He walked in the faint September sunshine down Trafalgar Road into the town. Except for a few girls in dowdy finery and a few heavy youths with their black or dark-blue trousers turned up round the ankles far enough to show the white cotton lining, the street was empty. The devout at that hour were either dozing at home or engaged in Sunday school work; thousands of children were concentrated in the hot Sunday schools. As he passed the Bethesda Chapel and School he heard the voices of children addressing the Lord of the Universe in laudatory and intercessory song. Near the Bethesda chapel, by the Duke of Cambridge Vaults, two men stood waiting, their faces firm in the sure knowledge that within three hours the public-houses would again be open. Thick smoke rose from the chimneys of several manufactories and thin smoke from the chimneys of many others. The scheme of a Sunday musical evening in that land presented itself to Edwin as something rash, fantastic, and hopeless,--and yet solacing. Were it known it could excite only hostility, horror, contempt, or an intense bovine indifference; chiefly the last.... Breathe the name of Chopin in that land!...
As he climbed Duck Bank he fumbled in his pocket for his private key of the shop, which he had brought with him; for, not the desire for fresh air, but an acute curiosity as to the answer to his letter to the solicitor to the Hall trustees making an offer for the land at Shawport, had sent him out of the house. Would the offer be accepted or declined, or would a somewhat higher sum be suggested? The reply would have been put into the post on Saturday, and was doubtless then lying in the letter-box within the shop. The whole future seemed to be lying unopened in that letter-box.
He penetrated into his own shop like a thief, for it was not meet for an important tradesman to be seen dallying with business of a Sunday afternoon. As he went into the shutter-darkened interior he thought of Hilda, whom many years earlier he had kissed in that very same shutter-darkened interior one Thursday afternoon. Life appeared incredible to him, and in his wife he could see almost no trace of the girl he had kissed there in the obscure shop. There was a fair quantity of letters in the box. The first one he opened was from a solicitor; not the solicitor to the Hall trustees, but Tom Orgreave, who announced to Edwin Clayhanger, Esquire, dear sir, that his clients, the Palace Porcelain Company of Longshaw, felt compelled to call their creditors together. The Palace Porcelain Company, who had believed in the efficacy of printed advertising matter and expensive catalogues, owed Edwin a hundred and eighty pounds. It was a blow, and the more so in that it was unexpected. "Did I come messing down here on a Sunday afternoon to receive this sort of news?" he bitterly asked. A moment earlier he had not doubted the solvency of the Palace Porcelain Company; but now he felt that the Company wouldn't pay two shillings in the pound,--perhaps not even that, as there were debenture-holders. The next letter was an acceptance of his offer for the Shawport land. The die was cast, then. The new works would have to be created; lithography would increase; in the vast new enterprise he would be hampered by the purchase of Maggie's house; he had just made a bad debt; and he would have Hilda's capricious opposition to deal with. He quitted the shop abruptly, locked the door, and went back home, his mind very active but undirected.
VI
Something unfamiliar in the aspect of the breakfast-room as glimpsed through the open door from the hall, drew him within. Hilda had at last begun to make it into "her" room. She had brought an old writing-desk from upstairs and put it between the fireplace and the window. Edwin thought: "Doesn't she even know the light ought to fall over the left shoulder, not over the right?" Letter paper and envelopes and even stamps were visible; and a miscellaneous mass of letters and bills had been pushed into the space between the flat of the desk and the small drawers about it. There was also an easy-chair, with a freshly-covered cushion on it; a new hearthrug that Edwin neither recognised nor approved of; several framed prints, and other oddments. His own portrait still dominated the mantelpiece, but it was now flanked by two brass candle-sticks. He thought: "If she'd ask me, I could have arranged it for her much better than that." Nevertheless the idea of her being absolute monarch of the little room, and expressing her individuality in it and by it, both pleased and touched him. Nor did he at all resent the fact that she had executed her plan in secret. She must have been anxious to get the room finished for the musical evening.
Thence he passed into the drawing-room,--and was thunderstruck. The arrangement of the furniture was utterly changed, and the resemblance to a boarding-house parlour after all achieved. The piano had crossed the room; the chairs were massed together in the most ridiculous way; the sofa was so placed as to be almost useless. His anger was furious but cold. The woman had considerable taste in certain directions, but she simply did not understand the art of fixing up a room. Whereas he did. Each room in the house (save her poor little amateurish breakfast-room or "boudoir") had been arranged by himself, even to small details,--and well arranged. Everyone admitted that he had a talent for interiors. The house was complete before she ever saw it, and he had been responsible for it. He was not the ordinary inexperienced ignorant husband who "leaves all that sort of thing to the missis." Interiors mattered to him; they influenced his daily happiness. The woman had clearly failed to appreciate the sacredness of the status quo. He appreciated it himself, and never altered anything without consulting her and definitely announcing his intention to alter. She probably didn't care a fig for the status quo. Her conduct was inexcusable. It was an attack on vital principles. It was an outrage. Doubtless, in her scorn for the status quo, she imagined that he would accept the fait accompli. She was mistaken. With astounding energy he set to work to restore the status quo ante. The vigour with which he dragged and pushed an innocent elephantine piano was marvellous. In less than five minutes not a trace remained of the fait accompli. He thought: "This is a queer start for a musical evening!" But he was triumphant, resolute, and remorseless. He would show her a thing or two. In particular he would show that fair play had to be practised in his house. Then, perceiving that his hands were dirty, and one finger bleeding, he went majestically, if somewhat breathless, upstairs to the bathroom, and washed with care. In the glass he saw that, despite his exertions, he was pale. At length he descended, wondering where she was, where she had hidden herself, who had helped her to move the furniture, and what exactly the upshot would be. There could be no doubt that he was in a state of high emotion, in which unflinching obstinacy was shot through with qualms about disaster.
He revisited the drawing-room to survey his labours. She was there. Whence she had sprung, he knew not. But she was there. He caught sight of her standing by the window before entering the room.
When he got into the room he saw that her emotional excitement far surpassed his own. Her lips and her hands were twitching; her nostrils dilated and contracted; tears were in her eyes.
"Edwin," she exclaimed very passionately, in a thick voice, quite unlike her usual clear tones, as she surveyed the furniture, "this is really too much!"
Evidently she thought of nothing but her resentment. No consideration other than her outraged dignity would have affected her demeanour. If a whole regiment of their friends had been watching at the door, her demeanour would not have altered. The bedrock of her nature had been reached.