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The Vicar and Maggie had seldom met of recent years, they had never so far as anyone knew met alone; and yet, upon the news of the Vicar's death, the first thought of nearly everybody was for Maggie Clayhanger. Mrs Hamps's eyes, swimming in the satisfaction of several simultaneous woes, said plainly, "What about poor Maggie?" "When did you hear?" Edwin asked. "It isn't in this afternoon's paper."
He considered that a cut-glass double inkstand was a vicious concession to Mrs Hamps's very vulgar taste in knick-knacks, and, moreover, he always now discouraged retail trade at the shop. But still, he had assented, out of indolence. "Well, it won't come till to-morrow," he said. "But, Edwin, how's that?" "How's that? Well, if you want to know, I didn't order it till yesterday.
She would follow him, but she would not lead. Behind them he could hear the stir of Mrs Hamps's departure. She and Maggie were coming down the stairs. Guessing not the dramatic arrival of Janet Orgreave and the mysterious nephew, Mrs Hamps, having peeped into the empty dining-room, said: "I suppose the dear boy has gone," and forthwith went herself.
Yet, amid the multitude of his sensations the smarting of his chin, the tingling of all his body after the bath, the fresh vivacity of the morning, the increased consciousness of his own ego, due to insufficient sleep, the queerness of being in the drawing-room at such an hour in conspiratorial talk, the vague disquiet caused at midnight, and now intensified despite his angry efforts to avoid the contagion of Mrs Hamps's mood, and above all the thought of his father gloomily wandering in the garden amid these confusing sensations, it was precisely an idea communicated to him by his annoying aunt, an obvious idea, an idea not worth uttering, that emerged clear and dramatic: he was the only son.
Neither she nor Clara had ever been in the slightest degree familiar with the Orgreaves, and Maggie, so far as he knew, was not a gossiper. He thought he perceived, however, the explanation of Mrs Hamps's visit.
"I'll be a more out-and-out Radical than ever! I don't care, and I don't care!" And he felt sturdily that he was free. The chain was at last broken that had bound together those two beings so dissimilar, antagonistic, and ill-matched Edwin Clayhanger and his father. It was Auntie Hamps's birthday. "She must be quite fifty-nine," said Maggie. "Oh, stuff!" Edwin contradicted her curtly.
She need not have said that she had come because she must. The fact was in her rapt eyes. She was under a spell. "Well, I must go!" she said, with a curious brusqueness. Perhaps she had a dim perception that she was behaving in a manner unusual with her. "You'll tell your sister." Her departing bow to Mrs Hamps had the formality of courts, and was equalled by Mrs Hamps's bow.
Undoubtedly since the death of Darius her attitude towards his children had acquired even a certain humility. "Shall you be in to-morrow morning, auntie?" Maggie asked, in the constrained silence that followed Mrs Hamps's protestations. "Yes, I shall," said Mrs Hamps, with assurance. "I shall be mending curtains." "Well, then, I shall call. About eleven." Maggie turned to Edwin benevolently.
And if you knew how proud I am of you all, seeing you all so nice and good, and respected in the town, and Clara's little darlings beginning to run about, and such strong little things. If only your poor mother !" Impossible not to be impressed by those accents! Edwin and Maggie might writhe under Auntie Hamps's phraseology; they might remember the most horrible examples of her cant. In vain!
What could it matter to his father whether he was a printer or not? Seconds, minutes, seemed to pass. He knew that if he was so inconceivably craven as to remain silent, his self-respect would never recover from the blow. Then, in response to Mrs Hamps's prediction about his usefulness to his father in the business, he said, with a false-jaunty, unconvinced, unconvincing air
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