"Yes, I think I'll come. Of course I should like to. But I'll let you
know."
"To-night?"
"Yes, to-night."
"I shall tell my wife you're coming."
Mr Orgreave waved a hand, and passed with a certain decorative gaiety
down the street. His hair was now silvern, but it still curled in the
old places, and his gestures had apparently not aged at all.
Mr and Mrs Orgreave were going to London for the Jubilee celebrations.
So far as their family was concerned, they were going alone, because
Osmond had insisted humorously that he wanted a rest from his children.
But he had urgently invited Edwin to accompany them. At first Edwin had
instinctively replied that it was impossible. He could not leave home.
He had never been to London; a journey to London presented itself to him
as an immense enterprise, almost as a piece of culpable self-indulgence.
And then, under the stimulus of Osmond's energetic and adventurous
temperament, he had said to himself, "Why not? Why shouldn't I?"
The arguments favoured his going. It was absurd and scandalous that he
had never been to London: he ought for his self-respect to depart
thither at once. The legend of the Jubilee, spectacular, processional,
historic, touched his imagination. Whenever he thought of it, his fancy
saw pennons and corselets and chargers winding through stupendous
streets, and, somewhere in the midst, the majesty of England in the
frail body of a little old lady, who had had many children and one
supreme misfortune. Moreover, he could incidentally see Charlie.
Moreover, he had been suffering from a series of his customary colds,
and from overwork, and Heve had told him that he `would do with a
change.' Moreover, he had a project for buying paper in London: he had
received, from London, overtures which seemed promising. He had never
been able to buy paper quite as cheaply as Darius had bought paper, for
the mere reason that he could not haggle over sixteenths of a penny with
efficient ruthlessness; he simply could not do it, being somehow ashamed
to do it. In Manchester, where Darius had bought paper for thirty
years, they were imperceptibly too brutal for Edwin in the harsh
realities of a bargain; they had no sense of shame. He thought that in
letters from London he detected a softer spirit.
And above all he desired, by accepting Mr Orgreave's invitation, to
show to the architect that the differences between them were really
expunged from his mind. Among many confusions in his father's
flourishing but disorderly affairs, Edwin had been startled to find the
Orgreave transactions. There were accounts and contra-accounts, and
quantities of strangely contradictory documents. Never had a real
settlement occurred between Darius and Osmond. And Osmond did not seem
to want one. Edwin, however, with his old-maid's passion for putting
and keeping everything in its place, insisted on one. Mr Orgreave had
to meet him on his strongest point, his love of order. The process of
settlement had been painful to Edwin; it had seriously marred some of
his illusions. Nearly the last of the entanglements in his father's
business, the Orgreave matter was straightened and closed now; and the
projected escapade to London would bury it deep, might even restore
agreeable illusions. And Edwin was incapable of nursing malice.
The best argument of all was that he had a right to go to London. He
had earned London, by honest and severe work, and by bearing firmly the
huge weight of his responsibility. So far he had offered himself no
reward whatever, not even an increase of salary, not even a week of
freedom or the satisfaction of a single caprice.
"I shall go, and charge it to the business," he said to himself. He
became excited about going.
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