Then the squire laughed and took a letter out of his pocketbook. “It is good for a thousand pounds, honey,” he said, “and that is a bit of security for my promise, isn’t it?”
“Not a penny’s worth. Thy promise needs no security. It stands alone as it ought to do.”
She rose as she spoke and the squire rose and opened the door for her and then stood and watched her mount the darkening stairway. At the first reach, she turned and bent her lovely face and form towards him. The joyful anticipations in her heart transfigured her. She was radiant. Her face shone and smiled; her white throat, and her white shoulders, and her exquisite arms, and her firm quick feet seemed to have some new sense given them. You would have said that her body thought and that her very voice had a caress in it as she bridged the space between them with a “Thank you, dear, dear daddy! You are the very kindest father in all the world!”
“And thou art his pet and his darling!” With these words he went back to his wife. “She is justtip-on-top,” he said. “There’s no girl I know like her. She sits in the sunlight of my heart. Why, Annie, she ought to make a better marriage than Jane, and Jane did middling well.”
“Would thou think Harry Bradley a good match?”
“I wouldn’t put him even in a passing thought with Katherine. Harry Bradley, indeed! I am fairly astonished at thee naming the middle class fellow!”
“Katherine thinks him all a man should be.”
“She will change her mind in London.”
“I doubt that.”
“Thou lets her hev opinions and ideas of her awn. Thou shouldn’t do it. Jane will alter that. Jane will tell her how to rate men and women. Jane is varry clever.”
“Jane is no match for Katherine. Dost thou think Antony Annis will be?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“Then don’t try conclusions with her about Harry Bradley, and happen then thou may keep thy illusion. Katherine’s fault is a grave one, though it often looks like a virtue.”
“I doan’t see what thou means. Faults are faults, and virtues are virtues. I hev niver seen a fault of any kind in her, unless it be wanting more guineas than I can spare her just now, but that is the original sin o’ women as far as I can make out. Whativer is this fault that can look like a virtue?”
“She overdoes everything. She says too little, or too much; she does too little, or too much; she gives too little, or too much. In everything she exceeds. If she likes anyone, she is unreasonable about them; if she dislikes them, she is unjust.”
“I doan’t call that much of a fault – if thou knew anything about farming thou would make little of it. Thou would know that it is the richest land that hes the most weeds in its crop. The plow and the harrow will clear it of weeds and the experience of life will teach Katherine to be less generous with both her feelings and her opinions. Let her overdo, it is a fault that will cure itself.”
“And in the meantime it makes her too positive and insisting. She thinks she is right and she wants others to be right. She is even a bit forceable – ”
“And I can tell thee that women as well as men need some force of character, if they mean to do anything with their lives. Why-a! Force is in daily life all that powder is to shot. If our weavers’ wives hed more force in their characters, they wouldn’t watch their children dying of hunger upon their knees and their hearths, they would make their stubborn men go to any kind of a loom. They wouldn’t be bothering themselves about any Bill in Parliament, they would be crying out for bread for their children. We must see about the women and children to-morrow or we shall not be ready for Faith Foster’s visit.”
“To be sure, but we need not think of it to-night. I’m heart weary, Antony. Nobody can give sympathy long unless they turn kind words into kind actions.”
“Then just call Katherine and order a bit of supper in. And I’d like a tankard of home-brewed, and a slice or two of cold mutton. My word, but the mutton bred in our rich meadows is worth eating! Such a fine color, so tender and juicy and full of rich red gravy.”
“I think thou would be better without the tankard. Our ale is four years old, and tha knows what it is at that age. It will give thee a rattling headache. The cask on now is very strong.”
“To be sure it is. A man could look a lion in the face after a couple of glasses of it.”
“I advise thee to take a glass of water, with thy mutton to-night.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll hev a glass of sherry wine, and thou can be my butler. And tell Katherine not to talk about London to-night. I hevn’t got my intentions ready. I’d be making promises it would not be right to keep. Tha knows – !”
“Yes, I know.”
Katherine had not yet been promoted to a seat at the late supper table, and only came to it when specially asked. So Madam found her ungowned, and with loosened hair, in a dressing-sacque of blue flannel. She was writing a letter to a school friend, but she understood her mother’s visit and asked with a smile —
“Am I to come to supper, mother? Oh, I am so glad.”
“Then, dearie, do not speak of London, nor the poor children, nor the selfish weavers.”
“Not selfish, mother. They believe they are fighting for their rights. You know that.”
“I doan’t know it. I doan’t believe it. Their wives and children ought to be more to them than their awn way which is what they really want. Doan’t say a word about them.”
“I will not. I am going to tell father about the Arkroyds, who owned Scar Top House so long.”
“Father will like to hear anything good about Colonel Arkroyd. He is the last of a fine Yorkshire family. Who told thee anything about him?”
“Before I came to my room I went to give Polly some sugar I had in my pocket for her, and I met Britton, who had just come from the stable. He turned and went with me and he was full of the story and so I had to listen to it.”
“Well, then, we will listen to it when thou comes down. Father is hungry, so don’t keep him waiting, or he will be put out of his way.”
“I will be down in five minutes, and father is never cross with me.”
Indeed, when Madam went back to the parlor, a servant was bringing in the cold mutton and Madam had the bottle of sherry in her hand. A few minutes later Katherine had joined her parents, and they were sitting cozily round a small table, set in the very warmth and light of the hearthstone. Then Madam, fearing some unlucky word or allusion, said as quickly as possible —
“Whatever was it thou heard about Colonel Ark-royd, Katherine?”
“Ay! Ay! Colonel Arkroyd! Who has anything to say about him?” asked the squire. “One of the finest men alive to-day.”
“I heard a strange thing about his old house, an hour ago.”
“But he sold Scar Top House, and went to live in Kendal. A man from Bradford bought it, eh?”
“Yes, a man with a factory and six hundred looms, they say. Father, have you noticed how crowded our rookery is with the birds’ nests this spring?”
“I doan’t know that I hev noticed the number of the nests, but nobody can help hearing their noisy chattering all over Annis.”
“Do you remember the rookery at Scar Top?”
“Yes. I often hed a friendly threep with Ark-royd about it. He would insist, that his rookery hed the largest congregation. I let him think so – he’s twenty years older than I am – and I did hear that the Bradford man had bought the place because of the rookery.”
“So he did. And now, father, every bird has left it. There was not one nest