"He probably told you that the County Council had made a very handsome offer for its purchase."
"They made the offer to me. The field is mine."
Mrs. Robson was looking at the books too now. Her glance had followed his. She saw a fat grey volume called "Capital" by Karl Marx and a paper backed volume called "Essays on Socialism" by Bentley Box, and a flaming orange cover, with scarlet letters announcing "The Salvation of Society" by some one whose name was too small to be legible.
"I understand," said Coast, "that you have refused to sell."
"My husband wants the field for sheep washing. It's the only paddock we have with running water. I believe you want the County Council to buy it to make a field for the children to play in. I don't think it would be at all suitable."
Even as she spoke she repictured the paddock, fenced high with hawthorn, and the stream that in summer dried to a thin thread. There John had found her one summer evening shortly after her father's death and had asked her to marry him. Well, her acceptance had been a matter of convenience rather than passion, and no courtship could have been more decorous. But in the shadowy sweetness of that evening she had dreamed of a romance she did not know, and the field was fragrant with memory. Even now she could feel the damp air on her face and smell the delicate scent of hawthorn and wet earth, and hear the tearing sound of cows feeding in the long grass.
"It is very suitable, Mrs. Robson. It opens straight on the playground, right under the supervision of the school house and it's a nice level ground."
"I dare say. But you would find the stream a great inconvenience."
"Not at all, it could be fenced off."
"Why, it nearly cuts the field in half."
"Not quite, I think, if you observe it closely. I see you hardly know the field," he added with patronizing gentleness. "Perhaps if you came down and looked——"
"My good man!" cried Mary, losing patience. "If you think I don't know my own land!"
She broke off with a short laugh.
"Not at all, Mrs. Robson, not at all. I was merely suggesting that you might reconsider the possibility of selling. The County Council have offered to buy this field in connection with the school. They rarely enough make generous suggestions of this kind. The field is admirably situated and I am sure we could meet you about the price."
"It is nothing to do with the price." Mary spoke quietly, a little ashamed of her last outburst. "They offered very rightly to buy the land at its market value. We suggested that they might rent it from us, but my husband and I do not wish to sell."
Coast turned away from her, but in the looking-glass above the mantelpiece he could see her smiling, determined mouth, and the complacent repose of her clasped hands.
"They don't want to rent it," he said, wrestling with his increasing irritation, "they want to buy the land and make their own improvements. Walls, and levelling and so on."
"Then why don't they try for the field in the village that young Armstrong rents from the Setons of Edenthorpe?"
"It's too big and not so handy. And being in the village they'd ask more for it. It might come in for building cottages. Your field is obviously the one, Mrs. Robson. You must see that you are doing a great injustice to the village if you won't sell."
"There is no question of injustice," said Mary, rising and straightening her fur. "I shall always be willing to lend it for the children's games, when we are not needing it for the sheep or young horses. But I will not sell."
"Yes, Mrs. Robson." Coast's voice trembled with anger. "I know that you are always willing to lend your land or your presence or your pony-cart. It costs you nothing and you get a good deal of credit for it from a certain class of people. But when you are asked to part with something that means a small sacrifice, but which will be of great service to the village, then it's a different matter altogether, isn't it?"
"I think you forget yourself, Mr. Coast. You will not find that your incivility makes me any more ready to sell. I don't think it is any use staying and arguing with you any longer, especially as you can't control your temper."
She swept out of the room.
As she crossed the passage, she caught sight of Mrs. Coast's frightened face, hovering like a ghost near the kitchen door. But she ignored its mute appeal and closed the front door behind her with exaggerated care.
Outside she walked with hurried steps along the path by the churchyard. Outraged virtue is a comfortable feeling. Coast had no right to speak to her like that. As if she wasn't ready to do anything for Anderby! Why, now that the Wold Farm was safe she had no stronger interest left in life than her care for the village. He could not help knowing how much she cared. It was common talk how she sat up all night when old Mrs. Watts had bronchitis, and how she drove every sick child in to hospital....
It was dinner-time now. She would be late and that was the schoolmaster's fault. She almost wished she had let John sign that testimonial and so get rid of the man. There would have been room in Leeds for him to lose himself. You could never get away from anyone in Anderby.
All the way down the path she assured herself that Coast was an awful man and that she was suffering from her difficult act of justice three years ago.
As she turned into the village street she began to feel uncomfortable. Was it, after all, so very important that she should keep the field? She who always laughed at sentiment, what did she hope to gain by it? A secret garden of romance? Or rather a convenient paddock where there were good mushrooms and running water? If ever she had loved John, it would have been different. She would have had a right to be sentimental. Still—she liked to pretend that once she had welcomed her lover like other women. The dream was so elusive that, without the field, it might vanish altogether.
And, anyway, Coast has no right to speak to her like that.
She wrapped herself in satisfaction, as in a soft, warm cloak.
The garden gate closed behind her with a clang.
She would not sell.
THE TREES OF THE VALLEY
It was a dreary winter. All day in the garden shrubbery Mary could hear the drop, drop of water from the trees. Christmas came and went in a sorrowful vapour of drifting rain.
Mary hated it all. She hated the long drives in to market down a fog muffled road. She hated the cold clammy feeling of curtains and sheets in the farm-house. She hated the loosened tile that allowed a slow yellow stain to creep across the ceiling of the best bedroom. Besides, she had a persistent cold in her head. It was all very trying.
She lay awake in bed in the chill half-light, awaiting for the church clock to strike seven. The curtains, drawn almost to the centre of the window, flapped and swayed, while the strip of luminous grey that must be the sky outside contracted and expanded with their wanton motion.
Below the bed-clothes at her side she could see John's humped outline. That fringe of soft darkness against the pillow was his beard. The sheet rose and fell with his even breathing.
The heaviness of his sleep annoyed Mary intensely. She might toss and turn and ruckle up the bed-clothes as she would, on sleepless nights when the harvest was bad, or there was a case of anthrax at Littledale, but the only sign of responsibility John ever gave was an occasional snore.
After all, it was her farm. Why should he worry?
Last night she had slept badly, dreaming that John hit her because she would not put a new cake of soap on his wash-stand. Just now she wished her dream were true. Life with John would be so much more tolerable if he would only just sometimes assert his personality. Strike her? Why, he'd go for days without soap rather than make the effort of asking her for it, and as for helping himself—why, he'd sooner get drunk at theFlying Foxthough the soap box was only in the wardrobe by their bed.
She clasped her hands round her bent knees and looked down at him. The Robson relatives said she bullied him. They did not realize that John's total inability ever to disagree with anyone about anything transformed even an attitude of consideration to one of tyranny. If Mary always knew exactly what men she wanted to keep after Martinmas, and what date she wanted the pig to be killed, must she refrain from expressing her desires because John's agreement was assured? What was one to do with a man who said, "Well, honey, you know best," whenever one asked his opinion on any subject from chicken food to Fire Insurance?
The mountain of clothes beside her stirred and heaved. John raised his head from the pillow, then sighed himself to sleep again.
Mary could just see his profile now in the dim light. Really, he was quite good-looking. People always called him "a good-looking man." And he was very patient and kind and unselfish—and had all the irritating negative virtues of the oppressed.
Oh, but one wanted some one young and swift and romantic! Some one who would laugh and quarrel and argue and make friends again. Some one who might occasionally utter an unanticipated remark.
The door opened and Violet came in with a can of hot water.
"Good morning, Violet; what's the time?"
"Quarter to seven, m'm. Shall I light the candle, and do you want the wall oven on this morning?"
"Yes, please. I'm going to bake for the Wesleyan tea."
John was waking up. He rolled over drowsily and stuck his head above the clothes, blinking at Mary with blue sleepy eyes.
His customary formula greeted her:
"What's the time, honey?"
Mary believed he had made the same inquiry every morning of their married life.... Ten years and five weeks.... Three hundred and sixty-five days in a year....
"Quarter to seven and a cold morning."
"Oh. All right, is it time we were stirring?"
"I think so. Violet has brought the water."
That was what they always said—the same things every morning. And there were so many remarks he might make. He might, for instance, tell her she looked rather nice, sitting there with her two heavy plaits falling across her shoulders, and the strong cream column of her throat rising above the frills of her flannel nightgown. It was a pretty throat, not reddened by exposure like Ursula's; because Mary nearly always wore high collars.
He might tell her she was pretty. That would give colour and excitement to the whole day. Perhaps if she said something pleasant to him he might be induced to return the compliment.
She watched him rear himself slowly from the bed, his great shoulders straining at the pyjama jacket. Clumsily his bare feet groped for his slippers on the floor.
"Eh, John, you great thing!" She laughed up at him softly. "What a giant you are! No wonder they call you 'Big John of Littledale'!"
He had found his slippers, and gathered round his body the dressing-gown from the foot of the bed. Without comment he turned and slouched across the room.
Mary felt as though he had slammed the door in her face. "Fool!" she cried to herself. "Fool! Wasn't I asking for it?"
Two hours later she stood in the red-tiled kitchen busy with her flour dredgers and baking boards and great jars of sugar and currants. She liked the warm buttery smell of baking and the mastery of familiar instruments and quick confident movements over tins and oven and wooden spoons. She enjoyed the blast of warm air that struck her cheeks when she opened the oven door, and the greetings of men who passed the kitchen window on their way from one stackyard to another.
When Violet came from the "front way" to make an eleven o'clock cup of tea, Mary was in a thoroughly good humour, her early-morning depression forgotten.
"I don't think," she said, rubbing the flour off her hands, "that you ever told me if you found your aunt better, when you went to see her in Hardrascliffe on Saturday."
"I didn't go. Please, m'm, are you ready for me to mash the tea?"
"Yes please—the brown pot. Why didn't you go?"
"I went to the pictures with Percy Deane."
"With Percy Deane? Why, what's happened to Fred Stephens?"
Violet flung the tea into the cups with more generosity than discretion. Mary's table suffered a little during the process.
"Oh. I'm off with Fred. Will you have a bit of cheese-cake, m'm?"
"Violet, why are you off with Fred? He's an awfully nice boy. I can't say I ever did think much of Percy. He drinks too much and he's not a steady worker. I'm sure he's not the man for you. Now Fred——"
"Oh, I'm sick of Fred. He's so rough in his talk."
Mary leaned back against the table and sipped her tea, conscious that, in spite of her easy patronage, she was bitterly jealous of Violet, of her youth and unconscious egoism. She was jealous of the suitors who rang their bicycle bells in the road on Saturday evenings as they waited, posy in cap, to ride with Violet to Hardrascliffe.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Oh, you know. When we go to the pictures and there isn't much room, Fred just says 'Shuve up, lass,' right loud so as every one can hear we're common folk like; while Perce, he always says polite 'Will you be so kind as to pass a little further up the seat, please?' I have myself to think of."
Violet tossed an independent head.
"But that's so silly," said Mary with common sense, "if you really like Fred best. He's devoted to you. You used to tell me you liked him last autumn."
"Well, I've learnt a thing or two since then. Anyway, I'd much rather walk out with a tailor's assistant than a common labourer."
"But it matters so much more whether you love him. It does really. It's not a bit of use marrying some one just because it seems a sensible thing to do." Mary's earnestness was quite remarkable.
"Oh—love!" sneered Violet.
And there was an end of it.
But all the time she was changing her clothes and driving into Market Burton with her husband, Mary was haunted by Violet's final exclamation. Possibly she was wrong. Her obstinacy about the water-paddock in the village, her advice to Violet, her wistfulness in the morning, were all part of a sentimental legend, invented by people to hide the emptiness of their lives. "Oh—love!"
Well, anyway, there was the farm and the village, and plenty of useful and important things to do. Really at her age, it was time she stopped being so stupid. John was a good husband, and at least he never said "Shuve up, lass!" There were compensations even in marrying an older cousin.
Her destination that afternoon was the drawing-room of Petunia Villa, whither Uncle Dickie and Aunt Jane had retired after their farming days were over. Anne and Louisa lived with them, and on Wednesday afternoons, while the men attended the Cattle Market, all the ladies of the family congregated there among the woolwork and antimacassars.
Mary had brought her sewing and sat a little apart, listening to her sisters-in-law run through their conversational répertoire—servants, ailments, the Medical Mission's sale of work. Among her husband's relatives she had gained an unmerited reputation for silence. But she was aware that every remark she made in Market Burton was repeated and criticized from house to house, and passed on continually, with the brief prelude, "Mary Robson says so and so," and the probable qualification, "Isn't shequeer?"
Janet Holmes was concluding a long narrative.
"... And so I said, 'Mr. Jefferson, I've bought silk from your establishment for five and thirty years; but, after this, never again!' And I walked out of the shop."
There followed a murmur of approbation from the sisters-in-law. Then the conversation, having for so long dwindled into a monologue, ceased entirely, while a new topic was sought. Mary, who had formed a habit of trying to give people what they wanted, provided one for them.
"Did you know that Toby had bought a new car?" she asked.
They fell upon it with avidity.
"He'd better by half have kept the money to pay his doctor's bills. Molly tells me they weren't paid for last time, and now, with the new one coming, I'm sure I don't know how he'll manage." Sarah Bannister poked her knitting-needles sharply into the sock.
"Really? Another? Really? I didn't know," murmured Anne.
"You never do," Louisa commented severely. "Will he drive it himself, Mary?"
For a moment Mary wondered whether the inquiry related to the prospective infant or the car; but Sarah answered for her.
"He'll drive it himself for a couple o' months, and then he'll have a nasty accident one of these fine days and smash the whole concern, and start a new craze. That's what he'll do."
"I thought carpentering was the last fad?" Louisa transferred a pin from her mouth to the hem of the shirt she was stitching.
"He tried carpentering until their maid fell over his newfangled draught screen at the head of the stairs and broke her leg. Then he really had to stop turning his drawing-room into a joiner's shop. Louisa, hand me that other ball of wool, please." Mrs. Bannister made a practice of exacting occasional small services from her sisters, to impress upon them her seniority.
"If we don't take care," remarked Louisa, "we shall find the Tobys will be another lot of poor relations." Being dependent herself, she naturally objected to anyone else occupying a similar position.
"There's one thing I will say for Toby"—Sarah so rarely said things in favour of her relatives that the company looked up attentively—"I don't think he ever would be a poor relation."
"I'm sure he'll ruin himself one day," sighed Aunt Jane.
"Being a poor relation has nothing to do with how much money you've got. It's just a state of mind."
"What an idea, Sarah! You do say some th'ngs! I'm sure it all comes of his being a solicitor. My husband always said lawyers were no good." Janet Holmes shook a melancholy head.
"Solicitor? I wouldn't mind his being a solicitor," snapped Sarah. "It's when he's a carpenter and chicken farmer and amateur photographer that I've no patience with him. He'll be standing for Parliament one day just to try something new, you see if he doesn't. I've no patience with a man who makes a profession of his hobbies."
"I don't mind so long as he makes a hobby of his profession," laughed Mary. "John and I have put most of our affairs into his hands."
"Oh. Indeed. Have you? Well, it's your own fault then if you come to grief. Didyouadvise John to go to Toby?"
"I did," said Mary. "He's our cousin. I'm sure I don't know who else there is."
"I advised John to do nothing of the kind."
Mary raised her eyebrows. This, from Sarah, was a confession of defeat. If Mary had advised John to do one thing when Sarah had asked him to do something else, and he had followed Mary's guidance, then it was strange that Sarah should acknowledge it. Sarah was strange, though.... Always had been rather clever and certainly odd. "Odd" for Market Burton meant any digression from the straight and narrow path of conventionality. You never knew what Sarah would say next.
Callers drifted in. At Market Burton a lady's social success could be measured by the number of teas she attended on Wednesday afternoons. Nearly all the ladies of Market Burton were the wives of retired farmers.
Mary continued to sew and to be depressed by the new-comers. Their hats were depressing; their shoes were depressing; their similarity was the most depressing of all. This was what life in Market Burton did to you. Once these people had risen early and worked hard, and wrestled with the soil that gave them livelihood, as she rose and worked and wrestled. Now, if they moved at all from their chairs by the fire-side, they rose and turned round and round, through the garden-bound streets and chattering parlours of the valley town and then sat down again. It almost seemed as though the rolling hills and open country had proved too much for them. Each generation was born, brought up amongst the scattered farms, worked for a while, and reared a new generation to follow after them, then slipped back into the sheltered valley to wither and die.
Snatches of their conversation drifted towards her across the room—maids, their sisters, the price of butter.
Mary shivered. They were as lifeless as the uprooted trees, carried from the wold side and laid in the back garden of the farm, awaiting destruction for firewood. Their talk was as meaningless as the rustle of dry leaves on brittle twigs.
Mrs. Holmes gasped her way across the room, and sat down beside Mary.
"Yes, you know," she began without further prelude, "I've just come back from Harrogate, and it hasn't done me a bit of good. Ethel, my cook you know, has given notice, and my nerves are all to pieces. You don't know a nice girl, do you? You're so lucky with maids, I know—always keep them. Then, of course, having a village like that to choose from...."
In the other corner Anne and Mrs. Toby, who had just arrived, were discussing the price of wool for socks. Aunt Jane's head was nodding in the arm-chair near the fire. Only Sarah sat alert and grim. "I won't grow like them. I won't!" thought Mary. "I won't ever leave the farm and come here to grow all withered and dry. I won't even stay alive like Sarah, and hate everything that alters because I can't grow along with it."
She hardly listened to Janet's tale of woe.
Then there was a sudden rustle and clatter and Ursula Robson entered the room. She came in as usual unannounced, and Mary wondered if anyone could be more unlike the ladies round the fire. From her scarlet toque to her high-heeled shoes, she looked about as appropriate in that Victorian gathering as Dodo in a Cranford parlour.
"Yes, I've just dropped in for a moment," she announced, greeting her relatives with breathless energy. Ursula had cultivated a manner that might convey to her acquaintances something of the reckless pace of that society to which she aspired. "Foster would go down to the market—such a bore when I wanted to get home in time to dinner. The Lesters were coming in afterwards to play bridge."
She peeled a longsuedeglove from her slim arm, rolled it into a ball and tossed it on to the sofa before she sat down by Mary and asked cheerfully:
"Well, and how's John?"
Mary with amused interest followed Sarah's disapproving glance across the room to Ursula's ankles. When Mrs. Foster Robson sat down the sheath-like skirt below her fur coat slid almost up to her knees. Ursula, looking up too, caught Sarah's critical glance. With an impish gesture she thrust forward a little both her disgraceful legs and turned to Mary vivaciously.
"You haven't answered my question. How's John?" she asked.
"John's all right. I won't ask after Foster as I met him in the market."
"Then if you saw him in the market you saw the most disreputable hat in the East Riding. Mary, what do you do to your husband when he will dress himself up as an 'old clo' man? I've hidden that hat. I've danced on it. I've even put it in the rubbish bin, but up it comes again and goes to market on Wednesdays, as though he'd just bought it from Henry Heath's. What am I to do?"
"I should burn it," suggested Mary calmly.
Ursula at least was alive. She was not in any way a tree of the valley. It was a relief to know that there still were some people with vitality left.
Louisa's soft voice cooed disapproval:
"Wouldn't that be rather wasteful?"
"Wasteful? Good Lord, if you could see it you wouldn't talk about waste! Aunt Jane, you ought to be used to dealing with this sort of thing. What do you do with Dickie when he's obstinate?"
"Dickie!" Mary looked up with apprehension to see if the roof would fall on such astounding levity. But Ursula fully realized the extent of her privilege. She knew the awe-struck pride with which her relatives watched her prowess on the golf links. Her airy impertinences and elusive skirts were forgiven because Anne and Louisa loved to impress strangers with "Mrs. Foster Robson, the Golf Champion." And even Mrs. Tilly would talk confusedly of mashies and niblicks, though she had never been on the links in her life.
"Foster's going to Scotland for a fortnight next week," she announced suddenly.
"You'll go too, I suppose?" Mary asked.
"No. I don't feel up to knocking about much just now."
Mary flashed a discerning glance at her cousin's face.
Ursula smiled, a subtle, triumphant smile. A dimple, never long in hiding, flickered on her rounded cheek.
"Oh, Ursula!" cried Mary softly. "You don't mean?"
Ursula nodded, still smiling.
The sisters were all discussing an approaching sale of work, and the two women on the sofa seemed isolated. They spoke quietly. "Do the others know?"
"Not yet. I'll feel such a fool telling them. They always make such an ungodly fuss about these kind of things, and because I've been South for so long they forget there's any such possibility."
"When?"
"April."
"Well, anyhowyouare doing your duty." Mary laughed a little, but her fingers, tightly holding the linen she sewed, were trembling. She felt a little breathless, as though she had just found in the possession of another something she had sought a long time. Then the instinct that made her respond to an expressed need came to her aid.
"Look here, Ursula, if you feel rather bored at the idea of being alone when Foster goes away, why not come to Anderby for a fortnight? We haven't had any visitors—anyway, young ones—for ages."
"Do you mean that? I'd love it. It's so dull when I can't play golf. Are you sure I shan't be a nuisance?"
"Of course you won't. I'd love to have you."
She would. Because Ursula was young. Anything was better than this dreary monotony of middle age—when one was only twenty-eight.
"Righto. I'll come. And, Mary, I wonder if you'd tell the others after I've gone. I should feel such an ass and they're bound to know soon."
"Of course I will."
Ursula nodded and smiled and left her, to pay her compliments to Aunt Jane.
Mary sat and watched her. Why, she wondered, had she asked her to stay? Why had she promised to tell the family that Ursula, and not she, was going to have a baby? Why did one ever tell those faded women anything? Her news would stir them lightly, as a breeze stirs withered leaves to a rustling chatter, but that would subside too, and they would forget until the next breeze blew.
Besides, why Ursula's news, when she wanted so much to give them tidings of her own? Ursula had all the luck. It wasn't as if she cared for Mary. She only looked upon her as someone useful, and staid, and a little dull.
Mary pulled herself together. After all she had her work. She had Anderby. Her needle flew in and out of her material as she nursed this thought. All that one really wanted was that things should stay as they were. What did it matter if Ursula had a private income and clothes from London and an exasperating air of importance?
She could have a thousand babies for all Mary cared! One day she would retire too, and grow old, and come to wither among the trees of the valley.
Mary never would. Never, never!
Aunt Jane beckoned her.
"Come and talk to me, love. I haven't seen you for long enough."
Mary crossed the room and sat down by the big arm-chair. Aunt Jane sat, her bird-like head on one side, waiting for Mary to tell her something. She always sat like this, waiting for people to tell her something. It was her one interest in life, though she always forgot what they told her.
Mary knew she was waiting, but there seemed to be nothing to say. Ursula was still in the room, so she must not yet talk about the baby, but besides that she could think of nothing but dried leaves rattling on rotten twigs in a valley garden.
"Well, love?" prompted Aunt Jane.
"Have you been cutting down any trees lately?" asked Mary wildly.
Her sisters-in-law looked up in mild surprise, but Aunt Jane only shook her head.
"No, love," she replied. "You see since we gave up farming we haven't had any wood of our own."
THE PERFECT GUEST
Ursula stood in front of the looking-glass inspecting the angle of her hat. It was a new hat. She had put it on to impress Mary. Mary dressed rather like the worthier type of village school teacher. She wore flannel blouses with high collars. It was time some one took her in hand. "There's something about looking after a parish that makes a woman forget to powder her nose," thought Ursula.
Ursula had come to Anderby on a mission of mercy. She was going to brighten Mary up. Mary had been shut away too long with that extraordinarily dull husband of hers. She thought that the only thing a married woman could do, if she had any time left over from looking after her own household, was to look after some one else's. Well, Ursula was going to show her that there were lots of other things to do. The perfect guest was one who contributed something to the life of her hostess. Ursula was going to teach Mary how to dress, and play bridge, and behave like a girl of twenty-eight instead of a woman of forty. And yet she would be tender and gentle, with the tenderness of expectant motherhood—fashionable yet considerate, thoughtful yet spontaneous.
Ursula found continual pleasure in the contemplation of her own spontaneity.
Mary re-entered the drawing-room, carrying a tea-tray. Now was the time, thought Ursula, to lay her fur coat carelessly on the sofa, and reveal the soft grey draperies of her satin dress. What a mercy she looked so much nicer than most women in these circumstances. It just showed there was no real need to let yourself go.
But Mary did not seem to notice the dress.
"We're having a cup of tea now," she explained, arranging the tray on the table, "because I expect you would like one after your drive, and I have to go out down the village on an errand."
"When? Now?"
Then she would not be present while Ursula spread on the antiquated dressing-table the elaborate paraphernalia of her toilette—bottles, scent, powder, manicure instruments. She would not be instructed by the display of Ursula's fairy-likelingerie. She would miss part of her education.
"I'm sorry if it seems rude, but it's rather important. I dare say you will be glad of a rest, though."
"It's something that's worrying you, Mary. What?"
"Worrying me? Why, whatever makes you think I'm worrying?"
"My dear, you're hardly an expert at disguising your feelings. Do you mind if I have a cigarette? Now then, come along! Confession is good for the soul."
Mary must be worried if she was too preoccupied to notice the fur coat.
"I'm only going to see the schoolmaster about a boy John wants to come and work on the farm this spring. The schoolmaster says he hasn't reached the sixth standard yet, and doesn't want him to leave school."
"What are you going to do, then?"
"I'm going to Coast to tell him that the boy is thirteen and has put in his attendances. If he hasn't got to the sixth standard now, he never will. He's keen on sheep and hates lessons. On the farm he'll be getting experience as well as making money. It's absurd to keep him sitting at a desk chalking coloured flowers!"
"Oh, you talk to the schoolmaster like that, do you? But isn't there something about education acts and things? I don't know much about it. It's not my line, but the kid seems pretty young."
Ursula was not at all interested in lads and education acts. She wanted to talk about her own interesting condition or Mary's style of hairdressing. But she had made up her mind to be patient, and patient she would be.
"Mr. Woodcock," continued Mary with heat, "says in theYorkshire Chroniclethat the people who make education acts are legislating for the normal majority. It is the business of local knowledge to determine the exceptions."
"My dear Mary, you talk like a Member of Parliament. Are you really interested in these things?"
"Rural education? Yes, of course."
"Why 'of course'? I'm not. I never put my nose inside Middlethorpe. I don't know if there's a village school or not except when the beastly bell rings in the morning—and yet Foster seems to do pretty well on the farm."
"It's not entirely a question of money though, is it?"
Mary looked at Ursula with grave, wide eyes.
"Isn't it? Philanthropy, then, and all that sort of thing, I suppose. Does your schoolmaster enjoy it when you snatch his lambs away from him? Does he, Mary?"
She laughed.
"No. I don't believe he does. But that's not the point."
"I don't really see that there is a point to it at all."
Ursula lit one cigarette from another and threw the dead end into the grate. She did not like smoking a lot just now, but really, with Mary——
"Well, some one's got to do it," said Mary.
"Why? Do what?"
"Oh, see that nurses are provided and that the girls get situations and—oh, I don't know. Besides, I like it."
"Of course." Ursula smiled pityingly. "I suppose when you have so few other ties——"
Mary flushed.
Ursula continued:
"You look tired. I'm sure you do too much. I shall speak to John about it. Why don't you go in for golf?"
"Golf? I shouldn't be any good at that I'm afraid. Besides Hardrascliffe links are so far away. I haven't time."
"Time? Of course you have time. As much time as anyone. As me, for instance."
Mary shook her head slowly, and began to gather up the tea-things.
"You'll excuse me going away now, won't you? I shan't be long. You'll just have nice time to unpack comfortably and I expect John will be in any moment now."
She left the room.
Ursula curled herself comfortably on the sofa and putting another cushion behind her head, prepared to enjoy a grievance. Really it was rather casual of Mary to go and leave her just after her arrival. She did not seem to realize her good fortune in having her cousin there at all. "She's hopelessly limited and narrow-minded. Poor Mary! Anybody so thoroughly pleased with herself must be disillusioned one day. She'll come a cropper soon," prophesied Ursula.
She was too tired to go upstairs and dress. Besides, what was the use, when John and Mary never changed for high tea?
Her head sank back among the cushions.
"Oh, that you, Ursula? How are you?"
John stood before her holding out a polite but rather grimy hand. His beard was grizzled with frost. His farming boots distributed little pools of melting ice on the carpet. Leather breeches encased his great legs.
Ursula sat up and patted her perfectly-ordered hair.
"Good gracious! I must have been dozing. How are you, John? I'm perfectly fit, thanks."
"Where's Mary?"
"She's gone off up the village somewhere. I say, John, you ought to keep an eye on that wife of yours. She works much too hard."
John tugged at his beard and smiled lazily down at Ursula.
"Oh, I can't stop her. If she wants to do anything she will. What's she up to now?"
"She's off to tell the schoolmaster some home-truths about a lad or something. She says you want him on the farm and he's under age."
"Jack Greenwood? I don't want him. That's her idea. How long has she been gone?"
"Oh, I don't know. Ages. Do sit down and talk to me."
John looked apologetically at his boots. Near Ursula's fragile daintiness he felt more than ever conscious of his bulk and clumsiness.
"Where's Foster?" he asked.
"He's away in Scotland buying stock. He's crazy about crossing something or other with Highland Cattle.Idon't know." Ursula seemed preoccupied. Her brow was ruffled with thought. "John, does Mary always rule things in the village in this high-handed way?"
"What? I dun' know. That's her business. I never interfere."
"But don't you see she's wearing herself out? Making an old woman of herself while she ought to be still a girl? Besides, after all, you're the farmer, aren't you? Of course," with a sigh, "I know she's magnificent."
"Oh—ay."
"But it must make it a little uncomfortable for every one if she will set the village by the ears."
John sat silent for a minute. Ursula lay and watched him, her sharp brown eyes quietly searching his ruminative face. There was something about John that reminded her of an ox—large, docile, fated. "Well, it's nowt to do with me," he said at last. "I'd better go and clear away some of this mess. So long."
He left her.
Well, it was evident that nothing could be done with John. She would have to concentrate on Mary. The determination to reform her cousin-in-law's existence pursued her throughout the evening. It would be an entertaining game, the sole relief of a rather monotonous visit to otherwise boring people.
Next morning she was awakened by Mary, standing over her bed with the breakfast tray. One irritating thing about Mary was that she always seemed to be carrying trays somewhere.
"Good heavens! What's the time?"
"Half-past eight. John wanted breakfast at a quarter past seven this morning. He had to go to Littledale early."
"Well, it's awfully ripping of you, but you know you shouldn't spoil me."
"It's not a question of spoiling," returned Mary serenely. "I couldn't let you get up so early, especially as I don't suppose you feel quite at your best in the mornings just now."
How like Mary to emphasize the unromantic aspect of a really rather romantic thing! Ursula surveyed the tray which Mary arranged in a businesslike fashion by her side. Mary's manner always reminded Ursula vaguely of a hospital nurse. She made you feel as if you weren't a person at all, but only an object of her philanthropy.
Ursula decided that the time had come to assert her personality. "Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry, but do you mind if I don't eat this bacon? I never take it now, nothing but an egg or a scrap of fish. No, no! Don't take it away. I might perhaps try to manage it."
"Oh, for goodness' sake don't eat it if it would upset you. I ought to have asked last night. It was silly of me. You really should have told me. And perhaps you'd rather have tea instead of coffee?"
"Oh, no. Don't bother. I couldn't think of troubling you. I'll manage with coffee this morning. It mayn't make me ill." Ursula smiled brightly.
"Oh, does it make you sick? I'll bring some tea in a minute."
Mary vanished from the room and Ursula lay and wondered whether it was worth while getting out of bed to brush her hair before Mary returned. Just like Mary to come in and find her asleep with dishevelled hair and her face still covered with the cream she had put on before retiring. It was not at all in keeping with the effect she had intended to produce. But perhaps Mary hadn't noticed much. Ursula climbed out of bed, wincing as her toes touched the cold carpet. There were always such appalling draughts in these old houses. A rug against the door would be a good thing. She mentally recorded the suggestion.
A deft fingering of her dark hair and the addition of a rosy satin wrap transformed Ursula. She snuggled back among the pillows as Mary came in bearing a teapot, an egg-cup, a hot water-bottle and a shawl.
"There now," she said. "That's better, isn't it? Now put this shawl round your shoulders. It's cold this morning, isn't it?"
"Thanks awfully. No I don't want the shawl, thanks. I have my wrap. It was sweet of you to think of it, though."
"Would you care to come out a little later?"
"I'd love to. I'm longing to see this wonderful village of yours." She shivered a little.
"Are you cold? Do have the shawl."
"No, thanks, but perhaps if you don't mind shutting the door."
"Well, then, I'll come for the tray presently. Don't hurry down. Have you a book? I left a few on the table. Have you everything you want?"
"Yes, rather. Thanks awfully. And what about a bath? Do I just ring when I'm ready or what? I could go along myself of course, only I don't want to give any trouble. Perhaps Violet——"
"Violet's busy this morning. I'm sorry we haven't got a bathroom yet. I'll bring some cans up to your room."
"Not a bathroom? Poor things! Why, if I don't have my bath every morning I feel perfectly filthy. And bathing in one's room is such a chill-some business, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid it is really. But you shall have a fire. I'll light one now." She lit the fire and went out, leaving Ursula alone with the tray.
Ursula waited quarter of an hour for Mary in the hall, and while she waited, she reluctantly yielded to an increasing sense of irritation. She had come to Anderby prepared to be very nice to Mary—and here was Mary trying to patronize her all the time. All that breakfast in bed, and fire and bath business had subtly transferred Ursula from the position of a friend to that of a dependent. "Perfection of service lies in the appearance of rendering none," quoted Ursula to herself, and decided she was badly used.
And when Mary at last appeared in the hall, she came forward with an apology which implied no shame but was merely a statement of courtesy.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting, but the butcher's cart came round and then Mrs. Walker brought me her nursing subscription."
"Oh, don't worry about me. I've been as right as a trivet—only waiting about half an hour. Where are we going?"
"Well, if you don't mind I want to go up to the churchyard. Old Jacob Jordan died a day or two ago. They're burying him to-morrow and I sent a man up to line the grave with evergreen. The old people haven't much of a garden, and they do appreciate those little attentions."
"Do you go and decorate the grave yourself?"
"No, I only want to see how it's getting on. Here, let me open the gate. You'll spoil your gloves."
But Ursula was already tugging at the iron bars, and withdrew her hand, grimacing at the stripe of moisture across the doeskin gauntlet. She felt that it would have been becoming in Mary to show some sign of concern. But Mary only said quietly:
"You should have let me do it."
Ursula walked on for a little way in silence. Then she asked:
"Will you go to the funeral to-morrow?"
"Yes. If you'll excuse me for that time. It won't take long."
"Do you go to all their funerals?"
"The people in the village? Yes, mostly."
"Mary, howcanyou?"
"Why shouldn't I? I don't mind."
"Funerals are so beastly depressing. If you go to a lot you'll get morbid and queer."
"I shan't. I quite enjoy them."
"Enjoy them? Good Lord, that just shows how fearfully bad they are for you. Enjoying a funeral! I never heard of anything so grizzly."
"It's not a bit grizzly really. If you lived about here, you'd understand. People enjoy them nearly as much as weddings and a lot more than christenings."
"Oh, I see." Ursula cracked a frozen puddle with the point of her walking-stick. "A christening may be a farce and a wedding a fiasco, but you know where you are with a funeral."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Mary calmly.
They had turned from the village street into a path that led up the hill to the church. Ursula took up her tale.
"All the same, I think it's perfectly beastly, making a kind of beanfeast because somebody is going to be shut up in the earth. Do you know, if you don't mind I think I'd rather not go into the churchyard just now—an open grave, it always gives me the shudders. I can wait outside."
"Why, of course. How silly of me not to have thought about it. It doesn't matter. I can go another time. Let's turn down here."
"Here" meant past the School House.
"What a hideous place!" said Ursula.
"Oh, I don't know." Mary resented anyone else who criticized her village. "Why, there's the schoolmaster."
"Is he one of your adorers?" Ursula asked, looking with amusement at the lean, black coated figure carrying a pile of books from one building to another.
Mary flushed.
"Not exactly," she said, but as Mr. Coast approached she smiled at him graciously. "Good morning," she called. "A blustery morning, isn't it? How's Mrs. Coast?"
She was not going to let Ursula see that there was any fly in her ointment of patronage.
But Coast regarded her coldly without a sign of recognition. From her he turned to Ursula, in her fur coat and rakish hat. His scornful eyes swept across them and he turned away.
Ursula suppressed a giggle of triumph. This was the worship offered by Mary's beloved villagers. The family should hear of this. "What a rude man!" she remarked airily.
"I expect the sun was in his eyes," said Mary.
Ursula decided it would be tactful to change the conversation. Poor Mary! She looked like a lion tamer when Leo won't sit up and do his tricks!
"You know, Mary," she began with pretty diffidence, running her walking-stick along the path, "you're such a dear. I'd hate to see you spoiled, and living this sort of life must be rather dangerous—likely to get you into a groove."
"What sort of a groove?" asked Mary.
"Well, all this village work and so on. And sticking so closely to your house and everything, as if you were one of your own aunts."
Mary held herself well in hand.
"I thought I had explained all that before," she said patiently. "You see we've had to economize a lot because of the mortgage. We only started even having a maid last year, though we could have two easily in that house. And I do a lot of the garden myself, though it's really too big for me to manage. You know the mortgage had to be paid."
"That old mortgage seems to have been the bane of your life, Mary. Thank goodness it's paid now and you can forget it. You ought to play bridge and dance. Can you dance? You look as if you could. You move rippingly!" Ursula hummed a few bars from a popular waltz. "And then—I know it sounds awful cheek on my part, but couldn't you do something about your clothes?"
"My clothes?"
"Yes. You know, of course, I understand it's been awfully difficult for you. And we all think you've been perfectly splendid, the way you've toiled and pinched to pay those beastly debts, but now they're all done with couldn't you go to some one rather more enterprising for your coats and skirts? Of course I get mine in town, but I dare say you wouldn't want to go so far. Still, there's York and Hull and Scarborough. Oh, lots of places where there must be a decent tailor."
"I dare say. I can't afford it though. We're not millionaires yet. John must get some capital laid by."
"Still, I don't see why you shouldn't do things, especially as you haven't any children to keep you at home. NowI'mquite prepared to settle down for a bit after April but you really might be a bit more normal. Of course, it's been bad luck, having to save such a lot and all that, but it's all over now. You mustn't get in a groove."
Mary smiled, a queer, twisted smile.
So that was what they thought of the thing that had dictated the whole course of her life, forced her into marriage with a man old enough to be her father, and left her, now that youth was passing, deprived of every interest except her village work. Something that was all over, and might be comfortably forgotten.... Though, without it, she might be going to have a child as well as Ursula....
"Of course I dare say I've no right to say anything, Mary. You know it's only because you're such a dear really...."
Middle-aged. That was what Ursula said she was. Well, she often felt it. She supposed it must be with thinking about the same thing for so long. Monomania is an efficient destroyer of youth.
Well, if she was in a groove, there was no escape from it. Not by the easy way of tennis parties and bridge which Ursula suggested. She had placed herself irretrievably in the ranks of the older generation. If youth meant the adventuring towards an uncertain choice of life, then, when the choice was made, youth ended. Ten years ago Mary had made her choice. Henceforward she was captive in a "groove," and must descend in it steadily until the end of life, with no digressions that might lead her to the hill-tops of success or the valleys of humiliation.
She opened the gate for Ursula and passed behind her up the wintry garden.
Never mind! She would make it all worth while.
Anderby was going to be the most prosperous, popular, well cared for village in the East Riding before she had done with it. She'd show them.
She went along the passage with shining eyes and began to prepare dinner.
In spite of herself the elasticity of her youth had momentarily triumphed.
John followed her and stood in the doorway watching her with his slow smile.
She always knew when he had something to tell her. It was so irritating of him just to stand there without speaking. She thrust her tins into the oven and closed the door carefully before she looked up.
"Well?" she asked.
"Honey, I've just seen that chap Coast."
"Oh, have you? And what has he to say for himself?"
"He says that if you take young Greenwood away from school he'll report you to the Inspector and you'll have to answer for your action in Court."
John chuckled.
Mary tossed the oven cloth aside contemptuously. In the fine exaltation of her mood she could afford to laugh at Coast.
"Let him," she said. "I'd love to see him try to have me up before my betters. Think of old Sir Charles Seton's face when he saw me in the dock! He told Mr. Slater, when I was put on the Nursing Committee, that I was an estimable woman."
"Well, I wouldn't do anything rash if I were you."
"No, I'm sure you'd never do anything rash if you were anyone. Never mind. Go along and wash your hands. There's Yorkshire pudding for dinner, and it won't stand waiting."
THE SALVATION OF SOCIETY
After Ursula's departure Mary doubled her parochial activities. She visited the wives of all John's married labourers; she ministered continually to the invalids and old age pensioners; she organized a dance in the School Room in aid of the Village Institute, and a whist drive in aid of the local hospital. She was going to make Anderby the most prosperous, popular, well-cared-for village in the East Riding.
The village regarded her efforts with mingled awe and irritation. Mrs. Robson was wonderful. Her generosity, her persistence, her catholicity of interest, all were wonderful. At the same time they were a little embarrassing.
"You've no sooner got your shirt in t' wash but she's after you to see if you want a new one," sighed Ted Wilson.
But even he agreed that she was wonderful.
One day she stood in a bookshop in Hardrascliffe, tired out by a week of perpetual activity. She was looking for a birthday present for John. Lately his silence had become so wearisome that she welcomed any opportunity of rousing his admiration or dislike, if only to evoke a remark. Now he might talk about a book. He seemed to enjoy reading about agriculture and even sometimes read her passages from theFarmer's Weekly.
Mary herself hadn't much use for books. Once they had been well enough, but now she was too busy to be bothered with them. There were quite a lot in the house that had once belonged to her mother, but none of these would be likely to move John to the companionship of criticism.
She stood indifferently turning over the volumes offered her by Mr. Forsitt the bookseller. They all looked a little dull, she thought.
"Haven't you anything more modern than these?" she asked. "I want something with a sort of kick in it. No, not a story. He doesn't like novels. Something about farming."
"Ah." Mr. Forsitt pressed the tips of his fingers together and meditated. Then he suddenly ducked his head and scurried off to the corner table. "I have it," he cried. "The very book for you, Mrs. Robson." He returned flourishing a volume in a bright orange cover. "Here we are!The Salvation of Societyby David Rossitur. Essays. Just out."
Mary took the book from him, and gazed at the vermilion letters across the wrapper.The Salvation of Society.Somehow the title was familiar, though she could not remember where she had last seen it. A queer title. Rather high-flown perhaps.
She opened the book and looked at the chapter headings: "The Generation at the Cross-Roads," "Revolution and Beyond," "The Reincarnation of Bestiality," "The Agricultural Calvary," "The Tyranny of Possession"....
No. It was not a Methodist production. What then?
"Yes, Mrs. Robson. I think I may safely say I recommend that to you if you want something exciting. I have not read it myself. Not quite in my line perhaps. A little rash, I gather. A volume of essays by a young gentleman recently expelled from Cambridge—or was it Oxford?"
"Yes?"
"Quite young, I gather. Oh, quite young. A mere boy, Mr. Locking tells me. The Reverend Mr. Locking. He has advanced views. Very. The parishioners at St. Paul's and St. Giles's hardly seem to like him. But there, he buys a good many books from us. Then there was Mr. Coast. He bought a copy—the schoolmaster from your part of the world I believe, Mrs. Robson."
Coast! That was it. Mary knew now that she had seen the book during that preposterous interview, when Coast had dared to condemn her for lack of generosity. It would be rather entertaining to discover what sort of literature appealed to him.
"Will it do for a birthday present for my husband?" she asked, smiling. Mr. Forsitt was an old friend and Mary retained a childish habit of taking tradesmen into her confidence, which many of her relations thought most unbecoming.
"Oh, quite suitable, I think. Very interesting to a farmer, I dare say. Let me wrap it up for you. Sevenandsixpence. And the next thing?"
She went home with the flamboyant cover discreetly veiled in brown paper. She quite intended to amuse herself with it that night before she handed it over to John. But when she reached Anderby Violet had toothache and the groceries weren't unpacked, and books were all very well, but one had other things to see about.
On Sunday she forgot all about it. On Monday and Tuesday she was busy washing and ironing. On Wednesday she drove with John to Market Burton. On Thursday she always churned.
That was a busy day. She turned and turned before the butter came, and, even when the churning was done, there were golden slabs to be wrapped in grease-proof paper ready for the carrier to convey them into Hardrascliffe. Mary felt tired as she washed her hands. Nothing exciting ever happened. There had not even been a satisfactory lot of butter.
Outside the starlings were chattering in the naked trees. The mild evening air—it was warm for February—might blow away that jaded feeling. She mentally reviewed her list of pensioners and invalids.
Mrs. Watts! The name flashed across her mind. She had not visited her for several weeks.
Mrs. Watts, being completely crippled by rheumatism, lived in a high-backed chair in the kitchen of her small cottage, attended by Louie, her half-witted niece. But from her chair the old lady could acquire in one day more intimate and extensive knowledge of village gossip than Mary could collect in a week.
So to Mrs. Watts she went.
Mrs. Watts received her boisterously. For a cripple she possessed remarkable vocal and mental energy.
"Come in, Mrs. Robson," she shouted. "Come in! Now wherever have you been all t' time? I haven't set eyes on you since back end o' Christmas. Has Mrs. Foster gone yet? When's baby coming, eh?"
"Oh, of course," laughed Mary. "I quite see it's no use my ever telling you anything. I don't know why I come here. You always know all my news before it's happened. The baby's coming in April if all goes well."
She drew off her gloves, laid a small packet of tea on the mantelpiece and sat down to enjoy herself. She had a whole hour before tea. One could learn a lot from Mrs. Watts in an hour.
"Well, and how are you?"
"I'se about middlin'. I haven't caught sight o' t' edge o' Peter's robe yet, and they say you've got to see that before you come t' gowlden gates."
"Well, I'm glad of that."
"Ay. I think you are. There's nowt goes well in t' village but I think we are glad on't. I don't know what some on us would do without you."
"Oh, you'd do well enough."
Lately a sneaking fear had found its way to Mary's mind that the village could do without her. It was comforting to be reassured.
"Nay now, would we? Just look at Mrs. Foster. What good d'ye think comes of her in her parts o' t' Wold? My nephew works for Burrages out Middlethorpe way, and I hear all goings on there. Why she didn't send so much as a jelly to Middlethorpe cricket club dance!"
"Well, she has other interests."
Mary was guiltily conscious that she found criticism of Ursula pleasant.
"Yes, she had a lot of interest in your chair covers, hadn't she?"
"Now what on earth did you hear about them?"
The old woman chuckled and, bending forward, patted Mary's hand with stiff fingers.
"Now don't you take on about that. Your Violet told her cousin, Mrs. Jellaby, what lives down in Spring Cottages. And she came in here a bit back for a talk and told me how young Mrs. Foster had been staying up at Anderby, and how she'd been wanting you to get oyster satin cushions with black borders. 'Ah've no notion what oyster satin covers is like,' ah says, 'but t' my mind, it sounds a bit messy.'"
"Violet has no business to repeat things she hears in the house."
"Why, bless you, don't you know a lass will tell owt tiv' her friends whether she's in service or not? Ye can't stop it, Mrs. Robson. Ye might as well get butter out of a dog's throat as a bit of gossip back from a lass who's once heard tell on't."
"I suppose so. But it's rather hard on me, isn't it, if I can't even keep my chair covers to myself?"
Mary smiled half whimsically, unable to be as annoyed as her dignity demanded.
"Now then don't you go fashin' yourself about your chair covers. If Violet says owt, it's never but what it's to your credit. I'm sure lass or lady, there's none better respected on whole o' t' woldside, seek where you like."
"Don't be silly. There are lots better. What I do, I do for pleasure."
"Ay, but it's a kind o' pleasure that takes it out of you more than you let on. What's happened to roses that used to be in your cheeks, eh? You've been fretting yourself because Mr. Coast wouldn't let you have Jack Greenwood for shepherd lad, ay. Mrs. Greenwood told me all about yon business. And how ye'd got him away now and all. 'Of all fond fools,' ah said, 'yon schoolmaster chap takes a lot o' beating.' As I said to Mrs. Greenwood, 'Eddication's all very well,' ah says, 'but it doesn't teach you to drive a waggon let alone a plough!'"
Mary sighed. So every one knew about Jack Greenwood too. Every one knew about everything. The fierce light that beats upon a throne is only a candle's flicker beside the searching glare of village criticism. It consoled her, though, to think that publicity could only further reveal her love for Anderby. And it was pleasant to sit in the dancing firelight, while the dusk crept up the orchard outside, and listen to Mrs. Watts telling her how wonderful she was.
Mrs. Watts knew that Mary found it pleasant. Mrs. Robson, she considered, was a very fine young woman, but as she talked a thousand past acts of kindness, of gratuitous attention, of charitable patronage rose before her. Somehow by her crude flattery she seemed paying a little of her debt back to the mistress of the Wold Farm, and holding over her, if only for a moment, that suzerainty which belongs to people who can give us what we need.
An hour later, when Mary opened the front door and entered her lamplit hall, she recalled with a faint sensation of disgust her calm acceptance of the old woman's praise. But after all if people liked her why shouldn't they say so? And if they spoke why shouldn't she listen? "It isn't as if it was likely to turn my head," she thought as she drew the curtains across the dining-room windows. "I'm not a little fool to be taken in by that sort of thing."
She really thought she wasn't.
At the same time she was glad that John had to attend a vestry meeting that evening, for she had suddenly remembered the orange-covered book. Mr. David Rossitur's acid comments on capitalist farmers were likely to prove an effective antidote to the cloying sweetness of Mrs. Watts's adulation.
She produced the book from a drawer and sat down in John's arm-chair before the fire.
At first, she read with knit brows; then her eyes opened wide; then she sat up straight in the arm-chair, her lips parted in a half-amused, half-incredulous smile. It really was an outrageous book! Mary was unacquainted with any political or social theories more violent than those expounded in the columns of theYorkshire Chronicle. The only excuse for this tirade against capitalism, patronage and "the dependence of the proletariat upon the self-interested solicitude of a bourgeois minority," lay in the youth of its author. Of course he must be a mere boy—a student at Oxford, according to the preface. And they were always very young, Mary was sure. A footnote explained that the writer had spent one summer vacation on a walking tour, investigating the conditions in which agricultural labourers of the South Country lived and worked. It added that he hoped to continue his researches in the North at an early date, for the conclusions he had reached after his Southern pilgrimage had convinced him that the only hope for England lay in social revolution. Anything less drastic—the extension of trades unionism, or the political ascendancy of the Labour Party—was merely a sop thrown to the proletarian Cerberus.
"He's very fond of that word 'proletarian'" thought Mary. She was not absolutely certain what it meant.
There followed a scornful rejection of the passive optimism of the Constitutionalists. Darwin was denounced as a traitor to the cause of progress. "Society," declared Mr. Rossitur, "is perishing from senile decay, awaiting the fabled miracle of evolution." Reform could only follow destruction: destruction of empty loyalties, destruction of cowardly compromise, of a tyranny based on material advantage and sentimentalism that masked rapacity.
Quotations abounded. In his zeal to carry conviction the author rarely expressed an opinion without the support of some famous authority, as if his own cheques would not hold good unless backed by a great financier.
It was all bewildering, and ridiculous and intriguing. Certainly Mary had never encountered anything of the kind before. She became entangled in a labyrinth of obscure reasoning. She was belaboured by pages of savage rhetoric. She stumbled over unfamiliar phrases that recurred here with unremitting urgency—"Living Wage," "Standard of comfort," "Private capitalists." Quite half of it was wholly beyond her comprehension.
"Perhaps I'm tired," she thought. "I shall be able to take it in better to-morrow."
When John returned from the meeting, she rose regretfully and hid the book in the sideboard drawer.
Of course, it was all nonsense; but what amusing nonsense! And somehow, for all its extravagance, it was really rather refreshing. Some grace of youth and burning sincerity relieved its ugliest violence and crudest rhetoric. She wished she could talk to the author. It really was amazing that anyone clever enough to go to Oxford should know so little about farms. Mary would like to explain exactly why one had to look after people who weren't capable of looking after themselves and why one paid labourers' wages instead of every one sharing the profits. It was all so self-evident when one knew anything at all about agriculture. Of course Mr. Rossitur didn't. He was only a boy, whose tempestuousness was too childish to be dangerous, and whose idealism was too unselfconscious to be sentimental. Quite a dear, Mary thought, but terribly ignorant of what things were really like.
"I wonder whatever John will think," she mused as she undressed that night. The prospect of John's inevitable comment was highly entertaining.
Mary had only two days to wait before his birthday, when she handed him her present after the usual ceremonial kiss. My word, at least here was something to make him talk! All day she looked forward eagerly to his reception of the social theories of David Rossitur.
After tea she produced her sewing and, handing John his pipe and the book, sat down to await his verdict.
For three hours she sat silently sewing. The black hands of the clock crawled forward. The room was silent except when, every few minutes, John's hand flicked over another page. It was a quarter past ten.