Free South Riding by Winifred Holtby

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ he said. I said, ‘There’s perhaps six months’ good work in that poor fellow and then we shall have to elect another alderman. And if you can’t work for your candidate as Snaith worked for his, you’re not the man I thought you.’ I sent him away with a flea in his ear, I can tell you. But you mustn’t go out of your way offending Snaith, and you mustn’t give cause to the heathen to blaspheme. Can you afford another two hundred or so a year to send Midge to a good boarding school?”
    “No—— But—I thought . . .”
    “You thought you could do it cheaper. You thought you could put off deciding. You can’t. Face up to it. Be a man. Send her to the High School with Wendy.”
    Then she remembered his solitary vote at the governors’ meeting.
    “Don’t you like our Miss Burton?”
    “No.”
    Mrs. Beddows cocked her head on one side—as though by this physical effort teaching herself to see Sarah Burton as Carne would see her.
    “I remember her mother. She had breeding in her. Touch of the bar-sinister in that family somewhere, I shouldn’t be surprised.”
    “I knew her father,” said Carne grimly, and told the tale of the drunken blacksmith.
    Mrs. Beddow twinkled: “I can’t say I saw signs of our lady lifting her elbow.”
    “Oh, no.” He was shocked at the suggestion.
    “You don’t know what you mean. But I do,” she teased him. “You mean she has red hair and a snip-snap manner and isn’t frightened of all your pompous governors, eh? Well—I’ll tell you something. I remembered Jess Harrod’s girl went to that South London United and I wrote to Jess and got glowing reports back. You mark my words. That girl will wear well. I’ll see to her.”
    Carne’s smile warmed her heart’s core.
    She flung out her plump, work-roughened hand.
    “Don’t take things so hard,” she said. “When you’ve over seventy you’ll have learned that we have to make the best of the world that God has given us, and not expect too much of any one, even of ourselves.”
    The door opened. Gas-light from the hall streamed into the twilit room.
    “Ah—ah—— You’ve got a fire on. Very hot, isn’t it? Who’s that there? You, Carne? Glad to see you. That your kid playing in the coach house?”
    Mr. Beddows, auctioneer and corn dealer, ten years his wife’s junior, looked round the room, noticing the fire, the whisky decanter, his wife’s abandoned attitude of luxurious enjoyment. His quick little eyes discerned all evidences of extravagance and totted them up against his wife’s account. But he was none the less genial in his jerky fashion.
    “So they didn’t make you alderman, eh, Carne? Won’t let you join my wife, eh? A long suffering husband, I am. Never know who I’ll find my wife with when I come home from market.”
    He sat down and began to unbutton his leather leggings. His daughter Sybil had followed him into the room, and Carne watched the quiet dignity with which she waited upon him, removing his boots and leggings, handing him his slippers, curbing the spirits of the noisy children who came rioting along the passage.
    Sybil, he remembered, had attended Kiplington High School.
    The children entered the room and Carne saw Midge, her face too radiant, her eyes too bright, her voice too shrill in its excitement.
    Muriel had been like that.
    It was too late now to save Muriel.
    “Midge, d’you want to go to school next term with Wendy?”
    “Yes, yes, yes. Please, please , darling Daddy!”
    “Will you look after her, Wendy?”
    “Oh, rather. Granny.”
    Wendy Beddows had no special love for Midge, whom she regarded as a spoiled cry-baby; but the Beddows family had been implacably trained in public spirit.
    “That seems to be settled, then.”
    Mrs. Beddows sighed. She had conquered. Carne was hers. She could twist him round her little finger.
    On the drive home, with Midge tucked in the trap beside him, Carne could see his wife’s pale