Janet came into the room, and was surprised to see Edwin. She was in a
state of extreme fatigue--pale, with burning eyes, and hair that has
lost the gracefulness of its curves.
"So you know?" she said.
Edwin nodded.
"It seems I've got to go to bed," she went on. "Father, you must go to
bed too. Mother's gone. It's frightfully late. Come along now!"
She was insistent. She had been worried during the greater part of the
day by her restless parents, and she was determined not to leave either
of them at large.
"Charlie, you might run upstairs and see that everything's all right
before I go. I shall get up again at four."
"I'll be off," said Edwin.
"Here! Hold on a bit," Charlie objected. "Wait till I come down.
Let's have a yarn. You don't want to go to bed yet."
Edwin agreed to the suggestion, and was left alone in the
breakfast-room. What struck him was that the new situation created by
Hilda's strange caprice had instantly been accepted by everybody, and
had indeed already begun to seem quite natural. He esteemed highly the
demeanour of all the Orgreaves. Neither he himself nor Maggie could
have surpassed them in their determination not to exaggerate the crisis,
in their determination to bear themselves simply and easily, and to
speak with lightness, even with occasional humour. There were few
qualities that he admired more than this.
And what was her demeanour, up there in the bedroom?
Suddenly the strangeness of Hilda's caprice presented itself to him as
even more strange. She had merely gone to Ealing and captured Charlie.
Charlie was understood to have a considerable practice. At her whim all
his patients had been abandoned. What an idea, to bring him down like
this! What tremendous faith in him she must have! And Edwin remembered
distinctly that the first person who had ever spoken to him of Hilda was
Charlie! And in what terms of admiration! Was there a long and secret
understanding between these two? They must assuredly be far more
intimate than he had ever suspected. Edwin hated to think that Hilda
would depend more upon Charlie than upon himself in a grave difficulty.
The notion caused him acute discomfort. He was resentful against
Charlie as against a thief who had robbed him of his own, but who could
not be apprehended and put to shame.
The acute discomfort was jealousy; but this word did not occur to him.
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