HILDA LESSWAYS BY ARNOLD BENNETT 1911 CONTENTS BOOK I HER START IN LIFE I AN EVENT IN MR. SKELLORN'S LIFE II THE END OF THE SCENE III MR. CANNON IV DOMESTICITY INVADED V MRS. LESSWAYS' SHREWDNESS VI VICTOR HUGO AND ISAAC PITMAN VII THE EDITORIAL SECRETARY VIII JANET ORGREAVE IX IN THE STREET X MISS GAILEY IN DECLENSION XI DISILLUSION XII THE TELEGRAM XIII HILDA'S WORLD XIV TO LONDON BOOK II HER RECOVERY I SIN II THE LITTLE ROOM III JOURNEY TO BLEAKRIDGE IV WITH THE ORGREAVES V EDWIN CLAYHANGER VI IN THE GARDEN VII THE NEXT MEETING BOOK III HER BURDEN I HILDA INDISPENSABLE II SARAH'S BENEFACTOR III AT BRIGHTON IV THE SEA BOOK IV HER FALL I THE GOING CONCERN II THE UNKNOWN ADVENTURE III FLORRIE AGAIN BOOK V HER DELIVERANCE I LOUISA UNCONTROLLED II SOME SECRET HISTORY BOOK VI HER PUNISHMENT I EVENING AT BLEAKRIDGE II A RENDEZVOUS III AT THE WORKS IV THE CALL FROM BRIGHTON V THURSDAY AFTERNOON VI MISCHANCE * * * * * BOOK I HER START IN LIFE CHAPTER I AN EVENT IN MR. SKELLORN'S LIFE I The Lessways household, consisting of Hilda and her widowed mother, was temporarily without a servant. Hilda hated domestic work, and because she hated it she often did it passionately and thoroughly. That afternoon, as she emerged from the kitchen, her dark, defiant face was full of grim satisfaction in the fact that she had left a kitchen polished and irreproachable, a kitchen without the slightest indication that it ever had been or ever would be used for preparing human nature's daily food; a show kitchen. Even the apron which she had worn was hung in concealment behind the scullery door. The lobby clock, which stood over six feet high and had to be wound up every night by hauling on a rope, was noisily getting ready to strike two. But for Mrs. Lessways' disorderly and undesired assistance, Hilda's task might have been finished 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 and amiable, came from the sitting-room: "Where are you going to?" There was a pause, dramatic for both of them, and in that minute pause the very life of the house seemed for an instant to be suspended, and then the waves of the hostile love that united these two women resumed their 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 a statement of account, and cash in a linen bag. He was now due. During his previous visit Hilda had sought to instil some common sense into her mother on the subject of repairs, and there had ensued an altercation which had never been settled.