In due course Edwin’s bedroom was reached, and here Auntie Clara’s ecstasy was redoubled.
“I’m sure you’re very grateful to your father, aren’t you, Edwin?” she majestically assumed, when she had admired passionately the window, the door, the pattern of the hearth-tiles, and the spaciousness.
Edwin could not speak. Inquiries of this nature from Mrs Hamps paralysed the tongues of the children. They left nothing to be said. A sheepish grin, preceded by an inward mute curse, was all that Edwin could accomplish. How in heaven’s name could the woman talk in that strain? His attitude towards his auntie was assuredly hardening with years.
“What’s all this?” questioned his father suddenly, pointing to upright boards that had been fastened to the walls on either side of the mantelpiece, to a height of about three feet.
Then Edwin perceived the clumsiness of his tactics in remaining upstairs. He ought to have gone downstairs to meet his father and auntie, and left them to go up alone. His father was in an inquisitive mood.
“It’s for shelves,” he said.
“Shelves?”
“For my books. It’s Mr Orgreave’s idea. He says it’ll cost less.”
“Cost less! Mr Orgreave’s got too many ideas—that’s what’s the matter with him. He’ll idea me into the bankruptcy court if he keeps on.”
Edwin would have liked to protest against the savagery of the tone, to inquire firmly why, since shelves were necessary for books and he had books, there need be such a display of ill-temper about a few feet of deal plank. The words were ready, the sentences framed in his mind. But he was silent. The door was locked on these words, but it was not Edwin who had turned the key; it was some force within him, over which he had no control.