A RELUCTANT INVITATION.
'We'd better go in the back way, I think,' observed George, tapping at
the window of the cab as he spoke and giving the order.
Sarah laughed, as she spread her hands out before her and surveyed them.
'Perhaps it would be as well, for peace' sake,' she remarked.
They were just getting out of the cab at the little back-door leading
into the stable-yard behind the house, when, to their dismay, they saw Mr
Mark Clay's burly figure come with swaggering walk along the little path
through the park towards the same door, probably coming to give some
order, or more probably, his children thought, to make himself
disagreeable to his stablemen and chauffeurs.
'Quick! in with you; there's the pater!' cried George, who, polite as
usual, was holding the cab-door open for his sister.
Sarah needed no second bidding; but, instinctively clutching the front
breadth of her skirt in her hands to conceal the stains, she jumped out,
ran in at the little gate, and into the house, up to her room by the
back-stairs.
George paid the man, who touched his hat and drove off quickly, and the
young man noticed that he passed the owner of the park through which he
was driving without any greeting at all. George turned to meet his
father.
The tall, slim young man, with his refined features, looked a fit heir to
the fine home, with its vast park; but a greater contrast to the coarse
man who came towards him could not be imagined. He raised his hat to his
father, and greeted him pleasantly enough. No one had ever heard George
Clay speak otherwise than respectfully to or of his father, in which he
compared favourably with Sarah; but if he could civilly do so he avoided
his company, and, if the truth be known, he only spent his vacations at
home for the sake of his mother and sister. On this occasion he could not
with politeness avoid meeting him, and did so with a good grace.
'Mornin', lad! Where t' been?' inquired Mark Clay, as he gave his son a
nod.
'Down to Ousebank, father. It's hot, isn't it?'
'Yes, it's fine and hot. Where's Sarah? Why didn't she stop and say
good-mornin' to her dad? I'm not fine enough for her. I'm only good to
make money, eh?'
'On the contrary, it was Sarah who was not fine enough to meet you. She
stained her hands, and was running off to wash them,' said George.
'Stained her hands! What did she stain her hands for? I won't have her
pretty hands soiled; there's no call for her ever to do aught with them
but fancy work.'
'Sarah isn't fond of fancy work,' observed George, avoiding a direct
answer.
'I don't know what she is fond of, without it's cheekin' me. What do you
think she said yesterday? That I was no better than a murderer because I
didn't pay a man his high wages when he got too old to work. A nice
thing it would be if I had to keep all my sick workmen in luxury, and pay
some one else for doing their work. It wasn't by such means that I built
this house, I can tell 'e.' Mark Clay spoke broader Yorkshire than many
of his men, and even he could speak, and did speak, better English when
he chose; in fact, it was only when he was annoyed or angry that he broke
out into dialect.
Sarah ran to her room and plunged her hands into hot water, but, as might
have been expected, without any effect; and when the lunch-gong sounded
they were still far too brilliant to bear her father's scrutiny. So she
rang for Naomi, and said, 'Just tell Sykes to send up some lunch to me,
Naomi; and if any one asks where I am, tell them I am very busy. So I am,
cleaning my hands; though you needn't tell them that.'
Naomi went off to do her young mistress's bidding, but came back in ten
minutes looking very grave, and said, 'Please, Miss Sarah, the master
says as 'ow it don't matter about your hands, and you can go down to
lunch with them as they are.'
Sarah stamped her foot with vexation. 'I told you not to say anything
about my hands, Naomi.'
'No more I didn't; but the master knew, for he told Mr Sykes to give me
that message for you. And please, miss, excuse me saying so, but Sykes he
said, "Try and make Miss Sarah come down, for master he gets into such a
taking if he's crossed;" and Sykes he says'----
'Never mind what Sykes said. Get me out my pink muslin,' said Sarah
shortly, with her most haughty air, and Naomi obeyed in silence.
Sarah's frock was not pinker than her face when she got to the
dining-room.
'So you've been to Howroyd's Mill messing with his dyes, have you? What
do you want to go there for when you could come to mine, eh? What did you
go to him for, and what did he say?' her father asked suspiciously.
'Nothing very interesting; at least I don't remember anything. Oh yes; he
said hands weren't money-making machines, but human souls which had to be
cared for,' replied Sarah.
'I don't mean that kind of talk. Did he talk business, eh?' inquired Mr
Clay.
'Oh dear no; he never does to me,' she answered.
'Not been croaking, has he?' the millionaire asked with hidden anxiety.
This time it was George who spoke, inquiring, 'Is there anything to croak
about, then?'
'I want an answer to my question, and, by gad, I'll have it!' exclaimed
his father, bringing his fist down on the table with a crash.
'No; he was very cheerful, as he always is. And now, sir, perhaps you
will be good enough to answer my question,' said George, who spoke very
quietly but decidedly.
Sarah gave her brother an approving look.
'What question? Oh, whether there's anything to croak about? Not in my
opinion; but your uncle---- But there, it's no good taking any notice of
him. He'd build a palace for his hands to work in and live in, and stop
in that old mill all his life, would Bill Howroyd,' replied Mr Clay; and,
frowning heavily, the millionaire got up from the table.
'I say, mother, would you mind if I went for a week's shooting to
Scotland?' inquired her son.
'No, dearie; no. You go; it'll do you good. I suppose it's some o' your
college friends as 'ave asked you? Yes, you go; there's nothin' for you
to do 'ere,' said the fond mother.
'And what about me? What am I to do if you go off and leave me all alone?
I shall go melancholy mad in this hole of a place!' cried Sarah.
''Ole!--w'en it's on the top o' a 'ill! W'at silly nonsense you do talk,
child! 'Ole, indeed!' said Mrs Clay.
'It is rather rough luck to leave you in your holidays; but Cockburn has
asked me so often. Couldn't you ask some one to stay with you--one of
your schoolfellows, perhaps?' George suggested.
'Nice, comfortable house this is to ask any one to stay in!' said Sarah
sarcastically.
'It's as comfortable as any o' theirs, if it isn't a great deal better,'
cried her mother.
'I'd sooner live in Naomi's home if I'd my choice,' said Sarah gloomily.
'Sarah is right in one way, mother,' said George before Mrs Clay could
say anything. 'It is not very comfortable to have constant disturbances
in one's home; and the governor is very easily angered.'
'Yes, dear, I know,' agreed Mrs Clay, who adored her son, and thought
everything he did or said perfection. 'An' it's 'ard for you an' Sarah,
for you don't understan' your father, nor ain't used to 'im as I am. But
that's not a bad idea o' yours that Sarah should ask one o' the young
ladies at 'er school to come an' stay 'ere for a bit.--There's that Miss
Cunning'am that you've got the photograph o' in your room. She's got a
nice, 'omely face.'
'She's a duke's granddaughter, whether her face is homely or not. No, I
couldn't ask her,' declared Sarah.
'Why not? She'd be the very one. Your father likes people o' 'igh class,
though 'e was only a mill-'and 'isself. An' she's got such a nice smile
on 'er photo,' persisted the mother.
'I couldn't possibly ask her; she'd never come and stay with a
manufacturer,' declared Sarah again.
'I'd be bound she'd jump at it. She'd not get a better dinner at 'ome or
anyw'ere, nor a better room to sleep in,' said Mrs Clay.
This remark grated upon both her children, as so many of poor Mrs Clay's
sayings did; but George, tactful as usual, remarked, 'Suppose you write
and ask Miss Cunningham, Sarah; and if she is too proud to visit a maker
of blankets, why, she will refuse, and there will be the end of it; and
if she accepts, it will show that her friendship for you is stronger than
class prejudices.'
Sarah looked at her brother for a minute as if she wanted to say
something, but did not do so, and only drummed with her crimson-dyed
fingers on the white table-cloth, taking apparently great delight in
their appearance.
'Yes; you do as your brother tells you, instead of sittin' there smilin'
at them dreadful 'ands o' yours. I'm sure they're nothin' to be proud o'.
Now, if you lived in Howroyd's Mill, w'ere your uncle Bill lives, you
might be ashamed to ask the young lady to stay wi' you; but 'ere it's
quite different,' said Mrs Clay.
The brother and sister, it will have been noticed, always called their
father's step-brother Uncle Howroyd, whereas their mother and father
called him Bill or 'your uncle Bill.' The fact was that the younger
people did not like 'Bill,' and George said he was thankful for one
thing, and that was that his name could not be shortened; while Sarah had
made violent protests against being called Sally or Sal, and would not
allow any one except her father, whom she could not control, to call her
anything but Sarah; and, indeed, the latter name suited her best.
Sarah followed her brother into his smoking-den. 'Pshaw! What a stuffy
room!' she exclaimed, as she threw herself upon the cushioned
window-seat.
'If it does not please you I fail to see why you have come into it; and
as for being stuffy'----Instead of completing his sentence George
shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say the accusation was too absurd
to be argued about.
'It _is_ stuffy, with all those cushions and carpets about, and pictures
and gimcracks, for all its big windows. I can't think how you like to
stuff it up with all this rubbish,' persisted Sarah.
'This rubbish, as you call it, is worth a pretty penny,' he remarked,
lighting a cigarette.
'You're as bad as father, counting everything by what it costs. But, I
say, George, why did you go and suggest my inviting Horatia Cunningham to
come and stay here? I don't want her; and now you've started mother on it
she'll give me no peace till I do ask her, and very likely say something
to father, and he'll begin worrying about it, especially if he hears
she's a duke's granddaughter. Besides, she wouldn't come if I did ask
her,' Sarah remarked.
'In that case there'll be no harm done if you do ask her. But I can't
imagine why you shouldn't; she looks a very nice girl, and you are great
friends, aren't you? And what has her grandfather to do with it?' asked
George.
'At school we are; but whether we should be after she'd been up here
isn't so certain. And as for why I shouldn't ask her, the reason is
pretty plain--father,' replied Sarah.
'You mean he might make himself unpleasant?' suggested George.
'There's no need for him to _make_ himself; Nature has made him
unpleasant,' exclaimed Sarah.
'You need not see much of him. You can go for picnics or drives, and
arrange to have lunch earlier or later; and you never breakfast and have
tea with him, so it's only at dinner-time that they will meet. I should
not think he will get into a rage before a stranger, especially a young
girl.'
Sarah seemed to be considering something, and suddenly she blurted out,
'It isn't only that. I don't want her to come here; can't you see why
not? They don't know what my people are. Oh, they know we're
manufacturers; but that's nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of manufacturers
are gentlemen, but we are not gentlefolks, and they--they don't guess it
from me,' she wound up half-shamefacedly.
'Then I wouldn't sail under false colours. We are risen from the people,
and our parents have not had the education they have been good enough to
give us; but it would be contemptible to be ashamed of the fact or of
them.'
'That's very fine and high-flown; but I am ashamed of my father, at any
rate. I'd rather not have Horatia Cunningham come here and laugh at my
mother behind her back,' said Sarah.
'I should like to see any one dare to do that,' said George, with an
angrier look than his sister had ever seen him give.
'She wouldn't mean it nastily; but it's no good pretending that mother
does not say the wrong thing sometimes,' said Sarah.
'The wrong thing has been sending you to that school,' said George, his
loyalty and love for his mother preventing his acknowledging the truth of
this remark; and then he said more kindly, for he sympathised more with
his sister than he chose to say, 'I don't believe Miss Cunningham would
be nasty in any way. I know her brother slightly at college, and he is
"Hail, fellow! well met," with every chap he meets. You take my advice,
and write and ask her to come here. You can tell her, if you like,
that--well, that we are _nouveaux riches_, and have no pretensions of
being gentlefolks; but that she will have a hearty Yorkshire welcome, and
that's not a thing to be despised, let me tell you. Here, sit down and
write the letter at once. I shall enjoy myself much more in Scotland if I
know you have a companion.'
'I shouldn't mind so much if you were going to be at home,' said Sarah,
only half-won over.
George ignored the implied compliment, and said, 'You will get on much
better alone. Sit down and write the invitation here. I'll help you.'
'No, thank you; I'd rather write my own way,' remarked Sarah, as she rose
from the window-seat. When she got to the door, she turned back to say,
'I have a presentiment that she'll accept, and it will be all your fault,
remember. Whatever the consequences, they will be on your head.'
George only laughed, and sat down himself to accept his shooting
invitation.