A young woman under a sunshade came slowly along Wedgwood Street. She
was wearing a certain discreet amount of finery, but her clothes did not
fit well, and a thin mantle was arranged so as to lessen as much as
possible the obviousness of the fact that she was about to become a
mother. The expression of her face was discontented and captious.
Edwin did not see her until she was close upon him, and then he
immediately became self-conscious and awkward.
"Hello, Clara!" he greeted her, with his instinctive warm, transient
smile, holding out his hand sheepishly. It was a most extraordinary and
amazing thing that he could never regard the ceremony of shaking hands
with a relative as other than an affectation of punctilio. Happily he
was not wearing his hat; had it been on his head he would never have
taken it off, and yet would have cursed himself for not doing so.
"We _are_ grand!" exclaimed Clara, limply taking his hand and dropping it
as an article of no interest. In her voice there was still some echo of
former sprightliness. The old Clara in her had not till that moment
beheld the smart and novel curves of Edwin's Shillitoe suit, and the
satiric cry came unbidden from her heart.
Edwin gave an uneasy laugh, which was merely the outlet for his disgust.
Not that he was specially disgusted with Clara, for indeed marriage had
assuaged a little the tediousness of some of her mannerisms, even if it
had taken away from her charm. He was disgusted more comprehensively by
the tradition, universal in his class and in most classes, according to
which relatives could not be formally polite to one another. He obeyed
the tradition as slavishly as anyone, but often said to himself that he
would violate the sacred rule if only he could count on a suitable
response; he knew that he could not count on a suitable response; and he
had no mind to be in the excruciating position of one who, having
started "God save the Queen" at a meeting, finds himself alone in the
song. Why could not he and Clara behave together as, for instance, he
and Janet Orgreave would behave together, with dignity, with
worldliness, with mutual deference? But no! It was impossible, and
would ever be so. They had been too brutally intimate, and the result
was irremediable.
"_She's_ got no room to talk about personal appearance, anyway!" he
thought sardonically.
There was another extraordinary and amazing thing. He was ashamed of
her condition! He could not help the feeling. In vain he said to
himself that her condition was natural and proper. In vain he
remembered the remark of the sage that a young woman in her condition
was the most beautiful sight in the world. He was ashamed of it. And
he did not think it beautiful; he thought it ugly. It worried him.
What,--his sister? Other men's sisters, yes; but his! He forgot that
he himself had been born. He could scarcely bear to look at Clara. Her
face was thin, and changed in colour; her eyes were unnaturally lustrous
and large, bold and fatigued; she looked ill, really ill; and she was
incredibly unornamental. And this was she whom he could remember as a
graceful child! And it was all perfectly correct and even laudable! So
much so that young Clara undoubtedly looked down, now, as from a
superior height, upon both himself and Maggie!
"Where's father?" she asked. "Just shut my sunshade."
"Oh! Somewhere about. I expect he'll be along in a minute. Albert
coming?" He followed her into the shop.
"Albert!" she protested, shocked. "Albert can't possibly come till one
o'clock. Didn't you know he's one of the principal stewards in Saint
Luke's Square? He says we aren't to wait dinner for him if he isn't
prompt."
"Oh!" Edwin replied, and put the sunshade on the counter.
Clara sat down heavily on a chair, and began to fan herself with a
handkerchief. In spite of the heat of exercise her face was of a pallid
yellow.
"I suppose you're going to stay here all morning?" Edwin inquired.
"Well," said Clara, "you don't see me walking up and down the streets
all morning, do you? Albert said I was to be sure and go upstairs at
once and not move. He said there'd be plenty to see for a long time yet
from the sitting-room window, and then afterwards I could lie down."
Albert said! Albert said! Clara's intonation of this frequent phrase
always jarred on Edwin. It implied that Albert was the supreme fount of
wisdom and authority in Bursley. Whereas to Edwin, Albert was in fact a
mere tedious, self-important manufacturer in a small way, with whom he
had no ideas in common. "A decent fellow at bottom," the fastidious
Edwin was bound to admit to himself by reason of slight glimpses which
he had had of Albert's uncouth good-nature; but pietistic, overbearing,
and without humour.
"Where's Maggie?" Clara demanded.
"I think she's putting her things on," said Edwin.
"But didn't she understand I was coming early?" Clara's voice was
querulous, and she frowned.
"I don't know," said Edwin.
He felt that if they remained together for hours, he and Clara would
never rise above this plane of conversation--personal, factual,
perfectly devoid of wide interest. They would never reach an exchange
of general ideas; they never had done. He did not think that Clara had
any general ideas.
"I hear you're getting frightfully thick with the Orgreaves," Clara
observed, with a malicious accent and smile, as if to imply that he was
getting frightfully above himself, and--simultaneously--that the
Orgreaves were after all no better than other people.
"Who told you that?" He walked towards the doorway uneasily. The worst
was that he could not successfully pretend that these sisterly attacks
were lost on him.
"Never mind who told me," said Clara.
Her voice took on a sudden charming roguish quality, and he could hear
again the girl of fourteen. His heart at once softened to her. The
impartial and unmoved spectator that sat somewhere in Edwin, as in
everybody who possesses artistic sensibility, watching his secret life
as from a conning tower, thought how strange this was. He stared out
into the street. And then a face appeared at the aperture left by the
removed shutter. It was Janet Orgreave's, and it hesitated. Edwin gave
a nervous start.
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