Chapter 6

AN EXTRAORDINARY LETTER.

It did not take George Clay five minutes to write his acceptance of his friend's invitation; but his sister did not find her letter quite so easy to write, and she sat at the pretty Chippendale table biting the end of her pen for more than that length of time before she began to write in desperation, only to tear up the letter in despair.

'It's all very well for George to talk; but it's not so easy to sit down and tell a girl you are not a lady, and, what's more, that your parents are not gentlefolks,' said Sarah aloud to herself.

Then she started again, and wrote a friendly invitation, without any embarrassing explanations or apologies.

'George may be able to say that kind of thing in a gentlemanly way--he always does say the right sort of thing--but I shall just chance it,' she muttered to herself, as she sealed up the letter and sent it off by Naomi, without showing it to any one or taking any one's advice upon it. To have done so would have been quite contrary to Sarah's habits, for she was of a very independent character, and the circumstances of her whole life no doubt fostered this characteristic.

'So we've got a grand young lady from London coming up to stay with us plain folk,' said Mr Mark Clay when he saw his daughter at dinner that evening.

'I've asked one of my schoolfellows to come to stay with me; but I don't know that she will come, and I don't know that you will think her grand. She dresses very plainly,' replied Sarah.

'Then she'll be all the more willing to come if she's poor,' said Mr Clay.

'She's not in the least poor. It's not the fashion for schoolgirls to dress very grandly,' said Sarah hastily.

'Nonsense! People dress as they can afford; and, I'll be bound, I could buy up her father twice over,' said Mark Clay in his boastful way.

Sarah's lips curled scornfully. 'You couldn't buy his rank. I hope to goodness she won't come,' she said.

No notice was taken of this remark, which was put down to Sarah's contradictoriness, and no one knew how heartily the girl repented of her invitation.

Meanwhile Horatia Cunningham opened the letter from her friend, without in the least expecting it to contain an invitation to visit the schoolfellow whom they all talked of as the millionaire's daughter. Great was her surprise on reading it, for Sarah never talked at school of her people or her home, and the girls vaguely imagined that she was unhappy in her home.

'Mamma, just listen to this letter,' Horatia cried, as she read the letter aloud at the breakfast-table:

'"DEAR HORATIA,--Will you come and spend as much of the holidays as you can spare with me? We live on a hill outside Ousebank, so that you will not be in a manufacturing town, and we can go for plenty of walks or rides and drives and play tennis as much as you like. I shall be all alone, as my brother is going to stay with friends in Scotland.--Your affectionate friend, SARAH CLAY."'

'What an extraordinary letter! She is not gushing,' said Lady Grace Cunningham, as she continued to pour out the coffee.

'Is she an orphan, and what does she mean by being all alone? Has she no guardian or chaperon?' inquired Horatia's father.

'She has a father and a mother. She is the daughter of a millionaire blanket-maker named Clay.'

'I believe I've heard the name; but I don't know what I've heard of him,' said Mr Cunningham.

'That would account for her odd way of writing,' said his wife.

'What is odd about it?' demanded Horatia.

'Her writing without mentioning her mother's name, and she never says she would like to see you. Besides, to begin with, as a matter of politeness, Mrs Clay should have written to me,' objected Lady Grace Cunningham.

'Sarah is very independent, and I expect she does as she likes at home,' said Horatia. 'But she is a very nice girl, mamma, and I may go, mayn't I?' she begged.

'Do you really want to go? You know these people, though they have great riches, are very often very unrefined. What is the girl like?'

'I'll show you her photograph, and she looks like a queen when she walks,' said Horatia; and in her eagerness to get leave to pay the visit she ran upstairs to fetch the photo, and came back with a portrait of a boy and girl.

'Dear me, what a handsome couple!' exclaimed Lady Grace Cunningham; 'and most refined,' she added, as she passed the photo to her husband for his inspection and opinion.

'A very fine face--the girl's, I mean; the young fellow looks rather effeminate. I don't think you'd learn anything but good from that girl; but she looks proud. I should never have taken her for a tradesman's daughter,' he remarked, as he put the photo down.

'She is not. He is a manufacturer,' protested Horatia.

'Some of our merchants are of good old stock, and as refined as ourselves, if I may be allowed that piece of boasting,' replied his wife.

'And no doubt these people are. Well, personally, I have no objection to Horatia's going to them, if you have not,' said Mr Cunningham; and he buried himself in his newspaper.

'Hurrah!' cried Horatia, clapping her hands.

'Why this excitement? Are you so fond of this schoolfellow, or do you find home dull?' inquired Lady Grace Cunningham.

'Oh no, mamma; of course I am never dull at The Grange, and I don't know that I am so fond of Sarah. I do like her very much, but I shall see her in another month; so, if you like, I will write and refuse the invitation.'

'By no means. I wish you to grow up large-minded; but you have not explained why you were so delighted at the thought of going to spend a month with these strangers. I don't suppose their riches attract you.'

'Oh no; I don't think one could have a nicer home than this. I believe the real truth is that I should like to see a mill. I read a story about mill-girls once; how they wore pattens on their feet and shawls on their heads, and talked so broadly that you couldn't understand them, and threw mud at strangers. I would like'----

'To have mud thrown at you?' exclaimed her mother. 'Well, there's no accounting for tastes!'

Horatia gave a merry laugh, such an infectious laugh that both her mother and father joined in it.

'No; I should keep out of their way, and look at them through a window,' she remarked.

'Perhaps they'd throw a stone through the window and break it,' observed Horatia's practical sister.

'Well, I promise to duck my head if I see one coming,' she assured them, laughing.

'I don't suppose there will be any need. I fancy mill-hands, as I believe they call them, are very much civilised, and dress quite grandly now,' said her mother.

'Oh, I hope not! I shall be disappointed if they do,' cried Horatia.

Thus it came about that two mornings after she had despatched her letter Sarah had an answer from Horatia Cunningham, accepting her friend's kind invitation with pleasure, and announcing her arrival at the end of the week.

'So you were right, and she is coming,' Sarah said gloomily to her brother, as she twisted the letter in her fingers.

'That's very nice. You must think of nice expeditions to take her. There is lovely scenery within reach, especially if she's fond of motoring,' he said.

'I wish to goodness the visit were over. I have a presentiment that it will be a failure,' his sister persisted.

'Don't be absurd! It won't be a failure if you try to make it a success; and, if you don't mind my giving you a hint, be civil to the governor before Miss Cunningham, at all events; it's such bad form not to be, you know,' said George.

'I wish you'd give the governor, as you call him, a hint or two. He's the one who'll make the visit a failure, if it is one. Well, she's going to come, so it's no use groaning about it now,' said Sarah.

'Now, Sally, what are you looking so glum about? I suppose you don't think we're grand enough for your duchess-friend? Never you mind, we'll put our best foot forward. She shall have the royal suite of rooms. I've made up my mind to do the thing handsome,' said Mr Clay.

'Oh Mark, that is good o' you! I 'ope the young lady won't spoil 'em,' said his wife.

The royal suite of rooms, it should be explained, consisted of a bedroom, anteroom, sitting-room, and bathroom, which had been so sumptuously decorated that the workmen called them the 'royal suite;' and Mr Clay, overhearing them, had said the royal suite they should be called. Perhaps it would be prophetic, for stranger things had to come to pass than royalty coming to stay with the Mayor of Ousebank, as he had been, and probably would be again.

Sarah knew she ought to express her gratitude to her father for the honour he was showing to her friend; but no words would come. Sarah Clay was, unfortunately, more in the habit of uttering unpleasant truths than making pretty speeches to her father; and, if the truth be told, she was not altogether pleased at the honour shown, for the rooms were not very suitable for a young girl, and Sarah had an idea that the grandeur would be wasted on Horatia, who, she suspected, would rather have a room near hers.

George, as usual, came to the rescue. 'That is very kind of you, father; but perhaps, as Miss Cunningham is very young, and is coming for the first time among strangers, she would prefer to be in the west wing near some one she knows. There's the anteroom, next Sarah's; that is very pretty for a girl, and they could share the boudoir.'

Sarah shot a grateful look at her brother; but his pains were thrown away, for Mr Clay, who was not a man to be easily turned from his plan, said, 'She'll soon get used to us, and she can have her maid to sleep next door. No; I've promised she shall have the royal rooms, and I'll not go back on my word.'

'Let's hope she'll appreciate them,' said George in a non-committal tone.

Sarah spent the intervening two or three days in a state of suppressed excitement and unsuppressed irritability; and George at last began to regret, like herself, that her friend was coming, and was sorry for having made the suggestion. He would even have given up his visit to the north if Sarah had accepted his sacrifice; but the latter declared brusquely, 'You couldn't do much good; and, considering that my excuse for asking her here was that I should be alone, it would look rather odd if you didn't go away, after all.'

So George went off, his parting words to Sarah being, 'Don't worry. Just be as nice to her as you can, and don't, for goodness' sake, be ashamed of being what you are, for you have nothing to be ashamed of.'

'I don't think that,' said Sarah.

'We need be ashamed of nothing in this world except doing wrong,' said George; and the motor started with a hoot of approval of this worthy sentiment.

Sarah waved her hand to her brother, and stood watching him until the motor was hidden behind the trees and a bend in a long avenue, and then turned back to the house, her head bent towards the gravel-path, the pebbles of which she kicked with her feet, to the distinct disapproval of the young gardener who had just rolled it, and viewed this destruction of his work from a distance.

'Ashamed of nothing but doing wrong!' she soliloquised. 'That's not true. One is ashamed of having dirty hands or muddy boots; there's nothing wrong in that.' She turned impulsively as if to say this to her brother, and have the last word; but that being an impossibility, she was reduced to arguing the question out with herself, as Sarah had a habit of doing.

The only person she ever consulted, or whose advice or criticism she accepted, was her uncle Howroyd. But this question she could not ask him, for Sarah hardly liked to own to herself that she was a little ashamed of her uncle Howroyd; at least, not exactly ashamed, but she did not mean to take Horatia Cunningham to see him or the old-fashioned mill-house in which William Howroyd and his father had lived for three or four generations.

So Sarah was reduced to herself as an authority upon this question for the present, and not being by any means a safe authority, she did not get a wise answer, which might have saved her a great deal of vexation and annoyance; for Sarah decided that George was quite wrong. There were things which were not wrong, and yet one could not help being ashamed of them; and one thing Sarah was ashamed of was having parents who were not only uneducated, but had unrefined ideas.

Sarah had one day-dream, absurd as it may seem, of which she never spoke. Sarah always cherished the hope that she might some day find that she and her brother were not really George and Sarah Clay, but adopted children of Mark Clay, and that by-and-by the news would be broken to them. And yet Sarah was a well-educated, intelligent girl of sixteen, and lived in the twentieth century. The fancy arose from a remark her father once made when she was quite a child: 'They are not my children; they are a cut above me. They've got their mother's features, but they'll have nothing of me but my money.' And upon this half-bitter, half-proud speech of Mark Clay's Sarah built her romance, which varied as she invented different explanations of the mystery from time to time; but her favourite one was that her mother first married a lord who was ashamed of his wife, and would not acknowledge his children until they were grown up and properly educated; and Sarah used to picture the reconciliation between them and their proud relatives, for whose benefit she composed many fine speeches full of reproof and final forgiveness.

This may be a little excuse for her want of respect to her father, Mark Clay, by speaking of whom, it will be remembered, as 'your husband' she used to anger her mother. She even half-thought of telling Horatia this tale; but Horatia had a way of turning everything into ridicule, and one of the many things that Sarah could not stand was being laughed at.

The same motor that took George Clay to the station took Sarah that afternoon to meet Horatia Cunningham, who was to arrive at six o'clock, and who persisted in arriving at that hour, although Sarah had written to her and warned her it was the hour when the mill-hands came out; she said she did not mind at all, and supposed that she would be quite safe in a motor with its smart chauffeur; and Sarah, looking so fresh and dainty that many a one turned and looked after the millionaire's pretty daughter, started off for the station, and not one of them guessed she was feeling nervous, and wished with all her might that she were going on another errand. The girl even wished that something might have happened to prevent her friend from coming; but when the train stopped she saw the wish was vain, for Horatia's face was smiling at her from a window, and Sarah forgot her fears for the moment, and smiled back a welcome.