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Updated: May 3, 2025
Edwin wondered mildly, as he often wondered, at the extremely bitter tone in which Clara always referred to their Aunt Clara Hamps, when Mrs Hamps was not there. Even Maggie's private attitude to Auntie Clara was scarcely more Christian.
The notion that Janet was waiting for him had never once crossed his mind. It seemed to him fantastic, one of those silly ideas that a woman such as Auntie Hamps would be likely to have, or more accurately would be likely to pretend to have. Still, it did just happen that on this occasion his auntie's expression was more convincing than usual.
And he felt guilty because he only went to chapel about once in two months, and even then from sheer moral cowardice. "Can you give me those measurements, Maggie?" Mrs Hamps asked suddenly. "I'm on my way to Brunt's." The women left the room together. Edwin walked idly to the window. After all, he had been perhaps wrong concerning the motive of her visit.
Even Edwin, who was more lenient in all ways than his sisters, profoundly deplored these moralisings of his aunt. They filled him with a desire to run fast and far, to be alone at sea, or to be deep somewhere in the bosom of the earth. He could not understand this side of his auntie's individuality. But there was no delivery from Mrs Hamps.
Such was her power of suggestion over him that her faithlessness seemed now scarcely to need an excuse. He smiled grimly at the thought of Auntie Hamps, of Clara, of the pietistic Albert! They were of a different race, a different generation!
Presently the visitors appeared at the foot of the stairs, and Darius climbed carefully, having first shaken the balustrade to make sure that it was genuine, stout, and well-founded. Mrs Hamps followed, the fripperies of her elegant bonnet trembling, and her black gown rustling. Edwin smiled at her, and she returned his smile with usurious interest. There was now a mist of grey in her fine hair.
He still wore the ridiculous cap and held the newspaper. The broadcloth suit was soiled. His eye wandered among his family, and it said, terrorised, and yet feebly defiant, "What are they plotting against me? Why are they all here like this?" Mrs Hamps spoke first "Well, father, we just popped in to see how you were after all that dreadful business yesterday.
The door was locked on these words, but it was not Edwin who had turned the key; it was some force within him, over which he had no control. "Now, now, father!" intervened Mrs Hamps. "You know you've said over and over again how glad you are he's so fond of books, and never goes out. There isn't a better boy in Bursley. That I will say, and to his face." She smiled like an angel at both of them.
Near the village of Wetton, a mile or two above Dove-Dale, near Ashburn in Dirbyshire, there is a spacious cavern about the middle of the ascent of the mountain, which still retains the Name of Thor's house; below is an extensive and romantic common, where the rivers Hamps and Manifold sink into the earth, and rise again in Ham gardens, the seat of John Port, Esq. about three miles below.
And yet, in his extreme astonishment, he was flattered and delighted. "Of course," said Auntie Hamps, "you're so difficult to talk to " "Difficult to talk to! Me?" "Otherwise your auntie might have given you a hint long ago. I believe you are a simpleton after all! I cannot understand what's come over the young men in these days. Letting a girl like that wait and wait!"
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