The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of the kitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved in either face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up in astonishment.
"What ails tha?" she said.
"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. She proceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into the bowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, very big and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stood just behind her cousin"s shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half in admiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers.
A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, came back into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared.
"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she looked round her.
Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroom reading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon.
"Why, I haven"t spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek had flushed.
Polly showed embarra.s.sment.
"Next time yo coom, mother"ll tak" mair noatice. She was takkin stock o"
you t" whole time, I"ll uphowd yo."
"That isn"t what I wanted," said Laura.
She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Polly watched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of the lip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house.
Laura languidly consented.
So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with its milk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; and into the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oak four-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quilt of goosedown--Polly"s handiwork--that lay on Hubert"s bed; at the cl.u.s.ters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the old uneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly"s room that held the family store of meal and oatcake for the year.
"When we wor little "uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silver saxpence the day he browt home t" fresh melder fro" t" mill," said Polly; "theer was parlish little n.o.bbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we wor small. An now I"ll uphold yo there isn"t a farm servant but wants his white bread yanst a day whativver happens."
The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and no luxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a very little money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed to them sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn"t trouble himself.
"Fadther was allus workin. He"d be up at half-past four this time o"
year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert"ull do nowt he can help. Yo can hardly get him to tak" t" peats i" ter Whinthorpe when t" peat-cote"s brastin wi" "em. An as fer doin a job o" cartin fer t"
neebors, t" horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan"t stir hissel". "Let "em lead their aan muck for theirsels"--that"s what he"ll say. Iver sen fadther deed it"s bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. It makes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he"s that masterful he woan"t be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi" Daffady at dinner. But if it weren"t for Daffady an us, there"d be no stock left."
And poor Polly, sitting on the edge of the meal-ark and dangling her large feet, went into a number of plaintive details, that were mostly unintelligible, sometimes repulsive, in Laura"s ears.
It seemed that Hubert was always threatening to leave the farm. "Give me a bit of money, and you"ll soon be quit of me. I"ll go to Froswick, and make my fortune"--that was what he"d say to his mother. But who was going to give him money to throw about? And he couldn"t sell the farm while Mrs. Mason lived, by the father"s will.
As to her mother, Polly admitted that she was "gey ill to live wi"."
There was no one like her for "addlin a bit here and addlin a bit there."
She was the best maker and seller of b.u.t.ter in the country-side; but she had been queer about religion ever since an illness that attacked her as a young woman.
And now it was Mr. Bayley, the minister, who excited her, and made her worse. Polly, for her part, hated him. "My worrd, he do taak!" said she.
And every Sunday he preached against Catholics, and the Pope, and such like. And as there were no Catholics anywhere near, but Mr. Helbeck at Bannisdale, and a certain number at Whinthorpe, people didn"t know what to make of him. And they laughed at him, and left off going--except occasionally for curiosity, because he preached in a black gown, which, so Polly heard tell, was very uncommon nowadays. But mother would listen to him by the hour. And it was all along of Teddy Williams. It was that had set her mad.
Here, however, Polly broke off to ask an eager question. What had Mr.
Helbeck said when Laura told him of her wish to go and see her cousins?
"I"ll warrant he wasn"t best pleased! Feyther couldn"t abide him--because of Teddy. He didn"t thraw no stones that neet i" Whinthrupp Lane--feyther was a strict man and read his Bible reg"lar--but he stood wi" t" lads an looked on--he didn"t say owt to stop "em. Mr. Helbeck called to him--he had a priest with him--"Mr. Mason!" he ses, "this is an old man--speak to those fellows!" But feyther wouldn"t. "Let "em trounce tha!" he ses--"aye, an him too! It"ull do tha noa harm."--Well, an what did he say, Mr. Helbeck?--I"d like to know."
"Say? Nothing--except that it was a long way, and I might have the pony carriage."
Laura"s tone was rather dry. She was sitting on the edge of Polly"s bed, with her arm round one of its oaken posts. Her cheek was laid against the post, and her eyes had been wandering about a good deal while Polly talked. Till the mention of Helbeck. Then her attention came back. And during Polly"s account of the incident in Whinthorpe Lane, she began to frown. What bigotry, after all! As to the story of young Williams--it was very perplexing--she would get the truth of it out of Augustina. But it was extraordinary that it should be so well known in this upland farm--that it should make a kind of link--a link of hatred--between Mr.
Helbeck and the Masons. After her movement of wild sympathy with Mrs.
Mason, she realised now, as Polly"s chatter slipped on, that she understood her cousins almost as little as she did Helbeck.
Nay, more. The picture of Helbeck stoned and abused by these rough, uneducated folk had begun to rouse in her a curious sympathy. Unwillingly her mind invested him with a new dignity.
So that when Polly told a rambling story of how Mr. Bayley, after the street fight, had met Mr. Helbeck at a workhouse meeting and had placed his hands behind his back when Mr. Helbeck offered his own, Laura tossed her head.
"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter to Mr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?"
Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. The elder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxious to please her new cousin. The girl"s delicate and characteristic physique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had in conversation--half absent, half critical--which was inherited from her father,--all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and she felt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her.
Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly"s mantelpiece; Polly looked timidly at her cousin.
"Doan"t yo think as Hubert"s verra handsome?" she said.
And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve and handed it to Laura.
Laura held it up for scrutiny.
"No--o," she said coolly, "not really handsome."
Polly looked disappointed.
"There"s not a mony gells aboot here as doan"t coe Hubert handsome," she said with emphasis.
"It"s Hubert"s business to call the girls handsome," said Laura, laughing, and handing back the picture.
Polly grinned--then suddenly looked grave.
"I wish he"d leave t" gells alone!" she said with an accent of some energy, "he"ll mappen get into trooble yan o" these days!"
"They don"t keep him in his place, I suppose," said Laura, flushing, she hardly knew why. She got up and walked across the room to the window.
What did she want to know about Hubert and "t" gells"? She hated vulgar and lazy young men!--though they might have a musical gift that, so to speak, did not belong to them.
Nevertheless she turned round again to ask, with some imperiousness,--
"Where is your brother?--what is he doing all this time?"
"Sittin alongside the coo, I dare say--lest Daffady should be gettin the credit of her," said Polly, laughing. "The poor creetur fell three days sen--summat like a stroke, t" farrier said,--an Hubert"s bin that jealous o" Daffady iver sen. He"s actually poo"ed hissel" oot o" bed mornins to luke after her!--Lord bless us--I mun goa an feed t" calves!"
And hastily throwing an ap.r.o.n over her Sunday gown, Polly clattered down the stairs in a whirlwind.
Laura followed her more leisurely, pa.s.sed through the empty kitchen and opened the front door.
As she stood under the porch looking out, she put up a small hand to hide a yawn. When she set out that morning she had meant to spend the whole day at the farm. Now it was not yet tea-time, and she was more than ready to go. In truth her heart was hot, and rather bitter. Cousin Elizabeth, certainly, had treated her with a strange coolness. And as for Hubert--after that burst of friendship, beside the piano! She drew herself together sharply--she would go at once and ask him for her pony cart.