Janet was all in white again, and her sunshade was white, with regular
circular holes in it to let through spots of sunlight which flecked her
face. Edwin had not recovered from the blow of her apparition just at
that moment, when he saw Hilda Lessways beyond her. Hilda was
slate-coloured, and had a black sunshade. His heart began to thump; it
might have been a dramatic and dangerous crisis that had suddenly come
about. And to Edwin the situation did in fact present itself as
critical: his sister behind, and these two so different girls in front.
Yet there was nothing critical in it whatsoever. He shook hands as in a
dream, wondering what he should do, trying to summon out of himself the
man of the world.
"Do come in," he urged them, hoping they would refuse.
"Oh no. We mustn't come in," said Janet, smiling gratefully. Hilda did
not smile; she had not even smiled in shaking hands; and she had shaken
hands without conviction.
Edwin heard a hurried step in the shop, and then the voice of Maggie,
maternal and protective, in a low exclamation of surprise: "You, dear!"
And then the sound of a smacking kiss, and Clara's voice, thin, weak,
and confiding: "Yes, I've come." "Come upstairs, do!" said Maggie
imploringly. "Come and be comfortable." Then steps, ceasing to be
heard as the sisters left the shop at the back. The solicitude of
Maggie for Clara during the last few months had seemed wonderful to
Edwin, as also Clara's occasional childlike acceptance of it.
"But you must come in!" he said more boldly to the visitors, asking
himself whether either Janet or Hilda had caught sight of his sisters in
the gloom of the shop.
They entered, Hilda stiffly. Each with the same gesture closed her
parasol before passing through the slit between the shutters into the
deep shade. But whereas Janet smiled with pleasant anticipation as
though she was going into heaven, Hilda wrinkled her forehead when her
parasol would not subside at the first touch.
Janet talked of the Centenary; said they had decided only that morning
to come down into the town and see whatever was to be seen; said with an
angelic air of apologising to the Centenary that up at Lane End House
they had certainly been under-estimating its importance and its interest
as a spectacle; said that it was most astonishing to see all the shops
closed. And Edwin interjected vague replies, pulling the chair out of
the little ebonised cubicle so that they could both sit down. And Hilda
remained silent. And Edwin's thoughts were diving darkly beneath
Janet's chatter as in a deep sea beneath light waves. He heard and
answered Janet with a minor part of his being that functioned
automatically.
"She's a caution!" reflected the main Edwin, obsessed in secret by Hilda
Lessways. Who could have guessed, by looking at her, that only three
evenings before she had followed him in the night to question him, to
squeeze his hand, and to be rude to him? Did Janet know? Did anyone?
No! He felt sure that he and she had the knowledge of that interview to
themselves. She sat down glum, almost glowering. She was no more
worldly than Maggie and Clara were worldly. Than they, she had no more
skill to be sociable. And in appearance she was scarcely more stylish.
But she was not as they, and it was useless vindictively to disparage
her by pretending that she was. She could be passionate concerning
Victor Hugo. She was capable of disturbing herself about the abstract
question of belief. He had not heard her utter a single word in the way
of common girlish conversation.
The doubt again entered his mind whether indeed her visit to the porch
of the new house had been due to a genuine interest in abstract
questions and not to a fancy for himself. "Yes," he reflected, "that
must have been it."
In two days his pride in the affair had lost its first acuteness, though
it had continued to brighten every moment of his life, and though he had
not ceased to regret that he had no intimate friend to whom he could
recount it in solemn and delicious intimacy. Now, philosophically, he
stamped on his pride as on a fire. And he affected to be relieved at
the decision that the girl had been moved by naught but a sort of
fanaticism. But he was not relieved by the decision. The decision
itself was not genuine. He still clung to the notion that she had
followed him for himself. He preferred that she should have taken a
fancy to him, even though he discovered no charm in her, no beauty, no
solace, nothing but matter for repulsion. He wanted her to think of
him, in spite of his distaste for her; to think of him hopelessly. "You
are an ass!" murmured the impartial watcher in the conning tower. And
he was. But he did not care. It was agreeable thus to be an ass...
His pride flared up again, and instead of stamping he blew on it.
"By Jove!" he thought, eyeing her slyly, "I'll make you show your hand--
you see if I don't! You think you can play with me, but you can't!" He
was as violent against her as if she had done him an injury instead of
having squeezed his hand in the dark. Was it not injurious to have
snapped at him, when he refused her invitation to stand by her against
the wall in the porch, "You needn't be afraid"? Janet would never have
said such a thing. If only she resembled Janet! ...
During all this private soliloquising, Edwin's mien of mild nervousness
never hardened to betray his ferocity, and he said nothing that might
not have been said by an innocuous idiot.
The paper boy, arrayed richly, slipped apologetically into the shop. He
had certain packets to take out for delivery, and he was late. Edwin
nodded to him distantly. The conversation languished.
Then the head of Mr Orgreave appeared in the aperture. The architect
seemed amused. Edwin could not understand how he had ever stood in awe
of Mr Orgreave, who, with all his distinction and expensiveness, was
the most companionable person in the world.
"Oh! Father!" cried Janet. "What a deceitful thing you are! Do you
know, Mr Edwin, he pooh-poohed us coming down: he said he was far too
busy for such childish things as Centenaries! And look at him!"
Mr Orgreave, whose suit, hat, and necktie were a harmony of elegant
greys, smiled with paternal ease, and swung his cane. "Come along now!
Don't let's miss anything. Come along. Now, Edwin, you're coming,
aren't you?"
"Did you ever see such a child?" murmured Janet, adoring him.
Edwin turned to the paper boy. "Just find my father before you go," he
commanded. "Tell him I've gone, and ask him if you are to put the
shutter up." The paper boy respectfully promised obedience. And Edwin
was glad that the forbidding Hilda was there to witness his authority.
Janet went out first. Hilda hesitated; and Edwin, having taken his hat
from its hook in the cubicle, stood attending her at the aperture. He
was sorry that he could not run upstairs for a walking-stick. At last
she seemed to decide to leave, yet left with apparent reluctance. Edwin
followed, giving a final glance at the boy, who was tying a parcel
hurriedly. Mr Orgreave and his daughter were ten yards off,
arm-in-arm. Edwin fell into step with Hilda Lessways. Janet looked
round, and smiled and beckoned. "I wonder," said Edwin to himself,
"what the devil's going to happen now? I'll take my oath she stayed
behind on purpose! Well--" This swaggering audacity was within.
Without, even a skilled observer could have seen nothing but a faint,
sheepish smile. And his heart was thumping again.