At half-past two on the following afternoon he was waiting for the
future in order to recommence living. During this period, to a greater
extent even than the average individual in average circumstances, he was
incapable of living in the present. Continually he looked either
forward or back. All that he had achieved, or that had been achieved
for him--the new house with its brightness and its apparatus of luxury,
his books, his learning, his friends, his experience: not long since
regarded by him as the precious materials of happiness--all had become
negligible trifles, nothings, devoid of import. The sole condition
precedent to a tolerable existence was now to have sight and speech of
Hilda Lessways. He was intensely unhappy in the long stretches of time
which separated one contact with her from the next. And in the brief
moments of their companionship he was far too distraught, too
apprehensive, too desirous, too puzzled, to be able to call himself
happy. Seeing her apparently did naught to assuage the pain of his
curiosity about her--not his curiosity concerning the details of her
life and of her person, for these scarcely interested him, but his
curiosity concerning the very essence of her being. At seven o'clock on
the previous day, he had esteemed her visit as possessing a decisive
importance which covered the whole field of his wishes. The visit had
occurred, and he was not a whit advanced; indeed he had retrograded, for
he was less content and more confused, and more preoccupied. The
medicine had aggravated the disease. Nevertheless, he awaited a second
dose of it in the undestroyed illusion of its curative property.
In the interval he had behaved like a very sensible man. Without
appetite, he had still forced himself to eat, lest his relatives should
suspect. Short of sleep, he had been careful to avoid yawning at
breakfast, and had spoken in a casual tone of Hilda's visit. He had
even said to his father: "I suppose the big Columbia will be running off
those overseer notices this afternoon?" And on the old man asking why
he was thus interested, he had answered: "Because that girl, Miss
Lessways, thought of coming down to see it. For some reason or other
she's very keen on printing, and as she's such a friend of the
Orgreaves--"
Nobody, he considered, could have done that better than he had done it.
And now that girl, Miss Lessways, was nearly due. He stood behind the
counter again, waiting, waiting. He could not apply himself to
anything; he could scarcely wait. He was in a state that approached
fever, if not agony. To exist from half-past two to three o'clock
equalled in anguish the dreadful inquietude that comes before a surgical
operation.
He said to himself: "If I keep on like this I shall be in love with her
one of these days." He would not and could not believe that he already
was in love with her, though the possibility presented itself to him.
"No," he said, "you don't fall in love in a couple of days. You mustn't
tell me--" in a wise, superior, slightly scornful manner. "I dare say
there's nothing in it at all," he said uncertainly, after having
strongly denied throughout that there was anything in it.
The recollection of his original antipathy to Hilda troubled him. She
was the same girl. She was the same girl who had followed him at night
into his father's garden and merited his disdain. She was the same girl
who had been so unpleasant, so sharp, so rudely disconcerting in her
behaviour. And he dared not say that she had altered. And yet now he
could not get her out of his head. And although he would not admit that
he constantly admired her, he did admit that there were moments when he
admired her passionately and deemed her unique and above all women.
Whence the change in himself? How to justify it? The problem was
insoluble, for he was intellectually too honest to say lightly that
originally he had been mistaken.
He did not pretend to solve the problem. He looked at it with
perturbation, and left it. The consoling thing was that the Orgreaves
had always expressed high esteem for Hilda. He leaned on the Orgreaves.
He wondered how the affair would end? It could not indefinitely
continue on its present footing. How indeed would it end? Marriage...
He apologised to himself for the thought... But just for the sake of
argument ... supposing... well, supposing the affair went so far that
one day he told her ... men did such things, young men! No! ...
Besides, she wouldn't... It was absurd... No such idea really! ...
And then the frightful worry there would be with his father about money,
and so on... And the telling of Clara, and of everybody. No! He
simply could not imagine himself married, or about to be married.
Marriage might happen to other young men, but not to him. His case was
special, somehow... He shrank from such formidable enterprises. The
mere notion of them made him tremble.
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