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.