Arnold Bennett

“ Richard forgot that he was himself a clerk, looking not out of place in that scene.
Presently he espied a woman who seemed to belong to another sphere. She was leaning over the parapet of the jetty, and though a black and white sunshade entirely hid her head and shoulders, the simple, perfectly hung black skirt, the neatly shod foot, the small, smoothly gloved hand with thin gold circlet at wrist, sufficed to convince him that here, by some strange chance, was one of those exquisite creatures who on Saturday afternoons drove past the end of Raphael Street on their way to Hurlingham or Barnes. ”

“ She said, in a voice trembling:
"Thou art not going to say to me that thou wilt put me among my own furniture?"
"The flat is furnished. But it is the same thing."
"Do not let such a hope shine before me—me who saw before me only the pavement. Thou art not serious."
"I never was more serious. For whom dost thou take me, little-foolish one?"
She cried:
"Oh, you English! You are chic. You make love as you go to war. Like that!... One word—it is decided! And there is nothing more to say! Ah! You English!" ”

“ When the door opened in answer to his second ring, a faint, sour odour escaped from the house, and he remembered the friendly feminine warnings which he had received at Bursley on the subject of London lodgings. The aspect of the landlady, however, reassured him; she was a diminutive old woman in ridiculously short skirts, with a yellow, crinkled face, grey eyes, and a warm, benevolent smile that conquered. As she greeted Richard she blushed like a girl, and made a little old-fashioned curtsey. Richard offered his hand, and, after wiping hers on a clean apron, she took it timidly. ”

“ The sign was slightly askew, and the approaching figure tapped it into position, and then entered the enclosure.
“Good afternoon,” it said. “Everything ready?”
“’d afternoon, Mr. Carpentaria,” said the head balloonist respectfully. “Yes, sir.”
The three men with considerable ostentation busied themselves among ropes, while a young man in gold-rimmed spectacles gazed with sudden self-consciousness into the far distance, just as if he had that very instant discovered something there that demanded the whole of his attention. ”

“ I know I am wrong. It is contrary to my habit. But what wouldst thou? I also have done what I could for the war. But it is my ruin. Oh, my Gilbert! Tell me what I must do. I ask nothing from thee but advice. It was for that that I dared to telephone thee."
G.J. answered casually:
"I see nothing to worry about. It will be necessary to take another flat. That is all."
"But I—I know nothing of London. One tells me that it is in future impossible for women who live alone—like me—to find a flat—that is to say, respectable."
"Absurd! I will find a flat. I know precisely where there is a flat." ”

“ Can't we go somewhere else?"
"Certainly we can," he agreed with an eagerness that was more than polite.
She thanked him with another of her comfortable, sensible smiles--a smile that took all embarrassment out of the dilemma, as balm will take irritation from a wound. And gently she removed her hat and gown, and her gestures and speech, and her comfortableness, from those august precincts. And they descended to the grill-room, which was relatively noisy, and where her roses were less conspicuous than the helmet of Navarre, and her frock found its sisters and cousins from far lands. ”

“ It would be impossible for the hero of a Bennett novel of recent years to be a character like Mark Sabre in If Winter Comes. Arnold Bennett’s married hero would realise that the health, comfort, wishes, doubts, dissimulations; the jealousies, the happiness or the fancied happiness, and the exterior appearances of the woman who was his wife abolish, for practical purposes, everything else. It is due to Mr. Bennett more than to anyone else that we now understand that while “husband” may be a correct legal designation, “lover” is the only possible æsthetic appellation of the man who is married. ”

“ In response to his inquiry, the landlady said that Miss Aked was out, and had left a message that if a gentleman called, he was to follow her to the jetty. Obeying the directions given to him, Richard soon found himself by the banks of the swift Arun, with the jetty some distance in front, and beyond that the [Pg 165] sea, which shimmered blindly in the heat. Throngs of respectably dressed people wandered up and down, and a low, languid murmur of conversation floated out as it were from the cavities of a thousand parasols. ”

“ Except the man with newspapers at the corner of Alexandra Grove, scarcely a sign of life showed along the vistas of Fulham Road; but the clock over the jeweller's was alive and bearing the usual false witness. From the upper open galleries of the Workhouse one or two old men and old women in uniform looked down indifferently upon the free world which they had left for ever. Then an omnibus appeared faintly advancing from the beautiful grey distance of the straight and endless street. George crossed the road on his way towards Redcliffe Gardens and Earl's Court. ”

“ Inspired by unhappiness and resentment, he resolved to go to bed; in bed he might read himself to sleep. But in the hall of the club his feet faltered. Perhaps it was the sight of hats and sticks that made him vacillate, or a glimpse of reluctantly dying silver in the firmament over Candle Court. He wavered; he stood still at the foot of the stairs. The next moment he was in the street. He had decided to call on Agg at the studio. Agg might have the clue to Marguerite's astounding conduct, though he had it not. He took a hansom, after saying he would walk; he was too impatient for walking. ”

“ She was a plain girl, possessing few attractions, except the supreme one of being a woman. She was below him in station; but had she not her refinements? Though she could not enter into his mental or emotional life, did she not exhale for him a certain gracious influence? His heart went forth to her. Her flirtations with Mr. Aked, her alleged dalliance with Jenkins? Trifles, nothings! She had told him that she lived with her mother and father and a younger brother, and on more than one occasion she had mentioned the Wesleyan chapel; he had gathered that the whole family was religious. ”

“ He looked at it with a half smile, and murmured audibly several times:
[Pg 14]
"Why the dickens didn't I say something to that girl, with her chéri?"
The woman of the photograph seemed to be between thirty and forty years of age. She was fair, with a mild, serious face, and much wavy hair. The forehead was broad and smooth and white, the cheek-bones prominent, and the mouth somewhat large. The eyes were a very light grey; they met the gaze of the spectator with a curious timid defiance, as if to say, "I am weak, but I can at least fight till I fall." ”

“ Eight hoofs all over me! One tap from any of the eight would have settled yours sincerely."
"Louis!" She spoke firmly. "You must come into the parlour. Now come along, do, and sit down and let me look at your face." She removed his hat, which was perched rather insecurely on the top of the bandages. "Who was it looked after you?"
"Well," he hesitated, following her into the parlour, "it seems to have been chiefly Mrs. Heath."
"But didn't they take you to a chemist's? Isn't there a chemist's handy?"
"The great Greene had one of his bilious attacks and was in bed, it appears. ”

“ It is impossible that a woman like me should have thy photograph on her chimney-piece." She smiled, smoothing for a moment the pucker out of her brow. "And lately I see thee so little. Thou comest less frequently. And when thou comest, well—one embraces—a little music—and then pouf! Thou art gone. Is it not so?"
He said:
"But thou knowest the reason, I am terribly busy. I have all the preoccupations in the world. My committee—it is not all smooth, my committee. Everything and everybody depends on me. And in the committee I have enemies too. The fact is, I have become a beast of burden. ”

“ He had sacrificed his interest in his half-sister, his curiosity about the doings of the Ilams, his inspection of the affairs of the City, and even a rehearsal, to the care of the recovering cataleptic, but the concert itself, with its audience of a hundred thousand or so, could not be sacrificed.
“So you are Carpentaria?” murmured the patient, sipping at a glass of hot milk.
His age now appeared to be fifty. He had grey hair and a short grey beard, rather whiter than the hair, and his eyes bore the expression of a man who has found that life bears no striking resemblance to a good joke. ”

“ Could the Five Towns have seen him then, as he waited, it would hardly have recognized its "card," its character, its mirror of aplomb and inventive audacity, in this figure of provincial and plebeian diffidence.
The dandy bowed.
"Do you want a suite, sir?"
"Certainly!" said Edward Henry. Rather too quickly, rather too defiantly; in fact, rather rudely! A habitué would not have so savagely hurled back in the dandy's teeth the insinuation that he wanted only one paltry room. ”

“ No one had ever called upon him before.
"I don't know, sir; it's a young gentleman."
The young gentleman was ushered in. He wore a new black frock coat, and light grey trousers which fell in rich folds over new patent-leather boots. The shortcomings of his linen, which was dull and bluish in tint, were more than atoned for by the magnificence of a new white silk necktie with heliotrope spots. He carried a silk hat and a pair of unworn kid gloves in one hand, and in the other a half-smoked cigar and a stick, with whose physiognomy Richard was quite familiar.
"Hello, Jenkins!" ”

“ But then it was press-copied; I am sure of that by the smudges on it. She must certainly have known I was coming.' And, despite the verdict that she was a pushing young thing, Henry felt it to be in the nature of a personal grievance that she was not always waiting for him there, in that chair, with her golden locks and her smile and her tight bodice, whenever he cared to look in. His right to expect her presence seemed part of his heritage as a man, and it could not be challenged without disturbing the very foundations of human society. ”

“ A motor, apparently enormous, was buzzing motion-less in the wide entry by the side of the shop. It very slowly moved forward, crossed the footpath and half the street opposite the Town Hall, impeding a tram-car, and then curved backward into a position by the kerbstone. John's Ernest was at the steering-wheel. Councillor Batchgrew stood still with his mouth open to watch the manoeuvre.
"This is John's Ernest—my son John's eldest. Happen ye know him?" said Batchgrew to Rachel. "He's a good lad."
John's Ernest, a pleasant-featured young man of twenty-five, blushed and raised his hat. ”

“ The mare could go, and Dan could make her go, and she did go. And the whole turn-out looked extremely dashing when, ultimately, it dashed into the glare of the acetylene lamps which the deserted Harold had lighted on his car.
The red end of a penny smoke in the gloom of twilight looks exactly as well as the red end of an Havana. Moreover, the mare caracolled ornamentally in the rays of the acetylene, and the stable-boy had to skip down quick and hold her head. ”

“ There he was, beside her, in all his masculinity--his moustache, his blue chin, his wide white hands, his broadcloth--there he was planted on his massive feet as on a pedestal! She did not see him; she was aware of him. And she was aware of the closed door behind them. One of the basket-chairs, though empty, continued to creak, like a thing alive. Faintly, very faintly, she could hear the piano--Mrs. Boutwood playing! Overhead were the footsteps of Sarah Gailey and Hettie--they were checking the linen from the laundry, as usual on Saturday afternoon. ”

“ To a limited extent they are diverting.”
“Mr Arnold Bennett is one of the few who can catch their sayings before they are cold and enclose them all alive in very readable prose. That is why these aged reviews (some are nearly ten years old) are as vivacious and as much to the point as they were on the day of their birth. They have another claim upon our interest. They deal for the most part with writers who are still living. We do not think this is a book of first rate criticism; but it is the book of an artist.”
BENNETT, HELEN MARIE. Women and work; the economic value of college training. ”

“ The young lady was too energetic for him. He was afraid of being too curt with her lest she should turn on him and tell him that pretence was useless--she knew he was Priam Farll. He felt guilty, and he felt that he looked guilty. As he hurried along the High Street towards the river with the paint-box it appeared to him that policemen observed him inimically and cocked their helmets at him, as who should say: "See here; this won't do. You're supposed to be in Westminster Abbey. You'll be locked up if you're too brazen." ”

“ You are only being kind.’
‘How do you know it is nothing to me, Prince?’ she asked him quickly.
Just then the sick man made a convulsive movement, and Nella flew to the bed and soothed him. From the head of the bed she looked over at Prince Aribert, and he returned her bright, excited glance. She was in her travelling-frock, with a large white Belgian apron tied over it. Large dark circles of fatigue and sleeplessness surrounded her eyes, and to the Prince her cheek seemed hollow and thin; her hair lay thick over the temples, half covering the ears. ”