Tarara-boom-deay!
Tarara-boom-deay!”
Upon this entered Mr. Peartree, like a figure of retribution, and silence fell.
“I’m afraid...” he began. “Mr. Benbow.”
They spoke together.
A scared servant-girl had come up from the Benbow home with the affrighting news that Bert Benbow, who had gone to bed with the other children as usual, was not in his bed and could not be discovered in the house. Mr. Peartree, being in the hall, had chosen himself to bear the grievous tidings to the drawing-room. In an instant Albert and Clara were parents again. Both had an idea that the unprecedented, incomprehensible calamity was a heavenly dispensation to punish them for having trifled with the missing-word. Their sudden seriousness was terrific. They departed immediately, without ceremony of any sort. Mrs. Hamps said that she really ought to go too, and Maggie said that as Auntie Hamps was going she also would go. The parson said that he had already stayed longer than he ought, in view of another engagement, and he followed. Edwin and Hilda dutifully saw them off and were as serious as the circumstances demanded. But those who remained in the drawing-room sniggered, and when Hilda rejoined them she laughed. The house felt lighter. Edwin, remaining longest at the door, saw a bicyclist on one of the still quaint pneumatic-tyred “safety” bicycles, coming along behind a “King of the Road” lamp. The rider dismounted at the corner.
“That you, Mr. Ingpen?”
Said a blithe voice:
“How d’ye do, host? When you’ve known me a bit longer you’ll learn that I always manage to arrive just when other people are leaving.”
Chapter V
Tertius Ingpen
i
Tertius Ingpen was the new District Factory Inspector, a man of about thirty-five, neither fair nor dark, neither tall nor short. He was a native of the district, having been born somewhere in the aristocratic regions between Knype and the lordly village of Sneyd, but what first struck the local observer in him was that his speech had none of the local accent. In the pursuit of his vocation he had lived in other places than the Five Towns. For example, in London, where he had become acquainted with Edwin’s friend, Charlie Orgreave, the doctor. When Ingpen received a goodish appointment amid the industrial horrors of his birth, Charlie Orgreave recommended him to Edwin, and Edwin and Ingpen had met once, under arrangement made by Johnnie Orgreave. It was Johnnie who had impulsively suggested in Ingpen’s presence that Ingpen should be invited to the At Home. Edwin, rather intimidated by Ingpen’s other-worldliness, had said: “You’ll run up against a mixed lot.” But Ingpen, though sternly critical of local phenomena, seemed to be ready to meet social adventures in a broad and even eager spirit of curiosity concerning mankind. He was not uncomely, and he possessed a short silky beard of which secretly he was not less proud than of his striking name. He wore a neat blue suit, with the trousers fastened tightly round the ankles for bicycle-riding, and thick kid gloves. He took off one glove to shake hands, and then, having leisurely removed the other, and talking all the time, he bent down with care and loosed his trousers and shook them into shape.
“Now what about this jigger?” he asked, while still bending. “I don’t care to leave it anywhere. It’s a good jigger.”
As it leaned on one pedal against the kerb of Hulton Street, the strange-looking jigger appeared to be at any rate a very dirty jigger. Fastened under the saddle were a roll of paper and a mackintosh.
“There are one or two ordinaries knocking about the place,” said Edwin, “but we haven’t got a proper bicycle-house. I’ll find a place for it somewhere in the garden.” He lifted the front wheel.
“Don’t trouble, please. I’ll take it,” said Ingpen, and before picking up the machine blew out the lamp, whose extinction left a great darkness down the slope of Hulton Street.
“You’ve got a very nice place here. Too central for me, of course!” Ingpen began, after they had insinuated the bicycle through narrow paths to the back of the house.
Edwin was leading him along the side of the lawn furthest away from Trafalgar Road. Certainly the property had the air of being a very nice place. The garden with its screen of high rustling trees seemed spacious and mysterious in the gloom, and the lighted windows of the house produced an effect of much richness—especially the half-open window of the drawing-room. Fearns and Cheswardine were standing in front of it chatting (doubtless of affairs) with that important adult air which Edwin himself could never successfully imitate. Behind them were bright women, and the brilliant chandelier. The piano faintly sounded. Edwin was proud of his very nice place. “How strange!” he thought. “This is all mine! These are my guests! And my wife is mine!”
“Well, you see,” he answered Ingpen’s criticism with false humility. “I’ve no choice. I’ve got to be central.”
Ingpen answered pleasantly.
“I take your word for it; but I don’t see.”
The bicycle was carefully bestowed by its groping owner in a small rustic arbour which, situated almost under the wall that divided the Clayhanger property from the first cottage in Hulton Street, was hidden from the house by a clump of bushes.
In the dark privacy of this shelter Tertius Ingpen said in a reflective tone:
“I understand that you haven’t been married long, and that this is a sort of function to inform the world officially that you’re no longer what you were?”
“It’s something like that?” Edwin admitted with a laugh.
He liked the quiet intimacy of Ingpen’s voice, whose delicate inflections indicated highly cultivated sensibilities. And he thought: “I believe I shall be friends with this chap.” And was glad, and faith in Ingpen was planted in his heart.
“Well,” Ingpen continued, “I wish you happiness. It may seem a strange thing to say to a man in your position, but my opinion is that the proper place for women is—behind the veil. Only my personal opinion, of course! But I’m entitled to hold it, and therefore to express it.” Whatever his matter, his manner was faultless.
“Yes?” Edwin murmured awkwardly. What on earth did Ingpen expect by way of reply to such a proposition? Surely Ingpen should have known that he was putting his host in a disagreeable difficulty. His new-born faith in Ingpen felt the harsh wind of experience and shivered. Nevertheless, there was a part of Edwin that responded to Ingpen’s attitude. “Behind the veil.” Yes, something could be said for the proposition.
They left the arbour in silence. They had not gone more than a few steps when a boy’s shrill voice made itself heard over the wall of the cottage yard.
“Oh Lord, thou ‘ast said ‘If two on ye sh’ll agray on earth as touching onything that they sh’ll ask it sh’ll be done for them of my Father which is in ‘eaven. For where two or three are gathered together i’ my name theer am I in th’ midst of ’em. Oh Lord, George Edwin Clay’anger wants a two-bladed penknife. We all three on us want ye to send George Edwin Clay’anger a two-bladed penknife.”
