Sarah's School Friend Part 4

'Sit thee down and have a pipe,' cried Mark Clay.

'Not here,' remonstrated his brother, looking round on the delicate brocade hangings and furniture.

Poor Mrs Clay did not dare to open her mouth, though she in her secret heart felt as indignant about it as Mr Howroyd.

But Sarah had no such qualms. 'You'll have to redecorate this room if you're going to smoke here, and you'll have to find us another drawing-room. Ladies don't sit in a drawing-room where men smoke,' she said.

'Daughters sit where their parents tell them, if they're worthy of the name of daughters.--But, if you don't mind, Mark, we'll go into your study; we can talk better alone,' said her uncle before Sarah's father could say anything.

Whether motives of economy moved him, or whether it was a certain influence which Bill Howroyd, as he was familiarly called, had over most people, Mark Clay got up from his seat, saying, 'Yes, we'll be better without that pert la.s.s's company, Bill,' and led the way to his study.

'That's a blessing!' said Sarah. 'A nice state of things it would be if father took to smoking his horrid pipe here.'

'It would ruin the rose-coloured brocade, and the curtains would smell 'orrid,' said her mother.

'That wouldn't be so bad as not having a single room free from him,' said Sarah, and then added to her brother, who got up at the time, 'Where are you going, George?'

'To have a smoke,' he replied.

'You can smoke your cigarette here, dear; no one would smell that,' said the fond mother.

'Thank you, mother; but I thought of smoking with my father and uncle,'

he replied.

'What! beard the lion in his den? What on earth for, George? You know you never do go and smoke with him,' observed Sarah.

'Don't go to-night, my dear. Your uncle 'as somethin' particular to say to 'im, an' nothin' very pleasant, I could see that; an' you'd best not be there in case 'e's upset. Not but w'at Bill manages 'im better than any one else; still, they'll get on better alone.'

George Clay hesitated a minute, and then, turning back, took up his old position in his arm-chair, observing, 'Perhaps you're right, and I can go down and see him to-morrow.'

'See whom--Uncle Howroyd?' demanded Sarah.

But George made no reply, and remained sunk among the cus.h.i.+ons, his head tilted back and his eyes staring at the painted cupids on the ceiling, which did not give him much pleasure, judging by the half-frown upon his face.

'It's my belief that there's something the matter,' said Sarah after a silence.

'Nonsense, child! W'at should be the matter? There's always worries in business, an' women 'ave no right to interfere in such things nor make any remarks,' said Mrs Clay.

'Well, all I can say is, I wish something would happen. We're just stalled oxen here,' observed Sarah.

'Stalled oxen? W'atever can you mean?' asked Mrs Clay in bewilderment, for she did not recognise the allusion to the verse in Proverbs: 'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'

George gave a little chuckle. 'She certainly does not mean what she says.--You'd better read your Bible again, and you'll see that stalled oxen is what we eat, not what we are.'

'Stalled oxen?' said Mrs Clay, repeating, as was her custom, any remark which she did not understand or agree with. 'Is Sarah callin' us stalled oxen?'

'No, I'm not, mother; I'm the only one that feels like that. George hugs his golden chains, and so do you,' replied Sarah. 'And he doesn't care how doubtful the means are that give them to him.'

George made no reply at all, and after some time the three got up and went to bed.

And so ended an evening typical of many pa.s.sed in the millionaire's house, which was only less dreary than usual owing to William Howroyd's visit.

CHAPTER IV.

AN UNANSWERED QUESTION.

'It's a beautiful morning, Miss Sarah,' said Naomi, as she pulled up the blinds in her young mistress's room the day after the scenes described in the foregoing chapters.

Naomi's rosy face was glowing with health and happiness, and this seemed to strike Sarah, for she said, as she looked at her, 'Is it your birthday, Naomi?'

'To-day, Miss Sarah? Why, no. I was seventeen the 1st of October. I'm a year and three months older 'n you, miss.'

'What are you so pleased for, then?' she asked.

'I dunno as I'm more pleased than usual, unless it be the fine weather makes one feel happy like.'

'It doesn't make me feel very happy; at least not when I'm at home. I like a fine day at school, because we can go for a long ride or walk, or play tennis or something out of doors,' observed Sarah.

'And so you can do all them things here, miss; there's horses and carriages, and motor-cars, and a beautiful bit of gra.s.s for tennis; and if you want a nice walk you can go over the fields and through Brocklehurst coppice to Driffington, or by the Dunnings to Thornborough,'

said Naomi, chattering with freedom while she prepared the bath in the little bathroom attached to Sarah's suite of rooms.

Her mistress let her chatter on, and listened while she gave an enthusiastic description of the lovely country walks and rides and drives to be taken in the immediate neighbourhood; and when the maid stopped for a moment to take breath, Sarah remarked, 'Yes; but I don't care to do any of these things up here. Do you know, Naomi, when the train gets near Ousebank, and I see its horrid high chimneys and all the air black, I feel as if the smoke came and wrapped itself round me and smothered me somehow, and I don't breathe freely again till I'm in the train going back to school.'

Naomi stopped short at the door of the bathroom, her mouth wide open, and stared at her young mistress. She said at last, 'You'll have had a nightmare, I'll be thinking;' then, cheering up at this explanation of Miss Sarah's unpleasant sensations, she went on cheerfully with her preparations for her mistress's toilet. 'And the very best thing you can do, Miss Sarah, is to go for a lovely ride across Cowpen, and over t'

hill to Driffington. My! think of all the la.s.ses in the mills as 'u'd give their eyes to have the chance! There's Liza Anne now, she'd be glad eno' of a holiday; these bright days make her back ache dreadful, so she says.'

'Liza Anne's in Clay's Mills, isn't she?' inquired Sarah. Liza Anne was Naomi's elder sister.

'Yes, Miss Sarah; she's a ligger-on, is Liza Anne, and so's Jane Mary,'

explained Naomi.

'What's a "ligger-on," Naomi?' inquired Sarah.

'Why, she puts the wool on the carding-machine and ligs it out. She's a good, steady worker is Liza Anne.'

'Oh, I see; layer-on, you mean. I wish I were a "ligger-on," as you call it; there'd be some object to get up for, at any rate.'

'You spend one day in Liza Anne's place or Jane Mary's, and you'd talk different to that, Miss Sarah,' said Naomi.

Sarah sighed impatiently. 'You all say the same thing to me, and it's all nonsense. You're much happier than I am; you have only to look in the looking-gla.s.s and you'll see that, and yet you all persist in saying that I'm happier than you.'

'You ought to be,' replied Naomi, as she gave a final adjusting pat to the lace-bedecked matinee she had just put ready for Sarah to slip into; but she did not attempt to argue with her mistress on a subject which she felt, somehow, was too difficult for her.

Sarah dressed slowly; not that she was a deliberate young person at all, but because she did not see any good in making haste, as there was nothing to do, or rather, to put it truly, as she did not care to do anything. However, in about an hour Sarah went downstairs dressed in a simple but fresh and dainty print frock, and found her brother sitting at breakfast.