Hilda Lessways by Arnold Bennett (reading fiction txt) 📖

and said that she would come to Lane End House as soon as she could. "Shall I tell her, or shan't I?" she had cogitated, and the decision had been for postponement. But she strongly desired, nevertheless, to pay the visit. She had had more than enough of Preston Street and of Brighton, and longed to leave at any price.

And, at length, one dull morning, after George Cannon had sailed for America, and all affairs were somehow arranged or had arranged themselves, and Sarah Gailey was better and the autumn season smoothly running with new servants, she had suddenly said to Sarah: "I have to go to Bursley to-day, for a few days." And she had gone, upon the impulse, without having previously warned Janet. Changing at Knype, she had got into the wrong train, and had found herself at Shawport, at the far, lower end of Bursley, instead of up at Bleakridge, close by the Orgreaves! And there was, of course, no cab for her. But a cabman who had brought a fare to the station, and was driving his young woman back, had offered in a friendly way to take Hilda too. And she had sat in the cab with the young woman, who was a paintress at Peel's great manufactory at Shawport, and suffered from a weak chest; and they had talked about the potters' strike which was then upheaving the district, and the cab had overtaken a procession of thinly clad potters, wending in the bitter mist to a mass meeting at Hanbridge; and Hilda had been thereby much impressed and angered against all employers. And the young woman had left the cab, half-way up Trafalgar Road, with a delicious pink-and-white smile of adieu. And Hilda had thought how different all this was from Brighton, and how much better and more homely and understandable. And now she was in the garden of the Orgreaves.

Martha came peeping, to discover the explanation of this singular concourse of cabs in the garden, and she cried joyously:

"Oh, Miss Janet, it's Miss Hilda--Miss Lessways, I mean!"

Alicia shrieked. The first cab drew forward to make room for Hilda's, and Hilda stepped down into the glare of the porch, and was plainly beheld by all three girls.

"Will they notice anything?" she asked herself, self-conscious, almost trembling, as she thought of the terrific changes that had passed in her since her previous visit.

But nobody noticed anything. Nobody observed that this was not the same Hilda. Even in the intimacy of the affectionate kiss, for which she lifted her veil, Janet seemed to have no suspicion whatever.

"We were just off to Hillport," said Janet. "How splendid of you to come like this!"

"Don't let's go to Hillport!" said Alicia.

Janet hesitated, pulling down her veil.

"Of course you must go!" Hilda said positively.

"I'm afraid we shall have to go," said Janet, with reluctance. "You see, it's the Marrions--Edie's cousins--and Edie will be there!"

"Who's Edie?"

"Why! Tom's fiancee! Surely I told you!"

"Yes," said Hilda; "only I didn't just remember the name. How nice!"

(She thought: "No sooner do I get here than I talk like they do! Fancy me saying, 'How nice'!")

"Oh, it's all Edie nowadays!" said Alicia lightly. "We have to be frightfully particular, or else Tom would cut our heads off. That's why we're going in a cab! We should have walked,--shouldn't we, Janet?--only it would never do for us to _walk_ to the Marrions' at night! 'The Misses Lessways' carriage!'" she mimicked, and finicked about on her toes.

Janet was precisely the same as ever, but the pig-tailed Alicia had developed. Her childishness was now shot through with gestures and tones of the young girl. She flushed and paled continuously, and was acutely self-conscious and somewhat vain, but not offensively vain.

"I say, Jan," she exclaimed, "why shouldn't Hilda come with us?"

"To the Marrions'? Oh no, thanks!" said Hilda.

"But do, Hilda! I'm sure they'd be delighted!" Janet urged. "I never thought of it."

Though she was flattered and, indeed, a little startled by the extraordinary seriousness of Janet's insistence, Hilda shook her head.

"Where's Tom?" she inquired, to change the subject.

"Oh!" Alicia burst out again. "He's gone off _hours_ ago to escort his ladylove from Hanbridge to Hillport."

"You wait till you're engaged, Alicia!" Janet suggested. But Janet's eyes, too, twinkled the admission that Tom was just then providing much innocent amusement to the family.

"You'll sleep in my room to-night, anyhow, dear," said Janet, when Martha and Hilda's cabman had brought a trunk into the hall, and Hilda had paid the cabman far more than his fare because he was such a friendly young cabman and because he possessed a pulmonary sweetheart. "Come along, dear!... Alicia, ask Swindells to wait a minute or two."

"Swindells," Alicia shouted to the original cabman, "just wait a jiff!"

"Yes, miss." The original cabman, being old and accustomed to evening- party work in the Five Towns, knew the length of a jiff, and got down from his seat to exercise both arms and legs. With sardonic pleasure he watched the young cabman cut a black streak in the sodden lawn with his near front-wheel as he clumsily turned to leave. Then Martha banged the front door, and another servant appeared in the hall to help the trunk on its way upstairs.

"No! I shall never be able to tell them!" thought Hilda, following the trunk.

Alicia had scampered on in front of the trunk, to inform her parents of the arrival. Mrs. Orgreave, Hilda learnt, was laid up with an attack of asthma, and Osmond Orgreave was working in their bedroom.


II


Hilda stood in front of the fire in Janet's bedroom, and Janet was unlocking her trunk.

"Why! What a pretty bodice!" said Janet, opening the trunk. She stood up, and held forth the bodice to inspect it; and beneath Janet's cloak Hilda could see the splendour of her evening dress. "Where did you get it?"

"In London," Hilda was about to answer, but she took thought. "Oh! Brighton." It was a lie.

She had a longing to say:

"No, not Brighton! What am I thinking of? I got it in London on my honeymoon!"

What a unique sensation that one word would have caused! But she could not find courage to utter it.

Alicia came importantly in.

"Mother's love, and you are to go into her room as soon as you're ready. Martha will bring up a tray for you, and you'll eat there by the fire. It's all arranged."

"And what about father's love?" Hilda demanded, with a sprightliness that astonished herself. And she thought: "Why are these people so fond of me? They don't even ask how it was I didn't write to tell them I was coming. They just accept me and welcome me without questions.... No! I can never tell them! It simply couldn't be told, here! If they find out, so much the worse!"

"You must ask him!" Alicia answered, blushing.

"All right, Alicia. We'll be ready in a minute or two," said Janet in a peculiar voice.

It was a gentle command to Alicia to leave her elders alone to their adult confidences. And unwilling Alicia had to obey.

But there were no confidences. The talk, as it were, shivered on the brink of a confidence, but never plunged.

"Does she guess?" Hilda reflected.

The conversation so halted that at length Janet was driven to the banality of saying:

"I'm so sorry we have to go out!"

And Hilda protested with equal banality, and added: "I suppose you're going out a lot just now?"

"Oh no!" said Janet. "We go out less and less, and we get quieter and quieter. I mean _us_. The boys are always out, you know." She seemed saddened. "I did think Edwin Clayhanger would come in sometimes, now they're living next door--"

"They're in their new house, then!" said Hilda, with casualness.

"Oh, long ago! And I'm sure it's ages since he was here. I like Maggie--his sister."

Hilda knelt to her trunk.

"Did he ever inquire after me?" she demanded, with an air of archness, but hiding her face.

"As a matter of fact he _did_--once," said Janet, imitating Hilda's manner.

"Well, that's something," said Hilda.

There was a sharp knock at the door.

"Hot water, miss!" cried the voice of Martha.

The next instant Martha was arranging the ewer and the can and some clean towels on the washstand. Her face was full of joy in the unexpected arrival. She was as excited as if Hilda had been her own friend instead of Janet's.

"Well, dear, shall you be all right now?" said Janet. "Perhaps I ought to be going. You may depend on it I shall get back as early as ever I can."

The two girls kissed, with even more freedom than in the hall. It seemed astonishing to Hilda, as her face was close to Janet's, that Janet did not exclaim: "Something has happened to you. What is it? You are not as you used to be! You are not like me!" She felt herself an imposter.

"Why should I tell?" Hilda reflected. "What end will it serve? It's nobody's business but mine. _He_ is gone. He'll never come back. Everything's over.... And if it does get about, well, they'll only praise me for my discretion. They can't do anything else."

Still, she longed timorously to confide in Janet. And when Janet had departed she breathed relief because the danger of confiding in Janet was withdrawn for the moment.


III


Later, as the invalid had ordained, Hilda, having eaten, sat by the fire in the large, quiet bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Orgreave. The latter was enjoying a period of ease, and lay, with head raised very high on pillows, in her own half of the broad bed. The quilt extended over her without a crease in its expanse; the sheet was turned down with precision, making a level white border to the quilt; and Mrs. Orgreave did not stir; not one of her grey locks stirred; she spoke occasionally in a low voice. On the night-table stood a Godfrey's Chloride of Ammonia Inhaler, with its glass cylinder and triple arrangement of tubes. There was only this, and the dark lips and pale cheeks of the patient, to remind the beholder that not long since the bed had been a scene of agony. Mr. Orgreave, in bright carpet slippers, and elegant wristbands blossoming out of the sleeves of his black house-jacket, stood bending above a huge board that was laid horizontally on trestles to the left of the fireplace. This board was covered by a wide length of bluish transparent paper which at intervals he pulled towards him, making billows of paper at his feet and gradually lessening a roll of it that lay on the floor beyond the table. A specially arranged gas-bracket with a green shade which threw a powerful light on the paper showed that Osmond Orgreave's habit was to work in that spot of an evening.

"Astonishing I have to do this myself, isn't it?" he observed, stooping to roll up the accumulated length of paper about his feet.

"What is it?" Hilda asked.

"It's a full-sized detail drawing. Simple!... But do you suppose I could trust either of my ingenious sons to get the curves of the mouldings right?"

"You'll never be able to trust them unless you begin to trust them," said Mrs. Orgreave sagely from the