Leonora

Leonora

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Leonora, by Arnold Bennett
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Title: Leonora
Author: Arnold Bennett
Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13723]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LEONORA***
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LEONORA
A Novel
by
ARNOLD BENNETT
Author of The Grand Babylon Hotel, The Gates of Wrath, Anna of the
Five Towns, etc.
1903

CONTENTS
I. THE HOUSEHOLD AT HILLPORT II. MESHACH AND
HANNAH III. THE CALL IV. AN INTIMACY V. THE CHANCE VI.
COMIC OPERA VII. THE DEPARTURE VIII. THE DANCE IX. A
DEATH IN THE FAMILY X. IN THE GARDEN XI. THE REFUSAL
XII. IN LONDON

CHAPTER I
THE HOUSEHOLD AT HILLPORT
She was walking, with her customary air of haughty and rapt leisure,
across the market-place of Bursley, when she observed in front of her,
at the top of Oldcastle Street, two men conversing and gesticulating
vehemently, each seated alone in a dog-cart. These persons, who had
met from opposite directions, were her husband, John Stanway, the
earthenware manufacturer, and David Dain, the solicitor who practised
at Hanbridge. Stanway's cob, always quicker to start than to stop, had
been pulled up with difficulty, drawing his cart just clear of the other
one, so that the two portly and middle-aged talkers were most
uncomfortably obliged to twist their necks in order to see one another;
the attitude did nothing to ease the obvious asperity of the discussion.
She thought the spectacle undignified and silly; and she marvelled, as
all women marvel, that men who conduct themselves so magisterially
should sometimes appear so infantile. She felt glad that it was Thursday
afternoon, and the shops closed and the streets empty.
Immediately John Stanway caught sight of her he said a few words to
the lawyer in a somewhat different key, and descended from his vehicle.
As she came up to them Mr. Dain saluted her with bashful abruptness,
and her proud face broke as if by the loosing of a spell into a generous
and captivating smile; Mr. Dain blushed, the vision was too much for
his composure; he moved his horse forward a yard or two, and then
jerked it back again, gruffly advising it to stand still. Stanway turned to
her bluntly, unceremoniously, as to a creature to whom he owed
nothing. She noticed once more how the whole character of his face
was changed under annoyance.
'Here, Nora!' he said, speaking with the raw anger of a man with a
new-born grievance, 'run this home for me. I'm going over to
Hanbridge with Mr. Dain.'
'Very well,' she agreed with soothing calmness, and taking the reins she

climbed up to the high driving-seat.
'And I say, Nora--Wo-back!' he flamed out passionately to the
impatient cob, 'where're your manners, you idiot? I say, Nora, I doubt I
shall be late for tea--half-past six. Tell Milly she must be in. The others
too.' He gave these instructions in a lower tone, and emphasised them
by a stormy and ominous frown. Then with an injured 'Now, Dain!' he
got into the equipage of his legal adviser and departed towards
Hanbridge, trailing clouds of vexation.
Leonora drove smartly but cautiously down the steep slope of Oldcastle
Street; she could drive as well as a woman may. A group of clay-soiled
girls lounging in the archway of a manufactory exchanged rude but
admiring remarks about her as she passed. The paces of the cob, the
dazzle of the silver-plated harness, the fine lines of the cart, the
unbending mien of the driver, made a glittering cynosure for envy. All
around was grime, squalor, servitude, ugliness; the inglorious travail of
two hundred thousand people, above ground and below it, filled the day
and the night. But here, as it were suddenly, out of that earthy and
laborious bed, rose the blossom of luxury, grace, and leisure, the final
elegance of the industrial district of the Five Towns. The contrast
between Leonora and the rough creatures in the archway, between the
flower and the phosphates which nourished it, was sharp and decisive:
and Leonora, in the September sunshine, was well aware of the contrast.
She felt that the loud-voiced girls were at one extremity of the scale and
she at the other; and this arrangement seemed natural, necessary,
inevitable.
She was a beautiful woman. She had a slim perfect figure; quite simply
she carried her head so high and her shoulders so square that her back
seemed to be