Sheila was touched to see the poor boy falling so easy a pray to the dominating Hypatia. But Mrs. Fairfield thought it was time to look after her property.
‘You don’t, my poor Bunny,’ cut in Mrs. Fairfield. ‘Nor does anyone else. No sense, anyhow. Don’t fill your mind with such stuff just to please Hypatia.... You must be a good boy,’ she added, ‘and do as I tell you.’
‘Mother means that, Bunny,’ said Hypatia. ‘She means every word, although she tries to make a joke of it. If you want to please mother, obey her in all things. It is the only way.’
Mrs. Fairfield became pale and distressed. Signs of an approaching fainting-fit were perceptible. Observing them, her husband broke in sharply. ‘Hypatia, hold your noise!’
So there was a feud, thought Sheila, between the young woman and the old: a duel for the soul of Bunny. Since he had apparently no brains of his own worth considering, the scalp would no doubt fall to Hypatia, who had youth as an ally. And then what terrible vengeance would fall upon him? Could nothing save him from them both? A highly dangerous pity awoke in Sheila’s heart.
‘You shall all go to the Folk Dancing to-night,’ announced Mrs. Fairfield.
The lure of Folk Dancing led them across two fields to a turreted eccentric stone building known as the Summer School, which was at once a gigantic advertisement and a place of mental and physical recreation for Fairfield’s factory hands. He had spent thousands of pounds on this long-cherished scheme, and only a well-timed fainting-fit of his wife’s had prevented his spending thousands more.
Fairfield’s Summer School was as hygienic as his corsets. It was a curious horseshoe-shaped building enclosing a large well-kept lawn in the middle of which, on festive occasions, a maypole was erected; a tower and belfry loomed at the back. To these cloisters the factory hands were wont to repair for free instruction in the theory and practice of arts and modern languages, for lectures on history, sociology, science, for concerts and dances on the green. It claimed to be, and was, a local centre of liberal popular culture. Anything and everything could be discussed there save one thing: it was a point of honour with the founder that Fairfield’s Hygienic Corsets should never be mentioned.
Dusk had already fallen when the Fairfield party reached the green, and the dancing had already begun. Someone began lighting the lamps.