‘Tom reads rather a lot of poetry,’ said Janet. ‘That’s my eldest brother.’
‘That might justify you,’ said Edwin doubtfully.
They both laughed. And as with Janet, so with Edwin, when he laughed, all the kindest and honestest part of him seemed to rise into his face.
‘But if you don’t supply new books any more?’
‘Oh!’ Edwin stuttered, blushing slightly. ‘That’s nothing. I shall be very pleased to get it for you specially, Miss Orgreave. It’s father that decided – only last month – that the new book business was more trouble than it’s worth. It was – in a way; but I’m sorry, myself, we’ve given it up, poor as it was. Of course there are no book-buyers in this town, especially now old Lawton’s dead. But still, what with one thing or another, there was generally some book on order, and I used to see them. Of course there’s no money in it. But still … Father says that people buy less books than they used to – but he’s wrong there.’ Edwin spoke with calm certainty. ‘I’ve shown him he’s wrong by our order-book, but he wouldn’t see it.’ Edwin smiled, with a general mild indulgence for fathers.
‘Well,’ said Janet, ‘I’ll ask Tom first.’
‘No trouble whatever to us to order it for you, I assure you. I can get it down by return of post.’
‘It’s very good of you,’ said Janet, genuinely persuading herself for the moment that Edwin was quite exceeding the usual bounds of complaisance.
She moved to depart.
‘Father told me to tell you if I saw you that the glazing will be all finished this morning,’ said she.
‘Up yonder?’ Edwin jerked his head to indicate the south.
And Janet delicately confirmed his assumption with a slight declension of her waving hat.
‘Oh! Good!’ Edwin murmured.
Janet held out her hand, to be wrung again, and assured him of her gratitude for his offer of taking trouble about the book; and he assured her that it would not be trouble but pleasure. He accompanied her to the doorway.
‘I think I must come up and have a look at that glazing this afternoon,’ he said, as she stood on the pavement.
She nodded, smiling benevolence and appreciation, and departed round the corner in the soft sunshine.
Edwin put on a stern, casual expression for the benefit of Stifford, as who should say: ‘What a trial these frivolous girls are to a man immersed in affairs!’ But Stifford was not deceived. Safe within his lair, Edwin was conscious of quite a disturbing glow. He smiled to himself – a little self-consciously, though alone. Then he scribbled down in pencil ‘“Light of Asia.” Miss J. Orgreave.’
2
Father and Son After Seven Years
I
DARIUS CAME HEAVILY, and breathing heavily, into the little office.
‘Now as all this racketing’s over,’ he said crossly – he meant by ‘racketing’ the general election which had just put the Liberal party into power –‘I’ll thank ye to see as all that red and blue ink is cleaned off the rollers and slabs, and the types cleaned too. I’ve told ’em ten times if I’ve told ’em once, but as far as I can make out, they’ve done naught to it yet.’
Edwin grunted without looking up.
His father was now a fattish man, and he had aged quite as much as Edwin. Some of his scanty hair was white; the rest was grey. White hair sprouted about his ears; gold gleamed in his mouth; and a pair of spectacles hung insecurely balanced half-way down his nose; his waistcoat seemed to be stretched tightly over a perfectly smooth hemisphere. He had an air of somewhat gross and prosperous untidiness. Except for the teeth, his bodily frame appeared to have fallen into disrepair, as though he had ceased to be interested in it, as though he had been using it for a long time as a mere makeshift lodging. And this impression was more marked at table; he ate exactly as if throwing food to a wild animal concealed somewhere within the hemisphere, an animal which was never seen, but which rumbled threateningly from time to time in its dark dungeon.
Of all this, Edwin had definitely noticed nothing save that his father was ‘getting stouter.’ To Edwin, Darius was exactly the same father, and for Darius, Edwin was still aged sixteen. They both of them went on living on the assumption that the world had stood still in those seven years between 1873 and 1880. If they had been asked what had happened during those seven years, they would have answered: ‘Oh, nothing particular!’
But the world had been whizzing ceaselessly from one miracle into another. Board schools had been opened in Bursley, wondrous affairs, with ventilation; indeed, ventilation had been discovered. A Jew had been made Master of the Rolls: spectacle at which England shivered, and then, perceiving no sign of disaster, shrugged its shoulders. Irish members had taught the House of Commons how to talk for twenty-four hours without a pause. The wages of the agricultural labourer had sprung into the air and leaped over the twelve-shilling bar into regions of opulence. Moody and Sankey had found and conquered England for Christ. Landseer and Livingstone had died, and the provinces could not decide whether ‘Dignity and Impudence’ or the penetration of Africa was the more interesting feat. Herbert Spencer had published his ‘Study of Sociology’; Matthew Arnold his ‘Literature and Dogma’; and Frederic Farrar his Life of his Lord; but here the provinces had no difficulty in deciding, for they had only heard of the last. Every effort had been made to explain by persuasion and by force to the working man that trade unions were inimical to his true welfare, and none had succeeded, so stupid was he. The British Army had been employed to put reason into the noddle of a town called Northampton which was furious because an atheist had not been elected to Parliament. Pullman cars, ‘The Pirates of Penzance,’ Henry Irving’s ‘Hamlet,’ spelling-bees, and Captain Webb’s channel swim had all proved that there were novelties under the sun. Bishops, archbishops, and dissenting ministers had met at Lambeth to inspect the progress of irreligious thought, with intent to arrest it. Princes and dukes had conspired to inaugurate the most singular scheme that ever was, the Kyrle Society – for bringing beauty home to the people by means of decorative art, gardening, and music. The Bulgarian Atrocities had served to give new life to all penny gaffs and blood-tubs. The ‘Eurydice’ and the ‘Princess Alice’ had foundered in order to demonstrate the uncertainty of existence and the courage of the island-race. The ‘Nineteenth Century’ had been started, a little late in the day, and the ‘Referee.’ Ireland had all but died of hunger, but had happily been saved to enjoy the benefits of Coercion. The Young Men’s Christian Association had been born again in the splendour of Exeter Hall. Bursley itself had entered on a new career as a chartered borough, with Mayor, aldermen, and councillors, all in chains of silver. And among the latest miracles were Northampton’s success in sending the atheist to Parliament, the infidelity of the Tay Bridge three days after Christmas, the catastrophe of Majuba Hill, and the discovery that soldiers objected to being flogged into insensibility for a peccadillo.
But, in spite of numerous attempts, nobody had contrived to make England see that her very existence would not be threatened if museums were opened on Sunday, or that Nonconformists might be buried according to their own rites without endangering the Constitution.
I
Darius was possibly a little uneasy in his mind about the world. Possibly there had just now begun to form in his mind the conviction, in which most men die, that all was not quite well with the world, and that in particular his native country had contracted a fatal malady since he was a boy.
He was a printer, and yet the General Election had not put sunshine in his heart. And this was strange, for a general election is the brief millennium of printers, especially of steam-printers who for dispatch can beat all rivals. During a general election the question put by a customer to a printer is not ‘How much will it be?’ but ‘How soon can I have it?’ There was no time for haggling about price; and indeed to haggle about price would have been unworthy, seeing that every customer (ordinary business being at a standstill) was engaged in the sa
lvation of England. Darius was a Liberal, but a quiet one, and he was patronized by both political parties – blue and red. As a fact, neither party could have done without him. His printing office had clattered and thundered early and late, and more than once had joined the end of one day’s work to the beginning of another; and more than once had Big James with his men and his boy (a regiment increased since 1873) stood like plotters muttering in the yard at five minutes to twelve on Sunday evening, waiting for midnight to sound, and Big James had unlocked the door of the office on the new-born Monday, and work had instantly commenced to continue till Monday was nearly dead of old age.
Once only had work been interrupted, and that was on a day when, a lot of ‘blue jobs’ being about, a squad of red fire-eaters had come up the back alley with intent to answer arguments by thwackings and wreckings; but the obstinacy of an oak door had fatigued them. The staff had enjoyed that episode. Every member of it was well paid for overtime. Darius could afford to pay conscientiously. In the printing trade, prices were steadier then than they are now. But already the discovery of competition was following upon the discovery of ventilation. Perhaps Darius sniffed it from a distance, and was disturbed thereby.
III
For though he was a Liberal in addition to being a printer, and he had voted Liberal, and his party had won, yet the General Election had not put sunshine in his heart. No! The tendencies of England worried him. When he read in a paper about the heretical tendencies of Robertson Smith’s Biblical articles in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ he said to himself that they were of a piece with the rest, and that such things were to be expected in those modern days, and that matters must have come to a pretty pass when even the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ was infected. (Still, he had sold a copy of the new edition.) He was exceedingly bitter against Ireland; and also, in secret, behind Big James’s back, against trade unions. When Edwin came home one night and announced that he had joined the Bursley Liberal Club, Darius lost his temper. Yet he was a member of the club himself. He gave no reason for his fury, except that it was foolish for a tradesman to mix himself up with politics. Edwin, however, had developed a sudden interest in politics, and had made certain promises of clerical aid, which promises he kept, saying nothing more to his father. Darius’s hero was Sir Robert Peel, simply because Sir Robert Peel had done away with the Corn Laws. Darius had known England before and after the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the difference between the two Englands was so strikingly dramatic to him that he desired no further change. He had only one date – 1846. His cup had been filled then. Never would he forget the scenes of anguishing joy that occurred at midnight of the day before the new Act became operative. From that moment he had finished with progress … If Edwin could only have seen those memories, shining in layers deep in his father’s heart, and hidden now by all sorts of Pliocene deposits, he would have understood his father better. But Edwin did not see into his father’s heart at all, nor even into his head. When he looked at his father he saw nothing but an ugly, stertorous old man (old, that is, to Edwin), with a peculiar and incalculable way of regarding things and a temper of growing capriciousness.
IV
Darius was breathing and fidgeting all over him as he sat bent at the desk. His presence overwhelmed every other physical phenomenon.
‘What’s this?’ asked Darius, picking up the bit of paper on which Edwin had written the memorandum about ‘The Light of Asia.’
Edwin explained, self-consciously, lamely.
When the barometer of Darius’s temper was falling rapidly, there was a sign: a small spot midway on the bridge of his nose turned ivory-white. Edwin glanced upwards now to see if the sign was there, and it was. He flushed slightly and resumed his work.
Then Darius began.
‘What did I tell ye?’ he shouted. ‘What in the name of God’s the use o’ me telling ye things? Have I told ye not to take any more orders for books, or haven’t I? Haven’t I said over and over again that I want this shop to be known for wholesale?’ He raved.
V
Stifford could hear. Any person who might chance to come into the shop would hear. But Darius cared neither for his own dignity nor for that of his son. He was in a passion. The real truth was that this celibate man, who never took alcohol, enjoyed losing his temper; it was his one outlet; he gave himself up almost luxuriously to a passion; he looked forward to it as some men look forward to brandy. And Edwin had never stopped him by some drastic step. At first, years before, Edwin had said to himself, trembling with resentment in his bedroom, ‘The next time, the very next time, he humiliates me like that in front of other people, I’ll walk out of his damned house and shop, and I swear I won’t come back until he’s apologized. I’ll bring him to his senses. He can’t do without me. Once for all I’ll stop it. What! He forces me into his business, and then insults me!’
But Edwin had never done it. Always, it was ‘the very next time’! Edwin was not capable of doing it. His father had a sort of moral brute-force, against which he could not stand firm. He soon recognized this, with his intellectual candour. Then he had tried to argue with Darius, to ‘make him see’! Worse than futile! Argument simply put Darius beside himself. So that in the end Edwin employed silence and secret scorn, as a weapon and as a defence. And somehow without a word he conveyed to Stifford and to Big James precisely what his attitude in these crises was, so that he retained their respect and avoided their pity. The outbursts still wounded him, but he was wonderfully inured.
As he sat writing under the onslaught, he said to himself, ‘By God! If ever I get the chance, I’ll pay you out for this some day!’ And he meant it. A peep into his mind, then, would have startled Janet Orgreave, Mrs Nixon, and other persons who had a cult for the wistfulness of his appealing eyes.
He steadily maintained silence, and the conflagration burnt itself out.
‘Are you going to look after the printing shop, or aren’t you?’ Darius growled at length.
Edwin rose and went. As he passed through the shop, Stifford, who had in him the raw material of fine manners, glanced down, but not too ostentatiously, at a drawer under the counter.
The printing office was more crowded than ever with men and matter. Some of the composing was now done on the ground-floor. The whole organism functioned, but under such difficulties as could not be allowed to continue, even by Darius Clayhanger. Darius had finally recognized that.
‘Oh!’ said Edwin, in a tone of confidential intimacy to Big James, ‘I see they’re getting on with the cleaning! Good. Father’s beginning to get impatient, you know. It’s the bigger cases that had better be done first.’
‘Right it is, Mr Edwin!’ said Big James. The giant was unchanged. No sign of grey in his hair; and his cheek was smooth, apparently his philosophy put him beyond the touch of time.
‘I say, Mr Edwin,’ he inquired in his majestic voice. ‘When are we going to rearrange all this?’ He gazed around.
Edwin laughed. ‘Soon,’ he said.
‘Won’t be too soon,’ said Big James.
3
The New House
I
A HOUSE STOOD on a hill. And that hill was Bleakridge, the summit of the little billow of land between Bursley and Hanbridge. Trafalgar Road passed over the crest of the billow. Bleakridge was certainly not more than a hundred feet higher than Bursley; yet people were now talking a lot about the advantages of living ‘up’ at Bleakridge, ‘above’ the smoke, and ‘out’ of the town, though it was not more than five minutes from the Duck Bank. To hear them talking, one might have fancied that Bleakridge was away in the mountains somewhere. The new steam-cars would pull you up there in three minutes or so, every quarter of an hour. It was really the new steam-cars that were to be the making of Bleakridge as a residential suburb. It had also been predicted that even Hanbridge men would come to live at Bleakridge now. Land was changing owners at Bleakridge, and rising in price. Complete streets of lobbied cottages grew at angles from the main road wit
h the rapidity of that plant which pushes out strangling branches more quickly than a man can run. And these lobbied cottages were at once occupied. Cottage-property in the centre of the town depreciated.
The land fronting the main road was destined not for cottages, but for residences, semi-detached or detached. Osmond Orgreave had a good deal of this land under his control. He did not own it, he hawked it. Like all provincial, and most London, architects, he was a land-broker in addition to being an architect. Before obtaining a commission to build a house, he frequently had to create the commission himself by selling a convenient plot, and then persuading the purchaser that if he wished to retain the respect of the community he must put on the plot a house worthy of the plot. The Orgreave family all had expensive tastes, and it was Osmond Orgreave’s task to find most of the money needed for the satisfaction of those tastes. He always did find it, because the necessity was upon him, but he did not always find it easily. Janet would say sometimes, ‘We mustn’t be so hard on father this month; really, lately we’ve never seen him with his cheque-book out of his hand.’ Undoubtedly the clothes on Janet’s back were partly responsible for the celerity with which building land at Bleakridge was ‘developed,’ just after the installation of steam-cars in Trafalgar Road.