Albert seemed insistent on this point, which had no particular interest for James.

  “Where we’ve got to make a change,” said Albert, “is in the feeling that other people have a right to tell us what we ought to feel and do. Nobody knows what another man ought to feel. Every man has his own special feelings, and his own right to them. That’s where it is with education. You ought not to want all your children to feel alike. Their natures are all different, and so they should all feel different, about practically everything.”

  “There would be no end to the confusion,” said James.

  “There needn’t be any confusion to speak of. You agree to a number of rules and conventions and laws, for social purposes. But in private you feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to feel something else.”

  “I don’t know,” said James. “There are certain feelings common to humanity, such as love, and honour, and truth.”

  “Would you call them feelings?” said Albert. “I should say what is common is the idea. The idea is common to humanity, once you’ve put it into words. But the feeling varies with every man. The same idea represents a different kind of feeling in every different individual. It seems to me that’s what we’ve got to recognize if we’re going to do anything with education. We don’t want to produce mass feelings. Don’t you agree?”

  Poor James was too bewildered to know whether to agree or not to agree.

  “Shall we have a light, Alvina?” he said to his daughter.

  Alvina lit the incandescent gas-jet that hung in the middle of the room. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard-looking as she reached up to it. But Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly. It seemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all. He did not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what he was thinking about. And therefore she hardly heard what he said. Yet she believed he was clever.

  It was evident Albert was quite blissfully happy, in his own way, sitting there at the end of the sofa not far from the fire, and talking animatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he talked in the direction of his interlocutor, he did not speak to him: merely said his words towards him. James, however, was such an airy feather himself he did not remark this, but only felt a little self-important at sustaining such a subtle conversation with a man from Oxford. Alvina, who never expected to be interested in clever conversations, after a long experience of her father, found her expectation justified again. She was not interested.

  The man was quite nicely dressed, in the regulation tweed jacket and flannel trousers and brown shoes. He was even rather smart, judging from his yellow socks and yellow-and-brown tie. Miss Pinnegar eyed him with approval when she came in.

  “Good-evening!” she said, just a trifle condescendingly, as she shook hands. “How do you find Woodhouse, after being away so long?” Her way of speaking was so quiet, as if she hardly spoke aloud.

  “Well,” he answered. “I find it the same in many ways.”

  “You wouldn’t like to settle here again?”

  “I don’t think I should. It feels a little cramped, you know, after a new country. But it has its attractions.” Here he smiled meaningful.

  “Yes,” said Miss Pinnegar. “I suppose the old connections count for something.”

  “They do. Oh decidedly they do. There’s no associations like the old ones.” He smiled flatly as he looked towards Alvina.

  “You find it so, do you!” returned Miss Pinnegar. “You don’t find that the new connections make up for the old?”

  “Not altogether, they don’t. There’s something missing — ” Again he looked towards Alvina. But she did not answer his look.

  “Well,” said Miss Pinnegar. “I’m glad we still count for something, in spite of the greater attractions. How long have you in England?”

  “Another year. Just a year. This time next year I expect I shall be sailing back to the Cape.” He smiled as if in anticipation. Yet it was hard to believe that it mattered to him — or that anything mattered.

  “And is Oxford agreeable to you?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes. I keep myself busy.”

  “What are your subjects?” asked James.

  “English and History. But I do mental science for my own interest.”

  Alvina had taken up a piece of sewing. She sat under the light, brooding a little. What had all this to do with her. The man talked on, and beamed in her direction. And she felt a little important. But moved or touched? — not the least in the world.

  She wondered if any one would ask him to supper — bread and cheese and currant-loaf, and water, was all that offered. No one asked him, and at last he rose.

  “Show Mr. Witham out through the shop, Alvina,” said Miss Pinnegar.

  Alvina piloted the man through the long, dark, encumbered way of the shop. At the door he said:

  “You’ve never said whether you’re coming to tea on Thursday.”

  “I don’t think I can,” said Alvina.

  He seemed rather taken aback.

  “Why?” he said. “What stops you?”

  “I’ve so much to do.”

  He smiled slowly and satirically.

  “Won’t it keep?” he said.

  “No, really. I can’t come on Thursday — thank you so much. Goodnight!” She gave him her hand and turned quickly into the shop, closing the door. He remained standing in the porch, staring at the closed door. Then, lifting his lip, he turned away.

  “Well,” said Miss Pinnegar decidedly, as Alvina reentered. “You can say what you like — but I think he’s _very pleasant, very_ pleasant.”

  “Extremely intelligent,” said James Houghton, shifting in his chair. “I was awfully bored,” said Alvina.

  They both looked at her, irritated.

  After this she really did what she could to avoid him. When she saw him sauntering down the street in all his leisure, a sort of anger possessed her. On Sunday, she slipped down from the choir into the Chapel, and out through the main entrance, whilst he awaited her at the small exit. And by good luck, when he called one evening in the week, she was out. She returned down the yard. And there, through the uncurtained window, she saw him sitting awaiting her. Without a thought, she turned on her heel and fled away. She did not come in till he had gone.

  “How late you are!” said Miss Pinnegar. “Mr. Witham was here till ten minutes ago.”

  “Yes,” laughed Alvina. “I came down the yard and saw him. So I went back till he’d gone.”

  Miss Pinnegar looked at her in displeasure:

  “I suppose you know your own mind,” she said.

  “How do you explain such behaviour?” said her father pettishly.

  “I didn’t want to meet him,” she said.

  The next evening was Saturday. Alvina had inherited Miss Frost’s task of attending to the Chapel flowers once a quarter. She had been round the gardens of her friends, and gathered the scarlet and hot yellow and purple flowers of August, asters, red stocks, tall Japanese sunflowers, coreopsis, geraniums. With these in her basket she slipped out towards evening, to the Chapel. She knew Mr. Calladine, the caretaker would not lock up till she had been.

  The moment she got inside the Chapel — it was a big, airy, pleasant building — she heard hammering from the organ-loft, and saw the flicker of a candle. Some workman busy before Sunday. She shut the baize door behind her, and hurried across to the vestry, for vases, then out to the tap, for water. All was warm and still.

  It was full early evening. The yellow light streamed through the side windows, the big stained-glass window at the end was deep and full of glowing colour, in which the yellows and reds were richest. Above in the organ-loft the hammering continued. She arranged her flowers in many vases, till the communion table was like the window, a tangle of strong yellow, and crimson, and purple, and bronze-green. She tried to keep the effect light and kaleidoscopic, an interplay of tossed pieces of strong, hot colour, vibrating and lightly intermingled. It was very gorgeous, for a communion table. But the day of white lilies was over.

  Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble, up in the organ-loft, followed by a cursing.

  “Are you hurt?” called Alvina, looking up into space. The candle had disappeared.

  But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the Chapel to the stairs in the side porch, and ran up to the organ. She went round the side — and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves sitting crouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the wall of the back, while a collapsed pair of steps lay between her and him. It was too dark to see who it was.

  “That rotten pair of steps came down with me,” said the infuriated voice of Arthur Witham, “and about broke my leg.”

  Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was sitting nursing his leg.

  “Is it bad?” she asked, stooping towards him.

  In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes were savage with anger. Her face was near his.

  “It is bad,” he said furious because of the shock. The shock had thrown him off his balance.

  “Let me see,” she said.

  He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of consciousness only, and for the rest unconscious.

  Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could not bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his sensitive, unbearable parts.

  “The bone isn’t broken,” she said professionally. “But you’d better get the stocking out of it.”

  Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled down his stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain. “Can you show a light?” he said.

  She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on a little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst he examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He sat looking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the candle-light.

  “It’s not so very bad, when the pain goes off,” she said, noticing the black hairs of his shin. “We’d better tie it up. Have you got a handkerchief?”

  “It’s in my jacket,” he said.

  She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little, by being completely oblivious of her. She got his handkerchief and wiped her fingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for the wound.

  “Shall I tie it up, then?” she said.

  But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his leg, looking at his hurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards his ankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him.

  “Shall I tie it up, then?” she repeated at length, a little impatient. So he put his leg a little forward.

  She looked at the wound, and wiped it a little. Then she folded the pad of her own handkerchief, and laid it over the hurt. And again he did the same thing, he took her hand as if it were a plaster, and applied it to his wound, pressing it cautiously but firmly down. She was rather angry. He took no notice of her at all. And she, waiting, seemed to go into a dream, a sleep, her arm trembled a little, stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lose count, under the firm compression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her hand pressed her into oblivion.

  “Tie it up,” he said briskly.

  And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage with numb fingers. He seemed to have taken the use out of her.

  When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organ which he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pair of steps.

  “A rotten pair of things to have, to put a man’s life in danger,” he said, towards the steps. Then stubbornly, he rigged them up again, and stared again at his interrupted job.

  “You won’t go on, will you?” she asked.

  “It’s got to be done, Sunday tomorrow,” he said. “If you’d hold them steps a minute! There isn’t more than a minute’s fixing to do. It’s all done, but fixing.”

  “Hadn’t you better leave it,” she said.

  “Would you mind holding the steps, so that they don’t let me down again,” he said. Then he took the candle, and hobbled stubbornly and angrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he worked, tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the ricketty steps and stared at him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers. Strange the difference — she could not help thinking it — between the vulnerable hairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the shapeless form of these workmen’s trousers. The kernel, the man himself — seemed so tender — the covering so stiff and insentient.

  And was he not going to speak to her — not one human word of recognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After all he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently but firmly down, down over his bruise, how he had taken the virtue out of her, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he going to relapse into his tough and ugly workman’s hide, and treat her as if she were a pair of steps, which might let him down or hold him up, as might be.

  As she stood clinging to the steps she felt weak and a little hysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own back from him. After all he had taken the virtue from her, he might have the grace to say thank you, and treat her as if she were a human being.

  At last he left off tinkering, and looked round.

  “Have you finished?” she said.

  “Yes,” he answered crossly.

  And taking the candle he began to clamber down. When he got to the bottom he crouched over his leg and felt the bandage.

  “That gives you what for,” he said, as if it were her fault. “Is the bandage holding?” she said.

  “I think so,” he answered churlishly.

  “Aren’t you going to make sure?” she said.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” he said, turning aside and taking up his tools. “I’ll make my way home.”

  “So will I,” she answered.

  She took the candle and went a little in front. He hurried into his coat and gathered his tools, anxious to get away. She faced him, holding the candle.

  “Look at my hand,” she said, holding it out. It was smeared with blood, as was the cuff of her dress — a black-and-white striped cotton dress.

  “Is it hurt?” he said.

  “No, but look at it. Look here!” She showed the bloodstains on her dress.

  “It’ll wash out,” he said, frightened of her.

  “Yes, so it will. But for the present it’s there. Don’t you think you ought to thank me?”

  He recoiled a little.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m very much obliged.”

  “You ought to be more than that,” she said.

  He did not answer, but looked her up and down.

  “We’ll be going down,” he said. “We s’ll have folks talking.”

  Suddenly she began to laugh. It seemed so comical. What a position! The candle shook as she laughed. What a man, answering her like a little automaton! Seriously, quite seriously he said it to her — ”We s’ll have folks talking!” She laughed in a breathless, hurried way, as they tramped downstairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs Calladine, the caretaker, met them. He was a tall thin man with a black moustache — about fifty years old. “Have you done for tonight, all of you?” he said, grinning in echo to Alvina’s still fluttering laughter.

  “That’s a nice rotten pair of steps you’ve got up there for a deathtrap,” said Arthur angrily. “Come down on top of me, and I’m lucky I haven’t got my leg broken. It is near enough.”

  “Come down with you, did they?” said Calladine good-humouredly. “I never knowed ‘em come down wi’ me.”

  “You ought to, then. My leg’s as near broke as it can be.”

  “What, have you hurt yourself?”

  “I should think I have. Look here — ” And he began to pull up his trouser leg. But Alvina had given the candle to Calladine, and fled. She had a last view of Arthur stooping over his precious leg, while Calladine stooped his length and held down the candle.

  When she got home she took off her dress and washed herself hard and washed the stained sleeve, thoroughly, thoroughly, and threw away the wash water and rinsed the wash-bowls with fresh water, scrupulously. Then she dressed herself in her black dress once more, did her hair, and went downstairs.

  But she could not sew — and she could not settle down. It was Saturday evening, and her father had opened the shop, Miss Pinnegar had gone to Knarborough. She would be back at nine o’clock. Alvina set about to make a mock woodcock, or a mock something or other, with cheese and an egg and bits of toast. Her eyes were dilated and as if amused, mocking, her face quivered a little with irony that was not all enjoyable.

  “I’m glad you’ve come,” said Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar entered. “The supper’s just done. I’ll ask father if he’ll close the shop.”

  Of course James would not close the shop, though he was merely wasting light. He nipped in to eat his supper, and started out again with a mouthful the moment he heard the ping of the bell. He kept his customers chatting as long as he could. His love for conversation had degenerated into a spasmodic passion for chatter.

  Alvina looked across at Miss Pinnegar, as the two sat at the meagre supper-table. Her eyes were dilated and arched with a mocking, almost satanic look.

  “I’ve made up my mind about Albert Witham,” said Alvina. Miss Pinnegar looked at her.

  “Which way?” she asked, demurely, but a little sharp.

  “It’s all off,” said Alvina, breaking into a nervous laugh.

  “Why? What has happened?”

  “Nothing has happened. I can’t stand him.”

  “Why? — suddenly — ” said Miss Pinnegar.

 

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