Clayhanger Part 87

"There won't be time to get something at the refreshment room?"

They both felt heavily responsible.

"I might--" Edwin said irresolutely.

But just then the guard whistled.

"Never mind!" Janet comforted the child. "In twenty minutes we shall be in the house... No! you must keep your overcoat b.u.t.toned."

"How long have you been like that, George?" Edwin asked. "You weren't like that when you started, surely?"

"No," said George judicially. "It came on in the train."

After this, he appeared to go to sleep.

"He's certainly not well," Janet whispered.

Edwin shrugged his shoulders. "Don't you think he's grown?" he observed.

"Oh yes!" said Janet. "It's astonishing, isn't it, how children shoot up in a few weeks!"

They might have been parents exchanging notes, instead of celibates playing at parenthood for a hobby.

"Mamma says I've grown an inch." George opened his eyes. "She says it's about time I had! I dare say I shall be very tall. Are we nearly there?" His high, curt, febrile tones were really somewhat alarming.

When the train threw them out into the sodden waste that surrounds Bleakridge Station, George could scarcely stand. At any rate he showed no wish to stand. His protectors took him strongly by either arm, and thus bore him to Lane End House, with irregular unwilling a.s.sistance from his own feet. A porter followed with the luggage. It was an extremely distressing pa.s.sage. Each protector in secret was imagining for George some terrible fever, of swift onslaught and fatal effect. At length they entered the garden, thanking their G.o.ds.

"He's not well," said Janet to her mother, who was fussily awaiting them in the hall. Her voice showed apprehension, and she was not at all convincing when she added: "But it's nothing serious. I shall put him straight to bed and let him eat there."

Instantly George became the centre of the house. The women disappeared with him, and Edwin had to recount the whole history of the arrival to Osmond Orgreave in the drawing-room. This recital was interrupted by Mrs Orgreave.

"Mr Edwin, Janet thinks if we sent for the doctor, just to be sure. As Johnnie isn't in, would you mind--"

"Stirling, I suppose?" said Edwin.

Stirling was the young Scottish doctor who had recently come into the town and taken it by storm.

When Edwin at last went home to a much-delayed meal, he was in a position to tell Maggie that young George Cannon had thought fit to catch influenza a second time in a couple of months. And Maggie, without a clear word, contrived to indicate that it was what she would have expected from a boy of George's violent temperament.

VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER TEN.

GEORGE AND THE VICAR.

On the Tuesday evening Edwin came home from business at six o'clock, and found that he was to eat alone. The servant anxiously explained that Miss Clayhanger had gone across to the Orgreaves' to a.s.sist Miss Orgreave. It was evident that before going Miss Clayhanger had inspired the servant with a full sense of the importance of Mr Clayhanger's solitary meal, and of the terrible responsibility lying upon the person in charge of it. The girl was thrillingly alive; she would have liked some friend or other of the house to be always seriously ill, so that Miss Clayhanger might often leave her to the voluptuous savouring of this responsibility whose formidableness surpa.s.sed words. Edwin, as he went upstairs and as he came down again, was conscious of her excited presence somewhere near him, half-visible in the warm gas-lit house, spying upon him in order to divine the precise moment for the final service of the meal.

And in the dining-room the table was laid differently, so that he might be well situated, with regard to the light, for reading. And by the side of his plate were the newspaper, the magazines, and the book, among which Maggie had well guessed that he would make his choice for perusal.

He was momentarily touched. He warmed his hands at the splendid fire, and then he warmed his back, watching the servant as with little flouncings and perkings she served, and he was touched by the placid and perfect efficiency of Maggie as a housekeeper. Maggie gave him something that no money could buy.

The servant departed and shut the door.

When he sat down he minutely changed the situation of nearly everything on the table, so that his magazine might be lodged at exactly the right distance and angle, and so that each necessary object might be quite handy. He was in luxury, and he yielded himself to it absolutely. The sense that unusual events were happening, that the course of social existence was disturbed while his comfort was not disturbed, that danger hung cloudy on the horizon--this sense somehow intensified the appreciation of the hour, and positively contributed to his pleasure.

Moreover, he was agreeably excited by a dismaying antic.i.p.ation affecting himself alone.

Two.

The door opened again, and Auntie Hamps was shown in by the servant.

Before he could move the old lady had with overwhelming sweet supplications insisted that he should not move--no, not even to shake hands! He rose only to shake hands, and then fell back into his comfort. Auntie Hamps fixed a chair for herself opposite him, and drummed her black-gloved hands on the white table-cloth. She was steadily becoming stouter, and those chubby little hands seemed impossibly small against the vast mountain of fur which was crowned by her smirking crimson face and the supreme peak of her bonnet.

"They keep very friendly--those two," she remarked, with a strangely significant air, when he told her where Maggie was. She had shown no surprise at finding him alone, for the reason that she had already learnt everything from the servant in the hall.

"Janet and Maggie? They're friendly enough when they can be of use to each other."

"How kind Miss Janet was when your father was ill! I'm sure Maggie feels she must do all she can to return her kindness," Mrs Hamps murmured, with emotion. "I shall always be grateful for her helpfulness! She's a grand girl, a grand girl!"

"Yes," said Edwin awkwardly.

"She's still waiting for you," said Mrs Hamps, not archly, but sadly.

Edwin restively poohed. At the first instant of her arrival he had been rather glad to see her, for unusual events create a desire to discuss them; but if she meant to proceed in that strain unuttered curses would soon begin to acc.u.mulate for her in his heart.

"I expect the kid must be pretty bad," he said.

"Yes," sighed Mrs Hamps. "And probably poor Mrs Orgreave is more in the way than anything else. And Mr Orgreave only just out of bed, as you may say! ... That young lady must have her hands full! My word!

What a blessing it is she has made such friends with Maggie!"

Mrs Hamps had the peculiar gift, which developed into ever-increasing perfection as her hair grew whiter, of being able to express ideas by means of words which had no relation to them at all. Within three minutes, by three different remarks whose occult message no stranger could have understood but which forced itself with unpleasant clearness upon Edwin, Mrs Hamps had conveyed, "Janet Orgreave only cultivates Maggie because Maggie is the sister of Edwin Clayhanger."

"You're all very devoted to that child," she said, meaning, "There is something mysterious in that quarter which sooner or later is bound to come out." And the meaning was so clear that Edwin was intimidated.

What did she guess? Did she know anything? To-night Auntie Hamps was displaying her gift at its highest.

"I don't know that Maggie's so desperately keen on the infant!" he said.

"She's not like you about him, that's sure!" Mrs Hamps admitted. And she went on, in a tone that was only superficially casual, "I wonder the mother doesn't come down to him!"

Not 'his' mother--'the' mother. Odd, the effect of that trifle! Mrs Hamps was a great artist in phrasing.

"Oh!" said Edwin. "It's not serious enough for that."

"Well, I'm not so sure," Auntie Hamps gravely replied. "The Vicar is dead."

The emphasis which she put on these words was tremendous.

"Is he," Edwin stammered. "But what's that got to do with it?"