Читать книгу The Complete Clayhanger Family Novels (Clayhanger + Hilda Lessways + These Twain + The Roll Call) - Arnold Bennett - Страница 121

They went into the echoing bare house, crunching gravel and dry clay on the dirty, new floors. They were alone together in the house. And all the time Edwin was thinking: “I’ve never been through anything like this before. Never been through anything like this!” And he recalled for a second the figure of Florence Simcox, the clog-dancer.

And below these images and reflections in his mind was the thought: “I haven’t known what life is! I’ve been asleep. This is life!”

The upper squares of the drawing-room window were filled with small leaded diamond-shaped panes of many colours. It was the latest fashion in domestic glazing. The effect was at once rich and gorgeous. She liked it.

“It will be beautiful on this side in the late afternoon,” she murmured. “What a nice room!”

Their eyes met, and she transmitted to him her joy in his joy at the admirableness of the house.

He nodded. “By Jove!” he thought. “She’s a splendid girl. There can’t be many girls knocking about as fine as she is!”

“And when the garden’s full of flowers!” she breathed in rapture. She was thinking, “Strange, nice boy! He’s so romantic. All he wants is bringing out.”

They wandered to and fro. They went upstairs. They saw the bathroom. They stood on the landing, and the unseen spaces of the house were busy with their echoes. They then entered the room that was to be Edwin’s.

“Mine!” he said self-consciously.

“And I see you’re having shelves fixed on both sides of the mantelpiece! You’re very fond of books, aren’t you?” she appealed to him.

“Yes,” he said judicially.

“Aren’t they wonderful things?” Her glowing eyes seemed to be expressing gratitude to Shakespeare and all his successors in the dynasty of literature.

“That shelving is between your father and me,” said Edwin. “The dad doesn’t know. It’ll go in with the house-fittings. I don’t expect the dad will ever notice it.”

“Really!” She laughed, eager to join the innocent conspiracy. “Father invented an excellent dodge for shelving in the hall at our house,” she added. “I’m sure he’d like you to come and see it. The dear thing’s most absurdly proud of it.”

“I should like to,” Edwin answered diffidently.

“Would you come in some evening and see us? Mother would be delighted. We all should.”

“Very kind of you.” In his diffidence he was now standing on one leg.

“Could you come to-night? ... Or tomorrow night?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t come to-night, or tomorrow night,” he answered with firmness. A statement entirely untrue! He had no engagement; he never did have an engagement. But he was frightened, and his spirit sprang away from the idea, like a fawn at a sudden noise in the brake, and stood still.

He did not suspect that the unconscious gruffness of his tone had repulsed her. She blamed herself for a too brusque advance.

“Well, I hope some other time,” she said, mild and benignant.

“Thanks! I’d like to,” he replied more boldly, reassured now that he had heard again the same noise but indefinitely farther off.

She departed, but by the front door, and hatless and dignified up Trafalgar Road in the delicate sunshine to the next turning. She was less vivacious.

He hoped he had not offended her, because he wanted very much—not to go in cold blood to the famed mansion of the Orgreaves—but by some magic to find himself within it one night, at his ease, sharing in brilliant conversation. “Oh no!” he said to himself. “She’s not offended. A fine girl like that isn’t offended for nothing at all!” He had been invited to visit the Orgreaves! He wondered what his father would say, or think. The unexpressed basic idea of the Clayhangers was that the Clayhangers were as good as other folks, be they who they might. Still, the Orgreaves were the Orgreaves... In sheer absence of mind he remounted the muddy stairs.