Sir George Tressady — Volume I

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"Yes, you had enough of him at Malford, didn't you?" said Letty. "I don't yet understand how he comes to be here."

George explained that about the preceding Christmas there had been, temporarily, strong signs of decline in the Union strength of the Perth district. A great many miners had quietly seceded; one of the periodical waves of suspicion as to funds and management to which all trade unions are liable had swept over the neighbourhood; and wholesale desertion from the Union standard seemed likely. In hot haste the Central Committee sent down Burrows as organising agent. The good fight he had made against Tressady at the Market Malford election had given him prestige; and he had both presence and speaking power. He had been four months at Perth, speaking all over the district, and now, instead of leaving the Union, the men had been crowding into it, and were just as hot—so it was said—for a trial of strength with the masters as their comrades in other parts of the county.

"And before Burrows has done with us, I should say he'll have cost the masters in this district hundreds of thousands. I call him dear at the money!" said George, finally, with a dismal cheerfulness.

He was really full of Burrows, and of the general news of the district which his agent had been that morning pouring into his ear. But he had done his best not to talk about either at luncheon. Letty had a curious way of making the bearer of unpleasant tidings feel that it was somehow all his own fault that things should be so; and George, even in this dawn of marriage, was beginning, half consciously, to recognise two or three such peculiarities of hers.

"What I cannot understand," said Letty, vigorously, "is why such people as Mr. Burrows are allowed to go about making the mischief he does."

George laughed, but nevertheless repressed a sudden feeling of irritation. The inept remark of a pretty woman generally only amused him. But this Burrows matter was beginning to touch him home.

"You see we happen to be a free country," he said drily, "and Burrows and his like happen to be running us just now. Maxwell & Co. are in the shafts. Burrows sits up aloft and whips on the team. The extraordinary thing is that nothing personal makes any difference. The people here know perfectly well that Burrows drinks—that the woman he lives with is not his wife—"

"George!" cried Letty, "how can you say such dreadful things!"

"Sorry, my darling! but the world is not a nice place. He picked her up somehow—they say she was a commercial traveller's wife—left on his hands at a country inn. Anyway she's not divorced, and the husband's alive. She looks like a walking skeleton, and is probably going to die. Nevertheless they say Burrows adores her. And as for my resentments—don't be shocked—I'm inclined to like Burrows all the better for that little affair. But then I'm not pious, like the people here. However, they don't mind—and they don't mind the drink—and they believe he spends their money on magnificent dinners at hotels—and they don't mind that. They don't mind anything—they shout themselves hoarse whenever Burrows speaks—they're as proud as Punch if he shakes hands with them—and then they tell the most gruesome tales of him behind his back, and like him all the better, apparently, for being a scoundrel. Queer but true. Well, here we are—now, darling, you may expect to be stared at!"

For they had entered on the village street, and Ferth Magna, by some quick freemasonry, had become suddenly conscious of the bride and bridegroom. Here and there a begrimed man in his shirt-sleeves would open his front door cautiously and look at them; the children and womenkind stood boldly on the doorsteps and stared; while the people in the little shops ran back into the street, parcels and baskets in hand. The men working the morning shift had just come back from the pits, and their wives were preparing to wash their blackened lords, before the whole family sat down to tea. But both tea and ablutions were forgotten, so long as the owner of Ferth Place and the new Lady Tressady were in sight. The village eyes took note of everything; of the young man's immaculate serge suit and tan waistcoat, his thin, bronzed face and fair moustache; of the bride's grey gown, the knot of airy pink at her throat, the coils of bright brown hair on which her hat was set, and the buckles on her pretty shoes. Then the village retreated within doors again; and each house buzzed and gossiped its fill. There had been a certain amount of not very cordial response to George's salutations; but to Letty's thinking the women had eyed her with an unpleasant and rather hostile boldness.