Sarah's School Friend Part 1

Sarah's School Friend.

by May Baldwin.

CHAPTER I.

A MILL-HAND'S MANSION.

'It's a dreadful thing to have a father you don't respect,' said Sarah Clay, as she walked into the gilded and beautifully painted drawing-room of the aforesaid father's mansion in Yorks.h.i.+re.

Her mother gave a little, sharp scream, and let fall the book she was holding in her hand.

Sarah came forward swiftly, picked it up, and turned it over to look at the t.i.tle, at sight of which she said, with a little laugh, 'What a humbug you are, mother! You know you've never read a single word of this book.'

Mrs Clay's face flushed crimson. ''Ow dare you talk similar to that, Sarah?' Only she p.r.o.nounced it fairly with a true c.o.c.kney accent, and left out all her _h_'s. 'I don't know w'at women are comin' to nowadays, w'at wi' one thing an' another, w'en it comes to a chit o' sixteen talkin' like that about 'er mother bein' an 'umbug, let alone sayin' she doesn't respect 'er father; an' w'at 'e'd say if 'e 'eard 'er I couldn't say, I'm sure,' she said, fl.u.s.tered.

'Then don't say it,' observed Sarah lightly, as she threw herself lazily into one of the luxurious armchairs opposite her mother, and only then became aware that buried in the depths of another easy-chair was another figure--that of a man. For a moment she was taken aback, and started in fright, thinking that it was her father, of whom she might speak disrespectfully behind his back, but whom she did not dare to abuse to his face, fearless though she was by nature. However, to her relief, she saw it was not her father's big, burly form that filled the gold-brocaded chair, but her brother's tall, slight figure.

'Awfully bad form, Sarah,' he murmured in an effeminate voice, after which he laid his head back in an att.i.tude of exhaustion against the chair, and gazed up at the ceiling.

'Yes; I think it must be that 'igh-cla.s.s, fas.h.i.+onable school that's taught 'er to speak so of 'er parents, an' not respect any one,' agreed her mother in querulous accents.

'I didn't mean to speak disrespectfully to you, dear old mother,' said the girl with a kind of patronising affection.

'I don't know w'at you call it, then, callin' me an 'umbug,' objected Mrs Clay.

'I was in fun, and you know it _is_ humbug your pretending to read Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_,' persisted Sarah.

At the t.i.tle, the youth in the arm-chair roused himself, and said in quite a different tone, 'Were you reading that, mater? Is it my copy?'

'Well, I can't say I'd really read it, not to understand it; but I saw it was one o' the books you were studyin', an' I thought I'd take a look at it just to know a little w'at you were studyin' w'en you got back to college,' said his mother apologetically.

'That's awfully nice of you, mater; but why didn't you ask me about it?

I'd have told you anything you wanted to know about my work. That's such a frightfully dry book. I should grind it up for my trip,' replied her son.

'I don't know that I want to know about "trips;" but I feel I ought to try an' educate myself now you two are comin' on, so as not to disgrace you,' began his mother.

But her son, with an impatient movement--which, however, he immediately suppressed--interrupted her. 'Dear mater, what does it matter whether you are learned or not? For my part, I don't see what women want to be educated for at all.'

'Oh, you don't, don't you? You ought to have lived about the year one.

You're several centuries behind the times, George!' exclaimed his sister indignantly.

'I wish I had. I'm sure the girls of that time were nicer than they are nowadays,' he replied, calmly relapsing into his nonchalant att.i.tude.

'I'm sure they never talked about not respectin' their dads,' said Mrs Clay plaintively. She had, as will be seen, a habit of harping back to the same grievance, and this remark of her daughter's evidently rankled in her mind.

'Perhaps their fathers were more respectable than mine,' replied Sarah.

'Well, I never did!' cried Mrs Clay, scandalised.

'Draw it mild, Sarah! The pater may be a bit of a tartar sometimes, but he's respectable enough, in all conscience,' remonstrated her brother.

'I don't think so,' declared Sarah.

Before her mother could utter the protests which her son saw in her face, George said, 'Oh, let her talk! She's got some maggot in her brain, and she wants to air it. It amuses her, and it doesn't hurt us, as long as the pater doesn't come in and hear her; and she'll take good care to shut up if he does,' he wound up with a laugh.

His laugh exasperated his sister, and she retorted with some warmth, 'If I do shut up when he comes in, it's only because he's so violent and hateful!'

'Sarah! Sarah!' came from the mother and son simultaneously, in accents of horrified indignation; and Mrs Clay continued, 'Leave the room at once, miss. I won't sit 'ere an' 'ave my 'usband insulted like that.'

Without a word, the girl rose from her seat and left the drawing-room, shutting the door sharply behind her.

'What's the governor been doing to upset her now?' inquired Mr George Clay of his mother.

'Nothin' that I know of. It's some crotchet of Sairey, now she's begun studyin' the woman's question, as she calls it, an' thinks 'e treats the women 'ere badly.'

'Oh goodness, don't you tell me she's started that! Do they go in for politics at that school, then?' cried her brother. 'I never heard of such a thing at a girls' school; it ought not to be allowed.'

'Well, I don't know that it's politics exactly; it's somethin' to do wi'

women's duties to each other an' the 'ard life our mill-la.s.ses 'ave, or somethin'. She was talkin' to me the other evenin' about it, quite beautifully; an' I will say that for Sairey, she don't mind my not understandin', but explains, an' never seems to despise me for my ignorance,' said his mother.

'I should think not, indeed! Book-learning isn't everything. With all your experience of life you could teach Sarah a precious sight more than she can teach you,' said George.

'It's very nice o' you to talk like that, dear; but I know you're both far above me wi' your beautiful manners an' ways o' talkin',' said the poor woman humbly.

'For goodness' sake, don't talk like that, mother, or I shall be sorry I ever went to Eton and Cambridge if it makes you feel any distance between us!' he cried.

'I don't feel it so much wi' you, dear. It's Sairey I feel it worse wi', an' it's not 'er fault either; it's only that she's so clever an' so beautiful.'

'She's good-looking, certainly; but, then, so are you. She's taken after you, like me.' The young man smiled at his mother in a very pretty way.

He certainly had beautiful manners, as his mother said. 'But as for being clever,' he continued, 'I call her a proud peac.o.c.k.'

'Oh George, I was never as good-lookin' as Sairey, nor you either; nor 'alf such a lady. W'y, she might be a d.u.c.h.ess's daughter! Every one says so,' cried his mother, woman-like, dwelling upon the subject of good looks rather than on her son's criticism of Sarah's cleverness.

'That's only education. You'd have been just as d.u.c.h.essy if you'd been educated,' insisted her son, hesitating for a word to use instead of lady-like, for he would not, even to himself, own that his mother was not a lady in the world's acceptation of the word.

What every one in the West Riding, or heavy woollen district, said was, what a most extraordinary thing it was that the son and daughter of that brute Clay should be so refined when their father was such a rough, uncouth man! The Clay family was one of the many instances in Yorks.h.i.+re of the mill-hand who rose from being a labourer to be the owner of a large mill and enormous wealth, and who gave to his children the education he had never received himself. But though in most cases the children were better educated and superior in outward seeming to their parents, it was not often that the contrast was so marked. In this case it may have been caused by the fact that Mark Clay, instead of marrying a mill-la.s.s, had taken to wife a very pretty, delicate-looking girl from London, who had bequeathed her good looks to her two children. She, or rather her husband--for little Mrs Clay had no voice in the matter--had sent the boy to Eton and then to Cambridge, and the girl to what her mother called a ''igh-cla.s.s, fas.h.i.+onable school'--which, if high prices are any criterion, it certainly was.

Mrs Clay shook her head at her son's last remark. 'I should never 'ave made a d.u.c.h.ess. I was always timid, an' couldn't 'old up my 'ead as Sairey does. It's somethin' in you both, though I don't 'old wi' Sairey speakin' of 'er father in the way she does.'

'I should think not, indeed,' put in her son.

'Still, we can't expect 'er to respect us as much as she would if we 'ad the same good manners an' way o' talkin' that she an' you 'ave. It's natural she should feel superior, an' show it, too,' argued the poor woman with some shrewdness; 'an' I've told your dad that it was only w'at 'e might 'ave expected.'

'Pray, don't talk of Sarah's manners being good, nor her way of talking either; they're both as bad as bad can be,' said George Clay, with his soft drawl.

'W'y, you don't never mean to say that, George, an' after all the pounds dad's paid for 'er? For goodness' sake, don't tell 'im, or 'e'll 'alf-kill 'er--'e would! You don't know your father as I do,' cried the mother in consternation.