THESE TWAIN by Arnold Bennett

Author:Arnold Bennett [Bennett, Arnold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027231515
Publisher: Musaicum Press
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

ii

Edwin, looking curiously out of the carriage-window as the train from Plymouth entered Tavistock station early on the Monday, was surprised to perceive Harry Hesketh on the platform. While, in the heavenly air of the September morning, the train was curving through Bickleigh Vale and the Valley of the Plym and through the steeper valley of the Meavy up towards the first fastnesses of the Moor, he had felt his body to be almost miraculously well and his soul almost triumphant. But when he saw Harry—the remembered figure, but a little stouter and coarser—he saw a being easily more triumphant than himself.

Harry had great reason for triumph, for he had proved himself to possess a genius for deductive psychological reasoning and for prophecy. Edwin had been characteristically vague about the visit. First he had telegraphed that he could not come, business preventing. Then he had telegraphed that he would come, but only on Sunday, and he had given no particulars of trains. They had all assured one another that this was just like Edwin. “The man’s mad!” said Harry with genial benevolence, and had set himself to one of his favourite studies—Bradshaw. He always handled Bradshaw like a master, accomplishing feats of interpretation that amazed his wife. He had announced, after careful connotations, that Edwin was perhaps after all not such a chump, but that he was in fact a chump, in that, having chosen the Bristol–Plymouth route, he had erred about the Sunday night train from Plymouth to Tavistock. How did he know that Edwin would choose the Bristol–Plymouth route? Well, his knowledge was derived from divination, based upon vast experience of human nature. Edwin would “get stuck” at Plymouth. He would sleep at Plymouth—staying at the Royal (he hoped)—and would come on by the 8.1 a.m. on Monday, arriving at 8.59 a.m., where he would be met by Harry in the dog-cart drawn by Joan. The telegraph was of course closed after 10 a.m. on Sunday, but if it had been open and he had been receiving hourly despatches about Edwin’s tortuous progress through England, Harry could not have been more sure of his position. And on the Monday Harry had risen up in the very apogee of health, and had driven Joan to the station. “Mark my words!” he had said. “I shall bring him back with me for breakfast.” He had offered to take Hilda to the station to witness his triumph; but Hilda had not accepted.

And there Edwin was! Everything had happened according to Harry’s prediction, except that, from an unfortunate modesty, Edwin had gone to the wrong hotel at Plymouth.

They shook hands in a glow of mutual pleasure.

“How on earth did you know?” Edwin began.

The careful-casual answer rounded off Harry’s triumph. And Edwin thought: “Why, he’s just like a grown-up boy!” But he was distinguished; his club-necktie in all its decay was still impressive; and his expansive sincere goodwill was utterly delightful. Also the station, neat, clean, solid—the negation of all gimcrackery—had an aspect

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