Albert Benbow's characteristic pleasantries, which always engloomed Edwin. "Kindred spirits, those two!" thought the superior sardonic Edwin, and privately raised his eyebrows to his wife, who answered the signal.
Somewhat later, various other guests having come and distributed themselves over the reception-rooms, the chandeliers glinted down their rays upon light summer frocks and some jewellery and coats of black and dark grey and blue; and the best counterpanes in the best bedroom were completely hidden by mantles and cloaks, and the hatstand in the hall heavily clustered with hats and caps. The reception was in being, and the interior full of animation. Edwin, watchful and hospitably anxious, wandered out of the drawing-room into the hall. The door of the breakfast-room was ajar, and he could hear Clara's voice behind it. He knew that the Benbows and Maggie and Auntie Hamps were all in the breakfast-room, and he blamed chiefly Clara for this provincial clannishness, which was so characteristic of her. Surely Auntie Hamps at any rate ought to have realised that the duty of members of the family was to spread themselves among the other guests!
He listened.
"No," Clara was saying, "we don't know what's happened to him since he came out of prison. He got two years." She was speaking in what Edwin called her 'scandal' tones, low, clipped, intimate, eager, blissful.
And then Albert Benbow's voice:
"He's had the good sense not to bother us."
Edwin, while resenting the conversation, and the Benbows' use of "we" and "us" in a matter which did not concern them, was grimly comforted by the thought of their ignorance of a detail which would have interested them passionately. None but Hilda and himself knew that the bigamist was at that moment in prison again for another and a later offence. Everything had been told but that.
"Of course," said Clara, "they needn't have said anything about the bigamy at all, and nobody outside the family need have known that poor Hilda was not just an ordinary widow. But we all thought-"
"I don't know so much about that, Clary," Albert Benbow interrupted his wife; "you mustn't forget his real wife came to Turnhill to make enquiries. That started a hare."
"Well, you know what I mean," said Clara vaguely.
Mr. Peartree's voice came in:
"But surely the case was in the papers?"
"I expect it was in the Sussex papers," Albert replied. "You see, they went through the ceremony of marriage at Lewes. But it never got into the local rag, because he got married in his real name-Cannon wasn't his real name; and he'd no address in the Five Towns, then. He was just a boarding-house keeper at Brighton. It was a miracle it didn't get into the Signal, if you ask me; but it didn't. I happen to know" – his voice grew important-"that the Signal people have an arrangement with the Press Association for a full report of all matrimonial cases that 'ud be likely to interest the district. However, the Press Association weren't quite on the spot that time. And it's not surprising they weren't, either."
Clara resumed:
"No. It never came out. Still, as I say, we all thought it best not to conceal anything. Albert strongly advised Edwin not to attempt any such thing." ("What awful rot!" thought Edwin.) "So we just mentioned it quietly like to a few friends. After all, poor Hilda was perfectly innocent. Of course she felt her position keenly when she came to live here after the wedding." ("Did she indeed!" thought Edwin.) "Edwin would have the wedding in London. We did so feel for her." ("Did you indeed!" thought Edwin.) "She wouldn't have an At Home. I knew it was a mistake not to. We all knew. But no, she would not. Folks began to talk. They thought it strange she didn't have an At Home like other folks. Many young married women have two At Homes nowadays. So in the end she was persuaded. She fixed it for August because she thought so many people would be away at the seaside. But they aren't-at least not so many as you'd think. Albert says it's owing to the General Election upset. And she wouldn't have it in the afternoon like other folks. Mrs. Edwin isn't like other folks, and you can't alter her."
"What's the matter with the evening for an At Home, anyhow?" asked Benbow the breezy and consciously broad-minded.
"Oh, of course, I quite agree. I like it. But folks are so funny."
After a momentary pause, Mr. Peartree said uncertainly:
"And there's a little boy?"
Said Clara:
"Yes, the one you've seen."
Said Auntie Hamps:
"Poor little thing! I do feel so sorry for him-when he grows up-"
"You needn't, Auntie," said Maggie curtly, expressing her attitude to George in that mild curtness.
"Of course," said Clara quickly. "We never let it make any difference. In fact our Bert and he are rather friends, aren't they, Albert?"
At this moment George himself opened the door of the dining-room, letting out a faint buzz of talk and clink of vessels. His mouth was not empty.
Precipitately Edwin plunged into the breakfast-room.
"Hello! You people!" he murmured. "Well, Mr. Peartree."
There they were-all of them, including the parson-grouped together, lusciously bathing in the fluid of scandal.
Clara turned, and without the least constraint said sweetly:
"Oh, Edwin! There you are! I was just telling Mr. Peartree about you and Hilda, you know. We thought it would be better."
"You see," said Auntie Hamps impressively, "Mr. Peartree will be about the town to-morrow, and a word from him-"
Mr. Peartree tried unsuccessfully to look as if he was nobody in particular.
"That's all right," said Edwin. "Perhaps the door might as well be shut." He thought, as many a man has thought: "My relations take the cake!"
Clara occupied the only easy chair in the room. Mrs. Hamps and the parson were seated. Maggie stood. Albert Benbow, ever uxorious, was perched sideways on the arm of his wife's chair. Clara, centre of the conclave and of all conclaves in which she took part, was the mother of five children, – and nearing thirty-five years of age. Maternity had ruined her once slim figure, but neither she nor Albert seemed to mind that, – they seemed rather to be proud of her unshapeliness. Her face was unspoiled. She was pretty and had a marvellously fair complexion. In her face Edwin could still always plainly see the pert, charming, malicious girl of fourteen who loathed Auntie Hamps and was rude to her behind her back. But Clara and Auntie Hamps were fast friends nowadays. Clara's brood had united them. They thought alike on all topics. Clara had accepted Auntie Hamps's code practically entire; but on the other hand she had dominated Auntie Hamps. The respect which Auntie Hamps showed for Clara and for Edwin, and in a slightly less degree for Maggie, was a strange phenomenon in the old age of that grandiose and vivacious pillar of Wesleyanism and the conventions.
Edwin did not like Clara; he objected to her domesticity, her motherliness, her luxuriant fruitfulness, the intonations of her voice, her intense self-satisfaction and her remarkable duplicity; and perhaps more than anything to her smug provinciality. He did not positively dislike his brother-in-law, but he objected to him for his uxoriousness, his cheerful assurance of Clara's perfection, his contented and conceited ignorance of all intellectual matters, his incorrigible vulgarity of a small manufacturer who displays everywhere the stigmata of petty commerce, and his ingenuous love of office. As for Maggie, the plump spinster of forty, Edwin respected her when he thought of her, but reproached her for social gawkiness and taciturnity.
