“Do you know what Mr. Price is giving?” Mrs. Sutton asked the minister.
“I saw Mr. Price yesterday. He is giving twenty-five pounds.”
“Very well, that’s a bargain,” said Mrs. Sutton, who had succeeded beyond her expectations.
Ephraim was the dupe of his own scheming. He had made sure that Price’s contribution would be a small one. This ostentatious munificence on the part of the beggared Titus filled him with secret anger. He determined to demand more rent at a very early date.
“I’ll put you down for twenty-five pounds as a first subscription,” said the minister, taking out a pocketbook. Perhaps you will give Mrs. Sutton or myself the cheque today?”
“Has Mr. Price paid?” the miser asked, warily.
“Not yet.”
“Then come to me when he has.” Ephraim perceived the way of escape.
When the minister was gone, as Mrs. Sutton seemed in no hurry to depart, Anna and Agnes cleared the table.
“I’ve just been telling your father, Anna,” said Mrs. Sutton, when Anna returned to the room, “that Mr. Sutton and myself and Beatrice are going to the Isle of Man soon for a fortnight or so, and we should very much like you to come with us.”
Anna’s heart began to beat violently, though she knew there was no hope for her. This, then, doubtless, was the main object of Mrs. Sutton’s visit! “Oh! But I couldn’t, really!” said Anna, scarcely aware what she did say.
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Sutton.
“Well—the house.”
“The house? Agnes could see to what little housekeeping your father would want. The schools will break up next week.”
“What do these young folks want holidays for?” Tellwright inquired with philosophic gruffness. “I never had one. And what’s more, I wouldn’t thank ye for one. I’ll pig on at Bursley. When ye’ve gotten a roof of your own, where’s the sense o’ going elsewhere and pigging?”
“But we really want Anna to go,” Mrs. Sutton went on. “Beatrice is very anxious about it. Beatrice is very short of suitable friends.”
“I should na’ ha’ thought it,” said Tellwright. “Her seems to know everyone.”
“But she is,” Mrs. Sutton insisted.
“I think as you’d better leave Anna out this year,” said the miser stubbornly.
Anna wished profoundly that Mrs. Sutton would abandon the futile attempt. Then she perceived that the visitor was signalling to her to leave the room. Anna obeyed, going into the kitchen to give an eye to Agnes, who was washing up.
“It’s all right,” said Mrs. Sutton contentedly, when Anna returned to the parlour. “Your father has consented to your going with us. It is very kind of him, for I’m sure he’ll miss you.”
Anna sat down, limp, speechless. She could not believe the news.
“You are awfully good,” she said to Mrs. Sutton in the lobby, as the latter was leaving the house. “I’m ever so grateful—you can’t think.” And she threw her arms round Mrs. Sutton’s neck.
Agnes ran up to say goodbye.
Mrs. Sutton kissed the child. “Agnes will be the little housekeeper, eh?” The little housekeeper was almost as pleased at the prospect of housekeeping as if she too had been going to the Isle of Man. “You’ll both be at the school-treat next Tuesday, I suppose,” Mrs. Sutton said, holding Agnes by the hand. Agnes glanced at her sister in inquiry.
“I don’t know,” Anna replied. “We shall see.”
The truth was that, not caring to ask her father for the money for the tickets, she had given no thought to the school-treat.
“Did I tell you that Henry Mynors will most likely come with us to the Isle of Man?” said Mrs. Sutton from the gate.
Anna retired to her bedroom to savour an astounding happiness in quietude. At supper the miser was in a mood not unbenevolent. She expected a reaction the next morning, but Ephraim, strange to say, remained innocuous. She ventured to ask him for the money for the treat tickets, two shillings. He made no immediate reply. Half an hour afterwards, he ejaculated: “What i’ th’ name o’ fortune dost thee want wi’ school-treats?”
“It’s Agnes,” she answered; “of course Agnes can’t go alone.”
In the end he threw down a florin. He became perilous for the rest of the day, but the florin was an indisputable fact in Anna’s pocket.
The school-treat was held in a twelve-acre field near Sneyd, the seat of a marquis, and a Saturday afternoon resort very popular in the Five Towns. The children were formed at noon on Duck Bank into a procession, which marched to the railway station to the singing of “Shall we gather at the river?” Thence a special train carried them, in seething compartments, excited and strident, to Sneyd, where there had been two sharp showers in the morning, the procession was reformed along a country road, and the vacillating sky threatened more rain; but because the sun had shone dazzlingly at eleven o’clock all the women and girls, too easily tempted by the glory of the moment, blossomed forth in pale blouses and parasols. The chattering crowd, bright and defenceless as flowers, made at Sneyd a picture at once gay and pathetic. It had rained there at half-past twelve; the roads were wet; and among the two hundred and fifty children and thirty teachers there were less than a score umbrellas.
The excursion was theoretically in charge of Titus Price, the Senior Superintendent, but this dignitary had failed to arrive on Duck Bank, and Mynors had taken his place. In the train Anna heard that someone had seen Mr. Price, wearing a large grey wideawake, leap into the guard’s van at the very instant of departure. He had not been at school on the previous Sunday, and Anna was somewhat perturbed at the prospect of meeting the man who had defined her letter to him as unique in the whole of his business career. She caught a glimpse of the grey wideawake on the platform at Sneyd, and steered her own scholars
