Chapter I
FULL SUZERAINTY
When Sarah Bannister's dog-cart bowled along the High Street of Market Burton, its progress was observed by several pairs of eyes, peeping discreetly from behind lace-veiled windows.
"Look, Lizzie, Sarah Bannister's got a new bonnet."
"My word, she'll be late if they don't hurry."
"This is the fourth year she's worn that black coat of hers. She made it in 1908, from some old stuff of her mother's."
Everybody in Market Burton knew that Mrs. Bannister and her husband were driving to a tea-party at Anderby Wold. Everybody knew that the party had been arranged to celebrate the final clearance of the mortgage from the Wold Farm. Sarah knew that they knew. Their furtive glances were not lost upon her; but she accepted all remark as a tribute to her highly respected personality.
It was a good thing, she thought, that her neighbours at least referred to her as "Sarah Bannister." Her sister Janet, and her sister-in-law Tilly, might be known familiarly as "Mrs. Donald" or "Mrs. Richard," as though their only claim to recognition lay in the identity of their lord and possessor. But no one could think that of Sarah. Anybody looking now at Tom's shrinking figure on the seat beside her might have guessed that he only crept through life like the shadow cast by the flame of his wife's vitality.
Sarah bowed severely to an acquaintance in the road. It was no use being too familiar with the wife of a retail grocer. Of course, as Mrs. Bannister, she had no claim to social superiority. Tom's father had come to the town as a cattle drover sixty years ago, when farmers sold by private agreement. It was only during the last ten years of his life that his "Now then, gentlemen!" had become a common-place of the Saturday market, and he had risen to respectability as a dealer of some repute. But as a former Miss Robson, Sarah had a position of importance to uphold in the East Riding.
The dog-cart passed the red villas and square, tree-encircled houses skirting the town, and began to mount the steady ascent of the Wolds. The December air was keen with frost and the wheels spun through fringes of ice along the puddles. Sarah drew more tightly round her the thick black coat she always wore when driving.
"You don't get stuff like this now, Tom," she observed, affectionately fingering her collar. "Not with all your newfangled electric factories and German dyes. My mother used to buy wool from a packman who came round the Wolds from the West Riding somewhere, and beautiful stuff it was too. When she died, her wardrobe in the best bedroom was full of gowns not a bit the worse for wear; but, if I died to-morrow, there wouldn't be anything worth keeping except a few bits I had from her like this cloth."
Her husband made no answer. Long ago he had acknowledged the superiority of his wife's intelligence, and considered that her judgments required neither criticism nor confirmation. He felt ill at ease, perched on the high box-seat, the foot-rest advanced to its nearest hole to accommodate his short legs. Sarah's lower seat seemed to emphasize her mental superiority.
"You're letting the reins slip down, Tom. It's a fault I'm continually having to find with your driving—let alone with other things. How do you expect the horse to know it's being driven unless you drive it? You seem to think the Almighty arranged the world on purpose to save you trouble."
Tom gathered up the reins obediently. It was useless to resent Sarah's criticism because, whether right or wrong, she had too much respect for her own judgment to acknowledge an error.
He liked a visit to Anderby; but his pleasure was always spoilt by the consciousness of Sarah's disapproval. Sarah didn't seem to like Mary. It was a pity they couldn't get on. Of course it was bad luck for Sarah that John should leave her after they had lived together for forty-two years. Still, what was a man to do? He was sure to marry one day and Mary was a fine woman even if her father had been a wrong 'un. Besides, she had been a Robson even before she married John, and that should count a good deal with a family which tended to despise every one who entered its ranks by marriage instead of by birth, as Tom knew only too well.
Noticing the uncompromising angle of Sarah's bonnet, Tom decided he was doomed to an uncomfortable afternoon. His wife cast a discerning eye across the Wolds and sniffed with meaning.
"Young Swynderby's got a fine crop of turnips there—pity they say he drinks too hard to see them."
The cart splashed on between bare, blackened hedges and chequered slopes of plough land and stubble. There were eight miles of undulating road to cover, but Sarah had no desire for the journey to end. Enjoyment was the last thing she expected from any party, but a festivity at Anderby Wold was almost too much even for her endurance.
John was, of course, everything a man should be, as Sarah frequently assured him. She ought to know, for after their mother's death she, as the eldest sister, had taken complete charge of his upbringing. She had packed his tuck-box with crab-apple jelly and plum loaves, when first he went to Dr. Deale's Academy for young gentlemen at Hardrascliffe. She had marked his linen and darned his socks and bound his hands when the blisters broke after his first heavy harvest forking in '81. When as a young bachelor he first began to farm on his own at Littledale, she had gone to keep house for him.
Of course she knew him better than Mary could. For years she had understood him with his alternating moods of obstinacy and indecision, far better than she understood herself. His orderly mind was like a familiar room, of which she held the key. She knew the thoughts from which his words arose as well as she knew the shelves from which her cups and dishes were brought to the table.
But now—it was all different. In looking for John, she found Mary.
"I do wish you'd tuck the rug in at your side, Tom. There's such a draught round my legs. Of course, if you want me to be crippled by rheumatism, there's an end of it. I've no doubt I should live somehow, and perhaps it's as well to get used to being uncomfortable before we go to that house of Mary's."
Anderby Wold was Mary's house. Littledale had been John's—John's and hers. He belonged far more to that solitary farm among the hills than to Mary's bustling place on the village street. John never had a word to say for himself at Anderby. The place bore the imprint, not of his personality, but Mary's. Mary had no right to marry him, just to make use of him. Of course it was easy to bully John, with his slow, kindly nature. He never would stand up for himself. But Sarah had managed him properly. When she had wished to visit her sisters at Market Burton she had delicately steered John to a confession of wanting to go himself. Mary simply went out and ordered the dog-cart.
"I've no patience with these newfangled ideas at Anderby," she continued. "'Hygiene' Mary Robson calls it. 'High fiddlesticks' I say. We were healthy enough before. My father died when he was ninety-two, and would have lived long enough then if he hadn't fallen out of the Upper barn when they were woolpacking."
"He was a fine old man," remarked Tom, seeking as usual for uncontroversial ground.
"No finer than most of us Robsons," snapped Sarah. But she remembered one Robson who had not been fine. Mary's father, Benjamin, had always been a most unsatisfactory person. Drinking and betting were bad enough, but there were other tales of servants hurriedly dismissed and governesses who would not stay. Of course it was a pity his wife had died when the girl was born; but she had been a queer, dowdy sort of creature, fond of books and no use in a house. Probably she would never have prevented the deepest disgrace of Ben's career—the mortgage that imperilled five hundred acres of land that had been farmed by a Robson since the sixteenth century.
"Who's building that house over there, Tom? she inquired.
"Oh, it's Sam Burrard. He's putting up a house so as not to have to drive out from the town to farm every day."
Sarah frowned.
"Why didn't you tell me? You never tell me anything worth hearing. It's just as well Sam is building himself a mansion in this world. From all accounts he won't get much of a one in the next."
In a quarter of an hour they would be at Anderby Wold. That was where Ben had died over ten years ago, and where John had called to see if he could do anything for Mary—eighteen-year-old Mary, left alone to cope with her father's debts. Oh, but she was clever! She knew that John was capable of managing two farms as well as one. Six month's tribute had been paid to decorum before she had married him—poor John being too guileless to understand her cleverness. And, for the hundredth time since the marriage, Sarah had to enter John's house as his wife's guest. It was hard.
The road rounded the summit of the hill and tilted towards the valley, two miles away. There from a cluster of leafless trees rose the welcoming smoke of Anderby Wold.
Well! Mary had everything now. Sarah wished her joy of it.
The thought of her husband driving placidly by her side, without a thought for her discomfiture, goaded Sarah to fury.
"Tom," she exclaimed, "I wish you'd use your handkerchief. There's a drop on the end of your nose!"
Tom and Sarah were the last of the family to arrive. Sarah had declined Mary's invitation to midday dinner, because she had made her Christmas puddings on the fourteenth of December ever since she was old enough to hold a wooden spoon, and nothing short of a sale or a stack fire would induce her to postpone the ceremony.
Their host and hostess stood in the porch to receive them, and Sarah alighted stiffly, passing a large white handkerchief across her lips before she came forward and kissed her brother.
"Well, John," she remarked, "I suppose I am to offer you my congratulations." To Mary she extended a more formal hand. "Well, Mary, I see you have a houseful. Has Uncle Dickie come?"
"Yes. We made him come last night so as not to be too tired for to-day. You're cold. Come in and take your things off."
"Thank you, I will. It was a very cold drive." Sarah sounded aggrieved, as though Mary were responsible for the weather.
They went upstairs. Mary's room always annoyed Sarah. The queer books, the vase of chrysanthemums, the fire in the grate, all looked as though they were trying to make it a little better than anyone else's.
"I can't think what you want a fire for at your time of life, Mary. What with coal strikes and everything and firing such a price."
"Oh, well"—Mary slid to her knees on the hearth-rug and knelt there fingering the poker—"I thought you would probably be rather cold after a long drive, and you know what the drawing-room fire is when the men get round it, backs to the mantelpiece, heels on the fender, and sixteen stones of John or Toby between us poor women and any ghost of heat. We have to do something."
The poker slipped from her fingers and fell clattering into the grate. Sarah did not know that when she was not present Mary rarely fidgeted. She thought to herself, "I don't know how John stands it. She's never still for a minute, and just think of a woman married ten years sitting about on the floor like that!"
The youthful ease of Mary's movements flaunted Sarah's sixty-three years in her face.
"I'm sorry you didn't get over in time for dinner. You'd have liked to see the spread we gave the men in the front kitchen. They had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and apple pie and cheese. It was a business, but Anne and Louisa helped me, so we got through." Mary sighed with satisfaction.
"I should have thought it would have been better to make a bit of money to set aside for a rainy day instead of spending all this as soon as your debts were paid. If you are not careful, you'll be your father all over again, Mary. Was this John's idea?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, it was mine. But John was perfectly willing. The men have helped us more than anything and it's only fair we should show them we appreciate it. Are you ready to go down?"
They might as well go down. Sarah had not come to John's house to wrangle with his wife. Anyway, it was no use criticizing Mary since she was so obviously convinced of her own perfection. They descended in silence.
The family was assembled in the drawing-room. Sarah rustled forward and greeted with varying degrees of formal familiarity her uncle, brothers and cousins. She kissed each of the women with distaste.
Mary had grouped them carefully—Aunt Jane, Uncle Dickie, Richard, Sarah's brother, his wife Tilly, who talked at intervals to nobody in particular, Anne and Louisa Robson, relegated to the window-seat as became undowered spinsters. Sarah could hear them now whispering together over a quarrel they had begun in their cradles and saw no particular reason for ever finishing. On the sofa Janet, whose profitable marriage with Donald Holmes had been her unique contribution to the world's welfare, laboriously displayed a London-made satin gown to her relations.
"Janet's getting fat," thought Sarah. "She doesn't wear as well as the rest of us. That's what comes of living in hotels and such and lying in bed till all hours. No wonder she's always suffering from nerves."
She moved across the room to Mrs. Toby Robson, the solicitor's wife. "And how are the girls?" she asked. "I suppose they'll be getting measles again this spring as usual?"
Mrs. Toby's four unattractive little daughters possessed the sole talent of acquiring infectious diseases.
"It's to be chicken-pox this year, and mumps next. I asked." Ursula, the winner of North Country Golf Championships, whom Foster Robson had introduced into the family, replied before Mrs. Toby could collect her wandering wits.
"Oh, indeed." Sarah did not like Ursula.
She sat very straight in her chair, and drew from her velvet reticule a half-knitted sock. Presently she found Mary at her side. "That's pretty wool. Are those for Tom?"
"Yes. I always make them myself. The things you buy in shops nowadays are useless—shrink up to nothing in the first wash."
"I know. I knit John's too. I'm just making some for him now. Look, I've got a new stitch for double heels. They're so nice to wear with heavy boots."
"John does not like double heels. He has such tender feet. From a boy he blistered easily." Sarah announced this distinction proudly.
"Oh, he'll like these. They are of the softest wool."
"Has he worn any yet?"
"Not like this, but he's going to this spring. I got the wool at Dobbin's in Hardrascliffe, four shillings a pound. It's lovely and soft—it couldn't hurt."
"I think you will find that it will, Mary. I've known John's feet longer than you have and his skin won't stand double heels. We Robsons are delicate in our skins. Of course if you want to save yourself the trouble of darning——"
The colour rose to Mary's face. She looked angrily at Sarah for a moment, then her knitting-needles clashed in the silence. After a little while she left the room.
Sarah watched her smile at one relation and then another on her progress to the door. It was ridiculous, the way she behaved, as though she were a queen holding a court. Well, nobody was likely to bow down to Mary, unless one counted the villagers, who were said to make an absurd fuss of her.
Sarah hoped she had gone to see about tea. Really with Mary you never knew. She might just as easily have gone off to drive old Mrs. Simpkins in to the hospital, or to sit up all night with a sick cow. She would think nothing of leaving all her relations in the drawing-room, thirsting for tea. Poor John! Double heeled socks indeed!
The gong boomed through the house.