Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett (best romance novels of all time txt) 📖

and they had to be debated, in tones hushed but excited, in the hall, in the kitchen, upstairs, or anywhere except in the dining-room. The excuses invented by the conspiring women for quitting and entering the dining-room, their fatuous air of innocent simplicity, disgusted Edwin. And he became curter and curter, as he noticed the new deference which even Clara practised towards him.

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THREE.

The adieux were distressing. Clara, with her pale sharp face and troubled eyes, clasped Darius round the neck, and almost hung on it. And Edwin thought: "Why doesn't she tell him straight out he's done for?" Then she retired and sought her husband's arm with the conscious pride of a wife fruitful up to the limits set by nature. And then Auntie Hamps shook hands with the victim. These two of course did not kiss. Auntie Hamps bore herself bravely. "Now do do as the doctor advises!" she said, patting Darius on the shoulder. "And do be guided by these dear children!"

Edwin caught Maggie's eye, and held it grimly.

"And you, my pet," said Auntie Hamps, turning to Clara, who with Albert was now at the door. "You must be getting back to your babies! It's a wonder how you manage to get away! But you're a wonderful arranger! ... Only don't overdo it. Don't overdo it!"

Clara gave a fatigued smile, as of one whom circumstances often forced to overdo it.

They departed, Albert whistling to the night. Edwin observed again, in their final glances, the queer, new, ingratiating deference for himself. He bolted the door savagely.

Darius was still standing at the entrance to the dining-room. And as he looked at him Edwin thought of Big James's vow never to lift his voice in song again. Strange! It was the idea of the secret strangeness of life that was uppermost in his mind: not grief, not expectancy. In the afternoon he had been talking again to Big James, who, it appeared, had known intimately a case of softening of the brain. He did not identify the case--it was characteristic of him to name no names--but clearly he was familiar with the course of the disease.

He had begun revelations which disconcerted Edwin, and had then stopped. And now as Edwin furtively examined his father, he asked himself: "Will that happen to him, and that, and those still worse things that Big James did not reveal?" Incredible! There he was, smoking a cigarette, and the clock striking ten in its daily, matter-of-fact way.

Darius let fall the cigarette, which Edwin picked up from the mat, and offered to him.

"Throw it away," said Darius, with a deep sigh.

"Going to bed?" Edwin asked.

Darius shook his head, and Edwin debated what he should do. A moment later, Maggie came from the kitchen and asked--

"Going to bed, father?"

Again Darius shook his head. He then went slowly into the drawing-room and lit the gas there.

"What shall you do? Leave him?" Maggie whispered to Edwin in the dining-room, as she helped Mrs Nixon to clear the table.

"I don't know," said Edwin. "I shall see."

In ten minutes both Maggie and Mrs Nixon had gone to bed. Edwin hesitated in the dining-room. Then he extinguished the gas there, and went into the drawing-room. Darius, not having lowered the blinds, was gazing out of the black window.

"You needn't wait down here for me," said he, a little sharply. And his tone was so sane, controlled, firm, and ordinary that Edwin could do nothing but submit to it.

"I'm not going to," he answered quietly.

Impossible to treat a man of such demeanour like a child.


VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIVE.


THE SLAVE'S FEAR.

Edwin closed the door of his bedroom with a sense of relief and of pleasure far greater than he would have admitted; or indeed could honestly have admitted, for it surpassed his consciousness. The feeling recurred that he was separated from the previous evening by a tremendous expanse of time. He had been flung out of his daily habits. He had forgotten to worry over the execution of his private programmes. He had forgotten even that the solemn thirtieth birthday was close upon him. It seemed to him as if his own egoism was lying about in scattered pieces, which he must collect in the calm of this cloister, and reconstruct. He wanted to resume possession of himself, very slowly, without violent effort. He wound up his watch; the hour was not yet half-past ten. The whole exquisite night was his.

He had brought with him from the shop, almost mechanically, a copy of "Harper's Magazine," not the copy which regularly once a month he kept from a customer during the space of twenty-four hours for his own uses, but a second copy which had been sent down by the wholesale agents in mistake, and which he could return when he chose. He had already seen the number, but he could not miss the chance of carefully going through it at leisure. Despite his genuine aspirations, despite his taste which was growing more and more fastidious, he found it exceedingly difficult to proceed with his regular plan of reading while there was an illustrated magazine unexplored. Besides, the name of "Harper's" was august. To read "Harper's" was to acquire merit; even the pictures in "Harper's" were too subtle for the uncultivated.

He turned over the pages, and they all appeared to promise new and strange joys. Such preliminary moments were the most ecstatic in his life, as in the lives of many readers. He had not lost sight of the situation created by his father's illness, but he could only see it very dimly through the semi-transparent pages.

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TWO.

The latch clicked and the door opened slightly. He jumped, supposing that his father had crept upstairs. And the first thought of the slave in him was that his father had never seen the gas-stove and would now infallibly notice it. But Maggie's face showed. She came in very quietly--she too had caught the conspiratorial manner.

"I thought you wouldn't be ready for bed just yet," she said, in mild excuse of her entry. "I didn't knock, for fear he might be wandering about and hear."

"Oh!" muttered Edwin. "What's up?" Instinctively he resented the invasion, and was alarmed for the privacy of his sacred room, although he knew that Maggie, and Mrs Nixon also, had it at their mercy every day. Nobody ever came into that room while he was in it.

Maggie approached the hearth.

"I think I ought to have a stove too," she said pleasantly.

"Well, why don't you?" he replied. "I can get it for you any time." If Clara had envied his stove, she would have envied it with scoffing rancour, and he would have used sarcasm in response.

"Oh no!" said Maggie quickly. "I don't really want one."

"What's up?" he repeated. He could see she was hesitating.

"Do you know what Clara and auntie are saying?"

"No! What now? I should have thought they'd both said enough to last them for a few days at any rate."

"Did Albert say anything to you?"

"What about?"

"Well--both Clara and auntie said I must tell you. Albert says he ought to make his will--they all think so."

Edwin's lips curled.

"How do they know he hasn't made it?"

"Has he made it?"

"How do I know? You don't suppose he ever talks to me about his affairs, do you? Not much!"

"Well--they meant he ought to be asked."

"Well, let 'em ask him, then. I shan't."

"Of course what they say is--you're the--"

"What do I care for that?" he interrupted her. "So that's what you were yarning so long about in your room!"

"I can tell you," said Maggie, "they're both of them very serious about it. So's Albert, it seems."

"They disgust me," he said briefly. "Here the thing isn't a day old, and they begin worrying about his will! They go slobbering all over him downstairs, and upstairs it's nothing but his will they think about... You can't rush at a man and talk to him about his will like that. At least, I can't--it's altogether too thick! I expect some people could. But I can't. Damn it, you must have some sense of decency!"

Maggie remained calm and benevolent. After a pause she said--

"You see--their point is that later on he mayn't be able to make a will."

"Look here," he questioned amicably, meeting her eyes, "what do you think? What do you think yourself?"

"Oh!" she said, "I should never dream of bothering about it. I'm only telling you what--"

"Of course you wouldn't!" he exclaimed. "No decent person would. Later on, perhaps, if one could put in a word casually! But not now! ... If he doesn't make a will he doesn't make one--that's all."

Maggie leaned against the mantelpiece.

"Mind your skirt doesn't catch fire," he warned her, in a murmur.

"I told them what you'd say," she answered his outburst, perfectly unmoved. "I knew what you'd say. But what they say is--it's all very well for you. You're the son, and it seems that if there isn't a will, if it's left too late--"

This aspect of the case had absolutely not presented itself to Edwin.

"If they think," he muttered, with cold acrimony--"if they think I'm the sort of person to take the slightest advantage of being the son--well, they must think it--that's all! Besides, they can always talk to him themselves--if they're so desperately anxious."

"You have charge of everything."

"Have I! ... And I should like to know what it's got to do with auntie!"

Maggie lifted her head. "Oh, auntie and Clara, you know--you can't separate them... Well, I've told you."

She moved to leave.

"I say," he stopped her, with a confidential appeal. "Don't you agree with me?"

"Yes," she replied simply. "I think it ought to be left for a bit. Perhaps he's made it, after all. Let's hope so. I'm sure it will save a lot of trouble if he has."

"Naturally it ought to be left for a bit! Why--just look at him! ... He might be on his blooming dying bed, to hear the way some people talk! Let 'em mention it to me, and I'll tell 'em a thing or two!"

Maggie raised her eyebrows. She scarcely recognised Edwin.

"I suppose he'll be all right, downstairs?"

"Right? Of course he'll be all right!" Then he added, in a tone less pugnacious--for, after all, it was not Maggie who had outraged his delicacy, "Don't latch the door. Pull it to. I'll listen out."

She went silently away.

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THREE.

Searching with his body for the most comfortable deeps of the easy-chair, he set himself to savour "Harper's." This monthly reassurance that nearly all was well with the world, and that what was wrong