Clayhanger Part 81

FIVE.

On the following evening, when from the windows of the London-to-Manchester express he saw in the gloom the high-leaping flames of the blast-furnaces that seem to guard eternally the southern frontier of the Five Towns, he felt that he had returned into daily reality out of an impossible world. Waiting for the loop-line train in the familiar tedium of Knype platform, staring at the bookstall, every item on which he knew by heart and despised, surrounded once more by local physiognomies, gestures, and accent, he thought to himself: "This is my lot. And if I get messing about, it only shows what a d.a.m.ned fool I am!" He called himself a d.a.m.ned fool because Hilda had proved to have a husband; because of that he condemned the whole expedition to Brighton as a piece of idiocy. His dejection was profound and bitter. At first, after Hilda had quitted him on the Sunday night, he had tried to be cheerful, had persuaded himself indeed that he was cheerful; but gradually his spirit had sunk, beaten and miserable. He had not called at Preston Street again. Pride forbade, and the terror of being misunderstood.

And when he sat at his own table, in his own dining-room, and watched the calm incurious Maggie dispensing to him his elaborate tea-supper with slightly more fuss and more devotion than usual, his thoughts, had they been somewhat less vague, might have been summed up thus: "The right sort of women don't get landed as the wives of convicts. Can you imagine such a thing happening to Maggie, for instance? Or Janet?"

(And yet Janet was in the secret! This disturbed the flow of his reflections.) Hilda was too mysterious. Now she had half disclosed yet another mystery. But what? "Why was her husband a convict? Under what circ.u.mstances? For what crime? Where? Since when?" He knew the answer to none of these questions. More deeply than ever was that woman embedded in enigmas.

"What's this parcel on the sideboard?" Maggie inquired.

"Oh! I want you to send it in to Janet. It's from her particular friend, Mrs Cannon--something for the kid, I believe. I ran across her in Brighton, and she asked me if I'd bring the parcel along."

The innocence of his manner was perfectly acted. He wondered that he could do it so well. But really there was no danger. n.o.body in Bursley, or in the world, had the least suspicion of his past relations with Hilda. The only conceivable danger would have been in hiding the fact that he had met her in Brighton.

"Of course," said Maggie, mildly interested. "I was forgetting she lived at Brighton. Well?" and she put a few casual questions, to which Edwin casually replied.

"You look tired," she said later.

He astonished her by admitting that he was. According to all precedent her statement ought to have drawn forth a quick contradiction.

The sad image of Hilda would not be dismissed. He had to carry it about with him everywhere, and it was heavy enough to fatigue a stronger than Edwin Clayhanger. The pathos of her situation overwhelmed him, argue as he might about the immunity of 'the right sort of women' from a certain sort of disaster. On the Tuesday he sent her a post-office order for twenty pounds. It rather more than made up the agreed sum of a hundred pounds. She returned it, saying she did not need it. "Little fool!" he said. He was not surprised. He was, however, very much surprised, a few weeks later, to receive from Hilda her own cheque for eighty pounds odd! More mystery! An absolutely incredible woman! Whence had she obtained that eighty pounds? Needless to say, she offered no explanation. He abandoned all conjecture. But he could not abandon the image. And first Auntie Hamps said, and then Clara, and then even Maggie admitted, that Edwin was sticking too close to business and needed a change, needed rousing. Auntie Hamps urged openly that a wife ought to be found for him. But in a few days the great talkers of the family, Auntie Hamps and Clara, had grown accustomed to Edwin's state, and some new topic supervened.

VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE WALL.

One morning--towards the end of November--Edwin, attended by Maggie, was rearranging books in the drawing-room after breakfast, when there came a startling loud tap at the large central pane of the window. Both of them jumped.

"Who's throwing?" Edwin exclaimed.

"I expect it's that boy," said Maggie, almost angrily.

"Not Georgie?"

"Yes. I wish you'd go and stop him. You've no idea what a tiresome little thing he is. And so rough too!"

This att.i.tude of Maggie towards the mysterious nephew was a surprise for Edwin. She had never grumbled about him before. In fact they had seen little of him. For a fortnight he had not been abroad, and the rumour ran that he was unwell, that he was 'not so strong as he ought to be.'

And now Maggie suddenly charged him with a whole series of misdoings!

But it was Maggie's way to keep unpleasant things from Edwin for a time, in order to save her important brother from being worried, and then in a moment of tension to fling them full in his face, like a wet clout.

"What's he been up to?" Edwin inquired for details.

"Oh! I don't know," answered Maggie vaguely. At the same instant came another startling blow on the window. "There!" Maggie cried, in triumph, as if saying: "That's what he's been up to!" After all, the windows were Maggie's own windows.

Edwin left on the sofa a whole pile of books that he was sorting, and went out into the garden. On the top of the wall separating him from the Orgreaves a row of damaged earthenware objects--jugs and jars chiefly--at once caught his eye. He witnessed the smas.h.i.+ng of one of them, and then he ran to the wall, and taking a spring, rested on it with his arms, his toes pushed into crevices. Young George, with hand outstretched to throw, in the garden of the Orgreaves, seemed rather diverted by this apparition.

"h.e.l.lo!" said Edwin. "What are you up to?"

"I'm practising breaking crocks," said the child. That he had acquired the local word gave Edwin pleasure.

"Yes, but do you know you're practising breaking my windows too? When you aim too high you simply can't miss one of my windows."

George's face was troubled, as he examined the facts, which had hitherto escaped his attention, that there was a whole world of consequences on the other side of the wall, and that a missile which did not prove its existence against either the wall or a crock had not necessarily ceased to exist. Edwin watched the face with a new joy, as though looking at some wonder of nature under a microscope. It seemed to him that he now saw vividly why children were interesting.

"I can't see any windows from here," said George, in defence.

"If you climb up here you'll see them all right."

"Yes, but I can't climb up. I've tried to, a lot of times. Even when I stood on my toes on this stump I could only just reach to put the crocks on the top."

"What did you want to get on the wall for?"

"I wanted to see that swing of yours."

"Well," said Edwin, laughing, "if you could remember the swing why couldn't you remember the windows?"

George shook his head at Edwin's stupidity, and looked at the ground.

"A swing isn't windows," he said. Then he glanced up with a diffident smile: "I've often been wanting to come and see you."

Edwin was tremendously flattered. If he had made a conquest, the child by this frank admission had made a greater.

"Then why didn't you come?"

"I couldn't, by myself. Besides, my back hasn't been well. Did they tell you?"

George was so naturally serious that Edwin decided to be serious too.

"I did hear something about it," he replied, with the grave confidential tone that he would have used to a man of his own age. This treatment was evidently appreciated by George, and always afterwards Edwin conversed with him as with an equal, forbearing from facetiousness.

Damp though it was, Edwin twisted himself round and sat on the wall next to the crocks, and bent over the boy beneath, who gazed with upturned face.

"Why didn't you ask Auntie Janet to bring you?"

"I don't generally ask for things that I really want," said the boy, with a peculiar glance.

"I see," said Edwin, with an air of comprehension. He did not, however, comprehend. He only felt that the boy was wonderful. Imagine the boy saying that! He bent lower. "Come on up," he said. "I'll give you a hand. Stick your feet into that nick there."

TWO.

In an instant George was standing on the wall, light as fluff. Edwin held him by the legs, and his hand was on Edwin's cap. The feel of the boy was delightful; he was so lithe and so yielding, and yet firm; and his glance was so trustful and admiring. "Rough!" thought Edwin, remembering Maggie's adjective. "He isn't a bit rough! Unruly? Well, I dare say he can be unruly if he cares to be. It all depends how you handle him." Thus Edwin reflected in the pride of conquest, holding close to the boy, and savouring intimately his charm. Even the boy's slightness attracted him. Difficult to believe that he was nine years old! His body was indeed backward. So too, it appeared, was his education. And yet was there not the wisdom of centuries in, "I don't generally ask for things that I really want?"

Suddenly the boy wriggled, and gave a sound of joy that was almost a yell. "Look!" he cried.

The covered top of the steam-car could just be seen gliding along above the high wall that separated Edwin's garden from the street.

"Yes," Edwin agreed. "Funny, isn't it?" But he considered that such glee at such a trifle was really more characteristic of six or seven than of nine years. George's face was transformed by ecstasy.