The girl sprang to her feet. “No, no, no—how can you be married—you don’t mean that—not married—there’s Miss Beauchamp!” She paused and added, a little unsteadily: “She’s your true love, master.”
“Ay, but I’ll not wed her,” he cried sternly. “If there’s no gainsaying this that’s come on you, I’ll stand to my guns. It’s right and proper for we to have a marriage.”
His great thick-fingered hands rested upon his knees; the candles threw a wash of light upon his polished leggings; he stared into the fireless grate.
“But we do not want to do that,” said the girl, dully and doubtfully. “You have given your ring to her, you’ve given her your word. I don’t want you to do this for me. It’s all right, master, it’s all right.”
“Are ye daft?” he cried. “I tell you we’ll wed. Don’t keep clacking about Rosa.... I’ll stand to my guns.” He paused before adding: “She’d gimme the rightabout, fine now—don’t you see, stupid—but I’ll not give her the chance.”
Her eyes were lowered. “She’s your true love, master.”
“What would become of you and your child? Ye couldn’t bide here!”
“No,” said the trembling girl.
“I’m telling you what we must do, modest and proper; there’s naught else to be done, and I’m middling glad of it, I am. Life’s a see-saw affair. I’m middling glad of this.”
So, soon, without a warning to any one, least of all to Rosa Beauchamp, they were married by the registrar. The change in her domestic status produced no other change; in marrying Weetman she had married all his ardour, she was swept into its current. She helped to milk cows, she boiled nauseating messes for pigs, chopped mangolds, mixed meal, and sometimes drove a harrow in his windy fields. Though they slept together she was still his servant. Sometimes he called her his “pretty little cob” and then she knew he was fond of her. But in general his custom was disillusioning. His way with her was his way with his beasts; he knew what he wanted, it was easy to get. If for a brief space a little romantic flower began to bud in her breast it was frozen as a bud, and the vague longing disappeared at length from her eyes. And she became aware that Rosa Beauchamp was not yet done with; somewhere in the darkness of the fields Glastonbury still met her. Phemy did not mind.