Chapter 8

HORATIA.

So the dinner was over, and Sarah heaved a great sigh of relief as the two followed Mrs Clay to the drawing-room.

'What are you sighing for, Sarah? One would think you had just discovered that you were a pauper, and had eaten your last grand dinner; for it was a grand dinner. Was it in honour of little, insignificant me? Because, you know, if it was, perhaps you wouldn't mind telling Mrs Clay that I don't come down to dinner at home, but have schoolroom supper with Nanny; and I don't think mamma would like me to eat all those things every evening,' observed Horatia, taking Sarah's arm and doing a rink step along the hall.

'Oh, we have that kind of dinner every day. There may have been extra trouble taken because of you; but father likes it. You needn't eat any more than you like; but I shouldn't sigh if I heard it was my last in this house,' replied Sarah vehemently.

She spoke so vehemently that Horatia stopped her rinking and looked at her friend in surprise. 'But it is your home,' she said.

'I'd rather live in a cottage,' declared Sarah.

'You say so; but I'd just like to see you turning up your aristocratic nose at the tiny rooms; only, of course, your nose wouldn't turn up properly, not being a snub like mine. Anyway, it would look down on everything. But, I say, Sarah, what a lovely rink this hall would make! If it weren't so hot we might have a fine rink this evening.'

'Oh my dear, not in this 'all; it's real cedar-board, brought express from abroad for Mr Clay!' cried Mrs Clay in shocked accents. 'I'm sure I don't know w'at 'e'd say if you was to suggest such a thing. Pray don't name it to 'im.'

Horatia laughed gaily. 'I was only in fun. Of course, I shouldn't rink on a parquet floor. I should like to see our butler's face if I did it on our polished oak. I think I'll suggest it to Mr Clay this evening,' she announced.

'You won't see him again. He never comes into the drawing-room in the evening, thank goodness!' said Sarah. The 'thank goodness' slipped out from habit, and she was rather glad that Horatia did not notice it.

'We shall just 'ave a quiet evenin'. Mr Clay likes to smoke 'is pipe after dinner in 'is study, an' I go an' talk to 'im sometimes. So per'aps you won't mind if I go an' leave you two to enjoy yourselves alone.--Your father seems quite cheerful to-night.--I think you an' 'e will get on, my dear,' said Mrs Clay, who was quite cheerful herself, owing to her husband being in a pleasant humour.

It was the first peaceful dinner they had had since Sarah came home; Mark Clay was never a very pleasant companion, and the dinner-table was very often the scene of his rages, but Sarah seemed to anger her father without even opening her mouth, and her mother, much as she missed her only daughter, was generally relieved when she returned to school.

But before Mrs Clay thought it was time for her husband to have finished his wine and retired to his study to smoke, to the surprise of all three he appeared in the drawing-room, without the obnoxious pipe, and with quite a pleasant expression for him.

'I'm thinking this lass will be dull with only us plain folk, and so I've got a concert for her. Now, what would you like to hear--the opera at Covent Garden, the Queen's Hall concert, or what?'

'Oh, how lovely! The opera, please. That is better than rinking in your parquet hall, Mr Clay,' cried Horatia, clapping her hands.

'Rink in my hall!' cried the millionaire, scandalised; and then, seeing Horatia's twinkling eyes, he laughed his hoarse laugh, and said, 'You'd have Sykes after you if you did. What do you want to rink for? Senseless pastime, I call it. Now, skating I can understand; it's healthy exercise, and you might make use of it in cold countries; but rinking--what's the use on't?'

'Oh, it's such fun! I do love it so!' cried Horatia.

'Well, now, if it's like that, I'll see what we can do. I am afraid I can't get a rink built for you in a day, but I'll see what we can do. For to-night, you'll have to put up with the opera,' said Mr Clay good-naturedly.

Horatia thanked him profusely, and after he had left she said to Sarah, 'Oh Sarah, you _are_ rich! I'm sorry I ever came here to stay with you.'

'Why?' inquired Sarah quickly, as the colour mounted to her forehead, for she expected that Horatia was going to say that she did not like people who made such a display of wealth.

'Because I sha'n't be contented to be just middlingly well off after this, and I never wanted to be rich before; but your father can do everything he likes,' she cried enthusiastically.

'Oh no, he can't,' retorted Sarah.

'What can't he do?' demanded Horatia.

Sarah paused for a moment. She could not very well say what was in her mind, which was that he could not make himself a gentleman, so she said instead, 'He can't buy people's affection, for one thing.'

Horatia gave Sarah one of her quick, quizzical glances, but only replied, 'I don't know so much about that. There's cupboard-love, at any rate; but never mind, let's go and listen to this opera. It's a lovely way of spending the evening,' she added, for Sarah's face had taken on its disdainful expression again.

So the two sat down at the gramophone to listen to Tetrazzini singing in the opera, and Mrs Clay went off to her husband's study to take advantage of his being in a good humour to spend the hour with the husband she worshipped, although she feared him, and had none too happy a life with him.

Mr Clay was smoking a short clay-pipe. If Sarah had been there she probably would have said that another thing that he could not do was to enjoy refined things, or give himself refined tastes, for one of Mark Clay's greatest enjoyments was to smoke his short clay-pipe and the rankest of rank tobacco, though he only did so in private.

'She's a nice young lady, Mark, this friend o' Sarah's, isn't she?' Mrs Clay hazarded.

'Yes, she's a grand lass, is yon. She's always got a joke ready to crack with you, and doesn't give herself no airs; and she might, for I find they're a very high family--two dukes in it, and other titles as well,' said Mr Clay.

'Oh, I don't care about 'er titles; she's a dear young lady in 'erself, an' I'm sure Sarah'll only learn good from 'er,' said Mrs Clay.

'I wish Sarah'd learn not to give herself airs; you'd think she was a duke's granddaughter and not the other. I'm sure she looks at me sometimes as much as to say, "I'm a princess, and you're only a common man," and treats me as if I was the dirt under her feet, instead of being her father, to whom she owes everything,' said Mr Clay, with an aggrieved air.

'She's not good-lookin',' said Mrs Clay, who alluded to Horatia and was trying to put a word in indirectly for her daughter.

'No, she isn't, there's no denying that; but I'd sooner have her opposite me at table, for all her plain looks, than I would our Sally.'

'I wouldn't go so far as that. I'm sure w'en the two came in to-night, an' our girl lookin' so straight an' 'andsome, I felt proud o' 'er; but the other is a dear young lady, an' keeps us all lively,' she said, repeating her one remark about Horatia that she was a dear young lady.

'And if you'll believe me, George,' she wrote to her son two days later, 'your father's a different man since that little girl has been here, as polite to the servants since he spoke sharp to Sykes and the little lady stared at him so surprised like; and so kind to me I hardly know myself. Not that I'm not very grateful to him, and know a man like him must have his worries, and can't always be even-tempered.'

But much had happened during these two days. Sarah had planned these two days, and, indeed, all the visit, as a succession of excursions in the motor, picnics, tennis-parties (for the Clays knew every one for miles round), and rides, and the next morning, accordingly, she said to Horatia, 'I thought we might go to the lakes for lunch to-day; we might start directly after breakfast, and get back for dinner in the evening.'

'Oh, haven't you seen the lakes?' asked Horatia in rather a disappointed tone.

'Yes, of course; but they are always worth going to see,' replied Sarah. 'But if you don't care to see them, or would rather go anywhere else, or do anything else, you have only to say so, and of course we'll do that.'

Horatia's face brightened. 'Do you really mean that? May I do what I like just for the first day or two?' she inquired eagerly.

'Of course you may do what you like to-day and every day while you are here. I would much rather you did. I'm tired of doing what I like; and, besides, it will save me a lot of bother, because I did not want to go to the lakes at all, and I was going to please you.'

'And I should have gone to please you,' cried Horatia, 'so we should both have wasted a day; but I'm afraid you won't care for my plan. I want to go and see your mills.'

'You mean my father's,' said Sarah hastily; but, though her face fell a little, she continued, 'We shall have to ask his leave. I'll ask mother to 'phone to him.'

But this plan of Horatia's was not destined to be carried out, for a message came back to say that Mr Clay would rather they came another day, as he was busy that day, and could not take them over himself.

'Then just let's go down the town and see the outsides of the mills. No; not in the motor,' for Sarah had her hand on the bell to ring for it.

'How, then? Do you want to ride?' inquired Sarah in surprise.

'No; I want to go on Shank's mare, and poke into ginnels. I want to go up a ginnel,' she declared.

'But a ginnel is only a narrow passage. The chauffeur told you so, don't you remember? You've often been up a passage, I suppose?'

'Yes; but not when it's called a ginnel. I want to say I've been up one, and I can't bring it in unless I say, "I went up a ginnel at Ousebank,"' explained Horatia.

Sarah laughed. 'You are funny, Horatia,' she said. However, to please her friend she put on her hat, and the two went off to Ousebank; and whom should they meet but Uncle Howroyd, who stopped quite naturally to speak to his niece and her friend.

'And what are you two lasses doing in Ousebank alone and on foot?' he inquired.

'We've come to go up a ginnel,' said Horatia, her eyes twinkling.

Mr William Howroyd's twinkled in response. 'Eh, what, are you a Yorkshire lassie, then, that you talk so pat about ginnels? And what particular one do you want to go up--the ginnel against my mill?' he inquired.

'Oh, have you got a mill, and can I come and see it?' cried Horatia eagerly.

'Why, of course I've got a mill. Didn't Sarah tell you? Surely you weren't coming to Ousebank without coming to see me?' he inquired reproachfully. Then, seeing that Sarah coloured and looked rather ashamed, he half-guessed the truth, and turned quickly to another subject, and said, 'Come along, then, both of you.--This is not the grandest mill in Ousebank, Miss Cunningham, nor the largest. My brother Clay's is much bigger; but it's the oldest, and I like it best.'

'Oh, please, say Horatia,' she cried, as the three turned towards Howroyd's Mill.

'Horatia! Any relation to the great Nelson?' he inquired, looking kindly down on the eager young face smiling up at him.

'Yes; that's why I am called it; but I like Macaulay's Horatius best, so I pretend I am named after him.'

'What!

Then out spake brave Horatius... And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods?

Isn't that how it goes?' he asked.

'Not quite; you've left out three lines; but that's the man I mean,' she replied. 'But I forgot. Perhaps I ought not to have asked to go over your mill? Perhaps you are busy, and don't want us, like Mr Clay?'

'No, I'm not so busy as he is, and I have always time for Sarah, as she knows,' he replied; 'though I don't know that a warm summer morning is the time to go over a mill and into hot rooms.'

'Oh, please, don't discourage me! I've longed to see a mill, and now I am really going to.'

Sarah privately thought Horatia rather childish, but she did not say anything; and Mr Howroyd, who did whatever he did thoroughly, took them over his mill.

'Now, I am going to show you the whole process of making a blanket out of sacks of woollen rags or wool as it comes off the sheep's back,' he announced.

'I hope you are not going to make a lesson of it, Uncle Howroyd,' protested Sarah.

'Of course I am, and am going to question you upon it afterwards,' he said, his eyes twinkling. 'Only, I hope you won't be like a young man that came here for a newspaper once, and went away saying he was much obliged, and had learnt a lot, and then wrote in his paper that we made blankets of old newspapers.'

'And don't you?' inquired Horatia innocently.

'No, we do not,' said Mr Howroyd with emphasis; 'and it's about time you did come and see a blanket-mill if that's all you know about it.'

Horatia not only joined merrily in Sarah's laugh, but listened quite intelligently to Mr William Howroyd's explanation of the material used to make blankets.

'It's most fearfully interesting,' she said with a sigh.

Mr Howroyd laughed. 'You'd best have gone to the lakes, as Sarah proposed. This is a very dull holiday task you've set yourself, Miss Horatia.'

'I never enjoyed any holiday so much in my life,' she protested stoutly, and a look at her beaming, interested face confirmed her words.