We now approach the more 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 ten hours had beaten with impetuosity against the window-panes of Bursley, and hence half the town had slept ill. But at breakfast-time the clouds had been mysteriously away, the winds had expired, and those streets began to dry under the peace of bright soft sunshine; the sky was pale blue of a unknown to the 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 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 about human nature. He had been the paper boy, the 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 .
“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 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 , soon after its dazzling in the world.
“Yes, by Edwin Arnold—Edwin Arnold,” he muttered learnedly, running his finger along 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 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 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 . Janet had everything: a kind , some brains, some beauty, considerable and luxury for her station, fine shoulders at a ball, universal love and .
Stifford, as he gazed diffidently at this fashionable, superior, and yet woman on the other side of the counter, was in a very unpleasant . 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 request; and yet could he say ‘No’? Could he bring himself to 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 .) Business was a barbaric thing at times.
“The fact is, miss,” he said at length, in his best manner, “Mr Clayhanger has 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 his eyes upon a square structure of ebonised wood that had been and inserted into the opposite corner of the shop, behind the ledger-window. And Janet’s eyes followed his.
“I don’t know if—” he hesitated.
“Is Mr Clayhanger in?” she demanded, as if wishful to help him in the formulation of his idea, and she added: “Or Mr Edwin?” Deliciously persuasive!
Two.
The wooden structure was a . It had been constructed to hold Darius Clayhanger; but in practice it generally held Edwin, as his father’s schemes for the enlargement of the business carried him abroad more and more. It was a device of Edwin’s for privacy; Edwin had planned it and seen the plan executed. The theory was that a person in the structure (called ‘the office’) was not in the shop and must not be disturbed by anyone in the shop. Only persons of authority—Darius and Edwin—had the privilege of the office, and since its occupant could hear every whisper in the shop, it was always for the occupant to decide when events demanded that he should emerge.
On Janet’s entrance, Edwin was writing in the daybook: “April 11th. Turnhill Oddfellows. 400 Contrib. Cards—” He stopped writing. He held himself still like a startled mouse. With satisfaction he observed that the door of the was closed. By putting his nose near the crystal wall he could see, through the minute portions of the patterned glass, without being seen. He watched Janet’s gestures, and examined with pleasure the beauties of her half-season toilet; he discerned the of her umbrella handle. His sensations were agreeable and yet disagreeable, for he wished both to remain where he was and to go and engage her in brilliant small talk. He had no small talk, except that of the salesman and the tradesman; his tongue knew not freedom; but his fancy dreamed of light, intellectual conversations with fine girls. These dreams of fancy had of late become almost , for the sole reason that he had raised his hat several times to Janet, and once had shaken hands with her and said, “How d’you do, Miss Orgreave?” in response to her “How d’you do, Mr Clayhanger?” Osmond Orgreave, in whom had originated their encounter, had cut across the duologue at that point and spoilt it. But Edwin’s fancy had continued it, when he was alone late at night, in a very diverting and manner. And now, he had her at his disposal; he had only to emerge, and Stiff would , and he could chat with her at ease, starting comfortably from “The Light of Asia.” And yet he dared not; his faint heart told him in loud beats that he could only chat cleverly with a fine girl when absolutely alone in his room, in the dark.
Still, he surveyed her; he added her up; he pronounced, with a touch of conventional male (caught possibly from the Liberal Club), that Janet was indubitably a nice girl and a fine girl. He would not admit that he was afraid of her, and that despite all theoretical argufying, he deemed her above him in rank.
And if he had known the full truth, he might have regretted that he had not caused the lair to be furnished with a trap-door by means of which the timid could sink into the earth.
The truth was that Janet had called purposely to inspect Edwin at leisure. “The Light of Asia” was a . “The Light of Asia” might as easily have been ordered at Hanbridge, where her father and brothers ordered all their books—in fact, more easily. Janet, with all her niceness, with all the reality of her immense good-nature, loved as well as anybody a bit of chicane where a man was concerned. Janet’s eyes could twinkle as as her quiet mother’s. Mr Orgr............