Hilda Lessways

Arnold Bennett

Description

This stirring coming-of-age story recounts the childhood and youth of the eponymous protagonist, Hilda Lessways, who would eventually grow up to marry Edwin Clayhanger, the scion of a wealthy and powerful family in the Potteries district of the Midlands region in England. This is the second in a series of novels that depict the lives of the members of the Clayhanger family.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776588992
• Langue: English

Extrait

HILDA LESSWAYS
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ARNOLD BENNETT
 
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Hilda Lessways First published in 1911 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-899-2 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-900-5 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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BOOK I - HER START IN LIFE Chapter I - An Event in Mr. Skellorn's Life Chapter II - The End of the Scene Chapter III - Mr. Cannon Chapter IV - Domesticity Invaded Chapter V - Mrs. Lessways' Shrewdness Chapter VI - Victor Hugo and Isaac Pitman Chapter VII - The Editorial Secretary Chapter VIII - Janet Orgreave Chapter IX - In the Street Chapter X - Miss Gailey in Declension Chapter XI - Disillusion Chapter XII - The Telegram Chapter XIII - Hilda's World Chapter XIV - To London BOOK II - HER RECOVERY Chapter I - Sin Chapter II - The Little Room Chapter III - Journey to Bleakridge Chapter IV - With the Orgreaves Chapter V - Edwin Clayhanger Chapter VI - In the Garden Chapter VII - The Next Meeting BOOK III - HER BURDEN Chapter I - Hilda Indispensable Chapter II - Sarah's Benefactor Chapter III - At Brighton Chapter IV - The Sea BOOK IV - HER FALL Chapter I - The Going Concern Chapter II - The Unknown Adventure Chapter III - Florrie Again BOOK V - HER DELIVERANCE Chapter I - Louisa Uncontrolled Chapter II - Some Secret History BOOK VI - HER PUNISHMENT Chapter I - Evening at Bleakridge Chapter II - A Rendezvous Chapter III - At the Works Chapter IV - The Call from Brighton Chapter V - Thursday Afternoon Chapter VI - Mischance Endnotes
BOOK I - HER START IN LIFE
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Chapter I - An Event in Mr. Skellorn's Life
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I
The Lessways household, consisting of Hilda and her widowed mother, wastemporarily without a servant. Hilda hated domestic work, and becauseshe hated it she often did it passionately and thoroughly. Thatafternoon, as she emerged from the kitchen, her dark, defiant face wasfull of grim satisfaction in the fact that she had left a kitchenpolished and irreproachable, a kitchen without the slightest indicationthat it ever had been or ever would be used for preparing human nature'sdaily food; a show kitchen. Even the apron which she had worn was hungin concealment behind the scullery door. The lobby clock, which stoodover six feet high and had to be wound up every night by hauling on arope, was noisily getting ready to strike two. But for Mrs. Lessways'disorderly and undesired assistance, Hilda's task might have beenfinished a quarter of an hour earlier. She passed quietly up the stairs.When she was near the top, her mother's voice, at once querulous andamiable, came from the sitting-room:
"Where are you going to?"
There was a pause, dramatic for both of them, and in that minute pausethe very life of the house seemed for an instant to be suspended, andthen the waves of the hostile love that united these two women resumedtheir beating, and Hilda's lips hardened.
"Upstairs," she answered callously.
No reply from the sitting-room!
At two o'clock on the last Wednesday of every month, old Mr. Skellorn,employed by Mrs. Lessways to collect her cottage-rents, called with astatement of account, and cash in a linen bag. He was now due. Duringhis previous visit Hilda had sought to instil some common sense into hermother on the subject of repairs, and there had ensued an altercationwhich had never been settled.
"If I stayed down, she wouldn't like it," Hilda complained fiercelywithin herself, "and if I keep away she doesn't like that either! That'smother all over!"
She went to her bedroom. And into the soft, controlled shutting of thedoor she put more exasperated vehemence than would have sufficed to bangit off its hinges.
II
At this date, late October in 1878, Hilda was within a few weeks oftwenty-one. She was a woman, but she could not realize that she was awoman. She remembered that when she first went to school, at the age ofeight, an assistant teacher aged nineteen had seemed to her to beunquestionably and absolutely a woman, had seemed to belong definitelyto a previous generation. The years had passed, and Hilda was now olderthan that mature woman was then; and yet she could not feel adult,though her childhood gleamed dimly afar off, and though the interveningexpanse of ten years stretched out like a hundred years, like eternity.She was in trouble; the trouble grew daily more and more tragic; and thetrouble was that she wanted she knew not what. If her mother had said toher squarely, "Tell me what it is will make you a bit more contented,and you shall have it even if it kills me!" Hilda could only haveanswered with the fervour of despair, "I don't know! I don't know!"
Her mother was a creature contented enough. And why not—with asufficient income, a comfortable home, and fair health? At the end of aday devoted partly to sheer vacuous idleness and partly to themonotonous simple machinery of physical existence—everlasting cookery,everlasting cleanliness, everlasting stitchery—her mother did not witha yearning sigh demand, "Must this sort of thing continue for ever, orwill a new era dawn?" Not a bit! Mrs. Lessways went to bed in the placidexpectancy of a very similar day on the morrow, and of an interminablesuccession of such days. The which was incomprehensible and offensive toHilda.
She was in a prison with her mother, and saw no method of escape, sawnot so much as a locked door, saw nothing but blank walls. Even couldshe by a miracle break prison, where should she look for the unknownobject of her desire, and for what should she look? Enigmas! It is truethat she read, occasionally with feverish enjoyment, especially verse.But she did not and could not read enough. Of the shelf-ful of bookswhich in thirty years had drifted by one accident or another into theLessways household, she had read every volume, except Cruden'sConcordance. A heterogeneous and forlorn assemblage! Lavater's Physiognomy , in a translation and in full calf! Thomson's Seasons ,which had thrilled her by its romantic beauty! Mrs. Henry Wood's Danesbury House , and one or two novels by Charlotte M. Yonge and DinahMaria Craik, which she had gulped eagerly down for the mere interest oftheir stories. Disraeli's Ixion , which she had admired withoutunderstanding it. A History of the North American Indians! These werethe more exciting items of the set. The most exciting of all was a greenvolume of Tennyson's containing Maud . She knew Maud by heart. Bysimple unpleasant obstinacy she had forced her mother to give her thisvolume for a birthday present, having seen a quotation from it in aladies' magazine. At that date in Turnhill, as in many other towns ofEngland, the poem had not yet lived down a reputation for immorality;but fortunately Mrs. Lessways had only the vaguest notion of itsdangerousness, and was indeed a negligent kind of woman. Dangerous thebook was! Once in reciting it aloud in her room, Hilda had come so nearto fainting that she had had to stop and lie down on the bed, until shecould convince herself that she was not the male lover crying to hisbeloved. An astounding and fearful experience, and not to be too lightlyrenewed! For Hilda, Maud was a source of lovely and exquisite pain.
Why had she not used her force of character to obtain more books? Onereason lay in the excessive difficulty to be faced. Birthdays areinfrequent; and besides, the enterprise of purchasing Maud had provedso complicated and tedious that Mrs. Lessways, with that curiousstiffness which marked her sometimes, had sworn never to attempt to buyanother book. Turnhill, a town of fifteen thousand persons, had nobookseller; the only bookseller that Mrs. Lessways had ever heard of didbusiness at Oldcastle. Mrs. Lessways had journeyed twice over theHillport ridge to Oldcastle, in the odd quest of a book called Maud by"Tennyson—the poet laureate"; the book had had to be sent from London;and on her second excursion to Oldcastle Mrs. Lessways had been caughtby the rain in the middle of Hillport Marsh. No! Hilda could not easilydemand the gift of another book, when all sorts of nice, really usefulpresents could be bought in the High Street. Nor was there in Turnhill aMunicipal Library, nor any public lending-library.
Yet possibly Hilda's terrific egoism might have got fresh books somehowfrom somewhere, had she really believed in the virtue of books. Thusfar, however, books had not furnished her with what she wanted, and herfaith in their promise was insecure.
Books failing, might she not have escaped into some vocation? The solevocation conceivable for her was that of teaching, and she knew, withouthaving tried it, that she abhorred teaching. Further, there was noeconomical reason why she should work. In 1878, unless pushed bynecessity, no girl might dream of a vocation: the idea was monstrous; itwas almost unmentionable. Still further, she had no wish to work forwork's sake. Marriage remained. But she felt herself a child, ages shortof marriage. And she never met a man. It was literally a fact that,except Mr. Skellorn, a few tradesmen, the vicar, the curate, and asidesman or so, she never even spoke to a man from one month's end tothe next. The Church choir had its annual dance, to which she wasinvited; but the perverse creature cared not for dancing. Her mother didnot seek society, did not appear to require it. Nor did Hilda acutelyfeel the lack of it. She could not define her need. All she knew wasthat youth, moment by moment, was dropping down inexorably behind her.And, still a child in heart and soul, she saw