 Volume 2, Chapter 19 of Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett, Chapter 19, A Catastrophe At half past two on the following afternoon he was waiting for the future in order to recommend living. During this period to a greater extent even than the average individual, in average circumstances, he was incapable of living in the present. Continually he looked either forward or back, all that he had achieved or that had been achieved for him, the new house with its brightness and its apparatus of luxury, his books, his learning, his friends, his experience, not long since regarded by him as the precious materials of happiness, all had become negligible trifles, nothings devoid of import. The sole condition precedent to a tolerable existence was now to have sight and speech of hilderless ways. He was intensely unhappy in the long stretches of time which separated one contact with her from the next, and in the brief moments of their companionship he was far too distraught, too apprehensive, too desirous, too puzzled, to be able to call himself happy. Seeing her apparently did not to assuage the pain of his curiosity about her. Not his curiosity concerning the details of her life or of her person, for these scarcely interested him, but his curiosity concerning the very essence of her being. At seven o'clock on the previous day he had esteemed her visit as possessing a decisive importance which covered the whole field of his wishes. The visit had occurred, and he was not a wit advanced, indeed he had retrograded, for he was less content and more confused and more preoccupied. The medicine had aggravated the disease. Nevertheless he awaited a second dose of it in the undistroyed illusion of its curative property. In the interval he had behaved like a very sensible man. Without appetite he had still forced himself to eat, lest his relatives should suspect. Short of sleep he had been careful to avoid yawning at breakfast, and had spoken in a casual tone of hilder's visit. He had even said to his father, I suppose the big Columbia will be running off those overseer notices this afternoon, and on the old man asking why he was thus interested, he had answered, because that girl Miss Leswayes thought of coming down to see it. For some reason or other she's very keen on printing, and as she's such a friend of the Orgreaves, nobody he considered could have done that better than he had done it. And now that girl Miss Leswayes was nearly due. He stood behind the counter again, waiting, waiting. He could not apply himself to anything he could scarcely wait. He was in a state that approached fever, if not agony. To exist from half-past two to three o'clock, equaled in anguish the dreadful inquiritude that comes before a surgical operation. He said to himself, If I keep on like this I should be in love with her one of these days. He would not and could not believe that he already was in love with her, though the possibility presented itself to him. No, he said, you don't fall in love in a couple of days, you mustn't tell me, in a wise, superior, slightly scornful manner. I dare say there's nothing in it at all, he said, uncertainly, after having strongly denied throughout that there was anything in it. The recollection of his original antipathy to Hilda troubled him. She was the same girl. She was the same girl who had followed him at night into his father's garden and merited his disdain. She was the same girl who had been so unpleasant, so sharp, so rudely disconcerting in her behaviour, and he dared not say that she had altered, and yet now he could not get her out of his head. And although he would not admit that he constantly admired her, he did admit that there were moments when he admired her passionately and deemed her unique and above all women. Whence the change in himself? How to justify it? The problem was insoluble, for he was intellectually too honest to say lightly that originally he had been mistaken. He did not pretend to solve the problem. He looked at it with perturbation and left it. The consoling thing was that the Orgreaves had always expressed high esteem for Hilda. He leaned on the Orgreaves. He wondered how the affair would end. He could not indefinitely continue on its present footing. How indeed would it end? Marriage? He apologized to himself for the thought. But just for the sake of argument. Supposing? Well, supposing the affair went so far that one day he told her, men did such things. Young men? No. Besides she wouldn't. It was absurd. No such idea, really. And then the frightful worry there would be with his father about money and so on, and the telling of Clara and of everybody. No, he simply could not imagine himself married, or about to be married. Marriage might happen to other young men, but not to him. His case was special, somehow. He shrank from such formidable enterprises, the mere notion of them made him tremble. Part II He brushed all that away impatiently, pettishly. The intense and terrible longing for her arrival persisted. It was now twenty-five to three. His father would be down soon from his after-dinner nap. Suddenly the door opened, and he saw the Orgreaves servant, with a cloak over her white apron, and hands red with cold. And also he saw disaster, like a ghostly figure following her. His heart sickeningly sank. Martha smiled and gave him a note which he smilingly accepted. Miss Lesway's asked me to come down with this, she said confidentially. She was a little breathless, and she had absolutely the manner of a singing chambermaid in light opera. He opened the note which said, Dear Mr. Clayhanger, so sorry I can't come to-day, yours H.L. Nothing else. It was scrawled. It's all right, thanks, he said, with an even brighter smile to the messenger, who nodded and departed. It all occurred in an instant. Part III A Catastrophe He suffered then as he had never suffered. His was no state approaching agony. It was agony itself, black and awful. She was not coming. She had not troubled herself to give a reason, nor to offer an excuse. She merely was not coming. She had showed no consideration for his feelings. It had not happened to her to reflect that she would be causing him disappointment. Disappointment was too mild a word. He had been building a marvellously beautiful castle, and with a thoughtless, careless stroke of the pen, she had annihilated all his labour. She had almost annihilated him. Surely she owed him some reason, some explanation. Had she the right to play fast and loose with him like that? What a shame he sobbed violently in his heart, with an excessive and righteous resentment. He was innocent. He was blameless. And she tortured him thus. He supposed that all women were like her. What a shame! He pitied himself for a victim. And there was no glint of hope anywhere. In half an hour he would have been near her, with her, guiding her to the workshop, discussing the machine with her, and savoring her uniqueness, feasting on her delicious and adorable personality. So sorry I can't come today. She doesn't understand. She can't understand, he said to himself. No woman however cruel would ever knowingly be so cruel as she has been. It isn't possible. Then he sought excuse for her, and then he cast the excuse away angrily. She was not coming. There was no ground beneath his feet. He was so exquisitely miserable that he could not face a future of even ten hours ahead. He could not look at what his existence would be till bedtime. The blow had deprived him of all force, all courage. It was a wanton blow. He wished savagely that he had never seen her. No. No. He could not call on the orgrives that night. He could not do it. She might be out. And then his father entered and began to grumble. Both Edwin and Maggie had known since the beginning of dinner that Darius was quaking on the precipice of a bad, bilious attack. Edwin listened to the rising storm of words. He had to resume the thread of his daily life. He knew what affliction was. But he was young. Indeed to men of fifty men just twice his age he seemed a mere boy and incapable of grief. He was so slim, and his limbs were so loose, and his hair so fair, and his gestures often so naive, that few of the mature people who saw him daily striding up and down Trafalgar Road could have believed him to be acquainted with sorrow like their sorrows. The next morning, as it were in justification of these mature people, his youth arose and fought with the malady in him, and if it did not conquer it was not defeated. On the previous night, after hours of hesitation, he had suddenly walked forth and gone down Oak Street, and pushed open the garden gates of the orgrives, and gazed at the façade of the house, not at her window because that was at the side, and it was all dark. The orgrives had gone to bed, he had expected it. Even this perfectly futile reconnaissance had calmed him. While dressing in the bleak sunrise he had looked at the oval lawn of the orgrives' garden, and had seen Johnny idly kicking a football on it. Johnny had probably spent the evening with her, and it was nothing to Johnny. She was there, somewhere between him and Johnny, within fifty yards of both of them, mysterious and withdrawn as ever, busy at something or other, and it was naught to Johnny. By the thought of all this the woe in him was strengthened and embittered. Nevertheless his youth, aided by the astringent quality of the clear dawn, still struggled sternly against it, and he ate six times more breakfast than his 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 her that afternoon or night, or perish in the attempt, and as the remembered phrase of the Sunday passed through his mind he inwardly smiled and thought of school, and felt old and sure. PART TWO At five minutes to two, as he stood behind the eternal counter in his eternal dream, he had the inexpressible and delectable shock of seeing her. He was shot by the vision of her as by a bullet. She came in, hurried and preoccupied, apparently full of purpose. Have you got a Bradshaw, she inquired, after the briefest greeting, gazing at him across the counter through her veil, as though imploring him for Bradshaw? I'm afraid we haven't one left, he said, you see, it's getting on for the end of the month. I could know, I suppose, you wanted 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 tonight. They actually haven't a Bradshaw up there, half in Scorn, half in Levity, 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, all the railway station. I'll go up there with you now, if you like, and find out for you. I know the head porter. We're just closing, Father's at home. He's not very well. She thanked him, relief in her voice. In a minute he had put his hat and coat on and given instructions to Stifford, and he was climbing duck-bank with Hilda at his side. He had forgiven her. Nay, he had forgotten her crime. The disaster, with all its despair, was sponged clean from his mind like writing off a slate, and as rapidly it was he faced. He tried to collect his faculties and savor the new sensations, but he could not within him all was incoherent, wild, and distracting. Five minutes earlier, and he could not have conceived the bliss of walking with her to the station. Now he was walking with her to the station, and assuredly it was bliss, and yet he did not fully taste it. Though he would not have loosed her for a million pounds, her presence gave an even crueler edge to his anxiety and apprehension. London! Brighton! Would she be that night in Brighton? He felt helpless and desperate, and beneath all this was the throbbing of a strange, bitter joy. She asked about his cold and about his father's indisposition. She said nothing of her failure to appear on the previous day, and he knew not how to introduce it neatly. He was not in control of his intelligence. They passed Snag's Theatre, and from its green wooden walls came the obscure sound of humanity in emotion. Before the mean and shabby portals stood a small crowd of ragged urchins. Posters printed by Darius Clayhanger made white squares on the front. 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 five towns? It's our form of poetry, I suppose, he muttered, smiling at the pavement 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, but Hilda's urgency impelled them upwards from the head-porter to the ticket-clark, and from the ticket-clark to the station-master, and at length they discovered in a stuffy, stove-heated room, with a fine view of a shored ruck and a pit-head, that on Thursday evenings there was a train from Victoria to Brighton at 11.30. Hilda seemed to sigh relief, and her demeanour changed. But Edwin's uneasiness was only intensified. Brighton, which he had never seen, was in another hemisphere for him. It was mysterious, like her. It was part of her mystery. What could he do? His curse was that he had no initiative. Without her relentless force he would never have penetrated even as far as the stuffy room, with a unique Bradshaw lay. It was she who had taken him to the station, not he her. How could he hold her back from Brighton? When they came again to the blood-tub, she said, couldn't we just go and look? I've got plenty of time, now I know exactly how I stand. She halted and glanced across the road. He could only agree to the proposition, for himself a peculiar sense of delicacy would have made it impossible for him to intrude his prosperity upon the deliberations of starving artisans on strike and stricken. And he wondered what the potters might think or say about the invasion by a woman. But he had to traverse the street with her and enter with an air of masculine protectiveness. The urchins stood apart to let them in. Snags, dimly lit by a few glazed apertures in the roof, was nearly crammed by men who sat on the low benches and leaned standing against the side walls. In the small and taudry proscenium behind a worn picture of the Bay of Naples were silhouetted the figures of the men's leader and of several other officials. The leader was speaking in a quiet, mild voice. The other officials were seated on Windsor chairs. The smell of the place was nauseating and yet the atmosphere was bitingly cold. The warm-wrapped visitors could see rows and rows of discoloured backs and elbows and caps and stringy kerchiefs. They could almost feel the contraction of thousands of muscles in an involuntary effort to squeeze out the chill from all these bodies. Not a score of overcoats could be discerned in the whole theatre and many of the jackets were thin and ragged, but the officials had overcoats and the visitors could almost see as it were in rays the intense fixed glances darting from every part of the interior and piercing the upright figure in the centre of the stage. Some method of compromise the leader was saying in his pervasive tones a young man sprang up furiously from the middle benches. To hell with compromise he shouted in a tigerish passion. Haven't us had forty pounds from America? Order, order! some protested fiercely. But one voice cried pitch the bastard out, neck and crop, hands clawed at the interrupter and dragged him with extreme violence to the level of the bench where he muttered like a dying volcano. Angry growls shot up here and there snappish, menacing and bestial. It is quite true, said the leader soothingly, that our comrades at Trenton have collected forty pounds for us, but forty pounds would scarcely pay for a loaf of bread for one man in every ten on strike. There was more interruption, the dangerous growls continued in running explosions along the benches. The leader ignoring them turned to consult with his neighbour and then faced his audience and called out more loudly. The business of the meeting is at an end. The entire multitude jumped up and there was dredging of arms and stamping of feet. The men nearest to the door now perceived Edwin and Hilda who moved backwards as before a flood. Edwin seized Hilda's arm to hasten her. Lads bowled an old man's voice from near the stage, let's sing Rock of Ages. A frowning and hirsued fellow near the door with the veins prominent on his red forehead shouted hoarsely. Rock of Ages be buggered and shifting his hands into his pockets he plunged for the street head foremost and chin sticking out murderously. Edwin and Hilda escaped at speed and recrossed the road. The crowd came surging out of the narrow neck of the building and spread over the pavements like a sinister liquid. But from within the building came the lusty song of Rock of Ages. It's terrible Hilda murmured after a silence. Just to see them is enough I shall never forget what you said. What was that he inquired? He knew what it was but he wished to prolong the taste of her appreciation. That you've only got to see the poor things to know they're in the right. Oh, I've lost my handkerchief unless I've left it in your shop. It must have dropped out of my muff. Part four. The shop was closed. As with his latch-key he opened the private door and then stood on one side for her to proceed him into the corridor that led to the back of the shop. He watched the stream of operatives scattering across duck bank and descending towards the square. It was as if he and Hilda being pursued were escaping. And as Hilda, stopping an instant on the steps, saw what he saw, her face took a troubled expression. They both went in and he shut the door. Turn to the left he said wondering whether the big Columbia machine would be running for her to see if she chose. Oh, this takes you to the shop, does it? How funny to be behind the counter. He thought she spoke self-consciously in the way of small talk which was contrary to her habit. Here's my handkerchief she cried with pleasure. It was on the counter a little white wisp in the grey-sheeted gloom. Stifford must have found it on the floor and picked it up. The idea flashed through Edwin's head. Did she leave her handkerchief on purpose so that we should have to come back here? The only illumination of the shop was from the three or four diamond-shaped holes in the upper part of other's many shutters. No object was at first quite distinct. The corners were very dark. All merchandise not in drawers or on shelves was hidden in pale dust cloths. A chair wrong side up was on the fancy counter, its back hanging over the front of the counter. Hilda had wandered behind the other counter and Edwin was in the middle of the shop. Her face in the twilight had become more mysterious than ever. He was in a state of emotion but he did not know to what category the emotion belonged. They were alone. Stifford had gone for the half-holiday. Darius Sickley would certainly not come near. The printers were working as usual in their place and the clanking were of a treadle-machine overhead agitated the ceiling. But nobody would enter the shop. His excitement increased but did not define itself. There was a sudden roar in Duck Square and then cries. What can that be? Hilda asked Lowell. Some of the strikers he answered and went through the doors to the letter-hole in the central shutter, lifted the flap and looked through. A struggle was in progress at the entrance to the Duck Inn. One man was apparently drunk, others were jeering on the skirts of the lean crowd. It's some sort of fight among them, said Edwin loudly so that she could hear in the shop. But at the same instant he felt the wind of the door swinging behind him and Hilda was silently at his elbow. Let me look. Assuredly her voice was trembling. He moved as little as possible and held the flap up for her. She bent and gazed. He could hear various noises in the square but she described nothing to him. After a long while she withdrew from the hole. A lot of them have gone into the public house, she said. The others seem to be moving away. There's a policeman. What a shame she burst out passionately that they have to drink to forget their trouble. She made no remark upon the strangeness of starving workmen being able to pay for beer sufficient to intoxicate themselves. Nor did she comment as a woman on the misery of the wives and children at home in the slums and the cheap cottage rows. She merely compassionate the men in that they were driven to brutishness. Her features showed painful pity masking disgust. She stepped back into the shop. Do you know she began in a new tone? You've quite altered my notion of poetry. What you said as we were going up to the station. Really he smiled nervously. He was very pleased. He would have been astounded by this speech from her, a professed devotee of poetry, if in those instances the capacity for astonishment had remained to him. Yes, she said, and continued frowning and picking at her muff. But you do alter my notions. I don't know how it is. So this is your little 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, yet a moment before she seemed to have infinite leisure. Shall you be at bright and long, he demanded, and scarcely recognized his 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. Goodbye, she said, quavering. Thanks very much. She held out her hand. But he took her hand. His suffering was intolerable. It was torture of the most exquisite kind. Her hand pressed his. Something snapped in him. His left hand hovered shaking over her shoulder, and then touched her shoulder, and he could feel her left hand on his arm. The embrace was clumsy in its instinctive and unskilled violence, but its clumsiness was redeemed by all his sincerity and all hers. His eyes were within six inches of her eyes, full of delicious shame, anxiety, and surrender. They kissed. He had amourously kissed a woman. All his past life sank away, and he began a new life on the impetus of that supreme and final emotion. It was an emotion that in its freshness, agitating and divine, could never be renewed. He had felt the virgin answer of her lips on his. She had told him everything. She had yielded up her mystery in a second of time. Her courage in responding to his caress ravaged and amazed him. She was so unaffected, so simple, so heroic, and the cool, delicate purity of those lips, and the faint feminine odour of her flesh and even of her stuffs. Dreams and visions were surpassed. He said to himself in the flood-tide of masculinity, my God, she's mine, and it seemed incredible. Part 5 She was sitting in the office chair, he on the desk. She said in a trembling 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 only really known her for one instant, that he was bound to a woman entrancing, noble, but impenetrable. And this in spite of the fact that he was close to her, touching her, tingling to her in the confined, crepuscular intimacy of the cubicle. He could trace every movement of her breast as she breathed, and yet she escaped the inward searching of his gaze, but he was happy. He was happy enough to repel all anxieties and inquietitudes about the future. He was steeped in the bliss of the miracle. 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. She leaned towards him. Didn't you know? Of course you did. You couldn'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 important letters to write. She clasped his hand. There it was again. She spoke just like a man of business, immersed in secret schemes. It's awfully funny, he said. I scarcely know anything about you, and yet I'm Janet's friend, she answered. Perhaps it was the delicatest reproof 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 such questions. I thought you were. I suppose you know I've got no relatives, she said, as if relenting from her attitude of reproof. Fortunately father left just enough money for me to live on. Must you go to Brighton? She nodded. Where can I write to? It will depend, she said, but I shall send you the address tomorrow. I shall write you before I go to bed, whether it's to-night or 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 this friend 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 to roll to and fro thunderously. She shivered. The fire was dead out in the stove, and the chill of night 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 ownership. No, it will be better not. Let me out. Really, really? But who'll take you to K'nipe Station? Janet will go with me. She rose reluctantly. In the darkness they were now only dim forms to each other. He struck a match that blinded them and expired as they reached the passage. When she had gone he stood hapless at the open side door. Right at the top of Duck Bank he could discern under the big lamp there a nod of gesticulating and shouting strikers menacing two policemen. And farther off in the direction of Mawthorn Road, other strikers were running. The yellow-lit blinds of the duck in across the square seemed to screen a house of impenetrable conspiracies and debaucheries. And all that grim, perilous background only gave to his emotions a further intensity, troubling them to still, stranger ecstasy. He thought, it has happened to me too now this thing that is at the bottom of everyone's mind. I've kissed her, I've got her. She's marvellous, marvellous. I couldn't have believed it, but is it true, has it happened? It passed his credence. By Jove I absolutely forgot about the ring. That's a nice howdy-doo. He saw himself married, he thought of Clara's grotesque antics with her tedious babe, and he thought of his father and of vexations. But that night he was a man. She healed her with her independence and her mystery had inspired him with a full pride of manhood, and he discovered that one of the chief attributes of a man is an immense tenderness. End of Volume 2 Chapter 20 The Man Volume 2 Chapter 21 Of Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 21 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 made him proud. It was her mysteriousness that agitated him, and her absence rendered him unhappy in his triumph. During the whole of Friday he was thinking, Tomorrow is Saturday and I shall have her address and a letter from her. He decided that there was no hope of a letter by the late post on Friday, but as the hour of the last post drew nigh he grew excited and was quite appreciably disappointed when it brought nothing. The fear which had always existed in little then waxed into enormous dread, that Saturday's post also would bring nothing. His maneuvers in the early twilight of Saturday morning were complicated by the fact that it had not been arranged whether she should write to the shop or to the house. However, he prepared for either event by having his breakfast at seven o'clock on the plea of special work in the shop. He had finished it at half past seven and was waiting for the postman whose route he commanded from the dining-room window. The postman arrived. Edwin, with false calm, walked into the hall, saying to himself that if the letter was not in the box it would be at the shop. But the letter was in the box. He recognised her sprawling hand on the envelope through the wire work. He snatched the letter and slipped upstairs with it like a fox with a chicken. It had come then. The letter safely in his hands. He admitted more frankly that he had been very doubtful of its promptitude. 59 Preston Street Brighton 1 a.m. Dearest, this is my address. I love you. Every bit of me is absolutely yours. Write me. H.L. That was all. It was enough. Its tone enchanted him. Also it startled him. But it reminded him of her lips. He had begun a letter to her. He saw now that what he had written was too cold in the expression of his feelings. Hilda's note suddenly and completely altered his views upon the composition of love letters. Every bit of me is absolutely yours. How fine. How untrammeled. How like Hilda. What other girl could or would have written such a phrase? More than ever was he convinced that she was unique. The thrill divine quickened in him again and he rose eagerly to her level of passion. The romance, the secrecy, the mystery, the fever, he walked down Trafalgar Road with the letter in his pocket, and once he pulled it out to read it in the street. His discretion objected to this act. But Edwin was not his own master. Stiffard, hurrying in exactly at eight, was somewhat perturbed to find his employer's son already installed in the cubicle, writing by the light of gas, as the shutters were not removed. Edwin had finished and stamped his first love letter, just as his father entered the cubicle. Owing to dyspeptic accidents, Darius had not set foot in the cubicle since it had been sanctified by Hilda. Edwin, leaving it, glanced at the old man's back and thought disdainfully, Ah, you little know, you rhinoceros, that less than two days ago she and I on that very spot. As soon as his father had gone to pay the morning visit to the printing shops, he ran out to post the letter himself. He could not be contented until it was in the post. Now when he saw men of about his own class and age in the street, he would speculate upon their experiences in the romance of women. And it did genuinely seem to him impossible that anybody else in a town like Bursley could have passed through an episode so exquisitely strange and beautiful, as that through which he was passing. Yet his reason told him that he must be wrong there. His reason, however, left him tranquil in the assurance that no girl in Bursley had ever written to her affianced, I love you every bit of me is absolutely yours. Hilda's second letter did not arrive till the following Tuesday, by which time he had become distracted by fears and doubts. Yes, doubts. No rational being could have been more loyal than Edwin, but these little doubts would keep shooting up and withering away. He could not control them. The second letter was nearly as short as the first. It told him nothing save her love, and that she was very worried by her friend's situation and that his letters were a joy. She had had a letter from him each day. In his reply to her second he gently implied between two lines that her letters lacked quantity and frequency. She answered, I simply cannot write letters, it isn't in me. Can't you tell that from my handwriting? Not even to you. You must take me as I am. She wrote each day for three days. Edwin was one of those who learned quickly by the acceptance of facts, and he now learnt that profound lesson that an individual must be taken or left in entirety, and that you cannot change an object merely because you love it. Indeed he saw in her phrase, you must take me as I am, the accents of original and fundamental wisdom, springing from the very roots of life, and he submitted. At intervals he would say resentfully, but surely she could find five minutes each day to drop me a line, what's five minutes? But he submitted. Submission was made easier when he coordinated with Hilda's idiosyncrasy, the fact that Maggie, his own unromantic sister, could never begin to write a letter with less than from twelve to twenty-four hours bracing of a self 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 the angels of the creative spirit. His unhappiness increased with the deepening of the impression that the loved creature was treating him with cruelty. Time dragged. At length he had been engaged a fortnight. On Thursday a letter should have come, it came not. Nor on Friday, nor Saturday. On Sunday it must come. But it did not come on Sunday. He determined to telegraph to her on the Monday morning. His loyalty, though valorous, needed aid against all those pricking battalions of ephemeral doubts. On the Sunday evening he suddenly had the idea of strengthening himself by a process that resembled boat-burning. He would speak to his father. His father's mentality was the core of a difficulty that troubled him exceedingly, and he took it into his head to attack the difficulty at once on the spot. For years past Daria's clay-hanger had not gone to chapel on Sunday evening. In the morning he still went fairly regularly, but in the evening he would now sit in the drawing-room, generally alone to read. On weekdays he never used the drawing-room, where indeed there was seldom a fire. He had been accustomed to only one living-room, and save on Sunday when he cared to bend the major part of his mind to the matter, he scorned to complicate existence by utilising all the resources of the house which he had built. His children might do so, but not he. He was proud enough to see to it that his house had a drawing-room, and too proud to employ the drawing-room except on the ceremonious day. After tea at about a quarter to six, when chapel-goers were hurriedly pulling gloves on, he would begin to establish himself in a saddle-backed, ear-flapped, easy chair, with the Christian news and an ivory paper-knife as long and nearly as deadly as a scimitar. The Christian news was a religious weekly of a new type. It belonged to a Mr James bot, and it gave to God and to the mysteries of religious experience a bright and breezy actuality. Daria's children had damned it forever on its first issue, in which Clara had found, in a report of a very important charitable meeting, the following words. Among those present were the Prince of Wales and Mr James bot. Such is the hasty and undjudicial nature of children that this single sentence finished the career of the Christian news with the younger generation. But Daria's liked it and continued to like it. He enjoyed it. He would spend an hour and a half in reading it, and further he enjoyed cutting open the morsel. Once when Edwin, in hope of more laughter, had cut the pages on a Saturday afternoon, and his father had found himself unable to use the paper-knife on Sunday evening, there had been a formidable inquiry. Who's been meddling with my paper? Daria saved the paper even from himself until Sunday evening. Not till then would he touch it. This habit had flourished for several years. It appeared never to lose its charm, and Edwin did not seize to marvel at his father's pleasure in a tedious monotony. It was the hallowed riot of reading the Christian news that Edwin disturbed in his sudden and capricious resolve. Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to Chapel for Mrs Nixon by reason of her years, bearing, mantle, and reputation, could walk down Trafalgar Road by the side of her mistress on a Sunday night without offence to the delicate instincts of the town. The niece engaged to be married at an age absurdly youthful had been permitted by Mrs Nixon the joy of attending even-song at the Bleak Ridge Church on the arm of a male, but under-promised to be back at a quarter to eight to set supper. The house was perfectly still when Edwin came all on fire out of his bedroom and slid down the stairs. The gas burned economically low within its stained glass cage in the hall. The drawing-room door was unlatched. He hesitated a moment on the mat, and he could hear the calm ticking of the clock in the kitchen, and see the red glint of the kitchen fire against the wall. Then he entered, looking and feeling apologetic. His father was all curt and in, his slippered feet on the fender of the blazing hearth, his head cushioned to a nicety, the long paper knife across his knees, and the room was really hot and in a glow of light. Darius turned, and lowering his face gazed at Edwin over the top of his new gold-rimmed spectacles. 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, and maintained his frown. He was displeased at the interruption. Edwin failed to shut the door at the first attempt, and then banged it in his nervousness. In spite of himself, he felt like a criminal. Coming forward, he leaned his loose, slim frame against the corner of the old piano. Part 3 Well, Darius growled impatiently, even savagely. They saw each other not once a week, but at nearly every hour of every day, and they were surfited of the companionship. Supposing I wanted to get married, this sentence shot out of Edwin's mouth like a bolt, and as it flew he blushed very red. In the privacy of his mind he was horribly swearing. So that's it, isn't it? Darius growled again, and he leaned forward and picked up the poker, not as a menace, but because he too was nervous. As an opposer of his son, he had never quite the same confidence in himself since Edwin's historic fury had been suspected of theft, though apparently their relations had resumed the old basis of bullying and submission. Well, Edwin hesitated, he thought. After all, people do get married, it won't be a crime. Who's been running after? Darius demanded inimically. Instead of being softened by this rumour of love, by this hint that his son had been passing through wondrous secret hours, he instinctively and without any reason hardened himself and transformed the news into an offence. He felt no sympathy, and it did not occur to him to recall that he too had once thought of marrying. He was a man whom life had brutalised about half a century earlier. I was only thinking, said Edwin clumsily, the fool had not sense enough even to sit down. I was only thinking, suppose I did want to get married. Who's 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's Miss Lesway's father, Hilda Lesway's, you know. Her has 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 not possibly have said four days. Mind you, this is strictly QT. Nobody knows a word about it, nobody. But of course I thought I'd better tell you. You'll say nothing. He tried wistfully to appeal as one loyal man to another, but he failed. There was no ray of response on his father's gloomy features, and he slipped back insensibly into the boy whose right to an individual existence had never been formally admitted. Something base in him, something of that baseness which occasionally actuates the oppressed, made him add, she's got an income of her own, her father left money. He conceived that this would placate Darius. I know all about her father, Darius sneered with a short laugh, and her father's father. Well, lad, you'll go your own road. He appeared to have no further interest in the affair. Edwin was not surprised, for Darius was seemingly never interested in anything except his business. And 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 a little sharpness into his tone. I couldn't marry on seventeen and six a week, could I? At the age of twenty-five, at the end of the nine years' experience in the management and the accountancy of a general printing and stationery business, Edwin was receiving seventeen shillings and six months for a sixty-five hour week's work. The explanation being that on his father's death the whole enterprise would be his, and that all money saved was saved for him. Out of this sum he had to pay ten shillings a week to Maggie towards the cost of board and lodging, so that three half-crowns remained for his person and his soul. Thus he could expect no independence of any kind until his father's death, and he had a direct and powerful interest in his father's death. Moreover, all his future and all unpaid reward of his labours in the past hung hazardous on his father's good will. If he quarreled with him he might lose everything. Edwin was one of the few odd-minded persons who did not regard this arrangement as perfectly just, proper and in accordance with sound precedent. But he was helpless, his father would tell him and did tell him, that he had fought no struggles, suffered no hardship, had no responsibility, and that he was simply coddled from head to foot in cotton wool. 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, as Darius, with mild cold scorn as you getting married will start your services worth one penny more to my business? And he waited an answer with the august calm of one who is aware that he is unanswerable. But he might with equal propriety have tied his son's hands behind him, and then diverted himself by punching his head. I do all I can, said Edwin Meekly. And what about getting orders, Darius, question grimly? Didn't I offer you two-and-a-half percent on all new customers you got yourself? And how many have you got? Not one. I give you a chance to make extra money and you don't take it. You'd sooner go running about after girls. This was a particular grievance of the father against the son that the son brought no grist to the mill in the shape of new orders. But how can I get orders, Edwin protested? How did I get them? How do I get them? Somebody has to get them. The old man's lips were pressed together, and he waved the Christian news slightly in his left hand. Part 4 In a few minutes both their voices had risen. Darius, savage, stooped to replace with the shovel a large burning coal that had dropped on the tiles, and was sending up a column of brown smoke. I'll tell you what I shall do, he said, controlling himself bitterly. It's against my judgment, but I shall put you up to a pound a week at the new year, if all goes well, of course. And it's good money, let me add. He was entirely serious and almost sincere. He loathed paying money over to his son. He was convinced that in an ideal world sons would toil gratis for their fathers who lodged and fed them, and gifted them with a reversion of excellent businesses. But what goods a pound a week Edwin demanded with the crarolousness of one who is losing hope? What goods 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 Leswayes on a pound a week Edwin murmured in despair, his lower lip hanging. I thought you might perhaps be offering me a partnership by this time. Possibly in some mad hour a thought so wild had indeed flittered through his brain. Did you? rejoined Darius, and in the fearful grimness of the man's accents, was concealed all his intense and egotistic sense of possessing in absolute ownership the business which the little boy out of the Bastille had practically created. Edwin did not and could not understand the fierce strength of his father's emotion concerning the business. Already, intassedly agreeing to leave Edwin the business after his 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 the slightest reference to the proceeds of the building society's share. I haven't spent all of it, Edwin mutton. Do what he could with his brain the project of marriage and house tenancy and a separate existence obstinately presented itself to him as fantastic and preposterous. Who was he to ask so much from destiny? He could not feel that he was a man. In his father's presence he never could feel that he was a man. He remained a boy with no rights, moral, or material. And if ye say she's got money of her own, Darius remarked and was considerably astonished when the boy walked straight out of the room and closed the door. It was his last grain of common sense that took Edwin in silence out of the room. Miserable, despicable baseness! Did the old devil suppose that he would be capable of asking his wife to find the resources which he himself could not bring? He was to say to his wife, I can only supply a pound a week, but as you've got money it won't matter. The mere notion outraged him so awfully that if he had stayed in the room there would have been an altercation and perhaps a permanent estrangement. As he stood furious and impotent in the hall, he thought, with his imagination quickened by the memory of Mr. Shushian's, when you're old and I've got you, he clenched his fists and his teeth when I've got you and you can't help yourself by God it'll be my turn, and he meant it. Part 5 He seized his overcoat and hat and putting them on any house strode out. The kitchen clock struck half-past seven as he left. Chapelgoers would soon be returning in a thin procession of twos and threes up Trafalgar Road. To avoid meeting acquaintances he turned down the side street towards the old road which was a continuation of Abu Qiyah Street. There he would be safe. Letting his overcoat fly open he thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. It was a cold night of mist. Humanity was separated from him by the semi-transparent blinds of the cottage windows, bright squares in the dark and enigmatic facades of the street. He was alone. All along he had felt and known that this disgusting crisis would come to pass. He had hoped against it, but not with faith, and he had no remedy for it. What could he immediately and effectively do? He was convinced that his father would not yield. There were frequent occasions when his father was proof against reason, when his father seemed genuinely unable to admit the claim of justice, and this occasion was one of them. He could tell by certain peculiarities of tone and gesture. A pound a week. Assuming that he cut loose from his father in a formal and confessed separation, he might not for a long time be in a position to earn more than a pound a week. A clerk was worth no more, and except as responsible manager of a business he could only go into the market as a clerk. In the five towns how many printing officers were there that might at some time or another be in need of a manager? Probably not one. There were all of modest importance and directed personally by their proprietary heads. His father was one of the largest. No, his father had nurtured and trained in him a helpless slave. And how could he discuss such a humiliating question with Hilda? Could he say to Hilda, see here my father won't allow more than a pound a week. What are we to do? In what terms should he telegraph to her tomorrow? He heard the rapid firm footsteps of a wayfarer overtaking him. He had no apprehension of being disturbed in his bitter rage, but a hand was slapped on his shoulder and a jolly voice said, Now, Edwin, where's this road leading you to on a Sunday night? It was Osmond Orgreave, who having been tramping for exercise in the high regions beyond the loop railway line, was just going home. Oh, nowhere in particular, said Edwin Feebly. Working off Sunday dinner, eh? Yes, and Edwin added casually to prove there was nothing singular 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, so you may as well give up first as last. Janet's in, she's like you and me, she's a bad lot, hasn't been to church. He took Edwin by the arm and they turned into Oak Street at the lower end. Edwin continued to object, but Mr. Orgreave unable to scrutinise his face in the darkness, and not dreaming of an indiscretion, rode over his weak negatives, horse and foot, and drew him by force into the garden, and in the hall took his hat away from him, and slit his overcoat from his shoulders. Mr. Orgreave having accomplished a lot of forbidden labour on that Sabbath was playful in his hospitality. Prisoner, take charge of him, exclaimed Mr. Orgreave shortly, as he pushed Edwin into the breakfast-room and shut the door from the outside. Janet was there, exquisitely welcoming, unconsciously pouring balm from her eyes, but he thought she looked graver than usual. Edwin had to enact the part of a man to whom nothing had happened. He had to behave as though his father was the kindest and most reasonable of fathers, as though Hilda wrote fully to him every day, as though he were not even engaged to Hilda. He must talk, and he scarcely knew what he was saying. Heard lately from his lesways he asked lightly or as lightly as he could. It was a splendid effort, impossible to expect him to start upon the weather or the strike. He did the best he could. Janet's eyes became troubled. Speaking in a low voice, she said with a glance at the door, I suppose you've not heard. She's married. He did not move. Part 6 Married? Yes, it is rather sudden, isn't it? Janet tried to smile, but she was exceedingly self-conscious. To a Mr. Cannon, she's known him for a very long time, I think. When? Yesterday. I had a note this morning. It's quite a secret yet. I haven't told father and mother, but she asked me to tell you if I saw you. 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 home a second, he said, after a moment. I'll be back in three minutes. But he had no intention of coming back. He would have told any lie in order to be free. In his bedroom, looking at himself in the glass, he could detect on his face no sign whatever of suffering or of agitation. It seemed just an ordinary, mild, unmoved face. And this, too, he had always felt and known would come to pass, that Hilda would not be his. All that romance was unreal. It was not true. It had never happened. Such a thing could not happen to such as he was. He could not reflect, when he tried to reflect the top of his head seemed as though it would fly off. Cannon! She was with Cannon somewhere at that very instant. She had specially asked that he should be told. And indeed he had been told before even Mr. and Mrs. Orgreave. Cannon! She might at that very instant be in Cannon's arms. It could be said of Edwin that he fully lived that night. Fate had at any rate roused him from the coma which most men called existence. Simple Maggie was upset because, from Edwin's absence, and her father's demeanor at supper she knew that her menfolk had had another terrible discussion. And since her father offered no remark as to it, she guessed that this one must be even more serious than the last. There was one thing that Edwin could not fit into any of his theories of the disaster, which had overtaken him, and that was his memory of Hilda's divine gesture as she bent over Mr. Shushion's on the morning of the centenary. End of Volume 2 Chapter 21 Volume 3 Chapter 1 Book 3 His Freedom This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 1 After a Funeral Four and a half years later, on a Tuesday night in April 1886, Edwin was reading in an easy chair in his bedroom. He made a very image of solitary comfort. The easy chair had been taken from the dining room silently without permission, and Darius had apparently not noticed its removal. A deep chair designed by someone learned in the poses natural to the mortal body, it was firm where it ought to be firm, and where it ought to yield there it yielded. By its own angles it threw the head slightly back and the knees slightly up. Edwin's slippered feet rested on a hassic, and in front of the hassic was a red glowing gas stove. That stove, like the easy chair, had been acquired by Edwin at his father's expense, without his father's cognizance. It consumed gas whose price swelled the quarterly bill three times a year, and Darius observed nothing. He had not even entered his son's bedroom for several years. Each month seemed to limit further his interest in surrounding phenomena, and to centralise more completely all his faculties in his business. Over Edwin's head the gas jet flamed through one of Darius's special private burners, lighting the page of a little book, one of Castle's National Library, a new series of sixpony reprints which had considerably excited the book-selling and the book-reading worlds, but which Darius had apparently quite ignored, though confronted in his house and in his shop by multitudinous examples of it. Sometimes Edwin would almost be persuaded to think that he might safely indulge any caprice whatever under his father's nose, and then the old man would notice some unusual trifle of no conceivable importance, and go into a passion about it. And Maggie would say quietly, I told you what would be happening one of these days, which would annoy Edwin. His annoyance was caused less by Maggie's I told you so than by her lack of logic. If his father had ever overtaken him in some large and desperate caprice, such as the purchase of the gas stove on the paternal account, he would have submitted in meekness to Maggie's triumphant reminder, but his father never did. It was always upon some perfectly innocent nothing which the timidest son might have permitted himself that the wrath of Darius overwhelmingly burst. Maggie and Edwin understood each other on the whole very well. Only in minor points did their sympathy fail. And as Edwin would be exasperated because Maggie's attitude towards argument was that of a woman, so would Maggie resent a certain moulishness in him characteristic of the unfathomable stupid sex. Once a week, for example, when his room was done out, there was invariably a skirmish between them because Edwin really did hate anybody to meddle among his things. The derangement of even a brush on the dressing-table would rankle in his mind. Also he was very crotchety about his meals. And on the subject of fresh air, unless he was sitting in a perceptible drought, he thought he was being poisoned by nitrogen. But when he could see the curtains or blind trembling in the wind he was hygienically at ease. His existence was a series of cotaro-colds which, however, as he would learnedly explain to Maggie, could not be connected in the brain of a reasonable person with currents of fresh air. Maggie mutely disdained his science. This, too, fretted him. Occasionally she would somewhat tartly assert that he was a regular old maid. The accusation made no impression on him at all. But when more than ordinarily exacerbated she sang out that he was exactly like his father, he felt wounded. Part 2 The appearance of his bedroom and the fact that he enjoyed being in it alone gave some ground for Maggie's first accusation. A screen hid the bed and this screen was half covered with written papers of memoranda. Roughly it divided the room into dormitory and study. The whole chamber was occupied by Edwin's personal goods, great and small, ranged in the most careful order. It was full. In the occupation of a young man who was not precociously an old maid it would have been littered. It was a complex and yet practical apparatus for daily use, completely organised for the production of comfort. Edwin would move about in it with the loving and assured gestures of a creator, and always he was improving its perfection. His bedroom was his passion. Often during the wilderness of the day he would think of his bedroom as a refuge to which in the evening he should hasten. Ascending the stairs after the meal his heart would run on in advance of his legs and be within the room before his hand had opened the door. And then he would close the door as upon the whole tedious world, and turn up the gas and light the stove with an explosive 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, dwelling upon piled and serried volumes, and delighting in orderliness and inconvenience. And he would reflect, this is my life, this is what I shall always live for, this is the best, and why not. It seemed to him when he was alone in his bedroom and in the night that he had respectively well solved the problem offered to him by destiny. He insisted to himself sharply that he was not made for marriage, that he had always known marriage to be impossible for him, that what had happened was bound to have happened, for a few weeks he had lived in a fool's paradise that was all. Fantastic scheme! Mad self-deception! In such wise he thought of his love affair. His profound satisfaction was that none except his father knew of it, and even his father did not know how far it had gone. He felt that if the town had been aware of his jolting, he could not have borne the humiliation. To himself he had been horribly humiliated, but he had recovered in his own esteem. It was only by very slow processes, by insensible degrees, that he had arrived at the stage of being able to say to his mirror, I've got over that. And who could judge better than he? He could trace no mark of the episode in his face. Say, for the detail of a moustache, it seemed to him that he had looked on precisely the same unchangeable face for a dozen years. Strange that suffering had left no sign. Strange that in the months just after Hilda's marriage no acquaintance had taken him on one side and said, What is the tragedy I can read in your features? And indeed the truth was that no one suspected. The vision of his face would remain with people long after he had passed them in the street or spoken to them in the shop. The charm of his sadness persisted in their memory, but they would easily explain it to themselves by saying that his face had a naturally melancholy cast, a sort of accident that had happened to him in the beginning. He had a considerable reputation of which he was imperfectly aware for secretiveness, timidity, gentleness, and intellectual superiority. Sundry young women thought of him wistfully when smiling upon quite other men and would even kiss him while kissing them, according to the notorious perversity of love. Part 3 He was reading Swift's tale of a tub eagerly, tasting with a pallet consciously fastidious and yet catholic the fine saver of a masterpiece. By his secret enthusiasm which would escape from him at rare intervals in a word to a friend, he was continuing the reputation of the tale of a tub from one century towards the next. A classic remains a classic only because a few hundred Edwins up and down England enjoy it so heartily that their pleasure becomes religious. Edwin, according to his programme, had no right to be amusing himself with Swift at that hour. The Portley Hallam, whom he found tedious, ought to have been in his hands, but Swift had caught him and would not let him go. Herein was one of the consequences of the pocketableness of Castle's new series. Edwin had been obliged to agree with Tom Orgreave, now a married man, that the books were not volumes for a collector, but they were so cheap and they came from the press so often, once a week, and they could be carried so comfortably over the heart that he could not resist most of them. His professed idea was that by their aid he could read smaller works in odd moments at any time thus surpassing his programme. He had not foreseen that Swift would make a breach in his programme, which was already in a bad way. But he went on reading tranquilly despite the damage to it, for in the immediate future shone the hope of the new life, when programmes would never be neglected, unless in a month he would be thirty years of age. At twenty it had seemed a great age, an age of absolute maturity. Now he felt as young and as boyish as ever, especially before his father, and he perceived that his vague early notion about the finality of such an age as thirty had been infantile. Nevertheless the entry into another decade presented itself to him as solemn, and he meant to signalise it by new and mightier resolutions to execute faster programmes. He was intermittently engaged during these weeks in the delicious, the enchanting business of constructing the ideal programme, and scheming the spare hours to ensure its achievement. He lived in a dream and illusion of ultimate perfection. Several times despite the smell of Swift he glanced at his watch. The hand went from nine to ten minutes past ten, and then he thought he heard the sound for which he had been listening. He jumped up, abandoned the book with its marker, opened the window wide, and lifting the blind by its rod put his head out. Yes, he could hear the yelling afar off over the hill, softened by distance into something gentle and attractive. Signal, signal, special edition, signal, and then words incomprehensible. It came nearer in the night. He drew down the window and left the room. The mere distant sound of the newsboy's voices had roused him to a pleasing excitement. He fumbled in his pockets. He had neither a halfpenny nor a penny. It was just like him, and those newsboys with their valuable tidings would not care to halt and weigh out change with a balance. Got a halfpenny quick, he cried, running into the kitchen where Maggie and Mrs. Nixon were engaged in some calm and endless domestic occupation amid linen that hung down whitely. What for Maggie mechanically asked, feeling the while under her apron? 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 within patience. It was absolutely astonishing the ignorance in which Maggie lived and lived efficiently and in content. Edwin filled the house with newspapers, and she never looked at them, never had the idea of looking at them, unless occasionally at the signal for an account of a wedding or a bazaar, in which case she would glance at the world for an instant with mild naivety, shocked by the horrible things that were apparently going on there, and in five minutes would forget all about it again. Here the whole of England, Ireland, and Scotland was at its front doors that night waiting for newsboys, and to her the night was like any other night, yet she read many books. Here's the penny, she said, don't forget to give it me back. He ran out bare-headed, at the corner of the street someone else was expecting. He could distinguish all the words now. Signal, special edition, Master Gladstone's home rule bill, full report, Gladstone's speech, special. The dark running figures approached, stopping at frequent gates, and their horse voices split the night. The next moment they had gone by, in a flying column, and Edwin and the other man found themselves with fluttering paper in their hands, they knew not how. It was the most unceremonious snatch and thrust transaction that could be imagined. Bleak ridge was silent again, and its gates closed, and the shouts were descending violently into Bursley. Where's Father Maggie called out when she heard Edwin in the hall? Has any come in yet? Edwin replied negligently as he mounted the stairs with his desire. In his room he settled himself once more under the gas, and opened the flimsy newspaper with joy. Yes, there it was, columns, columns, in small type. An hour or two previously Gladstone had been speaking in Parliament, and by magic the whole of his speech with all the little convolutions of his intricate sentences had got into Edwin's bedroom. Edwin began to read as it were voluptuously. Not that he had a peculiar interest in Irish politics, what he had was a passion for great news, for news long expected. He would thrill responsively to a fine event. I say that his pleasure had the voluptuousness of an artistic sensation. Moreover the attraction of politics in general was increasing for him. Politics occupied his mind, often obsessing it. And this was so in spite of the fact that he had done almost nothing in the last election, and that the pillars of the Liberal Club were beginning to suspect him of being a weakling who might follow his father into the wilderness between two frontiers. As he read the speech slowly disengaging its significance from the thicket of words, it seemed incredible. A Parliament in Dublin, the Irish taxing themselves according to their own caprices, the Irish controlling the Royal Irish Constabulary, the Irish members withdrawn from Westminster. A separate nation, surely Gladstone could not mean it. The project had the same air of unreality as that of his marriage with Hilda. It did not convince. It was too good to be true. It could not materialise itself. And yet, as his glance flitting from left to right and right to left, eagerly reached the bottom of one column and jumped with a crinkling of paper to the top of the next, and then to the next after that the sense of unreality did depart. He agreed with the principles of the Bill and with all its details. Whatever Gladstone had proposed would have received his sympathy. He was persuaded in advance. He concurred in advance. All he lacked was faith. And those sentences helped by his image of the aged legislator, dominating the house and by the wondrous legend of the orator's divine power those long, stretching, majestic, misty sentences gave him faith. Henceforth he was an ardent home-ruler. Reason might or might not have entered into the affair had the circumstances of it been other, but in fact reason did not. Faith alone sufficed. Forever afterwards argument about home-rule was merely tedious to him, and he had difficulty in crediting that opponents of it were neither stupid nor insincere. Home-rule was part of his religion and beyond and above argument. He wondered what they were saying at the Liberal Club and smiled disdainfully at the thought of the unseemly language that would animate the luxurious heaviness of the conservative club, where prominent publicans gathered after eleven o'clock to uphold the state and arrange a few bets with sporting clients. He admitted as the supreme importance of the night leapt out at him from the printed page that if only for form's sake he ought to have been at the Liberal Club that evening. He had been requested to go, but had refused because on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he always spent the evening in study, or in the semblance of study. He would not break that rule even in honour of the culmination of the dazzling career of his political idol. Perhaps another proof of the justice of Maggie's assertion that he was a regular old maid. He knew what his father would say. His father would be furious. His father in his uncontrolled fury would destroy Gladstone, and such was his father's empire over him that he was almost ready on Gladstone's behalf to adopt an apologetic and slightly shamed attitude to his father concerning this madness of home rule, to admit by his self-conscious blushes that it was madness. He well knew that at breakfast the next morning, in spite of any effort to the contrary, he would have a guilty air when his father began to storm. The conception of a separate parliament in Dublin, and of separate taxation, could not stand before his father's anger. Beneath his window in the garden he suddenly heard a faint sound as of somebody in distress. What the juice he exclaimed if that isn't the old man, I'm—startled he looked at his watch. It was after midnight. Part 4 As he opened the garden door he saw in the porch, where had passed his first secret interview with Hilda, the figure of his father, as it were awkwardly rising from the step. The gas had not been turned out in the hall, and it gave a feeble but sufficient illumination to the porch in the nearest parts of the garden. Darius stood silent and apparently irresolute, with a mournful and even despairing face. He wore his best black suit, and a new silk hat, and new black gloves, and in one hand he carried a copy of the signal that was very crumpled. He ignored Edwin. Hello, Father, said Edwin persuasively. Anything wrong? The heavy figure moved itself into the house without a word, and Edwin shut and bolted the door. Funeral go off all right? Edwin inquired with as much nonchalance as he could. The thought crossed his mind. I suppose he hasn't been having a drop too much for once in a way. Why did he come round into the garden? Darius loosed a really terrible sigh. Yes, he answered, expressing with a single word the most profound melancholy. Four days previously Edwin and Maggie had seen their father considerably agitated by an item of gossip, casually received, to which it seemed to them he attached an excessive importance. Namely, that old Shushians having been found straying and destitute by the authorities appointed to deal with such matters had been taken to the work-house and was dying there. Darius had heard the news as though it had been a message brought on horseback in a melodrama. The best deal he exclaimed in a whisper, and had left the house on the instant. Edwin, while the name of Shushians reminded him of moments when he had most intensely lived, was disposed to regard the case of Mr. Shushians philosophically. Of course it was a pity that Mr. Shushians should be in the work-house, but after all from what Edwin remembered and could surmise, the work-house would be very much the same as any other house to that senile mentality. Thus Edwin had sagely argued and Maggie had agreed with him. But to them the work-house was absolutely nothing but a name. They were no more afraid of the work-house than of the Russian secret police, and of their father's early history they knew not. Mr. Shushians had died in the work-house, and Darius had taken his body out of the work-house, and had organised for it a funeral which was to be rendered impressive by a procession of Turnhill Sunday School teachers. Edwin's activity in connection with the funeral had been limited to the funeral cards, in the preparation of which his father had shown an irritability more than usually offensive. And now the funeral was over. Darius had devoted to it the whole of Home Rule Tuesday, and had returned to his house at a singular hour, and in a singular condition. And Edwin, loathing sentimentality and full of the wisdom of nearly 30 years, sedately pitied his father for looking ridiculous and grotesque. He knew for a fact that his father did not see Mr. Shushians from one year's end to the next, hence they could not have been intimate friends or even friends. Hence his father's emotion was throughout exaggerated and sentimental. His acquaintance with history and with biography told him the tyrants often carried sentimentality to the absurd, and he was rather pleased with himself for being able thus to correlate the general past and the particular present. What he did not suspect was the existence of circumstances which made the death of Mr. Shushians in the workhouse, the most distressing tragedy that could by any possibility have happened to Darius Clayhanger. Shall I put the gas out, or will you, he asked, with kindly secret superiority, unaware with all his omniscience that the being in front of him was not a successful steam-printer and tyrannical father but a tiny ragged boy who could still taste the Bastille skilly and still see his mother weeping round the knees of a powerful god named Shushians. I don't know, said Darius, with another sigh. The next instant he sat down heavily on the stairs and began openly to blubber. His hat fell off and rolled about undecidedly. By Joseph, said Edwin to himself, I shall have to treat this man like a blooming child. He was rather startled and interested, he picked up the hat. 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 realized what he was doing took it and assisted his father to his feet and helped him to the toilet dining-room, where Darius fell into a chair. Some bread and cheese had been laid for him on a napkin and there was a gleam of red in the grate. Edwin turned up the gas and Darius blinked. His coarse cheeks were all wet. 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 did not see why it should alarm him. He left the room very quietly, went upstairs and knocked at Maggie's door. He had to knock several times. Who's there? I say, Mag, what is it? Open the door. You can come in. He opened the door, and within the darkness of the room he could vaguely distinguish 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 do anything. All right, said Maggie, and a figure sat up in the bed. Perhaps I'd better come down. She descended immediately in an ulster and loose slippers. Edwin waited for her in the hall. Now, Father, she said brusquely entering the dining-room. What's the miss? 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 bending over the gleam of fire, and insinuating a small saucepan into the middle of it, and encouraging the gleam with a pair of bellows. Meanwhile Edwin uneasily ranged the room, and Darius sat motionless. Seeing Gladstone's speech, I suppose, Edwin said, daring a fearful topic in the extraordinary circumstances. Darius paid no heed. Edwin and Maggie exchanged a glance. Maggie made the tea direct into a large cup which she had previously warmed by putting it upside down on the saucepan lid. When it was infused and sweetened she tasted it as for a baby, and blew on it, and gave the cup to her father, who, by degrees, emptied it, though not exclusively, into his mouth. 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 invalid for years. The ascent to bed was processional. Maggie hovered behind. But at the dining-room door Darius, giving no explanation, insisted on turning back. Apparently he tried to speak but could not. He had forgotten his signal. Snatching at it he held it like a treasure. All three of them went into the father's bedroom. Maggie turned on the gas. Darius sat on the bed looking dully at the carpet. Better see him into bed, Maggie murmured quickly to Edwin, and Edwin nodded, the nod of capability, as who should say, leave all that to me. But in fact he was exceedingly diffident about seeing his father into bed. 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 clumsy figure with its wet cheeks stood in trousers, shirt, and socks, Edwin said, You're all right now, aren't you? And the figure nodded. Well, good night. Edwin came out onto the landing, shut the door, and walked about a little in his own room. Then he went back to his father's room. Maggie's door was closed. Darius was already in bed, but the gas was blazing at full. You've forgotten the gas, he said, lightly and pleasantly, and turned it 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 a patch of white on the ottoman. Oh! he answered soothingly, and yet with condescension. It's much about what everyone expected. Better leave that till tomorrow. He shut the door. The landing received light through the open door of his bedroom and from the hall below. He went downstairs, bolted the front door, and extinguished the hall gas. Then he came softly up and listened at his father's door. Not a sound. He entered his own room and began to undress. And then half-clothed crept back to his father's door. Now he could hear a heavy, irregular snoring. Devilish odd, all this he reflected as he got into bed. Assuredly he had disconcerting thoughts, not all unpleasant. His excitement had even an agreeable zest for quality. End of chapter 1, book 3. Volume 3, chapter 2 of Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2 The Conclave The next morning Edwin overslept himself. He seldom rose easily from his bed, and his first passage down Trafalgar Road to business was notoriously hurried. The whole thoroughfare was acquainted with its special character. Often his father arrived at the shop before him, but Edwin's conscience would say that, of course, if Darius went down early for his own passion and pleasure, that was Darius's affair. Edwin's official time for beginning work was half past eight. And at half past eight on this morning he was barely out of the bath. His lateness, however, did not disturb him. There was an excuse for it. He hoped that his father would be in bed, and decided that he must go and see, and if the old man was still sufficiently pliant, advise him to stay where he was until he had had some food. But looking out of the window over a half-buttoned collar, he saw his father dressed and in the garden. Darius had resumed the suit of broadcloth for some strange reason, and was dragging his feet with painful, heavy slowness along the gravel at the south end of the garden. He carried in his left hand the signal, crumpled, a cloth cap surmounting the ceremonious suit gave to his head a ridiculous appearance. He was gazing at the earth with an expression of absorbed and acute melancholy. When he reached the end of the path he looked round at a loss, then turned as if on an inefficient pivot, and set himself in motion again. Edwin was troubled by this singular episode, and yet his reason argued with his instinct to the effect that he ought not to be troubled. Evidently the sturdy Darius was not ill, nothing serious could be the matter. He had been harrowed and fatigued by the funeral no more. In another day doubtless he would be again the harsh employer, astoundingly concentrated in affairs and impervious to the emotional appeal of ought else. Nevertheless he made a strange sight parading his excessive sadness there in the garden. A knock at Edwin's door he was startled. Hold on, he cried, went to the door and cautiously opened it. Maggie was on the mat. He's Aunt Clara, she said in a whisper, perturbed. She's come about father. Shall you belong? About father? What about father? It seems she saw him last night. He called there, and she was anxious. Oh, I see! Edwin affected to be relieved. Maggie nodded also affecting somewhat eagerly to be relieved. But neither of them was relieved. Aunt Clara calling at half-past eight. Aunt Clara neglecting that which she never neglected, the unalterable and divinely appointed rights for the daily cleansing and ordering of her abode. I shall be down in ten secs, he said. Fathers in the garden he added almost kindly. Seems all right. Yes, said Maggie with cheerful noses and went. He closed the door. Part II Mrs. Hamps was in the drawing-room. She had gone into the drawing-room because it was more secret, better suited to conversation of an exquisite privacy than the dining-room. A public resort at that hour. Edwin perceived at once that she was savouring intensely the strangeness of the occasion, inflating its import and its importance to the largest possible. Good morning, dear, as she greeted him in a low and significant tone. I felt I must come up at once. I couldn't fancy any breakfast till I'd been up, so I put on my bonnet and mantle and just came. It's no use fighting against what you feel you must do. But hasn't Maggie told you? Your father called to see me last night just after I'd gone upstairs. In fact, I'd begun to get ready for bed. I heard the knocking and I came down and lit the gas in the lobby. Who's there, I said? There wasn't any answer, but I made sure I heard 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 look like that before. He's such a strong, self-controlled man. I knew he'd been to poor Mr. Shushian's funeral. I suppose you've been to the funeral dowry, as I said, and as soon as I said that he burst out crying and half tumbled down the steps and off he went. I couldn't go after him as I was. I didn't know what to do. If anything happened to your father I don't know what I should do. What time was that, Edwin asked, wondering what on earth she meant, 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 had inquired as to the hour of the visit to his aunt. Obviously she was ready to build vast and terrible conjectures upon the mysterious interval between half past ten and midnight. You've cut yourself, my dear, she said, indicating with her gloved hand Edwin's chin. And I'm not surprised how upsetting it is for you. Of course Maggie's the eldest and we think a great deal of her, but you're the son, the only son. I know he said meaning that he knew he had cut himself, and he pressed his handkerchief to his chin. Within he was blasphemously fuming, the sentimental accent with which she had finally murmured, the only son, irritated him extremely. What in the name of God was she driving at? The fact was that, enjoying a domestic crisis with positive sensuality, she was trying to manufacture one. That was it. He knew her. There were times when he could share all Maggie's hatred of Mrs. Hamps, and this was one of those times. The infernal woman with her shaking plumes and her odor of black kid was enjoying herself. In the thousandth part of a second he invented horrible and grotesque punishments for her. As that all the clothes should suddenly fall off, that prim widowed odious modesty. Yet amid the multitude of his sensations, the smighting of his chin, the tingling of all his body after the bath, the fresh vivacity of the morning, the increased consciousness of his own ego due to insufficient sleep, the queerness of being in the drawing-room at such an hour in conspiratorial talk, the vague disquiet caused at midnight, and no intensified, despite his angry efforts to avoid the contagion of Mrs. Hamps' mood, and above all the thought of his father gloomily wandering in the garden. Amid these confusing sensations it was precisely the idea communicated to him by his annoying aunt, an obvious idea, an idea not worth uttering, that emerged clear and dramatic. He was the only son. There's no need to worry, he said, as firmly as he could, the funeral-god on his nerves, that's all. He certainly did seem a bit knocked about last night, and I shouldn't have been surprised if he'd stayed in bed to-day. But you see he's up and about. Both of them glanced at the window which gave on the garden. 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've known 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 we don't realise, maybe, sometimes. Of course, if you think he's all right. She approached the window and, leaning over the tripod which held a flower-pot enveloped in pink paper, she drew the white curtain aside and gazed forth in silence. Darius was still pacing up and down the short path at the extremity of the garden, his eyes were still on the ground, and his features expressive of mournful despair, and at the end of the path he still turned his body round with slow and tedious hesitations. Edwin also could see him through the window. They both watched him. It was as if they were spying on him. Maggie entered and said in an unusual flutter, He's Clara and Albert! Part 3 Clara and her husband came immediately into the drawing-room. The wife dressed with a certain haste and carelessness was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger, and despite the asperity of her pretty pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works for half an hour. Both of them were electrically charged with importance. Amid the general self-consciousness Maggie took the baby, and Clara and Mrs. Hamps kissed each other tenderly as though saying, Affliction is upon us. It was impossible in the circumstances to proceed to minute inquiry about the health of the children, but Mrs. Hamps expressed all her solicitude in a look, a tone, a lingering of lip on lip. The years were drawing together Mrs. Hamps and her namesake. Edwin was often astonished at the increasing resemblance of Clara to her aunt, with whom, thanks to the unconscious intermediacy of babies, she was even indeed quite intimate. The two would discuss with indefatigable gusto all the most minute physical details of motherhood and infancy, and Aunt Clara's presence were worthy of her reputation. As soon as the kiss was accomplished, no other greeting of any kind occurred, 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 today. Because Albert's just heard, she looked at Albert. Edwin was thunderstruck. Was the tale of his father's indisposition spread all over the five towns? He had thought that the arrival of Clara and her husband must be due to Auntie Hamps having called at their house on her way up to Bleak Ridge. But now he could see, even from his aunties, a frighted demeanor alone, that the Benbow's visit was an independent affair. Are you sure he's all right, Albert questioned in his superiorly sagacious manner, which mingled honest bullying with a little good nature? Because Albert's just heard, Clara put in again. The company then heard what Albert had just heard. At his works before breakfast an old hollow-ware presser who lived at Turn Hill had casually mentioned that his father-in-law, Mr. Clayhanger, had been cutting a very peculiar figure on the previous evening at Turn Hill. The hollow-ware presser had seen nothing personally. He had only been told. He could not or would not particularize. Apparently he possessed in a high degree the local talent for rousing and apprehension by the offer of food and then under ingenious pretext, refusing the food. At any rate Albert had been startled and had communicated his alarm to Clara. Clara had meant to come up a little later in the morning, but she wanted Albert to come with her, and Albert being exceedingly busy had only the breakfast half-al of liberty. Hence they had set out instantly although the baby required sustenance. Albert having suggested that Clara could feed the baby just as well at her father's as at home. Before the Ben Bow's story was quite finished it became entangled with the story of Mrs. Hamp's and then with Edwin's story. They were all speaking at once except Maggie who was trying to soothe the baby. Holding forth her arms Clara without seizing to talk rapidly and anxiously to Mrs. Hamp's, without even regarding what she did took the infant from her sister, held it with one hand, and with the other loosed her tight bodice and boldly exposed to the greedy mouth the magnificent source of life. As the infant gurgled itself into silence she glanced with a fleeting ecstatic smile at Maggie who smiled back. It was strange how Maggie now midway between thirty and forty a tall large-boned plump mature woman, efficient kindly and full of common sense, it was strange how she always failed to assert herself. She listened now not seeking notice and assuredly not receiving it. Edwin felt again the implication first rendered by his aunt and now emphasized by Clara and Albert that the responsibility of the situation was upon him and that everyone would look to him to discharge it. He was expected to act somehow on his own initiative and to do something. 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 saying ironically, hasn't it occurred to you even yet that a doctor ought to be 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 the curtains. 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 of those changes of front which lent variety to his positiveness and he addressed himself particularly to Albert with the persuasive tone and gesture of a man to another man in a company of women. Of course there doesn't, no doubt he was upset last night, but he's getting 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 a pot-bank, said Edwin. You're right there, Teddy, the brother-in-law heartily concurred, but Clara thought we'd better certainly, said Edwin, pacifically admitting the entire propriety of the visit. Why is he wearing his best clothes, Clara demanded suddenly, and Mrs. Hampt showed a sympathetic appreciation of the importance of the question. Ask me another, said Edwin, but you can't send for a doctor because a man's wearing his best clothes. Maggie smiled scarce perceptively. Albert gave a gaffore. Clara was slightly irritated. Poor little dear murmured Mrs. Hampt's caressing the baby. Well, I must be going, she sighed. We shall see how he goes on, said Edwin, in his role of responsible person. Perhaps it will be as well if you say nothing about us calling, whispered Mrs. Hampt. We'll just go quietly away. You can give a hint to 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 to observe on the face of the young woman and of the old their instinctive impulses towards chicane, and their pleasure in it. The whole double visit was subtly offensive to him. Why should they gather like this at the first hint that his father was not well? A natural affectionate anxiety? Yes, of course, that motive could not be denied. Nevertheless, he did not like the tones and the gestures and the whisperings and oblique glances of their gathering. Part Four In the middle of a final miscellaneous conversation, Albert said, We'd better be off. Wait a moment, said Clara with a nod to indicate the still busy infant. Then the door opened, very slowly and cautiously, and as they all observed the movement of the door they all fell into silence. Darius himself appeared. Unabserved he had left the garden and come into the house. He stood in the doorway motionless, astounded, acutely apprehensive, and with an expression of the most poignant sadness on his harsh, coarse, pimpled face. He still wore the ridiculous cap and held the newspaper. The broadcloth suit was soiled. His eye wandered among his family, and it said terrorized and yet feebly defiant. What are they plotting against me? Why are they all here like this? Mrs. Hamp spoke first. Well, father, we just popped in to see how you were after all that dreadful business yesterday. Of course I quite understand why you didn't want to come in last night. You weren't equal to it. The guilty, crude sweetness of her cajoling voice grated excruciatingly on both Edwin and Maggie. It would not have deceived even a monarch. 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 dreadful melancholy. Everybody was profoundly alarmed by his mere tone and look. This was not the old Darius. Edwin felt intensely the futility and the hollowness of all those reassurances, which he had just been offering. You haven't had your breakfast, father, said Maggie quietly. Please, father, don't go like that. You aren't fit. Clara entreated and rushed towards him the baby in her arms, and with one hand took his sleeve. Mrs. Hamp's followed adding persuasions. Albert said bluffly, No, dad, no, dad. Edwin and Maggie were silent in the background. Darius gazed at Clara's face, and then his glance fell and fixed itself on her breast, and on the head of the powerfully-stucking infant, and then it rose to the plumes of Mrs. Hamp's. His expression of tragic sorrow did not alter in the slightest degree under the reign of sugared remonstrances and conjolaries that the two women directed upon him. And then without any warning he burst into terrible tears, and staggering leaned against the wall. He was half-carried to the sofa and sat there ineffably humiliated. One after another looked reproachfully at Edwin, who had made light of his father's condition, and Edwin was abashed and frightened. You or I, I'd better fetch the doctor, Albert muttered.