Chapter II
THE TOAST
Sarah felt more comfortable when tea was served and the family established round the table. The meal was correct according to the best Robson tradition. All the food was rich, substantial and self-satisfied. The roast chickens, plump and succulent, were flanked by a dignified ham of Anderby curing. The butter oozed from luscious golden tea-cakes. On the sideboard lay a second course of tarts and cheese-cakes with filmy pastry. Plates of spiced bread, black and sticky, surrounded the huge cake.
Under the influence of warmth and rich food Sarah's irritation disappeared. She allowed Violet to pass her plate for another helping of chicken. Violet's hands were hot and red, but Sarah had come prepared for imperfections, so that was easily ignored. It was harder to overlook John's forgetfulness when he carved for her a slice of breast. Ten years ago he would never have forgotten she preferred brown meat.
Across the table Ursula chatted with Toby Robson. "But, my dear man, it's ridiculously easy. I always drive myself. Foster prefers a Humber of course, but I think an American car so much lighter. Mary, don't you like my new two-seater best?"
"I really don't know anything about cars, Ursula. Ask Mr. Holmes, he knows far more than I, and I haven't seen your two-seater yet."
No, thought Sarah, Mary would know nothing about motor-cars and, knowing nothing, would decide that there was nothing to know.
Tilly, Richard's wife, helped herself to a third cheese-cake and wistfully regarded the netted frill of a doily on the plate before her.
"Do you get these doilies up yourself, Mary?" she asked. "I always find netting goes so badly when you iron it. I do wish you'd tell me what to do."
"Yes. We do all our own laundry work. I ironed those myself. It's simply a matter of careful starching, and then pulling them away from under the iron."
Possibly she was right. Mary was a good housekeeper. Sarah impatiently speared a pat of butter and began to spread it on her bread. Was it never possible for half an hour to pass without some one asking her advice? And accepting it when given as though it were as reliable as the Bible? No wonder the girl's head was turned. And really there was nothing so extraordinary about her. Why, she wasn't even good-looking!
Yet, watching her tall figure, broad-shouldered and long-necked, her wide mouth with its faint indication of complacency, and the sudden upward thrust of her chin when she wished to emphasize a statement, Sarah knew well enough wherein lay Mary's attraction for John. Her finely shaped hands were unusually muscular. Every easy motion of her arms or body suggested that behind it lay a reserve of strength. Her gentleness seemed to be compounded of restricted energy rather than weak emotion. All the qualities which John had admired in Sarah he found softened by youth in Mary.
Sarah looked towards the head of the table where John sat behind the chickens. He was a fool to sit like that quietly carving or looking up occasionally to catch Mary's eye with his shy smile. Why couldn't he get up and say something for himself? Once he got started he had as many wits as any of them. It was only because Mary was convinced he couldn't talk that he never did.
"John," Sarah asked suddenly, "why didn't you show that shorthorned bull of yours at York? You know there was nothing to beat it from the North Riding."
"We are not going to begin showing yet," interposed Mary, ignoring Uncle Dickie's unfinished anecdote. "It's too expensive. We're going to start when we get a little capital laid by."
"I asked John," commented Sarah, and said no more. But she mentally registered Mary's spasmodic extravagance over the men's feast and her meanness over the show as another grievance against her.
Uncle Dickie resumed his narrative. He was enjoying the society of his hostess. Prompted by her smiling responses he had passed from one story to another, sometimes abandoning one before he reached its climax. But as Mary knew them all by heart that did not matter much and was perhaps more entertaining. He had told the story of the bull-pup at Highwold and the gardener's son, and of the ghost seen by Sir Michael Seton's great grandfather ... or was it great grand-uncle? He was not quite sure ... getting an old man, and Mary must not expect his memory to be as good as once it had been ... well, perhaps great-grandfather of the present Sir Charles....
Mary accepted each tale serenely, dispensing appropriate answers with the same unflurried precision as she dispensed second cups of tea to their rightful owners.
Ursula leaned forward and picked a cocoa-nut bun from the plate before her. She bit off a little circle with her white teeth and ate it slowly before she turned to Toby Foster.
"Why does Uncle Dickie tell all those awful old chestnuts?" she asked.
Toby cocked his head. Being the only professional member of the family he had a reputation for wit, and felt that something good was expected of him.
"Because, my dear lady, I expect he has learnt that in the telling of stories, as in other things, it is more blessed to give than to receive."
Uncle Dickie was only deaf enough to ask people to repeat phrases whose repetition might embarrass them. The fear that he might miss any of the good things of life haunted him ceaselessly. He stopped suddenly and turned round.
"What's that? What's that? Some one mention me? Hey?"
The family was silent till Mary turned to him smiling. "Cousin Toby was only saying—though I don't think you were meant to hear—that you were one of those people who have learnt that it is more blessed to give than to receive."
"Stuff and nonsense!" Uncle Dickie threw out his chest like a cock-sparrow. The room was warm; the meat had been tender; Mary enjoyed his stories. After all, in spite of his eighty-seven years, he was still an entertaining companion. It occurred to him at last that his family's declared affection might arise from appreciation of his good qualities rather than from expected enjoyment of his bank balance.
Under the table-cloth he groped for Mary's hand with his knotted fingers.
Sarah, noticing the gesture, sniffed.
One of the famous Robson silences held the company spellbound. Then John, prompted by a sign from Mary, went to the side-table, and the pop of a cork closed the incident.
"We thought we would have some champagne to-night as this is a rather festive occasion," said Mary. "We don't often have an excuse."
"Splendid! Just the thing!" Toby licked his lips and winked at Ursula, intimating that he and she stood apart, belonging to a world where tea and champagne were only mixed at wedding-breakfasts. A faint smile quivered at the corner of Ursula's mouth.
Sarah felt more convinced than ever that Mary was leading John to ruin.
The glasses were filled and the guests paused. Then Aunt Jane, sitting at John's right hand, became aware with awful certainty that her husband was about to make a speech. She turned to John in fluttering horror.
"Oh, John, your Uncle Dickie's going to make a speech. Do stop him. He always says something dreadful, and it upsets him so that he can't sleep for nights afterwards."
But to John the effort of initiative, especially concerning his own relatives, was intolerable. He shook his head and said nothing. Uncle Dickie rose slowly to his feet.
"We have come together," he began without further ceremony, "on a most auspicious occasion. Ten years ago our little lass here was married to John."
"Little lass!" thought Sarah. "Why, the woman's five feet ten at least."
"Not but what ten years is a short enough time for a man and his wife to live together without quarrelling. Our Jane and I have stood it for three score. But, when John crossed over the hedge from Littledale and hung up his hat in Anderby as you might say, things weren't exactly plain sailing."
He paused and ran his fingers up and down the table-cloth awaiting further inspiration. His wife coughed apprehensively.
"There was some matter of a mortgage what had to be paid off. And a bad business it was too."
"Hear, hear!" commented Donald Holmes. Then realizing that emphasis on this point was undesirable, he relapsed into stifled silence.
"A bad business for those that had less sense than these young folks. But I understand that now the final payment has been made. I'd hoped to see them comfortably settled before I went, for John is a good lad and Anderby a fine farm, and now it seems that nothing is wanting to make us happy but a young Robson to hold it after they're gone. But I've no doubt——"
Jane had suddenly choked and looking up Uncle Dickie caught sight of Sarah's grim perturbation and Mary's crimson-flooded cheeks.
"I've no doubt that we—John—I was saying—auspicious occasion——"
His flow of eloquence was checked, but he remembered his carefully considered peroration and raised his glass.
"I want you to join with me in drinking their health. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John and Mary Robson of Anderby Wold."
They drank in awkward silence until Toby, glad of an excuse to cover Uncle Dickie's lapse from tact, broke forth into a lusty carolling of "For he's a jolly good fellow!" And the company caught up the chorus. Even Anne and Louisa, their cheeks flushed by the unwonted champagne and their emotions slightly beyond control, joined in with their creaky sopranos.
Foster called upon John to reply. He looked helplessly round the table until he met Mary's encouraging smile and then rose slowly to his feet.
"I can't make a speech," he said, "any more than the gardener could who was invited to dinner at Edenthorpe Hall because he fished young Master Seton out of the lake. He had to reply to Sir Michael's vote of thanks, and he hummed and hawed till his wife came to the rescue. 'Now, Sir Charles,' said she, 'you mun excuse our John. 'E ain't used to speechifying. Any talking that's done in our 'ouse—ah does it'!"
He sat down suddenly, his large form shrinking abashed behind the ham. His confidence deserted him as rapidly as it had arrived.
"Get up, Mary," Toby called, knocking on the table with his fork. "Come along! Your man's given you away. You'll have to do it."
Mary rose.
"I'm not much of a speaker either," she began, but to Sarah her low clear voice betrayed no self-distrust. "I can only say thank you all very much for your kindness and you, Uncle Dickie, for your good wishes. John and I could never have managed if you had not stood behind us and given us confidence. It mayn't seem much to have done, but we are pleased to-night because Anderby is safe. And—and we thank you all for coming and hope you'll often come here again."
She paused and smiled at her relations round the table. "She doesn't hope we'll come here again," Sarah was thinking. "She doesn't care if she never sees us again. She cares for nothing but her farm and that people should think she's a wonder!"
Mary concluded:
"I don't think I can wish you anything better than the old toast, 'Ere's tiv us, all on us. May we niver want nowt, naun on us. Nor you, nor me, nor ony on us—nor me neither!"
The last dog-cart had rumbled down the darkness of the road; the last guest had been escorted to bed with candles and hot whisky, before John and Mary stood alone together in the drawing-room. The fire had burnt low. A heavy scent of tobacco, chrysanthemums and hot whisky hung about the room. The clock on the mantelpiece struck twelve thin, tinkling notes.
Mary knelt on the hearth-rug and swept the fallen ashes beneath the grate. There was a green line round the handle of the hearth-brush where Violet had omitted to rub away the brass polish. For a moment this absorbed Mary's attention. Then she turned to her husband and said:
"Well John, I think that went off all right, don't you?"
"Oh, ay," responded John without enthusiasm.
"John—I——" She rose, and began to straighten the chintz covers on the sofa. "I've been wondering—I mean—you know I'm sorry about Uncle Dickie—I mean that he should have to say—all that about a young Robson to carry on here—I mean—I wonder somethimes how much you mind——"
"Oh, that's all right. Don't you worry, honey. It can't be helped." John turned slowly from her and left the room. In passing the silver table near the door he knocked over a small vase. Always in the drawing-room he seemed to occupy more than his fair allowance of space.
The door closed. Mary went forward and picked up the fallen vase. It was a flimsy fluted thing, a wedding present from Anne and Louisa. Mary held it in her hand while she listened to John's footsteps on the mat, on the tiles of the hall, on the stair carpet. One stair creaked. They must get a new board there, she thought. At a turn of the stair he hit his foot against a brass rail that rang jangling through the house. Then she heard him in the room above, now by the window, now sitting down to throw off his shoes, now by the bed. It creaked and groaned. Then there was silence.
She knelt again by the fire, holding her hands above the glowing ashes.
Well, that was that. It had been a long day, and even her vitality could not stand unlimited exertion. Still, it had been worth it. Mrs. Holmes's toupee, Sarah's nastiness about the socks, the hole in the best linen sheet—all these were only echoes and shadows from another world. The only real and solid thing was the knowledge that the mortgage was paid. Nothing else mattered. She was prepared to sing her Nunc dimittis for the consummation of her life's work, forgetful that over forty years of her three score and ten still remained in which all sorts of things could happen. This was her hour of triumph in which she tasted that unfearing gladness which gives no hostage to defeat.
The ashes crumbled and collapsed. The room was growing cold. She rose and began to move dreamily about the room, straightening chairs and tables, and flicking cigarette ends from the ashtrays into the fire-place.
Because of the mortgage she had lived for twenty-eight years on the Wolds under the shadow of their reproach. In her lonely childhood the fields of Anderby had assumed for her a more definite personality than any of the people whom she knew. Land was, after all, the thing that mattered most. That was why she had been so miserable when her father brushed aside the foreman's suggestions of improvement with a curt "We can't afford it. So there's an end on't." That was why she had laboured for nearly a whole day, trying to stuff up the cracks along the cowshed wall with bits of mud and straw because she was sure the Wolds must despise such shabby buildings.
And then that haunting fear that one day "They" would suddenly swoop down upon the farm and carry it away as the jinns in the fairy book carried off Solomon's palace ... and the restless uncertainty that seemed to stand between her father and any joy of possession.... All this, he had constantly explained with increasing emphasis as the farm grew more dilapidated, was not his fault, but the result of the mortgage.
Well, there was no need to lie any longer, as eight-year-old Mary had lain, with the bed-clothes drawn up round her ears to shut out the voice of the wind howling along the corridors, because it might be the voice of the mortgage, come at last from the dark sky to carry off "every stick and stone, lassie, every stick and stone." Her father had said that this would happen, and he must know.
He must know—must know what? Why, of course, that a bowl of water placed in the middle of the room prevented it from reeking with stale tobacco for days after a party. She must go and get one.
Mary rubbed a drowsy hand across her eyes. She must have been half asleep, sitting in the big arm-chair while the room grew colder and colder. Wearily she rose and walked towards the door.
Then she stood still.
Out in the hall she heard a faint rustling sound. It could not be a mouse. No one would be walking about now. It must be ever so late. She looked at the clock—half-past two.
A click as though a door shut. The dining-room door. Some one was up. Not John. She would have heard him move. Who then?
She stood hesitating, the handle of the dining-room door in her hand. It was strange to wait again like this, wondering whether one ought to go on into the dining-room because Father was there and the whisky bottle and that was an undesirable combination....
Well, it couldn't be that now anyway. She opened the door and walked across the hall.
The dining-room door was ajar. A strip of light wavered against the darkness.
All this had happened before. If she entered the room, Mary was sure that her father would look up from the table and swear softly at her intrusion.
Of course he couldn't. He had died over ten years ago. Mary had seen him die, crying aloud that the mortgage, the mortgage, the mortgage had got him at last, and that she alone was left to fight it.
Her breath came quickly. There was a scraping sound, and somebody sighed heavily. She pushed open the door and went in.
Janet Holmes, in a voluminous quilted dressing-gown, knelt on the floor near the sideboard. Seeing Mary, she rose to her feet with greater alacrity than the Harrogate specialist would have thought possible but unfortunately in her haste she dropped a china biscuit jar that fell against the corner of the fender, breaking in a hundred fragments.
"Oh dear, oh dear! How you startled me!" she gasped.
"Is anything wrong?" asked Mary severely. The jar had been a relic of her mother's lifetime. It was old Spode, and Mary loved dearly the twisting blue flowers on its glazed surface. She regarded it ruefully.
"Oh dear! I'm so sorry. But you did startle me so. It just slipped out of my hand. I hope it was not of any great value, though with these things it's not what they cost, is it? It's the things they belonged to—I mean, you know since we went to the Grange—late dinner—my digestion—the doctor at Harrogate said 'Now, Mrs. Holmes, always take food one hour before retiring,' and I thought perhaps a biscuit——"
"Oh, I see."
Ten minutes elapsed before Mrs. Holmes could be consoled for the omission of late dinner, Mary's inopportune appearance, and the destruction of the biscuit jar. Mary escorted her to her room, and then returned to gather up the fragments.
Fingering the broken pieces reverently, she forgot that the jar had been cracked before and only remembered it as a beautiful thing that had once been hers. The thought of possession was comfortable and satisfying. Mary's mouth curved in a soft little smile. Anderby was hers. The mortgage was paid. That was worth anything; worth unlovely dresses made in the village, worth the constant strain of economy, worth the ten year's intimacy with a man whose presence roused in her alternate irritation and disappointment.
"Nothing is wanting to make us happy except a young Robson."
Mary brushed together the crumbs from the hearth-rug and straightened her back.
Well, worth that too, perhaps.
She looked round the shadowy room—ghostly dark beyond her feeble candlelight. The smile flickered again across her face.
"May we never want nowt, nawn on us," she whispered.