said with a guilty grin-- "A long life and a merry one, auntie!" "Eh!" she exclaimed, falling back with a sigh of satisfaction into achair by the table. "I'm sure everybody's very kind. Will you believeme, those darling children of Clara's were round at my house beforeeight o'clock this morning!" "Is Amy's cough better?" Maggie interjected, as she and Edwin sat down. "Bless ye!" cried Auntie Hamps, "I was in such a fluster I forgot to askthe little toddler. But I didn't hear her cough. I do hope it is. October's a bad time for coughs to begin. I ought to have asked. ButI'm getting an old woman. " "We were just arguing whether you were thirty-eight or thirty-nine, auntie, " said Edwin. "What a tease he is--with his beard!" she archly retorted. "Well, yourold aunt is sixty this day. " "Sixty!" the nephew and niece repeated together in astonishment. Auntie Hamps nodded. "You're the finest sixty I ever saw!" said Edwin, with unaffectedadmiration. And she was fine. The pride in her eye as she made the avowal--probablythe first frank avowal of her age that had passed those lips for thirtyyears--was richly justified. With her clear, rosy complexion, her whiteregular teeth, her straight spine, her plump figure, her brilliant gaze, her rapid gestures, and that authentic hair of hers falling in Victoriancurls, she offered to the world a figure that no one could regardwithout a physical pleasure and stimulation. And she was so shininglycorrect in her black silk and black velvet, and in the massive jet ather throat, and in the slenderness of her shoe! It was useless torecall her duplicities, her mendacities, her hypocrisies, hermeannesses. At any rate she could be generous at moments, and thesplendour of her vitality sometimes, as now, hid all her faults. Shewould confess to aches and pains like other folk, bouts of rheumatismfor example--but the high courage of her body would not deign to ratifysuch miserable statements; it haughtily repelled the touch of time; itkept at least the appearance of victory. If you did not like AuntieHamps willingly, in her hours of bodily triumph, you had to like herunwillingly. Both Edwin and Maggie had innumerable grievances againsther, but she held their allegiance, and even their warm instinctiveaffection, on the morning of her sixtieth birthday. She had been a lonewidow ever since Edwin could remember, and yet she had continued tobloom. Nothing could desiccate nor wither her. Even her sins did notfind her out. God and she remained always on the best terms, and shethrived on insincerity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. "There's a little parcel for you, auntie, " said Edwin, with a particulareffort to make his voice soft and agreeable. "But it's in Manchester. It won't be here till to-morrow. My fault entirely! You know how awfulI am for putting off things. " "We quite expected it would be here to-day, " said the loyal Maggie, whenmost sisters--and Clara assuredly--would have said in an eager, sarcastic tone: "Yes, it's just like Edwin, and yet I reminded him Idon't know how many times!" (Edwin felt with satisfaction that the newleaf was already turned. He was glad that he had said `My faultentirely. ' He now said to himself: "Maggie's all right, and so am I. Imust keep this up. Perfect nonsense, people hinting that she and Ican't get on together!") "Please, please!" Auntie Hamps entreated. "Don't talk about parcels!"And yet they knew that if they had not talked about a parcel the ageinglady would have been seriously wounded. "All I want is your love. Youchildren are all I have now. And if you knew how proud I am of you all, seeing you all so nice and good, and respected in the town, and Clara'slittle darlings beginning to run about, and such strong little things. If only your poor mother--!" Impossible not to be impressed by those accents! Edwin and Maggie mightwrithe under Auntie Hamps's phraseology; they might remember the mosthorrible examples of her cant. In vain! They were impressed. They hadto say to themselves: "There's something very decent about her, afterall. " Auntie Hamps looked from one to the other, and at the quiet opulence ofthe breakfast-table, and the spacious solidities of the room. Admiration and respect were in that eye, always too masculine to weepunder emotion. Undoubtedly she was proud of her nephew and nieces. Andhad she not the right to be? The bearded Edwin, one of the chieftradesmen in the town, and so fond of books, such a reader, and so quietin his habits! And the two girls, with nice independent fortunes: Claraso fruitful and so winning, and Maggie so dependable, so kind! AuntieHamps had scarce anything else to wish for. Her ideals were fulfilled. Undoubtedly since the death of Darius her attitude towards his childrenhad acquired even a certain humility. "Shall you be in to-morrow morning, auntie?" Maggie asked, in theconstrained silence that followed Mrs Hamps's protestations. "Yes, I shall, " said Mrs Hamps, with assurance. "I shall be mendingcurtains. " "Well, then, I shall call. About eleven. " Maggie turned to Edwinbenevolently. "It won't be too soon if I pop in at the shop a littlebefore eleven?" "No, " said Edwin with equal benevolence. "It's not often Sutton'sdelivery is after ten. That'll be all right. I'll have it unpacked. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. He lit a cigarette. "Have one?" he suggested to Mrs Hamps, holding out the case. "I shall give you a rap over the knuckles in a minute, " smiled MrsHamps, who was now leaning an elbow on the table in easy intimacy. Andshe went on in a peculiar tone, low, mysterious, and yet full ofvivacity: "I can't quite make out who that little nephew is that JanetOrgreave is taking about. " "Little nephew that Janet's taking about!" murmured Maggie, in surprise;and to Edwin, "Do you know?" Edwin shook his head. "When?" he asked. "Well, this morning, " said Mrs Hamps. "I met them as I was coming up. She was on one side of the road, and the child was on the other--justopposite Howson's. My belief is she'd lost all control over the littlejockey. Oh! A regular little jockey! You could see that at once. `Now, George, come along, ' she called to him. And then he shouted, `Iwant you to come on this side, auntie. ' Of course I couldn't stop tosee it out. She was so busy with him she only just moved to me. " "George? George?" Maggie consulted her memory. "How old was he, about?" "Seven or eight, I should say. " "Well, it couldn't be one of Tom's children. Nor Alicia's. " "No, " said Auntie Hamps. "And I always understood that the eldestdaughter's--what's her name?" "Marian. " "Marian's were all girls. " "I believe they are. Aren't they, Edwin?" "How can I tell?" said Edwin. It was a marvel to him how his auntiecollected her information. Neither she nor Clara had ever been in theslightest degree familiar with the Orgreaves, and Maggie, so far as heknew, was not a gossiper. He thought he perceived, however, theexplanation of Mrs Hamps's visit. She had encountered in the street aphenomenon which would not harmonise with facts of her own knowledge, and the discrepancy had disturbed her to such an extent that she hadbeen obliged to call in search of relief. There was that, and there wasalso her natural inclination to show herself off on her triumphantsixtieth birthday. "Charles Orgreave isn't married, is he?" she inquired. "No, " said Maggie. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. Silence fell upon this enigma of Janet's entirely unaccountable nephew. "Charlie may be married, " said Edwin humorously, at length. "You neverknow! It's a funny world! I suppose you've seen, " he lookedparticularly at his auntie, "that your friend Parnell's dead?" She affected to be outraged. "I've seen that Parnell is dead, " she rebuked him, with solemnquietness. "I saw it on a poster as I came up. I don't want to beuncharitable, but it was the best thing he could do. I do hope we'veheard the last of all this Home Rule now!" Like many people Mrs Hamps was apparently convinced that theexplanation of Parnell's scandalous fall and of his early death was tobe found in the inherent viciousness of the Home Rule cause, and alsothat the circumstances of his end were a proof that Home Rule was cursedof God. She reasoned with equal power forwards and backwards. And shewas so earnest and so dignified that Edwin was sneaped into silence. Once more he could not keep from his face a look that seemed toapologise for his opinions. And all the heroic and passionate grandeurof Parnell's furious career shrivelled up to mere sordidness before theinability of one narrow-minded and ignorant but vigorous woman toappreciate its quality. Not only did Edwin feel apologetic for himself, but also for Parnell. He wished he had not tried to be funny aboutParnell; he wished he had not mentioned him. The brightness of thebirthday was for an instant clouded. "I don't know what's coming over things!" Auntie Hamps murmured sadly, staring out of the window at the street gay with October sun shine. "What with that! And what with those terrible baccarat scandals. Andnow there's this free education, that we ratepayers have to pay for. They'll be giving the children of the working classes free meals next!"she added, with remarkably intelligent anticipation. "Oh well! Never mind!" Edwin soothed her. She gazed at him in loving reproach. And he felt guilty because he onlywent to chapel about once in two months, and even then from sheer moralcowardice. "Can you give me those measurements, Maggie?" Mrs Hamps askedsuddenly. "I'm on my way to Brunt's. " The women left the room together. Edwin walked idly to the window. After all, he had been perhaps wrong concerning the motive of her visit. The next moment he caught sight of Janet and the unaccountable nephew, breasting the hill from Bursley, hand in hand. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER TWO. JANET'S NEPHEW. Edwin was a fairly conspicuous object at the dining-room window. AsJanet and the child drew level with the corner her eye accidentallycaught Edwin's. He nodded, smiling, and took the cigarette out of hismouth and waved it. They were old friends. He was surprised to noticethat Janet blushed and became self-conscious. She returned his smileawkwardly, and then, giving a gesture to signify her intention, she camein at the gate. Which action surprised Edwin still more. With all herlittle freedoms of manner, Janet was essentially a woman stately andcorrect, and time had emphasised these qualities in her. It was not inthe least like her to pay informal, capricious calls at a quarter to tenin the morning. He went to the front door and opened it. She was persuading the childup the tiled steps. The breeze dashed gaily into the house. "Good morning. You're out early. " "Good morning. Yes. We've just been down to the post-office to sendoff a telegram, haven't we, George?" She entered the hall, the boy following, and shook hands, meetingEdwin's gaze fairly. Her esteem for him, her confidence in him, shonein her troubled, candid eyes. She held herself proudly, mastering hercurious constraint. "Now just see that!" she said, pointing to a fleckof black mud on the virgin elegance of her pale brown costume. Edwinthought anew, as he had often thought, that she was a distinguished anddelightful piece of goods. He never ceased to be flattered by herregard. But with harsh masculine impartiality he would not minimise tohimself the increasing cleft under her chin, nor the deterioration ofher once brilliant complexion. "Well, young man!" Edwin greeted the boy with that insolent familiaritywhich adults permit themselves to children who are perfect strangers. "I thought I'd just run in and introduce my latest nephew to you, " saidJanet quickly, adding, "and then that would be over. " "Oh!" Edwin murmured. "Come into the drawing-room, will you? Maggie'supstairs. " They passed into the drawing-room, where a servant in striped print waslanguidly caressing the glass of a bookcase with a duster. "You canleave this a bit, " Edwin said curtly to the girl, who obsequiouslyacquiesced and fled, forgetting a brush on a chair. "Sit down, will you?" Edwin urged awkwardly. "And which particularnephew is this? I may tell you he's already raised a great deal ofcuriosity in the town. " Janet most unusually blushed again. "Has he?" she replied. "Well, he isn't my nephew at all really, but wepretend he is, don't we, George? It's cosier. This is Master GeorgeCannon. " "Cannon? You don't mean--" "You remember Mrs Cannon, don't you? Hilda Lessways? Now, Georgie, come and shake hands with Mr Clayhanger. " But George would not. TWO. "Indeed!" Edwin exclaimed, very feebly. He knew not whether his voicewas natural or unnatural. He felt as if he had received a heavy blowwith a sandbag over the heart: not a symbolic, but a real physical blow. He might, standing innocent in the street, have been staggeringlyassailed by a complete stranger of mild and harmless appearance, who hadthen passed tranquilly on. Dizzy astonishment held him, to theexclusion of any other sentiment. He might have gasped, foolish andtottering: "Why--what's the meaning of this? What's happened?" Helooked at the child uncomprehendingly, idiotically. Little by little--it seemed an age, and was in fact a few seconds--he resumed hisfaculties, and remembered that in order to keep a conventionalself-respect he must behave in such a manner as to cause Janet tobelieve that her revelation of the child's identity had in no waydisturbed him. To act a friendly indifference seemed to him, then, tobe the most important duty in life. And he knew not why. "I thought, " he said in a low voice, and then he began again, "I thoughtyou hadn't been seeing anything of her, of Mrs Cannon, for a long timenow. " The child was climbing on a chair at the window that gave on the garden, absorbed in exploration and discovery, quite ignoring the adults. Either Janet had forgotten him, or she had no hope of controlling himand was trusting to chance that the young wild stag would do nothing toodreadful. "Well, " she admitted, "we haven't. " Her constraint recurred. Veryevidently she had to be careful about what she said. There were reasonswhy even to Edwin she would not be frank. "I only brought him down fromLondon yesterday. " Edwin trembled as he put the question-- "Is she here too--Mrs Cannon?" Somehow he could only refer to Mrs Cannon as "her" and "she. " "Oh no!" said Janet, in a tone to indicate that there was no possibilityof Mrs Cannon being in Bursley. He was relieved. Yes, he was glad. He felt that he could not haveendured the sensation of her nearness, of her actually being in the nexthouse. Her presence at the Orgreaves' would have made theneighbourhood, the whole town, dangerous. It would have subjected himto the risk of meeting her suddenly at any corner. Nay, he would havebeen forced to go in cold blood to encounter her. And he knew that hecould not have borne to look at her. The constraint of such aninterview would have been torture too acute. Strange, that though hewas absolutely innocent, though he had done nought but suffer, he shouldfeel like a criminal, should have the criminal's shifting downcastglance! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "Auntie!" cried the boy. "Can't I go into this garden? There's a swingthere. " "Oh no!" said Janet. "This isn't our garden. We must go home. We onlyjust called in. And big boys who won't shake hands--" "Yes, yes!" Edwin dreamily stopped her. "Let him go into the gardenfor a minute if he wants to. You can't run off like that! Come along, my lord. " He saw an opportunity of speaking to her out of the child's hearing. Janet consented, perhaps divining his wish. The child turned and stareddeliberately at Edwin, and then plunged forward, too eager to awaitguidance, towards the conquest of the garden. Standing silent and awkward in the garden porch, they watched himviolently agitating the swing, a contrivance erected by a good-naturedUncle Edwin for the diversion of Clara's offspring. "How old is he?" Edwin demanded, for the sake of saying something. "About nine, " said Janet. "He doesn't look it. " "No, but he talks it--sometimes. " George did not in fact look his age. He was slight and small, and heseemed to have no bones--nothing but articulations that functioned withequal ease in all possible directions. His skin was pale and unhealthy. His eyes had an expression of fatigue, or he might have beenophthalmic. He spoke loudly, his gestures were brusque, and his lifewas apparently made up of a series of intense, absolute absorptions. The general effect of his personality upon Edwin was not quiteagreeable, and Edwin's conclusion was that George, in addition to beingspoiled, was a profound and rather irritating egoist by nature. "By the way, " he murmured, "what's Mr Cannon?" "Oh!" said Janet, hesitating, with emotion, "she's a widow. " He felt sick. Janet might have been a doctor who had informed him thathe was suffering from an unexpected disease, and that an operationsevere and perilous lay in front of him. The impartial observer in himasked somewhat disdainfully why he should allow himself to be derangedin this physical manner, and he could only reply feebly and very meeklythat he did not know. He felt sick. Suddenly he said to himself making a discovery-- "Of course she won't come to Bursley. She'd be ashamed to meet me. " "How long?" he demanded of Janet. "It was last year, I think, " said Janet, with emotion increased, hervoice heavy with the load of its sympathy. When he first knew Janet anextraordinary quick generous concern for others had been one of herchief characteristics. But of late years, though her deep universalkindness had not changed, she seemed to have hardened somewhat on thesurface. Now he found again the earlier Janet. "You never told me. " "The truth is, we didn't know, " Janet said, and without giving Edwintime to put another question, she continued: "The poor thing's had agreat deal of trouble, a very great deal. George's health, now! Thesea air doesn't suit him. And Hilda couldn't possibly leave Brighton. " "Oh! She's still at Brighton?" "Yes. " "Let me see--she used to be at--what was it?--Preston Street?" Janet glanced at him with interest: "What a memory you've got! Why, it's ten years since she was here!" "Nearly!" said Edwin. "It just happened to stick in my mind. Youremember she came down to the shop to ask me about trains and things theday she left. " "Did she?" Janet exclaimed, raising her eyebrows. Edwin had been suspecting that possibly Hilda had given some hint toJanet as to the nature of her relations with him. He now ceased tosuspect that. He grew easier. He gathered up the reins again, thoughin a rather limp hand. "Why is she so bound to stay in Brighton?" he inquired with affectedboldness. "She's got a boarding-house. " "I see. Well, it's a good thing she has a private income of her own. " "That's just the point, " said Janet sadly. "We very much doubt if shehas any private income any longer. " Edwin waited for further details, but Janet seemed to speak unwilling. She would follow him, but she would not lead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Behind them he could hear the stir of Mrs Hamps's departure. She andMaggie were coming down the stairs. Guessing not the dramatic arrivalof Janet Orgreave and the mysterious nephew, Mrs Hamps, having peepedinto the empty dining-room, said: "I suppose the dear boy has gone, " andforthwith went herself. Edwin smiled cruelly at the thought of what herjoy would have been actually to inspect the mysterious nephew at closequarters, and to learn the strange suspicious truth that he was not anephew after all. "Auntie!" yelled the boy across the garden. "Come along, we must go now, " Janet retorted. "No! I want you to swing me. Make me swing very high. " "George!" "Let him swing a bit, " said Edwin. "I'll go and swing him. " Andcalling loud to the boy: "I'll come and swing you. " "He's dreadfully spoiled, " Janet protested. "You'll make him worse. " "I don't care, " said Edwin carelessly. He seemed to understand, better than he had ever done with Clara'slitter, how and why parents came to spoil their children. It was notbecause they feared a struggle of wills; but because of the unreasoninginstinctive pleasure to be derived from the conferring of pleasure, especially when the pleasure thus conferred might involve doubtfulconsequences. He had not cared for the boy, did not care for him. Intheory he had the bachelor's factitious horror of a spoiled child. Nevertheless he would now support the boy against Janet. His instinctsaid: "He wants something. I can give it him. Let him have it. Nevermind consequences. He shall have it. " He crossed the damp grass, and felt the breeze and the sun. The sky wasa moving medley of Chinese white and Prussian blue, that harmonisedadmirably with the Indian red architecture which framed it on all sides. The high trees in the garden of the Orgreaves were turning to richyellows and browns, and dead leaves slanted slowly down from theirsummits a few reaching even the Clayhanger garden, speckling itsevergreen with ochre. On the other side of the west wall traps andcarts rattled and rumbled and creaked along Trafalgar Road. The child had stopped swinging, and greeted him with a most heavenlypersuasive grateful smile. A different child! A sudden angel, withdelicate distinguished gestures! . .. A wondrous screwing-up of the eyesin the sun! Weak eyes, perhaps! The thick eyebrows recalled Hilda's. Possibly he had Hilda's look! Or was that fancy? Edwin was sure thathe would never have guessed George's parentage. "Now!" he warned. "Hold tight. " And, going behind the boy, he stronglyclasped his slim little waist in its blue sailor-cloth, and sent thewhole affair--swing-seat and boy and all--flying to the skies. And theboy shrieked in the violence of his ecstasy, and his cap fell on thegrass. Edwin worked hard without relaxing. "Go on! Go on!" The boy shriekingly commanded. And amid these violent efforts and brusque delicious physical contacts, Edwin was calmly penetrated and saturated by the mystic effluence thatis disengaged from young children. He had seen his father dead, and hadthought: "Here is the most majestic and impressive enigma that the earthcan show!" But the child George--aged nine and seeming more likeseven--offered an enigma surpassing in solemnity that of death. Thiswas Hilda's. This was hers, who had left him a virgin. With a singularthrilled impassivity he imagined, not bitterly, the history of Hilda. She who was his by word and by kiss, had given her mortal frame to theunknown Cannon--yielded it. She had conceived. At some moment when he, Edwin, was alive and suffering, she had conceived. She had ceased to bea virgin. Quickly, with an astounding quickness--for was not Georgenine years old?--she had passed from virginity to motherhood. And heimagined all that too; all of it; clearly. And here, swinging andshrieking, exerting the powerful and unique charm of infancy, was themiraculous sequel! Another individuality; a new being; definitelyformed, with character and volition of its own; unlike any otherindividuality in the universe! Something fresh! Something unimaginablycreated! A phenomenon absolutely original of the pride and the tragedyof life! George! Yesterday she was a virgin, and to-day there was this! And this mighthave been his, ought to have been his! Yes, he thrilled secretly amidall those pushings and joltings! The mystery obsessed him. He had norancour against Hilda. He was incapable of rancour, except a kind ofwilful, fostered rancour in trifles. Thus he never forgave the inventorof Saturday afternoon Bible-classes. But rancour against Hilda! No!Her act had been above rancour, like an act of Heaven! And she existedyet. On a spot of the earth's surface entitled Brighton, which he couldlocate upon a map, she existed: a widow, in difficulty, keeping aboarding-house. She ate, slept, struggled; she brushed her hair. Hecould see her brushing her hair. And she was thirty-four--was it? Thewonder of the world amazed and shook him. And it appeared to him thathis career was more romantic than ever. George with dangerous abruptness wriggled his legs downwards and slippedoff the seat of the swing, not waiting for Edwin to stop it. He rolledon the grass and jumped up in haste. He had had enough. "Well, want any more?" Edwin asked, breathing hard. The child made a shy, negative sigh, twisting his tousled head down intohis right shoulder. After all he was not really impudent, brazen. Hecould show a delicious timidity. Edwin decided that he was anenchanting child. He wanted to talk to him, but he could not think ofanything natural and reasonable to say by way of opening. "You haven't told me your name, you know, " he began at length. "How doI know what your name is? George, yes--but George what? George isnothing by itself, I know ten million Georges. " The child smiled. "George Edwin Cannon, " he replied shyly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. "Now, George!" came Janet's voice, more firmly than before. After all, she meant in the end to be obeyed. She was learning her business asaunt to this new and difficult nephew; but learn it she would, andthoroughly! "Come on!" Edwin counselled the boy. They went together to the house. Maggie had found Janet, and the twowere conversing. Soon afterwards aunt and nephew departed. "How very odd!" murmured Maggie, with an unusual intonation, in thehall, as Edwin was putting on his hat to return to the shop. Butwhether she was speaking to herself or to him, he knew not. "What?" he asked gruffly. "Well, " she said, "isn't it?" She was more like Auntie Hamps, more like Clara, than herself in thatmoment. He resented the suspicious implications of her tone. He wasabout to give her one of his rude, curt rejoinders, but happily heremembered in time that scarce half an hour earlier he had turned over anew leaf; so he kept silence. He walked down to the shop in a deepdream. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER THREE. ADVENTURE. It was when Edwin fairly reached the platform at Victoria Station andsaw the grandiose express waiting its own moment to start, that thestrange irrational quality of his journey first fully impressed him andfrightened him--so much that he was almost ready to walk out of thestation again. To come gradually into London from the North, to passfrom the Manchester train half-full of Midlanders through Bloomsburyinto the preoccupied, struggling, and untidy Strand--this gave no shock, typified nothing definite. But, having spent a night in London, deliberately to leave it for the South, where he had never been, ofwhich he was entirely ignorant, --that was like an explicitself-committal, like turning the back on the last recognisable landmarkin an ill-considered voyage of pure adventure. The very character of Victoria Station and of this express was differentfrom that of any other station and express in his experience. It wasunstrenuous, soft; it had none of the busy harshness of the Midlands; itspoke of pleasure, relaxation, of spending free from all worry andhumiliation of getting. Everybody who came towards this train came withan assured air of wealth and of dominion. Everybody was well dressed;many if not most of the women were in furs; some had expensive anddelicate dogs; some had pale, elegant footmen, being too august even tospeak to porters. All the luggage was luxurious; handbags could be seenthat were worth fifteen or twenty pounds apiece. There was no questionof first, second, or third class; there was no class at all on thistrain. Edwin had the apologetic air of the provincial who is determinedto be as good as anybody else. When he sat down in the vast interior ofone of those gilded vehicles he could not dismiss from his face theconsciousness that he was an intruder, that he did not belong to thatworld. He was ashamed of his hand-baggage, and his gesture in tippingthe porter lacked carelessness. Of course he pretended a frowning, absorbed interest in a newspaper--but the very newspaper was strange; heguessed not that unless he glanced first at the penultimate column ofpage one thereof he convicted himself of not knowing his way about. He could not think consecutively, not even of his adventure. His brainwas in a maze of anarchy. But at frequent intervals recurred the query:"What the devil am I up to?" And he would uneasily smile to himself. When the train rolled with all its majesty out of the station and acrossthe Thames, he said to himself, fearful, "Well, I've done it now!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. On the Thursday he had told Maggie, with affected casualness, that onthe Friday he might have to go to London, about a new machine. Sheerinvention! Fortunately Maggie had been well drilled by her father inthe manner proper to women in accepting announcements connected with`business. ' And Edwin was just as laconic and mysterious as Darius hadbeen about `business. ' It was a word that ended arguments, or preventedthem. On the Friday he had said that he should go in the afternoon. Onbeing asked whether he should return on the Saturday, he had repliedthat he did not know, but that he would telegraph. Whereupon Maggie hadsaid that if he stayed away for the week-end she should probably haveall the children up for dinner and tea. At the shop, "Stifford, " he hadsaid, "I suppose you don't happen to know a good hotel in Brighton? Imight run down there for the week-end if I don't come back to-morrow. But you needn't say anything. " "No, sir, " Stifford had discreetlyconcurred in this suggestion. "They say there's really only one hotelin Brighton, sir--the Royal Sussex. But I've never been there. " Edwinhad replied: "Not the Metropole, then?" "Oh no, sir!" Stifford hadbecome a great and wonderful man, and Edwin's constant fear was that hemight lose this indispensable prop to his business. For Stifford, having done a little irregular commercial travelling in Staffordshireand the neighbouring counties, had been seised of the romance oftravelling; he frequented the society of real commercial travellers, andwas gradually becoming a marvellous encyclopaedia of information abouthotels, routes, and topography. Edwin having been to the Bank himself, instead of sending Stifford, haddeparted with the minimum of ostentation. He had in fact crept away. Since the visit of Janet and the child he had not seen either of themagain, nor had he mentioned the child to anybody at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. When, in an astounding short space of time, he stood in the King's Roadat Brighton, it seemed to him that he was in a dream; that he was notreally at Brighton, that town which for so many years had been to himnaught but a romantic name. Had his adventurousness, his foolhardiness, indeed carried him so far? As for Brighton, it corresponded with nodream. It was vaster than any imagining of it. Edwin had only seen thepleasure cities of the poor and of the middling, such as Blackpool andLlandudno. He had not conceived what wealth would do when it organiseditself for the purposes of distraction. The train had prepared him to acertain extent, but not sufficiently. He suddenly saw Brighton in itsautumnal pride, Brighton beginning one of its fine week-ends, and he hadto admit that the number of rich and idle people in the world surpassedhis provincial notions. For miles westwards and miles eastwards, against a formidable background of high, yellow and brown architecture, persons the luxuriousness of any one of whom would have drawn remarks inBursley, walked or drove or rode in thronging multitudes. Edwin couldcomprehend lolling by the sea in August, but in late October it seemedunnatural, fantastic. The air was full of the trot of glossy horses andthe rattle of hits and the roll of swift wheels, and the fall of elegantsoles on endless clean pavements; it was full of the consciousness ofbeing correct and successful. Many of the faces were monstrously ugly, most were dissatisfied and querulous; but they were triumphant. Eventhe pale beings in enlarged perambulators, pulled solemnly to and fro bytheir aged fellow-beings, were triumphant. The scared, the maimed, yes, and the able-bodied blind trusting to the arms of friends, weretriumphant. And the enormous policemen, respectfully bland, confidentin the system which had chosen them and fattened them, gave as it wereto the scene an official benediction. The bricks and stucco which fronted the sea on the long embankedpromenade never sank lower than a four-storey boarding-house, and werecontinually rising to the height of some gilt-lettered hotel, and atintervals rose sheer into the skies--six, eight, ten storeys--where ahotel, admittedly the grandest on any shore of ocean sent terra-cottachimneys to lose themselves amid the pearly clouds. Nearly everybuilding was a lodgement waiting for the rich, and nearly every greatbow-window, out of tens of thousands of bow-windows bulging forward inan effort to miss no least glimpse of the full prospect, exhibited theapparatus and the menials of gourmandise. And the eye, following theinterminable irregular horizontal lines of architecture, was foiled inthe far distances, and, still farther off, after a break ofindistinguishable brown, it would catch again the receding run of roofs, simplified by atmosphere into featureless rectangles of grey againstsapphire or rose. There were two piers that strode and sprawled intothe sea, and these also were laden with correctness and with domination. And, between the two, men were walking miraculously on the sea to builda third, that should stride farther and deeper than the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Amid the crowd, stamping and tapping his way monotonously along with theassured obstinacy of a mendicant experienced and hardened, came a shabbyman bearing on his breast a large label with these words: "Blind throughboy throwing mortar. Discharged from four hospitals. Incurable. "Edwin's heart seemed to be constricted. He thought of the raggedsnarling touts who had fawned to him at the station, and of thecreatures locked in the cellars whence came beautiful odours ofconfectionery and soup through the pavement gratings, and of theslatternly women who kept thrusting flowers under his nose, and thehalf-clad infants who skimmed before the wind yelling the names ofnewspapers. All was not triumph! Where triumph was, there also must bethe conquered. She was there, she too! Somewhere, close to him. He recalled the exacttone of Janet's voice as she had said: "The poor thing's had a greatdeal of trouble. " A widow, trying to run a boarding-house and notsucceeding! Why, there were hundreds upon hundreds of boarding--houses, all large, all imposing, all busy at the end of October! Where was hershidden away, her pathetic little boarding-house? Preston Street! Heknew not where Preston Street was, and he had purposely refrained frominquiring. But he might encounter it at any moment. He was afraid tolook too closely at the street-signs as he passed them; afraid! "What am I doing here?" he asked himself curiously, and sometimespettishly. "What's my object? Where's the sense of it? I'm nothingbut a damned fool. I've got no plan. I don't know what I'm going todo. " It was true. He had no plan, and he did not know what he wasgoing to do. What he did most intimately know was that the idea of hernearness made him tremble. "I'd much better go back at once, " he said. He walked miles, until he came to immense and silent squares of hugepalatial houses, and wide transversal avenues running far up into theland and into the dusk. In these vast avenues and across these vastsquares infrequent carriages sped like mechanical toys guided bymannikins. The sound of the sea waxed. And then he saw the twinkle oflights, and then fire ran slowly along the promenade: until the wholemap of it was drawn out in flame; and he perceived that though he hadwalked a very long way, the high rampart of houses continued stillinterminably beyond him. He turned. He was tired. His face caught thefull strength of the rising wind. Foam gleamed on the rising tide. Inthe profound violet sky to the east stars shone and were wiped out, infields; but to the west, silver tarried. He had not seen PrestonStreet, and it was too dark now to decipher the signs. He was glad. Hewent on and on, with rapidly increasing fatigue, disgust, impatience. The thronging multitudes had almost disappeared; but many illuminatedvehicles were flitting to and fro, and the shops were brilliant. He wasso exhausted by the pavements that he could scarcely walk. And Brightonbecame for him the most sorrowful city on earth. "What am I doing here?" he asked himself savagely. However, by dint ofsticking doggedly to it he did in the end reach the hotel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. After dinner, and wine, both of which, by their surprising and indeedunique excellence, fostered the prestige of Stifford as an authorityupon hotels, Edwin was conscious of new strength and cheerfulness. Heleft the crowded and rose-lit dining-room early, because he was not atease amid its ceremoniousness of attire and of service, and went intothe turkey-carpeted hall, whose porter suddenly sprang into propitiatorylife on seeing him. He produced a cigarette, and with passionate hastethe porter produced a match, and by his method of holding the flame tothe cigarette, deferential and yet firm, proved that his young existencehad not been wasted in idleness. When the cigarette was alight, theporter surveyed his work with a pleased smile. "Another rare storm blowing up, sir, " said the porter. "Yes, " said Edwin. "It's been giving the window of my room a fineshake. " The porter glanced at the clock. "High tide in half an hour, sir. " "I think I'll go out and have a look at it, " said Edwin. "Yes, sir. " "By the way, " Edwin added, "I suppose you haven't got a map ofBrighton?" "Certainly, sir, " said the porter, and with a rebirth of passion beganto search among the pile of time-tables and other documents on a tablebehind him. Edwin wished he had not asked for the map. He had not meant to ask forit. The words had said themselves. He gazed unseeing at the map for afew instants. "What particular street did you want, sir?" the porter murmured. In deciding how to answer, it seemed to Edwin that he was deciding thehazard of his life. "Preston Street. " "Oh! Preston Street!" the porter repeated in a relieved tone, as ifassuring Edwin that there was nothing very esoteric about PrestonStreet. "It's just beyond the Metropole. You know Regency Square. Well, it's the next street after that. There's a club at the corner. " In the afternoon, then, Edwin must have walked across the end of PrestonStreet twice. This thought made him tremble as at the perception of adanger past but unperceived at the moment. The porter gave his whole soul to the putting of Edwin's overcoat onEdwin's back; he offered the hat with an obeisance, and having usheredEdwin into the night so that the illustrious guest might view the storm, he turned with a sudden new mysterious supply of zeal to other guestswho were now emerging from the dining-room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. The hotel fronted north on an old sheltered square where no storm raged, but simultaneously with Edwin's first glimpse of the sea the wind struckhim a tremendous blow, and continued to strike. He had the peculiargrim joy of the Midlander and Northerner in defying an element. All thelamps of the promenade were insecurely flickering. Grouped opposite asmall jetty was a crowd of sightseers. The dim extremity of the jettywas wreathed in spray, and the waves ran along its side, making curvedlines on the masonry like curved lines of a rope shaken from one end. The wet floor of the jetty shone like a mirror. Edwin approached thecrowd, and, peeping over black shoulders, could see down into the hollowof the corner between the jetty and the sea-wall, where boys on thesteps dared the spent waves, amid jeering laughter. The crowd had theair of being a family intimately united. Farther on was another similarcrowd, near an irregular high fountain of spray that glittered in thedark. On the beach below, at vague distances were curious rows ofapparently tiny people silhouetted like the edge of a black saw againstan excessive whiteness. This whiteness was the sheet of foam that thesea made. It stretched everywhere, until the eye lost it seawards. Edwin descended to the beach, adding another tooth to the saw. The tideran up absolutely white in wide chords of a circle, and then, to the rawnoise of disturbed shingle, the chord vanished; and in a moment wasre-created. This play went on endlessly, hypnotising the spectatorswho, beaten by the wind and deafened by sound, stared and stared, safe, at the mysterious and menacing world of spray and foam and darkness. Before, was the open malignant sea. Close behind, on their eminence, the hotels rose in vast cubes of yellow light, moveless, secure, strangely confident that nothing sinister could happen to them. Edwin was aware of emotion. The feel of his overcoat-collar upturnedagainst the chin was friendly to him amid that onset of the pathos ofthe human world. He climbed back to the promenade. Always at thebottom of his mind, the foundation of all the shifting structures in hismind, was the consciousness of his exact geographical relation toPreston Street. He walked westwards along the promenade. "Why am Idoing this?" he asked himself again and again. "Why don't I go home? Imust be mad to be doing this. " Still his legs carried him on, pastlamp-post after lamp-post of the wind-driven promenade, now almostdeserted. And presently the high lighted windows of the grandest hotelswere to be seen, cut like square holes in the sky; and then the pier, which had flung a string of lanterns over the waves into the storm; andopposite the pier a dark empty space and a rectangle of gas-lamps:Regency Square. He crossed over, and passed up the Square, and out ofit by a tiny side street, at hazard, and lo! he was in Preston Street. He went hot and cold. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEVEN. Well, and what then? Preston Street was dark and lonely. The windcharged furiously through it, panting towards the downs. He was inPreston Street, but what could he do? She was behind the black walls ofone of those houses. But what then? Could he knock at the door in thenight and say: "I've come. I don't know why?" He said: "I shall walk up and down this street once, and then I shall goback to the hotel. That's the only thing to do. I've gone off my head, that's what's the matter with me! I ought to have written to her. Whyin the name of God didn't I begin by writing to her? . .. Of course Imight write to her from the hotel . .. Send the letter by messenger, to-night . .. Or early to-morrow. Yes, that's what I'll do. " He set himself to make the perambulation of the street. Many of thenumbers were painted on the fanlights over the doors and showed plainagainst illumination. Suddenly he saw the large figures `59. ' He wasprofoundly stirred. He had said that the matter with him was that hehad gone off his head; but now, staring at that number on the oppositeside of the street, he really did not know what was the matter with him. He might have been dying. The front of the house was dark save for thefanlight He crossed over and peered down into the area and at the blackdoor. A brass plate: "Cannon's Boarding-House, " he could read. Heperspired. It seemed to him that he could see her within the house, mysteriously moving at her feminine tasks. Or did she lie in bed? Hehad come from Bursley to London, from London to Brighton, and now he hadfound her portal; it existed. The adventure seemed incredible in itsresult. Enough for the present! He could stand no more. He walkedaway, meaning not to return. When he returned, five minutes later, the fanlight was dark. Had she, in the meantime, come into the hall of the house and extinguished thegas? Strange, that all lights should be out in a boarding establishmentbefore ten o'clock! He stood hesitant quite near the house, holdinghimself against the wind. Then the door opened a little, as it werestealthily, and a hand and arm crept out and with a cloth polished theface of the brass plate. He thought, in his excited fancy, that it washer hand and arm. Within, he seemed to distinguish a dim figure. Hedid not move; could not. The door opened wider, and the figure stoodrevealed, a woman's. Surely it was she! She gazed at him suspiciously, duster in hand. "What are you standing there for?" she questioned inimically. "We'vehad enough of loiterers in this street. Please go away. " She took him for a knave expectant of some chance to maraud. She wasnot fearful, however. It was she. It was her voice. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER FOUR. IN PRESTON STREET. He said, "I happened to be in Brighton, so I thought I'd just call, and--I thought I'd just call. " She stared at him, frowning, in the dim diffused light of the street. "I've been seeing your little boy, " he said. "I thought perhaps as Iwas here you'd like to know how he was getting on. " "Why, " she exclaimed, with seeming bitterness, "you've grown a beard!" "Yes, " he admitted foolishly, apologetically. "We can't stand here in this wind, " she said, angry with the wind, whichwas indeed blowing her hair about, and her skirts and her duster. She did not in words invite him to enter, but she held the door morewidely open and drew back for him to pass. He went in. She closed thedoor with a bang and rattle of large old-fashioned latches, locks, andchains, and the storm was excluded. They were in the dark of the hall. "Wait till I put my hand on the matches, " she said. Then she struck amatch, which revealed a common oil-lamp, with a reservoir of yellowglass and a paper shade. She raised the chimney and lit the lamp, andregulated the wick. Edwin kept silence. The terrible constraint which had half paralysedhim when Janet first mentioned Hilda, seized him again. He stood nearthe woman who without a word of explanation or regret had jilted, outraged, and ruined him ten years before; this was their first meetingafter their kisses in his father's shop. And yet she was not on herknees, nor in tears, nor stammering an appeal for forgiveness. It wasrather he who was apologetic, who sought excuses. He felt somehow likea criminal, or at least like one who commits an enormous indiscretion. The harsh curves of her hair were the same. Her thick eyebrows were thesame. Her blazing glance was the same. Her intensely clear intonationwas the same. But she was a profoundly changed woman. Even in hisextreme perturbation he could be sure of that. As, bending under thelamp-shade to arrange the wick, she exposed her features to the brightlight, Edwin saw a face marred by anxiety and grief and time, the faceof a mature woman, with no lingering pretension to girlishness. She wasthirty-four, and she looked older than Maggie, and much older thanJanet. She was embittered. Her black dress was shabby and untidy, herfinger-nails irregular, discoloured, and damaged. The aspect of herpained Edwin acutely. It seemed to him a poignant shame that time andsorrow and misfortune could not pass over a young girl's face and leaveno mark. When he recalled what she had been, comparing the woman withthe delicious wistful freshness of the girl that lived unaltered in hismemory, he was obliged to clear his throat. The contrast was toopathetic to be dwelt on. Only with the woman before him did he fullyappreciate the exquisite innocent simplicity of the girl. In the day ofhis passion Hilda had not seemed to him very young, very simple, verywistful. On the contrary she had seemed to have much of the knowledgeand the temper of a woman. Having at length subjugated the wick, she straightened her back, with agesture that he knew, and for one instant she was a girl again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. "Will you come this way?" she said coldly, holding the lamp in front ofher, and opening a door. At the same moment another door opened at the far end of the hall; therewas a heavy footstep; a great hand and arm showed, and then Edwin had aglimpse of a man's head and shoulders emerging from an oblong flickeringfirelight. Hilda paused. "All right, " she called to the man, who at oncedisappeared, shutting the door and leaving darkness where he had been. The large shadows cast by Hilda's lamp now had the gaunt hall tothemselves again. "Don't be alarmed, " she laughed harshly. "It's only the broker's man. " Edwin was tongue-tied. If Hilda were joking, what answer could be madeto such a pleasantry in such a situation? And if she were speaking thetruth, if the bailiffs really were in possession. .. ! His life seemed tohim once again astoundingly romantic. He had loved this woman, conquered her. And now she was a mere acquaintance, and he wasfollowing her stiffly into the recesses of a strange and sinister abodepeopled by mysterious men. Was this a Brighton boarding-house? Itresembled nothing reputable in his experience. All wasincomprehensible. The room into which she led him was evidently the dining-room. Notspacious, perhaps not quite so large as his own dining-room, it wasnearly filled by one long bare table. Eight or ten monotonous chairswere ranged round the grey walls. In the embrasure of the window was awicker stand with a withered plant on its summit, and at the other endof the room a walnut sideboard in the most horrible taste. Themantelpiece was draped with dark knotted and rosetted cloth; within thefender stood a small paper screen. The walls were hung with ancient andwith fairly modern engravings, some big, others little, some coloured, others in black-and-white, but all distressing in their fatuousugliness. The ceiling seemed black. The whole room fulfilled prettyaccurately the scornful scrupulous housewife's notion of a lodging-houseinterior. It was suspect. And in Edwin there was a good deal of thehousewife. He was appalled. Obviously the house was small--he hadknown that from the outside--and the entire enterprise insignificant. This establishment was not in the King's Road, nor on the Marine Parade, nor at Hove; no doubt hundreds of such little places existedprecariously in a vast town like Brighton. Widows, of course, wereoften in straits. And Janet had told him. .. Nevertheless he wasappalled, and completely at a loss to reconcile Hilda with herenvironment. And then--"the broker's man!" At her bidding he sat down, in his overcoat, with his hat insecure onhis knee, and observed, under the lamp, the dust on the surface of thelong table. Hilda seated herself opposite, so that the lamp was betweenthem, hiding him from her by its circle of light. He wondered whatMaggie would have thought, and what Clara would have said, could theyhave seen him in that obscurity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. "So you've seen my boy?" she began, with no softening of tone. "Yes, Janet Orgreave brought him in one morning--the other day. Hedidn't seem to me to be so ill as all that. " "Ill!" she exclaimed. "He certainly wasn't ill when he left here. Buthe had been. And the doctor said that this air didn't suit him--itnever had suited him. It doesn't suit some folks, you know--people cansay what they like. " "Anyhow, he's a lively piece--no mistake about that!" "When he's well, he's very well, " said George's mother. "But he's upand down in a minute. And on the whole he's been on the poorly side. " He noticed that, though there was no relapse from the correctness of heraccent, she was using just such phrases as she might have used had shenever quitted her native Turnhill. He looked round the lamp at herfurtively, and seemed to see in her shadowed face a particular localquality of sincerity and downrightness that appealed strongly to hisadmiration. (Yet ten years earlier he had considered her markedlyforeign to the Five Towns. ) That this quality should have survived inher was a proof to him that she was a woman unique. Unique she hadbeen, and unique she still remained. He did not know that he had longago lost for ever the power of seeing her with a normal vision. Heimagined in his simplicity, which disguised itself as chill criticalimpartiality, that he was adding her up with clear-sighted shrewdness. .. And then she was a mother! That meant a mysterious, a mysticperfecting! For him, it was as if among all women she alone had been amother--so special was his view of the influence of motherhood upon her. He drew together all the beauty of an experience almost universal, transcendentalised it, and centred it on one being. And he wasdisturbed, baffled, agitated by the effect of the secret workings of hisown unsuspected emotion. He was made sad, and sadder. He wanted toright wrongs, to efface from hearts the memory of grief, to createbliss; and he knew that this could never be done. He now saw Hildaexclusively as a victim, whose misfortunes were innumerable. Imaginethis creature, with her passion for Victor Hugo, obliged bycircumstances to polish a brass door-plate surreptitiously at night!Imagine her solitary in the awful house--with the broker's man! Imagineher forced to separate herself from her child! Imagine the successionof disasters that had soured her and transformed seriousness intoharshness and acridity! . .. And within that envelope, what a soul mustbe burning! "And when he begins to grow--he's scarcely begun to grow yet, " Hildacontinued about her offspring, "then he will reed all his strength!" "Yes, he will, " Edwin concurred heartily. He wanted to ask her, "Why did you call him Edwin for his second name?Was it his father's name, or your father's, or did you insist on ityourself, because?" But he could not ask. He could ask nothing. Hecould not even ask why she had jilted him without a word. He knewnaught, and evidently she was determined to give no information. Shemight at any rate have explained how she had come to meet Janet, andunder what circumstances Janet had taken possession of the child. Allwas a mystery. Her face, when he avoided the lamp, shone in the midstof a huge dark cloud of impenetrable mystery. She was too proud toreveal anything whatever. The grand pride in her forbade her even toexcuse her conduct to himself. A terrific woman! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Silence fell. His constraint was excruciating. She too was nervous, tapping the table and creaking her chair. He could not speak. "Shall you be going back to Bursley soon?" she demanded. In her voicewas desperation. "Oh yes!" he said, thankfully eager to follow up any subject. "OnMonday, I expect. " "I wonder if you'd mind giving Janet a little parcel from me--somethings of George's? I meant to send it by post, but if you--" "Of course! With pleasure!" He seemed to implore her. "It's quite small, " she said, rising and going to the sideboard, onwhich lay a little brown-paper parcel. His eye followed her. She picked up the parcel, glanced at it, andoffered it to him. "I'll take it across on Monday night, " he said fervently. "Thanks. " She remained standing; he got up. "No message or anything?" he suggested. "Oh!" she said coldly, "I write, you know. " "Well--" He made the gesture of departing. There was no alternative. "We're having very rough weather, aren't we?" she said, with carelessconventionality, as she took the lamp. In the hall, when she held out her hand, he wanted tremendously tosqueeze it, to give her through his hand the message of sympathy whichhis tongue, intimidated by her manner, dared not give. But his handalso refused to obey him. The clasp was strictly ceremonious. As shewas drawing the heavy latch of the door he forced himself to say, "I'min Brighton sometimes, off and on. Now I know where you are, I mustlook you up. " She made no answer. She merely said good night as he passed out intothe street and the wind. The door banged. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. Edwin took a long breath. He had seen her! Yes, but the interview hadbeen worse than his worst expectations. He had surpassed himself infutility, in fatuous lack of enterprise. He had behaved liked aschoolboy. Now, as he plunged up the street with the wind, he coulddevise easily a dozen ways of animating and guiding and controlling theinterview so that, even if sad, its sadness might have been agreeable. The interview had been hell, ineffable torture, a perfect crime ofclumsiness. It had resulted in nothing. (Except, of course, that hehad seen her--that fact was indisputable. ) He blamed himself. Hecursed himself with really extraordinary savageness. "Why did I go near her?" he demanded. "Why couldn't I keep away? I'vesimply made myself look a blasted fool! Creeping and crawling roundher! . .. After all, she did throw me over! And now she asks me to takea parcel to her confounded kid! The whole thing's ridiculous! Andwhat's going to happen to her in that hole? I don't suppose she's gotthe least notion of looking after herself. Impossible--the whole thing!If anybody had told me that I should--that she'd--" Half of which talkwas simple bluster. The parcel was bobbing on its loop against hisside. When he reached the top of the street he discovered that he had beengoing up it instead of down it. "What am I thinking of?" he grumbledimpatiently. However, he would not turn back. He adventured forward, climbing into latitudes whose geography was strange to him, and scarcelyseeing a single fellow-wanderer beneath the gas-lamps. Presently, aftera steep hill, he came to a churchyard, and then he redescended, and atlast tumbled into a street alive with people who had emerged from atheatre, laughing, lighting cigarettes, linking arms. Their existenceseemed shallow, purposeless, infantile, compared to his. He felthimself superior to them. What did they know about life? He would notchange with any of them. Recognising the label on an omnibus, he followed its direction, andarrived almost immediately in the vast square which contained his hotel, and which was illuminated by the brilliant facades of several hotels. The doors of the Royal Sussex were locked, because eleven o'clock hadstruck. He could not account for the period of nearly three hours whichhad passed since he left the hotel. The zealous porter, observing hisshadow through the bars, had sprung to unfasten the door before he couldring. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. Within the hotel reigned gaiety, wine, and the dance. Small tables hadbeen placed in the hall, and at these sat bald-headed men, smokingcigars and sharing champagne with ladies of every age. A white carpethad been laid in the large smoking-room, and through the curtainedarchway that separated it from the hall, Edwin could see couplesrevolving in obedience to the music of a piano and a violin. One of theRoyal Sussex's Saturday Cinderellas was in progress. The self-satisfiedgestures of men inspecting their cigars or lifting glasses, of simperingwomen glancing or the sly at their jewels, and of youths pullingstraight their white waistcoats as they strolled about with the air ofDon Juans, invigorated his contempt for the average existence. Thetinkle of the music appeared exquisitely tedious in its superficiality. He could rot remain in the hall because of the incorrectness of hisattire, and the staircase was blocked, to a timid man, by elegantcouples apparently engaged in the act of flirtation. He turned, througha group of attendant waiters, into the passage leading to the smallsmoking-room which adjoined the discreetly situated bar. Thissmoking-room, like a club, warm and bright, was empty, but in passing hehad caught sight of two mutually affectionate dandies drinking at thesplendid mahogany of the bar. He lit a cigarette. Seated in thesmoking-room he could hear their conversation; he was forced to hear it. "I'm really a very quiet man, old chap, very quiet, " said one, with awavering drawl, "but when they get at me-- I was at the Club at oneo'clock. I wasn't drunk, but I had a top on. " "You were just gay and cheerful, " the other flatteringly and soothinglysuggested, in an exactly similar wavering drawl. "Yes. I felt as if I wanted to go out somewhere and have another drink. So I went to Willis's Rooms. I was in evening-dress. You know youhave to get a domino for those things. Then, of course, you're a markat once. I also got a nose. A girl snatched it off me. I told herwhat I thought of her, and I got another nose. Then five fellows triedto snatch my domino off me. Then I did get angry. I landed out with myright at the nearest chap--right on his heart. Not his face. Hisheart. I lowered him. He asked me afterwards, `Was that your right?'`Yes, ' I said, `and my left's worse!' I couldn't use my left becausethey were holding it. You see? You see?" "Yes, " said the other impatiently, and suddenly cantankerous. "I seethat all right! Damned awful rot those Willis's Rooms affairs aregetting, if you ask me!" "Asses!" Edwin exploded within himself. "Idiots!" He could nottolerate their crassness. He had a hot prejudice against them becausethey were not as near the core of life as he was himself. It appearedto him that most people died without having lived. Willis's Rooms!Girls! Nose! Heart! . .. Asses! He surged again out of the small room, desolating the bar with onescornful glance as he went by. He braved the staircase, leaving thosescenes of drivelling festivity. In his bedroom, with the wind crashingagainst the window, he regarded meditatively the parcel. After all, ifshe had meant to have nothing to do with him, she would not have chargedhim with the parcel. The parcel was a solid fact. The more he thoughtabout it, the more significant a fact it seemed to him. His ears sangwith the vibrating intensity of his secret existence, but from the wildconfusion of his heart he could disentangle no constant idea. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER FIVE. THE BULLY. The next morning he was up early, preternaturally awake. When hedescended the waiters were waiting for him, and the zealous porter stoodready to offer him a Sunday paper, just as though in the night they hadrefreshed themselves magically, without going to bed. No sign nor relicof the Cinderella remained. He breakfasted in an absent mind, and thenwent idly into the lounge, a room with one immense circular window, giving on the Square. Rain was falling heavily. Already from theporter, and in the very mien of the waiters, he had learnt that theBrighton Sunday was ruined. He left the window. On a round table inthe middle of the room were ranged, with religious regularity, all themost esoteric examples of periodical literature in our language, from"The Iron-Trades Review" to "The Animals' Guardian. " With one carelessmovement he destroyed the balanced perfection of a labour into whichsome menial had put his soul, and then dropped into a giganticeasy-chair near the fire, whose thin flames were just rising through theinterstices of great black lumps of coal. The housekeeper, stiff with embroidered silk, swam majestically into thelounge, bowed with a certain frigid and deferential surprise to theearly guest, and proceeded to an inquiry into dust. In a moment shecalled, sharp and low-- "Arthur!" And a page ran eagerly in, to whom, in the difficult corners ofupholstery and of sculptured wood, she pointed out his sins of omission, lashing him with a restrained voice that Edwin could scarcely hear. Passing her hand carelessly along the beading of a door panel and thenexamining her fingers, she departed. The page fetched a duster. "I see why this hotel has such a name, " said Edwin to himself. Andsuddenly the image of Hilda in that dark and frowzy tenement in PrestonStreet, on that wet Sunday morning, filled his heart with a revoltcapricious and violent. He sprang to his feet, unreflecting, wilful, and strode into the hall. "Can I have a cab?" he asked the porter. "Certainly, sir, " said the porter, as if saying, "You ask me too little. Why will you not ask for a white elephant so that I may prove mydevotion?" And within five seconds the screech of a whistle spedthrough the air to the cab-stand at the corner. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. "Why am I doing this?" he once more asked himself, when he heard thebell ring, in answer to his pull, within the house in Preston Street. The desire for a tranquil life had always been one of his strongestinstincts, and of late years the instinct had been satisfied, and sostrengthened. Now he seemed to be obstinately searching for tumult; andhe did not know why. He trembled at the sound of movement behind thedoor. "In a moment, " he thought, "I shall be right in the thick of it!" As he was expecting, she opened the door herself; but only a little, with the gesture habitual to women who live alone in apprehension, andshe kept her hand on the latch. "Good morning, " he said curtly. "Can I speak to you?" His eye could not blaze like hers, but all his self-respect depended onhis valour now, and with desperation he affronted her. She opened thedoor wider, and he stepped in, and at once began to wipe his boots onthe mat with nervous particularity. "Frightful morning!" he grinned. "Yes, " she said. "Is that your cab outside?" He admitted that it was. "Perhaps if we go upstairs, " she suggested. Thanking her, he followed her upwards into the gloom at the head of thenarrow stairs, and then along a narrow passage. The house appearedquite as unfavourably by day as by night. It was shabby. All its tintshad merged by use and by time into one tint, nondescript and unpleasant, in which yellow prospered. The drawing-room was larger than thedining-room by the poor width of the hall. It was a heaped, confusedmass of chairs, sofas, small tables, draperies, embroideries, andvalueless knick-knacks. There was no peace in it for the eye, neitheron the walls nor on the floor. The gaze was driven from one ugliness toanother without rest. The fireplace was draped; the door was draped; the back of the piano wasdraped; and none of the dark suspicious stuffs showed a clear pattern. The faded chairs were hidden by faded antimacassars; the little futiletables concealed their rickets under vague needlework, on which weredisplayed in straw or tinsel frames pale portraits of dowdy people whohad stood like sheep before fifteenth-rate photographers. Themantelpiece and the top of the piano were thickly strewn with fragmentsof coloured earthenware. At the windows hung heavy dark curtains fromgreat rings that gleamed gilt near the ceiling; and lest the light whichthey admitted should be too powerful it was further screened by greyishwhite curtains within them. The carpet was covered in most places bysmall rugs or bits of other carpets, and in the deep shadows beneathsofas and chairs and behind the piano it seemed to slip altogether outof existence into black nothingness. The room lacked ventilation, buthad the appearance of having been recently dusted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Hilda closed the draped door with a mysterious, bitter, cynical smile. "Sit down, " she said coldly. "Last night, " Edwin began, without sitting down, "when you mentioned thebroker's man, were you joking, or did you mean it?" She was taken aback. "Did I say `broker's man'?" "Well, " said Edwin, "you've not forgotten, I suppose. " She sat down, with some precision of pose, on the principal sofa. "Yes, " she said at length. "As you're so curious. The landlords are inpossession. " "The bailiffs still here?" "Yes. " "But what are you going to do?" "I'm expecting them to take the furniture away to-morrow, or Tuesday atthe latest, " she replied. "And then what?" "I don't know. " "But haven't you got any money?" She took a purse from her pocket, and opened it with a show of impartialcuriosity. "Two-and-seven, " she said. "Any servant in the house?" "What do you think?" she replied. "Didn't you see me cleaning thedoor-plate last night? I do like that to look nice at any rate!" "I don't see much use in that looking nice, when you've got the bailiffsin, and no servant and no money, " Edwin said roughly, and added, stillmore roughly: "What should you do if anyone came inquiring for rooms?"He tried to guess her real mood, but her features would betray nothing. "I was expecting three old ladies--sisters--next week, " she said. "I'dbeen hoping I could hold out till they came. They're horrid women, though they don't know it; but they've stayed a couple of months in thishouse every winter for I don't know how many years, and they're firmlyconvinced it's the best house in Brighton. They're quite enough to keepit going by themselves when they're here. But I shall have to write andtell them not to come this time. " "Yes, " said Edwin. "But I keep asking you--what then?" "And I keep saying I don't know. " "You must have some plans?" "I haven't. " She put her lips together, and dimpled her chin, and againcynically smiled. At any rate she had not resented his inquisition. "I suppose you know you're behaving like a perfect fool?" he suggestedangrily. She did not wince. "And what if I am? What's that got to do with you?" she asked, as ifpleasantly puzzled. "You'll starve. You can't live for ever on two-and-seven. " "Well?" "And the boy? Is he going to starve?" "Oh, " said Hilda, "Janet will look after him till something turns up. The fact is, that's one reason why I allowed her to take him. " "`Something turns up, ' `something turns up!'" Edwin repeateddeliberately, letting himself go. "You make me absolutely sick! It'sabsolutely incredible how some people will let things slide! What inthe name of God Almighty do you think will turn up?" "I don't know, " she said, with a certain weakness, still trying to beplacidly bitter, and not now succeeding. "Where is the bailiff-johnny?" "He's in the kitchen with one of his friends, drinking. " Edwin with bravado flopped his hat down forcefully on a table, pushed achair aside, and strode towards the door. "Where are you going?" she asked in alarm, standing up. "Where do you suppose I'm going? I'm going to find out from that chaphow much will settle it. If you can't show any common sense foryourself, other folks must show some for you--that's all. The brokersin the house! I never heard of such work!" And indeed, to a respected and successful tradesman, the entrance of thebailiffs into a house did really seem to be the very depth of disasterand shame for the people of that house. Edwin could not remember thathe had ever before seen a bailiff. To him a bailiff was like a bug--something heard of, something known to exist, but something not likelyto enter the field of vision of an honest and circumspect man. He would deal with the bailiff. He would have a short way with thebailiff. Secure in the confidence of his bankers, he was ready to bullythe innocent bailiff. He would not reflect, would not pause. He hadheated himself. His steam was up, and he would not let the pressure beweakened by argumentative hesitations. His emotion was notdisagreeable. When he was in the passage he heard the sound of a sob. Prudently, hehad not banged the door after him. He stopped, and listened. Was it asob? Then he heard another sob. He went back to the drawing-room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Yes! She stood in the middle of the room weeping. Save Clara, andpossibly once or twice Maggie, he had never seen a woman cry--that is, in circumstances of intimacy; he had seen women crying in the street, and the spectacle usually pained him. On occasion he had very nearlymade Maggie cry, and had felt exceedingly uncomfortable. But now, as helooked at the wet eyes and the shaken bosom of Hilda Cannon, he wasaware of acute joy. Exquisite moment! Damn her! He could have takenher and beaten her in his sudden passion--a passion not of revenge, notof punishment! He could have made her scream with the pain that hislove would inflict. She tried to speak, and failed, in a storm of sobs. He had left thedoor open. Half blind with tears she dashed to the door and shut it, and then turned and fronted him, with her hands hovering near her face. "I can't let you do it!" she murmured imploringly, plaintively, and yetwith that still obstinate bitterness in her broken voice. "Then who is to do it?" he demanded, less bitterly than she had spoken, nevertheless not softly. "Who is to keep you if I don't? Have you gotany other friends who'll stand by you?" "I've got the Orgreaves, " she answered. "And do you think it would be better for the Orgreaves to keep you, orfor me?" As she made no response, he continued: "Anybody else besidesthe Orgreaves?" "No, " she muttered sulkily. "I'm not the sort of woman that makes a lotof friends. I expect people don't like me, as a rule. " "You're the sort of woman that behaves like a blooming infant!" he said. "Supposing I don't help you? What then, I keep asking you? How shallyou get money? You can only borrow it--and there's nobody but Janet, and she'd have to ask her father for it. Of course, if you'd soonerborrow from Osmond Orgreave than from me--" "I don't want to borrow from any one, " she protested. "Then you want to starve! And you want your boy to starve--or else tolive on charity! Why don't you look facts in the face? You'll have tolook them in the face sooner or later, and the sooner the better. Youthink you're doing a fine thing by sitting tight and bearing it, andsaying nothing, and keeping it all a secret, until you get pitched intothe street! Let me tell you you aren't. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. She dropped into a chair by the piano, and rested her elbows on thecurved lid of the piano. "You're frightfully cruel!" she sobbed, hiding her face. He fidgeted away to the larger of the two windows, which was bayed, sothat the room could boast a view of the sea. On the floor he noticed anopen book, pages downwards. He picked it up. It was the poems ofCrashaw, an author he had never read but had always been intending toread. Outside, the driver of his cab was bunching up his head andshoulders together under a large umbrella, upon which the rainspattered. The flanks of the resigned horse glistened with rain. "You needn't talk about cruelty!" he remarked, staring hard at thesignboard of an optician opposite. He could hear the faint clanging ofchurch bells. After a pause she said, as if apologetically-- "Keeping a boarding-house isn't my line. But what could I do? Mysister-in-law had it, and I was with her. And when she died. .. Besides, I dare say I can keep a boarding-house as well as plenty ofother people. But--well, it's no use going into that!" Edwin abruptly sat down near her. "Come, now, " he said less harshly, more persuasively. "How much do youowe?" "Oh!" she cried, pouting, and shifting her feet. "It's out of thequestion! They've distrained for seventy-five pounds. " "I don't care if they've distrained for seven hundred and seventy-fivepounds!" She seemed just like a girl to him again now, in spite of herface and her figure. "If that was cleared off, you could carry on, couldn't you? This is just the season. Could you get a servant in, intime for these three sisters?" "I could get a charwoman, anyhow, " she said unwillingly. "Well, do you owe anything else?" "There'll be the expenses. " "Of the distraint?" "Yes. " "That's nothing. I shall lend you a hundred pounds. It just happensthat I've got fifty pounds on me in notes. That and a cheque'll settlethe bailiff person, and the rest of the hundred I'll send you by post. It'll be a bit of working capital. " She rose and threaded between chairs and tables to the sofa, severalfeet from Edwin. With a vanquished and weary sigh, she threw herself onto the sofa. "I never knew there was anybody like you in the world, " she breathed, flicking away some fluff from her breast. She seemed to be regardinghim, not as a benefactor, but as a natural curiosity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. He looked at her like a conqueror. He had taught her a thing or two. He had been a man. He was proud of himself. He was proud of all sortsof details in his conduct. The fifty pounds in notes, for example, wasnot an accident. Since the death of his father, he had formed the habitof never leaving his base of supplies without a provision far in excessof what he was likely to need. He was extravagant in nothing, but thehumiliations of his penurious youth and early manhood had implanted inhim a morbid fear of being short of money. He had fantasticallysurmised circumstances in which he might need a considerable sum atBrighton. And lo! the sequel had transformed his morbidity intoprudence. "This time yesterday, " he reflected, in his triumph, "I hadn't even seenher, and didn't know where she was. Last night I was a fool. Half anhour ago she herself hadn't a notion that I was going to get the upperhand of her. .. Why, it isn't two days yet since I left home! . .. Andlook where I am now!" With pity and with joy he watched her slowly wiping her eyes. Thirty-four, perhaps; yet a child--compared to him! But if she did notgive a natural ingenuous smile of relief, it was because she could not. If she acted foolishly it was because of her tremendous haughtiness. However, he had lowered that. He had shown her her master. He feltthat she had been profoundly wronged by destiny, and that gentlenessmust be lavished upon her. In a casual tone he began to talk about the most rapid means of gettingrid of the bailiff. He could not tolerate the incubus of the bailiff amoment longer than was absolutely unavoidable. At intervals a misgivingshot like a thin flying needle through the solid satisfaction of hissensations: "She is a strange and an incalculable woman--why am I doingthis?" Shot, and was gone, almost before perceived! VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER SIX. THE RENDEZVOUS. In the afternoon the weather cleared somewhat. Edwin, vaguely blissful, but with nothing to occupy him save reflection, sat in the loungedrinking tea at a Moorish table. An old Jew, who was likewise drinkingtea at a Moorish table, had engaged him in conversation and was relatingthe history of a burglary in which he had lost from his flat in BoltonStreet, Piccadilly, nineteen gold cigarette-cases and thirty-sevenjewelled scarf-pins, tokens of esteem and regard offered to him byfriends and colleagues at various crises of his life. The lounge wascrowded, but not with tea-drinkers. Despite the horrid dismalness ofthe morning, hope had sent down from London trains full of people whosedetermination was to live and to see life in a grandiose manner. Andall about the lounge of the Royal Sussex were groups of elegant youngishmen and flaxen, uneasily stylish women, inviting the assistance offlattered waiters to decide what liqueurs they should have next. Edwinwas humanly trying to publish in nonchalant gestures the scorn which hereally felt for these nincompoops, but whose free expression washindered by a layer of envy. The hall-porter appeared, and his eye ranged like a condor's over thefield until it discovered Edwin, whom he approached with a mien of joyand handed to him a letter. Edwin took the letter with an air of custom, as if he was anxious toconvince the company that his stay at the Royal Sussex was frequentlypunctuated by the arrival of special missives. "Who brought this?" he asked. "An oldish man, sir, " said the porter, and bowed and departed. The handwriting was hers. Probably the broker's man had offered tobring the letter. In the short colloquy with him in the morning, Edwinhad liked the slatternly, coarse fellow. The bailiff could not, unauthorised, accept cheques, but his tone in suggesting an immediatevisit to his employers had shown that he had bowels, that he sympathisedwith the difficulties of careless tenants in a harsh world of landlords. It was Hilda who, furnished with notes and cheque, had gone, in Edwin'scab, to placate the higher powers. She had preferred to go herself, andto go alone. Edwin had not insisted. He had so mastered her that hecould afford to yield to her in trifles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The letter said exactly this: "Everything is all right and settled. Ihad no trouble at all. But I should like to speak to you thisafternoon. Will you meet me on the West Pier at six?--H. C. " No form ofgreeting! No thanks! The bare words necessary to convey a wish! Onleaving her in the morning no arrangement had been made for a furtherinterview. She had said nothing, and he had been too proud to ask--theterrible pride of the benefactor! It was only by chance that it hadeven occurred to him to say: "By the way, I am staying at the RoyalSussex. " She had shown no curiosity whatever about him, his doings, hismovements. She had not put to him a single question. He had intendedto call at Preston Street on the Monday morning. And now a letter fromher! Her handwriting had scarcely changed. He was to meet her on thepier. At her own request he now had a rendezvous with her on the pier!Why not at her house? Perhaps she was afraid of his power over her inthe house. (Curious, how she, and she almost alone, roused themasculine force in him!) Perhaps she wanted to thank him insurroundings which would compel both of them to be calm. That would belike her! Essentially modest, restrained! And did she not know how tobe meek, she who was so headstrong and independent! He looked at the clock. The hour was not yet five. Nevertheless hefelt obliged to go out, to bestir himself. On the misty, crowded, darkening promenade he abandoned himself afresh to indulgence in thesouvenance of the great critical scene of the morning. Yes, he had donemarvels; and fate was astoundingly kind to him also. But there was oneaspect of the affair that intrigued and puzzled him, and weakened hisself-satisfaction. She had been defeated, yet he was baffled by her. She was a mystery within folds of mysteries. He was no nearer--hesecretly felt--to the essential Her than he had been before the shortstruggle and his spectacular triumph. He wanted to reconstruct in hisfancy all her emotional existence; he wanted to get at her, --to possessher intimate mind, --and lo! he could not even recall the expressions ofher face from minute to minute during the battle. She hid herself fromhim. She eluded him. .. Strange creature! The polishing of thedoor-plate in the night! That volume of Crashaw--on the floor! Hercold, almost daemonic smile! Her sobs! Her sudden retreats! What wasat the back of it all? He remembered her divine gesture over the fondShushions. He remembered the ecstatic quality of her surrender in theshop. He remembered her first love-letter: "Every bit of me isabsolutely yours. " And yet the ground seemed to be unsure beneath hisfeet, and he wondered whether he had ever in reality known her, evergrasped firmly the secret of her personality, even for an instant. He said to himself that he would be seeing her face to face in an hour, and that then he would, by the ardour of his gaze, get behind thoseenigmatic features to the arcana they concealed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Before six o'clock it was quite dark. He thought it a strange notion, to fix a rendezvous at such an hour, on a day in autumn, in the openair. But perhaps she was very busy, doing servant's work in thepreparation of her house for visitors. When he reached the pier gatesat five minutes to six, they were closed, and the obscure vista of thepier as deserted as some northern pier in mid-winter. Naturally it wasclosed! There was a notice prominently displayed that the pier wouldclose that evening at dusk. What did she mean? The truth was, hedecided, that she lived in the clouds, ordering her existence by meansof sudden and capricious decisions in which facts were neglected, --andherein probably lay the explanation of her misfortunes. He was veryphilosophical: rather amused than disturbed, because her house wasscarcely a stone's-throw away: she could not escape him. He glanced up and down the lighted promenade, and across the broad muddyroad towards the opening of Preston Street. The crowds had disappeared;only scattered groups and couples, and now and then a solitary, passedquickly in the gloom. The hotels were brilliant, and carriages withtheir flitting lamps were continually stopping in front of them; but theblackness of the shop-fronts produced the sensation of melancholy properto the day even in Brighton, and the renewed sound of church bellsintensified this arid melancholy. Suddenly he saw her, coming not across the road from Preston Street, butfrom the direction of Hove. He saw her before she saw him. Under themultiplicity of lamps her face was white and clear. He had a chance toread in it. But he could read nothing in it save her sadness, save thatshe had suffered. She seemed querulous, preoccupied, worried, andafflicted. She had the look of one who is never free from apprehension. Yet for him that look of hers had a quality unique, a quality that hehad never found in another, but which he was completely unable todefine. He wanted acutely to explain to himself what it was, and hecould not. "You are frightfully cruel, " she had said. And he admitted that he hadbeen. Yes, he had bullied her, her who, he was convinced, had alwaysbeen the victim. In spite of her vigorous individuality she wasdestined to be a victim. He was sure that she had never deservedanything but sympathy and respect and affection. He was sure that shewas the very incarnation of honesty--possibly she was too honest for theactual world. Did not the Orgreaves worship her? And could he himselfhave been deceived in his estimate of her character? She recognised him only when she was close upon him. A faint, transient, wistful smile lightened her brooding face, pale and stern. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "Oh! There you are!" she exclaimed, in her clear voice. "Did I saysix, or five, in my note?" "Six. " "I was afraid I had done, when I came here at five and didn't find you. I'm so sorry. " "No!" he said. "I think I ought to be sorry. It's you who've had thewaiting to do. The pier's closed now. " "It was just closing at five, " she answered. "I ought to have known. But I didn't. The fact is, I scarcely ever go out. I remembered onceseeing the pier open at night, and I thought it was always open. " Sheshrugged her shoulders as if stopping a shiver. "I hope you haven't caught cold, " he said. "Suppose we walk along abit. " They walked westwards in silence. He felt as though he were by the sideof a stranger, so far was he from having pierced the secret of thatface. As they approached one of the new glazed shelters, she said-- "Can't we sit down a moment. I--I can't talk standing up. I must sitdown. " They sat down, in an enclosed seat designed to hold four. And Edwincould feel the wind on his calves, which stretched beyond the screenedside of the structure. Odd people passed dimly to and fro in front ofthem, glanced at them with nonchalant curiosity, and glanced away. Onthe previous evening he had observed couples in those shelters, and hadwondered what could be the circumstances or the preferences which ledthem to accept such a situation. Certainly he could not have dreamedthat within twenty-four hours he would be sitting in one of them withher, by her appointment, at her request. He thrilled with excitement--with delicious anxieties. "Janet told you I was a widow, " Hilda began, gazing at the ferule of herumbrella, which gleamed on the ground. "Yes. " Again she was surprising him. "Well, we arranged she should tell every one that. But I think youought to know that I'm not. " "No?" he murmured weakly. And in one small unimportant region of hismind he reflected with astonishment upon the hesitating but convincingair with which Janet had lied to him. Janet! "After what you've done"--she paused, and went on with unblurredclearness--"after what you've insisted on doing, I don't want there tobe any misunderstanding. I'm not a widow. My husband's in prison. He'll be in prison for another six or seven years. That's all I wantedto tell you. " "I'm very sorry, " he breathed. "I'd no idea you'd had this trouble. "What could he say? What could anybody have said? "I ought to have told you at once, " she said. "I ought to have told youlast night. " Another pause. "Then perhaps you wouldn't have come againthis morning. " "Yes, I should!" he asserted eagerly. "If you're in a hole, you're in ahole. What difference could it possibly make whether you were a widowor not?" "Oh!" she said. "The wife of a convict. .. You know!" He felt that shewas evading the point. She went on: "It's a good thing my three old ladies don't know, anyhow. .. ! I'd no chance to tell you this morning. You were too muchfor me. " "I don't care whose wife you are!" he muttered, as though to himself, asthough resenting something said by some one who had gone away and lefthim. "If you're in a hole, you're in a hole. " She turned and looked at him. His eyes fell before hers. "Well, " she said. "I've told you. I must go. I haven't a moment. Good night. " She held out her hand. "You don't want me to thank you alot, do you?" "That I don't!" he exclaimed. "Good night. " "But--" "I really must go. " He rose and gave his hand. The next instant she was gone. There was a deafening roar in his head. It was the complete destructionby earthquake of a city of dreams. A calamity which left nothing--evento be desired! A tremendous silence reigned after the event. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. On the following evening, when from the windows of theLondon-to-Manchester express he saw in the gloom the high-leaping flamesof the blast-furnaces that seem to guard eternally the southern frontierof the Five Towns, he felt that he had returned into daily reality outof an impossible world. Waiting for the loop-line train in the familiartedium of Knype platform, staring at the bookstall, every item on whichhe knew by heart and despised, surrounded once more by localphysiognomies, gestures, and accent, he thought to himself: "This is mylot. And if I get messing about, it only shows what a damned fool Iam!" He called himself a damned fool because Hilda had proved to have ahusband; because of that he condemned the whole expedition to Brightonas a piece of idiocy. His dejection was profound and bitter. At first, after Hilda had quitted him on the Sunday night, he had tried to becheerful, had persuaded himself indeed that he was cheerful; butgradually his spirit had sunk, beaten and miserable. He had not calledat Preston Street again. Pride forbade, and the terror of beingmisunderstood. And when he sat at his own table, in his own dining-room, and watchedthe calm incurious Maggie dispensing to him his elaborate tea-supperwith slightly more fuss and more devotion than usual, his thoughts, hadthey been somewhat less vague, might have been summed up thus: "Theright sort of women don't get landed as the wives of convicts. Can youimagine such a thing happening to Maggie, for instance? Or Janet?"(And yet Janet was in the secret! This disturbed the flow of hisreflections. ) Hilda was too mysterious. Now she had half disclosed yetanother mystery. But what? "Why was her husband a convict? Under whatcircumstances? For what crime? Where? Since when?" He knew theanswer to none of these questions. More deeply than ever was that womanembedded in enigmas. "What's this parcel on the sideboard?" Maggie inquired. "Oh! I want you to send it in to Janet. It's from her particularfriend, Mrs Cannon--something for the kid, I believe. I ran across herin Brighton, and she asked me if I'd bring the parcel along. " The innocence of his manner was perfectly acted. He wondered that hecould do it so well. But really there was no danger. Nobody inBursley, or in the world, had the least suspicion of his past relationswith Hilda. The only conceivable danger would have been in hiding thefact that he had met her in Brighton. "Of course, " said Maggie, mildly interested. "I was forgetting shelived at Brighton. Well?" and she put a few casual questions, to whichEdwin casually replied. "You look tired, " she said later. He astonished her by admitting that he was. According to all precedenther statement ought to have drawn forth a quick contradiction. The sad image of Hilda would not be dismissed. He had to carry it aboutwith him everywhere, and it was heavy enough to fatigue a stronger thanEdwin Clayhanger. The pathos of her situation overwhelmed him, argue ashe might about the immunity of `the right sort of women' from a certainsort of disaster. On the Tuesday he sent her a post-office order fortwenty pounds. It rather more than made up the agreed sum of a hundredpounds. She returned it, saying she did not need it. "Little fool!" hesaid. He was not surprised. He was, however, very much surprised, afew weeks later, to receive from Hilda her own cheque for eighty poundsodd! More mystery! An absolutely incredible woman! Whence had sheobtained that eighty pounds? Needless to say, she offered noexplanation. He abandoned all conjecture. But he could not abandon theimage. And first Auntie Hamps said, and then Clara, and then evenMaggie admitted, that Edwin was sticking too close to business andneeded a change, needed rousing. Auntie Hamps urged openly that a wifeought to be found for him. But in a few days the great talkers of thefamily, Auntie Hamps and Clara, had grown accustomed to Edwin's state, and some new topic supervened. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER SEVEN. THE WALL. One morning--towards the end of November--Edwin, attended by Maggie, wasrearranging books in the drawing-room after breakfast, when there came astartling loud tap at the large central pane of the window. Both ofthem jumped. "Who's throwing?" Edwin exclaimed. "I expect it's that boy, " said Maggie, almost angrily. "Not Georgie?" "Yes. I wish you'd go and stop him. You've no idea what a tiresomelittle thing he is. And so rough too!" This attitude of Maggie towards the mysterious nephew was a surprise forEdwin. She had never grumbled about him before. In fact they had seenlittle of him. For a fortnight he had not been abroad, and the rumourran that he was unwell, that he was `not so strong as he ought to be. 'And now Maggie suddenly charged him with a whole series of misdoings!But it was Maggie's way to keep unpleasant things from Edwin for a time, in order to save her important brother from being worried, and then in amoment of tension to fling them full in his face, like a wet clout. "What's he been up to?" Edwin inquired for details. "Oh! I don't know, " answered Maggie vaguely. At the same instant cameanother startling blow on the window. "There!" Maggie cried, intriumph, as if saying: "That's what he's been up to!" After all, thewindows were Maggie's own windows. Edwin left on the sofa a whole pile of books that he was sorting, andwent out into the garden. On the top of the wall separating him fromthe Orgreaves a row of damaged earthenware objects--jugs and jarschiefly--at once caught his eye. He witnessed the smashing of one ofthem, and then he ran to the wall, and taking a spring, rested on itwith his arms, his toes pushed into crevices. Young George, with handoutstretched to throw, in the garden of the Orgreaves, seemed ratherdiverted by this apparition. "Hello!" said Edwin. "What are you up to?" "I'm practising breaking crocks, " said the child. That he had acquiredthe local word gave Edwin pleasure. "Yes, but do you know you're practising breaking my windows too? Whenyou aim too high you simply can't miss one of my windows. " George's face was troubled, as he examined the facts, which had hithertoescaped his attention, that there was a whole world of consequences onthe other side of the wall, and that a missile which did not prove itsexistence against either the wall or a crock had not necessarily ceasedto exist. Edwin watched the face with a new joy, as though looking atsome wonder of nature under a microscope. It seemed to him that he nowsaw vividly why children were interesting. "I can't see any windows from here, " said George, in defence. "If you climb up here you'll see them all right. " "Yes, but I can't climb up. I've tried to, a lot of times. Even when Istood on my toes on this stump I could only just reach to put the crockson the top. " "What did you want to get on the wall for?" "I wanted to see that swing of yours. " "Well, " said Edwin, laughing, "if you could remember the swing whycouldn't you remember the windows?" George shook his head at Edwin's stupidity, and looked at the ground. "A swing isn't windows, " he said. Then he glanced up with a diffidentsmile: "I've often been wanting to come and see you. " Edwin was tremendously flattered. If he had made a conquest, the childby this frank admission had made a greater. "Then why didn't you come?" "I couldn't, by myself. Besides, my back hasn't been well. Did theytell you?" George was so naturally serious that Edwin decided to be serious too. "I did hear something about it, " he replied, with the grave confidentialtone that he would have used to a man of his own age. This treatmentwas evidently appreciated by George, and always afterwards Edwinconversed with him as with an equal, forbearing from facetiousness. Damp though it was, Edwin twisted himself round and sat on the wall nextto the crocks, and bent over the boy beneath, who gazed with upturnedface. "Why didn't you ask Auntie Janet to bring you?" "I don't generally ask for things that I really want, " said the boy, with a peculiar glance. "I see, " said Edwin, with an air of comprehension. He did not, however, comprehend. He only felt that the boy was wonderful. Imagine the boysaying that! He bent lower. "Come on up, " he said. "I'll give you ahand. Stick your feet into that nick there. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. In an instant George was standing on the wall, light as fluff. Edwinheld him by the legs, and his hand was on Edwin's cap. The feel of theboy was delightful; he was so lithe and so yielding, and yet firm; andhis glance was so trustful and admiring. "Rough!" thought Edwin, remembering Maggie's adjective. "He isn't a bit rough! Unruly? Well, I dare say he can be unruly if he cares to be. It all depends how youhandle him. " Thus Edwin reflected in the pride of conquest, holdingclose to the boy, and savouring intimately his charm. Even the boy'sslightness attracted him. Difficult to believe that he was nine yearsold! His body was indeed backward. So too, it appeared, was hiseducation. And yet was there not the wisdom of centuries in, "I don'tgenerally ask for things that I really want?" Suddenly the boy wriggled, and gave a sound of joy that was almost ayell. "Look!" he cried. The covered top of the steam-car could just be seen gliding along abovethe high wall that separated Edwin's garden from the street. "Yes, " Edwin agreed. "Funny, isn't it?" But he considered that suchglee at such a trifle was really more characteristic of six or seventhan of nine years. George's face was transformed by ecstasy. "It's when things move like that--horizontal!" George explained, pronouncing the word carefully. Edwin felt that there was no end to the surpassing strangeness of thisboy. One moment he was aged six, and the next he was talking abouthorizontality. "Why? What do you mean?" "I don't know!" George sighed. "But somehow--" Then, with freshvivacity: "I tell you--when Auntie Janet comes to wake me up in themorning the cat comes in too, with its tail up in the air--you know!"Edwin nodded. "Well, when I'm lying in bed I can't see the cat, but Ican see the top of its tail sailing along the edge of the bed. But if Isit up I can see all the cat, and that spoils it, so I don't sit up atfirst. " The child was eager for Edwin to understand his pleasure in horizontalmotion that had no apparent cause, like the tip of a cat's tail on thehorizon of a bed, or the roof of a tram-car on the horizon of the wall. And Edwin was eager to understand, and almost persuaded himself that hedid understand; but he could not be sure. A marvellous child--disconcerting! He had a feeling of inferiority to the child, becausethe child had seen beauty where he had not dreamed of seeing it. "Want a swing, " he suggested, "before I have to go off to business?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. When it occurred to him that he had had as much violent physicalexercise as was good for his years, and that he had left his books indisarray, and that his business demanded him, Edwin apologeticallyannounced that he must depart, and the child admitted that Aunt Janetwas probably waiting to give him his lessons. "Are you going back the way you came? You'd better. It's always best, "said Edwin. "Is it?" "Yes. " He lifted and pushed the writhing form on to the wall, dislodging a jar, which crashed dully on the ground. "Auntie Janet told me I could have them to do what I liked with. So Ibreak them, " said George, "when they don't break themselves!" "I bet she never told you to put them on this wall, " said Edwin. "No, she didn't. But it was the best place for aiming. And she told meit didn't matter how many crocks I broke, because they make crocks here. Do they, really?" "Yes. " "Why?" "Because there's clay here, " said Edwin glibly. "Where?" "Oh! Round about. " "White, like that?" exclaimed George eagerly, handling a teapot withouta spout. He looked at Edwin: "Will you take me to see it? I shouldlike to see white ground. " "Well, " said Edwin, more cautiously, "the clay they get about here isn'texactly white. " "Then do they make it white?" "As a matter of fact the white clay comes from a long way off--Cornwall, for instance. " "Then why do they make the things here?" George persisted; with theannoying obstinacy of his years. He had turned the teapot upside down. "This was made here. It's got `Bursley' on it. Auntie Janet showedme. " Edwin was caught. He saw himself punished for that intellectual slothwhich leads adults to fob children off with any kind of a slipshod, dishonestly simplified explanation of phenomena whose adequateexplanation presents difficulty. He remembered how nearly twenty yearsearlier he had puzzled over the same question and for a long time hadnot found the answer. "I'll tell you how it is, " he said, determined to be conscientious. "It's like this--" He had to pause. Queer, how hard it was to state thething coherently! "It's like this. In the old days they used to makecrocks anyhow, very rough, out of any old clay. And crocks were firstmade here because the people found common yellow clay, and the coal toburn it with, lying close together in the ground. You see how handy itwas for them. " "Then the old crocks were yellow?" "More or less. Then people got more particular, you see, and when whiteclay was found somewhere else they had it brought here, becauseeverybody was used to making crocks here, and they had all the works andthe tools they wanted, and the coal too. Very important, the coal!Much easier to bring the clay to the people and the works, than cart offall the people--and their families, don't forget--and so on, to theclay, and build fresh works into the bargain. .. That's why. Now areyou sure you see?" George ignored the question. "I suppose they used up all the yellowclay there was here, long ago?" "Not much!" said Edwin. "And they never will! You don't know what asagger is, I reckon?" "What is a sagger?" "Well, I can't stop to tell you all that now. But I will some time. They make saggers out of the yellow clay. " "Will you show me the yellow clay?" "Yes, and some saggers too. " "When?" "I don't know. As soon as I can. " "Will you to-morrow?" To-morrow happened to be Thursday. It was not Edwin's free afternoon, but it was an afternoon to which a sort of licence attached. He yieldedto the ruthless egotism of the child. "All right!" he said. "You won't forget?" "You can rely on me. Ask your auntie if you may go, and if she says youmay, be ready for me to pull you up over the wall here, about threeo'clock. " "Auntie will have to let me go, " said George, in a savage tone, as Edwinhelped him to slip down into the garden of the Orgreaves. Edwin wentoff to business with a singular consciousness of virtue, and with pridein his successful manner of taming wayward children, and with a verystrong new interest in the immediate future. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER EIGHT. THE FRIENDSHIP. The next afternoon George's invincible energy took both himself and thegreat bearded man, Edwin, to a certain spot on the hollow confines ofthe town towards Turnhill, where there were several pits of marl andclay. They stared in silence at a vast ochre's-coloured glisteningcavity in the ground, on the high edges of which grew tufts of grassamid shards and broken bottles. In the bottom of the pit were laidplanks, and along the planks men with pieces of string tied tight roundtheir legs beneath the knees drew large barrows full or empty, sometimesinsecurely over pools of yellow water into which the plank sagged undertheir weight, and sometimes over little hillocks and through littledefiles formed in the basin of the mine. They seemed to have no aim. The whole cavity had a sticky look which at first amused George, but onthe whole he was not interested, and Edwin gathered that the clay-pit insome mysterious way fell short of expectations. A mineral line ofrailway which, near by, ambled at random like a pioneer over roughcountry, was much more successful than the pit in winning his approval. "Can we go and see the saggers now?" he suggested. Edwin might have taken him to the manufactory in which Albert Benbow wasa partner, but he preferred not to display to the father of Clara'soffspring his avuncular patronage of George Cannon, and he chose theworks of a customer down at Shawport for whom he was printing a somewhatambitious catalogue. He would call at the works and talk about thecatalogue, and then incidentally mention that his young friend desiredto see saggers. "I suppose God put that clay there so that people could practise on itfirst, before they tried the white clay, " George observed, as the pairdescended Oldcastle Street. Decidedly he had moments of talking like an infant, like a baby ofthree. Edwin recalled that Hilda used to torture herself aboutquestions of belief when she was not three but twenty-three. The scenein the garden porch seemed to have happened after all not very long ago. Yet a new generation, unconceived on that exciting and unforgettablenight, had since been born and had passed through infancy and was nowtrotting and arguing and dogmatising by his side. It was strange, butit was certainly a fact, that George regarded him as a beingimmeasurably old. He still felt a boy. How ought he to talk to the child concerning God? He was about to makea conventional response, when he stopped himself. "Confound it! Whyshould I?" he thought. "If I were you I shouldn't worry about God, " he said, aloud, in a casualand perhaps slightly ironic tone. "Oh, I don't!" George answered positively. "But now and then He comesinto your head, doesn't He? I was only just thinking. " The boy ceased, being attracted by the marvellous spectacle of a man perilously balancedon a crate-float driving a long-tailed pony full tilt down the steepslope of Oldcastle Street: it was equal to a circus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. The visit to the works was a particularly brilliant success. By goodfortune an oven was just being `drawn, ' and the child had sight of thefinest, the most barbaric picture that the manufacture of earthenware, from end to end picturesque, offers to the imaginative observer. Withinthe dark and sinister bowels of the kiln, illuminated by pale rays thatcame down through the upper orifice from the smoke-soiled sky, half-naked figures moved like ghosts, strenuous and damned, among thesaggers of ware. At rapid intervals they emerged, their hairy torsosglistening with sweat, carrying the fired ware, which was still too hotfor any but inured fingers to touch: an endless procession of plates andsaucers and cups and mugs and jugs and basins, thousands and thousands!George stared in an enchanted silence of awe. And presently one of theHercules's picked him up, and held him for a moment within the portal ofthe torrid kiln, and he gazed at the high curved walls, like the wallsof a gigantic tomb, and at the yellow saggers that held the ware. Nowhe knew what a sagger was. "I'm glad you took me, " he said afterwards, clearly impressed by theauthority of Edwin, who could stroll out and see such terrific goings-onwhenever he chose. During all the walk home he did not speak. On the Saturday, nominally in charge of his Auntie Janet, he called uponhis chum with some water-colour drawings that he had done; they showednaked devils carrying cups and plates amid bright salmon-tinted flames:designs horrible, and horribly crude, interesting only because a childhad done them. But somehow Edwin was obscurely impressed by them, andalso he was touched by the coincidence that George painted inwater-colours, and he, too, had once painted in water-colours. He wasmoreover expected to judge the drawings as an expert. On Monday hebrought up the most complicated box of water-colours that his shopcontained, and presented it to George, who, astounded, dazed, bore itaway to his bedroom without a single word. Their friendship was sealedand published; it became a fact recognised by the two families. THREE. About a week later, after a visit of a couple of days to Manchester, Edwin went out into the garden as usual when breakfast was finished, anddiscovered George standing on the wall. The boy had learned how toclimb the wall from his own side of it without help. "I say!" George cried, in a loud, rough, angry voice, as soon as he sawEdwin at the garden door. "I've got to go off in a minute, you know. " "Go off? Where?" "Home. Didn't they tell you in your house? Auntie Janet and I came toyour house yesterday, after I'd waited on the wall for you I don't knowhow long, and you never came. We came to tell you, but you weren't in. So we asked Miss Clayhanger to tell you. Didn't Miss Clayhanger tellyou?" "No, " said Edwin. "She must have forgot. " It occurred to him that eventhe simple and placid Maggie had her personal prejudices, and that oneof them might be against this child. For some reason she did not likethe child. She positively could not have forgotten the child's visitwith Janet. She had merely not troubled to tell him: a touch of thatmalice which, though it be as rare as radium, nevertheless exists evenin the most benignant natures. Edwin and George exchanged a silent, puzzled glance. "Well, that's a nice thing!" said the boy. It was. "When are you going home?" "I'm going now! Mr Orgreave has to go to London to-day, and mammawrote to Auntie Janet yesterday to say that I must go with him, if he'dlet me, and she would meet me at London. She wants me back. So AuntieJanet is taking me to Knype to meet Mr Orgreave there--he's gone to hisoffice first. And the gardener has taken my luggage in the barrow up toBleakridge Station. Auntie's putting her hat on. Can't you see I'vegot my other clothes on?" "Yes, " said Edwin, "I noticed that. " "And my other hat?" "Yes. " "I've promised auntie I'll come and put my overcoat on as soon as shecalls me. I say--you wouldn't believe how jammed my trunk is with thatpaint box and everything! Auntie Janet had to sit on it like anything!I say--shall you be coming to Brighton soon?" Edwin shook his head. "I never go to Brighton. " "But when I asked you once if you'd been, you said you had. " "So I have, but that was an accident. " "Was it long since?" "Well, " said Edwin, "you ought to know. It was when I brought thatparcel for you. " "Oh! Of course!" Edwin was saying to himself: "She's sent for him on purpose. She'sheard that we're great friends, and she's sent for him! She means tostop it! That's what it is!" He had no rational basis for thisassumption. It was instinctive. And yet why should she desire tointerfere with the course of the friendship? How could it reactunpleasantly on her? There obviously did not exist between mother andson one of those passionate attachments which misfortune and sorrowsometimes engender. She had been able to let him go. And as forGeorge, he seldom mentioned his mother. He seldom mentioned anybody whowas not actually present, or necessary to the fulfilment of the ideathat happened to be reigning in his heart. He lived a life ofabsorption, hypnotised by the idea of the moment. These ideas succeededeach other like a dynasty of kings, like a series of dynasties, markedby frequent dynastic quarrels, by depositions and sudden deaths; butGeorge's loyalty was the same to all of them; it was absolute. "Well, anyhow, " said he, "I shall come back here. Mother will have tolet me. " And he jumped down from the wall into Edwin's garden, carelessly, hishands in his pockets, with a familiar ease of gesture that impliedpractice. He had in fact often done it before. But just this time--perhaps he was troubled by the unaccustomed clothes--having lighted onhis feet, he failed to maintain his balance and staggered back againstthe wall. "Now, clumsy!" Edwin commented. The boy turned pale, and bit his lip, and then Edwin could see the tearsin his eyes. One of his peculiarities was that he had no shame whateverabout crying. He could not, or he would not, suffer stoically. Now heput his hands to his back, and writhed. "Hurt yourself?" Edwin asked. George nodded. He was very white, and startled. At first he could notcommand himself sufficiently to be able to articulate. Then hespluttered, "My back!" He subsided gradually into a sitting posture. Edwin ran to him, and picked him up. But he screamed until he was setdown. At the open drawing-room window, Maggie was arranging curtains. Edwin reluctantly left George for an instant and hurried to the window, "I say, Maggie, bring a chair or something out, will you? This dashedkid's fallen and hurt himself. " "I'm not surprised, " said Maggie calmly. "What surprises me is that youshould ever have given him permission to scramble over the wall andtrample all about the flower-beds the way he does!" However, she moved at once to obey. He returned to George. Then Janet's voice was heard from the othergarden, calling him: "George! Georgie! Nearly time to go!" Edwin put his head over the wall. "He's fallen and hurt his back, " he answered to Janet, without anyprelude. "His back!" she repeated in a frightened tone. Everybody was afraid of that mysterious back. And George himself wasmost afraid of it. "I'll get over the wall, " said Janet. Edwin quitted the wall. Maggie was coming out of the house with a largecane easy-chair and a large cushion. But George was now standing up, though still crying. His beautiful best sailor hat lay on the winterground. "Now, " said Maggie to him, "you mustn't be a baby!" He glared at her resentfully. She would have dropped down dead on thespot if his wet and angry glance could have killed her. She was apowerful woman. She seized him carefully and set him in the chair, andsupported the famous spine with the cushion. "I don't think he's much hurt, " she decided. "He couldn't make thatnoise if he was, and see how his colour's coming back!" In another case Edwin would have agreed with her, for the tendency ofboth was to minimise an ill and to exaggerate the philosophical attitudein the first moments of any occurrence that looked serious. But now hehonestly thought that her judgement was being influenced by herprejudice, and he felt savage against her. The worst was that it wasall his fault. Maggie was odiously right. He ought never to haveencouraged the child to be acrobatic on the wall. It was he who hadeven put the idea of the wall as a means of access into the child'shead. "Does it hurt?" he inquired, bending down, his hands on his knees. "Yes, " said George, ceasing to cry. "Much?" asked Maggie, dusting the sailor hat and sticking it on hishead. "No, not much, " George unwillingly admitted. Maggie could not at anyrate say that he did not speak the truth. Janet, having obtained steps, stood on the wall in her elaboratestreet-array. "Who's going to help me down?" she demanded anxiously. She was not soyoung and sprightly as once she had been. Edwin obeyed the call. Then the three of them stood round the victim's chair, and the victim, like a god, permitted himself to be contemplated. And Janet had to hearEdwin's account of the accident, and also Maggie's account of it, asseen from the window. "I don't know what to do!" said Janet. "It is annoying, isn't it?" said Maggie. "And just as you were going tothe station too!" "I--I think I'm all right, " George announced. Janet passed a hand down his back, as though expecting to be able tojudge the condition of his spine through the thickness of all hisclothes. "Are you?" she questioned doubtfully. "It's nothing, " said Maggie, with firmness. "He'd be all right in the train, " said Janet. "It's the walking to thestation that I'm afraid of. .. You never know. " "I can carry him, " said Edwin quickly. "Of course you can't!" Maggie contradicted. "And even if you couldyou'd jog him far worse than if he walked himself. " "There's no time to get a cab, now, " said Janet, looking at her watch. "If we aren't at Knype, father will wonder what on earth's happened, andI don't know what his mother would say!" "Where's that old pram?" Edwin demanded suddenly of Maggie. "What? Clara's? It's in the outhouse. " "I can run him up to the station in two jiffs in that. " "Oh yes! Do!" said George. "You must. And then lift me into thecarriage!" The notion was accepted. "I hope it's the best thing to do, " said Janet, apprehensive anddoubtful, as she hurried off to the other house in order to get theboy's overcoat and meet Edwin and the perambulator at the gates. "I'm certain it is, " said Maggie calmly. "There's nothing really thematter with that child. " "Well, it's very good of Edwin, I'm sure, " said Janet. Edwin had already rushed for the perambulator, an ancient vehicle whichwas sometimes used in the garden for infant Benbows. In a few moments Trafalgar Road had the spectacle of the bearded andeminent master-printer, Edwin Clayhanger, steaming up its muddy pavementbehind a perambulator with a grown boy therein. And dozens of personswho had not till then distinguished the boy from other boys, inquiredabout his identity, and gossip was aroused. Maggie was displeased. In obedience to the command Edwin lifted George into the train; and thefeel of his little slippery body, and the feel of Edwin's mighty arms, seemed to make them more intimate than ever. Except for dirtytear-marks on his cheeks, George's appearance was absolutely normal. Edwin expected to receive a letter from him, but none came, and thisnegligence wounded Edwin. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER NINE. THE ARRIVALS. On a Saturday in the early days of the following year, 1892, Edwin byspecial request had gone in to take afternoon tea with the Orgreaves. Osmond Orgreave was just convalescent after an attack of influenza, andin the opinion of Janet wanted cheering up. The task of enlivening himhad been laid upon Edwin. The guest, and Janet and her father andmother sat together in a group round the fire in the drawing-room. The drawing-room alone had grown younger with years. Money had beenspent on it rather freely. During the previous decade Osmond's family, scattering, had become very much less costly to him, but his habits ofindustry had not changed, nor his faculty for collecting money. Hencethe needs of the drawing-room, which had been pressing for quite twentyyears, had at last been satisfied; indeed Osmond was saving, throughmere lack of that energetic interest in things which is necessary tospending. Possibly even the drawing-room would have remaineduntouched--both Janet and her elder sister Marian sentimentallypreferred it as it was--had not Mrs Orgreave been `positively ashamed'of it when her married children, including Marian, came to see her. They were all married now, except Janet and Charlie and Johnnie; andAlicia at any rate had a finer drawing-room than her mother. So far asthe parents were concerned Charlie might as well have been married, forhe had acquired a partnership in a practice at Ealing and seldom visitedhome. Johnnie, too, might as well have been married. Since Jimmie'swedding he had used the house strictly as a hotel, for sleeping andeating, and not always for sleeping. He could not be retained at home. His interests were mysterious, and lay outside it. Janet alone wasfaithful to the changed drawing-room, with its new carpets andwall-papers and upholstery. "I've got more grandchildren than children now, " said Mrs Orgreave toEdwin, "and I never thought to have!" "Have you really?" Edwin responded. "Let me see--" "I've got nine. " "Ten, mother, " Janet corrected. "She's forgetting her own grandchildrennow!" "Bless me!" exclaimed Mrs Orgreave, taking off her eyeglasses andwiping them, "I'd missed Tom's youngest. " "You'd better not tell Emily that, " said Janet. (Emily was the motherof Tom's children. ) "Here, give me those eyeglasses, dear. You'll neverget them right with a linen handkerchief. Where's your bit of chamois?" Mrs Orgreave absently and in somewhat stiff silence handed over thepince-nez! She was now quite an old woman, small, shapeless, anddelightfully easy-going, whose sense of humour had not developed withage. She could never see a joke which turned upon her relations withher grandchildren, and in fact the jocular members of the family hadalmost ceased to employ this subject of humour. She was undoubtedlyrather foolish about her grandchildren--`fond, ' as they say down there. The parents of the grandchildren did not object to this foolishness--that is, they only pretended to object. The task of preventing apardonable weakness from degenerating into a tedious and mischievousmania fell solely upon Janet. Janet was ready to admit that the healthof the grandchildren was a matter which could fairly be left to theirfathers and mothers, and she stood passive when Mrs Orgreave'sgrandmotherly indulgences seemed inimical to their health; but MrsOrgreave was apt to endanger her own health in her devotion to theprofession of grandmother--for example by sitting up to unchristianhours with a needle. Then there would be a struggle of wills, in whichof course Mrs Orgreave, being the weaker, was defeated; though herbelief survived that she and she alone, by watchfulness, advice, sagacity, and energy, kept her children's children out of the grave. Onall other questions the harmony between Janet and her mother wascomplete, and Mrs Orgreave undoubtedly considered that no mother hadever had a daughter who combined so many virtues and charms. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. Mr Orgreave, forgetful of the company, was deciphering the "BritishMedical Journal" in the twilight of the afternoon. His doctor had lenthim this esoteric periodical because there was an article therein oninfluenza, and Mr Orgreave was very much interested in influenza. "You remember the influenza of '89, Edwin?" he asked suddenly, lookingover the top of the paper. "Do I?" said Edwin. "Yes, I fancy I do remember a sort of epidemic. " "I should think so indeed!" Janet murmured. "Well, " continued Mr Orgreave, "I'm like you. I thought it was anepidemic. But it seems it wasn't. It was a pandemic. What's apandemic, now?" "Give it up, " said Edwin. "You might just look in the dictionary--Ogilvie there, " and while Edwinferreted in the bookcase, Mr Orgreave proceeded, reading: "`Thepandemic of 1889 has been followed by epidemics, and by endemicprevalence in some areas!' So you see how many demics there are! Isuppose they'd call it an epidemic we've got in the town now. " His voice had changed on the last sentence. He had meant to be a littlefacetious about the Greek words; but it was the slowly prepared andrather exasperating facetiousness of an ageing man, and he had droppedit listlessly, as though he himself had perceived this. Influenza hadweakened and depressed him; he looked worn, and even outworn. But notinfluenza alone was responsible for his appearance. The incredible hadhappened: Osmond Orgreave was getting older. His bald head was not theworst sign of his declension, nor the thickened veins in his hands, northe deliberation of his gestures, nor even the unsprightliness of hiswit. The worst sign was that he was losing his terrific zest in life;his palate for the intense savour of it was dulled. In this last attackof influenza he had not fought against the onset of the disease. He hadbeen wise; he had obeyed his doctor, and laid down his arms at once; andhe showed no imprudent anxiety to resume them. Yes, a changed Osmond!He was still one of the most industrious professional men in Bursley;but he worked from habit, not from passion. When Edwin had found `pandemic' in Ogilvie, Mr Orgreave wanted to seethe dictionary for himself, and then he wanted the Greek dictionary, which could not be discovered, and then he began to quote further fromthe "British Medical Journal. " "`It may be said that there are three well-marked types of the disease, attacking respectively the respiratory, the digestive, and the nervoussystem. ' Well, I should say I'd had 'em all three. `As a rule theattack--'" Thus he went on. Janet made a moue at Edwin, who returned the signal. These youngsters were united in good-natured forbearing condescensiontowards Mr Orgreave. The excellent old fellow was prone to be tedious;they would accept his tediousness, but they would not disguise from eachother their perception of it. "I hear the Vicar of Saint Peter's is very ill indeed, " said MrsOrgreave, blandly interrupting her husband. "What? Heve? With influenza?" "Yes. I wouldn't tell you before because I thought it might pull youdown again. " Mr Orgreave, in silence, stared at the immense fire. "What about this tea, Janet?" he demanded. Janet rang the bell. "Oh! I'd have done that!" said Edwin, as soon as she had done it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. While Janet was pouring out the tea, Edwin restored Ogilvie to his placein the bookcase, feeling that he had had enough of Ogilvie. "Not so many books here now as there used to be!" he said, vacuouslyamiable, as he shut the glass door which had once protected thetreasures of Tom Orgreave. For a man who had been specially summoned to the task of cheering up, itwas not a felicitous remark. In the first place it recalled the dayswhen the house, which was now a hushed retreat where settled and precisehabits sheltered themselves from a changing world, had been an arena forthe jolly, exciting combats of outspread individualities. And in thesecond place it recalled a slight difficulty between Tom and his father. Osmond Orgreave was a most reasonable father, but no father is perfectin reasonableness, and Osmond had quite inexcusably resented that Tom onhis marriage should take away all Tom's precious books. Osmond'sattitude had been that Tom might in decency have left, at any rate, someof the books. It was not that Osmond had a taste for book-collecting:it was merely that he did not care to see his house depleted andbookcases empty. But Tom had shown no compassion. He had removed notmerely every scrap of a book belonging to himself, but also twobookcases which he happened to have paid for. The weight of publicopinion was decidedly against Mr Orgreave, who had to yield and affectpleasantness. Nevertheless books had become a topic which was avoidedbetween father and son. "Ah!" muttered Mr Orgreave, satirical, in response to Edwin'sclumsiness. "Suppose we have another gas lighted, " Janet suggested. The servant hadalready lighted several burners and drawn the blinds and curtains. Edwin comprehended that he had been a blundering fool, and that Janet'sobject was to create a diversion. He lit the extra burner above herhead. She sat there rather straight and rather prim between herparents, sticking to them, smoothing creases for them, bearing theirweight, living for them. She was the kindliest, the most dignified, themost capable creature; but she was now an old maid. You saw it even inthe way she poured tea and dropped pieces of sugar into the cups. Heryouth was gone; her complexion was nearly gone. And though in oneaspect she seemed indispensable, in another the chief characteristic ofher existence seemed to be a tragic futility. Whenever she cameseriously into Edwin's thoughts she saddened him. Useless for him toattempt to be gay and frivolous in that house! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. With the inevitable passionate egotism of his humanity he almost at oncewithdrew his aroused pity from her to himself. Look at himself! Was henot also to be sympathised with? What was the object or the use of hisbeing alive? He worked, saved, improved his mind, voted right, practised philosophy, and was generally benevolent; but to what end?Was not his existence miserable and his career a respectable fiasco? Hetoo had lost zest. He had diligently studied both Marcus Aurelius andEpictetus; he was enthusiastic, to others, about the merit of these twoexpert daily philosophers; but what had they done for him? Assuredlythey had not enabled him to keep the one treasure of this world-zest. The year was scarcely a week old, and he was still young enough to havebegun the year with resolutions and fresh hopes and aspirations, butalready the New Year sensation had left him, and the year might havebeen dying in his heart. And yet what could he have done that he had not done? With what couldhe reproach himself? Ought he to have continued to run after a marriedwoman? Ought he to have set himself titanically against the conventionsamid which he lived, and devoted himself either to secret intrigue or tothe outraging of the susceptibilities which environed him? There wasonly one answer. He could not have acted otherwise than he had acted. His was not the temperament of a rebel, nor was he the slave of hisdesires. He could sympathise with rebels and with slaves, but he couldnot join them; he regarded himself as spiritually their superior. And then the disaster of Hilda's career! He felt, more than ever, thathe had failed in sympathy with her overwhelming misfortune. In thesecrecy of his heart a full imaginative sympathy had been lacking. Hehad not realised, as he seemed to realise then, in front of the fire inthe drawing-room of the Orgreaves, what it must be to be the wife of aconvict. Janet, sitting there as innocent as a doe, knew that Hilda wasthe wife of a convict. But did her parents know? And was she awarethat he knew? He wondered, drinking his tea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. Then the servant--not the Martha who had been privileged to smile onduty if she felt so inclined--came with a tawny gold telegram on asilver plate, and hesitated a moment as to where she should bestow it. "Give it to me, Selina, " said Janet. Selina impassively obeyed, imitating as well as she could the deportmentof an automaton; and went away. "That's my telegram, " said Mr Orgreave. "How is it addressed?" "Orgreave, Bleakridge, Bursley. " "Then it's mine. " "Oh no, it isn't!" Janet archly protested. "If you have your businesstelegrams sent here you must take the consequences. I always open alltelegrams that come here, don't I, mother?" Mrs Orgreave made no reply, but waited with candid and fretfulimpatience, thinking of her five absent children, and her tengrandchildren, for the telegram to be opened. Janet opened it. Her lips parted to speak, and remained so in silent astonishment. "Justread that!" she said to Edwin, passing the telegram to him; and sheadded to her father: "It was for me, after all. " Edwin read, aloud: "Am sending George down to-day. Please meet 6:30train at Knype. Love. Hilda. " "Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs Orgreave. "You don't mean to tell meshe's letting that boy travel alone! What next?" "Where's the telegram sent from?" asked Mr Orgreave. Edwin examined the official indications: "Victoria. " "Then she's brought him up to London, and she's putting him in a trainat Euston. That's it. " "Only there is no London train that gets to Knype at half-past six, "Edwin said. "It's 7:12, or 7:14--I forget. " "Oh! That's near enough for Hilda, " Janet smiled, looking at her watch. "She doesn't mean any other train?" Mrs Orgreave fearfully suggested. "She can't mean any other train. There is no other. Only probablyshe's been looking at the wrong time-table, " Janet reassured her mother. "Because if the poor little thing found no one to meet him at Knype--" "Don't worry, dear, " said Janet. "The poor little thing would soon beengaging somebody's attention. Trust him!" "But has she been writing to you lately?" Mrs Orgreave questioned. "No. " "Then why--" "Don't ask me!" said Janet. "No doubt I shall get a letter to-morrow, after George has come and told us everything! Poor dear, I'm glad she'sdoing so much better now. " "Is she?" Edwin murmured, surprised. "Oh yes!" said Janet. "She's got a regular bustling partner, andthey're that busy they scarcely know what to do. But they only keep onelittle servant. " In the ordinary way Janet and Edwin never mentioned Hilda to oneanother. Each seemed to be held back by a kind of timid shame and by acautious suspicion. Each seemed to be inquiring: "What does he know?""What does she know?" "If I thought it wasn't too cold, I'd go with you to Knype, " said MrOrgreave. "Now, Osmond!" Mrs Orgreave sat up. "Shall I go?" said Edwin. "Well, " said Janet, with much kindliness, "I'm sure he'd be delighted tosee you. " Mrs Orgreave rang the bell. "What do you want, mother?" "There'll be the bed--" "Don't you trouble with those things, dear, " said Janet, very calmly. "There's heaps of time. " But Janet was just as excited as her parents. In two minutes theexcitement had spread through the whole house, like a piquant andagreeable odour. The place was alive again. "I'll just step across and ask Maggie to alter supper, " said Edwin, "andthen I'll call for you. I suppose we'll go down by train. " "I'm thankful he's had influenza, " observed Mrs Orgreave, implying thatthus there would be less chance of George catching the disease under herinfected roof. That George had been down with influenza before Christmas was the soleinformation about him that Edwin obtained. Nobody appeared to considerit worth while to discuss the possible reasons for his sudden arrival. Hilda's caprices were accepted in that house like the visitations ofheaven. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. Edwin and Janet stood together on the windy and bleak down-platform ofKnype Station, awaiting the express, which had been signalled. Edwinwas undoubtedly very nervous and constrained, and it seemed to him thatJanet's demeanour lacked naturalness. "It's just occurred to me how she made that mistake about the time ofthe train, " said Edwin, chiefly because he found the silence intolerablyirksome. "It stops at Lichfield, and in running her eye across the pageshe must have mixed up the Lichfield figures with the Knype figures--youknow how awkward it is in a time-table. As a matter of fact, the traindoes stop at Lichfield about 6:30. " "I see, " said Janet reflectively. And Edwin was saying to himself-- "It's a marvel to me how I can talk to her at all. What made me offerto come with her? How much does she know about me and Hilda? Hilda mayhave told her everything. If she's told her about her husband whyshouldn't she have told her about me? And here we are both pretendingthat there's never been anything at all between me and Hilda!" Then the train appeared, obscure round the curve, and bore downformidable and dark upon them, growing at every instant in stature andin noise until it deafened and seemed to fill the station; and theplatform was suddenly in an uproar. And almost opposite Janet and Edwin, leaning forth high above them fromthe door of a third-class carriage, the head and the shoulders of GeorgeCannon were displayed in the gaslight. He seemed to dominate the trainand the platform. At the windows on either side of him were adultfaces, excited by his excitement, of the people who had doubtless beenfriendly to him during the journey. He distinguished Janet and Edwinalmost at once, and shouted, and then waved. "Hello, young son of a gun!" Edwin greeted him, trying to turn thehandle of the door. But the door was locked, and it was necessary tocall a porter, who tarried. "I made mamma let me come!" George cried victoriously. "I told you Ishould!" He was far too agitated to think of shaking hands, and seemedto be in a state of fever. All his gestures were those of a proud, hysterical conqueror, and like a conqueror he gazed down at Edwin andJanet, who stood beneath him with upturned faces. He had absolutelyforgotten the existence of his acquaintances in the carriage. "Did youknow I've had the influenza? My temperature was up to 104 once--but itdidn't stay long, " he added regretfully. When the door was at length opened, he jumped headlong, and Edwin caughthim. He shook hands with Edwin and allowed Janet to kiss him. "How hot you are!" Janet murmured. The people in the compartment passed down his luggage, and after one ofthem had shouted good-bye to him twice, he remembered them, as it wereby an effort, and replied, "Good-bye, good-bye, " in a quick, impatienttone. It was not until his anxious and assiduous foster-parents had bestowedhim and his goods in the tranquillity of an empty compartment of theLoop Line train that they began to appreciate the morbid unusualness ofhis condition. His eyes glittered with extraordinary brilliance. Hetalked incessantly, not listening to their answers. And his skin wasburning hot. "Why, whatever's the matter with you, my dear?" asked Janet, alarmed. "You're like an oven!" "I'm thirsty, " said George. "If I don't have something to drink soon, Idon't know what I shall do. " Janet looked at Edwin. "There won't be time to get something at the refreshment room?" They both felt heavily responsible. "I might--" Edwin said irresolutely. But just then the guard whistled. "Never mind!" Janet comforted the child. "In twenty minutes we shallbe in the house. .. No! you must keep your overcoat buttoned. " "How long have you been like that, George?" Edwin asked. "You weren'tlike that when you started, surely?" "No, " said George judicially. "It came on in the train. " After this, he appeared to go to sleep. "He's certainly not well, " Janet whispered. Edwin shrugged his shoulders. "Don't you think he's grown?" heobserved. "Oh yes!" said Janet. "It's astonishing, isn't it, how children shootup in a few weeks!" They might have been parents exchanging notes, instead of celibatesplaying at parenthood for a hobby. "Mamma says I've grown an inch. " George opened his eyes. "She saysit's about time I had! I dare say I shall be very tall. Are we nearlythere?" His high, curt, febrile tones were really somewhat alarming. When the train threw them out into the sodden waste that surroundsBleakridge Station, George could scarcely stand. At any rate he showedno wish to stand. His protectors took him strongly by either arm, andthus bore him to Lane End House, with irregular unwilling assistancefrom his own feet. A porter followed with the luggage. It was anextremely distressing passage. Each protector in secret was imaginingfor George some terrible fever, of swift onslaught and fatal effect. Atlength they entered the garden, thanking their gods. "He's not well, " said Janet to her mother, who was fussily awaiting themin the hall. Her voice showed apprehension, and she was not at allconvincing when she added: "But it's nothing serious. I shall put himstraight to bed and let him eat there. " Instantly George became the centre of the house. The women disappearedwith him, and Edwin had to recount the whole history of the arrival toOsmond Orgreave in the drawing-room. This recital was interrupted byMrs Orgreave. "Mr Edwin, Janet thinks if we sent for the doctor, just to be sure. AsJohnnie isn't in, would you mind--" "Stirling, I suppose?" said Edwin. Stirling was the young Scottish doctor who had recently come into thetown and taken it by storm. When Edwin at last went home to a much-delayed meal, he was in aposition to tell Maggie that young George Cannon had thought fit tocatch influenza a second time in a couple of months. And Maggie, without a clear word, contrived to indicate that it was what she wouldhave expected from a boy of George's violent temperament. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER TEN. GEORGE AND THE VICAR. On the Tuesday evening Edwin came home from business at six o'clock, andfound that he was to eat alone. The servant anxiously explained thatMiss Clayhanger had gone across to the Orgreaves' to assist MissOrgreave. It was evident that before going Miss Clayhanger had inspiredthe servant with a full sense of the importance of Mr Clayhanger'ssolitary meal, and of the terrible responsibility lying upon the personin charge of it. The girl was thrillingly alive; she would have likedsome friend or other of the house to be always seriously ill, so thatMiss Clayhanger might often leave her to the voluptuous savouring ofthis responsibility whose formidableness surpassed words. Edwin, as hewent upstairs and as he came down again, was conscious of her excitedpresence somewhere near him, half-visible in the warm gas-lit house, spying upon him in order to divine the precise moment for the finalservice of the meal. And in the dining-room the table was laid differently, so that he mightbe well situated, with regard to the light, for reading. And by theside of his plate were the newspaper, the magazines, and the book, amongwhich Maggie had well guessed that he would make his choice for perusal. He was momentarily touched. He warmed his hands at the splendid fire, and then he warmed his back, watching the servant as with littleflouncings and perkings she served, and he was touched by the placid andperfect efficiency of Maggie as a housekeeper. Maggie gave himsomething that no money could buy. The servant departed and shut the door. When he sat down he minutely changed the situation of nearly everythingon the table, so that his magazine might be lodged at exactly the rightdistance and angle, and so that each necessary object might be quitehandy. He was in luxury, and he yielded himself to it absolutely. Thesense that unusual events were happening, that the course of socialexistence was disturbed while his comfort was not disturbed, that dangerhung cloudy on the horizon--this sense somehow intensified theappreciation of the hour, and positively contributed to his pleasure. Moreover, he was agreeably excited by a dismaying anticipation affectinghimself alone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two. The door opened again, and Auntie Hamps was shown in by the servant. Before he could move the old lady had with overwhelming sweetsupplications insisted that he should not move--no, not even to shakehands! He rose only to shake hands, and then fell back into hiscomfort. Auntie Hamps fixed a chair for herself opposite him, anddrummed her black-gloved hands on the white table-cloth. She wassteadily becoming stouter, and those chubby little hands seemedimpossibly small against the vast mountain of fur which was crowned byher smirking crimson face and the supreme peak of her bonnet. "They keep very friendly--those two, " she remarked, with a strangelysignificant air, when he told her where Maggie was. She had shown nosurprise at finding him alone, for the reason that she had alreadylearnt everything from the servant in the hall. "Janet and Maggie? They're friendly enough when they can be of use toeach other. " "How kind Miss Janet was when your father was ill! I'm sure Maggiefeels she must do all she can to return her kindness, " Mrs Hampsmurmured, with emotion. "I shall always be grateful for herhelpfulness! She's a grand girl, a grand girl!" "Yes, " said Edwin awkwardly. "She's still waiting for you, " said Mrs Hamps, not archly, but sadly. Edwin restively poohed. At the first instant of her arrival he had beenrather glad to see her, for unusual events create a desire to discussthem; but if she meant to proceed in that strain unuttered curses wouldsoon begin to accumulate for her in his heart. "I expect the kid must be pretty bad, " he said. "Yes, " sighed Mrs Hamps. "And probably poor Mrs Orgreave is more inthe way than anything else. And Mr Orgreave only just out of bed, asyou may say! . .. That young lady must have her hands full! My word!What a blessing it is she has made such friends with Maggie!" Mrs Hamps had the peculiar gift, which developed into ever-increasingperfection as her hair grew whiter, of being able to express ideas bymeans of words which had no relation to them at all. Within threeminutes, by three different remarks whose occult message no strangercould have understood but which forced itself with unpleasant clearnessupon Edwin, Mrs Hamps had conveyed, "Janet Orgreave only cultivatesMaggie because Maggie is the sister of Edwin Clayhanger. " "You're all very devoted to that child, " she said, meaning, "There issomething mysterious in that quarter which sooner or later is bound tocome out. " And the meaning was so clear that Edwin was intimidated. What did she guess? Did she know anything? To-night Auntie Hamps wasdisplaying her gift at its highest. "I don't know that Maggie's so desperately keen on the infant!" he said. "She's not like you about him, that's sure!" Mrs Hamps admitted. Andshe went on, in a tone that was only superficially casual, "I wonder themother doesn't come down to him!" Not `his' mother--`the' mother. Odd, the effect of that trifle! MrsHamps was a great artist in phrasing. "Oh!" said Edwin. "It's not serious enough for that. " "Well, I'm not so sure, " Auntie Hamps gravely replied. "The Vicar isdead. " The emphasis which she put on these words was tremendous. "Is he, " Edwin stammered. "But what's that got to do with it?" He tried to be condescending towards her absurdly superstitiousassumption that the death of the Vicar of Saint Peter's could increasethe seriousness of George's case. And he feebly succeeded in beingcondescending. Nevertheless he could not meet his auntie's gaze withoutself-consciousness. For her emphasis had been double, and he knew it. It had implied, secondly, that the death of the Vicar was an eventspecially affecting Edwin's household. The rough sketch of a romancebetween the Vicar and Maggie had never been completed into a picture, but on the other hand it had never been destroyed. The Vicar and Maggiehad been supposed to be still interested in each other, despite theVicar's priestliness, which latterly had perhaps grown more marked, justas his church had grown more ritualistic. It was a strange affair, thin, elusive; but an affair it was. The Vicar and Maggie had seldommet of recent years, they had never--so far as anyone knew--met alone;and yet, upon the news of the Vicar's death, the first thought of nearlyeverybody was for Maggie Clayhanger. Mrs Hamps's eyes, swimming in the satisfaction of several simultaneouswoes, said plainly, "What about poor Maggie?" "When did you hear?" Edwin asked. "It isn't in this afternoon'spaper. " "I've only just heard. He died at four o'clock. " She had come up immediately with the news as fresh as orchard fruit. "And the Duke of Clarence is no better, " she said, in a luxurioussighing gloom. "And I'm afraid it's all over with Cardinal Manning. "She made a peculiar noise in her throat, not quite a sigh; rather abrave protest against the general fatality of things, stiffened by adetermination to be strong though melancholy in misfortune. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Three. Maggie suddenly entered, hatted, with a jacket over her arm. "Hello, auntie, you here!" They had already met that morning. "I just called, " said Mrs Hamps guiltily. Edwin felt as though Maggiehad surprised them both in some criminal act. They knew that Mr Hevewas dead. She did not know. She had to be told. He wished violentlythat Auntie Hamps had been elsewhere. "Everything all right?" Maggie asked Edwin, surveying the table. "Igave particular orders about the eggs. " "As right as rain, " said Edwin, putting into his voice a note of trueappreciation. He saw that her sense of duty towards him had brought herback to the house. She had taken every precaution to ensure hiswell-being, but she could not be content without seeing for herself thatthe servant had not betrayed the trust. "How are things--across?" he inquired. "Well, " said Maggie, frowning, "that's one reason why I came back soonerthan I meant. The doctor's just been. His temperature is gettinghigher and higher. I wish you'd go over as soon as you've finished. Ifyou ask me, I think they ought to telegraph to his mother. But Janetdoesn't seem to think so. Of course it's enough when Mrs Orgreavebegins worrying about telegraphing for Janet to say there's no need totelegraph. She's rather trying, Mrs Orgreave is, I must admit. Allthat I've been doing is to keep her out of the bedroom. Janet haseverything on her shoulders. Mr Orgreave is just about as fidgety asMrs And of course the servants have their own work to do. NaturallyJohnnie isn't in!" Her tone grew sarcastic and bitter. "What does Stirling say about telegraphing?" Edwin demanded. He hadintended to say `telegraphing for Mrs Cannon, ' but he could not utterthe last words; he could not compel his vocal organs to utter them. Hebecame aware of the beating of his heart. For twenty-four hours he hadbeen contemplating the possibility of a summons to Hilda. Now thepossibility had developed into a probability. Nay, a certainty! Maggiewas the very last person to be alarmist. Maggie replied: "He says it might be as well to wait till to-morrow. But then you know he is like that--a bit. " "So they say, " Auntie Hamps agreed. "Have you seen the kid?" Edwin asked. "About two minutes, " said Maggie. "It's pitiable to watch him. " "Why? Is he in pain?" "Not what you'd call pain. No! But he's so upset. Worried abouthimself. He's got a terrific fever on him. I'm certain he's delirioussometimes. Poor little thing!" Tears gleamed in her eyes. The plight of the boy had weakened herprejudices against him. Assuredly he was not `rough' now. Astounded and frightened by those shimmering tears, Edwin exclaimed, "You don't mean to say there's actual danger?" "Well--" Maggie hesitated, and stopped. There was silence for a moment. Edwin felt that the situation was nowfurther intensified. "I expect you've heard about the poor Vicar, " Mrs Hamps funereallyinsinuated. Edwin mutely damned her. Maggie looked up sharply. "No! . .. He's not--" Mrs Hamps nodded twice. The tears vanished from Maggie's eyes, forced backwards by all thesecret pride that was in her. It was obvious that not the news of theVicar had originally caused those tears; but nevertheless there shouldbe no shadow of misunderstanding. The death of the Vicar must beassociated with no more serious sign of distress in Maggie than inothers. She must be above suspicion. For one acute moment, as he readher thoughts and as the profound sacrificial tragedy of her entireexistence loomed less indistinctly than usual before him, Edwin ceasedto think about himself and Hilda. She made a quick hysterical movement. "I wish you'd go across, Edwin, " she said harshly. "I'll go now, " he answered, with softness. And he was glad to go. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Four. It was Osmond Orgreave who opened to him the front door of Lane EndHouse. Maggie had told the old gentleman that she should send Edwinover, and he was wandering vaguely about in nervous expectation. In aninstant they were discussing George's case, and the advisability oftelegraphing to Hilda. Mrs Orgreave immediately joined them in thehall. Both father and mother clearly stood in awe of the gentle butpowerful Janet. And somehow the child was considered as her privateaffair, into which others might not thrust themselves save onsufferance. Perceiving that Edwin was slightly inclined to the courseof telegraphing, they drew him towards them as a reinforcement, butwhile Mrs Orgreave frankly displayed her dependence on him, MrOrgreave affected to be strong, independent, and judicial. "I wish you'd go and speak to her, " Mrs Orgreave entreated. "Upstairs?" "It won't do any harm, anyhow, " said Osmond, finely indifferent. They went up the stairs in a procession. Edwin did not wish to tellthem about the Vicar. He could see no sense in telling them about theVicar. And yet, before they reached the top of the stairs, he heardhimself saying in a concerned whisper-- "You know about the Vicar of Saint Peter's?" "No. " "Died at four o'clock. " "Oh dear me! Dear me!" murmured Mrs Orgreave, agonised. Most evidently George's case was aggravated by the Vicar's death--andnot only in the eyes of Mrs Orgreave and her falsely stoic husband, butin Edwin's eyes too! Useless for him to argue with himself aboutidiotic superstitiousness! The death of the Vicar had undoubtedlyinfluenced his attitude towards George. They halted on the landing, outside a door that was ajar. Near themburned a gas jet, and beneath the bracket was a large framed photographof the bridal party at Alicia's wedding. Farther along the landing wereother similar records of the weddings of Marion, Tom, and Jimmie. Mr Orgreave pushed the door half open. "Janet, " said Mr Orgreave conspiratorially. "Well?" from within the bedroom. "Here's Edwin. " Janet appeared in the doorway, pale. She was wearing an apron with abib. "I--I thought I'd just look in and inquire, " Edwin said awkwardly, fiddling with his hat and a pocket of his overcoat. "What's he likenow?" Janet gave details. The sick-room lay hidden behind the face of thedoor, mysterious and sacred. "Mr Edwin thinks you ought to telegraph, " said Mrs Orgreave timidly. "Do you?" demanded Janet. Her eyes seemed to pierce him. Why did shegaze at him with such particularity, as though he possessed a specialinterest in Hilda? "Well--" he muttered. "You might just wire how things are, and leave itto her to come as she thinks fit. " "Just so, " said Mr Orgreave quickly, as if Edwin had expressed his ownthought. "But the telegram couldn't be delivered to-night, " Janet objected. "It's nearly half-past seven now. " It was true. Yet Edwin was more than ever conscious of a keen desire totelegraph at once. "But it would be delivered first thing in the morning, " he said. "Sothat she'd have more time to make arrangements if she wanted to. " "Well, if you think like that, " Janet acquiesced. The visage of Mrs Orgreave lightened. "I'll run down and telegraph myself, if you like, " said Edwin. "Ofcourse you've written to her. She knows--" "Oh yes!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Five. In a minute he was walking rapidly, with his ungainly, slouching stride, down Trafalgar Road, his overcoat flying loose. Another crisis wasapproaching, he thought. As he came to Duck Square, he met a newspaperboy shouting shrilly and wearing the contents bill of a special editionof the "Signal" as an apron: "Duke of Clarence. More serious bulletin. "The scourge and fear of influenza was upon the town, upon thecommunity, tangible, oppressive, tragic. In the evening calm of the shabby, gloomy post-office, holding a stubbypencil that was chained by a cable to the wall, he stood over a blanktelegraph-form, hesitating how to word the message. Behind the counteran instrument was ticking unheeded, and far within could be discernedthe vague bodies of men dealing with parcels. He wrote, "Cannon, 59Preston Street, Brighton. George's temperature 104. " Then he paused, and added, "Edwin. " It was sentimental. He ought to have signedJanet's name. And, if he was determined to make the telegram personal, he might at least have put his surname. He knew it was sentimental, andhe loathed sentimentality. But that evening he wanted to besentimental. He crossed to the counter, and pushed the form under the wire-netting. A sleepy girl accepted it, and glanced mechanically at the clock, andthen wrote the hour 7:42. "It won't be delivered to-night, " she said, looking up, as she countedthe words. "No, I know, " said Edwin. "Sixpence, please. " As he paid the sixpence he felt as though he had accomplished somegreat, critical, agitating deed. And his heart asserted itself again, thunderously beating. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER ELEVEN. BEGINNING OF THE NIGHT. The next day was full of strange suspense; it was coloured throughoutwith that quality of strangeness which puts a new light on all quotidianoccupations and exposes their fundamental unimportance. Edwin arose tothe fact that a thick grey fog was wrapping the town. When he returnedhome to breakfast at nine the fog was certainly more opaque than it hadbeen an hour earlier. The steam-cars passed like phantoms, with acontinuous clanging of bells. He breakfasted under gas--and alone. Maggie was invisible, or only to be seen momentarily, flying across thedomestic horizon. She gave out that she was very busy in the attics, cleaning those shockingly neglected rooms. "Please, sir, " said theservant, "Miss Clayhanger says she's been across to Mr Orgreave's, andMaster George is about the same. " Maggie would not come and tell himherself. On the previous evening he had not seen her after thereception of the news about the Vicar. She had gone upstairs when hecame back from the post office. Beyond doubt, she was too disturbed, emotionally, to be able to face him with her customary tranquillity. She was getting over the shock with brush and duster up in the attics. He was glad that she had not attempted to be as usual. The ordeal ofattempting to be as usual would have tried him perhaps as severely asher. He went forth again into the fog in a high state of agitation, constricted with sympathetic distress on Maggie's account, apprehensivefor the boy, and painfully expectant of the end of the day. The wholeday slipped away so, hour after monotonous hour, while people talkedabout influenza and about distinguished patients, and doctors hurriedfrom house to house, and the fog itself seemed to be the visible mantleof the disease. And the end of the day brought nothing to Edwin save anacuter expectancy. George varied; on the whole he was worse; not muchworse, but worse. Dr Stirling saw him twice. No message arrived fromHilda, nor did she come in person. Maggie watched George for five hoursin the late afternoon and evening, while Janet rested. At eight o'clock, when there was no further hope of a telegram fromHilda, everybody pretended to concur in the view that Hilda, knowing herboy better than anybody else, and having already seen him through anattack of influenza, had not been unduly alarmed by the telegraphic newsof his temperature, and was content to write. She might probably bearranging to come on the morrow. After all, George's temperature hadreached 104 in the previous attack. Then there was the fog. The fogwould account for anything. Nevertheless, nobody was really satisfied by these explanations ofHilda's silence and absence. In every heart lay the secret and sinisterthought of the queerness and the incalculableness of Hilda. Edwin called several times on the Orgreaves. He finally left theirhouse about ten o'clock, with some difficulty tracing his way home fromgas lamp to gas lamp through the fog. Mr Orgreave himself had escortedhim with a lantern round the wilderness of the lawn to the gates. "Weshall have a letter in the morning, " Mr Orgreave had said. "Bound to!"Edwin had replied. And they had both superiorly puffed away into thefog the absurd misgivings of women. Knowing that he was in no condition to sleep, Edwin mended thedrawing-room fire, and settled down on the sofa to read. But he couldno more read than sleep. He seemed to lie on the sofa for hours whilehis thoughts jigged with fatiguing monotony in his head. He wasextraordinarily wakeful and alive, every sense painfully sharpened. Atlast he decided to go to bed. In his bedroom he gazed idly out at theblank density of the fog. And then his heart leapt as his eyedistinguished a moving glimmer below in the garden of the Orgreaves. Hethrew up the window in a tumult of anticipation. The air was absolutelystill. Then he heard a voice say, "Good night. " It was undoubtedly DrStirling's voice. The Scotch accent was unmistakable. Was the boyworse? Not necessarily, for the doctor had said that he might look inagain `last thing, ' if chance favoured. And the Scotch significance of`last thing' was notoriously comprehensive; it might include regionsbeyond midnight. Then Edwin heard another voice: "Thanks ever so much!"At first it puzzled him. He knew it, and yet! Could it be theSunday's voice? Assuredly it was not the voice of Mr Orgreave, nor ofany one living in the house. It reminded him of the Sunday's voice. He went out of his bedroom, striking a match, and going downstairs litthe gas in the hall, which he had just extinguished. Then he put on acap, found a candlestick in the kitchen, unbolted the garden door asquietly as he could, and passed into the garden. The flame of thecandle stood upright in the fog. He blundered along to the dividingwall, placed the candle on the top of it, and managed to climb over. Leaving the candle on the wall to guide his return, he approached thehouse, which showed gleams at several windows, and rang the bell. Andin fact it was Charlie Orgreave himself who opened the door. And alantern, stuck carelessly on the edge of a chair, was still burning inthe hall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. In a moment he had learnt the chief facts. Hilda had gone up to London, dragged Charlie out of Ealing, and brought him down with her to watchover her child. Once more she had done something which nobody couldhave foreseen. The train--not the London express, but the loop--waslate. The pair had arrived about half-past ten, and a little later DrStirling had fulfilled his promise to look in if he could. The twodoctors had conferred across the child's bed, and had found themselvessubstantially in agreement. Moreover, the child was if anythingsomewhat better. The Scotsman had gone. Charles and Hilda had eaten. Hilda meant to sit up, and had insisted that Janet should go to bed; itappeared that Janet had rested but not slept in the afternoon. Charlie took Edwin into the small breakfast-room, where Osmond Orgreavewas waiting, and the three men continued to discuss the situation. Theywere all of them too excited to sit down, though Osmond and--in a lessdegree--Charlie affected the tranquillity of high philosophers. Atfirst Edwin knew scarcely what he did. His speech and gestures were notthe result of conscious volition. He seemed suddenly to have twoindividualities, and the new one, which was the more intimate one, watched the other as in a dim-lighted dream. .. She was there in a roomabove! She had come in response to the telegram signed `Edwin!' Lastnight she was far away. Tonight she was in the very house with him. Miracle! He asked himself: "Why should I get myself into this statesimply because she is here? It would have been mighty strange if shehad not come. I must take myself in hand better than this. I mustn'tbehave like a blooming girl. " He frowned and coughed. "Well, " said Osmond Orgreave to his son, thrusting out his coat-tailswith his hands towards the fire, and swaying slightly to and fro on hisheels and toes, "so you've had your consultation, you eminentspecialists! What's the result?" He looked at his elegant son with an air half-quizzical andhalf-deferential. "I've told you he's evidently a little better, dad, " Charlie answeredcasually. His London deportment was more marked than ever. Thebracingly correct atmosphere of Ealing had given him a rather obvioussense of importance. He had developed into a man with a stake in thecountry, and he twisted his moustache like such a man, and took out acigarette like such a man. "Yes, I know, " said Osmond, with controlled impatience. "But what sortof influenza is it? I'm hoping to learn something now you've come. Stirling will talk about anything except influenza. " "What sort of influenza is it? What do you mean?" And Charlie'stwinkling glance said condescendingly: "What's the old cock got hold ofnow? This is just like him. " "But is there any real danger?" Edwin murmured. "Well, " said Osmond, bringing up his regiments, "as I understand it, there are three types of influenza--the respiratory, thegastro-intestinal, and the nervous. Which one is it?" Charlie laughed, and prodded his father with a forefinger in a softregion near the shoulder, disturbing his balance. "You've been readingthe `BMJ, '" he said, "and so you needn't pretend you haven't!" Osmond paused an instant to consider the meaning of these initials. "What if I have?" he demanded, raising his eyebrows, "I say there arethree types--" "Thirty; you might be nearer the mark with thirty, " Charlie interruptedhim. "The fact is that this division into types is all very well intheory, " he proceeded, with easy disdain. "But in practice it won'twork out. Now for instance, what this kid has won't square with any ofyour three types. It's purely febrile, that's what it is. Rare, decidedly rare, but less rare in children than in adults--at any rate inmy experience--in my experience. If his temperature wasn't so high, Ishould say the thing might last for days--weeks even. I've known it. The first question I put was--has he been in a stupor? He had. It mayrecur. That, and headache, and the absence of localised nervoussymptoms--" He stopped, leaving the sentence in the air, grandiose andformidable, but of no purport. Charlie shrugged his shoulders, allowing the beholder to choose his owninterpretation of the gesture. "You're a devilish wonderful fellow, " said Osmond grimly to his son. And Charlie winked grimly at Edwin, who grimly smiled. "You and your `British Medical Journal'!" Charlie exclaimed, with anirony from which filial affection was not absent, and again prodded hisfather in the same spot. "Of course I know I'm an old man, " said Osmond, condescendinglyrejecting Charlie's condescension. He thought he did not mean what hesaid; nevertheless, it was the expression of the one idea which latterlybeyond all other ideas had possessed him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Janet came into the room, and was surprised to see Edwin. She was in astate of extreme fatigue--pale, with burning eyes, and hair that haslost the gracefulness of its curves. "So you know?" she said. Edwin nodded. "It seems I've got to go to bed, " she went on. "Father, you must go tobed too. Mother's gone. It's frightfully late. Come along now!" She was insistent. She had been worried during the greater part of theday by her restless parents, and she was determined not to leave eitherof them at large. "Charlie, you might run upstairs and see that everything's all rightbefore I go. I shall get up again at four. " "I'll be off, " said Edwin. "Here! Hold on a bit, " Charlie objected. "Wait till I come down. Let's have a yarn. You don't want to go to bed yet. " Edwin agreed to the suggestion, and was left alone in thebreakfast-room. What struck him was that the new situation created byHilda's strange caprice had instantly been accepted by everybody, andhad indeed already begun to seem quite natural. He esteemed highly thedemeanour of all the Orgreaves. Neither he himself nor Maggie couldhave surpassed them in their determination not to exaggerate the crisis, in their determination to bear themselves simply and easily, and tospeak with lightness, even with occasional humour. There were fewqualities that he admired more than this. And what was her demeanour, up there in the bedroom? Suddenly the strangeness of Hilda's caprice presented itself to him aseven more strange. She had merely gone to Ealing and captured Charlie. Charlie was understood to have a considerable practice. At her whim allhis patients had been abandoned. What an idea, to bring him down likethis! What tremendous faith in him she must have! And Edwin remembereddistinctly that the first person who had ever spoken to him of Hilda wasCharlie! And in what terms of admiration! Was there a long and secretunderstanding between these two? They must assuredly be far moreintimate than he had ever suspected. Edwin hated to think that Hildawould depend more upon Charlie than upon himself in a grave difficulty. The notion caused him acute discomfort. He was resentful againstCharlie as against a thief who had robbed him of his own, but who couldnot be apprehended and put to shame. The acute discomfort was jealousy; but this word did not occur to him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. "I say, " Edwin began, in a new intimate tone, when after what seemed avery long interval Charlie Orgreave returned to the breakfast-room withthe information that for the present all had been done that could bedone. "What's up?" said Charlie, responding quite eagerly to the appeal forintimacy in Edwin's voice. He had brought in a tray with whisky and itsapparatus, and he set this handily on a stool in front of the fire, andpoked the fire, and generally made the usual ritualistic preparationsfor a comfortable talkative night. "Rather delicate, wasn't it, you coming down and taking Stirling's caseoff him?" Edwin smiled idly as he lolled far back in an old easy chair. His twoindividualities had now merged again into one. "My boy, " Charlie answered, pausing impressively with his curly headheld forward, before dropping into an arm-chair by the stool, "you maytake it from me that `delicate' is not the word!" Edwin nodded sympathetically, perceiving with satisfaction that beneathhis Metropolitan mannerism, and his amusing pomposities, and hisperfectly dandiacal clothes, Charlie still remained the Sunday, possiblymore naive than ever. This naivete of Charlie's was particularlypleasing to him, for the reason that it gave him a feeling ofsuperiority to the more brilliant being and persuaded him that thedifference between London and the provinces was inessential andnegligible. Charlie's hair still curled like a boy's, and he had notoutgrown the naivete of boyhood. Against these facts the fact thatCharlie was a partner in a fashionable and dashing practice at Ealingsimply did not weigh. The deference which in thought Edwin had beenslowly acquiring for this Charlie, as to whom impressive news reachedBursley from time to time, melted almost completely away. Infundamentals he was convinced that Charlie was an infant compared tohimself. "Have a drop?" "Well, it's not often I do, but I will to-night. Steady on with thewhisky, old chap. " Each took a charged glass and sipped. Edwin, by raising his arm, couldjust lodge his glass on the mantelpiece. Charlie then opened his largegun-metal cigarette case, and one match lighted two cigarettes. "Yes, my boy, " Charlie resumed, as he meditatively blew out the matchand threw it on the fire, "you may well say `delicate. ' The truth isthat if I hadn't seen at once that Stirling was a very decent sort ofchap, and very friendly here, I might have funked it. Yes, I might. Hecame in just after we'd arrived. So I saw him alone--here. I made aclean breast of it, and put myself in his hands. Of course heappreciated the situation at once; and considering he'd never seen her, it was rather clever of him. .. I suppose people rather like that Scotchaccent of his, down here?" "They say he makes over a thousand a year already, " Edwin replied. Hewas thinking. "Is she likely to be coming downstairs? No. " "The deuce he does!" Charlie murmured, with ingenuous animation, foolishly betraying by an instant's lack of self-control the fact thatEaling was not Utopia. Envy was in his voice as he continued: "It'sastonishing how some chaps can come along and walk straight intoanything they want--whatever it happens to be!" "What do you think of him as a doctor?" Edwin questioned. "Seems all right, " said Charlie, with a fine brief effort to bepatronising. "He's got a great reputation down here, " Edwin said quietly. "Yes, yes. I should say he's quite all right. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. "How came it that Mrs Cannon came and rummaged you out?" Edwin knewthat he would blush, and so he reached up for his whisky, and drank, adding: "The old man still clings to his old brand of Scotch. " "My dear fellow, I know no more than you. I was perfectly staggered--Ican tell you that. I hadn't seen her since before she was married. Only heard of her again just lately through Janet. I suppose it wasJanet who told her I was at Ealing. It's an absolute fact that just atthe first blush I didn't even recognise her. " "Didn't you?" Edwin wondered how this could be. "I did not. She came into our surgery, as if she'd come out of the nextroom and I'd seen her only yesterday, and she just asked me to come awaywith her at once to Bursley. I thought she was off her nut, but shewasn't. She showed me your telegram. " "The dickens she did!" Edwin was really startled. "Yes. I told her there was nothing absolutely fatal in a temperature of104. It happened in thousands of cases. Then she explained to meexactly how he'd been ill before, seemingly in the same way, and I couldjudge from what she said that he wasn't a boy who would stand a hightemperature for very long. " "By the way, what's his temperature to-night?" Edwin interrupted. "102 point 7, " said Charlie. "Yes, " he resumed, "she did convince me it might be serious. But whatthen? I told her I couldn't possibly leave. She asked me why not. Shekept on asking me why not. I said, What about my patients here? Sheasked if any of them were dying. I said no, but I couldn't leave themall to my partner. I don't think she realised, before that, that I wasin partnership. She stuck to it worse than ever then. I asked her whyshe wanted just me. I said all we doctors were much about the same, andso on. But it was no use. The fact is, you know, Hilda always had agreat notion of me as a doctor. Can't imagine why! Kept it to herselfof course, jolly close, as she did most things, but I'd noticed it nowand then. You know--one of those tremendous beliefs she has. You'reanother of her beliefs, if you want to know. " "How do you know? Give us another cigarette. " Edwin was exceedinglyuneasy, and yet joyous. One of his fears was that the Sunday mightinquire how it was that he signed telegrams to Hilda with only hisChristian name. The Sunday, however, made no such inquiry. "How do I know!" Charlie exclaimed. "I could tell in a second by theway she showed me your telegram. Oh! And besides, that's an old story, my young friend. You needn't flatter yourself it wasn't common propertyat one time. " "Oh! Rot!" Edwin muttered. "Well, go on!" "Well, then I explained that there was such a thing as medicaletiquette. .. Ah! you should have heard Hilda on medical etiquette. Youshould just have heard her on that lay--medical etiquette versus thedying child. I simply had to chuck that. I said to her, `But supposeyou hadn't caught me at home? I might have been out for the day--ahundred things. ' It was sheer accident she had caught me. At last shesaid: `Look here, Charlie, will you come, or won't you?'" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIX. "Well, and what did you say?" "I should tell you she went down on her knees. What should you havesaid, eh, my boy? What could I say? They've got you when they put itthat way. Especially a woman like she is! I tell you she was simplyterrific. I tell you I wouldn't go through it again--not forsomething. " Edwin responsively shook. "I just threw up the sponge and came. I told Huskisson a thunderinglie, to save my face, and away I came, and I've been with her eversince. Dashed if I haven't!" "Who's Huskisson?" "My partner. If anybody had told me beforehand that I should do such athing I should have laughed. Of course, if you look at it calmly, it'spreposterous. Preposterous--there's no other word--from my point ofview. But when they begin to put it the way she put it--well, you'vegot to decide quick whether you'll be sensible and a brute, or whetheryou'll sacrifice yourself and be a damned fool. .. What good am I here?No more good than anybody else. Supposing there is danger? Well, theremay be. But I've left twenty or thirty influenza cases at Ealing. Every influenza case is dangerous, if it comes to that. " "Exactly, " breathed Edwin. "I wouldn't have done it for any other woman, " Charlie recommenced. "Not much!" "Then why did you do it for her?" Charlie shrugged his shoulders. "There's something about her. .. Idon't know--" He lifted his nostrils fastidiously and gazed at the fire. "There's not many women knocking about like her. .. She gets hold ofyou. She's nothing at all for about six months at a stretch, and thenshe has one minute of the grand style. .. That's the sort of woman sheis. Understand? But I expect you don't know her as we do. " "Oh yes, I understand, " said Edwin. "She must be tremendously fond ofthe kid. " "You bet she is! Absolute passion. What sort is he?" "Oh! He's all right. But I've never seen them together, and I neverthought she was so particularly keen on him. " "Don't you make any mistake, " said Charlie loftily. "I believe womenoften are like that about an only child when they've had a rough time. And by the look of her she must have had a pretty rough time. I'venever made out why she married that swine, and I don't think anyone elsehas either. " "Did you know him?" Edwin asked, with sudden eagerness. "Not a bit. But I've sort of understood he was a regular outsider. Doyou know how long she's been a widow?" "No, " said Edwin. "I've barely seen her. " At these words he became so constrained, and so suspicious of the lookon his own face, that he rose abruptly and began to walk about the room. "What's the matter?" demanded Charlie. "Got pins and needles?" "Only fidgets, " said Edwin. "I hope this isn't one of your preliminaries for clearing out andleaving me alone, " Charlie complained. "Here--where's that glass ofyours? Have another cigarette. " There was a sound that seemed to resemble a tap on the door. "What's that noise?" said Edwin, startled. The whole of his epidermistingled, and he stood still. They both listened. The sound was repeated. Yes, it was a tap on the door; but in thenight, and in the repose of the house, it had the character of someunearthly summons. Edwin was near the door. He hesitated for an instant afraid, and thenwith an effort brusquely opened the door and looked forth beyond theshelter of the room. A woman's figure was disappearing down the passagein the direction of the stairs. It was she. "Did you--" he began. But Hilda had gone. Agitated, he said toCharlie, his hand still on the knob: "It's Mrs Cannon. She justknocked and ran off. I expect she wants you. " Charlie jumped up and scurried out of the room exactly like a boy, despite his tall, mature figure of a man of thirty-five. VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER TWELVE. END OF THE NIGHT. For the second time that night Edwin was left alone for a long period inthe little breakfast-room. Charlie's phrase, `You're another of herbeliefs, ' shone like a lamp in his memory, beneficent. And though hewas still jealous of Charlie, with whom Hilda's relations were obviouslyvery intimate; although he said to himself, `She never made any appealto me, she would scarcely have my help at any price;' nevertheless hefelt most singularly uplifted and, without any reason, hopeful. So muchso that the fate of the child became with him a matter of secondaryimportance. He excused this apparent callousness by making sure in hisown mind that the child was in no real danger. On the other hand heblamed himself for ever having fancied that Hilda was indifferent toGeorge. She, indifferent to her own son! What a wretched, stupidslander! He ought to have known better than that. He ought to haveknown that a Hilda would bring to maternity the mightiest passions. Allthat Charlie had said confirmed him in his idolisation of her. `Oneminute of the grand style. ' That was it. Charlie had judged her verywell--damn him! And the one minute was priceless, beyond allestimation. The fire sank, with little sounds of decay; and he stared at it, prevented as if by a spell from stooping to make it up, prevented evenfrom looking at his watch. At length he shivered slightly, and themovement broke the trance. He wandered to the door, which Charlie hadleft ajar, and listened. No sign of life! He listened intently, buthis ear could catch nothing whatever. What were those two doingupstairs with the boy? Cautiously he stepped out into the passage, andwent to the foot of the stairs, where a gas jet was burning. He wasreminded of the nights preceding his father's death. Another gas jet showed along the corridor at the head of the stairs. Heput his foot on the first step; it creaked with a noise comparable tothe report of a pistol in the dead silence. But there was no responsivesound to show that anyone had been alarmed by this explosion. Impelledby nervous curiosity, and growing careless, he climbed thereverberating, complaining stairs, and, entering the corridor, stoodexactly in front of the closed door of the sick-room, and listenedagain, and heard naught. His heart was obstreperously beating. Part ofthe household slept; the other part watched; and he was between the two, like a thief, like a spy. Should he knock, discreetly, and ask if hecould be of help? The strange romance of his existence, and of allexistence, flowed around him in mysterious currents, obsessing him. Suddenly the door opened, and Charlie, barely avoiding a collision, started back in alarm. Then Charlie recovered his self-possession andcarefully shut the door. "I was just wondering whether I could be any use, " Edwin stammered in awhisper. Charlie whispered: "It's all right, but I must run round to Stirling's, and get a drug I want. " "Is he worse?" "Yes. That is--yes. You never know with a child. They're up and downand all over the place inside of an hour. " "Can I go?" Edwin suggested. "No. I can explain to him quicker than you. " "You'll never find your way in this fog. " "Bosh, man! D'you think I don't know the town as well as you? Besides, it's lifted considerably. " By a common impulse they tiptoed to the window at the end of thecorridor. Across the lawn could be dimly discerned a gleam through thetrees. "I'll come with you, " said Edwin. "You'd much better stay here--in case. " "Shall I go into the bedroom?" "Certainly. " Charlie turned to descend the stairs. "I say, " Edwin called after him in a loud whisper, "when you get to thegate--you know the house--you go up the side entry. The night bell'srather high up on the left hand. " "All right! All right!" Charlie replied impatiently. "Just come andshut the front door after me. I don't want to bang it. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. When Edwin crept into the bedroom he was so perturbed by continuallygrowing excitement that he saw nothing clearly except the central groupof objects: that is to say, a narrow bed, whose burden was screened fromhim by its foot, a table, an empty chair, the gas-globe luminous againsta dark-green blind, and Hilda in black, alert and erect beneath thedown-flowing light. The rest of the chamber seemed to stretch obscurelyaway into no confines. Not for several seconds did he even notice thefire. This confusing excitement was not caused by anything externalsuch as the real or supposed peril of the child; it had its sourcewithin. As soon as Hilda identified him her expression changed from the intentfrowning stare of inquiry to a smile. Edwin had never before seen hersmile in that way. The smile was weak, resigned, almost piteous; and itwas extraordinarily sweet. He closed the door quietly, and moved insilence towards the bed. She nodded an affectionate welcome. Hereturned her greeting eagerly, and all his constraint was loosed away, and he felt at ease, and happy. Her face was very pale indeed againstthe glittering blackness of her eyes, and her sombre disordered hair anduntidy dress; but it did not show fatigue nor extreme anxiety; it was aface of calm meekness. The sleeves of her dress were reversed, showingthe forearms, which gave her an appearance of deshabille, homely, intimate, confiding. "So it was common property at one time, " Edwinthought, recalling a phrase of Charlie's in the breakfast-room. Strange: he wanted her in all her disarray, with all her woes, anxieties, solicitudes; he wanted her, piteous, meek, beaten by destiny, weakly smiling; he wanted her because she stood so, after the immense, masterful effort of the day, watching in acquiescence by that bed! "Has he gone?" she asked, in a voice ordinarily loud, but, for her, unusually tender. "Yes, " said Edwin. "He's gone. He told me I'd better come in here. SoI came. " She nodded again. "Have that chair. " Without arguing, he took the chair. She remained standing. The condition of George startled him. Evidently the boy was in a heavystupor. His body was so feverish that it seemed to give off aperceptible heat. There was no need to touch the skin in order to knowthat it burned: one divined this. The hair was damp. About the palelips an irregular rash had formed, purplish, patchy, and the rash seemedto be the mark and sign of some strange dreadful disease that nobody hadever named: a plague. Worse than all this was the profound, comprehensive discomfort of the whole organism, showing itself in theunnatural pose of the limbs, and in multitudinous faint instinctive waysof the inert but complaining body. And the child was so slight beneaththe blanket, so young, so helpless, spiritually so alone. How couldeven Hilda communicate her sympathy to that spirit, withdrawn andinaccessible? During the illness of his father Edwin had thought thathe was looking upon the extreme tragic limit of pathos, but this presentspectacle tightened more painfully the heart. It was more shameful: amore excruciating accusation against the order of the universe. Tothink of George in his pride, strong, capricious, and dominant, whilegazing at this victim of malady . .. The contrast was intolerable! George was very ill. And yet Hilda, despite the violence of her nature, could stand there calm, sweet, and controlled. What power! Edwin washumbled. "This is the sort of thing that women of her sort can do, " hesaid to himself. "Why, Maggie and I are simply nothing to her!" Maggieand he could be self-possessed in a crisis; they could stand a strain;but the strain would show itself either in a tense harshness, or in someunnatural lightness, or even flippancy. Hilda was the very image ofsoft caressing sweetness. He felt that he must emulate her. "Surely his temperature's gone up?" he said quietly. "Yes, " Hilda replied, fingering absently the clinical thermometer thatwith a lot of other gear lay on the table. "It's nearly 105. It can'tlast like this. It won't. I've been through it with him before, butnot quite so bad. " "I didn't think anyone could have influenza twice, so soon, " Edwinmurmured. "Neither did I, " said she. "Still, he must have been sickening for itbefore he came down here. " There was a pause. She wiped the boy'sforehead. "This change has come on quite suddenly, " she said, in adifferent voice. "Two hours ago--less than two hours ago--there wasscarcely a sign of that rash. " "What is it?" "Charlie says it's nothing particular. " "What's Charlie gone for?" "I don't know. " She shook her head; then smiled. "Isn't it a goodthing I brought him?" Indubitably it was. Her caprice, characterised as preposterous bymales, had been justified. Thus chance often justifies women, settingat naught the high priests of reason. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. Looking at the unconscious and yet tormented child, Edwin was aware of amelting protective pity for him, of an immense desire to watch over hisrearing with all insight, sympathy, and help, so that in George's casenone of the mistakes and cruelties and misapprehensions should occurwhich had occurred in his own. This feeling was intense to the point ofbeing painful. "I don't know whether you know or not, " he said, "but we're great pals, the infant and I. " Hilda smiled, and in the very instant of seeing the smile its effectupon him was such that he humiliated himself before her in secret forever having wildly suspected that she was jealous of the attachment. "Do you think I don't know all about that?" she murmured. "He wouldn'tbe here now if it hadn't been for that. " After a silence she added:"You're the only person that he ever has really cared for, and I cantell you he likes you better than he likes me. " "How do you know that?" "I know by the way he talks and looks. " "If he takes after his mother, that's no sign, " Edwin retorted, withoutconsidering what he said. "What do you mean--`if he takes after his mother'?" She seemed puzzled. "Could anyone tell your real preferences from the way you talked andlooked?" His audacious rashness astounded him. Nevertheless he staredher in the eyes, and her glance fell. "No one but you could have said a thing like that, " she observed mildly, yieldingly. And what he had said suddenly acquired a mysterious and wisesignificance and became oracular. She alone had the power of inspiringhim to be profound. He had noticed that before, years ago, and first attheir first meeting. Or was it that she saw in him an oracle, andcaused him to see with her? Slowly her face coloured, and she walked away to the fireplace, andcautiously tended it. Constraint had seized him again, and his heartwas loud. "Edwin, " she summoned him, from the fireplace. He rose, shaking with emotion, and crossed the undiscovered spaces ofthe room to where she was. He had the illusion that they were bythemselves not in the room but in the universe. She was leaning withone hand on the mantelpiece. "I must tell you something, " she said, "that nobody at all knows exceptGeorge's father, and probably nobody ever will know. His sister knew, but she's dead. " "Yes!" he muttered, in an exquisite rush of happiness. After all, itwas not with Charlie, nor even with Janet, that she was most intimate;it was with himself! "George's father was put in prison for bigamy. George is illegitimate. "She spoke with her characteristic extreme clearness of enunciation, ina voice that showed no emotion. "You don't mean it!" He gasped foolishly. She nodded. "I'm not a married woman. I once thought I was, but Iwasn't. That's all. " "But--" "But what?" "You--you said six or seven years, didn't you? Surely they don't givethat long for bigamy?" "Oh!" she replied mildly. "That was for something else. When he cameout of prison the first time they arrested him again instantly--so I wastold. It was in Scotland. " "I see. " There was a rattle as of hailstones on the window. They both started. "That must be Charlie!" she exclaimed, suddenly loosing her excitementunder this pretext. "He doesn't want to ring and wake the house. " Edwin ran out of the room, sliding and slipping down the deserted stairsthat waited patiently through the night for human feet. "Forgot to take a key, " said Charlie, appearing, breathless, just as thedoor opened. "I meant to take the big key, and then I forgot. " He hada little round box in his hand. He mounted the stairs two and three ata time. Edwin slowly closed the door. He could not bring himself to followCharlie and, after a moment's vacillation, he went back into thebreakfast-room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR. Amazing, incalculable woman, wrapped within fold after fold of mystery!He understood better now, but even now there were things that he did notunderstand; and the greatest enigma of all remained unsolved, theoriginal enigma of her treachery to himself. .. And she had chosen justthat moment, just that crisis, to reveal to him that sinister secretwhich by some unguessed means she had been able to hide from heracquaintance. Naturally, if she wished to succeed with a boarding-housein Brighton she would be compelled to conceal somehow the fact that shewas the victim of a bigamist and her child without a lawful name! Themerest prudence would urge her to concealment so long as concealment waspossible; yes, even from Janet! Her other friends deemed her a widow;Janet thought her the wife of a convict; he alone knew that she wasneither wife nor widow. Through what scathing experience she must havepassed! An unfamiliar and disconcerting mood gradually took completepossession of him. At first he did not correctly analyse it. It wassheer, exuberant, instinctive, unreasoning, careless joy. Then, after a long period of beatific solitude in the breakfast-room, heheard stealthy noises in the hall, and his fancy jumped to the idea ofburglary. Excited, unreflecting, he hurried into the hall. JohnnieOrgreave, who had let himself in with a latchkey, was shutting andbolting the front door. Johnnie's surprise was the greater. He startedviolently on seeing Edwin, and then at once assumed the sang-froid of ahero of romance. When Edwin informed him that Hilda had come, andCharlie with her, and that those two were watching by the boy, the restof the household being in bed, Johnnie permitted himself a few verbalsymptoms of astonishment. "How is Georgie?" he asked with an effort, as if ashamed. "He isn't much better, " said Edwin evasively. Johnnie made a deprecatory sound with his tongue against his lips, andfrowned, determined to take his proper share in the general anxiety. With careful, dignified movements, he removed his silk hat and his heavyulster, revealing evening-dress, and a coloured scarf that overhung acrumpled shirt-front. "Where've you been?" Edwin asked. "Tennis dance. Didn't you know?" "No, " said Edwin. "Really!" Johnnie murmured, with a falsely ingenuous air. After apause he said: "They've left you all alone, then?" "I was in the breakfast-room, " said Edwin, when he had given furtherinformation. They walked into the breakfast-room together. Charlie's cigarette-caselay on the tray. "Those your cigarettes?" Johnnie inquired. "No. They're Charlie's. " "Oh! Master Charlie's, are they? I wonder if they're any good. " Hetook one fastidiously. Between two enormous outblowings of smoke hesaid: "Well, I'm dashed! So Charlie's come with her! I hope the kid'llsoon be better. .. I should have been back long ago, only I took MrsChris Hamson home. " "Who's Mrs Chris Hamson?" "Don't you know her? She's a ripping woman. " He stood there in all the splendour of thirty years, with more thanCharlie's naivete, politely trying to enter into the life of thehousehold, but failing to do so because of his preoccupation with therippingness of Mrs Chris Hamson. The sight of him gave pleasure toEdwin. It did not occur to him to charge the young man with beingcallous. When the cigarette was burnt, Johnnie said-- "Well, I think I shall leave seeing Charlie till breakfast. " And he went to bed. On reaching the first-floor corridor he wished thathe had gone to bed half a minute sooner; for in the corridor heencountered Janet, who had risen and was returning to her post; andJanet's face, though she meant it not, was an accusation. Four o'clockhad struck. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FIVE. It was nearly half-past seven before Edwin left the house. In themeantime he had seen Charlie briefly twice, and Janet once, but he hadnot revisited the sick-room nor seen Hilda again. The boy's conditionwas scarcely altered; if there was any change, it was for the better. Dawn had broken. The fog was gone, but a faint mist hung in the treesover the damp lawn. The air was piercingly chill. Yawning and glancingidly about him, he perceived a curious object on the dividing wall. Itwas the candlestick which he had left there on the previous night. Thecandle was entirely consumed. "I may as well get over the wall, " hesaid to himself, and he scrambled up it with adventurous cheerfulness, and took the candlestick with him; it was covered with drops ofmoisture. He deposited it in the kitchen, where the servant wascleaning the range. On the oak chest in the hall lay the "ManchesterGuardian, " freshly arrived. He opened it with another heavy yawn. Atthe head of one column he read, "Death of the Duke of Clarence, " and atthe head of another, "Death of Cardinal Manning. " The double newsshocked him strangely. He thought of what those days had been to othersbeside himself. And he thought: "Supposing after all the kid doesn'tcome through?" VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER THIRTEEN. HER HEART. After having been to business and breakfasted as usual, Edwin returnedto the shop at ten o'clock. He did not feel tired, but his manner wasvery curt, even with Stifford, and melancholy had taken the place of hisjoy. The whole town was gloomy, and seemed to savour its gloomluxuriously. But Edwin wondered why he should be melancholy. There wasno reason for it. There was less reason for it than there had been forten years. Yet he was; and, like the town, he found pleasure in hisstate. He had no real desire to change it. At noon he suddenly wentoff home, thus upsetting Stifford's arrangements for the dinner-hour. "I shall lie down for a bit, " he said to Maggie. He slept till a littleafter one o'clock, and he could have slept longer, but dinner was ready. He said to himself, with an extraordinary sense of satisfaction, "Ihave had a sleep. " After dinner he lay down again, and slept tillnearly three o'clock. It was with the most agreeable sensations that heawakened. His melancholy was passing; it had not entirely gone, but hecould foresee the end of it as of an eclipse. He made the discoverythat he had only been tired. Now he was somewhat reposed. And as helay in repose he was aware of an intensified perception of himself as aphysical organism. He thought calmly, "What a fine thing life is!" "I was just going to bring you some tea up, " said Maggie, who met him onthe stairs as he came down. "I heard you moving. Will you have some?" He rubbed his eyes. His head seemed still to be distended with sleep, and this was a part of his well-being. "Aye!" he replied, with lazysatisfaction. "That'll just put me right. " "George is much better, " said Maggie. "Good!" he said heartily. Joy, wild and exulting, surged through him once more; and it was of sucha turbulent nature that it would not suffer any examination of itsorigin. It possessed him by its might. As he drank the admirable teahe felt that he still needed a lot more sleep. There were two points ofpressure at the top of his head. But he knew that he could sleep, andsleep well, whenever he chose; and that on the morrow his body would beperfectly restored. He walked briskly back to the shop, intending to work, and he was alittle perturbed to find that he could not work. His head refused. Hesat in the cubicle vaguely staring. Then he was startled by atremendous yawn, which seemed to have its inception in the very centreof his being, and which by the pang of its escape almost broke him inpieces. "I've never yawned like that before, " he thought, apprehensive. Another yawn of the same seismic kind succeeded immediately, and thesefrightful yawns continued one after another for several minutes, eachleaving him weaker than the one before. "I'd better go home while Ican, " he thought, intimidated by the suddenness and the mysteriousnessof the attack. He went home. Maggie at once said that he would bebetter in bed, and to his own astonishment he agreed. He could not eatthe meal that Maggie brought to his room. "There's something the matter with you, " said Maggie. "No. I'm only tired. " He knew it was a lie. "You're simply burning, " she said, but she refrained from any argument, and left him. He could not sleep. His anticipations in that respect were painfullyfalsified. Later, Maggie came back. "Here's Dr Heve, " she said briefly, in the doorway. She wassilhouetted against the light from the landing. The doctor, inmourning, stood behind her. "Dr Heve? What the devil--" But he did not continue the protest. Maggie advanced into the room and turned up the gas, and the glarewounded his eyes. "Yes, " said Dr Heve, at the end of three minutes. "You've got it. Notbadly, I hope. But you've got it all right. " Humiliating! For the instinct of the Clayhangers was always to assumethat by virtue of some special prudence, or immunity, or resistingpower, peculiar to them alone, they would escape any popular afflictionsuch as an epidemic. In the middle of the night, amid feverish tossingsand crises of thirst, and horrible malaise, it was more thanhumiliating! Supposing he died? People did die of influenza. Thestrangest, the most monstrous things did happen. For the first time inhis life he lay in the genuine fear of death. He had never been illbefore. And now he was ill. He knew what it was to be ill. Thestupid, blundering clumsiness of death aroused his angry resentment. No! It was impossible that he should die! People did not die ofinfluenza. The next day the doctor laughed. But Edwin said to himself: "He mayhave laughed only to cheer me up. They never tell their patients thetruth. " And every cell of his body was vitiated, poisoned, inefficient, profoundly demoralised. Ordinary health seemed the most precious andthe least attainable boon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TWO. After wildernesses of time that were all but interminable, the attackwas completely over. It had lasted a hundred hours, of which the firstfifty had each been an age. It was a febrile attack similar toGeorge's, but less serious. Edwin had possibly caught the infection atKnype Railway Station: yet who could tell? Now he was in thedrawing-room, shaved, clothed, but wearing slippers for a sign that hewas only convalescent, and because the doctor had forbidden him thestreet. He sat in front of the fire, in the easy chair that had beenhis father's favourite. On his left hand were an accumulation ofnewspapers and a book; on his right, some business letters and documentsleft by the assiduous Stifford after a visit of sympathy and of affairs. The declining sun shone with weak goodwill on the garden. "Please, sir, there's a lady, " said the servant, opening the door. He was startled. His first thought naturally was, "It's Hilda!" inspite of the extreme improbability of it being Hilda. Hilda had neverset foot in his house. Nevertheless, supposing it was Hilda, Maggiewould assuredly come into the drawing-room--she could not do otherwise--and the three-cornered interview would, he felt, be very trying. Heknew that Maggie, for some reason inexplicable by argument, was out ofsympathy with Hilda, as with Hilda's son. She had given him regularnews of George, who was now at about the same stage of convalescence ashim sell, but she scarcely mentioned the mother, and he had not dared toinquire. These thoughts flashed through his brain in an instant. "Who is it?" he asked gruffly. "I--I don't know, sir. Shall I ask?" replied the servant, blushing asshe perceived that once again she had sinned. She had never before beenin a house where aristocratic ceremony was carried to such excess as atEdwin's. Her unconquerable instinct, upon opening the front door to awell-dressed stranger, was to rush off and publish the news thatsomebody mysterious and grand had come, leaving the noble visitor on thedoor-mat. She had been instructed in the ritual proper to these crises, but with little good result, for the crises took her unawares. "Yes. Go and ask the name, and then tell my sister, " said Edwinshortly. "Miss Clayhanger is gone out, sir. " "Well, run along, " he told her impatiently. He was standing anxiously near the door when she returned to the room. "Please, sir, it's a Mrs Cannon, and it's you she wants. " "Show her in, " he said, and to himself: "My God!" In the ten seconds that elapsed before Hilda appeared he glanced athimself in the mantel mirror, fidgeted with his necktie, and walked tothe window and back again to his chair. She had actually called to seehim! . .. His agitation was extreme. .. But how like her it was to callthus boldly! . .. Maggie's absence was providential. Hilda entered, to give him a lesson in blandness. She wore a veil, andcarried a muff--outworks of her self-protective, impassive demeanour. She was pale, and as calm as pale. She would not take the easy chairwhich he offered her. Useless to insist--she would not take it. Hebrushed away letters and documents from the small chair to his right, and she took that chair. .. Having taken it, she insisted that he shouldresume the easy chair. "I called just to say good-bye, " she said. "I knew you couldn't comeout, and I'm going to-night. " "But surely he isn't fit to travel?" Edwin exclaimed. "George? Not yet. I'm leaving him behind. You see I mustn't stay awaylonger than's necessary. " She smiled, and lifted her veil as far as her nose. She had not smiledbefore. "Charlie's gone back?" "Oh yes. Two days ago. He left a message for you. " "Yes. Maggie gave it me. By the way, I'm sorry she's not in. " "I've just seen her, " said Hilda. "Oh!" "She came in to see Janet. They're having a cup of tea in George'sbedroom. So I put my things on and walked round here at once. " As Hilda made this surprising speech she gazed full at Edwin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THREE. A blush slowly covered his face. They both sat silent. Only the firecrackled lustily. Edwin thought, as his agitation increased andentirely confused him, "No other woman was ever like this woman!" Hewanted to rise masterfully, to accomplish some gesture splendid anddecisive, but he was held in the hollow of the easy chair as though byparalysis. He looked at Hilda; he might have been looking at astranger. He tried to read her face, and he could not read it. Hecould only see in it vague trouble. He was afraid of her. The ideaeven occurred to him that, could he be frank with himself, he wouldadmit that he hated her. The moments were intensely painful; thesuspense exasperating and excruciating. Ever since their last encounterhe had anticipated this scene; his fancy had been almost continuouslybusy in fashioning this scene. And now the reality had swept down uponhim with no warning, and he was overwhelmed. She would not speak. She had withdrawn her gaze, but she would notspeak. She would force him to speak. "I say, " he began gruffly, in a resentful tone, careless as to what hewas saying, "you might have told me earlier what you told me onWednesday night. Why didn't you tell me when I was at Brighton?" "I wanted to, " she said meekly. "But I couldn't. I really couldn'tbring myself to do it. " "Instead of telling me a lie, " he went on. "I think you might havetrusted me more than that. " "A lie?" she muttered. "I told you the truth. I told you he was inprison. " "You told me your husband was in prison, " he corrected her, in a voicemeditative and judicial. He knew not in the least why he was talking inthis strain. She began to cry. At first he was not sure that she was crying. Heglanced surreptitiously, and glanced away as if guilty. But at the nextglance he was sure. Her eyes glistened behind the veil, and tear-dropsappeared at its edge and vanished under her chin. "You don't know how much I wanted to tell you!" she wept. She hid her half-veiled face in her hands. And then he was victimisedby the blackest desolation. His one desire was that the scene shouldfinish, somehow, anyhow. "I never wrote to you because there was nothing to say. Nothing!" Shesobbed, still covering her face. "Never wrote to me--do you mean--" She nodded violently twice. "Yes. Then!" He divined that suddenly shehad begun to talk of ten years ago. "I knew you'd know it was because Icouldn't help it. " She spoke so indistinctly through her emotion andher tears, and her hands, that he could not distinguish the words. "What do you say?" "I say I couldn't help doing what I did. I knew you'd know I couldn'thelp it. I couldn't write. It was best for me to be silent. What elsewas there for me to do except be silent? I knew you'd know I couldn'thelp it. It was a--" Sobs interrupted her. "Of course I knew that, " he said. He had to control himself verycarefully, or he too would have lost command of his voice. Such was herpower of suggestion over him that her faithlessness seemed now scarcelyto need an excuse. (Somewhere within himself he smiled as he reflected that he, in hisfather's place, in his father's very chair, was thus under the spell ofa woman whose child was nameless. He smiled grimly at the thought ofAuntie Hamps, of Clara, of the pietistic Albert! They were of adifferent race, a different generation! They belonged to a dead world!) "I shall tell you, " Hilda recommenced mournfully, but in a clear andsteady voice, at last releasing her face, which was shaken like that ofa child in childlike grief. "You'll never understand what I had to gothrough, and how I couldn't help myself"--she was tragicallyplaintive--"but I shall tell you. .. You must understand!" She raised her eyes. Already for some moments his hands had beendesiring the pale wrists between her sleeve and her glove. Theyfascinated his hands, which, hesitatingly, went out towards them. Assoon as she felt his touch, she dropped to her knees, and her chinalmost rested on the arm of his chair. He bent over a face that wastransfigured. "My heart never kissed any other man but you!" she cried. "How oftenand often and often have I kissed you, and you never knew! . .. It wasfor a message that I sent George down here--a message to you! I namedhim after you. .. Do you think that if dreams could make him yourchild--he wouldn't be yours?" Her courage, and the expression of it, seemed to him to be sublime. "You don't know me!" she sighed, less convulsively. "Don't I!" he said, with lofty confidence. After a whole decade his nostrils quivered again to the odour of herolive skin. Drowning amid the waves of her terrible devotion, he wasrecompensed in the hundredth part of a second for all that through herhe had suffered or might hereafter suffer. The many problems anddifficulties which marriage with her would raise seemed trivial in thelight of her heart's magnificent and furious loyalty. He thought of theyounger Edwin whom she had kissed into rapture, as of a boy tooinexperienced in sorrow to appreciate this Hilda. He braced himself tothe exquisite burden of life.