The Clayhanger Trilogy: Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways & These Twain (Complete Edition). Bennett Arnold
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hands clasp each other in sheer delight.
“Oh!” said Edwin, touched. “It’ll be all right for the dad. No fear!”
“I haven’t seen it yet,” she proceeded. “In fact I haven’t been in your house for such a long time. But I do think it’s going to be very nice. All father’s houses are so nice, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” said Edwin, with that sideways shake of the head that in the vocabulary of his gesture signified, not dissent, but emphatic assent. “You ought to come and have a look at it.” He could not say less.
“Do you think I could scramble through here?” she indicated the sparse hedge.
“I— I—”
“I know what I’ll do. I’ll get the steps.” She walked off sedately, and came back with a small pair of steps, which she opened out on the narrow flower-bed under the hedge. Then she picked up her skirt and delicately ascended the rocking ladder till her feet were on a level with the top of the hedge. She smiled charmingly, savouring the harmless escapade, and gazing at Edwin. She put out her free hand, Edwin took it, and she jumped. The steps fell backwards, but she was safe.
“What a good thing mother didn’t see me!” she laughed. Her grave, sympathetic, almost handsome face was now alive everywhere with a sort of challenging merriment. She was only pretending that it was a good thing her mother had not seen her: a delicious make-believe. Why, she was as motherly as her mother! In an instant her feet were choosing their way and carrying her with grace and stateliness across the mire of the unformed garden. She was the woman of the world, and Edwin the raw boy. The harmony and dignity of her movements charmed and intimidated Edwin. Compare her to Maggie... That she was hatless added piquancy.
Two.
They went into the echoing bare house, crunching gravel and dry clay on the dirty, new floors. They were alone together in the house. And all the time Edwin was thinking: “I’ve never been through anything like this before. Never been through anything like this!” And he recalled for a second the figure of Florence Simcox, the clog-dancer.
And below these images and reflections in his mind was the thought: “I haven’t known what life is! I’ve been asleep. This is life!”
The upper squares of the drawing-room window were filled with small leaded diamond-shaped panes of many colours. It was the latest fashion in domestic glazing. The effect was at once rich and gorgeous. She liked it.
“It will be beautiful on this side in the late afternoon,” she murmured. “What a nice room!”
Their eyes met, and she transmitted to him her joy in his joy at the admirableness of the house.
He nodded. “By Jove!” he thought. “She’s a splendid girl. There can’t be many girls knocking about as fine as she is!”
“And when the garden’s full of flowers!” she breathed in rapture. She was thinking, “Strange, nice boy! He’s so romantic. All he wants is bringing out.”
They wandered to and fro. They went upstairs. They saw the bathroom. They stood on the landing, and the unseen spaces of the house were busy with their echoes. They then entered the room that was to be Edwin’s.
“Mine!” he said self-consciously.
“And I see you’re having shelves fixed on both sides of the mantelpiece! You’re very fond of books, aren’t you?” she appealed to him.
“Yes,” he said judicially.
“Aren’t they wonderful things?” Her glowing eyes seemed to be expressing gratitude to Shakespeare and all his successors in the dynasty of literature.
“That shelving is between your father and me,” said Edwin. “The dad doesn’t know. It’ll go in with the house-fittings. I don’t expect the dad will ever notice it.”
“Really!” She laughed, eager to join the innocent conspiracy. “Father invented an excellent dodge for shelving in the hall at our house,” she added. “I’m sure he’d like you to come and see it. The dear thing’s most absurdly proud of it.”
“I should like to,” Edwin answered diffidently.
“Would you come in some evening and see us? Mother would be delighted. We all should.”
“Very kind of you.” In his diffidence he was now standing on one leg.
“Could you come to-night? ... Or tomorrow night?”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t come to-night, or tomorrow night,” he answered with firmness. A statement entirely untrue! He had no engagement; he never did have an engagement. But he was frightened, and his spirit sprang away from the idea, like a fawn at a sudden noise in the brake, and stood still.
He did not suspect that the unconscious gruffness of his tone had repulsed her. She blamed herself for a too brusque advance.
“Well, I hope some other time,” she said, mild and benignant.
“Thanks! I’d like to,” he replied more boldly, reassured now that he had heard again the same noise but indefinitely farther off.
She departed, but by the front door, and hatless and dignified up Trafalgar Road in the delicate sunshine to the next turning. She was less vivacious.
He hoped he had not offended her, because he wanted very much—not to go in cold blood to the famed mansion of the Orgreaves—but by some magic to find himself within it one night, at his ease, sharing in brilliant conversation. “Oh no!” he said to himself. “She’s not offended. A fine girl like that isn’t offended for nothing at all!” He had been invited to visit the Orgreaves! He wondered what his father would say, or think. The unexpressed basic idea of the Clayhangers was that the Clayhangers were as good as other folks, be they who they might. Still, the Orgreaves were the Orgreaves... In sheer absence of mind he remounted the muddy stairs.
Three.
He regarded the shabbiness of his clothes; he had been preoccupied by their defects for about a quarter of an hour; now he examined them in detail, and said to himself disgusted, that really it was ridiculous for a man about to occupy a house like that to be wearing garments like those. Could he call on the Orgreaves in garments like those? His Sunday suit was not, he felt, in fact much better. It was newer, less tumbled, but scarcely better. His suits did not cost enough. Finance was at the root of the crying scandal of his career as a dandy. The financial question must be reopened and settled anew. He should attack his father. His father was extremely dependent on him now, and must be brought to see reason. (His father who had never seen reason!) But the attack must not be made with the weapon of clothes, for on that subject Darius was utterly unapproachable. Whenever Darius found himself in a conversation about clothes, he gave forth the antique and well-tried witticism that as for him he didn’t mind what he wore, because if he was at home everybody knew him and it didn’t matter, and if he was away from home nobody knew him and it didn’t matter. And he always repeated the saying with gusto, as if it was brand-new and none could possibly have heard it before.
No, Edwin decided that he would have to found his attack on the principle of abstract justice; he would never be able to persuade his father that he lacked any detail truly needful to his happiness. To go into details would be to invite defeat.
Of course it would be a bad season in which to raise the financial question. His father would talk savagely in reply about the enormous expenses of house-building, house-furnishing, and removing,—and architects’ and lawyers’ fees; he would be sure to mention the rapacity of architects and lawyers. Nevertheless Edwin felt that at just this season, and no other, must the attack be offered.
Because the inauguration of the new house was to be for Edwin, in a very deep and spiritual sense, the beginning of the new life! He had settled that. The new house inspired him. It was not paradise. But it was a temple.