 Volume 3 Chapter 17 of Clay Hanger, by Arnold Bennett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17 The Chain is Broken Shortly after eight o'clock Edwin was walking down Trafalgar Road on his way to the shop. He had bathed and drunk some tea, and under the stimulation he felt the factitious vivacity of excessive fatigue. Edwin had fallen quietly and perseveringly during the night, and though the weather was now fine the streets were thick with black mire. Paint tresses with their neat gloves and their dinner baskets and their thin shoes were trudging to work, and young clerks and shop assistants and the upper classes of labour generally. Everybody was in a hurry. The humbler mass had gone long ago. Horses had been in the earth for hours. Later and more leisurely the magnets would pass by. There were carriages about. An elegant wagonette, streaming with red favours, dashed down the road behind two horses. Its cargo was a handful of clay-soiled artisans, gleeful in the naive pride of their situation, wearing red and shouting red and harrying for the conservative candidate. Asses, murmured Edwin with acrid and savage disdain! Do you think he'd drive you anywhere to-morrow? He walked on a little and broke forth again all to himself. Of course he's doing it solely in your interest, isn't he? Why doesn't he pick some of these paint-tresses out of the mud and give them a drive? He cultivated an unreasoning anger against the men who had so impressed him at the banquet. He did not try to find answers to their arguments. He accused them stoutly of willful blindness, of cowardice, of bullying, of pharisaism and of other sins. He had no wish to hear their defence. He condemned them, and as it were, ordered them to be taken away and executed. He had a profound conviction that argument was futile, and that nothing would serve but a pitched battle in which each fighting man should go to the pole and put a cross against a name in grim silence. Argue with these gross, self-satisfied fellows about the turpitude of the artisans, why there was scarcity one of them whose grandfather had not been an artisan, cursed their patriotism. Then he would begin bits of argument to himself and stop them, too impatient to continue. The shilling cigars of those feasters disgusted him. In such wise his mind ran, and he was not much kinder to the artisan. If scorn could have annihilated there would have been no proletariat left in the division. Men, sheep rather, letting themselves be driven up and down like that and believing all the yarns that were spun to them, gaping idiots, they would swallow any mortal thing. They were simply nought that they were not stupid enough to swallow with a glass of beer. It would serve them right if, however, that could not happen. Idiocy had limits. At least he presumed it had. Early as it was the number of carriages was already considerable. But he did not see one with the blue of the labour candidate. Blue rosettes there were, but the red rosettes bore them down easily. And dogs had been adorned with red rosettes and nice clean infants. And on all the hoardings were enormous red posters, exhorting the shrewd common-sense potter not to be misled by paid agitators, but to plump for his true friend for the man who was anxious to devote his entire career and goods to the welfare of the potter and the integrity of the empire. Part 2 If you can give me three days off, sir, said Big James. In the majestic humility of his apron, I shall take it kindly. Edwin had gone into the composing room with the copy for a deemy poster, consisting of four red words to inform the public that the true friend of the public was romping in. A hundred posters were required within an hour. He had nearly refused the order in his feverish fatigue and his disgust. But some remnant of sagacity had asserted itself in him and saved him from this fatuity. Why, he asked roughly, what's up now, James? My old comrade Abraham Heracles is dead, sir, at Glasgow, and I am wishful for to attend the interment, far as it is. He was living with his daughter, and she's written to me. If you could make it convenient to spare me? Of course, of course, Edwin interrupted him hastily. In his present mood it revolted him that a man of between fifty and sixty should be humbly asking as a favour to be allowed to fulfil a pious duty. I'm very much obliged to, sir, said Big James, simply, quite unaware that captures Edwin found his gratitude excessive and servile. I'm the last now, sir, of the old glee party, he added. Really? Big James nodded and said quietly, and how's the old gentleman, sir? Edwin shook his head. I'm sorry, sir, said Big James. I've been up with him all night, Edwin told him. I wonder if you'd mind dropping me a line to Glasgow, sir, if anything happens. I can give you the address, if it isn't. Certainly, if you like, he tried to be nonchalant. When are you going? I did think of getting to crew before noon, sir. As soon as I've seen to this, he cocked his eye at the copy for the poster. Oh, you needn't bother about that, said Edwin carelessly. Go now, if you want to. I've got time, sir, Mr Curtenty's coming for me at nine o'clock to drive me to the polling booth. This was the first time that Edwin had ever heard Big James talk of his private politics. The fact was that Big James was no more anxious than Joss Cortenty and Osmond Orgreave to put himself under the iron heel of his fellow working man. And what's your colour, James? His smile was half as near. If you'll pardon me saying so, sir, I'm for her most gracious. Big James answered with grave dignity. Three journeymen pretending to be busy were listening with all ears from the other side of a case. Oh, said Edwin dashed, well, that's all right. He walked straight out, put on his hat, and went to the Bleak Ridge polling station, and voted Labour defiantly as though with a personal grievance against the polling clerk. He had a vote, not as lessee of the business premises, but as his father's lodger. He despised Labour, he did not care what happened to Labour. In voting for Labour he seemed to have the same satisfaction as if from peak he had voted against it because its stupidity had incensed him. Then instead of returning him to the shop his legs took him home and upstairs, and he lay down in his own room. Part Three He was awakened by the presence of someone at his bedside, and the whole of his body protested against the disturbance. I couldn't make you here with knocking, said Dr Heave, so I came into the room. Hello, doctor, is that you? Edwin sat up dazed, and with a sensation of large waves passing in slow succession through his head, I must have dropped to sleep. I hear you had a pretty bad night with him, the doctor remarked. Yes, it's a mystery to me how he could keep it up. I was afraid you would, well, he's quieter now. In fact he's unconscious. Unconscious, is he? He will have no more trouble with the old gentleman, said the doctor. He was looking at the window as though it's some object of great interest to be seen thence. His tone was gentle and unaffected. For the twentieth time Edwin privately admitted that in spite of the weak, vacuous smile which seemed to delight everybody except himself, there was a sympathetic quality in this bland doctor. In common moments he was common, but in the rare moment when a man with such a smile ought to be at his worst, a certain soft dignity would curiously distinguish his bearing. Mmm, Edwin muttered also looking at the window, and then after a pause he asked, will it last long? I don't know, said the doctor, the fact is this is the first case of Shane Stokes' breathing I've ever had. It may last for days, as the nurse Edwin demanded. They talked about the nurse and then Dr Heave said that, his brother the vicar and he having met in the street, they had come in together as the vicar was anxious to have news of his old acquaintance's condition. It appeared that the vicar was talking to Maggie and Janet in the drawing-room. Well said Edwin, I shan't come down, tell him I'm only presentable enough for doctors. With a faint smile and a nod the doctor departed. As soon as he had gone Edwin jumped off the bed and looked at his watch which showed to a clock. No doubt dinner was over. No doubt Maggie had decided that it would be best to leave him alone to sleep. But that day neither he nor anybody in the household had the sense of time. The continuous consciousness of what the hour was, the whole systematized convention of existence was deranged, and all values transmuted. Edwin was aware of no feeling whatever except an intensity of curiosity, to see again in tranquility, the being with whom he had passed the night. Pushing his hand through his hair he hurried into the sick-room. It was all tidy and fresh as though nothing had ever happened in it. Mrs Nixon shriveled and deaf, sat in the armchair watching. No responsibility now attached to the vigil, and so it could be left to the aged and almost useless domestic. She gave a gesture which might have meant anything—despair, authority, pride, grief. Edwin stood by the bedside and gazed. Darius lay on his back with eyes half open, motionless, unseeing, unhearing, and he breathed faintly, with the soft regularity of an infant. The struggle was finished, and he had emerged from it with the right to breathe. His hair had been brushed, and his beard combed. It was uncanny this tidiness, this calm, this passivity. The memory of the night grew fantastic and remote. Surely the old man must spring up frantically in a moment to beat off his enemy. Surely his agonized cry for Clara must be ringing through the room. But nothing of him stirred. Air came and went through those parted and relaxed lips with perfect efficiency of a healthy natural function. And yet he was not asleep. His obstinate and tremendous spirit was now withdrawn somewhere, into some fastness more recondite than sleep. Not far off, not detached, not dethroned, but undiscoverably hidden, and beyond any summons. Edwin gazed and gazed until his heart could hold no more of the emotion which this mysteriously impressive spectacle, at once majestic and poignant, distilled into it. Then he silently left the old woman sitting dally by the spirit concealed in its ruined home. PART IV In the evening he was resting on the sofa in the drawing-room. Aunty Hamps was near him at work on some embroidery. In order that her dear Edwin might doze a little if he could, she refrained from speech. From time to time she stopped her needle and looked reflectively at the morsel of fire or at the gas. She had been in the house since before tea. Clara also had passed most of the day there with a few intervals at her own home. But now Clara was gone and Janet, too, had gone. Darius was tiring them all out in his mild and senseless repose. He remained absolutely still, and the enigma which he so indifferently offered to them might apparently continue for ever. At any rate the doctor's statement that he might keep as he was for days and days beyond help hung over the entire household, discouraging and oppressive. The energy of even Aunty Hamps was baffled. Only Alicia, who had come in, as she said to take Janet's place, insisted on being occupied. This was one of the nights dedicated by family arrangement to her betrothed, but Alicia had found pleasure in sacrificing herself and him to her very busy sense of duty. Only the drawing-room door was pushed open without a sound, and Alicia, in all the bursting charm of her youthfulness and the delicious naivety of her self-importance, stood in the doorway. She made no gesture. She just looked at Edwin with a peculiar ominous and excited glance, and Edwin rose quickly and left the room. Aunty Hamps had noticed nothing. Maggie wants you upstairs, said Alicia to Edwin. He made no answer. He did not ask where Maggie was. They went upstairs together. But at the door of the sick-room Alicia hung back, intimidated, and Edwin entered and shut the door on that beautiful image of proud, throbbing life. Maggie, standing by the bed under the gas which blazed at full, turned to him as he approached. Let's come and look at him, she said quietly. Darius lay in exactly the same position, except that his mouth was open a little wider. He presented exactly the same appearance as in the afternoon. His weary features, pitiful and yet grim, had exactly the same expression, but there was no sign of breathing. Edwin bent and listened. Oh, he's dead, he murmured. He nodded, her eyes glittering as though set with diamonds. I think so, she said. When was it? Scarcely a minute ago, I was sitting there by the fire and I thought I noticed something. What did you notice? I don't know. I must go and tell Nurse. She went, wiping her eyes. Edwin now alone looked again at the residue of his father. The spirit, after hiding within so long, had departed and left no trace. It had done with that form and was away. The vast and forlorn adventure of the little boy from the Bastille was over. Edwin did not know that the little boy from the Bastille was dead. He only knew that his father was dead. It seemed intolerably tragic that the enfeebled wreck should have had to bear so much, and yet intolerably tragic also that death should have relieved him. But Edwin's distress was shot through and enlightened by his solemn satisfaction at the fact that destiny had allotted to him, Edwin, an experience of such profound and overwhelming grandeur. His father was, and lo, he was not. That was all, but it was ineffable. Maggie returned to the room followed by Nurse Shaw, whose head was enveloped in various bandages. Edwin began to anticipate all the tedious formalities as to which he would have to inform himself. Of registration and interment. Part 5. Ten o'clock the news was abroad in the house. Elysia had gone to spread it. Maggie had startled everybody by deciding to go down and tell Clara herself, though Albert was bound to call. The nurse had laid out the corpse. Auntie Hampson and Edwin were again in the drawing room together. The aging lady was making up her mind to go. Edwin, in search of an occupation, prepared to write letters to one or two distant relatives of his mother. Then he remembered his promise to Big James and decided to write that letter first. What a mercy he passed away peacefully Auntie Hampson exclaimed, not for the first time. Edwin at a rickety fancy desk began to write, Dear James, my father passed peacefully away at—then with an abrupt movement he tore the sheet in two and threw it in the fire and began again. Dear James, my father died quietly at eight o'clock tonight. Soon afterwards when Mrs. Hampson departed with her genuine but too spectacular grief, Edwin heard an immense commotion coming down the road from Hanbridge. Cheers, shouts, squeals, penny whistles, and trumpets. He opened the gate. Who's in? he asked a stout shabby man who was testiculating in glee with a little tory flag on the edge of the road. Who do you think, Mr. replied the man drunkenly? What majority? Four hundred and thirty-nine. The integrity of the Empire was assured, and the paid agitator had received a proper rebuff. Miserable idiot Edwin murmured with the most extraordinary violence of scorn as he re-entered the house and the blaire of triumph receded. He was very much surprised. He had firmly expected his own side to win, though he was reconciled to a considerable reduction of the old majority. His lips curled. It was in his resentment, in the hard setting of his teeth, as he confirmed himself in the rightness of his own opinions, that he first began to realize an individual freedom. I don't care if we're beaten forty times, his thoughts ran. I'll be a more out-and-out radical than ever. I don't care. And I don't care. And he felt sturdily that he was free. The chain was at last broken that had bound together those two beings so dissimilar, antagonistic and ill-matched, Edwin Clayhanger and his father. End of Chapter 17 Volume 3 Volume 4 Chapter 1 of Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 1 His Start in Life The Birthday Visit It was Auntie Ham's birthday. She must be quite fifty-nine, said Maggie. Oh, stuff, Edwin, contradicted her curtly. She can't be anything like as much as that. Having by this positive and sharp statement disposed of the question of Mrs. Hampt's age, he bent again with eagerness to his newspaper. The Manchester Examiner no longer existing as a radical organ, he read The Manchester Guardian, of which that morning's issue contained a long and vivid obituary of Charles Stuart Parnell. Brother and sister were at breakfast. Edwin had changed the character of this meal. He went fasting to business at eight o'clock, opened correspondence, and gave orders to the wonderful Stifford, a person now of real importance in the firm, and at nine o'clock flew by car back to the house to eat bacon and eggs and marmalade leisurely, like a gentleman. It was known that between nine and ten he could not be seen at the shop. Well, Maggie continued with her mild persistence, Aunt Spencer told me, whose Aunt Spencer in God's name? You know, mother's and auntie's cousin, the fat old thing. Oh, her, he recalled one of the unfamiliar figures that had bent over his father's coffin. She told me auntie was either fifty-five or fifty-six at father's funeral, and that's nearly three-and-a-half years ago. So she must be—two-and-a-half, you mean, Edwin interrupted with a sort of savageness? No, I don't. It's nearly three years since Mrs. Nixon died. Edwin was startled to realise the passage of time. But he said nothing. Partly he wanted to read in peace, and partly he did not want to admit his mistake. Bit by bit he was assuming the historic privileges of the English master of the house. Maggie had the illusion that if only he could maintain a silence sufficiently august, his era of fact and of manner would seize to be an era. Yes, she must be fifty-nine, Maggie resumed, placidly. I don't care if she's a hundred-and-fifty-nine, snap dead one. Any more coffee? Hot, that is. Without moving his gaze from the paper he pushed his cup a little way across the table. Maggie took at her chin, slightly lifting, and her cheeks showing a touch of red. I hope you didn't forget to order the ink-stand, after all, she said stiffly. It's not been sent up yet, and I want to take it down to aunties myself this morning. You know what a lot she thinks of such things. It had been arranged that Auntie Ham should receive that year a cut-glass double ink-stand from her nephew and niece. The shop occasionally dealt in such articles. Edwin had not willingly assented to the choice. He considered that a cut-glass double ink-stand was a vicious concession to Mrs. Ham's very vulgar taste in knick-knacks, and moreover he always now discouraged retail trade at the shop. But still he had assented out of indolence. Well, it won't come till tomorrow, he said. But Edwin, how's that? How's that? Well, if you want to know, I didn't order it till yesterday. I can't think of everything. It's very annoying, said Maggie sincerely. Edwin put on the martyr's crown. Some people seem to think I've nothing else to do down at my shop but order birthday presents, he remarked, with disagreeable sarcasm. I think you might be a little more polite, said Maggie. Do you? Yes, I do, Maggie insisted startly. Sometimes you get positively unbearable. Everybody notices it. Who's everybody? You never mind. Part II Maggie tossed her head and Edwin knew that when she tossed her head, a gesture rare with her, she was tossing the tears back from her eyes. He was more than startled he was intimidated by that feminine movement of the head. She was hurt. It was absurd of her to be so susceptible, but he had undoubtedly hurt her. He had been clumsy enough to hurt her. She was nearing forty, and he also was close behind her on the road to forty. She was a perfectly decent sort, and he reckoned that he too was a perfectly decent sort. And yet they lacked the skill not to bicker. They no longer had somewhat noisy altercations of old days concerning real or fancied interferences with the order and privacy of Edwin's sacred chamber, but their general demeanor to one another had duly soured. It was as if they tolerated one another from motives of self-interest. Why should this be so? They were, at bottom, affectionate and mutually respectful. In a crisis they could and would rely on one another utterly. Why should their demeanor be so false an index to their real feelings? He supposed it was just the fault of loose habit. He did not blame her. From mere pride he blamed himself. He knew himself to be cleverer, more perceptive, wilyer than she, and he ought to have been able to muster the diplomatic skill necessary for smooth and felicitous intercourse. Any friction, whether due to her stupidity or not, was a proof of his incompetence in the art of life. The phrase pricked him. An exaggeration, of course. Still a phrase that would not be dismissed by a superior curl of the lips. Maggie was not Clara and she did not invent allegations. His fault, yes, his fault. Beyond doubt he was occasionally gruff, he was churlish, he was porcupinish. He did not mean to be so, indeed he most honestly meant not to be so, but he was. He must change. He must turn over a new leaf. He wished it had been his own birthday, or better still, the new year, instead of his auntie's birthday, so that he might have turned over a new leaf at once with due solemnity. He actually remembered a pious sore uttered over twenty years earlier by that wretch in a white tie who had damnably devised the Sunday afternoon Bible class, a sore which he furiously scorned. Every day begins a new year. Well, every day did begin a new year, so did every minute. Why not begin a new year then, in that minute? He had only to say in a cajoling good-natured tone, All right, all right, keep your hair on my child, I grovel. He had only to say some such words and the excellent, simple, unresentful Maggie would at once be appeased. It would be a demonstration of his moral strength to say them. But he could not say them. Part 3 Nevertheless he did seriously determine to turn over a new leaf at the very next occasion. His eyes were now following the obituary of Parnell mechanically without transmitting any message that his preoccupied brain would seize. He had been astonished to find that Parnell was only forty-five. He thought, why, at my age, Parnell was famous, a great man, and a power. And there was he, Edwin, eating bacon and eggs opposite his sister in the humdrum dining-room at Bleak Ridge. But after all what was the matter with the dining-room? It was not the dining-room that his father had left. He had altered and improved it to suit his own taste. He was free to do so, and he had done so. He was free in every way. In the division of his father's estate, according to the will, had proved unjust to himself, but he had not cared in the least. He had let Albert do as Albert and Clara pleased. In the settlement Maggie had taken the house at a figure too high, and he paid her an adequate rent for it, while she in turn paid him for her board and lodging. They were all in clover thanks to the terrible lifelong obstinacy of the little boy from the Bastille. And Edwin had had the business unburdened. It was not growing, but it brought in more than twice as much as he spent. Soon he would be as rich as either of the girls, and that without undue servitude. He bought books surpassing those books of Tom Orgreave, which had once seemed so hopelessly beyond his reach. He went to the theatre. He went to concerts. He took holidays. He had been to London and more than once. He had a few good friends. He was his own master. Nobody dreamed of saying him nay, and no bad habits held him in subjection. Everywhere he was treated with quite notable respect. Even when partly from negligence, and partly to hide recurring pimples, he had allowed his beard to grow, Clara herself had not dared to titta. And although he suffered from certain disorders of the blood due to lack of exercise and to his condition, his health could not be called bad. The frequency of his colds had somewhat diminished. His career, which to others probably seemed dull and monotonous, presented itself to him as almost miraculously romantic in its development. And with all he could uneasily ask himself, Am I happy? Maggie did not guess that as he bent unseeing over his precious Manchester Guardian, he was thinking, I must hold an inquisition upon my whole way of existence. I must see where I stand. If ever I am to be alive, I ought to be alive now. And I'm not at all sure whether I am. Maggie never put such questions to herself. She went on in placidness, from hour to hour, ruffled occasionally. Part IV An unusual occurrence gave him the opportunity to turn over a new leaf immediately. The sounds of the front door bell and the voices in the hall were followed by the proud entrance of Auntie Hamp's herself into the dining-room. Now don't disturb yourselves, please, Mrs. Hampson treated. She often began with this phrase. Maggie sprang up and kissed her, somewhat effusively for Maggie, and said in a quiet restrained tone, many happy returns of the day, Auntie. Then Edwin rose, scraping his armchair backwards along the floor, and shook hands with her and said with a guilty grin, a long life and a merry one, Auntie. Ay, she exclaimed, falling back with a sigh of satisfaction into a chair by the table. I'm sure everybody's very kind. Will you believe me, those darling children of Clara's, who were round at my house before eight o'clock this morning? His aim is cough better, Maggie interjected, as she and Edwin sat down. Bless ye, cried Auntie Hampson, I was in such a fluster I forgot to ask of the little toddler. But I didn't hear her cough. I do hope it is. October's a bad time for coughs to begin. I ought to have asked, but I'm getting an old woman. We were just arguing whether you were thirty-eight or thirty-nine, Auntie, said Edwin. What a tease he is with his beard, she archly retorted. Well, your old aunt is sixty this day. Sixty? The nephew and niece repeated together in astonishment. Auntie Hampson nodded. You're the finest sixty eye of a source at Edwin with unaffected admiration. And she was fine, the pride in her eye as she made the avowal. Probably the first frank avowal of her age that had passed those lips for thirty years was richly justified. With her clear rosy complexion, her white regular teeth, her straight spine, her plump figure, her brilliant gaze, her rapid gestures, and that authentic hair of hers falling in Victorian curls, she offered to the world a figure that no one could regard without a physical pleasure and stimulation. And she was so shiningly correct in her black silk and black velvet, and in the massive jet at her throat, and in the slenderness of her shoe. It was useless to recall her duplicities, her mendacities, her hypocrisies, her meannesses. At any rate she could be generous at moments and the splendour of her vitality sometimes as now hid all her faults. She would confess to aches and pains like other folk, bouts of rheumatism, for example, but the high courage of her body would not deign to ratify such miserable statements. She would surely repel the touch of time. It kept at least the appearance of victory. If you did not like Auntie Hamp's willingly, in her hours of bodily triumph you had to like her unwillingly. Both Edwin and Maggie had innumerable grievances against her, but she held their allegiance and even their warm instinctive affection on the morning of her sixtieth birthday. She had been alone widow ever since Edwin could remember, and yet she had continued to bloom. Nothing could desecrate nor wither her. Even her sins did not find her out. God and she remained always on the best terms, and she thrived on insincerity. Part 5 There's a little parcel for your aunties that Edwin with a particular effort to make his voice soft and agreeable, but it's in Manchester. It won't be here till tomorrow. My fault entirely, you know how awful I am for putting off things. We quite expected it would be here today, said the loyal Maggie, when most sisters and Clara assuredly, would have said in an eager sarcastic tone. Yes, it's just like Edwin, and yet I reminded him I don't know how many times. Edwin felt with satisfaction that the new leaf was already turned. He was glad that he had said my fault entirely. He now said to himself, Maggie's all right, and so am I. I must keep this up. Perfect nonsense, people hinting that she and I can't get on together. Please, please, Auntie Hampson, Rita, don't talk about parcels. And yet they knew if they had not talked about a parcel the aging lady would have been seriously wounded. All I want is your love. You children are all I have now. And if you knew how proud I am of you all, seeing you all so nice and good and respected in the town, and Clara's little darlings beginning to run about, and such strong little things, if only your poor mother. Impossible not to be impressed by those accents. Edwin and Maggie might writhe under Auntie Hamp's phraseology. They might remember the most horrible examples of her can't. In vain. They were impressed. They had to say to themselves, there's something very decent about her, after all. Auntie Hamp's looked from one to the other and at the quiet opulence of the breakfast table and the spacious solidities of the room. Admiration and respect were in that eye, always too masculine to weep under emotion. Undoubtedly she was proud of her nephew and nieces and had she not the right to be. The bearded Edwin, one of the chief tradesmen in the town, and so fond of books, such a reader, and so quiet in his habits, and the two girls with nice independent fortunes, Clara so fruitful and so winning and Maggie so dependable, so kind. Auntie Hamp's had scarce anything else to wish for. Her ideals were fulfilled. Undoubtedly since the death of Darius her attitude towards his children had acquired even a certain humility. Shall you be in tomorrow morning, Auntie, Maggie asked in the constrained silence that followed Mrs. Hamp's protestations? Yes, I shall, said Mrs. Hamp's with assurance. I shall be mending curtains. Well, then I shall call. About eleven, Maggie turned to Edwin benevolently. It won't be too soon if I pop in at the shop a little before eleven? No, said Edwin with equal benevolence. It's not often Sutton's delivery is after ten. That'll be all right. I'll have it unpacked. Part six. He lit a cigarette. Have one, he suggested to Mrs. Hamp's holding out the case. I shall give you a wrap over the knuckles in a minute, Mrs. Hamp's, who is now leaning an elbow on the table in easy intimacy. And she went on in a peculiar tone, low, mysterious, and yet full of vivacity. I can't quite make out who that little nephew is that Janet Orgreave is taking about. Little nephew that Janet's taking about, murmured Maggie in surprise. And to Edwin, do you know? Edwin shook his head when he asked. Well, this morning, said Mrs. Hamp's, I met them as I was coming up. She was on one side of the road, and the child was on the other, just opposite Houson's. My belief is she'd lost all control over the little jockey. Oh, a regular little jockey, you could see that at once. Now, George, come along, she called to him, and then he shouted, I want you to come on this side, auntie. Of course I couldn't stop to see it out. She was so busy with him, she only just moved to me. George? George, Maggie consulted her memory? How old was he about? Seven or eight, I should say. Well, it couldn't be one of Tom's children or Alicia's. No, said Auntie Hampson. I always understood that the eldest daughter's, what's her name? Marion. Marion's were all girls. I believe they are, aren't they, Edwin? How can I tell, said Edwin? It was a marvel to him how his auntie collected her information. Neither she nor Clara had ever been in the slightest degree familiar with the Orgreaves, and Maggie so far as he knew was not a Gossiper. He thought he perceived, however, the explanation of Mrs. Hamp's visit. She had encountered in the street a phenomenon which would not harmonize with facts of her own knowledge, and the discrepancy had disturbed her to such an extent that she had been obliged to call in search of relief. There was that, and there was also her natural inclination to show herself off on her triumphant 60th birthday. Charles Orgreave isn't married, is he? She inquired. No, said Maggie. Part 7 Silence fell upon this enigma of Janet's entirely unaccountable nephew. Charlie may be married, said Edwin, humorously at length, you never know. It's a funny world. I suppose you've seen, he looked particularly at his auntie, that your friend Parnell's dead. She affected to be outraged. I've seen that Parnell is dead, she rebuked him with solemn quietness. I saw it on a poster as I came up. I don't want to be uncharitable, but it was the best thing he could do. I do hope we've heard the last of all his home rule now. Like many people Mrs. Hamps was apparently convinced that the explanation of Parnell's scandalous fall, and of his early death was to be found in the inherent viciousness of the home rule cause, and also that the circumstances of his end were a proof that home rule was cursed of God. She reasoned with equal power forwards and backwards. And she was so earnest and so dignified that Edwin was sneaped into silence. Once more he could not keep from his face a look that seemed to apologize for his opinions. And all the heroic and passionate grandeur of Parnell's furious career shrilled up to mere sordidness before the inability of one narrow-minded and ignorant but vigorous woman to appreciate its quality. Not only did Edwin feel apologetic for himself, but also for Parnell. He wished he had not tried to be funny about Parnell. He wished he had not mentioned him. The brightness of the birthday was for an instant clouded. I don't know what's coming over things Auntie Hamps murmured sadly staring out of the window at the street gay with October sunshine. What with that and what with those terrible backer at the scandals? And now there's this free education that we ratepayers have to pay for. They'll be giving the children of the working class's free meals next, she added, with remarkably intelligent anticipation. Oh, well, never mind, Edwin soothed her. She gazed at him in loving reproach, and he felt guilty because he only went to chapel about once in two months, and even then from sheer moral cowardice. Can you give me those measurements, Maggie, Mrs. Hamps asked suddenly? I'm on my way to Brunt's. The women left the room together. Edwin walked idly to the window. After all, he had been perhaps wrong concerning the motive of her visit. The next moment he caught sight of Janet and the unaccountable nephew testing the hill from Bursley hand in hand. End of Volume 4, Chapter 1 Volume 4, Chapter 2 of Clay Hanger by Arnold Bennett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2, Janet's Nephew Edwin was a fairly conspicuous object at the dining-room window. As Janet and the child drew level with the corner, her eye accidentally caught Edwin's. He nodded, smiling, and took the cigarette out of his mouth and waved it. They were old friends. He was surprised to notice that Janet blushed and became self-conscious. She returned his smile awkwardly, and then, giving a gesture to signify her intention, she came in at the gate. Each action surprised Edwin still more. With all her little freedoms of manner, Janet was essentially a woman stately and correct, and time had emphasised these qualities in her. It was not in the least like her to pay informal, capricious calls at a quarter to ten in the morning. He went to the front door and opened it. She was persuading the child up the tiled steps. The breeze dashed gaily into the house. Good morning, you're out early. Good morning, yes, we've just been down to the post office to send off a telegram. Haven't we, George? She entered the hall, the boy following, and shook hands, meeting Edwin's gaze fairly. Her esteem for him, her confidence in him, shone in her troubled, candid eyes. She held herself proudly, mastering her curious constraint. Now just see that, she said, pointing to a fleck of black mud on the virgin elegance of her pale brown costume. Edwin thought anew, as he had often thought, that she was a distinguished and delightful piece of goods. He never ceased to be flattered by her regard. But with harsh, masculine impartiality, he would not minimise to himself the increasing cleft under her chin, nor the deterioration of her once brilliant complexion. Well, young man, Edwin greeted the boy with that insolent familiarity which adults permit themselves to children, who are perfect strangers. I thought I'd just run in and introduce my latest nephew to you, said Janet, quickly, adding, and then that would be over. Oh, Edwin murmured, come into the drawing-room, will you? Maggie's upstairs. They passed into the drawing-room where a servant in striped print was languidly caressing the glass of a bookcase with a duster. You can leave this a bit, Edwin said curtly to the girl, who obsequiously acquiesced and fled, forgetting a brush on a chair. Sit down, will you, Edwin urged awkwardly? And which particular nephew is this? I may tell you he's already raised a great deal of curiosity in the town. Janet most unusually blushed again. Has he, she replied? Well, he isn't my nephew at all, really, but we pretend he is, don't we, George? It's cosier. This is Master George Cannon. Cannon? You don't mean. You remember Mrs. Cannon, don't you? Hilda less ways? Now, Georgie, come and shake hands with Mr. Clayhanger. But George would not. Part two. Indeed, Edwin exclaimed very feebly. He knew not whether his voice was natural or unnatural. He felt as if he had received a heavy blow with a sandbag over the heart. Not a symbolic, but a real, physical blow. He might standing innocent in the street have been staggeringly assailed by a complete stranger of mild and harmless appearance who had then passed tranquilly on. Dizzy astonishment held him to the exclusion of any other sentiment. He might have gasped foolish and tottering, Why, what's the meaning of this? What's happened? He looked at the child uncomprehendingly. Idiotically. Little by little it seemed an age and was in fact a few seconds he resumed his faculties, and remembered that in order to keep a conventional self-respect he must behave in such a manner as to cause Janet to believe that her revelation of the child's identity had in no way disturbed him. To act a friendly indifference seemed to him then to be the most important duty in life, and he knew not why. I thought, he said in a low voice, and then he began again, I thought you hadn't been seeing anything of her, of Mrs. Cannon, for a long time now. The child was climbing on a chair at the window that gave on the garden absorbed in exploration and discovery, quite ignoring the adults. Either Janet had forgotten him, or she had no hope of controlling him and was trusting to chance that the young wild stag would do nothing too dreadful. Well, she admitted we haven't. Her constraint recurred. Very evidently she had to be careful about what she said. There were reasons why even to Edwin she would not be frank. I only brought him down from London yesterday. Edwin trembled as he put the question, is she here too, Mrs. Cannon? Somehow he could only refer to Mrs. Cannon as her and she. Oh no, said Janet in a tone to indicate that there was no possibility of Mrs. Cannon being in Bursley. He was relieved, yes, he was glad. He felt that he could not have endured the sensation of her nearness, of her actually being in the next house. Her presence at the Orgreaves would have made the neighbourhood, the whole town, dangerous. It would have subjected him to the risk of meeting her suddenly at any corner. Nay, he would have been forced to go in cold blood to encounter her. And he knew that he could not have borne to look at her. The constraint of such an interview would have been torture too acute. Strange that though he was absolutely innocent, though he had done naught but suffer, he should feel like a criminal, should have the criminals shifting downcast glance. Part 3 Aunty cried the boy, can't I go into this garden? There's a swing there. Oh no, said Janet, this isn't our garden, we must go home. We only just called in. And big boys who won't shake hands. Yes, yes, Edwin dreamily stopped her, let him go into the garden for a minute if he wants to. You can't run off like that. Come along, my lord. He saw an opportunity of speaking to her out of the child's hearing. Janet consented, perhaps divining his wish. The child turned and stared deliberately at Edwin, and then plunged forward, too eager to await guidance towards the conquest of the garden. Standing silent and awkward in the garden porch they watched him violently agitating the swing, a contrivance erected by her good-natured Uncle Edwin for the diversion of Clara's offspring. How old is he, Edwin demanded, for the sake of saying something? About nine, said Janet. He doesn't look, Ed. No, but he talks it, sometimes. George did not, in fact, look his age. He was slight and small, and he seemed to have no bones, nothing but articulations that functioned with equal ease in all possible directions. His skin was pale and unhealthy. His eyes had an expression of fatigue, or he might have been ophthalmic. He spoke loudly, his gestures were brusque, and his life was apparently made up of a series of intense, absolute absorptions. The general effect of his personality upon Edwin was not quite agreeable, and Edwin's conclusion was that George, in addition to being spoiled, was a profound and rather irritating egoist by nature. By the way, he murmured, Mr. Cannon? Oh, said Janet, hesitating with emotion. She's a widow. He felt sick. Janet might have been a doctor who had informed him that he was suffering from an unexpected disease, and that an operation severe and perilous lay in front of him. The impartial observer in him asked somewhat disdainfully why he should allow himself to be deranged in this physical manner, and he could only reply feebly and very meekly that he did not know. He felt sick. Suddenly he said to himself making a discovery, of course she won't come to Bursley, she'd be ashamed to meet me. How long, he demanded of Janet? It was last year, I think, said Janet, with emotion increased, her voice heavy with the load of its sympathy. When he first knew Janet an extraordinary quick, generous concern for others, had been one of her chief characteristics. But of late years, though her deep universal kindness had not changed, she seemed to have hardened somewhat on the surface. Now he found again the earlier Janet. You never told me. The truth is we didn't know, Janet said, and without giving Edwin time to put another question she continued, the poor things had a great deal of trouble, a very great deal. George is health now, the sea air doesn't suit him, and Hilda couldn't possibly leave Brighton. Oh, is she still at Brighton? Yes. Let me see, she used to be at, what was it, Preston Street. Janet glanced at him with interest. What a memory you've got. It's ten years since she was here. Nearly, said Edwin, it just happened to stick in my mind. You remember she came down to the shop to ask me about trains and things the day she left? Did she, Janet exclaimed, raising her eyebrows? Edwin had been suspecting that possibly Hilda had given some hint to Janet as to the nature of her relations with him. He now sees to suspect that. He grew easier, he gathered up the reins again, though in a rather limp hand. Why is she so bound to stay in Brighton he inquired with affected boldness? She's got a boarding-house. I see. Well, it's a good thing she has a private income of her own. That's just the point, said Janet sadly, we very much doubt if she has any private income any longer. Edwin waited for further details, but Janet seemed to speak unwillingly. She would follow him, but she would not lead. Part IV Behind them he could hear the stir of Mrs. Ham's departure. She and Maggie were coming down the stairs, guessing not the dramatic arrival of Janet Orgreve and the mysterious nephew, Mrs. Ham's having peeped into the empty dining-room said, I suppose the dear boy has gone, and forthwith went herself. Edwin smiled cruelly at the thought of what her joy would have been actually to inspect the mysterious nephew at close quarters, and to learn the strange suspicious truth that he was not a nephew after all. And he yelled the boy across the garden, Come along, we must go now, Janet retorted. No, I want you to swing me, make me swing very high. George, let him swing a bit, said Edwin, I'll go and swing him, and calling loud to the boy, I'll come and swing you. He's dreadfully spoiled, Janet protested, you'll make him worse. I don't care, said Edwin carelessly. He seemed to understand better than he had ever done with Clara's litter, how and why parents came to spoil their children. It was not because they feared a struggle of wills, but because of the unreasoning instinctive pleasure to be derived from the conferring of pleasure, especially when the pleasure thus confirmed might involve doubtful consequences. He had not cared for the boy, did not care for him. In theory he had the bachelor's factitious horror of a spoiled child. Nevertheless he would now support the boy against Janet. His instinct said, He wants something, I can give it him, let him have it. Never mind the consequences, he shall have it. He crossed the damp grass and felt the breeze and the sun. The sky was a moving medley of Chinese white and prussian blue that harmonized admirably with the Indian red architecture that framed it on all sides. The high trees in the garden of the Orgreaves were turning to rich yellows and browns and dead leaves slanted slowly down from their summits, a few reaching even the clay-hanger garden, speckling its evergreen with ochre. On the other side of the west wall traps and carts rattled and rumbled and creaked along Trafalgar Road. The child had stopped swinging him with a most heavenly, persuasive, grateful smile. A different child. A sudden angel with delicate, distinguished gestures. A wondrous screwing up of the eyes in the sun. Weak eyes, perhaps. The thick eyebrows recalled Hilda's. Possibly he had Hilda's look, or was that fancy? Edwin was sure that he would never have guessed George's parentage. Now he warned. Hold tight, and going behind the boy he strongly clasped his slim little waist in its blue sailor cloth and sent the whole affair swing seat and boy and all flying to the skies. And the boy shrieked in the violence of his ecstasy and his cap fell on the grass. Edwin worked hard without relaxing. Go on, go on, the boy shriekingly commanded. And amid these violent efforts and brusque delicious physical contacts Edwin was calmly penetrated and saturated by the mystic effluence that is disengaged from young children. He had seen his father dead and had thought, here is the most majestic and impressive enigma that the earth can show. But the child George, aged nine and seeming more like seven, offered an enigma surpassing in solemnity that of death. This was Hilda's. This was hers who had left him a virgin. With a singular, thrilled impassivity he imagined not bitterly the history of Hilda. She who was his by word and by kiss had given her mortal frame to the unknown cannon. Yielded it. She had conceived. At some moment when he, Edwin, was alive and suffering she had conceived. She had seized to be a virgin. Quickly with an astounding quickness for was not George nine years old she had passed from virginity to motherhood and he imagined all that too, all of it, clearly. And here swinging and shrieking exerting the power and unique charm of infancy was the miraculous sequel. Another individuality, a new being definitely formed with character and volition of its own unlike any other individuality in the universe. Something fresh, something unimaginably created. A phenomenon absolutely original of the pride and the tragedy of life. George. Yesterday she was a virgin and today there was this and this might have been his or to have been his. Yes, he thrilled secretly amid all those pushings and joltings. The mystery obsessed him. He had no rancour against Hilda. He was incapable of rancour except a kind of willful, fostered rancour in trifles. Thus he never forgave the inventor of Saturday afternoon Bible classes. But rancour against Hilda? No. Her act had been above rancour like an act of heaven and she existed yet on a spot of the earth's surface entitled Brighton which he could locate upon a map. She existed. Hilda in difficulty keeping a boarding house. She ate, slept, struggled. She brushed her hair. He could see her brushing her hair. And she was thirty-four, was it? The wonder of the world amazed and shook him and it appeared to him that his career was more romantic than ever. George with dangerous abruptness wriggled his legs downwards and slipped off the seat of the swing not waiting for Edwin to stop it. He rolled on the grass and jumped up in haste. He had had enough. Well, want any more? Edwin asked, breathing hard. The child made a shy negative sigh twisting his tousled head down into his right shoulder. After all he was not really impudent, brazen. He could show a delicious timidity. Edwin decided that he was an enchanting child. He wanted to talk to him but he could not think of anything natural and reasonable to say by way of opening. You haven't told me your name, you know. He began at length. How do I know what your name is? George, yes, but George what? George is nothing by itself. I know ten million Georges. The child smiled. George, Edwin Cannon, he replied shyly. Part five Now George came Janet's voice more firmly than before. After all she meant in the end to be obeyed. She was learning her business as Aunt to this new and difficult nephew. But learn it she would and thoroughly. Come on, Edwin counseled the boy. They went together to the house. Maggie had found Janet and the two were conversing. Afterwards Aunt and nephew departed. How very odd! Mermin Maggie with an unusual intonation in the hall as Edwin was putting on his hat to return to the shop. But whether she was speaking to herself or to him, he knew not. What, he asked gruffly. Well, she said, isn't it? She was more like Auntie Hamps more like Clara than herself in that moment. He resented the suspicious implications of her tone. He was about to give her one of his rude curt rejoinders but happily he remembered in time that scarce half an hour earlier he had turned over a new leaf. So he kept silence. He walked down to the shop in a deep dream. End of chapter two volume four Volume four chapter three of Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter three Adventure It was when Edwin fairly reached the platform at Victoria Station and saw the grandiose express waiting its own moment to start that the strange irrational quality of his journey first fully impressed him and frightened him. So much that he was almost ready to walk out of the station again. To come gradually into London from the north to pass from the Manchester train half full of midlanders through Bloomsbury into the preoccupied, struggling and untidy strand this gave no shock typified nothing definite. But having spent a night in London deliberately to leave it for the south where he had never been of which he was entirely ignorant that was like an explicit self-committal like turning the back on the last recognisable landmark in an ill-considered voyage of pure adventure. The very character of Victoria Station and of this express was different from that of any other station and express in his experience. It was unstrenuous, soft, it had none of the busy harshness of the midlands. It spoke of pleasure, relaxation, of spending free from all worry and humiliation of getting. Everybody who came towards this train came with an assured air of wealth and of dominion. Everybody was well-dressed, many if not most of the women were in furs, some had expensive and delicate dogs, some had pale, elegant footmen, being too august even to speak to porters. All the luggage was luxurious. Handbags could be seen that were worth fifteen or twenty pounds apiece. There was no question of first, second or third class. There was no class at all on this train. Edwin had the apologetic air of the provincial who is determined to be as good as anybody else. When he sat down in the vast interior of one of those gilded vehicles he could not dismiss from his face the anxiousness that he was an intruder that he did not belong to that world. He was ashamed of his hand luggage and his gesture in tipping the porter lacked carelessness. Of course he pretended a frowning absorbed interest in a newspaper, but the very newspaper was strange. He guessed not that unless he glanced first at the penultimate column of page one, thereof he convicted himself of following his way about. He could not think consecutively not even of his adventure. His brain was in a maze of anarchy. But at frequent intervals recurred the query, what the devil am I up to? And he would uneasily smile to himself. When the train rolled with all its majesty out of the station and across the Thames he said to himself fearful now. Part 2 On the Thursday he had told Maggie with effected casualness that on the Friday he might have to go to London about a new machine. Sheer invention. Fortunately Maggie had been well-drilled by her father in the manner proper to women in accepting announcements connected with business, and Edwin was just as laconic and mysterious as Darius had been about business. It was a word that ended arguments or prevented them. On the Friday he had said that he should go in the afternoon. On being asked whether he should return on the Saturday he had replied that he did not know but that he would telegraph. Whereupon Maggie had said that if he stayed away for the weekend she should probably have all the children up for dinner and tea. At the shop, Stifford he had said that once you don't happen to know a good hotel in Brighton I might run down there for the weekend if I don't come back tomorrow but you needn't say anything. No sir, Stifford had discreetly concurred in this suggestion. They say there's really only one hotel in Brighton sir the Royal Sussex but I've never been there. Edwin had replied not the Metropole then. Oh no sir! One wonderful man and Edwin's constant fear was that he might lose this indispensable prop to his business. For Stifford having done a little irregular commercial travelling in Staffordshire and the neighbouring counties had been seized of the romance of travelling he frequented the society of real commercial travellers and was gradually becoming a marvellous encyclopedia of information about hotels, routes and topography. Edwin having been to the bank himself instead of sending Stifford had departed with the minimum of ostentation. He had in fact crept away since the visit of Janet and the child he had not seen either of them again nor had he mentioned the child to anybody at all. Part 3 When in an astounding short space of time he stood in the King's Road at Brighton, it seemed to him that he was in a dream, that he was not really at Brighton that town which for so many years had been to him naught but a romantic name. Had his adventurousness his full hardiness indeed carried him so far. As for Brighton it corresponded with no dream. It was vaster than any imagining of it. Edwin had only seen the pleasure cities of the poor and of the middling such as Blackpool and Landudno. He had not conceived what wealth would do when it organised itself for the purposes of distraction. The train had prepared him to a certain extent but not sufficiently. He suddenly saw Brighton in its autumnal pride, Brighton beginning one of its plans, and he had to admit that the number of rich and idle people in the world surpassed his provincial notions. For miles westwards and miles eastwards against a formidable background of high yellow and brown architecture, persons the luxuriousness of any one of whom would have drawn remarks in Bursley, walked or drove or rode in thronging multitudes. Edwin could comprehend lolling by the sea in August but in late October it seemed unnatural, fantastic. The air was full of the trot of glossy horses and the rattle of hits and the roll of swift wheels and the fall of elegant souls on endless clean pavements. It was full of the consciousness of being correct and successful. Many of the faces were monstrously ugly. Most were dissatisfied and quarrelous but they were triumphant. Even the pale beings in enlarged perambulators pulled solemnly to and fro by their aged fellow beings were triumphant. The scarred, the maimed, yes, and the able-bodied, blind, trusting to the arms of friends were triumphant. And the enormous policemen respectfully bland, confident in the system which had chosen them and fattened them, gave as it were to the scene an official benediction. The bricks and stucco which fronted the sea on the long and banked promenade never sank lower than a four-storey boarding-house and were continually rising to the height of some guilt-lettered hotel and at intervals rose sheer into the skies. Six, eight, ten stories where a hotel admittedly the grandest on any shore of ocean sent terracotta chimneys to lose themselves amid the pearly clouds. Nearly every building was a lodgment waiting for the rich and nearly every great bow window out of tens of thousands of bow windows bulging forward in an effort to miss no least glimpse of the full prospect exhibited the apparatus and the menials of gourmandese. And the eye following the interminable irregular horizontal lines of architecture was foiled in the far distances and still farther off after a break of indistinguishable brown it would catch again the receding run of roofs simplified by atmosphere into featureless rectangles of grey against sapphire or rose. There were two piers that strode and sprawled into the sea and these also were laden with correctness and with domination. And between the two men were walking miraculously on the sea to build a third that should stride farther and deeper than the others. Part Four Amid the crowd stamping and tapping his way monotonously along with the assured obstinacy of a mendicant experienced and hardened came a shabby man bearing on his breast a large label with these words blind through boy throwing mortar, discharged from four hospitals incurable. Edwin's heart seemed to be constricted. He thought of the ragged snarling touts who had fawned to him at the station and of the creatures locked in the cellars whence came beautiful odours of confectionery and soup through the pavement gratings and of the slattenly women who kept thrusting flowers under his nose and the half-clad infants who skimmed before the wind yelling the names of newspapers. All was not triumph. Where triumph was there also must be the conquered. She was there, she too somewhere close to him. He recalled the exact tone of Janet's voice as she had said the poor things had a great deal of trouble. A widow trying to run a boarding-house and not succeeding. Why, there were hundreds upon hundreds of boarding-houses or large or imposing or busy at the end of October. Where was hers hidden away? Her pathetic little boarding-house. Preston Street. He knew not where Preston Street was and he had purposely refrained from inquiring. He might encounter it at any moment. He was afraid to look too closely at the street signs as he passed them. Afraid. What am I doing here? He asked himself curiously and sometimes pettishly. What's my object? Where's the sense of it? I'm nothing but a damned fool. I've got no plan. I don't know what I'm going to do. It was true. He had no plan and did not know what he was going to do. What he did most intimately know was that the idea of her nearness made him tremble. I had much better go back at once, he said. He walked miles until he came to immense and silent squares of huge palatial houses and wide transversal avenues running far up into the land and into the dusk. In these vast avenues and across these vast squares infrequent carriages sped like mechanical toys guided by mannequins. The sound of the sea waxed and then he saw the twinkle of lights and then fire ran slowly along the promenade until the whole map of it was drawn out in flame. And he perceived that though he had walked a very long way the high rampart of houses continued still interminably beyond him. He turned. He was tired. His face caught the full strength of the rising wind. Foam gleamed on the rising tide. In the profound violet sky to the east stars shone and were wiped out in fields, but to the west silver tarried. He had not seen Preston Street and it was too dark now to decipher the signs. He was glad. He had gone with rapidly increasing fatigue discussed impatience. The thronging multitudes had almost disappeared but many illuminated vehicles were flitting to and fro and the shops were brilliant. He was so exhausted by the pavements that he could scarcely walk and Brighton became for him the most sorrowful city on earth. What am I doing here? he asked himself savagely. However, by dint of sticking doggedly to it he did in the end reach the hotel. Part 5 After dinner and wine, both of which by their surprising and indeed unique excellence fostered the prestige of Stifford as an authority upon hotels Edwin was conscious of new strength and cheerfulness. He left the crowded and rose-lit dining-room early because he was not at ease amid its ceremoniousness of attire and of service and went into the turkey-carpeted hall whose porter suddenly sprang into propitiatory life on seeing him. He produced a cigarette and with passionate haste the porter produced a match and by his method of holding the flame to the cigarette deferential and yet firm proved that his young existence had not been wasted in idleness. When the cigarette was alight the porter surveyed his work with a pleased smile. Another rare storm blowing up sir said the porter. Yes, said Edwin, it's been giving the window of my room a fine shake. The porter glanced at the clock. I tied in half an hour, sir. I think I'll go out and have a look at it, said Edwin. Yes, sir. By the way, Edwin added, I suppose you haven't got a map of Brighton. Certainly sir said the porter and with a rebirth of passion began to search among the pile of timetables and other documents on a table behind him. Edwin wished he had not asked for the map. He had not meant to ask for it. The words had said themselves. He gazed unseeing at the map for a few instance. What particular street did you want, sir? The porter murmured. In deciding how to answer it seemed to Edwin that he was deciding the hazard of his life. Preston Street. Oh! Preston Street, the reporter repeated in a relieved tone as if assuring Edwin that there was nothing very esoteric about Preston Street. It's just beyond the metropole. You know Regency Square? Well, it's the next street after that. There's a club on the corner. In the afternoon then Edwin must have walked across the end of Preston Street twice. This thought made him tremble as at the perception of a danger that he had not but unperceived at the moment. The porter gave his whole soul to the pudding of Edwin's overcoat on Edwin's back. He offered the hat with an abeyance and having ushered Edwin into the night so that the illustrious guest might view the storm. He turned with a sudden new mysterious supply of zeal to other guests who were now emerging from the dining-room. Part 6 at Square where no storm raged, but simultaneously with Edwin's first glimpse of the sea the wind struck him a tremendous blow and continued to strike. He had the peculiar grim joy of the midlander and northerner in defying an element. All the lamps of the promenade were insecurely flickering. Grouped opposite a small jetty was a crowd of sightseers. The dim extremity of the jetty was wreathed in spray and the waves ran along its side making curved lines on the masonry like curved lines of a rope shaken from one end. The wet floor of the jetty shone like a mirror. Edwin approached the crowd and peeping over black shoulders could see down into the hollow of the corner between the jetty and the sea wall where boys on the steps dared the spent waves amid jeering laughter. He had the air of being a family intimately united. Farther on was another similar crowd near an irregular high fountain of spray that glittered in the dark. On the beach below at vague distances were curious rows of apparently tiny people silhouetted like the edge of a black sore against an excessive whiteness. This whiteness was the sheet of foam that the sea made. It stretched everywhere until the eye lost its seawards. Edwin descended to the beach adding another tooth to the sore. The tide ran absolutely white in wide chords of a circle and then to the raw noise of disturbed shingle the chord vanished and in a moment was recreated. This play went on endlessly hypnotizing the spectators who beaten by the wind and deafened by sound stared and stared safe at the mysterious and menacing world of spray and foam and darkness. Before was the open malignant sea close behind on their eminence the hotels rose in vast cubes of yellow light move less secure strangely confident that nothing sinister could happen to them. Edwin was aware of emotion. The feel of his overcoat collar upturned against the chin was friendly to him amid that onset of the pathos of the human world. He climbed back to the promenade always at the bottom of his mind the foundation of all the shifting structures in his mind was the consciousness of his exact geographical relation to Preston Street. He walked westwards along the promenade. Why am I doing this? He asked himself again and again why don't I go home? I must be mad to be doing this. Still his legs carried him on past lamp post after lamp post of the wind-driven promenade now almost deserted and presently the high lighted windows of the grandest hotels were to be seen cut like square holes in the sky and then the pier which had flung a string of lanterns over the waves into the storm and opposite the pier a dark city space and a rectangle of gas lamps Regency Square. He crossed over and passed up the square and out of it by a tiny side street at hazard and low he was in Preston Street. He went hot and cold. Part 7 Well and what then? Preston Street was dark and lonely the wind charged furiously through it panting towards the Downs. He was in Preston Street but what could he do? She was behind the black walls of one of those houses but what then? Could he knock at the door in the night and say I've come I don't know why? He said I shall walk up and down this street once and then I shall go back to the hotel that's the only thing to do that's the matter with me I ought to have written to her why in the name of God didn't I begin by writing to her of course I might write to her from the hotel send the letter by messenger tonight or early tomorrow yes that's what I'll do he set himself to make the perambulation of the street many of the numbers were painted on the fan lights over the doors and showed plain against illumination suddenly he saw the large figures fifty-nine he was profoundly stirred he had said that the matter with him was that he had gone off his head but now staring at that number on the opposite side of the street he really did not know what was the matter with him he might have been dying the front of the house was dark save for the fan light he crossed over and peered down into the area and at the black door a brass plate cannon's boarding house he could read he perspired it seemed to him that he could see her within the house mysteriously moving at her feminine tasks or did she lie in bed he had come from Bursley to London from London to Brighton and now he had found her portal it existed the adventure seemed incredible in its result enough for the present he could stand no more he walked away meaning not to return when he returned five minutes later the fan light was dark had she in the meantime come into the hall of the house and extinguished the gas strange that all lights should be out in a boarding establishment before ten o'clock he stood hesitant quite near the house holding himself against the wind then the door opened a little as it were stealthily and a hand and arm crept out and with a cloth polished the brass of the brass plate he thought in his excited fancy that it was her hand and arm within he seemed to distinguish a dim figure he did not move could not the door opened wider and the figure stood revealed a woman's surely it was not she she gazed at him suspiciously duster in hand what are you standing there for she questioned inimically we've had enough of loiterers in this street please go away she took him for a naive expectant of some chance to maraud she was not fearful however it was she it was her voice End of Chapter 3 Volume 4 Volume 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Chapter 4 was here you'd like to know how he was getting on. Why, she exclaimed, with seeming bitterness, you've grown a beard!" Yes, he admitted foolishly, apologetically. We can't stand here in this wind, she said, angry with the wind, which was indeed blowing her hair about, and her skirts and her duster. She did not in words invite him to enter, but she held the door more widely open, and drew back for him to pass. He went in. She closed the door with a bang and rattle of large, old-fashioned latches, locks, and chains, and the storm was excluded. They were in the dark of the hall. "'Wait till I put my hand on the matches,' she said. Then she struck a match which revealed a common oil lamp, with a reservoir of yellow glass and a paper shade. She raised the chimney and lit the lamp, and regulated the wick. Edwin kept silence. The terrible constraint which had half-paralyzed him when Janet first mentioned Hilda seized him again. He stood near the woman who, without a word of explanation or regret, had jilted, outraged, and ruined him ten years before. This was their first meeting after their kisses in his father's shop. And yet she was not on her knees, nor in tears, nor stammering an appeal for forgiveness. It was rather he who was apologetic, who sought excuses. He felt somehow like a criminal, or at least like one who commits an enormous indiscretion. The harsh curves of her hair were the same. Her thick eyebrows were the same. Her blazing glance was the same. Her intensely clear intonation was the same. But she was a profoundly changed woman. Even in his extreme perturbation he could be sure of that. As, bending under the lamp shade to arrange the wick, she exposed her features to the bright light. Edwin saw a face marred by anxiety and grief and time, the face of a mature woman with no lingering pretension to girlishness. She was thirty-four and she looked older than Maggie, and much older than Janet. She was embittered. Her black dress was shabby and untidy, her fingernails irregular, discoloured and damaged. The aspect of her pain, Edwin acutely. It seemed to him a poignant shame that time and sorrow and misfortune could not pass over a young girl's face and leave no mark. When he recalled what she had been, comparing the woman with the delicious wistful freshness of the girl that lived unaltered in his memory, he was obliged to clear his throat. The contrast was too pathetic to be dwelt on. Only with the woman before him did he fully appreciate the exquisite, innocent simplicity of the girl. In the day of his passion Hilda had not seemed to him very young, very simple, very wistful. On the contrary she had seemed to have much of the knowledge and the temper of a woman. Being at length subjugated the wick she straightened her back with a gesture that he knew, and for one instant she was a girl again. Part II. "'Will you come this way?' she said coldly, holding the lamp in front of her and opening a door. At the same moment another door opened at the far end of the hall. There was a heavy footstep, a great hand, an arm shewed, and then Edwin had a glimpse of a man's head and shoulders emerging from an oblong flickering fire-light. Hilda paused. "'All right,' she called to the man who at once disappeared, shutting the door and leaving darkness where he had been. The large shadows cast by Hilda's lamp now had the gaunt hall to themselves again. "'Don't be alarmed,' she laughed harshly. "'It's only the broker's man.' Edwin was tongue-tied. If Hilda were joking what answer could be made to such a pleasantry in such a situation? And if she were speaking the truth, if the bailiffs really were in possession? His life seemed to him once again astoundingly romantic. He had loved this woman, conquered her, and now she was a mere acquaintance, and he was following her stiffly into the recesses of a strange and sinister abode, peopled by mysterious men. Was this a bright and boarding-house? It resembled nothing reputable in his experience. All was incomprehensible. The room into which she led him was evidently the dining-room, not spacious, perhaps not quite so large as his own dining-room. It was nearly filled by one long, bare table. It or ten monotonous chairs were ranged round the gray walls. In the embrasure of the window was a wicker stand with a withered plant on its summit, and at the other end of the room a walnut sideboard in the most horrible taste. The mantelpiece was draped with dark, knotted and roseted cloth. Within the fenders stood a small paper screen. The walls were hung with ancient and with fairly modern engravings, some big, others little, some colored, others in black and white, but all distressing in their fatuous ugliness. The ceiling seemed black. The whole room fulfilled, pretty accurately, the scornful, scrupulous, housewise notion of a lodging-house interior. It was suspect. And in Edwin there was a good deal of the housewife. He was appalled. Obviously the house was small, he had known that from the outside, and the entire enterprise insignificant. This establishment was not in the King's Road, nor on the Marine Parade, nor at Hove. No doubt hundreds of such little places existed precariously in a vast town like Brighton. Widows, of course, were often in straits, and Janet had told him, nevertheless he was appalled, and completely at a loss to reconcile Hilda with her environment. And then the broker's man. At her bidding he sat down in his overcoat, with his hat insecure on his knee, and observed under the lamp the dust on the surface of the long table. Hilda seated herself opposite so that the lamp was between them, hiding him from her by its circle of light. He wondered what Maggie would have thought, and what Clara would have said could they have seen him in that obscurity. Part III. So you've seen my boy, she began, with no softening of tone. Yes, Janet Orgreig brought him in one morning, the other day. He didn't seem to me to be so ill as all that. Ill, she exclaimed, he certainly wasn't ill when he left here. But he had been, and the doctor said that this air didn't suit him. It never had suited him. It doesn't suit some folks, you know, people can say what they like. Anyhow, he's a lively piece, no mistake about that. When he's well, he's very well, said George's mother. But he's up and down in a minute, and on the whole he's been on the poorly side. He noticed that, though, there was no relapse from the correctness of her accent, she was using just such phrases as she might have used had she never quitted her native Turnhill. He looked round the lamp at her furtively, and seemed to see in her shadowed face a particular local quality of sincerity and downrightness that appealed strongly to his admiration. Ten years earlier he had considered her markedly foreign to the five towns. That this quality should have survived in her was a proof to him that she was a woman unique. Unique she had been, and unique she still remained. He did not know that he had long ago lost forever the power of seeing her with a normal vision. He imagined in his simplicity which disguised itself as chill, critical impartiality that he was adding her up with clear-sighted shrewdness. And then she was a mother, that meant a mysterious, a mystic perfecting. For him it was as if among all women she alone had been a mother. So special was his view of the influence of motherhood upon her. He drew together all the beauty of an experience almost universal, transcendentalized it and centred it on one being. And he was disturbed, baffled, agitated by the effect of the secret workings of his own unsuspected emotion. He was made sad and sadder. He wanted to right wrongs to a face from hearts the memory of grief, to create bliss. And he knew that this could never be done. He now saw Hilda exclusively as a victim, whose misfortunes were innumerable. Imagine this creature with her passion for Victor Hugo, obliged by circumstances to polish a brass door plate surreptitiously at night. Imagine her solitary in the awful house with the broker's man. Imagine her force to separate herself from her child. Imagine the succession of disasters that had soured her and transformed seriousness into harshness and acridity. And within that envelope what a soul must be burning. And when he begins to grow, he scarcely begun to grow yet, Hilda continued about her offspring, then he will need all his strength. Yes he will, Edwin concurred heartily. He wanted to ask her, why did you call him Edwin for his second name? Was it his father's name or your father's, or did you insist on it yourself? Because. But he could not ask, he could ask nothing. He could not even ask why she had jolted him without a word. He knew not, and evidently she was determined to give no information. She might at any rate have explained how she had come to meet Janet, and under what circumstances Janet had taken possession of the child. All was a mystery. Her face when he avoided the lamp shone in the midst of a huge dark cloud of impenetrable mystery. She was too proud to reveal anything whatever. The grand pride in her forbade her even to excuse her conduct to himself. A terrific woman. Part 4. Silence fell. His constraint was excruciating. She too was nervous tapping the table and creaking her chair. He could not speak. Shall you be going back to Bursley soon, she demanded? And her voice was desperation. Oh, yes, he said, thankfully eager to follow up any subject. On Monday I expect. I wonder if you'd mind giving Janet a little parcel from me, some things of George's. I meant to send it by post, but if you—of course, with pleasure he seemed to implore her. It's quite small, she said, rising and going to the sideboard on which lay a little brown paper parcel. His eye followed her. She picked up the parcel, glanced at it, and offered it to him. I'll take it across on Monday night, he said fervently. Thanks. She remained standing. He got up. No message or anything, he suggested? Oh, she said coldly. I write, you know. Well, he made the gesture of departing. There was no alternative. We're having very rough weather, aren't we, she said, with careless conventionality as she took the lamp. In the hall when she held out her hand he wanted tremendously to squeeze it, to give her through his hand the message of sympathy which his tongue, intimidated by her manner, dared not give. But his hand also refused to obey him. The class was strictly ceremonious. As she was drawing the heavy latch of the door he forced himself to say, I mean bright and sometimes, off and on, now I know where you are, I must look you up. She made no answer. She merely said good night as he passed out into the street and the wind. The door banged. Edwin took a long breath. He had seen her. Yes, but the interview had been worse than his worst expectations. He had surpassed himself in futility, infatuous lack of enterprise. He had behaved like a schoolboy. Now as he plunged up the street with the wind he could devise easily a dozen ways of animating and guiding and controlling the interview so that even if sad its sadness might have been agreeable. The interview had been hell, ineffable torture, a perfect crime of clumsiness. It had resulted in nothing, except of course that he had seen her that fact was indisputable. He blamed himself. He cursed himself with really extraordinary savageness. Why did I go near her, he demanded. Why couldn't I keep away? I've simply made myself look a blast at full, creeping and crawling round her. After all she did throw me over. And now she asks me to take a parcel to her confounded kid. The whole thing's ridiculous. And what's going to happen to her in that whole? I don't suppose she's got the least notion of looking after herself. Impossible the whole thing. If anybody had told me that I should, that she—half of which talk was simple bluster—the parcel was bobbing on its loop against his side. When he reached the top of the street he discovered that he had been going up it instead of down it. What am I thinking of, he grumbled impatiently. However he would not turn back. He had ventured forward, climbing into latitudes whose geography was strange to him, and scarcely seeing a single fellow wanderer beneath the gas lamps. Presently after a steep hill he came to a churchyard, and then he redescended, and at last tumbled into a street alive with people who had emerged from a theatre, laughing, lighting cigarettes, linking arms. Their existence seemed shallow, purposeless, infantile compared to his. He felt himself superior to them. What did they know about life? He would not change with any of them. Recognizing the label on an omnibus he followed its direction, and arrived almost immediately in the vast square which contained his hotel, and which was illuminated by the brilliant facades of several hotels. The doors of the Royal Sussex were locked because eleven o'clock had struck. He could not account for the period of nearly three hours which had passed since he left the hotel. The zealous porter, observing his shadow through the bars, had sprung to unfasten the door before he could ring. Within the hotel reigned gaiety wine and the dance. Small tables had been placed in the hall, and at these sat bald-headed men, smoking cigars and sharing champagne, with ladies of every age. A white carpet had been laid in the large smoking-room, and through the curtain-dutch way that separated it from the hall, Edwin could see couples revolving in obedience to the music of a piano and a violin. One of the Royal Sussex's Saturday Cinderella's was in progress. The self-satisfied gestures of men inspecting the cigars or lifting glasses, of simpering women glancing on the sly at their jewels, and of youths pulling straight their white waistcoats as they strolled about with the air of Don Juan's, invigorated his contempt for the average existence. The tinkle of the music appeared exquisitely tedious in its superficiality. He could not remain in the hall because of the incorrectness of his attire, and the staircase was blocked to a timid man by elegant couples apparently engaged in the act of flirtation. He turned through a group of attendant waiters into the passage leading to the small smoking-room, which adjoined the discreetly situated bar. This smoking-room, like a club, warm and bright, was empty. But in passing he had caught sight of two mutually affectionate dandies drinking at the splendid mahogany of the bar. He lit a cigarette. Seated in the smoking-room he could hear their conversation. He was forced to hear it. "'I'm really a very quiet man, old chap. Very quiet,' said one with a wavering drawl. But when they get at me—' I was at the club at one o'clock, I wasn't drunk, but I had a top on. You were just gay and cheerful the other flatteringly and soothingly suggested in an exactly similar wavering drawl. Yes, I felt as if I wanted to go out somewhere and have another drink. So I went to Willis's rooms. I was in evening dress. You know you have to get a domino for those things. Then, of course, you're a mark at once. I also got a nose. A girl snatched it off me. I told her what I thought of her, and I got another nose. Then five fellows tried to snatch my domino off me. Then I did get angry. I landed out with my right at the nearest chap, right on his heart. Not his face, his heart. I lowered him. He asked me afterwards, was that your right? Yes, I said, and my left's worse. I couldn't use my left, because they were holding it. You see? You see? Yes, said the other impatiently and suddenly contankerous. I see that all right. Damned awful rot those Willis's rooms affairs are getting, if you ask me. Asses, Edwin, exploded within himself idiots. He could not tolerate their crassness. He had a hot prejudice against them because they were not as near the core of life as he was himself. It appeared to him that most people died without having lived. Willis's rooms, girls, nose, heart. Asses. He surged again out of the small room, desolating the bar with one scoffal glance as he went by. He braved the staircase, leaving no scenes of driveling festivity. In his bedroom, with the wind crashing against the window, he regarded meditatively the parcel. After all, if she had meant to have nothing to do with him, she would not have charged him with the parcel. The parcel was a solid fact. The more he thought about it, the more significant a fact it seemed to him. His ears sang with the vibrating intensity of his secret existence. But from the wild confusion of his heart he could disentangle no constant idea.