The Clayhanger Trilogy: Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways & These Twain (Complete Edition). Bennett Arnold

      Nine.

      Not till Saturday did the atmosphere of the Clayhanger household resume the normal. But earlier than that Edwin had already lost his resentment. It disappeared with his cold. He could not continue to bear ill-will. He accepted his destiny of immense disappointment. He shouldered it. You may call him weak or you may call him strong. Maggie said nothing to him of the great affair. What could she have said? And the affair was so great that even Clara did not dare to exercise upon it her peculiar faculties of ridicule. It abashed her by its magnitude.

      On Saturday Darius said to his son, good-humouredly—

      “Canst be trusted to pay wages?”

      Edwin smiled.

      At one o’clock he went across the yard to the printing office with a little bag of money. The younger apprentice was near the door scrubbing type with potash to cleanse it. The backs of his hands were horribly raw and bleeding with chaps, due to the frequent necessity of washing them in order to serve the machines, and the impossibility of drying them properly. Still, winter was ending now, and he only worked eleven hours a day, in an airy room, instead of nineteen hours in a cellar, like the little boy from the Bastille. He was a fortunate youth. The journeyman stood idle; as often, on Saturdays, the length of the journeyman’s apron had been reduced by deliberate tearing during the week from three feet to about a foot—so imperious and sudden was the need for rags in the processes of printing. Big James was folding up his apron. They all saw that Edwin had the bag, and their faces relaxed.

      “You’re as good as the master now, Mr Edwin,” said Big James with ceremonious politeness and a fine gesture, when Edwin had finished paying.

      “Am I?” he rejoined simply.

      Everybody knew of the great affair. Big James’s words were his gentle intimation to Edwin that every one knew the great affair was now settled.

      That night, for the first time, Edwin could read “Notre Dame” with understanding and pleasure. He plunged with soft joy into the river of the gigantic and formidable narrative. He reflected that after all the sources of happiness were not exhausted.

      Book ii

      His Love.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1.

      The Visit.

      Table of Contents

      We now approach the more picturesque part of Edwin’s career. Seven years passed. Towards the end of April 1880, on a Saturday morning, Janet Orgreave, second daughter of Osmond Orgreave, the architect, entered the Clayhanger shop.

      All night an April shower lasting ten hours had beaten with persistent impetuosity against the window-panes of Bursley, and hence half the town had slept ill. But at breakfast-time the clouds had been mysteriously drawn away, the winds had expired, and those drenched streets began to dry under the caressing peace of bright soft sunshine; the sky was pale blue of a delicacy unknown to the intemperate climes of the south. Janet Orgreave, entering the Clayhanger shop, brought into it with her the new morning weather. She also brought into it Edwin’s fate, or part of it, but not precisely in the sense commonly understood when the word ‘fate’ is mentioned between a young man and a young woman.

      A youth stood at the left-hand or ‘fancy’ counter, very nervous. Miss Ingamells (that was) was married and the mother of three children, and had probably forgotten the difference between ‘demy’ and ‘post’ octavos; and this youth had taken her place and the place of two unsatisfactory maids in black who had succeeded her. None but males were now employed in the Clayhanger business, and everybody breathed more freely; round, sound oaths were heard where never oaths had been heard before. The young man’s name was Stifford, and he was addressed as ‘Stiff.’ He was a proof of the indiscretion of prophesying about human nature. He had been the paper boy, the minion of Edwin, and universally regarded as unreliable and almost worthless. But at sixteen a change had come over him; he parted his hair in the middle instead of at the side, arrived in the morning at 7:59 instead of at 8:05, and seemed to see the earnestness of life. Every one was glad and relieved, but every one took the change as a matter of course; the attitude of every one to the youth was: “Well, it’s not too soon!” No one saw a romantic miracle.

      “I suppose you haven’t got ‘The Light of Asia’ in stock?” began Janet Orgreave, after she had greeted the youth kindly.

      “I’m afraid we haven’t, miss,” said Stifford. This was an understatement. He knew beyond fear that “The Light of Asia” was not in stock.

      “Oh!” murmured Janet.

      “I think you said ‘The Light of Asia’?”

      “Yes. ‘The Light of Asia,’ by Edwin Arnold.” Janet had a persuasive humane smile.

      Stifford was anxious to have the air of obliging this smile, and he turned round to examine a shelf of prize books behind him, well aware that “The Light of Asia” was not among them. He knew “The Light of Asia,” and was proud of his knowledge; that is to say, he knew by visible and tactual evidence that such a book existed, for it had been ordered and supplied as a Christmas present four months previously, soon after its dazzling apparition in the world.

      “Yes, by Edwin Arnold—Edwin Arnold,” he muttered learnedly, running his finger along gilded backs.

      “It’s being talked about a great deal,” said Janet as if to encourage him.

      “Yes, it is... No, I’m very sorry, we haven’t it in stock.” Stifford faced her again, and leaned his hands wide apart on the counter.

      “I should like you to order it for me,” said Janet Orgreave in a low voice.

      She asked this exactly as though she were asking a personal favour from Stifford the private individual. Such was Janet’s way. She could not help it. People often said that her desire to please, and her methods of pleasing, were unconscious. These people were wrong. She was perfectly conscious and even deliberate in her actions. She liked to please. She could please easily and she could please keenly. Therefore she strove always to please. Sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, and saw that charming, good-natured face with its rich vermilion lips eager to part in a nice, warm, sympathetic smile, she could accuse herself of being too fond of the art of pleasing. For she was a conscientious girl, and her age being twenty-five her soul was at its prime, full, bursting with beautiful impulses towards perfection. Yes, she would accuse herself of being too happy, too content, and would wonder whether she ought not to seek heaven by some austerity of scowling. Janet had everything: a kind disposition, some brains, some beauty, considerable elegance and luxury for her station, fine shoulders at a ball, universal love and esteem.

      Stifford, as he gazed diffidently at this fashionable, superior, and yet exquisitely beseeching woman on the other side of the counter, was in a very unpleasant quandary. She had by her magic transformed him into a private individual, and he acutely wanted to earn that smile which she was giving him. But he could not. He was under the obligation to say ‘No’ to her innocent and delightful request; and yet could he say ‘No’? Could he bring himself to desolate her by a refusal? (She had produced in him the illusion that a refusal would indeed desolate her, though she would of course bear it with sweet fortitude.) Business was a barbaric thing at times.

      “The fact is, miss,” he said at length, in his best manner, “Mr Clayhanger has decided to give up the new book business. I’m very sorry.”

      Had it been another than Janet he would have assuredly said with pride: “We have decided—”

      “Really!” said Janet. “I see!”

      Then Stifford directed