Rather more than a week later, Edwin had so far entered into the life of
his father's business that he could fully share the excitement caused by
an impending solemnity in the printing office. He was somewhat pleased
with himself, and especially with his seriousness. The memory of school
was slipping away from him in the most extraordinary manner. His only
school-friend, Charlie Orgreave, had departed, with all the
multitudinous Orgreaves, for a month in Wales. He might have written to
the Sunday; the Sunday might have written to him: but the idea of
writing did not occur to either of them; they were both still
sufficiently childlike to accept with fatalism all the consequences of
parental caprice. Orgreave senior had taken his family to Wales; the
boys were thus separated, and there was an end of it. Edwin regretted
this, because Orgreave senior happened to be a very successful
architect, and hence there were possibilities of getting into an
architectural atmosphere. He had never been inside the home of the
Sunday, nor the Sunday in his--a schoolboy friendship can flourish in
perfect independence of home--but he nervously hoped that on the return
of the Orgreave regiment from Wales, something favourable to his
ambitions--he knew not what--would come to pass. In the meantime he was
conscientiously doing his best to acquire a business training, as his
father had suggested. He gave himself with an enthusiasm almost
religious to the study of business methods. All the force of his
resolve to perfect himself went for the moment into this immediate
enterprise, and he was sorry that business methods were not more
complex, mysterious, and original than they seemed to be: he was also
sorry that his father did not show a greater interest in his industry
and progress.
He no longer wanted to `play' now. He despised play. His unique wish
was to work. It struck him as curious and delightful that he really
enjoyed work. Work had indeed become play. He could not do enough work
to satisfy his appetite. And after the work of the day, scorning all
silly notions about exercise and relaxation, he would spend the evening
in his beautiful new attic, copying designs, which he would sometimes
rise early to finish. He thought he had conquered the gross body, and
that it was of no account. Even the desolating failures which his
copies invariably proved did not much discourage him; besides, one of
them had impressed both Maggie and Clara. He copied with laborious
ardour undiminished. And further, he masterfully appropriated Maggie's
ticket for the Free Library, pending the preliminaries to the possession
of a ticket of his own, to procure a volume on architecture. From
timidity, from a singular false shame, he kept this volume in the attic,
like a crime; nobody knew what the volume was. Evidence of a strange
trait in his character; a trait perhaps not defensible! He argued with
himself that having told his father plainly that he wanted to be an
architect, he need do nothing else aggressive for the present. He had
agreed to the suggestion about business training, and he must be loyal
to his agreement. He pointed out to himself how right his father was.
At sixteen one could scarcely begin to be an architect; it was too soon;
and a good business training would not be out of place in any career or
profession.
He was so wrapped up in his days and his nights that he forgot to
inquire why earthenware was made in just the Five Towns. He had grown
too serious for trifles--and all in about a week! True, he was feeling
the temporary excitement of the printing office, which was perhaps
expressed boyishly by the printing staff; but he reckoned that his share
of it was quite adult, frowningly superior, and in a strictly business
sense justifiable and even proper.
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