Nearly a week later, Anna received a postcard from Beatrice announcing her complete recovery, and the immediate return of her parents and herself to Bursley. That same afternoon, a cab encumbered with much luggage passed up the street as Anna was fixing clean curtains in her father’s bedroom. Beatrice, on the lookout, waved a hand and smiled, and Anna responded to the signals. She was glad now that the Suttons had come back, though for several days she had almost forgotten their existence. On the Saturday afternoon, Mynors called. Anna was in the kitchen; she heard him scuffling with Agnes in the lobby, and then talking to her father. Three times she had seen him since her disgrace, and each time the secret bitterness of her soul, despite conscientious effort to repress it, had marred the meeting—it had been plain, indeed, that she was profoundly disturbed; he had affected at first not to observe the change in her, and she, anticipating his questions, hinted briefly that the trouble was with her father, and had no reference to himself, and that she preferred not to discuss it at all; reassured, and too young in courtship yet to presume on a lover’s rights, he respected her wish, and endeavoured by every art to restore her to equanimity. This time, as she went to greet him in the parlour, she resolved that he should see no more of the shadow. He noticed instantly the difference in her face.
“I’ve come to take you into Sutton’s for tea—and for the evening,” he said eagerly. “You must come. They are very anxious to see you. I’ve told your father,” he added. Ephraim had vanished into his office.
“What did he say, Henry?” she asked timidly.
“He said you must please yourself, of course. Come along, love. Mustn’t she, Agnes?”
Agnes concurred, and said that she would get her father’s tea, and his supper too.
“You will come,” he urged. She nodded, smiling thoughtfully, and he kissed her, for the first time in front of Agnes, who was filled with pride at this proof of their confidence in her.
“I’m ready, Henry,” Anna said, a quarter of an hour later, and they went across to Sutton’s.
“Anna, tell me all about it,” Beatrice burst out when she and Anna had fled to her bedroom. “I’m so glad. Do you love him really—truly? He’s dreadfully fond of you. He told me so this morning; we had quite a long chat in the market. I think you’re both very lucky, you know.” She kissed Anna effusively for the third time. Anna looked at her smiling but silent.
“Well?” Beatrice said.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Oh! You are the funniest girl, Anna, I ever met. ‘What do you want me to say,’ indeed!” Beatrice added in a different tone: “Don’t imagine this affair was the least bit of a surprise to us. It wasn’t. The fact is, Henry had—oh! well, never mind. Do you know, mother and dad used to think there was something between Henry and me. But there wasn’t, you know—not really. I tell you that, so that you won’t be able to say you were kept in the dark. When shall you be married, Anna?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” Anna replied, and began to question Beatrice about her convalescence.
“I’m perfectly well,” Beatrice said. “It’s always the same. If I catch anything I catch it bad and get it over quickly.”
“Now, how long are you two chatterboxes going to stay here?” It was Mrs. Sutton who came into the room. “Bee, you’ve got those sewing-meeting letters to write. Eh, Anna, but I’m glad of this. You’ll make him a good wife. You two’ll just suit each other.”
Anna could not but be impressed by this unaffected joy of her friends in the engagement. Her spirits rose, and once more she saw visions of future happiness. At tea, Alderman Sutton added his felicitations to the rest, with that flattering air of intimate sympathy and comprehension which some middle-aged men can adopt towards young girls. The tea, made specially magnificent in honour of the betrothal, was such a meal as could only have been compassed in Staffordshire or Yorkshire—a high tea of the last richness and excellence, exquisitely gracious to the palate, but ruthless in its demands on the stomach. At one end of the table, which glittered with silver, glass, and Longshaw china, was a fowl which had been boiled for four hours; at the other, a hot porkpie, islanded in liquor, which might have satisfied a regiment. Between these two dishes were all the delicacies which differentiate high tea from tea, and on the quality of which the success of the meal really depends; hot pikelets, hot crumpets, hot toast, sardines with tomatoes, raisin-bread, current-bread, seed-cake, lettuce, homemade marmalade and homemade jams. The repast occupied over an hour, and even then not a quarter of the food was consumed. Surrounded by all that good fare and goodwill, with the Alderman on her left, Henry on her right, and a bright fire in front of her, Anna quickly caught the gaiety of the others. She forgot everything but the gladness of reunion, the joy of the moment, the luxurious comfort of the house. Conversation was busy with the doings of the Suttons at Port Erin after Anna and Henry had left. A listener would have caught fragments like this:—“You know such-and-such a point. … No, not there, over the hill. Well, we hired a carriage and drove. … The weather was simply. … Tom Kelly said he’d never. … And that little guard on the railway came all the way down to the steamer. … Did you see anything in the Signal about the actress being drowned? Oh! It was awfully sad. We saw the corpse just after. … Beatrice, will
