In the smallness of the room, sitting as it were at his feet on the
sofa, surrounded and encaged by a hundred domestic objects and by the
glow of the fire and the radiance of the gas, she certainly did seem to
Edwin to be an organism exceedingly mysterious. He could follow with
his eye every fold of her black dress, he could trace the waving of her
hair, and watch the play of light in her eyes. He might have physically
hurt her, he might have killed her, she was beneath his hand--and yet
she was most bafflingly withdrawn, and the essence of her could not be
touched nor got at. Why did she challenge him by her singular attitude?
Why was she always saying such queer things to him? No other girl (he
thought, in the simplicity of his inexperience) would ever talk as she
talked. He wanted to test her by being rude to her. "Damn her!" he
said to himself again. "Supposing I took hold of her and kissed her--I
wonder what sort of a face she'd pull then!" (And a moment ago he had
been appraising her as nobly beautiful! A moment ago he had been
dwelling on the lovely compassion of her gesture with Mr Shushions!)
This quality of daring and naughty enterprise had never before shown
itself in Edwin, and he was surprised to discover in himself such
impulses. But then the girl was so provocative. And somehow the sight
of the girl delivered him from an excessive fear of consequences. He
said to himself, "I'll do something or I'll say something, before I
leave her to-night, just to show her!" He screwed up his resolution to
the point of registering a private oath that he would indeed do or say
something. Without a solemn oath he could not rely upon his valour. He
knew that whatever he said or did in the nature of a bold advance would
be accomplished clumsily. He knew that it would be unpleasant. He knew
that inaction suited much better his instinct for tranquillity. No
matter! All that was naught. She had challenged, and he had to
respond. Besides, she allured... And, after her scene with him in the
porch of the new house, had he not the right? ... A girl who had
behaved as she did that night cannot effectively contradict herself!
"I was just reading about this strike," she said, rustling the
newspaper.
"You've soon got into local politics."
"Well," she said, "I saw a lot of the men as we were driving from the
station. I should think I saw two thousand of them. So of course I was
interested. I made Mr Orgreave tell me all about it. Will they win?"
"It depends on the weather." He smiled.
She remained silent, and grave. "I see!" she said, leaning her chin on
her hand. At her tone he ceased smiling. She said "I see," and she
actually had seen.
"You see," he repeated. "If it was June instead of November! But then
it isn't June. Wages are settled every year in November. So if there
is to be a strike it can only begin in November."
"But didn't the men ask for the time of year to be changed?"
"Yes," he said. "But you don't suppose the masters were going to agree
to that, do you?" He sneered masculinely.
"Why not?"
"Because it gives them such a pull."
"What a shame!" Hilda exclaimed passionately. "And what a shame it is
that the masters want to make the wages depend on selling prices! Can't
they see that selling prices ought to depend on wages?"
Edwin said nothing. She had knocked suddenly out of his head all ideas
of flirting, and he was trying to reassemble them.
"I suppose you're like all the rest?" she questioned gloomily.
"How like all the rest?"
"Against the men. Mr Orgreave is, and he says your father is very
strongly against them."
"Look here," said Edwin, with an air of resentment as to which he
himself could not have decided whether it was assumed or genuine, "what
earthly right have you to suppose that I'm like all the rest?"
"I'm very sorry," she surrendered. "I knew all the time you weren't."
With her face still bent downwards, she looked up at him, smiling sadly,
smiling roguishly.
"Father's against them," he proceeded, somewhat deflated. And he
thought of all his father's violent invective, and of Maggie's bland
acceptance of the assumption that workmen on strike were rascals--how
different the excellent simple Maggie from this feverish creature on the
sofa! "Father's against them, and most people are, because they broke
the last arbitration award. But I'm not my father. If you ask me, I'll
tell you what I think--workmen on strike are always in the right; at
bottom I mean. You've only got to look at them in a crowd together.
They don't starve themselves for fun."
He was not sure if he was convinced of the truth of these statements;
but she drew them out of him by her strange power. And when he had
uttered them, they appeared fine to him.
"What does your father say to that?"
"Oh!" said Edwin uneasily. "Him--and me--we don't argue about these
things."
"Why not?"
"Well, we don't."
"You aren't ashamed of your own opinions, are you?" she demanded, with a
hint in her voice that she was ready to be scornful.
"You know all the time I'm not." He repeated the phrase of her previous
confession with a certain acrimonious emphasis. "Don't you?" he added
curtly.
She remained silent.
"Don't you?" he said more loudly. And as she offered no reply, he went
on, marvelling at what was coming out of his mouth. "I'll tell you what
I am ashamed of. I'm ashamed of seeing my father lose his temper. So
you know!"