But, looking out of the window over a half-buttoned collar, he saw his father dressed and in the garden. Darius had resumed the suit of broadcloth, for some strange reason, and was dragging his feet with painful, heavy slowness along the at the south end of the garden. He carried in his left hand the “Signal,” . A cloth cap, the ceremonious suit, gave to his head a ridiculous appearance. He was gazing at the earth with an expression of absorbed and acute . When he reached the end of the path, he looked round, at a loss, then turned, as if on an , and set himself in motion again. Edwin was troubled by this singular episode. And yet his reason argued with his instinct to the effect that he ought not to be troubled. Evidently the sturdy Darius was not ill. Nothing serious could be the matter. He had been harrowed and by the funeral; no more. In another day, doubtless, he would be again the harsh employer astoundingly concentrated in affairs and to the emotional appeal of aught else. Nevertheless he made a strange sight, parading his excessive sadness there in the garden.
A knock at Edwin’s door! He was startled. “Hold on!” he cried, went to the door, and cautiously opened it. Maggie was on the mat.
“Here’s Auntie Clara!” she said in a whisper, . “She’s come about father. Shall you be long?”
“About father? What about father?”
“It seems she saw him last night. He called there. And she was anxious.”
“Oh! I see!” Edwin to be relieved. Maggie nodded, also affecting, somewhat eagerly, to be relieved. But neither of them was relieved. Auntie Clara calling at half-past eight! Auntie Clara neglecting that which she never neglected—the unalterable and divinely appointed for the daily and ordering of her !
“I shall be down in ten secs,” said he. “Father’s in the garden,” he added, almost . “Seems all right.”
“Yes,” said Maggie, with cheerfulness, and went. He closed the door.
Two.
Mrs Hamps was in the drawing-room. She had gone into the drawing-room because it was more secret, better suited to conversation of an privacy than the dining-room—a public resort at that hour. Edwin perceived at once that she was savouring intensely the strangeness of the occasion, its import and its importance to the largest possible.
“Good morning, dear,” she greeted him in a low and significant tone. “I felt I must come up at once. I couldn’t fancy any breakfast till I’d been up, so I put on my and and just came. It’s no use fighting against what you feel you must do.”
“But—”
“Hasn’t Maggie told you? Your father called to see me last night just after I’d gone upstairs. In fact I’d begun to get ready for bed. I heard the knocking and I came down and lit the gas in the lobby. ‘Who’s there?’ I said. There wasn’t any answer, but I made sure I heard some one crying. And when I opened the door, there was your father. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Happen you’ve gone to bed, Clara?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Come in, do!’ But he wouldn’t. And he looked so queer. I never saw him look like that before. He’s such a strong self-controlled man. I knew he’d been to poor Mr Shushions’s funeral. ‘I suppose you’ve been to the funeral, Darius,’ I said. And as soon as I said that he burst out crying, and half tumbled down the steps, and off he went! I couldn’t go after him, as I was. I didn’t know what to do. If anything happened to your father, I don’t know what I should do.”
“What time was that?” Edwin asked, wondering what on earth she meant—“if anything happened to your father!”
“Half-past ten or hardly. What time did he come home? Very, very late, wasn’t it?”
“A little after twelve,” he said carelessly. He was sorry that he had inquired as to the hour of the visit to his aunt. Obviously she was ready to build vast and terrible upon the mysterious between half-past ten and midnight.
“You’ve cut yourself, my dear,” she said, indicating with her gloved hand Edwin’s chin. “And I’m not surprised. How upsetting it is for you! Of course Maggie’s the , and we think a great deal of her, but you’re the son—the only son!”
“I know,” he said, meaning that he knew he had cut himself, and he pressed his handkerchief to his chin. Within, he was . The accent with which she had finally murmured ‘the only son’ irritated him extremely. What in the name of God was she driving at? The fact was that, enjoying a domestic crisis with positive sensuality, she was trying to manufacture one! That was it! He knew her. There were times when he could share all Maggie’s of Mrs Hamps, and this was one of those times. The infernal woman, with her shaking and her odour of black kid, was enjoying herself! In the thousandth part of a second he invented horrible and punishments for her, as that all the clothes should suddenly fall off that , widowed, . Yet, amid the multitude of his sensations—the smarting of his chin, the of all his body after the bath, the fresh of the morning, the increased consciousness of his own , due to sleep, the queerness of being in the drawing-room at such an hour in talk, the vague caused at midnight, and now despite his angry efforts to avoid the of Mrs Hamps’s mood, and above all the thought of his father gloomily wandering in the garden—amid these confusing sensations, it was an idea communicated to him by his annoying aunt, an obvious idea, an idea not worth uttering, that emerged clear and dramatic: he was the only son.
“There’s no need to worry,” he said as firmly as he could “The funeral got on his nerves, that’s all. He certainly did seem a bit knocked about last night, and I shouldn’t have been surprised if he’d stayed in bed to-day. But you see he’s up and about.” Both of them glanced at the window, which gave on the garden.
“Yes,” murmured Mrs Hamps, unconvinced. “But what about his crying? Maggie tells me he was—”
“Oh!” Edwin interrupted her almost roughly. “That’s nothing. I’ve known him cry before.”
“Have you?” She seemed taken aback.
“Yes. Years ago. That’s nothing fresh.”
“It’s true he’s very sensitive,” Mrs Hamps reflected. “That’s what we don’t realise, maybe, sometimes. Of course if you think he’s all right—”
She approached the window, and, leaning over the tripod which held a flower-pot in pink paper, she drew the white curtain aside, and gazed in silence. Darius was still pacing up and down the short path at the of the garden; his eyes were still on the ground, and his features of mournful despair, and at the end of the path he still turned his body round with slow and tedious . Edwin also could see him through the window. They both watched him; it was as if they were spying on him.
Maggie entered, and said, in an unusual flutter—
“Here’s Clara and Albert!”
Three.
Clara and her husband came immediately into the drawing-room. The wife, dressed with a certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite the of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, clay-dusted of the small manufacturer who is away from the works for half an hour. Both of them were electrically charged with importance.
Amid the general self-consciousness Maggie took the baby, and Clara and Mrs Hamps kissed each other tenderly, as though saying, “Affliction is upon us.” It was impossible, in the circumstances, to proceed to minute about the health of the children, but Mrs Hamps expressed all her
Join or Log In!
You need to log in to continue reading
(Left Keyword <-) Previous:
Volume Three--Chapter One. Book Three — His Freedom. After a Funeral.
Back
Next:
No Data
(Right Keyword:->)