The Next Meeting
i
For several days the town of Bursley was to Hilda simply a place made perilous1 and redoubtable2 by the apprehension3 of meeting Edwin Clayhanger accidentally in the streets thereof. And the burden of her meditations4 was: “What can he have thought of me?” She had said nothing to anybody of the deliberately-sought adventure in the garden. And with the strangest ingenuous5 confidence she assumed that Edwin Clayhanger, too, would keep an absolute silence about it. She had therefore naught6 to fear, except in the privacy of his own mind. She did not blame herself—it never occurred to her to do so—but she rather wondered at herself, inimically, prophesying7 that one day her impulsiveness8 would throw her into some serious difficulty. The memory of the night beautifully coloured her whole daily existence. In spite of her avoidance of the town, due to her dread9 of seeing Clayhanger, she was constantly thinking: “But this cannot continue for ever. One day I am bound to meet him again.” And she seemed to be waiting for that day.
It came with inevitable10 quickness. The last day but one of June was appointed throughout the country for the celebration of the Centenary of Sunday Schools. Neither Hilda nor any of the Orgreave children had ever seen the inside of a Sunday School; and the tendency up at Lane End House was to condescend11 towards the festival as towards a rejoicing of the proletariat. But in face of the magnitude of the affair, looming12 more enormous as it approached, this attitude could not be maintained. The preparations for the Centenary filled newspapers and changed the physiognomy of towns. And on the morning of the ceremonial service, gloriously flattered by the sun, there was candid13 excitement at the breakfast-table of the Orgreaves. Mr. Orgreave regretted that pressure of work would prevent him from seeing the fun. Tom was going to see the fun at Hanbridge. Jimmie and Johnnie were going to see the fun, but they would not say where. The servants were going to see the fun. Charlie had returned to London. Alicia wanted to go and see the fun, but as she was flushed and feverish14, Mrs. Orgreave forbade and decided15 to remain at home with Alicia. Otherwise, even Mrs. Orgreave would have gone to see the fun. Hilda and Janet apparently16 hesitated about going, but Mr. Orgreave, pointing out that there could not under the most favourable17 circumstance be another Centenary of Sunday Schools for at least a hundred years, sarcastically18 urged them to set forth19. The fact was, as Janet teasingly told him while she hung on his neck, that he wished to accentuate20 as much as possible his own martyrdom to industry. Were not all the shops and offices of the Five Towns closed? Did not every member of his family, save those detained by illness, attend the historic spectacle of the Centenary? He alone had sacrificed pleasure to work. Thus Janet’s loving, ironic21 smiles foretold22, would the father of the brood discourse23 during the next few days.
ii
Hilda and Janet accordingly went down a beflagged and sunlit Trafalgar Road together. Janet was wearing still another white dress, and Hilda, to her marked relief, had abandoned black for a slate-coloured frock made by a dressmaker in Bleakridge. It was Mrs. Orgreave herself who had first counselled Hilda, if she hated black, as she said she did, to abandon black. The entire family chorus had approved.
The risk of encountering Edwin Clayhanger on that day of multitudes was surely infinitesimal. Nevertheless, in six minutes the improbable had occurred. At the corner of Trafalgar Road and Duck Square Janet, attracted by the sight of banners in the distance, turned to the left along Wedgwood Street and past the front of Clayhanger’s shop. Theoretically shops were closed, but one shutter24 of Clayhanger’s was down, and in its place stood Edwin Clayhanger. Hilda felt her features stiffening25 into a sort of wilful26 and insincere hostility27 as she shook hands. Within the darkness of the shop she saw the figure of two dowdy28 women—doubtless the sisters of whom Janet had told her; they disappeared before Janet and Hilda entered.
“It has happened! I have seen him again!” Hilda said to herself as she sat in the shop listening to Janet and to Edwin Clayhanger. It appeared likely that Edwin Clayhanger would join them in the enterprise of witnessing the historic spectacle.
A few minutes later everybody was startled by the gay apparition29 of Osmond Orgreave swinging his cane30. Curiosity had been too much for industriousness31, and Osmond Orgreave had yielded himself to the general interest.
“Oh! Father!” cried Janet. “What a deceitful thing you are!”
“Only a day or two ago,” Hilda was thinking, “I had never even heard of him. And his shop seemed so strange and romantic to me. And now I am sitting in his shop like an old friend. And nobody suspects that he and I have had a secret meeting!” The shop itself seemed to be important and prosperous.
Mr. Orgreave, having decided for pleasure, was anxious to find it at once, and, under his impatience32, they left the shop. Janet went out first with her gay father. Edwin Clayhanger waited respectfully for Hilda to pass. But just as she was about to step forth she caught sight of George Cannon33 coming along the opposite side of Wedgwood Street in the direction of Trafalgar Road; he was in close conversation with another man. She kept within the shelter of the shop until the two had gone by. She did not want to meet George Cannon, with whom she had not had speech since the interview at the Cedars34; he had written to her about the property sales, and she had replied. There was no reason why she should hesitate to meet him. But she wished not to complicate35 the situation. She thought: “If he saw me, he’d come across and speak to me, and I might have to introduce him to all these people, and goodness knows what!” The contretemps caused her heart to beat.
When they emerged from the shop Janet, a few yards ahead with Mr. Orgreave, was beckoning36.
iii
Hilda stood on a barrel by the side of Edwin Clayhanger on another barrel. There, from the top of St. Luke’s Square, they surveyed a vast rectangular carpet of upturned faces that made a pattern of pale dots on a coloured and black groundwork. Nearly all the children of Bursley, thousands upon thousands, were massed in the Square, wedged in tight together, so that there seemed not to be an inch of space anywhere between the shuttered shop fronts on the east of the Square and the shuttered shop fronts on the west of the Square. At the bottom of the Square a row of railway lorries were crammed37 with tiny babes—or such they appeared—toddlers too weak to walk in processions. At the top of the Square a large platform full of bearded adults rose like an island out of the unconscious sea of infants. And from every window of every house adults looked down in safe ease upon that wavy38 ocean over which banners gleamed in the dazzling and fierce sunshine.
She might have put up her sunshade. But she would not do so. She thought: “If all those children can stand the sun without fainting, I can!” She was extraordinarily39 affected40 by the mere41 sight of the immense multitude of children; they were as helpless and as fatalistic as sheep, utterly42 at the mercy of the adults who had herded43 them. There was about them a collective wistfulness that cut the heart; to dwell on the idea of it would have brought her to tears. And when the multitude sang, so lustily, so willingly, so bravely, pouring forth with the brass44 instruments a volume of tone enormous and majestic45, she had a tightness of the throat that was excrutiating. The Centenary of Sunday Schools was quite other than she had expected; she had not bargained for these emotions.
It was after the hymn46 “There is a fountain filled with blood,” during the quietude of a speech, that Edwin Clayhanger, taking up an evangelistic phrase in the speech, whispered to her:
“More blood!”
“What?” she asked, amazed by his ironical47 accent, which jarred on her mood, and also by his familiar manner of leaning towards her and dropping the words in her ear.
“Well,” he said. “Look at it! It only wants the Ganges at the bottom of the Square!”
Evidently for Edwin Clayhanger all religions were equally heathenish! She was quite startled out of her amazement48, and her response was an almost humble49 entreaty50 not to make fun. The next moment she regretted that she had not answered him with sharp firmness. She was somewhat out of humour with him. He had begun by losing sight of Mr. Orgreave and Janet—and of course it was hopeless to seek for them in those thronging51 streets around St. Luke’s Square. Then he had said to her, in a most peculiar52 tone: “I hope you didn’t catch cold in the rain the other night,” and she had not liked that. She had regarded it as a fault in tact53, almost as a sexual disloyalty on his part to refer at all to the scene in the garden. Finally, his way of negotiating with the barrel man for the use of two barrels had been lacking, for Hilda, in the qualities of largeness and masterfulness; any one of the Orgreave boys would, she was sure, have carried the thing off in a more worldly manner.
The climax54 of the service came with the singing of “When I survey the wondrous55 Cross.” The physical effect of it on Hilda was nearly overwhelming. The terrible and sublime56 words seemed to surge upon her charged with all the multitudinous significance of the crowd. She was profoundly stirred, and to prevent an outburst of tears she shook her head.
“What’s the matter?” said Edwin Clayhanger.
“Clumsy dolt57!” she thought. “Haven’t you got enough sense to leave me alone?” And she said aloud, passionately58 transforming her weakness into ferocity: “That’s the most splendid religious verse ever written! You can say what you like. It’s worth while believing anything, if you can sing words like that and mean them!”
He agreed that the hymn was fine.
“Do you know who wrote it?” she demanded threateningly.
He did not. She was delighted.
“Dr. Watts59, of course!” she said, with a scornful sneer60. What did Janet mean by saying that he had read simply everything?
iv
An episode which supervened close to their barrels did a great deal to intensify61 the hostility of her mood. On the edge of the crowd an old man, who had been trying to force his way through it, was being guyed by a gang of louts who had surrounded an ice-cream barrow. Suddenly she recognized this old man. His name was Shushions; he was a familiar figure of the streets of Turnhill, and he had the reputation of being the oldest Sunday School teacher in the Five Towns. He was indeed exceedingly old, foolish, and undignified in senility; and the louts were odiously62 jeering63 at his defenceless dotage64, and a young policeman was obviously with the louts and against the aged65, fatuous66 victim.
Hilda gave an exclamation67 of revolt, and called upon Edwin Clayhanger to go to the rescue of Mr. Shushions. Not he, however, but she jumped down first and pushed towards the barrow. She made the path, and he followed. She protested to the policeman, and he too modestly seconded her. Yet the policeman, ignoring her, addressed himself to Edwin Clayhanger. Hilda was infuriated. It appeared that old Mr. Shushions had had a ticket for the platform, but had lost it.
“He must be got on to the platform somehow!” she decided, with a fiery68 glance.
But Edwin Clayhanger seemed to be incapable69 of an heroic action. He hesitated. The policeman hesitated. Fortunately, the plight70 of the doting71 oldest Sunday School teacher in the Five Towns had been observed from the platform, and two fussy72, rosetted officials bustled73 up and offered to take charge of him. And Hilda, dissolving in painful pity, bent74 over him softly and arranged his disordered clothes; she was weeping.
“Shall we go back to our barrels?” Edwin Clayhanger rather sheepishly suggested after Mr. Shushions had been dragged away.
But she would not go back to the barrels.
“I think it’s time we set about to find Janet and Mr. Orgreave,” she replied coldly, and they drew out of the crowd. She was profoundly deceived in Edwin Clayhanger, so famous for his presence of mind in saving printing-shops from destruction! She did not know what he ought to have done; she made no attempt to conceive what he ought to have done. But that he ought to have done something—something decisive and grandly masculine—she was sure.
v
Later, after sundry75 adventures, and having found Mr. Orgreave and Janet, they stood at the tail of the steam-car, which Janet had decided should carry her up to Bleakridge; and Edwin shook hands. Yes, Hilda was profoundly deceived in him. Nevertheless, his wistful and honest glance, as he parted from her, had its effect. If he had not one quality, he had another. She tried hard to maintain her scorn of him, but it was exceedingly difficult to do so.
Mr. Orgreave wiped his brow as the car jolted76 them out of the tumult77 of the Centenary. It was hot, but he did not seem to be in the slightest degree fatigued78 or dispirited, whereas Janet put back her head and shut her eyes.
“Caught sight of a friend of yours this morning, Hilda!” he said pleasantly.
“Oh!”
“Yes. Mr. Cannon. By the way, I forgot to tell you yesterday that his famous newspaper—yours—has come to an end.” He spoke79, as it were, with calm sympathy. “Yes! Well, it’s not surprising, not surprising! Nothing’s ever stood up against the Signal yet!”
Hilda was saddened. When they reached Lane End House, a few seconds in front of the hurrying and apologetic servants, Mrs. Orgreave told her that Mr. George Cannon had called to see her, and had left a note for her. She ran up to her room with the note. It said merely that the writer wished to have an interview with her at once.
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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redoubtable
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| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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prophesying
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
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impulsiveness
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| n.冲动 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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dowdy
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| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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industriousness
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| n.勤奋 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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thronging
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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dolt
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| n.傻瓜 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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watts
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| （电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 ) | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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intensify
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| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
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odiously
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| Odiously | |
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jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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dotage
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| n.年老体衰；年老昏聩 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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doting
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| adj.溺爱的，宠爱的 | |
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fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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