A DREARY BANQUET.
After the mother had left the room, her daughter seemed in no hurry to
get ready for dinner; she turned back to the window, and, taking up her
old position on the wide window-seat, sat gazing down at the hideous view
of the big manufacturing town, with blackened buildings and tall, smoky
chimneys, which lay at the bottom of the hill, and seemed to have a weird
fascination for her. It must certainly have been from choice that Sarah
Clay looked at them, for she had only to sit at the other side of the
broad window-seat, turn her back on Ousebank, and, looking out on the
other side of the hill, she would have had a beautiful view over the hill
of pretty vales and villages and smiling pasture, and their own fine
park; but the girl deliberately turned her back upon nature, and looked
not upon art--for art there was not in Ousebank except what was produced
in the mills--but upon nature perverted by man, who had turned the
beautiful vale into a Black Country with its big factories, which
polluted earth and sky, air and water.
She was still staring out with a frown on her face when a knock came to
the door, and she called out, 'Come in,' without turning her head to see
who the new-comer was.
'Excuse me, miss,' said the voice of the maid, 'but the mistress sent me
with this, and you'll best be getting ready for dinner, for it's late.'
Sarah turned her head, with the air that her mother declared was like
that of a duchess's daughter, and looked at the large cardboard box which
her maid held in her arms, with a gaze which, to do her justice, she was
quite unconscious was haughty. 'What is it?' she asked shortly.
'You just come and see, Miss Sarah,' replied the maid quite politely, but
with Yorkshire independence.
Sarah did not resent the tone of the advice, but came slowly from her
window-seat, and watched the maid undo the string of the box and take
out, with many exclamations of admiration, a beautiful white silk frock
elaborately trimmed with lace and ribbons.
'It's grand! Oh miss, make haste and let me do your hair, and put it on
you!' cried the maid.
'Now? I have no time. Put it away, and get out my white muslin, Naomi,'
replied Sarah, and she turned away after hardly a glance at the pretty
dress.
'But you are to wear it to-night. At least, the mistress said would you,
please, put it on,' corrected Naomi, as she saw her young mistress's look
of indignation at the peremptory order.
Sarah was just going to refuse decidedly; but the thought of her mother's
disappointment made her hesitate. The girl had good enough taste to feel
that the dress was far too smart for an ordinary family dinner; but,
then, as she reflected, it would be in keeping with the rest, which was
far too smart, all of it. So she said, 'Very well. Make haste, Naomi.'
'There, miss, you look just like a queen, and fit to live in a palace;
though, to be sure, ours is one, or as good as one. Now, just look in the
glass and see if you aren't lovely.'
'Yes; it's very pretty,' said Sarah impatiently.
'Are you ill, miss? You don't seem a bit pleased to have such beautiful
things. I'm sure if I had everything I could wish for like you I'd be as
happy as a queen,' observed Naomi, whom Sarah allowed to say what she
liked; in the first place, because she was the daughter of the head
mill-watchman, and her family had all--some still did--worked in Clay's
Mills; and, in the second place, because they had played together as
little children.
'I dare say you would; so am I, because a queen is not at all a happy
person; at least, if she is, it's not because she is a queen and can have
lots of new dresses and things,' remarked Sarah.
'You wouldn't talk like that if you'd ever had to do without them,'
replied the girl.
Sarah turned round and faced the girl. 'Naomi,' she said passionately,
'I'd give anything on earth to be poor and work for my living as you do.'
'Oh miss!' cried Naomi, and 'Oh Sal!' cried another voice, whose owner
had overheard this last remark.
For Mrs Clay had just entered the room, and had forgotten that her
daughter objected strongly to this shortening of her name, which it was
one of her father's aggravating habits to do. 'Oh Sarah,' she cried,
'don't talk such nonsense, and before Naomi, too! Some must be poor an'
some rich. It's always been so, and always will be so, an' it's flyin' in
the face o' Providence not to be thankful that you're not poor; an' with
that lovely gown on, too. 'Ow could you earn enough money to buy a gown
like that, do you suppose? W'y, Naomi doesn't earn enough in a year to
pay for it, I'd have you to know.'
'Then she ought to,' began Sarah; whereupon Mrs Clay cleared her throat
noisily, and said in quite a decided tone for her, 'That'll do, Naomi;
you can leave the room.' And when Naomi had done so, she continued in a
tone of reproof to her daughter,'What are you thinkin' of, wishin' you
earned your own livin' like Naomi? A nice one you'd be if such a dreadful
thing 'appened to you, wi' your 'aughty airs an' scornful ways that no
one would put up wi', let alone that you could never earn a penny if you
tried.'
'I'm not so sure about that. I've a good mind to try, to show you that
you're wrong,' said Sarah meditatively.
Her mother cast a frightened glance at her, and said soothingly, 'There,
my dearie, there's no need to think about it; you're far too pretty even
to do such a thing. You were born for a mansion, an' I 'ope you'll always
'ave one to live in.'
'I don't. I hope I shall one day have to work for my living, and I shall
do it whether it is necessary or not, you'll see,' she declared.
Fortunately both the dinner-gong and an elaborate set of chimes rang out
through the house, and Mrs Clay, with a nervous start, said hurriedly,
'There's the chimes! Well, we must be goin'. Don't you look grand
to-night, Sairey?'
'That's just what I feel, mother--a great deal too grand for a quiet
family dinner; and so are you,' she added, as she looked critically at
her mother in the elaborately trimmed, plum-coloured silk dress, so rich
that it seemed to prop up the delicate little woman and almost stifle her
with its heavy gold trimmings and fringes.
'It's to please your father and George, and nothing's too grand to do
that,' said Mrs Clay, as she went out of the room, making a rustle as she
passed along the richly carpeted passages and down the grand marble
staircase into the drawing-room. Mr Clay did not trouble himself to go
into the drawing-room to fetch his wife, but always walked straight to
the dining-room at the first note of the chimes.
George was waiting, as he did every evening, to give his arm to escort
his mother to the dining-room, and took her to the dinner-table, where
his wife and children found Mark Clay sitting at the top of the large
table which groaned under its massive gold ornaments and plate. He was a
big, bull-faced man; at first sight so different from his son and
daughter that the latter might almost be forgiven her extraordinary
suggestion to her mother that perhaps he was not her father at all! It
would require a closer observer than Sarah to see a certain set of the
chin which was common to him and his two children, though hers took the
form of haughtiness, and her brother's had such a pleasant, if indolent,
expression that his father had never discovered this hidden
characteristic.
'Well, lass, thee'rt grand to-night. How much did tha gown cost? A pretty
penny, I'll be bound. Well, lasses will be lasses, and the mills can give
as many on 'em as ye like. An' your mother, too, though she's a bit old
for such vanity; it's the young uns as want fine feathers. Now then, what
are ye scowling at?' cried her father, all in the broadest Yorkshire.
'It's the fashion to scowl at personal remarks, my dear father,' remarked
George, as he 'played,' in his mother's words, with his food.
'Then it's one fashion thee'll ha' to onlearn, dost hear? I'll ha' no
lass o' mine scowling at me at my own table,' replied her father, as he
brought his fist down on the table with a thump, which made his poor wife
jump as well as the crystal and glass, 'which it's a wonder he don't have
of gold too,' his well-bred butler observed, with a touch of contempt for
his master, which he allowed himself to vent to the equally well-bred
housekeeper, and to her only.
George stepped into the breach again. 'How's the market, dad?' he
inquired. 'Wool's going up, I hear.'
'Wool's going up, you hear? An' what might you know about wool? Nought as
I know of. I wish you did; but there, thee'rt too fine for t' wool-trade,
and thou'll never need to know about it, only to spend money,' said the
millionaire, purposely, as his son believed, talking in such broad
Yorkshire as is not often heard nowadays, and so broad as to be
unintelligible to the reader of this tale, for which reason it must be
taken for granted, as perhaps his wife's cockney dialect had better be.
However, the inquiry had turned the mill-owner's attention from his
daughter and her unbending attitude, and had apparently produced a good
effect, for Mr Clay, senior, seemed to be in a better temper for the
rest of the dinner, the long, wearisome dinner which he was the only one
who seemed to appreciate.
There was no conversation but the remarks made in a gentle tone by George
to his mother, to whom he was as attentive as he would have been to the
highest and most beautiful lady in the land.
Sarah kept a silence which might have been considered either sulky or
dignified, and Mrs Clay responded in low tones to her son's remarks.
Mr Clay did not condescend to talk to any of them. His wife he never
considered as a companion or a person to be conversed with, women being
inferior beings in his eyes, and for this reason he did not talk to
Sarah, whom he treated with the same contempt, in spite of being very
proud of her looks and bearing; while George he considered a nincompoop
and weakling, though he was secretly proud, too, of his fine manners and
aristocratic appearance.
And so the four ill-sorted people sat each at a different side of the
table, with a long stretch of gold-decked and flower-laden cloth between
them. 'And a good thing, too, or I think we should fight,' announced
Sarah one day.
Poor Mrs Clay put her hand to her head once or twice, and her
ever-observant son bent towards her with solicitude as he inquired,
'Don't you feel well, mother?'
'It's only the smell of all these flowers; they make me feel faint-like,'
she said.
'It's these lilies; they are too strong for a dining-table; just take
them away, Sykes,' he said to the butler, who happened to be close behind
George Clay's chair.
The man looked hesitatingly at his master, and then at the young man, and
apparently decided to obey the younger one, whom he, like the rest of the
staff, liked and respected, instead of the father, whom he detested, and
who now cried in a voice of thunder, 'Leave 'em alone, I say! I don't pay
for lilies to be thrown away for a woman's whim. Leave 'em alone.'
'They're cheap enough, and they really never are used for
table-decorating. It must have been a mistake of the maid's. Sykes had
better remove them, if you don't mind,' said George.
Sykes, being of the same opinion, swiftly removed the vase and handed it
to one of the footmen.
Mr Clay, awed by his son's superior knowledge of what was done and not
done (in society, he supposed), remained silent, and at last the banquet
came to an end, and with suspicious alacrity Mrs Clay and her daughter
rose and left the room, followed by George after his usual murmured
apology to his father for not staying with him; for George Clay was as
polite, in an indolent way, to his father as he was to every one else.
'Phew, I breathe again!' cried Sarah, as she stamped her feet outside the
dining-room door.
'Sh, sh, my dear! Your father might 'ear you. The flowers did make the
air sickly.'
'Flowers! It wasn't the flowers. It was everything. I always think of
Miss Kilmansegg and her "Gold, gold; nothing but gold!" Phew! how I
loathe and detest it all!'
'Draw it mild, Sarah! Even gold has its advantages.'
'It mayn't have to every one's mind. Look what an effeminate creature
it's made of you!' she cried.
George Clay lit a cigarette, with a 'May I?' to his mother, and only
smiled as he leant back in an armchair and puffed contentedly away.
Clearly Sarah was not able to rouse her brother by her criticism.