Clayhanger Part 93

"Yes!" he muttered, in an exquisite rush of happiness. After all, it was not with Charlie, nor even with Janet, that she was most intimate; it was with himself!

"George's father was put in prison for bigamy. George is illegitimate."

She spoke with her characteristic extreme clearness of enunciation, in a voice that showed no emotion.

"You don't mean it!" He gasped foolishly.

She nodded. "I'm not a married woman. I once thought I was, but I wasn't. That's all."

"But--"

"But what?"

"You--you said six or seven years, didn't you? Surely they don't give that long for bigamy?"

"Oh!" she replied mildly. "That was for something else. When he came out of prison the first time they arrested him again instantly--so I was told. It was in Scotland."

"I see."

There was a rattle as of hailstones on the window. They both started.

"That must be Charlie!" she exclaimed, suddenly loosing her excitement under this pretext. "He doesn't want to ring and wake the house."

Edwin ran out of the room, sliding and slipping down the deserted stairs that waited patiently through the night for human feet.

"Forgot to take a key," said Charlie, appearing, breathless, just as the door opened. "I meant to take the big key, and then I forgot." He had a little round box in his hand. He mounted the stairs two and three at a time.

Edwin slowly closed the door. He could not bring himself to follow Charlie and, after a moment's vacillation, he went back into the breakfast-room.

FOUR.

Amazing, incalculable woman, wrapped within fold after fold of mystery!

He understood better now, but even now there were things that he did not understand; and the greatest enigma of all remained unsolved, the original enigma of her treachery to himself... And she had chosen just that moment, just that crisis, to reveal to him that sinister secret which by some unguessed means she had been able to hide from her acquaintance. Naturally, if she wished to succeed with a boarding-house in Brighton she would be compelled to conceal somehow the fact that she was the victim of a bigamist and her child without a lawful name! The merest prudence would urge her to concealment so long as concealment was possible; yes, even from Janet! Her other friends deemed her a widow; Janet thought her the wife of a convict; he alone knew that she was neither wife nor widow. Through what scathing experience she must have pa.s.sed! An unfamiliar and disconcerting mood gradually took complete possession of him. At first he did not correctly a.n.a.lyse it. It was sheer, exuberant, instinctive, unreasoning, careless joy.

Then, after a long period of beatific solitude in the breakfast-room, he heard stealthy noises in the hall, and his fancy jumped to the idea of burglary. Excited, unreflecting, he hurried into the hall. Johnnie Orgreave, who had let himself in with a latchkey, was shutting and bolting the front door. Johnnie's surprise was the greater. He started violently on seeing Edwin, and then at once a.s.sumed the sang-froid of a hero of romance. When Edwin informed him that Hilda had come, and Charlie with her, and that those two were watching by the boy, the rest of the household being in bed, Johnnie permitted himself a few verbal symptoms of astonishment.

"How is Georgie?" he asked with an effort, as if ashamed.

"He isn't much better," said Edwin evasively.

Johnnie made a deprecatory sound with his tongue against his lips, and frowned, determined to take his proper share in the general anxiety.

With careful, dignified movements, he removed his silk hat and his heavy ulster, revealing evening-dress, and a coloured scarf that overhung a crumpled s.h.i.+rt-front.

"Where've you been?" Edwin asked.

"Tennis dance. Didn't you know?"

"No," said Edwin.

"Really!" Johnnie murmured, with a falsely ingenuous air. After a pause he said: "They've left you all alone, then?"

"I was in the breakfast-room," said Edwin, when he had given further information.

They walked into the breakfast-room together. Charlie's cigarette-case lay on the tray.

"Those your cigarettes?" Johnnie inquired.

"No. They're Charlie's."

"Oh! Master Charlie's, are they? I wonder if they're any good." He took one fastidiously. Between two enormous outblowings of smoke he said: "Well, I'm dashed! So Charlie's come with her! I hope the kid'll soon be better... I should have been back long ago, only I took Mrs Chris Hamson home."

"Who's Mrs Chris Hamson?"

"Don't you know her? She's a ripping woman."

He stood there in all the splendour of thirty years, with more than Charlie's naivete, politely trying to enter into the life of the household, but failing to do so because of his preoccupation with the rippingness of Mrs Chris Hamson. The sight of him gave pleasure to Edwin. It did not occur to him to charge the young man with being callous.

When the cigarette was burnt, Johnnie said--

"Well, I think I shall leave seeing Charlie till breakfast."

And he went to bed. On reaching the first-floor corridor he wished that he had gone to bed half a minute sooner; for in the corridor he encountered Janet, who had risen and was returning to her post; and Janet's face, though she meant it not, was an accusation. Four o'clock had struck.

FIVE.

It was nearly half-past seven before Edwin left the house. In the meantime he had seen Charlie briefly twice, and Janet once, but he had not revisited the sick-room nor seen Hilda again. The boy's condition was scarcely altered; if there was any change, it was for the better.

Dawn had broken. The fog was gone, but a faint mist hung in the trees over the damp lawn. The air was piercingly chill. Yawning and glancing idly about him, he perceived a curious object on the dividing wall. It was the candlestick which he had left there on the previous night. The candle was entirely consumed. "I may as well get over the wall," he said to himself, and he scrambled up it with adventurous cheerfulness, and took the candlestick with him; it was covered with drops of moisture. He deposited it in the kitchen, where the servant was cleaning the range. On the oak chest in the hall lay the "Manchester Guardian," freshly arrived. He opened it with another heavy yawn. At the head of one column he read, "Death of the Duke of Clarence," and at the head of another, "Death of Cardinal Manning." The double news shocked him strangely. He thought of what those days had been to others beside himself. And he thought: "Supposing after all the kid doesn't come through?"

VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

HER HEART.

After having been to business and breakfasted as usual, Edwin returned to the shop at ten o'clock. He did not feel tired, but his manner was very curt, even with Stifford, and melancholy had taken the place of his joy. The whole town was gloomy, and seemed to savour its gloom luxuriously. But Edwin wondered why he should be melancholy. There was no reason for it. There was less reason for it than there had been for ten years. Yet he was; and, like the town, he found pleasure in his state. He had no real desire to change it. At noon he suddenly went off home, thus upsetting Stifford's arrangements for the dinner-hour.

"I shall lie down for a bit," he said to Maggie. He slept till a little after one o'clock, and he could have slept longer, but dinner was ready.

He said to himself, with an extraordinary sense of satisfaction, "I have had a sleep." After dinner he lay down again, and slept till nearly three o'clock. It was with the most agreeable sensations that he awakened. His melancholy was pa.s.sing; it had not entirely gone, but he could foresee the end of it as of an eclipse. He made the discovery that he had only been tired. Now he was somewhat reposed. And as he lay in repose he was aware of an intensified perception of himself as a physical organism. He thought calmly, "What a fine thing life is!"

"I was just going to bring you some tea up," said Maggie, who met him on the stairs as he came down. "I heard you moving. Will you have some?"

He rubbed his eyes. His head seemed still to be distended with sleep, and this was a part of his well-being. "Aye!" he replied, with lazy satisfaction. "That'll just put me right."

"George is much better," said Maggie.