Ingpen, and then Edwin, sn.i.g.g.e.red.

"_I_ can't do anything with her, Edwin," said Maggie, speaking quickly and eagerly, as she and Hilda sat down. "She's bound to let herself in for another attack if she doesn't take care of herself. And she won't take care of herself. She won't listen to the doctor or anybody else.

She's always on her feet, and she's got sewing-meetings on the brain just now. I've got her to bed early to-night--she's frightfully shaky--and I thought I'd come up and tell you. You're the only one that can do anything with her at all, and you really must come and see her to-morrow on your way to the works."

Maggie spoke as though she had been urging Edwin for months to take the urgent matter in hand and was now arrived at desperation.

"All right! All right!" said he, with amiable impatience; it was the first he had heard of the matter. "I'll drop in. But I've got no influence over her," he added, with sincerity.

"Oh yes, you have!" said Maggie, mildly now. "I'm very sorry to hear about George's eyes. Seeing it's absolutely necessary for Hilda to take him to London to-morrow, and you've got no servants at all, can't you come and sleep at Auntie's for a night or two? You've no idea what a relief it would be to me."

In an instant Edwin saw that he was beaten, that Hilda and Maggie, in the intervals of their giggling, had combined to overthrow him. The tone in which Maggie uttered the words 'George's eyes,' 'absolutely necessary' and 'such a relief' precluded argument. His wife would have her capricious unnecessary way, and he would be turned out of his own house.

"I think you might, dear," said Hilda, with the angelic persuasiveness of a loving and submissive wife. n.o.body could have guessed from that marvellous tone that she had been determined to defeat him and was then, so to speak, standing over his prostrate form.

Maggie, having said what was necessary to be said, fell back into the constraint from which no efforts of her companions could extricate her.

Such was the effect upon her of the presence of Tertius Ingpen, a stranger. Presently Ingpen was scanning time-tables for Hilda, and George was finding notepaper for her, and Maggie was running up and down stairs for her. She was off to London. "In that woman's head," thought Edwin, as, observing his wife, he tried in vain to penetrate the secrets behind her demeanour, "there's only room for one idea at a time."

VII

Edwin sat alone in the drawing-room, at the end of an evening which he declined to call an evening at all. His eyes regarded a book on his knee, but he was not reading it. His mind was engaged upon the enigma of his existence. He had entered his house without the least apprehension, and brusquely, in a few hours, everything seemed to be changed for him. Impulse had conquered commonsense; his ejectment was a settled thing; and he was condemned to the hated abode of Auntie Hamps.

Events seemed enormous; they desolated him; his mouth was full of ashes.

The responsibilities connected with George were increasing; his wife, incalculable and unforeseeable, was getting out of hand; and the menace of a future removal to another home in the country was raised again.

He looked about the room; and he imagined all the house, every object in which was familiar and beloved, and he simply could not bear to think of the disintegration of these interiors by furniture-removers, and of the endless rasping business of creating a new home in partnership with a woman whose ideas about furnishing were as unsound as they were capricious. He utterly dismissed the fanciful scheme, as he dismissed the urgings towards public activity. He deeply resented all these headstrong intentions to disturb him in his tranquillity. They were indefensible, and he would not have them. He would die in sullen obstinacy rather than yield. Impulse might conquer commonsense, but not beyond a certain degree. He would never yield.

Ingpen had departed, to sleep in a room in the same building as his office at Hanbridge. He knew that Ingpen had no comprehension of domestic comfort and a well-disposed day. Nevertheless he envied the man his celestial freedom. If he, Edwin, were free, what an ideal life he could make for himself, a life presided over by commonsense, regularity, and order! He was not free; he would never be free; and what had he obtained in exchange for freedom? ... Ingpen's immense criticism smote him. He had a wife and her child; servants--at intervals; a fine works and many workpeople; a house, with books; money, security. The organised machinery of his existence was tremendous; and it was all due to him, made by him in his own interests and to satisfy his own desires. Without him the entire structure would crumble in a week; without him it would have no excuse. And what was the result? Was he ever, in any ideal sense, happy: that is, free from foreboding, from friction, from responsibility, and withal lightly joyous? Was any quarter of an hour of his day absolutely what he would have wished? He ranged over his day, and concluded that the best part of it was the very last.... He got into bed, the candles in the sconce were lit, the gas diminished to a blue speck, and most of the room in darkness; he lay down on his left side, took the marker from the volume in his hand, and began to read; the house was silent and enclosed; the rumbling tramcar--to whose sound he had been accustomed from infancy--did not a bit disturb him; it was in another world; over the edge of his book he could see the form of his wife, fast asleep in the other bed, her plaited hair trailing over the pillow; the feel of the sheets to his limbs was exquisite; he read, the book was good; the chill of winter just pleasantly affected the hand that held the book; nothing annoyed; nothing jarred; sleep approached.... That fifteen minutes, that twenty or thirty minutes, was all that he could show as the result of the tremendous organised machinery of his existence--his house, his works, his workpeople, his servants, his wife with her child....

Hilda came with quick determination into the drawing-room. They had not spoken to each other alone since the decision and his defeat. He was aware of his heart beating resentfully.

"I'm going to bed now, dear," she said in an ordinary tone. "I've got a frightful headache, and I must sleep. Be sure and wake me up at seven in the morning, will you? I shall have such lots to do."

He thought:

"Has she a frightful headache?"

She bent down and kissed him several times, very fervently; her lips lingered on his. And all the time she frowned ever so little; and it was as if she was conveying to him: "But--each for himself in marriage, after all."

In spite of himself, he felt just a little relieved; and he could not understand why. He watched her as she left the room. How had it come about that the still finally mysterious creature was living in his house, imposing her individuality upon him, spoiling his existence? He considered that it was all disconcertingly strange.

He rose, lit a cigarette, and opened the window; and the frosty air, entering, braced him and summoned his self-reliance. The night was wondrous. And when he had shut the window and turned again within, the room, beautiful, withdrawn, peaceful, was wondrous too. He reflected that soon he would be in bed, calmly reading, with his wife unconscious as an infant in the other bed. And then his grievance against Hilda slowly surged up and he began for the first time to realise how vast it was.

"Confound that woman!" he muttered, meaning Auntie Hamps.

CHAPTER XVIII

AUNTIE HAMPS SENTENCED

I

On the next evening it was Maggie who opened Mrs. Hamps's front-door for Edwin. There was no light in the lobby, but a faint gleam coming through the open door of the sitting-room disclosed the silhouette of Maggie's broad figure.

"I thought you'd call in this morning," said Maggie discontentedly. "I asked you to. I've been expecting you all day."

"Didn't you get my message?"

"No. What message?"

"D'you mean to say a lad hasn't been here with my portmanteau?" demanded Edwin, alarmed and ready to be annoyed.

"Yes. A lad's been with your portmanteau. But he gave no message."

"D--n him. I told him to tell you I couldn't possibly get here before night."

"Well, he didn't!" said Maggie stoutly, throwing back the blame upon Edwin and his hirelings. "I particularly wanted you to come early. I told Auntie you'd be coming."

"How's she getting on?" Edwin asked with laconic gruffness, dismissing Maggie's grievance without an apology. He might have to stand nonsense from Hilda; but he would not stand it from Maggie, of whose notorious mildness he at once began to take advantage, as in the old days of their housekeeping together. Moreover, his entrance into this abode was a favour, exhibiting the condescension of the only human being who could exercise influence upon Auntie Hamps.

"She's worse," said Maggie, briefly and significantly.

"In bed?" said Edwin, less casually, marking her tone.

Maggie nodded.

"Had the doctor?"

"I should think so indeed!"

"Hm! Why don't you have a light in this lobby?" he enquired suddenly, on a drily humorous note, as he groped to suspend his overcoat upon an unstable hatstand. It seemed to be a very cold lobby, after his own radiator-heated half.

"She never will have a light here, unless she's doing the grand for someone. Are you going to wash ye?"

"No. I cleaned up at the works." A presentiment of the damp chilliness of the Hamps bedroom had suggested this precaution.

Maggie preceded him into the sitting-room, where a hexagonal occasional-table was laid for tea.

"h.e.l.lo! Do you eat here? What's the matter with the dining-room?"

"The chimney always smokes when the wind's in the south-west."

"Well, why doesn't she have a cowl put on it?"