“Wasn’t it terrible about Titus Price?” Beatrice exclaimed.
“Eh, my!” sighed Mrs. Sutton, glancing at Anna. “You can never tell what’s going to happen next. I’m always afraid to go away for fear of something happening.”
A silence followed. When tea was finished Beatrice was taken away by her mother to write the letters concerning the immediate resumption of sewing-meetings, and for a little time Anna was left in the drawing-room alone with the two men, who began to talk about the affairs of the Prices. It appeared that Mr. Sutton had been asked to become trustee for the creditors under a deed of arrangement, and that he had hopes of being able to sell the business as a going concern. In the meantime it would need careful management.
“Will Willie Price manage it?” Anna inquired. The question seemed to divert Henry and the Alderman, to afford them a contemptuous and somewhat inimical amusement at the expense of Willie.
“No,” said the Alderman, quietly, but emphatically.
“Master William is fairly good on the works,” said Henry; “but in the office, I imagine, he is worse than useless.”
Grieved and confused, Anna bent down and moved a hassock in order to hide her face. The attitude of these men to Willie Price, that victim of circumstances and of his own simplicity, wounded Anna inexpressibly. She perceived that they could see in him only a defaulting debtor, that his misfortune made no appeal to their charity. She wondered that men so warmhearted and kind in some relations could be so hard in others.
“I had a talk with your father at the creditors’ meeting yesterday,” said the Alderman. “You won’t lose much. Of course you’ve got a preferential claim for six months’ rent.”
He said this reassuringly, as though it would give satisfaction. Anna did not know what a preferential claim might be, nor was she aware of any creditors’ meeting. She wished ardently that she might lose as much as possible—hundreds of pounds. She was relieved when Beatrice swept in, her mother following.
“Now, your worship,” said Beatrice to her father, “seven stamps for these letters, please.” Anna glanced up inquiringly on hearing the form of address. “You don’t mean to say that you didn’t know that father is going to be mayor this year?” Beatrice asked, as if shocked at this ignorance of affairs. “Yes, it was all settled rather late, wasn’t it, dad? And the mayor-elect pretends not to care much, but actually he is filled with pride, isn’t he, dad? As for the mayoress—?”
“Eh, Bee!” Mrs. Sutton stopped her, smiling; “you’ll tumble over that tongue of yours some day.”
“Mother said I wasn’t to mention it,” said Beatrice, “lest you should think we were putting on airs.”
“Nay, not I!” Mrs. Sutton protested. “I said no such thing. Anna knows us too well for that. But I’m not so set up with this mayor business as some people will think I am.”
“Or as Beatrice is,” Mynors added.
At half-past eight, and again at nine, Anna said that she must go home; but the Suttons, now frankly absorbed in the topic of the mayoralty, their secret preoccupation, would not spoil the confidential talk which had ensued by letting the lovers depart. It was nearly half-past nine before Anna and Henry stood on the pavement outside, and Beatrice, after facetious farewells, had shut the door.
“Let us just walk round by the Manor Farm,” Henry pleaded. “It won’t take more than a quarter of an hour or so.”
She agreed dutifully. The footpath ran at right angles to Trafalgar Road, past a colliery whose engine-fires glowed in the dark, moonless, autumn night, and then across a field. They stood on a knoll near the old farmstead, that extraordinary and pathetic survival of a vanished agriculture. Immediately in front of them stretched acres of burning ironstone—a vast tremulous carpet of flame woven in red, purple, and strange greens. Beyond were the skeleton-like silhouettes of pitheads, and the solid forms of furnace and chimney-shaft. In the distance a canal reflected the gigantic illuminations of Cauldon Bar Ironworks. It was a scene mysterious and romantic enough to kindle the raptures of love, but Anna felt cold, melancholy, and apprehensive of vague sorrows. “Why am I so?” she asked herself, and tried in vain to shake off the mood.
“What will Willie Price do if the business is sold?” she questioned Mynors suddenly.
“Surely,” he said to soothe her, “you aren’t still worrying about that misfortune. I wish you had never gone near the inquest; the thing seems to have got on your mind.”
“Oh, no!” she protested, with an air of cheerfulness. “But I was just wondering.”
“Well, Willie will have to do the best he can. Get a place somewhere, I suppose. It won’t be much, at the best.”
Had he guessed what perhaps hung on that answer, Mynors might have given it in a tone less callous and perfunctory. Could he have seen the tightening of her lips, he might even afterwards have repaired his error by some voluntary assurance that Willie Price should be watched over with a benevolent eye and protected with a strong arm. But how was he to know that in misprizing Willie Price before her, he was misprizing a child to its mother? He had done something for Willie Price, and considered that he had done enough. His thoughts, moreover, were on other matters.
“Do you remember that day we went up to the park?” he murmured fondly; “that Sunday? I have never told you that that evening I came out of chapel after the first hymn, when I noticed you weren’t there, and walked up past your house. I couldn’t help it. Something drew me. I nearly called in to see you. Then I thought I had better not.”
“I saw you,” she said calmly. His warmth made her feel sad. “I saw you stop at the gate.”
“You did? But you weren’t at the window?”
“I saw you through the glass of the front-door.” Her voice grew fainter, more reluctant.
“Then you were watching?” In the dark
