The Frobishers/Chapter 13

COMMON AND UNCLEAN

Sibylla arrived at the country station, driving the rectorial cob in the low, basket-work, rectorial carriage.

She was just late for the train, which steamed away three minutes before she reached the station. When she drew up, Joan was already outside with her bag awaiting her.

"Well, dear!" exclaimed Sibylla, "I am sorry to be unpunctual, but Bobby has not been clipped, and he would only crawl. He is pachydermatous, and feels nothing. How are you?"

The sisters kissed, and Joan jumped in beside Sibyll. "I'm main glad to see you," said the younger. "I have been living on tenterhooks, and you have kept me there. But, before I scold you, tell me, have you any more luggage?"

"None; everything I shall want is here."

"You are a queer piece of goods," said the younger, as she brought the lash across Bobby, who, however, took no notice whatever of it. His coat was like felt.

"I can't think why the cob has not been clipped. Fancy, Joan, a month without a word from you."

"I could not have any satisfaction in writing till I was settled."

"And are you settled now?"

"Yes, Sibyll, I have found work."

"Work! Bah! I hope it is such as a lady can do."

"Of course, dear. Am I one to take other?"

"Perhaps not; but you have such queer notions. Where have you been? There was no address, only the date at the head of your letter appointing to arrive to-day, and we tried to puzzle out the postmark and failed egregiously, it was so badly impressed."

"Whom do you mean by we?"

"The rector, Mrs. Barker, Jack Prendergast, and myself. We were quite three-quarters of an hour over it. We managed the last syllable but not the first. Mr. Barker got the Post Office Guide, and we tried to find out by that, but were unsuccessful."

"Well, my dear, have you been happy at the parsonage?" asked Joan.

"Yes, they have been very kind to me. But I must not stay there much longer. I know that the married daughter of the Barkers, whose husband is in India, is coming with her children before Christmas, and they will require my room."

"Anyhow, you would have to leave. It would be unseemly to impose on them for longer. It has been extremely kind of the rector and Mrs. Barker to take you in&mdash;but there must be no trespass on hospitality."

"Oh, as to that, Mr. Barker was presented to the living by papa. Besides, the Barkers had plenty of game and fruit sent them. They could have done no less."

"That may be the case; but your place will be with me."

"But where, Joan?"

"I have gone to one of the North Staffordshire pottery towns. Do you remember, Sibyll, how I at one time painted china for bazaars, and we bought in a few pieces ourselves?"

"Yes, they were extremely pretty&mdash;only there were some blisters. You kept the pieces that had pelargoniums on them, I remember."

"It was so. I have obtained work in a pottery&mdash;potbank is the local term."

"What!&mdash;can a lady?"&mdash;

"Perfectly."

"But you will have to associate with very inferior persons, I suppose. And common people are so apt to presume. Can you keep them at a distance?"

"I can make my own friends, of course, and limit my acquaintance to them."

"But what sort of people are they in that place? Are they nice?"

"They are better than nice&mdash;they are lovable."

"Nonsense, Joan. Is there good society that we can mix in?"

"We shall have no chance of associating in what you call good society. Remember, we are poor."

"We are not by any means so badly off as you represent. Mr. Beaudessart has been to old Shand and will buy everything in Pendabury at any reasonable sum that the lawyer fixes. Shand has named a figure&mdash;really outside the value, a good round sum, and Mr. Beaudessart closed at once, to his surprise. And he gave him a cheque for the amount. I believe he is awfully done&mdash;isn't it glorious?"

"Whatever the sum may be," said Joan, "it is not likely to be such as to enable us to live on the interest in idleness. I know what there was in the house&mdash;pictures and plate were excluded&mdash;and if Mr. Shand has taken advantage of Mr. Beaudessart's generosity, it is entirely against my wish, and, if possible, I will refund the excess. I will not be beholden to any man for charity, and I will not profit by over-reaching. Anyhow, whatever sum has been raised, I propose to let it stand, and, Sibyll, it shall be yours when you marry. As for myself, I will not say that I have made my bed in which to lie, but I have found a field in which all my faculties of mind and body will find exercise, and that will provide me with a new zest in life."

"Do you mean as a painter on porcelain?"

"Yes."

"What will you receive? A large sum?"

"No. At first outset barely sufficient to sustain us. As I get on, I trust that the pay will increase."

"It is monstrous," said the younger sister, standing up in the carriage to whack the cob. "It is simply monstrous that you, who have never done a stroke of real work in your life, should have now to work for your bread."

"On the contrary, Sibyll, I regard it as monstrous that till now I have never done a stroke of profitable work."

"See!" exclaimed Sibyll, "here comes Mr. Beaudessart driving this way. We shall meet, and I do believe he only wants a sign to lead him to speak to us."

"Drive on," said Joan. "If he has been cheated about the furniture I am ashamed to look him in the face."

Hector Beaudessart passed and raised his hat. Joan bowed somewhat stiffly, and without a muscle in her face changing. Sibyll made a sign of gay recognition with the driving whip.

"He is inclined to be civil, and I have had a hint from Mr. Barker that he is willing to do something for us, if we will allow it."

"But I will not allow it," said Joan peremptorily. "I will not live upon alms. Besides, I have learned to be ashamed of idleness. God forgive me for my last twenty-three years!" she exclaimed passionately.

"No, Sibyll, there is something elevating, ennobling in honest work."

"I see no fun in work; unless we are absolutely and inevitably driven to it, I would not work at all."

"That is precisely the sentiment of the Hooligan, the Sundowner, and the tramp."

"Nonsense. We are ladies."

Joan made no reply. Her bosom was heaving with a sort of anger. But this passed. Then she began to ask herself whether it would be possible for her to inspire Sibylla with any of those new ideas that were fermenting in her own brain and firing her blood. The Mosaic law forbade the harnessing together of the ox and the ass in the plough, and was it possible that she, who was prepared to undertake patient plodding, and the light and impetuous Sibyll could go under one yoke?

"You have not told me yet," said the young sister pettishly, "what sort of place you have decided upon for us to live in. Are there golf links, and is there a hockey club?"

"We are in profound mourning," said Joan evasively.

"But we shall not be so eternally. So soon as we are in half mourning we can go out&mdash;and hockey does not count. Why are you dressed with such outrageous plainness?"

"Because I cannot afford to dress richly."

"We must dress up to our rank."

"And our rank is now other from what it was. We shall have to consider this."

"I shall always be a lady," said Sibyll, tossing her chin and flicking the reins.

"I have no intention of being other," answered Joan quietly, "but a poor lady I shall be by constraint, and one working for my sustenance. Do not forget that, Sibyll."

"I loath the motion."

"I love it."

"All men are not made alike, it is said; and I am quite certain that all girls are not. What sort of cottage have you taken?"

"It is a small house in a street&mdash;but an end house."

"In a street! insufferable ! I trust it is semidetached in the villa style."

"Not at all. A plain brick house, one in a row; with one window and a door in front on the ground floor, and two above. That is all."

"But&mdash;there is a garden?"

"None at all,. Flowers and shrubs, even grass, will not grow there."

"Gracious, Joan! This is sickening. Why, we shall never get people to call on us in such a hole as that."

"I have had abundance of callers," said Joan, with a smile&mdash;but there was a tinge of sadness in the smile.

"Callers! How so? Had you introductions?"

"To be candid with you, Sibyll, all the callers I have had, and all that we are likely to have, and dare expect, will be people of the working class&mdash;the class to which, henceforth, we belong."

"Joan!"&mdash;Sibyll dropped the reins, and turned herself bodily about. "Surely, and in grave earnestness, you do not mean common people?"

"Yes, common people. We are now only common people ourselves."

"I hate everything common."

"The common earth, and common air&mdash;and, I suppose, even common prayer?"

"You know what I mean. I cannot, I will not sink to associate with common people."

"Sibyll, you remind me of the apostle. When the sheet was let down out of heaven full of all manner of beasts, he would not touch them, because they were common and unclean. He was rebuked. 'What God hath cleansed that call not thou common.' Sibyll, we are all common people, children of first common parents, of the same common flesh and blood, and partakers of a common Redemption."

"Bah!"

Sibyll's brows knit, and her lips tightened.

"If you talk like this, Joan, I shall get to hate you."

"Sister dear, do not make matters harder for me. I have to think for the future of both of us. I have to face our present difficulties."

"Well, Joan, I do not wish to hurt your feelings, and prove obstinate. But I do ask one thing of you, and that I entreat you to grant. Say nothing to anyone in or about Pendabury about this terrible come-down. Fancy the servants, the village people, our friends, the county families, knowing that we had descended to such a depth of degradation! It would be too horrible for words."

"I will say nothing, and spare your feelings; and do you, Sibyll, in return, as you love me, never again speak of common people. What God hath cleansed that call not thou common."