She could not face it here, in this little room, before the scrutiny of six unfriendly eyes. Toby, no doubt, thought it all a great joke; and Mrs. Toby, silly little hen! Mary Robson of Anderby Wold, who had always thought herself so clever and superior—that she of all people should have harboured a raging socialist, let him insult her relations in her own dining-room, and then go away and write inflammatory articles about her and her village in the most notorious of radical papers! Her hands round the paper tightened.
Toby, highly amused by her confusion, continued his chaffing. "By Jove, he's let you all have it! Starvation wages and coals at Christmas! 'Coddlin' and short' he calls it—coddlin' your men and paying them short. Do you read your Dickens? Good joke, eh? No ... that was in the letter. There's a letter too, by a chap called Hunting. Same thing though—friend of Rossitur's."
"Oh, is there?" Mary spoke with cold indifference.
"And there's a bit on rural education. Says the farmers won't have the children properly educated because that makes 'em discontented. All about the intrigue that goes on behind the schoolboards—children being snatched away to work in the fields before their time is up and all that. Quite a real scandal!"
"He got that from Coast," thought Mary. She wondered how much David had learned from Coast—how much about her and her kingdom at Anderby. How they must have laughed at her together in that hideous parlour at the School House! Her visits to Mrs. Watts, the Christmas Tree, the dances she organized. Probably Coast had been immensely entertained by the story of the embrocation, and the way in which she made David fold sheets, and her naive delight in having an author to stay in the house.
Toby and his wife were bending over the cradle, Ursula lay back on her cushions smiling luxuriously at them. The atmosphere of violet powder and hot milk and drying flannel became suddenly stifling.
Mary rose, clutching the paper.
"Oh, Ursula, I've just remembered. I have to order some cheese at Maryson's. I'll go now, and if John calls please tell him to wait."
She fled from the room. On the stairs she turned and, through the half-closed door, caught the sound of her name and David's, and then Toby's laugh.
The esplanade was deserted. The straight, shower-washed streets shone like polished metal above the dancing grey and silver of the sea. Blank, flat-chested boarding houses with lace-veiled windows lay swept and garnished, ready for the transitory influx of summer visitors. A paper bag blew forlornly along the path till it found a resting-place in the gutter at Mary's feet.