Chapter 4

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 grass 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 lasses 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-glass 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 matinée 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.

'Morning, Sarah. What are you going to do to-day? Anything special on?' he inquired.

'No; at least, I'm not going to do anything special. I believe there's a tennis tournament on at the Haighs'; but I don't feel inclined to go; it's going to be hot to-day, I think.'

'Piping, I should say. Well, if you don't want me to take you to the Haighs' I'll cry off myself; it's a fearful fag playing a tournament in this weather. Good-bye; I'm off,' he added, as he rose from the table.

'Where are you going, George?' inquired Sarah. 'If it's anywhere nice I'll come with you.'

'It isn't,' he replied, and was going out of the room.

'Where is it?' persisted Sarah.

'Into Ousebank,' he replied laconically.

'But that is nice. Take me with you, George.'

'You are the most perverse girl I ever met. You know you hate Ousebank, and yet you call it a nice place to go for a walk,' he scoffed.

'It's interesting. I love to see the mills turn out at twelve o'clock; it's like a living stream of human beings pouring out of a lock-gate, and I love Uncle Howroyd's mill.'

'Well, I sha'n't be there at twelve o'clock, so if that's what you want to go for you'd better stay at home,' observed her brother, who evidently was not very anxious to take his sister with him this particular morning, though, as a rule, he was a most good-natured and attentive brother.

Sarah was quick to notice this, and being the girl she was it made her all the more determined to go with her brother; so she said, 'Ah, but I can go to see Uncle Howroyd, and that's always nice. I simply love going over the mill.'

'Oh!' ejaculated George, looking discomfited for a moment; and then he apparently changed his mind, and said, 'All right, I'll go there with you.'

But when they got to the door of Mr William Howroyd's office he did not say good-bye, but was coming in with her, when Sarah said, 'You needn't stop for me. I may be here some time. You had better go and do your own business, and come and fetch me on your way back.'

'I think I'll come in,' said George, and in he came.

'Uncle Howroyd, do send George off, and say you'll take care of me for an hour or so; he's so dreadfully polite even to his sister that he won't leave me alone with you,' said Sarah.

'Ah, but I don't know that I can take care of such a difficult young lady,' said her uncle teasingly.

'But I should like to see Uncle Howroyd, too,' objected George.

'That's nonsense! You've only come here to bring me, so if you want to see him you can come another time by yourself, not just when I'm here,' said Sarah.

'I thought you wanted to see the mill?' observed George.

'And I thought you came to Ousebank to do some business?' retorted his sister.

'So I did.--As a matter of fact, my business was to see you, sir,' said George, turning to his uncle, who had been listening to this argument between the brother and sister with his usual amused look and twinkle in his eye.

But when his nephew made this direct appeal to him, Uncle Howroyd became the alert man of business, kind and keen, and said, 'At your service, nephew.--As for you, Sarah, if your frock isn't too fine for going into a dirty blanket-mill, old Matthew will take you and show you our wonderful new engine, of which we are so proud.'

'I don't care twopence about your grand engine. I hate grand new things. I'd rather go into the old dyeing-rooms; they have such lovely new shades every time I go,' declared Sarah.

'There! isn't that just like a woman? Hates new things, and wants to go into the dear old dye-rooms to see lovely new shades!' cried her uncle.

Sarah only laughed, as her uncle called old Matthew, the foreman, and told him to take Miss Clay to the dye-rooms and show her all she wished to see, and take care she didn't get her skirts dyed.

'Well, George, anything wrong?' he asked as the door shut upon Sarah, who went off talking in a most friendly manner with old Matthew, and the uncle and nephew were left alone.

'That's what I came to you about,' said George.

Mr William Howroyd looked at his nephew doubtfully. He did not understand him at any time, and this morning the young man spoke in his usual lazy tones, so that his uncle did not know whether George was in any trouble or not; for, as he argued to himself, 'the boy never did show feelings, so that he might be in love or debt or goodness knows what scrape, and yet talk like that;' and Mr William Howroyd had a deeply rooted conviction that all young men did at the universities was to get into mischief of some sort. So he said, 'Come, George, be frank with me. Have you got into any mess? You know if you have I'll be ready to do all I can to get you out of it.'

The young man looked gratefully at his uncle as he replied in his pleasant tones, 'I'm sure you would, uncle, and there's no one I'd sooner come to if I wanted help; but I'm in no mess that I know of. It was only'--he hesitated--'something in your manner last night that made me think there was trouble at the mill either present or looming ahead. I know my father is not popular.'

Mr Howroyd looked a little surprised for a moment; then he said cheerfully, 'Dismiss that notion from your mind. I was a little put out last night by something I heard, and I dare say I said all sorts of disagreeable, sharp things; but there's no danger for your father any more than there is for all of us. Business is not like a profession; you gain more, but you stand to lose more, and it's not so certain as the law, for example. So, if you'll take my advice, you'll go back and study hard, and have a profession at your finger-tips; it never comes amiss to any of us, and there's no harm done if you never follow it.' Then he changed the conversation, and began talking of other things, and was surprised to find what a pleasant and intelligent companion his nephew could be. 'Why, I'd no idea you took such an interest in the heavy woollen trade. It's almost a pity you're not going into it,' cried his uncle at last.

'But that is what I intend doing, in spite of your advice to the contrary,' observed George quietly.

His uncle cast a swift look at him. 'All the same, I should pass all my law examinations, if I were you, in case--in case you might change your mind,' he observed equally quietly; and then the two got up and went across the mill-yard to the dyeing-rooms to find Sarah, who was still there with Matthew.

George noticed the kindly words of greetings and the friendly glances that passed between master and 'hands,' as all the workers are called up north.

'Now, that man's been with us thirty years; he married his wife from here, and his family all work for us; and this one has been fifty years, and only comes once a week just to say he still works at the old mill,' explained Mr Howroyd.

'That's as it should be,' said George, touching his hat at each greeting, and raising it to an old woman who hobbled past them.

His uncle smiled a little, for such courtesy is not usual in mills, where kind hearts are hidden under rough exteriors and blunt speech; but though the 'hands' smiled, they said to each other, after the uncle and nephew had passed by, that 'he was a gentleman was young Clay, and took after his uncle Howroyd more'n his father, that was plain!'

'Oh uncle, why did you come so soon? I didn't want you yet,' cried Sarah when she saw the two at the door.

'Didn't you? It strikes me it's about time we did come. My word, you've got yourself into a nice state, my lass!' exclaimed Mr Howroyd, as well he might, for Sarah, in her interest in the new shades, had gone too near the huge vats and wet materials, and her dress was the colours of the rainbow, while her hands were a deep crimson.

'But just look what a lovely colour this crimson is, George!' she exclaimed, holding up a rag which she had dyed.

George contemplated his sister in silence, and then said, 'We'd better get a taxi to go home, I think;' and added, 'Yes, it's a pretty shade, but I think there's a little too much blue in it to be quite becoming.' And, turning to the dyer, he began talking pleasantly about dyeing; and when he went away the man remarked to Mr William Howroyd, 'He's a sharp young gentleman is yon, and I think I'll try his advice.'

Meanwhile Sarah was sitting in the cab with her brother, contemplating rather ruefully her stained hands. 'I say, will it come off?' she inquired anxiously.

'Yes, in time, if you use some acid,' replied her brother, looking at her fingers.

'Oh, but I must get them clean by lunch-time, or father will make a row,' she cried.

'I should advise you to have lunch in your boudoir, as you call it. You can't possibly get all this off at first go. I can't imagine what old Matthew was about to let you get yourself in such a mess. Really, you are very childish for your age, in some ways.'

'What were you talking to Uncle Howroyd about?' demanded Sarah, who did not want to talk about her hands any longer.

'The heavy woollen trade,' replied her brother promptly.

'That wasn't what you came down to see Uncle Howroyd about. A lot you know of the heavy woollen trade or any other trade! Besides, that came out too pat. What you came down to Ousebank for was just the same thing that I came for.'

'I should not have said so,' replied George dryly, with a significant glance at her hands.

'It was, all the same. You came to ask Uncle Howroyd what he meant by talking about the workhouse last night, and so did I; but I thought one of us was enough to ask that question, so now just tell me what he said.'

If George was taken aback by her astuteness, he did not say so, but answered simply, 'He said he did not mean anything, and that there was no chance of the workhouse for us more than for him.'

'Do you believe that?' asked Sarah.

'He said there was no more chance of our going to the workhouse than his going there,' repeated George.

'Do you believe that?' repeated Sarah.

'No, I do not,' said George gravely.

'Oh George, do you think we are ruined, or anything?' cried Sarah in excitement.

'Oh, do be quiet, and don't talk so loud, or the cabby will hear you! Of course we're not ruined; but it would never astonish me any day if we came a howler. The pater goes too fast, and---- But we're all right now; and, for goodness' sake, don't say a word to mother; it would upset her dreadfully. It's only for her sake I'd mind so much.'

'We'd work for her, and she'd be happier with us, without father always shouting at her,' said Sarah.

'Probably we'd have to work for him too, and he might not be angelic as a pauper,' suggested George grimly, perhaps with a view to subdue Sarah's desire for poverty.

'Oh, I never thought of that. Let's hope his money will last as long as he lives,' she cried.