CHAPTER XXXV.
One morning about a week after my visit to the Manor, mother and I chanced to be alone together in the dairy.
I had spent the last days in a trance; I seemed to have lost all count with myself, only, as I look back across the years that intervene, I am certain of one thing—I was glad that the squire loved me.
In the turmoil of surprise, of something akin to fear, of the vague, wretched sense of crookedness throughout, and of a touch of some sort of remorse at what I had unwittingly done, there shone forth one bright, sharp ray of light; it was a sense of pride and satisfaction that this man, whom every day I felt more sure was good and loyal, should have chosen me to love. Beyond that I was sure of nothing, and was chiefly thankful that there was no decision to take, and that I need tell no one of what had happened. The squire had been kind, he had asked no question and needed no answer.
The hop-picking was about to begin, and mother was arranging how much milk should be set apart for the hoppers; she never made her usual quantity of butter in hopping-time; she always said that butter was a luxury, and that she wasn't going to have working-folk deprived of their proper quantity of milk so that those who didn't work should have butter.
Things had not been cheerful at home this while past. To be sure, though I went about my duties with a feverish energy, and mother had no more occasion to upbraid me for those "moping silly ways," I was seeing things myself through a dark haze; yet I do not think it was entirely my fancy that matters seemed gloomy.
I had not been able to get hold of that newspaper that Harrod begged me to keep out of father's way; he had seen it before I got home, and had taken it away with him, and I never found it afterwards; all that I could make out about it had been from Harrod, who had answered my questions somewhat curtly, but had led me to understand that it had been some kind of attack on father for having held aloof from the Liberal cause, with covert allusions to certain reasons for his doing so remotely connected with the condition of his finances.
I could not make head or tail of it at the time, though a day came when I learned how a vile man can suspect an honorable one of his own doings, and then I was thankful to Trayton Harrod for having fired up for father as he had done. But at that time I only saw that father was visibly depressed. I could see that he could scarcely even bear Harrod to talk about the farm matters. There was a dreadful kind of irritability upon him which is piteous now to think of, as I remember how it was varied with moods of strange gentleness towards every one, and of an almost child-like humility towards mother whenever he spoke so much as a keen word to her.
Even to Harrod, with whom I don't think he ever had any real sympathy, he showed sorrow for any sharp speaking by a very patient hearing, from time to time, of all the new schemes of that busy practical mind. But he seemed to have lost his love of argument, once such a feature in him; he seemed to be withdrawing himself more and more into himself. Selfish as I was, and absorbed in my own hopes and fears, it made me sad. Even in his dealing with the Rev. Cyril Morland that feature seemed to have vanished. He was as eager about the philanthropic scheme as ever; more eager, as if with a feverish longing that something he had undertaken should be brought to a good issue quickly; but though the two sat hours together, wrapt over details and figures, it was hard, silent work now, with none of that brilliant enthusiasm that there had been about it in Frank's day, none of the pleasant dreams, none of the sympathetic affection; and when, one evening, I surprised him in his study, standing almost as though entranced before that portrait sketch of the young Camille Lambert, I hated Frank for a new reason for not coming to Marshlands.