THE SEWING MEETING
On an afternoon ten days later, Mr. Sutton's coachman, Barrett by name,
arrived at Ephraim Tellwright's back-door with a note. The Tellwrights
were having tea. The note could be seen in his enormous hand, and
Agnes went out.
'An answer, if you please, Miss,' he said to her, touching his hat, and
giving a pull to the leathern belt which, surrounding his waist, alone
seemed to hold his frame together. Agnes, much impressed, took the
note. She had never before seen that resplendent automaton apart from
the equipage which he directed. Always afterwards, Barrett formally
saluted her in the streets, affording her thus, every time, a thrilling
moment of delicious joy.
'A letter, and there's an answer, and he's waiting,' she cried, running
into the parlour.
'Less row!' said her father. 'Here, give it me.'
'It's for Miss Tellwright--that's Anna, isn't it? Oh! Scent!' She
put the grey envelope to her nose like a flower.
Anna, secretly as excited as her sister, opened the note and
read:--'Lansdowne House, Wednesday. Dear Miss Tellwright,--Mother
gives tea to the Sunday-school Sewing Meeting here _to-morrow_. Will
you give us the pleasure of your company? I do not think you have been
to any of the S.S.S. meetings yet, but we should all be glad to see you
and have your assistance. Everyone is working very hard for the Autumn
Bazaar, and mother has set her mind on the Sunday-school stall being
the best. Do come, will you? Excuse this short notice. Yours
sincerely, BEATRICE SUTTON. P.S.--We begin at 3.30.'
'They want me to go to their sewing meeting to-morrow,' she exclaimed
timidly to her father, pushing the note towards him across the table.
'Must I go, father?'
'What dost ask me for? Please thysen. I've nowt do wi' it.'
'I don't want to go----'
'Oh! Sis, _do_ go,' Agnes pleaded.
'Perhaps I'd better,' she agreed, but with the misgivings of
diffidence. 'I haven't a rag to wear. I really must have a new dress,
father, at once.'
'Hast forgotten as that there coachman's waiting?' he remarked curtly.
'Shall I run and tell him you'll go?' Agnes suggested. 'It 'll be
splendid for you.'
'Don't be silly, dear. I must write.'
'Well, write then,' said the child energetically. 'I'll get you the
ink and paper.' She flew about and hovered over Anna while the answer
to the invitation was being written. Anna made her reply as short and
simple as possible, and then tendered it for her father's inspection.
'Will that do?'
He pretended to be nonchalant, but in fact he was somewhat interested.
'Thou's forgotten to put th' date in,' was all his comment, and he
threw the note back.
'I've put Wednesday.'
'That's not the date.'
'Does it matter? Beatrice Sutton only puts Wednesday.'
His response was to walk out of the room.
'Is he vexed?' Agnes asked anxiously. There had been a whole week of
almost perfect amenity.
The next day at half-past three Anna, having put on her best clothes,
was ready to start. She had seen almost nothing of social life, and
the prospect of taking part in this entertainment of the Suttons filled
her with trepidation. Should she arrive early, in which case she would
have to talk more, or late, in which case there would be the ordeal of
entering a crowded room? She could not decide. She went into her
father's bedroom, whose window overlooked Trafalgar Road, and saw from
behind a curtain that small groups of ladies were continually passing
up the street to disappear into Alderman Sutton's house. Most of the
women she recognised; others she knew but vaguely by sight. Then the
stream ceased, and suddenly she heard the kitchen clock strike four.
She ran downstairs--Agnes, swollen by importance, was carrying her
father's tea into the parlour--and hastened out the back way. In
another moment she was at the Suttons' front-door. A servant in black
alpaca, with white wristbands, cap, streams, and embroidered apron
(each article a _dernier cri_ from Bostock's great shop at Hanbridge),
asked her in a subdued and respectful tone to step within. Externally
there had been no sign of the unusual, but once inside the house Anna
found it a humming hive of activity. Women laden with stuffs and
implements were crossing the picture-hung hall, their footsteps
noiseless on the thick rugs which lay about in rich confusion. On
either hand was an open door, and from each door came the sound of many
eager voices. Beyond these doors a broad staircase rose majestically
to unseen heights, closing the vista of the hall. As the servant was
demanding Anna's name, Beatrice Sutton, radiant and gorgeous, came with
a rush out of the room to the left, the dining-room, and, taking her by
both hands, kissed her.
'My dear, we thought you were never coming. Everyone's here, except
the men, of course. Come along upstairs and take your things off. I'm
so glad you've kept your promise.'
'Did you think I should break it?' said Anna, as they ascended the easy
gradient of the stairs.
'Oh, no, my dear. But you're such a shy little bird.'
The conception of herself as a shy little bird amused Anna. By a
curious chain of ideas she came to wonder who could clean those stairs
the better, she or this gay and flitting butterfly in a pale green
tea-gown. Beatrice led the way to a large bedroom, crammed with
furniture and knick-knacks. There were three mirrors in this spacious
apartment--one in the wardrobe, a cheval-glass, and a third over the
mantelpiece; the frame of the last was bordered with photographs.
'This is my room,' said Beatrice. 'Will you put your things on the
bed?' The bed was already laden with hats, bonnets, jackets, and wraps.
'I hope your mother won't give me anything fancy to do,' Anna said.
'I'm no good at anything except plain sewing.'
'Oh, that's all right,' Beatrice answered carelessly. 'It's all plain
sewing.' She drew a cardboard box from her pocket, and offered it to
Anna. 'Here, have one.' They were chocolate creams.
'Thanks,' said Anna, taking one. 'Aren't they very expensive? I've
never seen any like these before.'
'Oh! Just ordinary. Four shillings a pound. Papa buys them for me: I
simply dote on them. I love to eat them in bed, if I can't sleep.'
Beatrice made these statements with her mouth full. 'Don't you adore
chocolates?' she added.
'I don't know,' Anna lamely replied. 'Yes, I like them.' She only
adored her sister, and perhaps God; and this was the first time she had
tasted chocolate.
'I couldn't _live_ without them,' said Beatrice. 'Your hair is lovely.
I never saw such a brown. What wash do you use?'
'Wash?' Anna repeated.
'Yes, don't you put anything on it?'
'No, never.'
'Well! Take care you don't lose it, that's all. Now, will you come
and have just a peep at my studio--where I paint, you know? I'd like
you to see it before we go down.'
They proceeded to a small room on the second floor, with a sloping
ceiling and a dormer window.
'I'm obliged to have this room,' Beatrice explained, 'because it's the
only one in the house with a north light, and of course you can't do
without that. How do you like it?'
Anna said that she liked it very much.
The walls of the room were hung with various odd curtains of Eastern
design. Attached somehow to these curtains some coloured plates, bits
of pewter, and a few fans were hung high in apparently precarious
suspense. Lower down on the walls were pictures and sketches, chiefly
unframed, of flowers, fishes, loaves of bread, candlesticks, mugs,
oranges and tea-trays. On an immense easel in the middle of the room
was an unfinished portrait of a man.
'Who's that?' Anna asked, ignorant of those rules of caution which are
observed by the practised frequenter of studios.
'Don't you know?' Beatrice exclaimed, shocked. 'That's papa; I'm doing
his portrait; he sits in that chair there. The silly old master at the
school won't let me draw from life yet--he keeps me to the antique--so
I said to myself I would study the living model at home. I'm
dreadfully in earnest about it, you know--I really am. Mother says I
work far too long up here.'
Anna was unable to perceive that the picture bore any resemblance to
Alderman Sutton, except in the matter of the aldermanic robe, which she
could now trace beneath the portrait's neck. The studies on the walls
pleased her much better. Their realism amazed her. One could make out
not only that here for instance, was a fish--there was no doubt that it
was a hallibut; the solid roundness of the oranges and the glitter on
the tea-trays seemed miraculously achieved. 'Have you actually done
all these?' she asked, in genuine admiration. 'I think they're
splendid.'
'Oh, yes, they're all mine; they're only still-life studies,' Beatrice
said contemptuously of them, but she was nevertheless flattered.
'I see now that that _is_ Mr. Sutton,' Anna said, pointing to the easel
picture.
'Yes, it's pa right enough. But I'm sure I'm boring you. Let's go
down now, or perhaps we shall catch it from mother.'
As Anna, in the wake of Beatrice, entered the drawing-room, a dozen or
more women glanced at her with keen curiosity, and the even flow of
conversation ceased for a moment, to be immediately resumed. In the
centre of the room, with her back to the fire-place, Mrs. Sutton was
seated at a square table, cutting out. Although the afternoon was warm
she had a white woollen wrap over her shoulders; for the rest she was
attired in plain black silk, with a large stuff apron containing a
pocket for scissors and chalk. She jumped up with the activity of
which Beatrice had inherited a part, and greeted Anna, kissing her
heartily.
'How are you, my dear? So pleased you have come.' The time-worn
phrases came from her thin, nervous lips full of sincere and kindly
welcome. Her wrinkled face broke into a warm, life-giving smile.
'Beatrice, find Miss Anna a chair.' There were two chairs in the bay
of the window, and one of them was occupied by Miss Dickinson, whom
Anna slightly knew. The other, being empty, was assigned to the
late-comer.
'Now you want something to do, I suppose,' said Beatrice.
'Please.'
'Mother, let Miss Tellwright have something to get on with at once.
She has a lot of time to make up.'
Mrs. Sutton, who had sat down again, smiled across at Anna. 'Let me
see, now, what can we give her?'
'There's several of those boys' nightgowns ready tacked,' said Miss
Dickinson, who was stitching at a boy's nightgown. 'Here's one
half-finished,' and she picked up an inchoate garment from the floor.
'Perhaps Miss Tellwright wouldn't mind finishing it.'
'Yes, I will do my best at it,' said Anna.
The thoughtless girl had arrived at the sewing meeting without needles
or thimble or scissors, but one lady or another supplied these
deficiencies, and soon she was at work. She stitched her best and her
hardest, with head bent, and all her wits concentrated on the task.
Most of the others seemed to be doing likewise, though not to the
detriment of conversation. Beatrice sank down on a stool near her
mother, and, threading a needle with coloured silk, took up a long
piece of elaborate embroidery.
The general subjects of talk were the Revival, now over, with a superb
record of seventy saved souls, the school-treat shortly to occur, the
summer holidays, the fashions, and the change of ministers which would
take place in August. The talkers were the wives and daughters of
tradesmen and small manufacturers, together with a few girls of a
somewhat lower status, employed in shops: it was for the sake of these
latter that the sewing meeting was always fixed for the weekly
half-holiday. The splendour of Mrs. Sutton's drawing-room was a little
dazzling to most of the guests, and Mrs. Sutton herself seemed scarcely
of a piece with it. The fact was that the luxury of the abode was
mainly due to Alderman Sutton's inability to refuse anything to his
daughter, whose tastes lay in the direction of rich draperies, large or
quaint chairs, occasional tables, dwarf screens, hand-painted mirrors,
and an opulence of bric-à-brac. The hand of Beatrice might be
perceived everywhere, even in the position of the piano, whose back,
adorned with carelessly-flung silks and photographs, was turned away
from the wall. The pictures on the walls had been acquired gradually
by Mr. Sutton at auction sales: it was commonly held that he had an
excellent taste in pictures, and that his daughter's aptitude for the
arts came from him, and not from her mother. The gilt clock and side
pieces on the mantelpiece were also peculiarly Mr. Sutton's, having
been publicly presented to him by the directors of a local building
society of which he had been chairman for many years.
Less intimidated by all this unexampled luxury than she was reassured
by the atmosphere of combined and homely effort, the lowliness of
several of her companions, and the kind, simple face of Mrs. Sutton,
Anna quickly began to feel at ease. She paused in her work, and,
glancing around her, happened to catch the eye of Miss Dickinson, who
offered a remark about the weather. Miss Dickinson was head-assistant
at a draper's in St. Luke's Square, and a pillar of the Sunday-school,
which Sunday by Sunday and year by year had watched her develop from a
rosy-cheeked girl into a confirmed spinster with sallow and warted
face. Miss Dickinson supported her mother, and was a pattern to her
sex. She was lovable, but had never been loved. She would have made
an admirable wife and mother, but fate had decided that this material
was to be wasted. Miss Dickinson found compensation for the rigour of
destiny in gossip, as innocent as indiscreet. It was said that she had
a tongue.
'I hear,' said Miss Dickinson, lowering her contralto voice to a
confidential tone, 'that you are going into partnership with Mr.
Mynors, Miss Tellwright.'
The suddenness of the attack took Anna by surprise. Her first
defensive impulse was boldly to deny the statement, or at the least to
say that it was premature. A fortnight ago, under similar
circumstances, she would not have hesitated to do so. But for more
than a week Anna had been 'leading a new life,' which chiefly meant a
meticulous avoidance of the sins of speech. Never to deviate from the
truth, never to utter an unkind or a thoughtless word, under whatever
provocation: these were two of her self-imposed rules. 'Yes,' she
answered Miss Dickinson, 'I am.'
'Rather a novelty, isn't it?' Miss Dickinson smiled amiably.
'I don't know,' said Anna. 'It's only a business arrangement; father
arranged it. Really I have nothing to do with it, and I had no idea
that people were talking about it.'
'Oh! Of course _I_ should never breathe a syllable,' Miss Dickinson
said with emphasis. 'I make a practice of never talking about other
people's affairs. I always find that best, don't you? But I happened
to hear it mentioned in the shop.'
'It's very funny how things get abroad, isn't it?' said Anna.
'Yes, indeed,' Miss Dickinson concurred. 'Mr. Mynors hasn't been to
our sewing meetings for quite a long time, but I expect he'll turn up
to-day.'
Anna took thought. 'Is this a sort of special meeting, then?'
'Oh, not at all. But we all of us said just now, while you were
upstairs, that he would be sure to come,' Miss Dickinson's features,
skilled in innuendo, conveyed that which was too delicate for
utterance. Anna said nothing.
'You see a good deal of him at your house, don't you?' Miss Dickinson
continued.
'He comes sometimes to see father on business,' Anna replied sharply,
breaking one of her rules.
'Oh! Of course I meant that. You didn't suppose I meant anything
else, did you?' Miss Dickinson smiled pleasantly. She was thirty-five
years of age. Twenty of those years she had passed in a desolating
routine; she had existed in the midst of life and never lived; she knew
no finer joy than that which she at that moment experienced.
Again Anna offered no reply. The door opened, and every eye was
centred on the stately Mrs. Clayton Vernon, who, with Mrs. Banks, the
minister's wife, was in charge of the other half of the sewing party in
the dining-room. Mrs. Clayton Vernon had heroic proportions, a nose
which everyone admitted to be aristocratic, exquisite tact, and the
calm consciousness of social superiority. In Bursley she was a great
lady: her instincts were those of a great lady; and she would have been
a great lady no matter to what sphere her God had called her. She had
abundant white hair, and wore a flowered purple silk, in the antique
taste.
'Beatrice, my dear,' she began, 'you have deserted us.'
'Have I, Mrs. Vernon?' the girl answered with involuntary deference.
'I was just coming in.'
'Well, I am sent as a deputation from the other room to ask you to sing
something.'
'I'm very busy, Mrs. Vernon. I shall never get this mantel-cloth
finished in time.'
'We shall all work better for a little music,' Mrs. Clayton Vernon
urged. 'Your voice is a precious gift, and should be used for the
benefit of all. We entreat, my dear girl.'
Beatrice arose from the footstool and dropped her embroidery.
'Thank you,' said Mrs. Clayton Vernon. 'If both doors are left open we
shall hear nicely.'
'What would you like?' Beatrice asked.
'I once heard you sing "Nazareth," and I shall never forget it. Sing
that. It will do us all good.'
Mrs. Clayton Vernon departed with the large movement of an argosy, and
Beatrice sat down to the piano and removed her bracelets. 'The
accompaniment is simply frightful towards the end,' she said, looking
at Anna with a grimace. 'Excuse mistakes.'
During the song, Mrs. Sutton beckoned with her finger to Anna to come
and occupy the stool vacated by Beatrice. Glad to leave the vicinity
of Miss Dickinson, Anna obeyed, creeping on tiptoe across the
intervening space. 'I thought I would like to have you near me, my
dear,' she whispered maternally. When Beatrice had sung the song and
somehow executed that accompaniment which has terrorised whole
multitudes of drawing-room pianists, there was a great deal of applause
from both rooms. Mrs. Sutton bent down and whispered in Anna's ear:
'Her voice has been very well trained, has it not?' 'Yes, very,' Anna
replied. But, though 'Nazareth' had seemed to her wonderful, she had
neither understood it nor enjoyed it. She tried to like it, but the
effect of it on her was bizarre rather than pleasing.
Shortly after half-past five the gong sounded for tea, and the ladies,
bidden by Mrs. Sutton, unanimously thronged into the hall and towards a
room at the back of the house. Beatrice came and took Anna by the arm.
As they were crossing the hall there was a ring at the door. 'There's
father--and Mr. Banks, too,' Beatrice exclaimed, opening to them.
Everyone in the vicinity, animated suddenly by this appearance of the
male sex, turned with welcoming smiles. 'A greeting to you all,' the
minister ejaculated with formal suavity as he removed his low hat. The
Alderman beamed a rather absent-minded goodwill on the entire company,
and said: 'Well! I see we're just in time for tea.' Then he kissed
his daughter, and she accepted from him his hat and stick. 'Miss
Tellwright, pa,' Beatrice said, drawing Anna forward: he shook hands
with her heartily, emerging for a moment from the benignant dream in
which he seemed usually to exist.
That air of being rapt by some inward vision, common in very old men,
probably signified nothing in the case of William Sutton: it was a
habitual pose into which he had perhaps unconsciously fallen. But
people connected it with his humble archæological, geological, and
zoological hobbies, which had sprung from his membership of the Five
Towns Field Club, and which most of his acquaintances regarded with
amiable secret disdain. At a school-treat once, held at a popular
rural resort, he had taken some of the teachers to a cave, and pointing
out the wave-like formation of its roof had told them that this
peculiar phenomenon had actually been caused by waves of the sea. The
discovery, valid enough and perfectly substantiated by an inquiry into
the levels, was extremely creditable to the amateur geologist, but it
seriously impaired his reputation among the Wesleyan community as a
shrewd man of the world. Few believed the statement, or even tried to
believe it, and nearly all thenceforth looked on him as a man who must
be humoured in his harmless hallucinations and inexplicable
curiosities. On the other hand, the collection of arrowheads, Roman
pottery, fossils and birds' eggs which he had given to the Museum in
the Wedgwood Institution was always viewed with municipal pride.
The tea-room opened by a large French window into a conservatory, and a
table was laid down the whole length of the room and the conservatory.
Mr. Sutton sat at one end and the minister at the other, but neither
Mrs. Sutton nor Beatrice occupied a distinctive place. The ancient
clumsy custom of having tea-urns on the table itself had been abolished
by Beatrice, who had read in a paper that carving was now never done at
table, but by a neatly-dressed parlour-maid at the sideboard.
Consequently the tea-urns were exiled to the sideboard, and the tea
dispensed by a couple of maids. Thus, as Beatrice had explained to her
mother, the hostess was left free to devote herself to the social arts.
The board was richly spread with fancy breads and cakes, jams of Mrs.
Sutton's own celebrated preserving, diverse sandwiches compiled by
Beatrice, and one or two large examples of the famous Bursley pork-pie.
Numerous as the company was, several chairs remained empty after
everyone was seated. Anna found herself again next to Miss Dickinson,
and five places from the minister, in the conservatory. Beatrice and
her mother were higher up, in the room. Grace was sung, by request of
Mrs. Sutton. At first, silence prevailed among the guests, and the
inquiries of the maids about milk and sugar were almost painfully
audible. Then Mr. Banks, glancing up the long vista of the table and
pretending to descry some object in the distance, called out:
'Worthy host, I doubt not you are there, but I can only see you with
the eye of faith.'
At this all laughed, and a natural ease was established. The minister
and Mrs. Clayton Vernon, who sat on his right, exchanged badinage on
the merits and demerits of pork-pies, and their neighbours formed an
appreciative audience. Then there was a sharp ring at the front door,
and one of the maids went out.
'Didn't I tell you?' Miss Dickinson whispered to Anna.
'What?' asked Anna.
'That he would come to-day--Mr. Mynors, I mean.'
'Who can that be?' Mrs. Sutton's voice was heard from the room.
'I dare say it's Henry, mother,' Beatrice answered.
Mynors entered, joyous and self-possessed, a white rose in his coat: he
shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, sent a greeting down the table to
Mr. Banks and Mrs. Clayton Vernon, and offered a general apology for
being late.
'Sit here,' said Beatrice to him, sharply, indicating a chair between
Mrs. Banks and herself. 'Mrs. Banks has a word to say to you about the
singing of that anthem last Sunday.'
Mynors made some laughing rejoinder, and the voices sank so that Anna
could not catch what was said.
'That's a new frock that Miss Sutton is wearing to-day,' Miss Dickinson
remarked in an undertone.
'It looks new,' Anna agreed.
'Do you like it?'
'Yes. Don't you?'
'Hum! Yes. It was made at Brunt's at Hanbridge. It's quite the
fashion to go there now,' said Miss Dickinson, and added, almost
inaudibly, 'She's put it on for Mr. Mynors. You saw how she saved that
chair for him.'
Anna made no reply.
'Did you know they were engaged once?' Miss Dickinson resumed.
'No,' said Anna.
'At least people said they were. It was all over the town--oh! let me
see, three years ago.'
'I had not heard,' said Anna.
During the rest of the meal she said little. On some natures Miss
Dickinson's gossip had the effect of bringing them to silence. Anna
had not seen Mynors since the previous Sunday, and now she was
apparently unperceived by him. He talked gaily with Beatrice and Mrs.
Banks: that group was a centre of animation. Anna envied their ease of
manner, their smooth and sparkling flow of conversation. She had the
sensation of feeling vulgar, clumsy, tongue-tied; Mynors and Beatrice
possessed something which she would never possess. So they had been
engaged! But had they? Or was it an idle rumour, manufactured by one
who spent her life in such creations? Anna was conscious of
misgivings. She had despised Beatrice once, but now it seemed that
after all Beatrice was the natural equal of Henry Mynors. Was it more
likely that Mynors or she, Anna, should be mistaken in Beatrice? That
Beatrice had generous instincts she was sure. Anna lost confidence in
herself; she felt humbled, out-of-place, and shamed.
'If our hostess and the company will kindly excuse me,' said the
minister with a pompous air, looking at his watch, 'I must go. I have
an important appointment, or an appointment which some people think is
important.'
He got up and made various adieux. The elaborate meal, complex with
fifty dainties each of which had to be savoured, was not nearly over.
The parson stopped in his course up the room to speak with Mrs. Sutton.
After he had shaken hands with her, he caught the admired violet eyes
of his slim wife, a lady of independent fortune whom the wives of
circuit stewards found it difficult to please in the matter of
furniture, and who despite her forty years still kept something of the
pose of a spoiled beauty. As a minister's spouse this languishing but
impeccable and invariably correct dame was unique even in the
experience of Mrs. Clayton Vernon.
'Shall you not be home early, Rex?' she asked in the tone of a young
wife lounging amid the delicate odours of a boudoir.
'My love,' he replied with the stern fixity of a histrionic martyr,
'did you ever know me have a free evening?'
The Alderman accompanied his pastor to the door.
After tea, Mynors was one of the first to leave the room, and Anna one
of the last, but he accosted her in the hall, on the way back to the
drawing-room, and asked how she was, and how Agnes was, with such
deference and sincerity of regard for herself and everything that was
hers that she could not fail to be impressed. Her sense of humiliation
and of uncertainty was effaced by a single word, a single glance.
Uplifted by a delicious reassurance, she passed into the drawing-room,
expecting him to follow: strange to say, he did not do so. Work was
resumed, but with less ardour than before. It was in fact impossible
to be strenuously diligent after one of Mrs. Sutton's teas, and in
every heart, save those which beat over the most perfect and vigorous
digestive organs, there was a feeling of repentance. The
building-society's clock on the mantel-piece intoned seven: all
expressed surprise at the lateness of the hour, and Mrs. Clayton
Vernon, pleading fatigue after her recent indisposition, quietly
departed. As soon as she was gone, Anna said to Mrs. Sutton that she
too must go.
'Why, my dear?' Mrs. Sutton asked.
'I shall be needed at home,' Anna replied.
'Ah! In that case---- I will come upstairs with you, my dear,' said
Mrs. Sutton.
When they were in the bedroom, Mrs. Sutton suddenly clasped her hand.
'How is it with you, dear Anna?' she said, gazing anxiously into the
girl's eyes. Anna knew what she meant, but made no answer. 'Is it
well?' the earnest old woman asked.
'I hope so,' said Anna, averting her eyes, 'I am trying.'
Mrs. Sutton kissed her almost passionately. 'Ah! my dear,' she
exclaimed with an impulsive gesture, 'I am glad, so glad. I did so
want to have a word with you. You must "lean hard," as Miss Havergal
says. "Lean hard" on Him. Do not be afraid.' And then, changing her
tone: 'You are looking pale, Anna. You want a holiday. We shall be
going to the Isle of Man in August or September. Would your father let
you come with us?'
'I don't know,' said Anna. She knew, however, that he would not.
Nevertheless the suggestion gave her much pleasure.
'We must see about that later,' said Mrs. Sutton, and they went
downstairs.
'I must say good-bye to Beatrice. Where is she?' Anna said in the
hall. One of the servants directed them to the dining-room. The
Alderman and Henry Mynors were looking together at a large photogravure
of Sant's 'The Soul's Awakening,' which Mr. Sutton had recently bought,
and Beatrice was exhibiting her embroidery to a group of ladies: sundry
stitchers were scattered about, including Miss Dickinson.
'It is a great picture--a picture that makes you think,' Henry was
saying, seriously, and the Alderman, feeling as the artist might have
felt, was obviously flattered by this sagacious praise.
Anna said good-night to Miss Dickinson and then to Beatrice. Mynors,
hearing the words, turned round. 'Well, I must go. Good evening,' he
said suddenly to the astonished Alderman.
'What? Now?' the latter inquired, scarcely pleased to find that Mynors
could tear himself away from the picture with so little difficulty.
'Yes.'
'Good-night, Mr. Mynors,' said Anna.
'If I may I will walk down with you,' Mynors imperturbably answered.
It was one of those dramatic moments which arrive without the slightest
warning. The gleam of joyous satisfaction in Miss Dickinson's eyes
showed that she alone had foreseen this declaration. For a declaration
it was, and a formal declaration. Mynors stood there calm, confident
with masculine superiority, and his glance seemed to say to those
swiftly alert women, whose faces could not disguise a thrilling
excitation: 'Yes. Let all know that I, Henry Mynors, the desired of
all, am honourably captive to this shy and perfect creature who is
blushing because I have said what I have said.' Even the Alderman
forgot his photogravure. Beatrice hurriedly resumed her explanation of
the embroidery.
'How did you like the sewing meeting?' Mynors asked Anna when they were
on the pavement.
Anna paused. 'I think Mrs. Sutton is simply a splendid woman,' she
said enthusiastically.
When, in a moment far too short, they reached Tellwright's house,
Mynors, obeying a mutual wish to which neither had given expression,
followed Anna up the side entry, and so into the yard, where they
lingered for a few seconds. Old Tellwright could be seen at the
extremity of the long narrow garden--a garden which consisted chiefly
of a grass-plot sown with clothes-props and a narrow bordering of
flower beds without flowers. Agnes was invisible. The kitchen-door
stood ajar, and as this was the sole means of ingress from the yard
Anna, humming an air, pushed it open and entered, Mynors in her wake.
They stood on the threshold, happy, hesitating, confused, and looked at
the kitchen as at something which they had not seen before. Anna's
kitchen was the only satisfactory apartment in the house. Its
furniture included a dresser of the simple and dignified kind which is
now assiduously collected by amateurs of old oak. It had four long
narrow shelves holding plates and saucers; the cups were hung in a row
on small brass hooks screwed into the fronts of the shelves. Below the
shelves were three drawers in a line, with brass handles, and below the
drawers was a large recess which held stone jars, a copper
preserving-saucepan, and other receptacles. Seventy years of
continuous polishing by a dynasty of priestesses of cleanliness had
given to this dresser a rich ripe tone which the cleverest
trade-trickster could not have imitated. In it was reflected the
conscientious labour of generations. It had a soft and assuaged
appearance, as though it had never been new and could never have been
new. All its corners and edges had long lost the asperities of
manufacture, and its smooth surfaces were marked by slight hollows
similar in spirit to those worn by the naked feet of pilgrims into the
marble steps of a shrine. The flat portion over the drawers was
scarred with hundreds of scratches, and yet even all these seemed to be
incredibly ancient, and in some distant past to have partaken of the
mellowness of the whole. The dark woodwork formed an admirable
background for the crockery on the shelves, and a few of the old
plates, hand-painted according to some vanished secret in pigments
which time could only improve, had the look of relationship by birth to
the dresser. There must still be thousands of exactly similar dressers
in the kitchens of the people, but they are gradually being transferred
to the dining rooms of curiosity-hunters. To Anna this piece of
furniture, which would have made the most taciturn collector vocal with
joy, was merely 'the dresser.' She had always lamented that it
contained no cupboard. In front of the fireless range was an old steel
kitchen fender with heavy fire-irons. It had in the middle of its flat
top a circular lodgment for saucepans, but on this polished disc no
saucepan was ever placed. The fender was perhaps as old as the
dresser, and the profound depths of its polish served to mitigate
somewhat the newness of the patent coal-economising range which
Tellwright had had put in when he took the house. On the high
mantelpiece were four tall brass candlesticks which, like the dresser,
were silently awaiting their apotheosis at the hands of some collector.
Beside these were two or three common mustard tins, polished to
counterfeit silver, containing spices; also an abandoned coffee-mill
and two flat-irons. A grandfather's clock of oak to match the dresser
stood to the left of the fireplace; it had a very large white dial with
a grinning face in the centre. Though it would only run for
twenty-four hours, its leisured movement seemed to have the certainty
of a natural law, especially to Agnes, for Mr. Tellwright never forgot
to wind it before going to bed. Under the window was a plain deal
table, with white top and stained legs. Two Windsor chairs completed
the catalogue of furniture. The glistening floor was of red and black
tiles, and in front of the fender lay a list hearthrug made by
attaching innumerable bits of black cloth to a canvas base. On the
painted walls were several grocers' almanacs, depicting sailors in the
arms of lovers, children crossing brooks, or monks swelling themselves
with Gargantuan repasts. Everything in this kitchen was absolutely
bright and spotless, as clean as a cat in pattens, except the ceiling,
darkened by fumes of gas. Everything was in perfect order, and had the
humanised air of use and occupation which nothing but use and
occupation can impart to senseless objects. It was a kitchen where, in
the housewife's phrase, you might eat off the floor, and to any Bursley
matron it would have constituted the highest possible certificate of
Anna's character, not only as housewife but as elder sister--for in her
absence Agnes had washed the tea-things and put them away.
'This is the nicest room, I know,' said Mynors at length.
'Whatever do you mean?' Anna smiled, incapable of course of seeing the
place with his eye.
'I mean there is nothing to beat a clean, straight kitchen,' Mynors
replied, 'and there never will be. It wants only the mistress in a
white apron to make it complete. Do you know, when I came in here the
other night, and you were sitting at the table there, I thought the
place was like a picture.'
'How funny!' said Anna, puzzled but well satisfied. 'But won't you
come into the parlour?'
The Persian with one ear met them in the lobby, his tail flying, but
cautiously sidled upstairs at sight of Mynors. When Anna opened the
door of the parlour she saw Agnes seated at the table over her lessons,
frowning and preoccupied. Tears were in her eyes.
'Why, what's the matter, Agnes?' she exclaimed.
'Oh! Go away,' said the child crossly. 'Don't bother.'
'But what's the matter? You're crying.'
'No, I'm not. I'm doing my sums, and I can't get it--can't---' The
child burst into tears just as Mynors entered. His presence was a
complete surprise to her. She hid her face in her pinafore, ashamed to
be thus caught.
'Where is it?' said Mynors. 'Where is this sum that won't come right?'
He picked up the slate and examined it while Agnes was finding herself
again. 'Practice!' he exclaimed. 'Has Agnes got as far as practice?'
She gave him an instant's glance and murmured 'Yes.' Before she could
shelter her face he had kissed her. Anna was enchanted by his manner,
and as for Agnes, she surrendered happily to him at once. He worked
the sum, and she copied the figures into her exercise-book. Anna sat
and watched.
'Now I must go,' said Mynors.
'But surely you'll stay and see father,' Anna urged.
'No. I really had not meant to call. Good-night, Agnes.' In a moment
he was gone out of the room and the house. It was as if, in obedience
to a sudden impulse, he had forcibly torn himself away.
'Was _he_ at the sewing meeting?' Agnes asked, adding in parenthesis,
'I never dreamt he was here, and I was frightfully vexed. I felt such
a baby.'
'Yes. At least, he came for tea.'
'Why did he call here like that?'
'How can I tell?' Anna said. The child looked at her.
'It's awfully queer, isn't it?' she said slowly. 'Tell me all about
the sewing meeting. Did they have cakes or was it a plain tea? And
did you go into Beatrice Sutton's bedroom?'