Anna of the Five Towns Part 11

[1] _Terrick_: a corruption of Tellwright.

CHAPTER VII

THE SEWING MEETING

On an afternoon ten days later, Mr. Sutton's coachman, Barrett by name, arrived at Ephraim Tellwright's back-door with a note. The Tellwrights were having tea. The note could be seen in his enormous hand, and Agnes went out.

'An answer, if you please, Miss,' he said to her, touching his hat, and giving a pull to the leathern belt which, surrounding his waist, alone seemed to hold his frame together. Agnes, much impressed, took the note. She had never before seen that resplendent automaton apart from the equipage which he directed. Always afterwards, Barrett formally saluted her in the streets, affording her thus, every time, a thrilling moment of delicious joy.

'A letter, and there's an answer, and he's waiting,' she cried, running into the parlour.

'Less row!' said her father. 'Here, give it me.'

'It's for Miss Tellwright--that's Anna, isn't it? Oh! Scent!' She put the grey envelope to her nose like a flower.

Anna, secretly as excited as her sister, opened the note and read:--'Lansdowne House, Wednesday. Dear Miss Tellwright,--Mother gives tea to the Sunday-school Sewing Meeting here _to-morrow_. Will you give us the pleasure of your company? I do not think you have been to any of the S.S.S. meetings yet, but we should all be glad to see you and have your a.s.sistance. Everyone is working very hard for the Autumn Bazaar, and mother has set her mind on the Sunday-school stall being the best. Do come, will you? Excuse this short notice. Yours sincerely, BEATRICE SUTTON. P.S.--We begin at 3.30.'

'They want me to go to their sewing meeting to-morrow,' she exclaimed timidly to her father, pus.h.i.+ng the note towards him across the table.

'Must I go, father?'

'What dost ask me for? Please thysen. I've nowt do wi' it.'

'I don't want to go----'

'Oh! Sis, do go,' Agnes pleaded.

'Perhaps I'd better,' she agreed, but with the misgivings of diffidence. 'I haven't a rag to wear. I really must have a new dress, father, at once.'

'Hast forgotten as that there coachman's waiting?' he remarked curtly.

'Shall I run and tell him you'll go?' Agnes suggested. 'It 'll be splendid for you.'

'Don't be silly, dear. I must write.'

'Well, write then,' said the child energetically. 'I'll get you the ink and paper.' She flew about and hovered over Anna while the answer to the invitation was being written. Anna made her reply as short and simple as possible, and then tendered it for her father's inspection.

'Will that do?'

He pretended to be nonchalant, but in fact he was somewhat interested.

'Thou's forgotten to put th' date in,' was all his comment, and he threw the note back.

'I've put Wednesday.'

'That's not the date.'

'Does it matter? Beatrice Sutton only puts Wednesday.'

His response was to walk out of the room.

'Is he vexed?' Agnes asked anxiously. There had been a whole week of almost perfect amenity.

The next day at half-past three Anna, having put on her best clothes, was ready to start. She had seen almost nothing of social life, and the prospect of taking part in this entertainment of the Suttons filled her with trepidation. Should she arrive early, in which case she would have to talk more, or late, in which case there would be the ordeal of entering a crowded room? She could not decide. She went into her father's bedroom, whose window overlooked Trafalgar Road, and saw from behind a curtain that small groups of ladies were continually pa.s.sing up the street to disappear into Alderman Sutton's house. Most of the women she recognised; others she knew but vaguely by sight. Then the stream ceased, and suddenly she heard the kitchen clock strike four.

She ran downstairs--Agnes, swollen by importance, was carrying her father's tea into the parlour--and hastened out the back way. In another moment she was at the Suttons' front-door. A servant in black alpaca, with white wristbands, cap, streams, and embroidered ap.r.o.n (each article a _dernier cri_ from Bostock's great shop at Hanbridge), asked her in a subdued and respectful tone to step within. Externally there had been no sign of the unusual, but once inside the house Anna found it a humming hive of activity. Women laden with stuffs and implements were crossing the picture-hung hall, their footsteps noiseless on the thick rugs which lay about in rich confusion. On either hand was an open door, and from each door came the sound of many eager voices. Beyond these doors a broad staircase rose majestically to unseen heights, closing the vista of the hall. As the servant was demanding Anna's name, Beatrice Sutton, radiant and gorgeous, came with a rush out of the room to the left, the dining-room, and, taking her by both hands, kissed her.

'My dear, we thought you were never coming. Everyone's here, except the men, of course. Come along upstairs and take your things off. I'm so glad you've kept your promise.'

'Did you think I should break it?' said Anna, as they ascended the easy gradient of the stairs.

'Oh, no, my dear. But you're such a shy little bird.'

The conception of herself as a shy little bird amused Anna. By a curious chain of ideas she came to wonder who could clean those stairs the better, she or this gay and flitting b.u.t.terfly in a pale green tea-gown. Beatrice led the way to a large bedroom, crammed with furniture and knick-knacks. There were three mirrors in this s.p.a.cious apartment--one in the wardrobe, a cheval-gla.s.s, and a third over the mantelpiece; the frame of the last was bordered with photographs.

'This is my room,' said Beatrice. 'Will you put your things on the bed?' The bed was already laden with hats, bonnets, jackets, and wraps.

'I hope your mother won't give me anything fancy to do,' Anna said.

'I'm no good at anything except plain sewing.'

'Oh, that's all right,' Beatrice answered carelessly. 'It's all plain sewing.' She drew a cardboard box from her pocket, and offered it to Anna. 'Here, have one.' They were chocolate creams.

'Thanks,' said Anna, taking one. 'Aren't they very expensive? I've never seen any like these before.'

'Oh! Just ordinary. Four s.h.i.+llings a pound. Papa buys them for me: I simply dote on them. I love to eat them in bed, if I can't sleep.'

Beatrice made these statements with her mouth full. 'Don't you adore chocolates?' she added.

'I don't know,' Anna lamely replied. 'Yes, I like them.' She only adored her sister, and perhaps G.o.d; and this was the first time she had tasted chocolate.

'I couldn't live without them,' said Beatrice. 'Your hair is lovely.

I never saw such a brown. What wash do you use?'

'Wash?' Anna repeated.

'Yes, don't you put anything on it?'

'No, never.'

'Well! Take care you don't lose it, that's all. Now, will you come and have just a peep at my studio--where I paint, you know? I'd like you to see it before we go down.'

They proceeded to a small room on the second floor, with a sloping ceiling and a dormer window.

'I'm obliged to have this room,' Beatrice explained, 'because it's the only one in the house with a north light, and of course you can't do without that. How do you like it?'

Anna said that she liked it very much.

The walls of the room were hung with various odd curtains of Eastern design. Attached somehow to these curtains some coloured plates, bits of pewter, and a few fans were hung high in apparently precarious suspense. Lower down on the walls were pictures and sketches, chiefly unframed, of flowers, fishes, loaves of bread, candlesticks, mugs, oranges and tea-trays. On an immense easel in the middle of the room was an unfinished portrait of a man.