‘Now look here!’ he said, as the conversation proceeded, ‘those specifications are at the Sytch Chapel. If you could come along with me now – I mean now – I could give them to you and point out one or two things to you, and perhaps Big James could make a start on them this morning. You see, it’s urgent.’
So he was familiar with Big James.
‘Certainly,’ said Edwin, excited.
And when he had curtly told the paper boy to do portions of the newspaper job which he had always held the paper boy was absolutely incapable of doing, he sent the boy to find Miss Ingamells, informed her where he was going, and followed Mr Orgreave out of the shop.
III
‘Of course you know Charlie’s at school in France,’ said Mr Orgreave, as they passed along Wedgwood Street in the direction of St Luke’s Square. He was really very companionable.
‘Er – yes!’ Edwin replied, nervously explosive, and buttoning up his tight overcoat with an important business air.
‘At least it isn’t a school – it’s a university. Besançon, you know. They take university students much younger there. Oh! He has a rare time – a rare time. Never writes to you, I suppose?’
‘No.’ Edwin gave a short laugh.
Mr Orgreave laughed aloud. ‘And he wouldn’t to us either, if his mother didn’t make a fuss about it. But when he does write, we gather there’s no place like Besançon.’
‘It must be splendid,’ Edwin said thoughtfully.
‘You and he were great chums, weren’t you? I know we used to hear about you every day. His mother used to say that we had Clayhanger with every meal.’ Mr Orgreave again laughed heartily.
Edwin blushed. He was quite startled, and immensely flattered. What on earth could the Sunday have found to tell them every day about him? He, Edwin Clayhanger, a subject of conversation in the household of the Orgreaves, that mysterious household which he had never entered but which he had always pictured to himself as being so finely superior! Less than a year ago Charlie Orgreave had been ‘the Sunday,’ had been ‘Old Perish-in-the-attempt,’ and now he was a student in Besançon University, unapproachable, extraordinarily romantic; and he, Edwin, remained in his father’s shop! He had been aware that Charlie had gone to Besançon University, but he had not realized it effectively till this moment. The realization blew discontent into a flame, which fed on the further perception that evidently the Orgreave family were a gay, jolly crowd of cronies together, not in the least like parents and children; their home life must be something fundamentally different from his.
IV
When they had crossed the windy space of St Luke’s Square and reached the top of the Sytch Bank, Mr Orgreave stopped an instant in front of the Sytch Pottery, and pointed to a large window at the south end that was in process of being boarded up.
‘At last!’ he murmured with disgust. Then he said: ‘That’s the most beautiful window in Bursley, and perhaps in the Five Towns; and you see what’s happening to it.’
Edwin had never heard the word ‘beautiful’ uttered in quite that tone, except by women, such as Auntie Hamps, about a baby or a valentine or a sermon. But Mr Orgreave was not a woman; he was a man of the world, he was almost the man of the world; and the subject of his adjective was a window!
‘Why are they boarding it up, Mr Orgreave?’ Edwin asked.
‘Oh! Ancient lights! Ancient lights!’
Edwin began to snigger. He thought for an instant that Mr Orgreave was being jocular over his head, for he could only connect the phrase ‘ancient lights’ with the meaner organs of a dead animal, exposed, for example, in tripe shops. However, he saw his ineptitude almost simultaneously with the commission of it, and smothered the snigger in becoming gravity. It was clear that he had something to learn in the phraseology employed by architects.
‘I should think,’ said Mr Orgreave, ‘I should think they’ve been at law about that window for thirty years, if not more. Well, it’s over now, seemingly.’ He gazed at the disappearing window. ‘What a shame!’
‘It is,’ said Edwin politely.
Mr Orgreave crossed the road and then stood still to gaze at the façade of the Sytch Pottery. It was a long two-storey building, purest Georgian, of red brick with very elaborate stone facings which contrasted admirably with the austere simplicity of the walls. The porch was lofty, with a majestic flight of steps narrowing to the doors. The ironwork of the basement railings was unusually rich and impressive.
‘Ever seen another pot-works like that?’ demanded Mr Orgreave, enthusiastically musing.
‘No,’ said Edwin. Now that the question was put to him, he never had seen another pot-works like that.
‘There are one or two pretty fine works in the Five Towns,’ said Mr Orgreave. ‘But there’s nothing elsewhere to touch this. I nearly always stop and look at it if I’m passing. Just look at the pointing! The pointing alone …’
Edwin had to readjust his ideas. It had never occurred to him to search for anything fine in Bursley. The fact was, he had never opened his eyes at Bursley. Dozens of times he must have passed the Sytch Pottery, and yet not noticed, not suspected, that it differed from any other pot-works: he who dreamed of being an architect!
‘You don’t think much of it?’ said Mr Orgreave, moving on. ‘People don’t.’
‘Oh yes! I do!’ Edwin protested, and with such an air of eager sincerity that Mr Orgreave turned to glance at him. And in truth he did think that the Sytch Pottery was beautiful. He never would have thought so but for the accident of the walk with Mr Orgreave; he might have spent his whole life in the town, and never troubled himself a moment about the Sytch Pottery. Nevertheless he now, by an act of sheer faith, suddenly, miraculously and genuinely regarded it as an exquisitely beautiful edifice, on a plane with the edifices of the capitals of Europe, and as a feast for discerning eyes. ‘I like architecture very much,’ he added. And this, too, was said with such feverish conviction that Mr Orgreave was quite moved.
‘I must show you my new Sytch Chapel,’ said Mr Orgreave gaily.
‘Oh! I should like you to show it me,’ said Edwin.
But he was exceedingly perturbed by misgivings. Here was he wanting to be an architect, and he had never observed the Sytch Pottery! Surely that was an absolute proof that he had no vocation for architecture! And yet now he did most passionately admire the Sytch Pottery. And he was proud to be sharing the admiration of the fine, joyous, superior, luxurious, companionable man, Mr Orgreave.
V
They went down the Sytch Bank to the new chapel of which Mr Orgreave, though a churchman, was the architect, in that vague quarter of the world between Bursley and Turnhill. The roof was not on; the scaffolding was extraordinarily interesting and confusing; they bent their heads to pass under low portals; Edwin had the delicious smell of new mortar; they stumbled through sand, mud, cinders and little pools; they climbed a ladder and stepped over a large block of dressed stone, and Mr Orgreave said –
‘This is the gallery we’re in, here. You see the scheme of the place now … That hole – only a flue. Now you see what that arch carries – they didn’t like it in the plans because they thought it might be mistaken for a church—’
Edwin was receptive.
‘Of course it’s a very small affair, but it’ll cost less per sitting than any other chapel in your circuit, and I fancy it’ll look less like a box of bricks.’ Mr Orgreave subtly smiled, and Edwin tried to equal his subtlety. ‘I must show you the elevation some other time – a bit later. What I’ve been after in it, is to keep it in character with the street … Hi! Dan, there!’ Now, Mr Orgreave was calling across the hollow of the chapel to a fat man in corduroys. ‘Have you remembered about those blue bricks?’
Perhaps the most captivating phenomenon of all was a little lean-to shed with a real door evidently taken from somewhere else, and a little stove, and a table and a chair. Here Mr Orgreave had a confabulation with the corduroyed man, who was the builder, and they pored over immense sheet
s of coloured plans that lay on the table, and Mr Orgreave made marks and even sketches on the plans, and the fat man objected to his instructions, and Mr Orgreave insisted, ‘Yes, yes!’ And it seemed to Edwin as though the building of the chapel stood still while Mr Orgreave cogitated and explained; it seemed to Edwin that he was in the creating-chamber. The atmosphere of the shed was inexpressibly romantic to him. After the fat man had gone Mr Orgreave took a clothes-brush off a plank that had been roughly nailed on two brackets to the wall, and brushed Edwin’s clothes, and Edwin brushed Mr Orgreave, and then Mr Orgreave, having run his hand through the brush, lightly brushed his hair with it. All this was part of Edwin’s joy.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think the idea of that arch is splendid.’
‘You do?’ said Mr Orgreave quite simply and ingenuously pleased and interested. ‘You see – with the lie of the ground as it is—’
That was another point that Edwin ought to have thought of by himself – the lie of the ground – but he had not thought of it. Mr Orgreave went on talking. In the shop he had conveyed the idea that he was tremendously pressed for time; now he had apparently forgotten time.
‘I’m afraid I shall have to be off,’ said Edwin timidly. And he made a preliminary movement as if to depart.
‘And what about those specifications, young man?’ asked Mr Orgreave, dryly twinkling. He unlocked a drawer in the rickety table. Edwin had forgotten the specifications as successfully as Mr Orgreave had forgotten time. Throughout the remainder of the day he smelt imaginary mortar.
15
A Decision
I
THE NEXT DAY being the day of rest, Mrs Nixon arose from her nook at 5.30 a.m. and woke Edwin. She did this from good-nature, and because she could refuse him nothing, and not under any sort of compulsion. Edwin got up at the first call, though he was in no way remarkable for his triumphs over the pillow. Twenty-five minutes later he was crossing Trafalgar Road and entering the schoolyard of the Wesleyan Chapel. And from various quarters of the town, other young men, of ages varying from sixteen to fifty, were converging upon the same point. Black night still reigned above the lamplights that flickered in the wind which precedes the dawn, and the mud was frozen. Not merely had these young men to be afoot and abroad, but they had to be ceremoniously dressed. They could not issue forth in flannels and sweater, with a towel round the neck, as for a morning plunge in the river. The day was Sunday, though Sunday had not dawned, and the plunge was into the river of intellectual life. Moreover, they were bound by conscience to be prompt. To have arrived late, even five minutes late, would have spoilt the whole effect. It had to be six o’clock or nothing.
The Young Men’s Debating Society was a newly-formed branch of the multifarious activity of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. It met on Sunday because Sunday was the only day that would suit everybody; and at six in the morning for two reasons. The obvious reason was that at any other hour its meetings would clash either with other activities or with the solemnity of Sabbath meals. This obvious reason could not have stood by itself; it was secretly supported by the recondite reason that the preposterous hour of 6 a.m. appealed powerfully to something youthful, perverse, silly, fanatical, and fine in the youths. They discovered the ascetic’s joy in robbing themselves of sleep and in catching chills, and in disturbing households and chapel-keepers. They thought it was a great thing to be discussing intellectual topics at an hour when a town that ignorantly scorned intellectuality was snoring in all its heavy brutishness. And it was a great thing. They considered themselves the salt of the earth, or of that part of the earth. And I have an idea that they were.
Edwin had joined this Society partly because he did not possess the art of refusing, partly because the notion of it appealed spectacularly to the martyr in him, and partly because it gave him an excuse for ceasing to attend the afternoon Sunday school, which he loathed. Without such an excuse he could never have told his father that he meant to give up Sunday school. He could never have dared to do so. His father had what Edwin deemed to be a superstitious and hypocritical regard for the Sunday school. Darius never went near the Sunday school, and assuredly in business and in home life he did not practise the precepts inculcated at the Sunday school, and yet he always spoke of the Sunday school with what was to Edwin a ridiculous reverence. Another of those problems in his father’s character which Edwin gave up in disgust!
II
The Society met in a small classroom. The secretary, arch ascetic, arrived at 5.45 and lit the fire which the chapel-keeper (a man with no enthusiasm whatever for flagellation, the hair-shirt, or intellectuality) had laid but would not get up to light. The chairman of the Society, a little Welshman named Llewellyn Roberts, aged fifty, but a youth because a bachelor, sat on a chair at one side of the incipient fire, and some dozen members sat round the room on forms. A single gas-jet flamed from the ceiling. Everybody wore his overcoat, and within the collars of overcoats could be seen glimpses of rich neck-ties; the hats, some glossy, dotted the hat-rack which ran along two walls. A hymn was sung, and then all knelt, some spreading handkerchiefs on the dusty floor to protect fine trousers, and the chairman invoked the blessing of God on their discussions. The proper mental and emotional atmosphere was now established. The secretary read the minutes of the last meeting, while the chairman surreptitiously poked the fire with a piece of wood from the lower works of a chair, and then the chairman, as he signed the minutes with a pen dipped in an excise ink-bottle that stood on the narrow mantelpiece, said in his dry voice –
‘I call upon our young friend, Mr Edwin Clayhanger, to open the debate, “Is Bishop Colenso, considered as a Biblical commentator, a force for good?”’
‘I’m a damned fool!’ said Edwin to himself savagely, as he stood on his feet. But to look at his wistful and nervously smiling face, no one would have guessed that he was thus blasphemously swearing in the privacy of his own brain.
He had been entrapped into the situation in which he found himself. It was not until after he had joined the Society that he had learnt of a rule which made it compulsory for every member to speak at every meeting attended, and for every member to open a debate at least once in a year. And this was not all; the use of notes while the orator was ‘up’ was absolutely forbidden. A drastic Society! It had commended itself to elders by claiming to be a nursery for ready speakers.
III
Edwin had chosen the subject of Bishop Colenso – the ultimate wording of the resolution was not his – because he had been reading about the intellectually adventurous Bishop in the ‘Manchester Examiner.’ And, although eleven years had passed since the publication of the first part of ‘The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined,’ the Colenso question was only just filtering down to the thinking classes of the Five Towns; it was an actuality in the Five Towns, if in abeyance in London. Even Hugh Miller’s ‘The Old Red Sandstone; or New Walks in an Old Field,’ then over thirty years old, was still being looked upon as dangerously original in the FiveTowns in 1873. However, the effect of its disturbing geological evidence that the earth could scarcely have been begun and finished in a little under a week, was happily nullified by the suicide of its author; that pistol-shot had been a striking proof of the literal inspiration of the Bible.
Bishop Colenso had, in Edwin, an ingenuous admirer. Edwin stammeringly and hesitatingly gave a preliminary sketch of his life; how he had been censured by Convocation and deposed from his See by his Metropolitan; how the Privy Council had decided that the deposition was null and void; how the ecclesiastical authorities had then circumvented the Privy Council by refusing to pay his salary to the Bishop (which Edwin considered mean); how the Bishop had circumvented the ecclesiastical authorities by appealing to the Master of the Rolls, who ordered the ecclesiastical authorities to pay him his arrears of income with interest thereon, unless they were ready to bring him to trial for heresy; how the said authorities would not bring him to trial for heresy (which Edwin considered to be miserable
cowardice on their part); how the Bishop had then been publicly excommunicated, without authority; and how his friends, among whom were some very respectable and powerful people, had made him a present of over three thousand pounds. After this graphic historical survey, Edwin proceeded to the Pentateuchal puzzles, and, without pronouncing an opinion thereon, argued that any commentator who was both learned and sincere must be a force for good, as the Bible had nothing to fear from honest inquiry, etc., etc. Five-sixths of his speech was coloured by phrases and modes of thought which he had picked up in the Wesleyan community, and the other sixth belonged to himself. The speech was moderately bad, but not inferior to many other speeches. It was received in absolute silence. This rather surprised Edwin, because the tone in which the leading members of the Society usually spoke to him indicated that (for reasons which he knew not) they regarded him as a very superior intellect indeed; and Edwin was not entirely ashamed of the quality of his speech; in fact, he had feared worse from himself, especially as, since his walk with Mr Orgreave, he had been quite unable to concentrate his thoughts on Bishop Colenso at all, and had been exceedingly unhappy and apprehensive concerning an affair that bore no kind of relation to the Pentateuch.