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Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education 51

Valarie L. Akerson
Gayle A. Buck Editors

Critical
Questions
in STEM
Education
Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science
Education

Volume 51

Series Editors
Dana L. Zeidler, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA

Editorial Board
John Lawrence Bencze, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Michael P. Clough, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Marissa Rollnick, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Troy D. Sadler, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
Svein Sjøeberg, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
David Treagust, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
Larry D. Yore, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
The book series Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education provides a
forum for innovative trends and issues impacting science education. Scholarship
that focuses on advancing new visions, understanding, and is at the forefront of the
field is found in this series. Authoritative works based on empirical research and/or
conceptual theory from disciplines including historical, philosophical, psychological
and sociological traditions are represented here. Our goal is to advance the field of
science education by testing and pushing the prevailing sociocultural norms about
teaching, learning, research and policy. Book proposals for this series may be
submitted to the Publishing Editor: Claudia Acuna E-mail: Claudia.Acuna@
springer.com

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6512

Valarie L. Akerson • Gayle A. Buck
Editors

Critical Questions in STEM

Education
Editors
Valarie L. Akerson Gayle A. Buck
Curriculum & Instruction Curriculum & Instruction
Indiana University Indiana University
Bloomington, IN, USA Bloomington, IN, USA

ISSN 1878-0482     ISSN 1878-0784 (electronic)

Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education
ISBN 978-3-030-57645-5    ISBN 978-3-030-57646-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57646-2

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

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Foreword to Critical Questions in STEM
Education

For those working in STEM education as teachers, principals, teacher educators,

and researchers, a central concern in recent years is developing a consensus on what
STEM education can and should be, in terms of curricular content, pedagogy, and
application to real-world problems. Perhaps heightening a sense of urgency regard-
ing this task is STEM’s near-juggernaut quality as an educational movement inter-
nationally. Meanwhile, a rush by various discipline advocates to claim curricular
“terrain” in K-12 STEM has led to calls for STEAM (adding art), STREAM (read-
ing), CSTEM (coding or computer science), and so on, which complicates develop-
ment of a clear understanding of what STEM education should include. STEM as
“ambiguous slogan” (Bybee 2013) nonetheless has rapidly diffused across many
mass education systems, proving to be an effective tool to advocate for resources
(Shaughnessy 2012). The contributions in this volume offer several cornerstones,
comprising the parts of the book, from which to examine questions about the con-
tours of STEM in a thoughtful and research-informed manner. The point of depar-
ture here is a working definition of STEM that includes a renewed focus on the
variation across individual disciplines as well as the meaningful interdependence
that connects disciplines constituting STEM.
Since the early days of STEM being promoted as a kind of curricular package, a
frequent element of the sloganeering blithely portrayed STEM education as “inte-
grated” and “interdisciplinary,” even as curriculum scholars have emphasized the
tremendous difficulty for interdisciplinary knowledge to secure a place in the school
curriculum. STEM education scholars could benefit from prior work on the chal-
lenges of developing and implementing interdisciplinary curricula, however appeal-
ing their ring, such as in social studies and “humanities” (Ravitch 2003; Wineburg
& Grossman 2000). In this volume, we find a serious attempt to conceptualize the
limits of the interdisciplinarity of STEM, starting in the first part with a series of
chapters articulating the “nature of” each of the four areas (extending Lederman’s
groundbreaking work on the nature of science) and their varied epistemological and
ontological underpinnings. In an overview of this first part, Akerson and colleagues
boldly suggest that given the substantial differences in the core natures of the disci-
plines (and even within each area), there can be no analogous and fully coherent

v
vi Foreword to Critical Questions in STEM Education

“nature of STEM.” If these scholars are right, the implicit question emerges regard-
ing how truly integrated and interdisciplinary STEM can be.
This tension is illustrated in Part 2, which views STEM education from the
ground up, considering approaches to teaching STEM, both at the level of the class-
room and the school, but also the challenges in preparing teachers to support inte-
grated STEM learning. The self-study by Yin (Chap. 7) is particularly illustrative on
this point, as even a seasoned science teacher educator struggled to balance and
integrate all four major fields in a STEM education course for pre-service teachers.
University Technical Colleges in England (Dobrin, Chap. 8) offer an organizational
form that affords opportunities and time to both integrate and apply STEM knowl-
edge, but even there, students are encouraged to choose areas of particular interest
to focus on during group projects (e.g., “Do the part you are interested in”), effec-
tively de-integrating the STEM work to some extent.
The final part raises broader questions about perceptions of STEM by various
stakeholders. Perhaps, in a sense, school-based STEM is what school STEM does.
Newman and colleagues (Chap. 10) consider how schools certified as “STEM
schools” by the state of Indiana portray STEM, while Sgro, Bobowski, and Oliveira
(Chap. 11) systematically consider visions of STEM proffered by practitioner jour-
nals, demonstrating the difficulty of meaningfully integrating across all four areas.
In both chapters, STEM integration is threatened by the dominance of one or more
of the component disciplines. Sgro and his co-authors resolve this by taking the
position that STEM cannot be a discipline in its own right, but rather should be seen
as a “meta-discipline.” When considering experiences and the STEM identity of
college students majoring in and in some cases switching out of STEM, Song, et al.
(Chap. 13) ground coding decisions about what is and what isn’t a “STEM major”
based on whether the major was located in the institution’s College of Natural
Sciences and Mathematics, which raises questions of how new or rapidly changing
fields (like psychology) are classified with respect to the STEM umbrella. In the
end, there are numerous echoes of the doubts raised in Part 1 about whether there
can be a coherent “nature of STEM.”
Rather than hunting down a perfectly balanced and interdisciplinary “quark”
(Renyi, 2000) called STEM, the brightest potential for STEM education may lie in
its core focus on engaging with complex, “ill-formed” problems, as highlighted in
many of the contributions here. Comprising a vigorous pedagogical culture (Weld,
2017), rather than a strictly delineated and official school subject, the varied tools of
STEM could be used as a springboard into learning to analyze Shakespeare, predict
profits, develop video games, and address and communicate about environmental
problems or model voter turnout. It all potentially demands quite rigorous STEM
thinking, obviating the need for demarcating “proper” applications of STEM in
schools. The contributions in this volume point in this direction, implicitly answer-
ing Zollman’s (2012) call for “STEM literacy for learning,” serving as a helpful
resource for leaders in STEM education at all levels.
UMass

Amherst, MA, USA Elizabeth H. McEneaney

Foreword to Critical Questions in STEM Education vii

References

Bybee, R. W. (2013).The case for STEM education: Challenges and opportunities. Arlington, VA:
NSTA Press.
Ravitch, D. (2003). A brief history of social studies. In J. Leming, L. Ellington, & K. Porter-Magee
(Eds.), Where did social studies go wrong (pp. 1–5). Washington, DC: Fordham Foundation.
Renyi, J. (2000). Hunting the quark: Interdisciplinary curricula in public schools. In S. Wineburg &
P. Grossman (Eds.), Interdisciplinary curriculum: Challenges to implementation (pp. 39–56).
New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Shaughnessy, J. M. (2012). STEM: An advocacy position not a content area. NCTM Summing Up.
February 2.
Weld, J. (2017).Creating a STEM Culture for Teaching and Learning. National Science Teachers
Association.
Wineburg, S. & Grossman, P. (Eds.) (2000). Interdisciplinary curriculum: Challenges to imple-
mentation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Zollman, A. (2012). Learning for STEM literacy: STEM literacy for learning. School Science and
Mathematics, 112(1), 12–19.
Preface

This edited book resulted from our efforts to develop an understanding of the nature
of STEM knowledge for our doctoral students and ourselves. It began as a graduate
seminar in science education where we explored the natures of the individual STEM
disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and research in
STEM education alongside our students. The intention was to find overlaps among
the characteristics of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics knowledge
and develop an idea about the nature of STEM from those overlapping ideas. Over
the course of the semester, however, we came to question if there could be a separate
nature of STEM knowledge if it is a combination of existing knowledge bases.
Further complicating the academic journey was the fact that most STEM research
focus on one of the disciplines that comprises STEM itself. We subsequently
explored what would STEM teacher education research look like if all the disci-
plines were truly intertwined and how does this image compare to educators and
educational researchers’ existing perceptions of STEM. Our journey grew to include
teacher educators from different disciplines in higher education institutions across
the country. That academic journey was so powerful that we sought to expand the
discussion throughout our educational community with this edited book.
This book explores critical questions in STEM education. The questions were
prompted by a desire to respond to the educational demands that twenty-first cen-
tury teachers, and subsequently teacher educators, have had placed on them. When
previously they have been teachers of individual disciplines, such as science, math,
or technology (and occasionally engineering), they are now often considered STEM
teachers. The purpose of the book is to provide a practical resource for teacher edu-
cators who seek to prepare teachers to address STEM in a meaningful and interdis-
ciplinary manner. It is not a thorough ontological or epistemological treatment of
STEM, although such considerations certainly provide the framework for the
writings.
There are three parts within the book, all of which adhere to the definition of
STEM as a meaningful interdependence among all disciplines that comprise
STEM. In other words, all individual disciplines of STEM are included in ways that
are meaningful and showcase the interdependence of the fields. The first part, Nature

ix
x Preface

of the STEM Disciplines, provides the foundation for the discussion of meaningful
interdependence by establishing the natures of the component disciplines of STEM
(science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). This part does not include
epistemological or ontological treatments of the disciplines but rather practical dis-
cussion for teaching and research. Concluding this part, the editors explore whether
there is a separate STEM discipline with its own nature as well as the challenges and
benefits of presuming a nature of STEM. The second part, Critical Questions in
Teaching STEM, features applied research on critical questions teacher educators
are actively exploring. Chapters in this part showcase their action research, case
studies, self-studies, and other classroom-based research connected to learning to
effectively prepare classroom teachers to teach STEM in meaningful and interdisci-
plinary ways. The third part, Critical Questions in STEM, includes chapters that
systematically explore and discuss the overall applied constructs of STEM educa-
tion. These chapters explore such ideas as public perceptions of STEM education,
phenomenological case studies on STEM experiences, and content analyses of
STEM education documents and texts.
The book you hold is the result of very real and interesting discussions among
scholars of teacher education. It includes scholars from all four STEM education
disciplines and applied research across these disciplines. Working on this volume
has been a very interesting process, and we hope this contribution will be helpful to
the fields that comprise STEM and stimulate conversations across the fields.

Bloomington, IN, USA Valarie L. Akerson

 Gayle A. Buck
Contents

Part I Nature of the STEM Disciplines

1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry������������������������    3
Norman G. Lederman and Judith Lederman
2 The Nature of Technology ����������������������������������������������������������������������   21
Theresa A. Cullen and Meize Guo
3 Toward Defining Nature of Engineering in the Next
Generation Science Standards Era��������������������������������������������������������   33
Hasan Deniz, Ezgi Yesilyurt, Steven J. Newman,
and Erdogan Kaya
4 The Nature of Mathematics and Its Impact on K-12 Education ��������   45
Rick A. Hudson, Mark A. Creager, Angela Burgess,
and Alex Gerber

Part II Critical Questions in Teaching STEM

5 Inquiring into Environmental STEM: Striving for an Engaging
Inquiry-Based E-STEM Experience for Pre-Service Teachers������������   61
Angela Burgess and Gayle A. Buck
6 Navigating Theory and Practice: Digital Video Games
(DVGs) in STEM Education ������������������������������������������������������������������   85
Isha DeCoito and Lisa K. Briona
7 A Self-Study on Teaching Integrated STEM Education
to K-12 Science and Mathematics Teachers������������������������������������������ 105
Xinying Yin
8 Learning for the Real World: Interdisciplinary Challenge
Projects to Facilitate Real-World Learning in STEM�������������������������� 129
Jessica Dobrin

xi
xii Contents

9 Collaboratively Learning to Teach STEM: A Model

for Learning to Integrate STEM Education in Preservice
Teacher Education ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 147
Sevil Akaygun and Fatma Aslan-Tutak

Part III Critical Questions in STEM

10 Public Portrayals of Indiana STEM Certified Schools������������������������ 167
Steven Newman, Taukir Kahn, Meize Guo, Alex Gerber,
Angela Burgess, and Valarie L. Akerson
11 Current Praxis and Conceptualization of STEM Education:
A Call for Greater Clarity in Integrated
Curriculum Development������������������������������������������������������������������������ 185
Christopher M. Sgro, Trisha Bobowski, and Alandeom W. Oliveira
12 Future Elementary Teachers’ Perspectives
on the Importance of STEM ������������������������������������������������������������������ 211
Lauren Madden, James E. R. Beyers, and Nicole Stanton
13 Switching Lanes or Exiting? STEM Experiences,
Perceptions, and Identity Construction Among
College STEM Switchers������������������������������������������������������������������������ 227
Youngjin Song, Ann Y. Kim, Lisa M. Martin-Hansen,
and Elaine Villanueva Bernal

Reflection on Part I: Natures of the Disciplines that Make up STEM�������� 251


Reflection on Part II: Research into the Teaching and Learning
of STEM������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 253

Reflection on Part III: Critical Questions in STEM������������������������������������ 255

Afterward���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 257
About the Editors

Valarie L. Akerson is a Professor of Science Education at Indiana University and

a former elementary teacher. Her research focuses on preservice and inservice ele-
mentary teachers’ ideas about Nature of Science as well as their teaching practices.
She is a Past President of the Association for Science Teacher Education and a Past
President for NARST: a worldwide organization for improving science teaching and
learning through research.

Gayle Buck is an Associate Dean for Research, Development and Innovation as

well as a Professor of Science Education. Previously a middle-level science teacher
in both urban and rural schools, Professor Buck now teaches courses in science,
STEM education, and teacher education. Her research explores (1) student popula-
tions traditionally underserved in science education, (2) neglected epistemological
assumptions in teaching and learning, and (3) pragmatic and participatory
approaches to educational research.

xiii
 Part I
Nature of the STEM Disciplines
Chapter 1
Nature of Scientific Knowledge
and Scientific Inquiry

Norman G. Lederman and Judith Lederman

1.1 Introduction

Before carefully considering how nature of scientific knowledge (NOSK) and sci-
entific inquiry (SI) relate to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM), it is critical to “define” or explain what is meant by “science.” There are
many conceptualizations of science. The rotunda in the National Academy of
Science contains the following inscription: “To science, pilot of industry, conqueror
of disease, multiplier of the harvest, explorer of the universe, revealer of nature’s
laws, eternal guide to truth. “The quote is not attributed to any individual and the
building was built in 1936. It is not clear if the quote is older than 1936. Nobel Prize
winning physicist Richard Feynman defined science in the 1970s as “the belief in
the ignorance of experts (Feynman & Cashman, 2013). Most recently, Arthur
Boucot (famous paleobiologist) in a personal conversation characterized science as
“an internally consistent set of lies designed to explain away the universe.” These
statements are quite varied and as provocative as Boucot’s and Feynman’s defini-
tions may be they are closer to how science is characterized in recent reform docu-
ments, such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013)
and the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996).
The question still remains, “what is science?” What conceptualization would be
most appropriate for K-12 learners? Commonly, the answer to this question has
three parts. First, science is a body of knowledge. This refers to the traditional sub-
jects or body of concepts, laws, and theories. For instance, biology, chemistry, phys-
ics etc. The second part refers to how the knowledge is developed. That is scientific
inquiry. Inquiry will be discussed in more detail later, but as a student outcome it
usually includes the doing of inquiry (e.g., asking questions, developing a design,

N. G. Lederman (*) · J. Lederman

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 3

V. L. Akerson, G. A. Buck (eds.), Critical Questions in STEM Education,
Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education 51,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57646-2_1
4 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

collecting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions). Additionally, inquiry as a

student outcome also includes knowledge about inquiry (e.g., knowing that all
investigations begin with a question, there is no single scientific method, research
questions guide the procedures, etc.).
Finally, because of the way the knowledge is developed, scientific knowledge
has certain characteristics. These characteristics of scientific knowledge are often
referred to as nature of scientific knowledge (Lederman, Lederman, & Antink,
2013). Again, these characteristics will be discussed in more detail later, but they
usually include, but are not limited to the idea that science is empirically based,
involves human creativity, is unavoidably subjective, and is subject to change
(Lederman, Wade, & Bell, 1998). Often individuals conflate nature of scientific
knowledge (NOSK) with scientific inquiry. Lederman (2007) also notes that the
conflation of NOSK and scientific inquiry has plagued research on NOSK from the
beginning and, perhaps, could have been avoided by using the phrase “nature of
scientific knowledge” as opposed to the more commonly used nature of science
(NOS). In this chapter, we will use the term “nature of scientific knowledge” instead
of “nature of science” as it more accurately represents its intended meaning
(Lederman & Lederman, 2004). Now the critical point is what is the appropriate
balance among the three components of science in the science curriculum and sci-
ence instruction? Current reforms have appropriately recognized that the amount of
emphasis has traditionally emphasized the body of knowledge to the detriment of
any emphasis on inquiry or nature of scientific knowledge.
Current visions of science education are returning to the perennial goal of scien-
tifically literacy. Again, the roots of scientific literacy and its justification will be
discussed in more detail later. But, in general, the goal is to help students use their
scientific knowledge to make informed decisions about scientifically based global,
societal, or personal decisions. The literate individual can not make such decisions
based on scientific knowledge alone. They must also understand the source of the
knowledge (i.e., scientific inquiry or the more current term science practices) and
the ontological characteristics of the knowledge (i.e., NOSK).
The focus of this chapter is to elaborate on how the interplay among scientific
inquiry, NOSK, and STEM may, or may not, contribute to the achievement of sci-
entific literacy. Thus this begs the question of “What is STEM?” For sure STEM has
been discussed in each of the chapters in this book. For the sake of brevity, a brief
conceptualization follows. STEM has become one of the newest slogans in educa-
tion, and some critics have noted its ubiquitous and ambiguous use (Bybee, 2013)
throughout policy and science education literature. Bybee (2013) coined the phrase
“STEM literacy” to make the goal of STEM education more explicit. A STEM
approach to science instruction and curriculum incorporates real life problematic
situations that require knowledge of nature of scientific knowledge and scientific
inquiry, in part, which leads toward the end goal of scientific literacy. Therefore, it
could be argued that scientific literacy is the ultimate goal of the integrated STEM
approach. It is important to note, here, that contrary to prevalent misconceptions,
STEM goes well beyond just placing more emphasis on each of the STEM disci-
plines. The integration of the STEM disciplines is the intent of the STEM
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 5

movement. Again, this chapter will focus on whether the interplay of scientific
inquiry, nature of scientific knowledge, and STEM can facilitate the development of
scientific literacy.

1.2  cientific Literacy as the Primary Goal

S
of Science Education

Why should our students learn science and to what extent? Are we teaching our
students to make them scientists? What happens to those students who do not con-
tinue studying science? Don’t they need to learn a minimum amount of science?
These questions are critical to portray the goal of science education. Science educa-
tors believe that the goal of science education is to develop scientific literacy. Since
the first use of ‘scientific literacy’ in the late 1950s, science educators and policy
makers have gradually reconceptualized the term to such an extent that one author
remarked relatively recently that “scientific literacy is an ill-defined and diffuse
concept” (Laugksch, 2000, p. 71). Policy makers and educators often get confused
between “science literacy” and “scientific literacy.” Often they are considered syn-
onymous, although the two have very different meanings. Science literacy focuses
on how much science you know. It is not about applying knowledge and making
decisions. “Science literacy” is mostly associated with AAAS Project 2061
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993). In 1985 AAAS, the
Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation launched
a project that promised to be radical, ambitious, comprehensive and long-term, in
other words, risky and expensive (American Association for the Advancement of
Science, 1994). With that philosophy, the program was aptly named “Project 2061.”
In view of the numerous local, state, and national obstacles and turf infringements,
many wondered whether it would take that long to achieve the goals of the program.
Benchmarks for Science Literacy is the Project 2061 statement of what all students
should know and be able to do in science, mathematics, and technology by the end
of grades 2, 5, 8, and 12. The recommendations at each grade level suggested rea-
sonable progress toward the adult science literacy goals laid out in the project’s
1989 report Science for All Americans AAAS, 1989). Benchmarks helped educators
decide what to include in (or exclude from) a core curriculum, when to teach it,
and why.
On the other hand, “scientific literacy” deals with the aim of helping people use
scientific knowledge to make informed decisions. This is a goal that science educa-
tors have been striving to achieve, but unfortunately many of us have not truly real-
ized the importance of scientific literacy or might have misrepresented the goal in
various platforms. DeBoer (2000) states that the term “scientific literacy” since it
was introduced in the late 1950s has defied precise definition. Although it is widely
claimed to be a desired outcome of science education, not everyone agrees with
what it means.
6 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

The goal of science education became formalized at different times in history.

After the 1960s the science education community became concerned about the role
of science in society, especially given the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union
in 1957. This event led to a significant increase in funding for science education in
an attempt to increase the science pipeline. The primary driving forces were con-
cerns for national security and economic health. In the immediate post-war years, it
was proposed that science educators should work to produce citizens who under-
stood science and were sympathetic to the work of scientists (DeBoer, 2000). The
U.S. was lacking in producing a workforce who could live and work in such a rap-
idly changing world. The goals of science teaching, for general education purposes,
within this new environment came to be called scientific literacy. According to the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund (1958) report, “among the tasks that have increased most
frighteningly in complexity is the task of the ordinary citizen who wishes to dis-
charge his civic responsibilities intelligently” (p. 351). The answer was scientific
literacy. The Board said:
Just as we must insist that every scientist be broadly educated, so we must see to it that
every educated person be literate in science]…. We cannot afford to have our most highly
educated people living in intellectual isolation from one another, without even an elemen-
tary understanding of each other’s intellectual concern. (p. 369)

The national review of Australian science teaching and learning (Goodrum, Rennie,
& Hackling, 2001) defined the attributes of a scientifically literate person. In par-
ticular, it stated that a scientifically literate person is (1) interested in and under-
stands the world about him, (2) can identify and investigate questions and draw
evidence-based conclusions, (3) is able to engage in discussions of and about sci-
ence matters, (4) is skeptical and questioning of claims made by others, and (5) can
make informed decisions about the environment and their own health and wellbeing.
The current NGSS stresses science practices, but there is very little emphasis on
understanding the practices or scientific inquiry and NOSK. Later in this chapter the
critical role of scientific inquiry and NOSK for the achievement of scientific literacy
will be elaborated in detail. Doing science is necessary as a means, but it should not
be the end goal. The end goal should be scientific literacy, which unfortunately is
not explicitly mentioned in the standards.

1.3 STEM as a Mechanism to Achieve Scientific Literacy

STEM education must have an educative purpose which goes beyond the slogan “to
meet 21st century skills.” In the 1990s, the National Science Foundation (NSF)
introduced the STEM acronym as an instructional and curricular approach that
stresses the integration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. But,
its ubiquitous and ambiguous use in the education community has created much
confusion (Angier, 2010). One of the possible reasons could be the lack of consen-
sus on the meaning of STEM. However, even without a common understanding of
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 7

STEM, the development and implementation our STEM curriculum over the years
has not been deterred. Bybee (2013) addressed four components of STEM literacy.
STEM literacy refers to an individual’s
• knowledge, attitudes, and skills to identify questions and problems in life situa-
tions, explain the natural and designed world, and draw evidence-based conclu-
sions about STEM related-issues
• understanding of the characteristic features of STEM disciplines as forms of
human knowledge, inquiry, and design;
• awareness of how STEM disciplines shape our material, intellectual, and cultural
environments; and
• willingness to engage in STEM-related issues and with the ideas of science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics as a constructive, concerned, and
reflective citizen.
From the above components of STEM literacy, it is evident that students need to
have experiences to apply their knowledge and skills. But the debate over other
aspects of STEM education has not been settled yet. For instance, is STEM a sepa-
rate discipline or just an integrated curriculum approach? The idea of considering
STEM as a separate discipline has been a puzzle for many science educators. STEM
disciplines are all different ways of knowing and have different conventions for
what constitutes data and evidence. STEM is an integrated curriculum approach, but
because it deals with different ways of knowing, true integration is never achieved;
just an interdisciplinary connection. Individual STEM disciplines “are based on dif-
ferent epistemological assumptions” and integration of the STEM subjects may
detract from the integrity of any individual STEM subject (Williams, 2011, p. 30).
If STEM is conceptualized as a curriculum approach, its interdisciplinary nature
entails not just the acquisition and application of scientific knowledge, but also the
other knowledge bases. Wang, Moore, Roehrig, and Park (2011) explained that
interdisciplinary integration begins with a real-world problem. It incorporates
cross-curricular content with critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and knowl-
edge in order to reach a conclusion. Students engage themselves in different real-­
life STEM related personal and societal situations to make informed decisions.
More specifically, STEM curriculum in classrooms and programs can ensure five
skill sets including adaptability, complex communications, nonroutine problem
solving, self-management, and systems thinking (NRC, 2008). The National
Research Council (2010) elaborated on these five skills in its report, Exploring the
Intersection of Science Education and 21st-Century Skills. Furthermore, in a second
report (NRC, 2012), Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable
Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century it was emphasized that these 21st century
skills are necessary if students are to solve the personal and societal problems. This
is what it means to be an informed citizen. If we put the components of scientific
literacy alongside STEM in terms of science instruction, it can be argued that both
focus on the context of the world we live in and the decisions we make in everyday
life. Those decisions are not just based on science. Different social, political, cul-
tural perspectives are all part of these decisions. While making those decisions,
8 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

people are supposed to apply some of their other knowledge bases such as mathe-
matical reasoning and technological and engineering processes. For example, if
individuals are supposed to make any decisions about whether wind or solar energy
is best for the environment and economy, it must be kept in mind that the solution is
not just based on scientific knowledge, but also knowledge of other technical or
engineering features that explain how these two types of energy sources actually
operate. Further, mathematical knowledge is needed to be able to calculate the eco-
nomic efficiency of the two sources of energy. Can we imagine any activity that
requires this type of decision making as a part of the STEM curricular approach?
The answer is clearly yes. Thus, it can be argued that STEM as an instructional and
curricular approach is consistent with the idea of scientific literacy.

1.4 The Role of Scientific Inquiry in Science Education

As previously discussed, the unclear definitions and multiple uses of the phrase
“scientific literacy” resulted in much confusion. However, the phrase “scientific
inquiry” is guilty of the same. What it means has been elusive and it is at least one
of the reasons why the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States,
2013) emphasizes “science practices” as opposed to scientific inquiry. The National
Science Education Standards ([NSES] National Research Council, 1996) arguably
made the most concerted effort to unpack the meaning of scientific inquiry. The
NSES envisioned scientific inquiry as both subject matter and pedagogy in its three
part definition. However, with all the effort, confusion remained and the National
Research Council had to develop an addendum of sorts, a few years later, titled
Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000). On the one
hand, scientific inquiry was conceptualized as a teaching approach. That is, the sci-
ence teacher would engage students in situations (mostly open-ended) they could
ask questions, collect data, and draw conclusions. In short, the purpose of the teach-
ing approach was to enable students to learn science subject matter in a manner
similar to how scientists do their work. Although closely related to science pro-
cesses, scientific inquiry extends beyond the mere development of process skills
such as observing, inferring, classifying, predicting, measuring, questioning, inter-
preting and analyzing data. Scientific inquiry includes the traditional science pro-
cesses, but also refers to the combining of these processes with scientific knowledge,
scientific reasoning and critical thinking to develop scientific knowledge. From the
perspective of the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), students are
expected to be able to develop scientific questions and then design and conduct
investigations that will yield the data necessary for arriving at answers for the stated
questions.
Scientific inquiry, in short, refers to the systematic approaches used by scientists
in an effort to answer their questions of interest. Pre-college students, and the gen-
eral public for that matter, believe in a distorted view of scientific inquiry that has
resulted from schooling, the media, and the format of most scientific reports. This
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 9

distorted view is called THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. That is, a fixed set and
sequence of steps that all scientists follow when attempting to answer scientific
questions. A more critical description would characterize THE METHOD as an
algorithm that students are expected to memorize, recite, and follow as a recipe for
success. The visions of reform, as well as any study of how science is done, are
quick to indicate that there is no single fixed set or sequence of steps that all scien-
tific investigations follow. The contemporary view of scientific inquiry advocated is
that the research questions guide the approach and the approaches vary widely
within and across scientific disciplines and fields (Lederman et al., 1998).
The perception that a single scientific method exists owes much to the status of
classical experimental design. Experimental designs very often conform to what is
presented as THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD and the examples of scientific investiga-
tions presented in science textbooks most often are experimental in nature. The
problem, of course, is not that investigations consistent with “the scientific method”
do not exist. The problem is that experimental research is not representative of sci-
entific investigations as a whole. Consequently, a very narrow and distorted view of
scientific inquiry is promoted in our K-12 science curriculum.
At a general level, scientific inquiry can be seen to take several forms (i.e.,
descriptive, correlational, and experimental). Descriptive research is the form of
research that often characterizes the beginning of a line of research. This is the type
of research that derives the variables and factors important to a particular situation
of interest. Whether descriptive research gives rise to correlational approaches
depends upon the field and topic. For example, much of the research in anatomy and
taxonomy are descriptive in nature and do not progress to experimental or correla-
tional types of research. The purpose of research in these areas is very often simply
to describe. On the other hand, there are numerous examples in the history of ana-
tomical research that have lead to more than a description. The initial research con-
cerning the cardiovascular system by William Harvey was descriptive in nature.
However, once the anatomy of blood vessels had been described, questions arose
concerning the circulation of blood through the vessels. Such questions lead to
research that correlated anatomical structures with blood flow and experiments
based on models of the cardiovascular system (Lederman et al., 1998).
To briefly distinguish correlational from experimental research, the former expli-
cates relationships among variables identified in descriptive research and experi-
mental research involves a planned intervention and manipulation of the variables
studied in correlational research in an attempt to derive causal relationships. In
some cases, lines of research can been seen to progress from descriptive to correla-
tional to experimental, while in other cases (e.g., descriptive astronomy) such a
progression is not necessarily possible. This is not to suggest, however, that the
experimental design is more scientific than descriptive or correlational designs but
instead to clarify that there is not a single method applicable to every scientific
question.
Scientific inquiry has always been ambiguous in its presentation within science
education reforms. In particular, inquiry is perceived in three different ways. It can
be viewed as a set of skills to be learned by students and combined in the
10 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

performance of a scientific investigation. It can also be viewed as a cognitive out-

come that students are to achieve. In particular, the current visions of reform (e.g.
NGSS Lead States, 2013; NRC, 1996) are very clear (at least in written words) in
distinguishing between the performance of inquiry (i.e., what students will be able
to do) and what students know about inquiry (i.e., what students should know). For
example, it is one thing to have students set up a control group for an experiment,
while it is another to expect students to understand the logical necessity for a control
within an experimental design. Unfortunately, the subtle difference in wording
noted in the reforms (i.e., “know” versus “do”) is often missed by everyone except
the most careful reader. The third use of “inquiry” in reform documents relates
strictly to pedagogy and further muddies the water. In particular, current wisdom
advocates that students learn science best through an inquiry-oriented teaching
approach. It is believed that students will best learn scientific concepts by doing sci-
ence (NGSS Lead States, 2013).
In this sense, “scientific inquiry” is viewed as a teaching approach used to com-
municate scientific knowledge to students (or allow students to construct their own
knowledge) as opposed to an educational outcome that students are expected to
learn about and learn how to do. Indeed, it is the pedagogical conception of inquiry
that it is unwittingly communicated to most teachers by science education reform
documents, with the two former conceptions lost in the shuffle. Although the pro-
cesses that scientists use when doing inquiry (e.g. observing, inferring, analyzing
data, etc.) are readily familiar to most, knowledge about inquiry, as an instructional
outcome is not. This is the perspective of inquiry that distinguishes current reforms
from those that have previously existed, and it is the perspective on inquiry that is
not typically assessed. In summary, the knowledge about inquiry included in current
science education reform efforts includes the following (NGSS Lead States, 2013,
NRC, 1996):
• Scientific investigations all begin with a question, but do not necessarily test a
hypothesis
• There is no single set and sequence of steps followed in all scientific investiga-
tions (i.e., there is no single scientific method)
• Inquiry procedures are guided by the question asked
• All scientists performing the same procedures may not get the same results
• Inquiry procedures can influence the results
• Research conclusions must be consistent with the data collected
• Scientific data are not the same as scientific evidence
• Explanations are developed from a combination of collected data and what is
already known
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 11

1.5  cientific Inquiry as a Component of Scientific Literacy

S
and Its Relationship to STEM

Although scientific inquiry has been viewed as an important educational outcome

for science students for over 100 years, it was Showalter’s (1974) work that galva-
nized scientific inquiry, as well as NOSK, important components within the over
arching framework of scientific literacy. As previously discussed, the phrase scien-
tific literacy had been discussed by numerous authors before Showalter (Dewey,
1916; Hurd, 1958; National Education Association, 1918, 1920; National Society
for the Study of Education, 1960, among others), it was his work that clearly delin-
eated the dimensions of scientific literacy in a manner that could easily be translated
into objectives for science curricula. Showalter’s framework consisted of the fol-
lowing seven components:
• Nature of Science – The scientifically literate person understands the nature of
scientific knowledge.
• Concepts in Science – The scientifically literate person accurately applies
appropriate science concepts, principles, laws, and theories in interacting with
his universe.
• Processes of Science – The scientifically literate person uses processes of sci-
ence in solving problems, making decisions and furthering his own understand-
ing of the universe.
• Values – The scientifically literate person interacts with the various aspects of
how universe in a way that is consistent with the values that underlie science.
• Science-Society – The scientifically literate person understands and appreciates
the joint enterprise of science and technology and the interrelationships of these
with each other and with other aspects of society.
• Interest – The scientifically literate person has developed a richer, more satisfy-
ing, and more exciting view of the universe as a result of his science education
and continues to extend this education throughout his life.
• Skills – The scientifically literate person has developed numerous manipulative
skills associated with science and technology.
(Showalter, 1974, p. 1–6)
Science processes (now known as inquiry or practices), and NOSK) were clearly
emphasized. The attributes of a scientifically literate individual were later reiterated
by the National Science Teachers Association [NSTA] (1982). The NSTA dimen-
sions of scientific literacy were a bit expanded from Showalter’s and included:
• Uses science concepts, process skills, and values making responsibly everyday
decisions;
• Understands how society influences science and technology as well as how sci-
ence and technology influence society;
• Understands that society controls science and technology through the allocation
of resources;
12 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

• Recognizes the limitations as well as the usefulness of science and technology in

advancing human welfare;
• Knows the major concepts, hypotheses, and theories of science and is able to
use them;
• Appreciates science and technology for the intellectual stimulus they provide;
• Understands that the generation of scientific knowledge depends on inquiry pro-
cess and conceptual theories;
• Distinguishes between scientific evidence and personal opinion;
• Recognizes the origin of science and understands that scientific knowledge is
tentative, and subject to change as evidence accumulates;
• Understands the application of technology and the decisions entailed in the use
of technology;
• Has sufficient knowledge and experience to appreciate the worthiness of research
and technological developments;
• Has a richer and more exciting view of the world as a result of science educa-
tion; and
• Knows reliable sources of scientific and technological information and uses
these sources in the process of decision making.
The importance of scientific inquiry, or practices as it is called in the NGSS, as a
critical component of scientific literacy should be clear.
STEM, in current conceptions, is characterized as an integrated approach to cur-
riculum that addresses the interactions of science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics to solve problems in a more authentic manner than the current curricu-
lum approach. That is, the typical science curriculum has perennially separated the
various disciplines during precollege instruction, not to mention the exclusion of
any formal attention to technology or engineering. Current questions about the natu-
ral world and/or societal or personal issues are more commonly not the purview of
any singular discipline, but rather require the collaboration of various individuals,
working in a team, with various backgrounds and expertise. This is the nature of
STEM. We are not saying that STEM is a discipline with its own “nature” as in
nature of science. We are merely characterizing STEM as a curriculum approach.

1.6  nderstanding Nature of Scientific Knowledge as a Goal

U
of Science Education and Its Relationship
to Scientific Literacy

The relationship and differences between nature of scientific knowledge (NOSK)

and nature of scientific inquiry (SI) is often discussed and confused within existing
literature (Lederman & Lederman, 2014). NOSK, as opposed to the more popular
nature of science (NOS) is used here to be more consistent with the original mean-
ing of the construct (Lederman, 2007).
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 13

Given the manner in which scientists develop scientific knowledge (i.e., SI), the
knowledge is engendered with certain characteristics. These characteristics are
what typically constitute NOS (Lederman, 2007). As mentioned before there is a
lack of consensus among scientists, historians of science, philosophers of science,
and science educators about the particular aspects of NOSK. This lack of consen-
sus, however, should neither be disconcerting nor surprising given the multifaceted
nature and complexity of the scientific endeavor. Conceptions of NOS have changed
throughout the development of science and systematic thinking about science and
are reflected in the ways the scientific and science education communities have
defined the phrase “nature of science” during the past 100 years (e.g., AAAS, 1990,
1993; Central Association for Science and Mathematics Teachers, 1907; Klopfer &
Watson, 1957; NSTA, 1982).
However, many of the disagreements about the definition or meaning of NOSK
that continue to exist among philosophers, historians, and science educators are
irrelevant to K-12 instruction. The issue of the existence of an objective reality as
compared to phenomenal realities is a case in point. There is an acceptable level of
generality regarding NOS that is accessible to K-12 students and relevant to their
daily lives. Moreover, at this level, little disagreement exists among philosophers,
historians, and science educators. Among the characteristics of the scientific enter-
prise corresponding to this level of generality are that scientific knowledge is tenta-
tive (subject to change), empirically-based (based on and/or derived from
observations of the natural world), subjective (theory-laden), necessarily involves
human inference, imagination, and creativity (involves the invention of explana-
tions), and is socially and culturally embedded. Two additional important aspects
are the distinction between observations and inferences, and the functions of, and
relationships between scientific theories and laws. What follows is a brief consider-
ation of these characteristics of science and scientific knowledge.
First, students should be aware of the crucial distinction between observation and
inference. Observations are descriptive statements about natural phenomena that are
“directly” accessible to the senses (or extensions of the senses) and about which
several observers can reach consensus with relative ease. For example, objects
released above ground level tend to fall and hit the ground. By contrast, inferences
are statements about phenomena that are not “directly” accessible to the senses. For
example, objects tend to fall to the ground because of “gravity.” The notion of grav-
ity is inferential in the sense that it can only be accessed and/or measured through
its manifestations or effects. Examples of such effects include the perturbations in
predicted planetary orbits due to inter-planetary “attractions,” and the bending of
light coming from the stars as its rays pass through the sun’s “gravitational” field.
Second, closely related to the distinction between observations and inferences is
the distinction between scientific laws and theories. Individuals often hold a sim-
plistic, hierarchical view of the relationship between theories and laws whereby
theories become laws depending on the availability of supporting evidence. It fol-
lows from this notion that scientific laws have a higher status than scientific theo-
ries. Both notions, however, are inappropriate because, among other things, theories
and laws are different kinds of knowledge and one can not develop or be
14 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

transformed into the other. Laws are statements or descriptions of the relationships
among observable phenomena. Boyle’s law, which relates the pressure of a gas to its
volume at a constant temperature, is a case in point (Lederman et al., 1998).
Theories, by contrast, are inferred explanations for observable phenomena. The
kinetic molecular theory, which explains Boyle’s law, is one example. Moreover,
theories are as legitimate a product of science as laws. Scientists do not usually
formulate theories in the hope that one day they will acquire the status of “law.”
Scientific theories, in their own right, serve important roles, such as guiding inves-
tigations and generating new research problems in addition to explaining relatively
huge sets of seemingly unrelated observations in more than one field of investiga-
tion. For example, the kinetic molecular theory serves to explain phenomena that
relate to changes in the physical states of matter, others that relate to the rates of
chemical reactions, and still other phenomena that relate to heat and its transfer, to
mention just a few.
Third, even though scientific knowledge is, at least partially, based on and/or
derived from observations of the natural world (i.e., empirical), it nevertheless
involves human imagination and creativity. Science, contrary to common belief, is
not a totally lifeless, rational, and orderly activity. Science involves the invention of
explanations and this requires a great deal of creativity by scientists. The “leap”
from atomic spectral lines to Bohr’s model of the atom with its elaborate orbits and
energy levels is a case in point. This aspect of science, coupled with its inferential
nature, entails that scientific concepts, such as atoms, black holes, and species, are
functional theoretical models rather than faithful copies of reality.
Fourth, scientific knowledge is subjective or theory-laden. Scientists’ theoretical
commitments, beliefs, previous knowledge, training, experiences, and expectations
actually influence their work. All these background factors form a mind-set that
affects the problems scientists investigate and how they conduct their investigations,
what they observe (and do not observe), and how they make sense of, or interpret
their observations. It is this (sometimes collective) individuality or mind-set that
accounts for the role of subjectivity in the production of scientific knowledge. It is
noteworthy that, contrary to common belief, science never starts with neutral obser-
vations (Chalmers, 1982). Observations (and investigations) are always motivated
and guided by, and acquire meaning in reference to questions or problems. These
questions or problems, in turn, are derived from within certain theoretical
perspectives.
Fifth, science as a human enterprise is practiced in the context of a larger culture
and its practitioners (scientists) are the product of that culture. Science, it follows,
affects and is affected by the various elements and intellectual spheres of the culture
in which it is embedded. These elements include, but are not limited to, social fab-
ric, power structures, politics, socioeconomic factors, philosophy, and religion. An
example may help to illustrate how social and cultural factors impact scientific
knowledge. Telling the story of the evolution of humans (Homo sapiens) over the
course of the past seven million years is central to the biosocial sciences. Scientists
have formulated several elaborate and differing story lines about this evolution.
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 15

Until recently, the dominant story was centered about “the man-hunter” and his
crucial role in the evolution of humans to the form we now know (Lovejoy, 1981).
This scenario was consistent with the white-male culture that dominated scien-
tific circles up to the 1960s and early 1970s. As the feminist movement grew stron-
ger and women were able to claim recognition in the various scientific disciplines,
the story about hominid evolution started to change. One story that is more consis-
tent with a feminist approach is centered about “the female-gatherer” and her cen-
tral role in the evolution of humans (Hrdy, 1986). It is noteworthy that both story
lines are consistent with the available evidence.
Sixth, it follows from the previous discussions that scientific knowledge is never
absolute or certain. This knowledge, including “facts,” theories, and laws, is tenta-
tive and subject to change. Scientific claims change as new evidence, made possible
through advances in theory and technology, is brought to bear on existing theories
or laws, or as old evidence is reinterpreted in the light of new theoretical advances
or shifts in the directions of established research programs. It should be emphasized
that tentativeness in science does not only arise from the fact that scientific knowl-
edge is inferential, creative, and socially and culturally embedded. There are also
compelling logical arguments that lend credence to the notion of tentativeness in
science. Indeed, contrary to common belief, scientific hypotheses, theories, and
laws can never be absolutely “proven.” This holds irrespective of the amount of
empirical evidence gathered in the support of one of these ideas or the other (Popper,
1963, 1988). For example, to be “proven,” a certain scientific law should account for
every single instance of the phenomenon it purports to describe at all times. It can
logically be argued that one such future instance, of which we have no knowledge
whatsoever, may behave in a manner contrary to what the law states. As such, the
law can never acquire an absolutely “proven” status. This equally holds in the case
of hypotheses and theories.
It is clear from the attributes of a scientifically literate individual espoused by
Showalter (1974) and NSTA (1982), that NOSK is considered a critical component
of scientific literacy. If precollege and postsecondary students are expected to make
informed decisions about scientifically based personal and societal issues they must
have an understanding of the sources and limits of scientific knowledge. For exam-
ple, it is becoming increasingly common for the public to hear alternative view-
points presented by scientists on the same topic. Are organic foods healthier to eat?
Should GMOs be avoided at all costs or are they perfectly safe? Is drinking water
with a pH of approximately 7.3 healthier than drinking water that is more alkaline
or more acidic? In Asia it is believed that the ingestion of cold liquids puts a stress
on your body and should be avoided. Consequently, it is not uncommon to find
drinking fountains that provide warm and hot water as opposed to the cold water
provided by drinking fountains in most regions throughout the world. You can find
qualified scientists arguing both sides of the aforementioned issues. Sometimes the
claims are based on pseudoscience, like current claims that there really is no global
warming or the claim that biological evolution never occurred. Alternatively, these
differences in perspectives and knowledge are the result of science in action. It is the
results of the nature of scientific knowledge. Science is done by humans and it is
16 N. G. Lederman and J. Lederman

limited, or strengthened by the foibles that all humans have. Scientific knowledge is
tentative, or subject to change. We never have all of the data, and if we did we would
not know it. If you look up in the sky on a clear night you will see a white, circular
object. We would all agree that the object is the moon. Three hundred years ago if
we looked at the same object we would call it a planet. This is because the current
view of our solar system is guided by heliocentric theory. This theory places the sun
at the center of the solar system and any objects orbiting the sun is a planet (e.g., the
earth) and any object orbiting a planet is a moon or satellite. Three hundred years
ago our view was guided by the geocentric theory which places the earth at the
center and anything orbiting the earth was considered a planet (e.g., our current
moon). The objects and observations have not changed, but our interpretation has
because of a change in the theories we adopt. You could say that our theories “bias”
our interpretations of data. Scientists make observations, but then eventually make
inferences because all the data are not accessible through our senses. This is why
scientific knowledge is tentative and partly a function of human subjectivity and
creativity. The examples illustrating the characteristics of scientific knowledge (i.e.,
NOSK) are endless and an understanding of these characteristics is critical when
making decisions on scientifically based issues.

1.7  he Promise of STEM and the Achievement

T
of Scientific Literacy

Given the previous discussions about inquiry, NOSK, STEM, and scientific literacy,
it seems quite logical to assume that revising our curricular approach to be more
consistent with STEM, and the vision of the NGSS, would enhance our ability to
enhance the scientific literacy of our precollege and postsecondary students. After
all, a STEM approach seems to be a more authentic because it does not pigeonhole
the issues our citizens face into discrete discipline “silos.” Indeed, none of the really
significant issues that affect us as a global community, society, culture, or individu-
ally are the purview of any single discipline. Further, it can be argued that none of
the significant scientifically based issues we face are limited to the STEM fields.
Isn’t this why we see additionally permutations of STEM, such as STEAM? In sum-
mary, STEM provides the scientific and technical knowledge, while scientific
inquiry and NOSK provides us with knowledge about how the subject matter is
developed (inquiry) and the unavoidable characteristics (NOSK) derived from how
the knowledge was developed.
Logic is one thing, but what do we know and what do we need to know? Is there
strong empirical support to show that students exposed to STEM exhibit increased
achievement, critical thinking, and problem solving ability? It seems the first place
to look is at the research on integrated instruction (see Czerniak, 2007; Czerniak &
Johnson, 2014). The idea of integration has existed for over 100 years, and it mainly
focused on the integration of science and mathematics. In the past decade there has
1 Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Inquiry 17

been an increase in empirical research mainly because of the emergence of STEM

and the NGSS. In general, empirical support for integrated instruction is mixed at
best. It is important to note that “integration” has many different meanings and that
none of the research systematically has focused on the integration of science and
engineering, although engineering projects have often been included in traditional
science courses.
There are definite obstacles to using STEM to achieve scientific literacy. Some
are general, but others are specific to NOSK and scientific inquiry. At the general
level is the issue of teacher preparation. The current approach to the education of
teachers is specific to the particular disciplinary licensure. That is, teachers are pre-
pared to become biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and earth science teach-
ers, among others. Given the volumes of research on pedagogical content knowledge
and discipline specific pedagogy using a “generalist” is not advisable. Consequently,
either licensure programs will need to be changed or STEM will have to integrate
learning through team teaching or a middle school model. In either case, the obsta-
cles are huge.
Will there be a capstone STEM course or will STEM be included in every course?
If it is included in every course, then obviously the “home” discipline (e.g., chemis-
try) will be emphasized over the other STEM disciplines. This is hardly true integra-
tion. If STEM is seen as a capstone course, the road forward will be easier, although
the licensure of teachers previously discussed remains a problem.
Let us not forget that the focus of this chapter is on scientific inquiry and
NOSK. And it is in this area that STEM is most problematic. Theoretically, the
rationale for the STEM approach is to enable students to more authentically engage
in real world problems of interest that enable them to learn the subject matter of the
STEM disciplines and demonstrate the decision-making skills evident in a scientifi-
cally literate individual. Such a curriculum or instructional approach most obvi-
ously focuses on problem solving and critical thinking. Whenever disciplines are
integrated the nature of the disciplines and how disciplinary knowledge is devel-
oped. This brings us back to inquiry and NOSK. For example, science attempts to
answer questions about the natural world. It does not try to produce any a priori
outcomes. Engineering, on the other hand, attempts to produce certain effects.
Surely, engineering and the sciences are closely related, but they are different.
Science never claims to arrive at absolute truths. All knowledge is subject to change.
However, mathematics can arrive at absolute proofs in the mathematical world that
it has created. Science must test its knowledge against the natural world, it is empiri-
cally based. Mathematics is not necessarily empirically based, it has imaginary
numbers. When dealing with lower level knowledge you can integrate the knowl-
edge around relevant themes. However, when it comes to higher level applications
and decisions, the conventions of inquiry, the conventions of what constitutes evi-
dence, and the ontological status of the knowledge differ. In true integration disci-
plinary knowledge of one way of knowing is not privileged above another. It seems
with such different ways of knowing, the obstacle of STEM may be insurmountable
when it comes to issues of inquiry and NOSK.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
least for the moment safe in unconsciousness from the screaming, tearing,
grabbing world.
The next morning, then, when Laura came down punctually at nine
o’clock to breakfast—for however late she went to bed her restless vitality,
once it was broad daylight, prevented her being able to stay there, which
made her unpopular in country houses,—she found Charles in the dining-
room, standing with his back to the fire.
‘How much you must love me,’ she remarked sarcastically, being, after a
bad night, a little cross.
‘I don’t love you at all at this moment,’ said Charles.
‘Then is it breakfast you want?’
‘No,’ said Charles.
‘Can it be Sally?’
‘Yes,’ said Charles.
‘Fancy,’ said Laura; and poured herself out some coffee.
‘How is she?’ asked Charles after a pause, ignoring such silliness.
‘Oh, quite well,’ said Laura. ‘She was tired last night.’
‘Tired! I should think so,’ said Charles severely. ‘I’ve come to ask her if
she will let me take her into the country for the day. It’s my intention to get
her away from your crowd for a few hours.’
‘Rescue her, in fact,’ said Laura, munching, her back to him.
‘Exactly,’ said Charles, who was angry.
‘I expect Tom’—Tom was Lord Streatley—‘will be here soon, wanting
to rescue her too,’ remarked Laura, glancing out of the window to where
she could see Charles’s touring car standing, and no chauffeur. ‘He won’t
bring his chauffeur either. Have some?’ she asked, holding up the coffee-
pot.
‘Can’t you be a little beast when you give your mind to it,’ said Charles.
‘Well, you scolded me last night because I had rescued her, and now here
you are——’
Laura broke off, and hastily drank some coffee. She didn’t really want to
quarrel with Charles; she never had yet. In fact, till Sally appeared on the
scene she had never quarrelled with any of her family. Besides in her heart,
though she was cross that morning, not having slept well for the first time
for years because of being worried and conscience-stricken and anxious,
she was glad that Charles should take Sally off her hands. She had so much
to do that day, so many important engagements; and if Sally went with her
everybody would instantly be upset, and if she left her at home she would
be a prey to Streatley. Other people wishing to prey on her could be kept
out by a simple order to the servants, but not her own brother. And
Streatley, when he was infatuated, was a gross creature, and there would be
more trouble and wretchedness for poor Kitty his wife, let alone God
knowing what mightn’t happen to Sally.
If Sally had to be with one or the other of them, Charles was far the
better; but what a very great pity it was, Laura thought as she pretended to
be absorbed in her breakfast, that she hadn’t let her go back the day before
to where she belonged. It wasn’t any sort of fun quarrelling with her dearest
brother Charles, and seeing him look as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Besides,
Sally was going to have a baby. At least, so she had informed Laura during
the night, basing her conviction on the close resemblance between her
behaviour in fainting, and her subsequent behaviour when she came to in
being violently sick, and the behaviour of somebody called Mrs. Ooper,
who had lived next door at Islington, and every spring, for seven years
running, had fainted just like that and then been sick,—and sure as fate,
Sally had told Laura in a feeble murmur, there at Christmas in each of those
seven years had been another little baby.
‘I don’t want no doctor,’ she had whispered, putting out a cold hand and
catching at Laura’s arm when, dismayed at Sally’s sickness just as they had
at last been able to undress her and get her into bed, she was running to the
telephone to call hers up.
‘But, my darling,’ Laura had said, bending over her and smoothing back
the hair from her damp forehead with quick, anxious movements, ‘he’ll
give you something to make you well again.’
‘No, ’e won’t,’ Sally had whispered, looking up at her with a faint, proud
smile, ‘ ’cos I ain’t ill. I know wot’s ’appenin’ all right. It’s a little baby.’
And then she had told Laura, who had to stoop down close to hear, about
Mrs. Ooper.
Well, Laura didn’t know much about babies before they were born, but
she was sure a person who was expecting any ought to be with her husband.
She couldn’t kidnap whole families; she hadn’t bargained for more than one
Luke. And during the few hours that remained of the night, after she had
seen Sally go off to sleep with an expression of beatitude on her face, she
had tossed about in her own bed in a fever of penitence.
When would she learn not to interfere? When would she learn to hang on
to her impulses, and resist sudden temptation? Up to then she had never
even tried to. And a vision of what Sally’s unfortunate young husband must
be feeling, and of course his mother too, who might be tiresome but hadn’t
deserved this, produced the most painful sensations in Laura’s naturally
benevolent heart.
She would make amends,—oh, she would make amends. She would take
Sally to Cambridge herself on Saturday, when she was through with her
London engagements, and find rooms for her, and explain everything to the
young man, and beg his pardon. Perhaps, too, she could tell him a little of
Sally’s fear of his mother, and perhaps she might be able to persuade him
not to let her live with them; for Laura had often noticed, though each time,
being a member of the Labour Party, with shame and regret, that the
persuasions of the daughter of a duke are readily listened to. But she didn’t
want to make amends that day,—she was too busy; and she couldn’t send a
telegram, or anything like that, letting the Lukes know where Sally was,
because it would only bring them about her ears in hordes, and she simply
hadn’t time that day for hordes. Laura’s intentions, that is, were admirable,
but deferred.
‘Isn’t she coming down?’ asked Charles at last, for Laura, with her back
to him pretending to eat her breakfast, had said no more.
‘She’s having breakfast upstairs,’ said Laura.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, annoyed.
‘Because you say I’m a little beast, so I may as well do the thing
thoroughly.’
Charles went across to the bell.
‘No—don’t ring,’ said Laura jumping up. ‘I’ll go and tell her.’ And she
went to the door, but hesitated, and came back to him, and laid her hand on
his arm.
He withdrew his arm.
‘Charles—are you so angry with me?’ she asked.
 ‘You’ve behaved simply disgracefully,’ he answered in a voice of deep
disgust. ‘You would sacrifice anybody to provide your friends with a new
sensation.’
Laura looked at him. It was true; or had been true. But she wasn’t going
to ever any more, she was going to turn over a new leaf—next day, when
she had finished with all her tiresome and important engagements.
‘You sacrificed that child’—began Charles, passionately indignant when
he thought of the unconscious figure on the floor.
‘Don’t you sacrifice her,’ interrupted Laura. And when Charles stared at
her, too angry for speech, she added hastily, ‘Oh, don’t let’s quarrel, Charles
darling. I’m sure you’ll take the greatest care of her. I’ll go and fetch her.
Drive slowly, won’t you—and bring her back safe. Tomorrow I’m going to
hand her over to her husband.’

§
Now in his heart Charles knew that this was the only right thing to do.
Sally ought never to have been taken away from her husband, and, having
been taken, ought to be returned to him. At once. Not tomorrow, but at
once. He didn’t know the circumstances, except what Laura had hurriedly
told him the night before after supper, about having found her in a train,
dissolved in tears because her father was sending her back to a mother-in-
law who was awful to her, and she had brought her home with her just to
comfort her, just to let her recover; but it was plain that such conduct on
Laura’s part was indefensible. If ever anybody ought to be safe at home it
was Sally. She should be taken there without losing a moment. Disgraceful
of Laura to put it off for another day and night, while she kept her fool
engagements. Having behaved so wickedly, she ought, without losing an
hour, to set things straight again.
Charles felt strongly about Laura’s conduct; yet, though he himself could
have set things straight by simply driving Sally back to the Lukes that
morning, he didn’t do so. That was because he couldn’t. He was in love,
and therefore couldn’t.
There are some things it is impossible to do when you are in love,
thought Charles, who recognised and admitted his condition, and one is to
hand over the beloved to a brute. Luke was a brute. Clearly he was, from
what Sally had said the night before. He was either angry—angry with that
little angel!—or he oh-Sallied. A cold shudder ran down Charles’s spine.
The thought made him feel really sick, for he was a tender-stomached as
well as a tender-hearted young man, and possessed an imagination which
was sometimes too lively for comfort. It wouldn’t be his hand that delivered
her up to a young brute; nor, he suddenly determined, on the butler’s
hurrying out to Laura, who was standing on the steps seeing him and Sally
off, and saying with urgency, ‘Lord Streatley to speak to Mrs. Luke on the
telephone,’ would it be his hand that delivered her up to an old one. At once
on hearing the message he started the car, and was out of the square before
Laura could say anything. There was Sally, tucked up beside him in Laura’s
furs, and looking more beautiful in broad sunshine even than he
remembered her the night before,—a child of light and grace if ever there
was one, thought Charles, a thing of simple sweetness and obedience and
trust; and was he going to bring her back to another evening’s exploitation
by his sister and her precious friends, with that old scoundrel, his elder
brother, all over her?
Never, said Charles to himself; and headed his car for Crippenham.

§
Crippenham was where his father was. What so safe as a refuge for Sally
as his father? He was ninety-three, and he was deaf. A venerable age; a
convenient failing. Convenient indeed in this case, for the Duke, like
Charles, took little pleasure in the speech of the lower classes. Also he was
alone there till Laura should come back to him on the following day,
because nobody was ever invited to Crippenham, which was his yearly rest-
cure, and nobody ever dared even try to disturb its guarded repose.
Charles felt that it was, besides being the only, the very place. Here Sally
could be kept remote and hidden till Laura—not he; he wouldn’t be able to
do such a thing—restored her to where she belonged; here she would be
safe from the advances of Streatley, who couldn’t follow her anywhere his
father was, because the old man had an aversion to the four surviving fruits
of his first marriage, and freely showed it; and here he would have her to
himself for a whole evening, and part at least of the next day.
Also, it would serve Laura right. She would get a fright, and think all
sorts of things had happened when they didn’t come back. Well, thought
Charles, she deserved everything she got. Under the cloak of protecting and
comforting Sally she had been completely selfish and cruel. Charles was
himself astonished at the violence of his feelings towards Laura, with whom
he had always been such friends. He didn’t investigate these feelings,
however; he didn’t investigate any of his other feelings either, not excepting
the one he had when he asked Sally, soon after they had turned the corner
out of the square, if she were warm enough, and she looked up shyly at him,
and smiled as she politely thanked him, for his feelings since the evening
before no longer bore investigation. They were a mixed lot, a strong lot.
And it vexed Charles to know that even as early in the day as this, and not
much after half past nine in the morning, he wished to kiss Sally.
This wasn’t at all the proper spirit of rescue. He drove in silence. He
couldn’t remember having wished to kiss a woman before at half past nine
in the morning, and it annoyed him.
Sally, of course, was silent too. Not for her to speak without being
spoken to, and she sat mildly wondering that she should be going along in a
car at all. Laura had come up to her bedroom and said her brother was there,
wanting to take her out for a little fresh air. Do her good, Laura had said,
though Sally had never known good come of fresh air yet; but, passive as a
parcel, she had let herself be taken. Why, however, she should be going for
a joy-ride with this lord she didn’t know, though she supposed it was as
good a way as another of getting through the intimidating day among the
picks of the basket, and anyhow this way there was only one of them, and
anyhow he wasn’t the big old one with the hairs on his hands.
Queer lot, these picks, thought Sally. Didn’t seem to have anything to do
to keep them at home; seemed to spend their time going somewhere else.
Fidgety. And a vision of her own life as it was going to be once she was
settled in those rooms at Cambridge, getting ready for her little baby, and
cleaning up, and making things cosy for her man, flooded her heart with a
delicious warmth. Laura had promised to help her find the rooms, and take
her to where Mr. Luke would be. Mr. Luke wouldn’t be angry any more
now, thought Sally—he’d be too pleased about the little baby; and Laura
seemed to know exactly where they would find him, and had assured her he
wouldn’t want to have Mrs. Luke living with them. Laura was queer too, in
Sally’s eyes, but good. Indeed Sally, feeling very much the married woman
after what had happened the evening before, feeling motherly already,
feeling exalted by the coming of her baby to a height immensely above
mere spinsterhood, went so far as to say to herself of Laura, with indulgent
affection, ‘Nice kid.’

§
They lunched at Thaxted. It was still only half past twelve, and Charles
had managed to be three hours doing the forty odd miles. There was a
beautiful church at Thaxted in which he could linger with her, for he didn’t
want to get to Crippenham till tea-time, and Crippenham was only about
nine miles beyond Cambridge, off the Ely road between Waterbeach and
Swaffham Prior.
Up to Thaxted, Charles was filled with an embarrassingly strong desire
to appropriate Sally for ever to himself. He hadn’t an idea how to do it, but
that was his wish. She sat there silent, beautiful beyond his dreams—and
how often and how wistfully had he not dreamt of what a woman’s beauty
might be!—pathetic, defenceless in the midst of a rudely jostling, predatory
world, like a child with a priceless pearl in its hand among the poor and
hungry, and he passionately loved her. As the miles increased, so did
Charles’s passion. He looked at her sideways, and each time with a fresh
throb of wonder. He wove dreams about her; he saw visions of magic
casements and perilous seas, and she behind them, protected, guarded,
worshipped by him alone; his soul was filled with poetry; he was lifted
above himself by this Presence, this Manifestation; he thought in terms of
music; the whole of England sang.
But at Thaxted he felt different, and began to think Sally ought to be
with those she belonged to; and by the time it was evening, and he was
meditating alone in the garden at Crippenham, he was quite sure of it.
At Thaxted he ordered the best lunch he could—Sally’s mouth watered
as she listened,—and while it was being got ready he took her into the
church. She was inattentively polite. The brisk movements of a big, close-
cropped man in a cassock, who strode busily about and made what seemed
to Sally a curtsey each time he crossed the middle aisle, appeared to interest
her much more than Charles’s remarks on the clear, pale beauty of the
building. It was rather like taking a dog to look at things. Charles didn’t
consciously think this, but there was an unawareness about Sally when
faced by the beauties of Thaxted Church, and when faced, coming down, by
the beauties of certain bits of the country that singing April morning, which
was very like, Charles subconsciously thought, the unawareness of a dog.
Ah, but how far, far more beautiful she herself was than anything else, he
thought; how exquisite she looked in Laura’s chinchilla wrap, with the
exalted thoughts of the men who had built the church, thoughts frozen into
the delicate greys, and silvers, and rose-colours of that fair wide place, for
her background.
The man in the cassock left off doing whatever he was doing on catching
sight of Sally, and, after looking at her a moment, came up and offered, his
eyes on her face, to show them round the church; a little cluster of
Americans dissolved, and flowed towards her; and a woman dressed like a
nun broke off her prayers, and presently sidled up to where she stood.
Charles removed her.
Thaxted is a quiet place, and he strolled with her through its streets till
their food should be ready. Its streets, quiet to begin with, didn’t stay quiet.
The people of Thaxted, for some reason incomprehensible to Charles,
because no two women could be more unlike, seemed to think Sally was
Mary Pickford. He heard whispers to that effect. Did they then think, too,
that he was the person known, he understood, as Doug?
He removed her a second time.
Perhaps the inn was as good a place as any to wait in. He had, however,
to engage a private room for their lunch, because so many people came in
and wished to lunch too; and it was when Sally had eaten a great deal of
greengage tart and cream—bottled greengages, Charles feared, but she said
she liked them—and drunk a great deal of raspberry syrup which had, he
was sure, never been near real raspberries and couldn’t be very good for
her, and then, while he was having coffee and she tea—he had somehow
stumbled on the fact that she liked tea after meals, and he watched with
concern the strength and number of the cups she drank—it was then that she
began to thaw, and to talk.
Alas, that she should. Alas, that she didn’t remain for ever silent,
wonderful, mysterious, of God.
Once having started thawing, it wasn’t in Sally’s generous nature to stop.
She thawed and thawed, and Charles became more and more afflicted. Lord
Charles—so, the night before, she had learned he was called—was
evidently a chip off the same block as her friend Laura; kind, that is. See
what a lovely dinner he was giving her. Also he had been much more like a
gentleman that day, and less like somebody who wanted to be a husband;
and after the greengage tart she began to warm up, and by the time she had
got to the cups of tea she felt great confidence in Charles.
‘Kind, ain’t you,’ she said with her enchanting smile, when he suggested,
much against his convictions, another pot of tea.
‘Isn’t everybody?’ asked Charles.
‘Does their best,’ said Sally charitably. ‘But it’s up ’ill all the way for
some as I could mention.’
By this time Charles was already feeling chilled. The raspberry syrup
and the cups of strong tea had estranged him. This perfect girl, he thought,
ought to be choice too in her food, ought instinctively to reject things out of
bottles, and have no desire for a second helping of obviously bad pastry.
Still, she was very young. He too, at Eton, had liked bad tuck. After all,
queer as it seemed, she had only got to the age he was at then.
He made excuses for her; and, it appearing to him important that he
should be in possession of more facts about her than those Laura had told
him the evening before, said encouragingly, ‘Do mention them.’
Sally did. She mentioned everybody and everything; and soon he knew
as much about her hasty marriage, hurried on within a fortnight to the first
man who came along, her return from her honeymoon to South Winch, the
determination of her mother-in-law to keep her apart from her husband, her
flight, helped by her father-in-law, back to her father, his rejection of her,
and her intention to rejoin her husband next day at Cambridge whether he
liked it or not, as he could bear.
He couldn’t bear much. It wasn’t only how she said it, but what she said.
Charles, who had at first been afflicted by her language, was now afflicted
by her facts. He shifted uneasily in his chair. He smoked cigarette after
cigarette. His thin brown face was flushed, and he looked distressed. In that
strange, defective, yet all too vivid speech which he so deeply deplored, she
drew for him a picture of what seemed sheer exploitation, culminating in
his own sister’s flinging herself hilariously into the game. This child; this
helpless child, who would obey anybody, go anywhere, do anything she
was told—in Charles’s eyes, as he listened and drew her out, she became
the most pathetic thing on earth. Everybody, it appeared, first grabbed at her
and then wanted to get rid of her. Everybody; himself too. Yes, he too had
grabbed at her, under a mealy-mouthed pretence of helping her, and now he
too wanted—not to get rid of her, that seemed too violent, too brutal a way
of putting it, but to hand her over, to pass her on, to send her back to that
infernal young Luke, who himself was trying to escape from her and leave
her to his mother. And the courage of the child! It was the courage of
ignorance, of course, but still it seemed to Charles a lovely thing, that was
afraid of nothing, of no discomfort, of no hard work, if only she might be
with her husband in their own home. Charles discovered that that was
Sally’s one wish, and that her simple ambition appeared to be to do what
she called work her fingers to the bone on behalf of that odious youth.
‘Mr. Luke,’ said Sally, who was unacquainted with any reason why she
shouldn’t say everything she knew to anyone who wished to hear, ‘Mr.
Luke, ’e thinks ’e can’t afford a ’ome yet for me, and so——’
‘Then he oughtn’t to have married you,’ flashed out Charles, infuriated
by the young brute.
‘Seemed ’e couldn’t ’elp it,’ said Sally. ‘Seemed as if it ’ad to be. ’E
——’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ interrupted Charles impatiently, for he hated hearing
anything about Jocelyn’s emotions. ‘Of course, of course. That was a quite
foolish remark of mine.’
‘Five ’undred pounds a year ’e got,’ went on Sally, ‘and me able to make
sixpence go twice as far as most can. Dunno wot ’e’s talkin’ about.’
And indeed she didn’t know, for she shared Mr. Pinner’s opinion that
five hundred a year was wealth.
‘Fair beats me,’ she added, after a thoughtful pause.
Well, thought Charles, the Moulsford family had behaved badly, and,
under the cloak of sympathy and wishing to help, his and Laura’s conduct
had been most base; but they were certainly going to make up for it now.
By God, yes. Crippenham, which he had at first thought of from sheer
selfishness as the very place to get Sally to himself in, was evidently now
the place of all others from which she could be helped. Quite close to
Cambridge, within easy reach of young Luke, and in it, all-powerful even
now in spite of his age, certainly all-powerful when it came to putting the
fear of God into an undergraduate, or whatever he was, his ancient but still
inflammable father. Naturally at ninety-three the old man consisted
principally of embers; but these embers could still be fanned into a partial
glow by the sight of a good horse or a beautiful woman, and Charles would
only need to show Sally to him to have the old man on her side. Not able to
hear, but able to see: what combination could, in the case of Sally, possibly
be more admirable?
He drove on after lunch, his conscience clear; so clear that before
leaving Thaxted he sent Laura a telegram telling her they were going to
Crippenham, because he no longer wanted her to be made anxious,—for
those only, thought Charles, are angry and wish to make others
uncomfortable who are themselves in the wrong. He was no longer in the
wrong; or, rather, he was no longer thinking with rapture of the wrong he
would like to be in if Sally could be in it with him. Her speech made a gulf
between them which his fastidious soul couldn’t cross. There had to be h’s
before Charles could love with passion. Where there were none, passion
with him collapsed and died. On this occasion it died at the inn at Thaxted
towards the end of lunch; and he was grateful, really, however unpleasant at
the moment its dying was. For what mightn’t have happened if she had
gone on being silent and only saying yes and no, and smiling the divine,
delicious smile that didn’t only play in her dimples but laughed and danced
in her darling eyes? Charles was afraid that in that case he would have been
done for. Talking, she had saved him; and though he still loved her, for no
man could look at Sally and not love her, he loved her differently,—kindly,
gently, with a growingly motherly concern for her welfare. After Thaxted
there was no further trace in his looks and manner of that which had made
Sally suspect him of a wish to be a husband.
But she was surprised when he asked her, as they drove along, whether
she would mind if he took her to his father in the country for the night,
instead of back to what he called noisy London. Laura was in London; why
should she be taken somewhere else, away from her? And to his father too
—to more picks, fresh ones; just as she was beginning to shake down nicely
with the ones she knew. Surely the father of the picks would be the most
frightening of all?
So she said, ‘Pardon?’ and looked so much alarmed that Charles,
smiling, explained that his father was staying at that moment quite near
Cambridge, and it would be convenient for the search for rooms she had
told him Laura had promised to undertake with her next day.
‘He’s quite harmless,’ Charles assured her, for she continued to look
alarmed—if where she was to be taken to next was near Cambridge, it must
also be near Woodles, and suppose her father were to happen to see her?
—‘and he’s all alone there till Laura goes back to him tomorrow. It will
cheer him up to have us. He’s ninety-three.’
Ninety-three? ‘Oh, my,’ said Sally politely. ‘ ’E ain’t ’alf old. Poor old
gentleman,’ she added with compassion, old people having been objects of
special regard and attention in the Pinner circle.
But for the rest of the drive she was silent, for she was trying to thread
her way among her indistinct and entangled thoughts, all of which seemed
confusedly to press upon her notice that she oughtn’t to be where she was at
all, that if she was anywhere it ought to be with her husband, and that with
every hour that passed she was sinking deeper and deeper in wrong-doing.
‘Soon be in right up to the neck,’ she said to herself with resigned
unhappiness; and sincerely wished it were that time tomorrow, and she
safely joined up with Mr. Luke, and finished for good and all with these
soft-spoken but headstrong picks.
 XIII

§
While they, along the roads, were drawing every minute nearer, the
unconscious Duke was sitting in his plain study, having his plain tea, which
had been set beside him by his plain parlourmaid. This is not to say that the
parlourmaid was ill-favoured, but only that she wasn’t a footman.
There were no footmen at Crippenham. There was hardly anything there,
except the Duke. For years it had been his conviction that this annual
fortnight of the rest that is obtained by complete contrast prolonged his life.
Something evidently prolonged it, and the Duke was sure it was
Crippenham. There he went every Easter alone with Laura, because it was a
small house, and an ugly house, and a solitary house, and had nothing to
recommend it except that it was the exact opposite of every other
Moulsford possession.
Only Charles could come and go as he pleased; only he could dare break
in without notice on the sacred yearly business of prolonging life. Although
he had had ninety-three years of it, the Duke still wanted more. He liked
being alive, and it pleased him to keep Streatley waiting. Streatley, and the
other three children of his first marriage—absurd, he thought, to have to
refer to those four old things as children—were unpopular with their father.
He had never at any time cared much for them, and had begun to be really
angry with them when he was a lively seventy, and perceived that the
possession of children bordering on a heavy fifty made him seem less
young than he felt himself to be. Now that they were practically seventy
themselves, and old seventies too, and he not looking a day different, he
hoped, from what he had looked thirty years before, he was angrier with
them than ever. He admitted that other people might be old at ninety-three,
but he wasn’t; he was the exception. He didn’t feel old, and he didn’t, he
considered, look old, so what was all this talk of age? The press never
mentioned him without the prefix venerable; people pretended he was deaf,
when he could hear as well as any man if he wasn’t mumbled at; Laura was
continually making him sit out of draughts, just as if he were a damned
invalid; arms were offered him if he wanted to walk a few steps—he
couldn’t appear in the House without some officious member of it, usually
that ass Chepstow, who was eighty if a day himself, ambling across to help;
and every time he had a birthday the newspapers tumbled over each other
with their offensively astonished congratulations. Couldn’t a man be over
ninety without having it perpetually rubbed into him that he was old?
What he loved was his brood of young ones—Laura, Terry, and Charles;
and of this lively trio the dearest to him was Charles. So that, looking up
from his seedcake and seeing his last born coming into the room, not only
entirely unexpectedly but with a young woman, though he was surprised he
wasn’t angry; and when on their coming close to him he perceived the
exceeding fairness of the young woman, his surprise became pleasurable;
very pleasurable; in fact, pleasurable to excess.
He stared up at Sally a moment, not listening to what Charles was
saying, and then struggled to get on to his feet. Younger than his three
young ones ... much, much younger than his three young ones ... youth, ah,
youth ... lovely, lovely youth....
Charles wanted to help him, but was thrust aside. ‘Poor old gentleman,’
said Sally, catching him by the arm as he seemed about to lose his balance
and drop back into the chair.
‘Married?’ asked the Duke, breathing hard after his exertion, and looking
at Charles.
Charles shook his head.
‘ ’Course I’m married,’ said Sally with heat.
‘He means us,’ said Charles.
‘Us?’ repeated Sally, much shocked.
‘You’re going to be, then,’ said the Duke, looking first at her and then at
Charles, his face red with pleasure.
Charles shook his head again, and laughed.
But the Duke didn’t laugh. He stared at him a minute, and then said,
‘Fool.’
‘I got a nusband,’ said Sally indignantly.
‘He can’t hear,’ said Charles. ‘He’s very deaf.’
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke. ‘Speak clearly, my dear—no,
don’t shout,’ he added; though Sally, far from going to shout, wasn’t even
opening her mouth. Poor old gentleman, she thought, gazing at him in silent
compassion; fancy him still being anybody’s father.
The Duke took her hand in a dry, cold grip.
‘Like shakin’ ’ands with a tombstone,’ thought Sally. And she was filled
with so great a pity for anything so old that she didn’t feel shy of him at all,
and in the coaxing voice of one who is addressing a baby she said, ‘ ’Ave
yer tea while it’s ’ot—do, now.’
Charles looked at her astonished. Nearly everybody was afraid of his
father. She reminded him of the weaned child in Isaiah, who put its hand
fearlessly on the cockatrice’s den.
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke, gazing at her with delight.
‘This is Mrs. Luke, Father—a friend of Laura’s,’ shouted Charles, ‘and
I’ve brought her——’
‘Write it down, my dear,’ said the Duke, not heeding Charles, and
drawing Sally into a chair next his own and pushing paper and a pencil
towards her with his shaking old hands. ‘Write down what you were saying
to me.’
Charles became anxious. He felt sure Sally couldn’t write anything
down. Nor could she; for if her spoken words were imperfect her written
ones were worse, so that to be given a pencil and paper by the Duke and
told to write might have been embarrassing if she hadn’t, owing to his
extreme age and evident dilapidation, felt he wasn’t, as she said to herself,
all there. Poor old gentleman, she thought, full of pity. What she saw, sitting
heavily in the chair, breathing hard and blinking at her so kindly, was just,
thought Sally, the remains, the left-overs; like, she said to herself, her
images being necessarily domestic, Sunday’s dinner by the time one got to
Friday,—not much good, that is, but had to be put up with. No; there was
nothing frightening about him, poor old gentleman. More like a baby than
anything else.
‘ ’Ave yer tea while it’s ’ot,’ she said again, gently putting the paper and
pencil aside. ‘Do you good,’ she encouraged, ‘a nice ’ot cup of tea will.’
‘He can’t hear, you know,’ said Charles, much relieved by Sally’s
attitude. But with what confidence, he thought, couldn’t a thing so gracious
approach the most churlish, disgruntled of human beings; and his father
wasn’t either churlish or disgruntled,—he only looked as if he were, and
frightened people, and when he saw they were frightened he didn’t like
them, and frightened them more than ever.
The Duke, watching Sally’s every movement with rapt attention, thought
when she put her hand on the teapot to feel if it was still hot that she wanted
tea herself, and bade Charles ring the bell and order more to be brought, and
meanwhile he took the cup she offered him obediently, his eyes on her face.
He hadn’t got as far, being still in too great a condition of amazement at her
beauty, as wondering which of the ancient families of England had
produced this young shoot of perfection, and not being able to hear a word
she said took it for granted that the delicate-ankled—he was of the
practically extinct generation that looks first at a woman’s ankles,—slender-
fingered creature belonged to his own kind. True her hands were red hands;
surprisingly red, he thought, on her presently taking off her gloves, which
she rolled up together into a neat tight ball, compared to the flawless
fairness of her face; but they were the authentic shape of good-breeding,
even if her nails——
The Duke was really surprised when his eyes reached Sally’s nails.
Charles drew a chair close up to his father, and began his explanations.
He was determined the old man should attend, and shouted well into his ear
as he told him that he had motored Laura’s friend, Mrs. Luke, down from
London, where she had been staying with Laura at Goring House, to
Crippenham for the night because it was quieter, and she hadn’t been well
——
‘I’m all right,’ interrupted Sally, who had been listening in an attitude of
polite attention.
‘Oh, my dear child—when you fainted,’ protested Charles in his ordinary
voice, raising a deprecating hand.
‘Speak up,’ said the Duke, impatiently.
‘ ’Course I fainted,’ said Sally, looking pleased.
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke.
‘Yes—and were unconscious for at least half an hour,’ said Charles.
‘That’s right. And sick,’ said Sally, looking proud.
‘Sick? Were you sick as well? Then see how really ill——’
‘Speak up, speak up,’ said the Duke testily.
But Sally said nothing further, and merely smiled indulgently at Charles.
 ‘What did she say?’ asked the Duke, not wishing to lose a word that fell
from that enchanting mouth.
‘She said,’ shouted Charles, ‘that she is quite well now.’
‘Of course she is,’ said the Duke, staring at her face and forgetting her
nails. ‘Anyone can see she is as perfectly well as she is perfectly beautiful.’
‘Oh lor,’ thought Sally, ‘now ’e’s goin’ to begin.’

§
That afternoon and evening were a triumph for her if she had known it,
but all she knew was that she was counting the hours to next day, and
Jocelyn, and the settling down at last to her home and her duties. The old
man was her slave. Crippenham and everything in it was laid at her feet,
and the Duke only lamented that it should be to this one of his houses that
she had come, where he couldn’t, he was afraid, make her even decently
comfortable. Positively at Crippenham there was only one bathroom. The
Duke seemed to regard this as a calamity, and Sally listened with mild
wonder to the amount he had to say about it.
‘Fair ’arps on it, don’t ’e, poor old gentleman,’ she remarked to Charles;
and bending over to the Duke’s ear—Charles looked on in astonishment at
the fearless familiarity of the gesture—she tried to convey to him that it
wasn’t Saturday night till the next night, and that by then she’d be in
Cambridge, so there was no need for him to take on.
‘Eh?’ said the Duke. ‘What does she say?’ he asked Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, ‘that it doesn’t matter.’
How very glad he was that his father was so deaf. Often he had found his
deafness trying, but how glad he was of it now. Not Saturday night....
Charles fell silent. It was then Friday. Could it be that since the previous
Saturday——?
The Duke, however, knew nothing of Sally except what his eyes told
him, and accordingly he was her slave. When she presently went up to
Laura’s room with the housekeeper, who had instructions to place
everything of Lady Laura’s at Mrs. Luke’s disposal—Crippenham had no
spare rooms, only a room each for the Duke, and Charles, and Laura, the
other six or seven bedrooms being left unfurnished and kept locked up—
and Charles, who from long practice could make his father hear better than
anyone except Laura, settled down to telling him as much about Sally as he
thought prudent, the old man listened eagerly, his hand behind his ear,
drinking in every word and asking questions which showed that if he was
really interested in a subject he still could be most shrewd.
He was delighted that Sally should have run away from her mother-in-
law, said it was proof of a fine, thoroughbred spirit, and asked who her
father was.
Charles said his name was Pinner.
The Duke then inquired whether he were one of the Worcestershire
Pinners, and Charles said he didn’t know.
The Duke then rambled off among his capacious memories, and
presently brought back a Pinner who had been at Christchurch with him,
and who had married, he said, one of the Dartmoors, an extremely
handsome woman, fair too, who was probably the girl’s grandmother.
Charles merely bowed his head.
The Duke then asked who the Lukes, apart from this boy-husband at
Ananias, were; for, he said, except the fellow in the Bible, he couldn’t
recollect ever having heard of a Luke before.
Charles said all he knew was that they lived at South Winch.
‘What?’ cried the Duke. ‘Has she married beneath her?’—and was so
really upset that for a time he blinked at Charles in silence. Because he felt
that if only this dear son of his had secured the beautiful young creature he
could have died content; and it seemed to him a double catastrophe that not
only should his boy have missed her, but that she should have been caught
into a misalliance with some obscure family in a suburb.
‘Upon my word, Charles,’ he said, after a dismayed silence, ‘that’s a
pity. A very great pity.’
And rambling off into his memories again, he said it was a good thing
that poor Jack Pinner was dead, for no man had a keener family feeling than
he, and it would have broken his heart to think his grand-daughter had made
a mistake of that kind.
He couldn’t get over it. He had never, in the whole of his long life, seen
anyone to touch this girl for beauty, and that she should, at the very outset
of what ought to have been a career of unparalleled splendour and success,
have dropped out of her proper sphere and become entangled in a suburb
really shocked him. Kings at her feet, all Europe echoing with her name—
this seemed to the Duke such beauty’s proper accompaniment.
‘Tut, tut,’ he said, his hands, clasped on the top of his stick, shaking
more than usual, ‘tut, tut, tut. What was her mother thinking of?’
‘Her mother is dead,’ said Charles.
‘Her father, then. Jack Pinner was no fool. I don’t understand how his
son—where is he, by the way? I heard something about the Worcestershire
estates having been sold after the war——’
Charles said he didn’t know where her father was, because, although
Sally had told him the shop was at Woodles, he had never heard of
Woodles, which indeed is not marked on any map, so that he felt he wasn’t
lying in saying he didn’t know.
The Duke, however, appeared to be seized by a sudden fierce desire to
track down his old friend’s reprehensible son and tell him what he thought
of him, and Charles was dismayed, for no good, he was sure, could come of
tracking down Mr. Pinner. Sally, he knew, was anxious her father shouldn’t
find out her disobedience to his orders, and though of this disobedience
Charles held Laura guilty, not Sally, yet he didn’t suppose Mr. Pinner would
look at it like that, and it was, besides, important, Charles considered, that
his father, who had always had a rooted objection to any woman who
wasn’t well-bred, should go on thinking Sally was a Worcestershire Pinner.
It seemed, then, to Charles a good thing to keep his father and Mr. Pinner
apart, and it was therefore with regret that he listened to the old man asking
Sally the moment he next saw her, which wasn’t till dinner, for she stayed
up in her room till fetched down by the scandalised housekeeper, to whom
it was a new experience that His Grace should be kept waiting even a
minute after the gong had sounded, where her father was.
‘ ’Im?’ said Sally, turning pale but forced by nature and her upbringing
to an obedient truthfulness. ‘ ’E’s at Woodles, ’e is.’ And, ‘Oh my gracious,’
she added to herself, ‘they ain’t goin’ to tell ’im I’m ’ere?’
‘What does she say?’ the Duke asked Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, following his father, who was shuffling
along leaning on Sally’s arm, to the dining-room, and shouting with
outward composure but inward regret, ‘that he is at Woodles.’
 ‘Woodles? Woodles?’ repeated the Duke. ‘Never heard of it. Is it in
Worcestershire?’
Sally shook her head. She didn’t know where Worcestershire was, but
she felt pretty sure Woodles wasn’t in it.
‘I dunno wot it’s in,’ she said. And then, impelled as always to the naked
truth, she added, ‘Close by ’ere, any’ow.’
‘What does she say?’ inquired the Duke, turning again to Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, obliged to hand on the answer correctly
with Sally listening, but doing so with increased regret, ‘that it isn’t far
from here.’
‘How very lucky,’ said the Duke, ‘and how very odd that I shouldn’t
have known he was so near.’ And he added, when he had been lowered into
his chair at the head of the table by the parlourmaid, who held one arm, and
his servant, who held the other, ‘I’d like to have a talk with that father of
yours, my dear.’
Sally turned paler.
‘Your grandfather was one of my oldest friends,’ continued the Duke,
with difficulty unfolding his table-napkin because of how much his hands
shook.
‘I ain’t got no grandfather,’ said Sally anxiously, who had never heard of
him till that moment.
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke.
‘She says,’ began Charles reluctantly—‘You know,’ he muttered quickly
to Sally, for how could he tell the old man what she had said? ‘you have a
grandfather—or had. You must have. Everybody has them.’
‘What? What?’ said the Duke impatiently. ‘Send a message round
tonight, Charles, and say with my compliments that I’d very much like to
see Pinner. Tell him I’m too old to go to him, so perhaps he’ll be obliging
enough to come to me some time tomorrow. You can say his father was at
Oxford with me if you like, and that I’ve only just heard he is in the
neighbourhood. Say his daughter——’
‘Now don’t—now don’t go doin’ a thing like that,’ Sally faintly begged
of Charles.
‘What does she say?’ asked the Duke.
 ‘Do you think it’s wise to break your rule of never seeing anybody while
you’re here?’ shouted Charles. ‘You shouldn’t,’ he added to Sally, ‘have
told him about Woodles.’
‘But ’e ask me,’ said Sally, distressed.
‘You’re not obliged to tell everybody everything,’ said Charles.
‘But if they asks me——’ said Sally, almost in tears.
The Duke became suddenly cross. ‘I hate all this muttering,’ he said.
‘Why on earth can’t you speak up, Charles?’
Charles spoke up. ‘It’s impossible to send tonight, Father,’ he shouted.
‘If you won’t keep servants here you can’t send messages.’
‘Then you can go yourself tomorrow,’ said the Duke.
‘Now don’t—now don’t go doin’ a thing like that,’ implored Sally again.
‘And bring him back in your car,’ said the Duke.
‘I believe Mrs. Luke would rather not see her father,’ shouted Charles.
‘That’s right,’ said Sally, nodding her head emphatically. It did sound
awful though—not wanting to see one’s father. ‘Ain’t I gettin’ wicked
quick,’ she thought; and hung her head.
He didn’t seem to think so, however, the old gentleman didn’t, for he
leant across to her looking as pleasant as pleasant, and patted her shoulder
with his poor shaky old hand, and said she was quite right. Right? Poor old
gentleman, thought Sally—past even knowing good from bad.
The Duke bent across and patted her shoulder, a broad smile on his face.
Such spirit—running away from her mother-in-law, and kicking at seeing
her father—delighted him. She was a high-stepper, this lovely, noble little
lady, and all his life he had admired only those women whose steps were
high.
‘You shan’t see him, my dear,’ he said. ‘Quite right, quite right not to
wish to.’ And just as she was heaving a sigh of thankfulness he added, ‘But
I will. I really must have a talk with him.’
Strange, thought Charles, this determination to talk with Sally’s father.
How much better, how much more really useful, to talk with her husband,
or her mother-in-law.

§
 After dinner, which Sally ate reluctantly, for she well knew by now that
her ways with knives and forks were somehow different from the ways of
people like Lukes and dukes, and she felt, besides, that the old gentleman’s
eye was on her—which it was, but her face, for she was of course now
without her hat, engrossed his whole attention, and he saw nothing that her
hands were doing—after dinner, after, that is, the small cups of clear soup
and the grilled cutlets with floury potatoes which were the evening meal at
Crippenham during the severity of the retreat, Charles went into the garden
to smoke.
It was a small garden, with nothing in it but a plot of rough grass, some
shrubs, a tree or two, and in one corner the shut up four-roomed cottage his
father had had built for him and Laura and Terry twenty-five years ago,
when first he bought Crippenham, to play at housekeeping in. For years it
had been unused; a melancholy object, Charles thought whenever he went
into the garden and saw it there, smothered in creepers and deserted, a relic
of vanished youth, a reminder that one was getting old.
Beneath its silent walls he wandered up and down, thinking. Every now
and then, drawn by the light streaming out through the uncurtained window
of his father’s study, he crossed the grass and stood a moment looking in,
fascinated by the picture inside,—the two figures brilliantly lit up, the
hunched-up old man, with his great bald head glistening in the light,
talking, talking, and the exquisite girl, her head bowed in a divine courtesy
and patience, listening, though her angelic little face was distinctly troubled.
That was because of the fear of her father, Charles knew. She needn’t be
afraid. If the old man insisted on seeing Pinner he would have to go to
Woodles himself, for Charles certainly wasn’t going to fetch the creature.
Charles didn’t at all like Mr. Pinner—imagine turning down a daughter, and
such a daughter, when she fled to him for sanctuary!—but though he didn’t
like him, and quite shared his father’s opinion that he should be talked to,
wisdom told him that the best thing to do with Mr. Pinner was to leave him
alone. The Lukes were the ones needing talking to. The Lukes were the
people to deal with. The Lukes——
Yes; what line had he best take with his father in the conversation he
meant to have after their adorable guest had gone to bed? He wandered up
and down the path beneath the shuttered windows of the deserted cottage,
deep in reflection. It was clear to him that nobody except his father could
really help Sally. Laura, though she was provided with everything, and
more than everything, that she wanted, had no separate income of her own,
and could do nothing beyond giving moral support. He himself couldn’t lift
a finger without at once causing scandal. His father could; his father was
the only person who could; and his father, Charles determined, should.
There were, then, after all, thought Charles, back at the window again and
staring through it, compensations in being so old: one could help Sally. His
father was revoltingly rich. It would be nothing to him to set her on her feet.
True, there was no earthly reason why he should, but sometimes—great
God, couldn’t a man sometimes come out of the narrow ring of reason, get
outside the circle of just claims, forget his cautious charities, be
unbusinesslike, break traditions, shock solicitors, and for once in his life do
something absurd, and beautiful, and entirely for nothing?
Charles threw away his cigarette, and with his hands in his pockets took
a few quick strides about the little garden, excited, stirred out of his
customary calm. Why, even if the old man did as little for her as interrupt
his rest-cure for a few hours and take her into Cambridge himself, just for
the girl to be seen with him, just for her to appear under his wing, would
knock every obstacle out of her path, except that one obstacle of young
Luke’s poverty. His father knew the Master of Ananias; his father knew
everybody. They all listened when he spoke. The merest indication of a
wish would be attended to. It was, of course, regrettable that there should be
this attentiveness to a man merely because he was rich and a duke, but by
God, thought Charles, how damned convenient.
He walked quickly about the little garden. His father must be made to
understand the situation. He would sit up all night if necessary, getting it
into his head. He would tell him everything Sally had told him, adding
anything that should seem in his judgment effective, and only keeping Mr.
Pinner back, and the fact that the darling, lovely girl was not at her best in
conversation and no good at all at writing things down. His father must take
the Lukes by the hand; he must be led to desire to do so above all things.
Tact, skill, judgment,—Charles would sit up all night exercising these. Mrs.
Luke must be suppressed. The unpleasant youth, who dared be angry, must
be taught his incredible good fortune in getting such a wife. Those Lukes
——
Suddenly Charles stood still.
Those Lukes....
 Queer, but the words had sounded in his ears like a cry of pain.
He was down at the edge of the garden, which ended in a ditch, and on
the other side stretched flat, empty fields divided from each other by hedges
and rows of elms, darker than the darkness. The air smelt of damp grass.
The sky was wonderful, thick strewn with stars. A great peace lay over the
fields. They seemed folded in silence. He could hear nothing but the croak
of a far away frog. Why, then, had it seemed to him as if——
Charles stood motionless.
Those Lukes ... what must they not, since yesterday, have suffered?
Extraordinary, that he hadn’t thought of it before.
 XIV

§
Speaking of this time later on, Mrs. Luke was accustomed to say, ‘It was a
mauvais quart d’heure,’ and to smile; but in her heart, when she thought of
it, there was no smile.
She never forgot that coming down to breakfast on the morning of
Sally’s flight, so unconscious of anything having happened, pleased that it
was a fine day for her party, pleased with the pretty frock she had had sent
from Harrods for the child to wear, excited at the prospect of presenting her
to a dazzled South Winch, confident, somehow, with that curiously
cloudless confidence that seems to lay hold of those about to be smitten by
fate, that her beautiful daughter-in-law would behave perfectly, and the
whole thing be a great success. Fate was about to smite her; and with more
than the disappearance of a daughter-in-law, for that disappearance was but
the first step to having to give up, renounce entirely and for always, her son.
Jocelyn came down to breakfast in a good humour too. He had slept like
a log, after his series of interrupted nights.
‘Sally’s late,’ he said presently.
‘She is, isn’t she,’ said his mother. ‘You won’t call her Sally this
afternoon, will you, dearest,’ she added, giving him his coffee.
‘Sorry, Mother. No. I’ll remember.’
And soon after that they made their discovery.
‘Now what,’ Mrs. Luke asked herself, pressing her cold hands together,
when an hour or two later it became evident beyond doubt that Sally hadn’t
merely gone, unaccountably, for an early walk, but had gone altogether,
‘now what, what have I done to deserve this?’
And the period of torment began, the period of distress and anxiety, of
anger at first which soon flickered out, and of ever-growing, sickening fear,
which she afterwards spoke of quietly as a mauvais quart d’heure.
It took some time before she and Jocelyn could be convinced that this
wasn’t just a before breakfast walk. They clung to the hope that it was, in
spite of their knowledge of Sally’s lack of initiative. Yet how much more
initiative would be needed, they thought, looking at each other with
frightened eyes, to do that which it became every moment more and more
apparent that she had done.
‘But why? But why?’ Mrs. Luke kept on asking, pressing her cold hands
together.
Jocelyn said nothing.
At eleven o’clock, when it was plain she wasn’t coming back, he went
out and fetched his car.
‘She’s gone to her father,’ he said.
‘But why? Oh, Jocelyn—why?’
‘We’ve made her unhappy,’ he said, pulling on his gloves, his face set.
‘Unhappy?’
‘I have, anyway. I’ve been an infernal cad—I tell you I have,’ he said,
turning on his mother. ‘It’s no good your telling me I haven’t—I have.’
And he drove off, leaving her at the gate pressing her cold hands
together, and staring after him with wide-open eyes.
But his coming back was worse than his going. It was after six before he
got home, tired and dusty, at the fag end of the terrible party.
Mrs. Luke hadn’t seen how not to have the party, and had told her
friends—ah, how much she shrank from them—when they trooped in
punctually at half-past four, eager to see Jocelyn’s bride, that her daughter-
in-law very unfortunately had had to go that morning to her father, who had
suddenly fallen ill.
‘An old man,’ said poor Mrs. Luke—after dreary and painful thought she
had come to the conclusion that if she said it was Sally who had fallen ill,
Hammond would be sure sooner or later to give her away,—‘an old man,
I’m afraid, and liable to—liable to——’
What was he liable to? Mrs. Luke’s brain wouldn’t work. Her lips,
forced into the continual smile of the hostess, trembled. She wanted to cry.
How badly, how badly she wanted just to sit down in a corner alone, and
cry.
Then Jocelyn came back. There were still the Walkers there, and Miss
Cartwright, and old Mrs. Pugh. Why wouldn’t they go? Why did they hang
on, and hang on, and never, never go?
 They all heard the car. They all knew it was his, because it made so
much more noise than anybody else’s, and they all knew, because Mrs.
Luke had told them, that he had motored his wife himself that morning to
her sick father.
‘Ah. Now we shall have the bulletin,’ said the Canon cheerfully; for the
illness, probably slight, of an unknown young lady’s almost certainly
inglorious father couldn’t be regarded, he felt, as an occasion for serious
gloom. ‘No doubt it is a good one, and Jocelyn has been able to bring his
wife back with him.’
‘I’ll go and see,’ said Mrs. Luke, getting up quickly, and almost running
out of the room.
‘What a lot of trouble there is in the world, to be sure,’ said old Mrs.
Pugh, shaking her head, ‘what a lot of trouble.’
‘Do you mean the father?’ asked Mrs. Walker.
‘Who is the father?’ asked Miss Cartwright.
‘Nobody knows,’ said the Canon.
‘Not really?’ said Miss Cartwright.
‘Hush——’ said the Canon, raising his hand.
Outside the window, which was open, Jocelyn was speaking, and
holding their breaths they heard him say, ‘Well, Mother? What time did she
get back?’

§
He had been to Mr. Pinner. He had heard what Mr. Pinner had to say.
The man had behaved well, had done his duty and sent her straight home;
but she hadn’t got there.
Fear now descended on Jocelyn’s and his mother’s souls,—fear ten times
greater than the fear of the morning; such fear that they were hardly aware
of the Walkers, and Miss Cartwright, and old Mrs. Pugh, and said goodbye
to them mechanically, and hadn’t an idea what any of them were saying,
and the dusk deepened, and night came, and it grew late, and they sat
listening and watching at the window, the window wide open so as to catch
the first sounds of a footstep on the path, and they sat in almost complete
silence, for they were too much frightened to speak.
 That child—somewhere out there in the darkness—that beautiful,
ignorant child, by herself in London—Sally, who had only to appear to
collect a crowd—Sally, so trustful, so ready to obey anybody....
But what did one do? Who did one go to? What could one do but still, in
the dark, not speaking, hardly breathing so intently were they listening,
wait?
Fragments of what Mr. Pinner had said drifted in and out of Jocelyn’s
brain——
‘Told ’er to take a taxi all the way....’
‘Give ’er a pound, I did....’
‘Mistake was, lettin’ that there car go....’
That car? What car?
‘Mother,’ he said suddenly, ‘what car?’
‘What car, my darling?’
‘She arrived there in a car. Her father said so. I forgot to tell you.’
‘A car?’
Mrs. Luke got up quickly. So did he. She turned on the light, and it
shone on their pale faces staring at each other. He hadn’t remembered the
car till that moment.
Then without a word she went into the passage, snatched up a coat,
wrapped it round herself, and before he could speak was out of the house.
‘Wait there,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘wait there—she might come
——’
A car. Whose car but Edgar’s? Had Edgar——? Was Edgar——?
No, no. Impossible. She had arrived alone at her father’s, and the car had
left her there.
But Edgar must know—he could tell her....

§
The butler hadn’t wanted to let her in, seeing her looking so wild on the
steps when he answered the ring, and no hat on, and an old coat pulled
round her shoulders, and he well knowing the affair with his master was off;
but what did she care for butlers? She simply pushed past him, and went
straight to the library—the handsome, Turkey-carpeted, leathery library she
so vividly remembered—and there, as she expected, sat Mr. Thorpe.
He was in a deep chair before a great wood fire, with beside him, on a
little Moorish table, his coffee and his liqueur, in his hands the evening
paper, and in his mouth a huge cigar. He didn’t look in the least unhappy,
nor did he look in the least as if he were still angry. On the contrary, he
looked contented and pleased. But this expression changed when, turning
his head on hearing the door open, he saw Mrs. Luke.
‘Edgar,’ she said, coming quickly across to him, holding Jocelyn’s coat
together at her neck with shaking fingers, ‘where is Salvatia?’
And it was no use his staring at her as if she were a ghost, which indeed
at first he thought she must be, so totally unlike the nicely dressed, ladylike
Margery of his misplaced love was this white-faced, ruffled-haired woman,
—it was no use his staring at her openmouthed and not answering, and then
getting up with deliberation and ostentatiously going towards the bell, for
she took no notice of any of that, and went on to say that Salvatia wasn’t
with her father, who had sent her back to South Winch at once that morning,
and hadn’t come home. Did he know where she was?
Then Mr. Thorpe, in his turn, was frightened. Not with her father? Not
come home?
He stared at Mrs. Luke. What had he done? What, if that were the case,
had he done? And instead of the agreeable vision he had been so much
pleased with of paying out Margery and her stuck-up son, and the still more
agreeable vision of visiting Sally secretly and comfortably at her father’s,
and developing his friendship with her to almost any extent, he saw, as he
stood staring, a picture that really frightened him, a picture of young beauty
lost somehow in London, and quite peculiarly defenceless.
What had he done?
But Mr. Thorpe was a man of action. Not his to wring his hands and wait
and hope; not his to waste time, either, confessing that he had behaved
abominably, and begging Margery’s pardon. He did both, but quickly,
economising words, and within five minutes was round at Almond Tree
Cottage, and within ten minutes his car was round there, and within an hour
he and Jocelyn were at Scotland Yard—Jocelyn, who also had no time for
anger with Mr. Thorpe, who had no time for anything but searching for and
rescuing Sally.
 Nor did Mr. Thorpe say much to Jocelyn. His longest speech was to
remark, looking out of the window on his side of the car as they tore up to
London, that it was a pity one couldn’t get out of the habit of behaving first
and thinking afterwards. He could go no nearer than this to apologising. He
had done Jocelyn a great wrong, he knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to
say so. To the mother, yes; somehow it was easier to eat humble pie to a
woman. Contrition welled up in Mr. Thorpe, but stuck in his throat. It
wouldn’t come out.
‘Damned pity, eh?’ he repeated, though not as one who requires an
answer.
‘It’s so beastly dark,’ was all Jocelyn said, huddled, whitefaced and sick,
in the other corner.

§
Scotland Yard took down particulars.
‘Expense no object,’ said Mr. Thorpe.
‘I can’t pay,’ said Jocelyn, who was shivering.
‘But I can,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘What you’ve got to do,’ he continued to
the official, ‘is to find her instantly—instantly, do you hear? Get a move on.
Not a minute to lose. If you’d seen her you’d understand—eh?’ he said,
turning to Jocelyn for confirmation, who only shivered.
This great place—all the policemen they had met—all the being passed
on from one official to another—nothing but officials, officials everywhere
—it struck his heart cold. Sally in connection with this? He couldn’t speak.
His lips were dry. He felt sick.
‘Upset,’ said Mr. Thorpe confidentially to the official. ‘Husband. Bound
to be.’
The official nodded, and began telephoning.
‘I’ll let you know,’ he said to Mr. Thorpe, the receiver at his ear. ‘It’s no
use your waiting here. Where can I—that you, Williams? Just one moment
—where can I ring you up?’
And he wrote down the name of the hotel Mr. Thorpe gave him, for Mr.
Thorpe wasn’t going to leave London till he had found Sally, not if he had
to stay in it ten years, and then bowed his head in abstracted dismissal, his
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