Part 7 (1/2)
Orgreave in the large house close by, now practically deserted by all their children except Janet, saddened him.
Then a loud voice dominated the general conversation behind him:
”I say, this is a bit stiff. I did think I should be free of it here.
But no! Same old missing-word everywhere! What is it this week, Swetnam?”
It was Johnnie Orgreave, appreciably younger than his sister, but a full-grown man of the world, and somewhat dandiacal. After shaking hands with Hilda he came straight to Edwin.
”Awfully sorry I'm so late, old chap. How do, Jan?”
”Of course you are,” Edwin quizzed him like an uncle.
”Where's Ingpen?”
”Not come.”
”Not come! He said he should be here at eight. Just like him!” said Johnnie. ”I expect he's had a puncture.”
”I've been looking out for him every minute,” Edwin muttered.
In the middle of the room Albert Benbow, stocky and vulgar, but feeling himself more and more a man of the world among men and women of the world, was proclaiming, not without excitement:
”Well, I agree with Mrs. Cheswardine. 'Novelty' 's much more likely than 'interest.' 'Interest' 's the wrong kind of word altogether. It doesn't agree with the beginning of the paragraph.”
”That's right, Mr. Benbow,” Vera encouraged him with flirtatious dimples. ”You put your money on me, even if my own husband won't.”
Albert as a dowdy dissenter was quite out of her expensive sphere, but to Vera any man was a man.
”Now, Albert,” Clara warned him, ”if you win anything, you must give it to me for the new perambulator.”
(”Dash that girl's infernal domesticity!” thought Edwin savagely.)
”Who says I'm going in for it, missis?” Albert challenged.
”I only say _if_ you do, dear,” Clara said smoothly.
”Then I _will_!” Albert announced the great decision. ”Just for the fun of the thing, I will. Thank ye, Mrs. Cheswardine.”
He glanced at Mrs. Cheswardine as a knight at his unattainable mistress.
Indeed the decision had in it something of the chivalrous; the attention of slim provocative Vera, costliest and most fas.h.i.+onably dressed woman in Bursley, had stirred his fancy to wander far beyond its usual limits.
”Albert! Well, I never!” exclaimed Mrs. Hamps.
”You don't mind, do you Auntie?” said Albert jovially, standing over her.
”Not if it's not gambling,” said Mrs. Hamps stoutly. ”And I hope it isn't. And it would be very nice for Clara, I'm sure, if you won.”
”Hurrah for Mrs. Hamps!” Johnnie Orgreave almost yelled.