“I’m a liar, that’s what it is?”
“Nay.”
“Set down and bide.”
“I’ll stand.”
Suddenly she dropped her strained pose and became all violence and storm, like the wind that gets up out of nowhere on a silent night. Raising herself with a jerk, she flapped down the stair with the noise of a dozen carpet-beaters in full swing. Nobody ever expressed as much as Marget with a pair of down-trodden slippers loose at the heels; yet nobody would keep them when she was gone, pathetic and reverenced by a bed.... Kit thought of his winged thing she had beaten down, and looked to see feathers scattered under her feet. Her face was changed both in colour and shape by the unknown terrible things that lived in her brain. Her voice was changed in the same way, and it was her voice that Kit dreaded most, because his ear had the straighter run to his soul. The things that were part of Marget yet not Marget he never could understand. He was never ready for them, never on his guard. Now she was close to him, bent as if to strike, a trick that had a special horror for the sensitive old man. The children nudged each other and laughed, gloating, yet more than half afraid.
“Stand, will ye—getting in folks’ road and showing yourself that smart to be up and off? Ay, I know you’re fain to be shot of us at last, and you should be right shammed o’ suchlike nastiness, I’m sure. Who’d ha’ seen to you all this time if it hadn’t been for us? Thomas wanted nowt wi’ you, as you know; he’d other fish to fry, had Tom. You’d ha’ bin on the parish, that’s where you’d ha’ bin, and like enough in t’ Union itself. Yon’s the spot for do-nowts as spend their own brass and then look to spend other folks’ as well! Yon’s the spot for wastrels and rattlehorns and fancy fiddlers playing in the street. (Eh, but it banged owt, did yon!) It’ll be queer if you don’t come to it yet, wi’ a pound o’ baccy at Christmas, and ‘Thank ye kindly, master,’ all the week. Likely they’ll set you going errands, tea and currants and a bit o’ lard, or happen your job’ll be cleaning out the pigs. Ay, you’ll land there yet, as sure as eggs is eggs! Likely you’ll think on a bit then about Bob and me.”
He stood looking at her without saying a word, fascinated, just as the children were fascinated, by this exhibition of a ruthless mind. He could feel them gathering closer, magnetised though afraid. The voice that was full of strange things filled all the house, flooded the street and carried down the row, so that folks in passing halted and stared, and the neighbours came running to their doors. “She’ll do for him yet,” they said to each other when they heard that voice, and there was always the chance that the moment had arrived.
“As for the spot you’re off to,” she flared on, “I hope you’ll find it all you think for, I’m sure. Thomas and his missis’ll likely be terble throng wi’ you while you’re fresh, but wait till they’ve had you to do for as long as me. Wait till they’ve gitten you maundering about the place, making a deal o’ work wi’ your daft-like ways. Agnes Black’ll skift you pretty sharp, or she’s not the woman I take her for, that’s all.”
Still he said nothing, paralysed by the flood of sound, and the fierce inflections springing out of her voice like sparks from a cat’s back. And then suddenly she changed her method of attack, letting her voice slide down the scale until it was even and chill and full of insidious hints and something that smiled.
“You think it’ll be a soft spot, I’ll be bound, wi’ nowt to do but set fiddling all day. You reckon you’re going back to things as they was, only wi’ other folk to see to the work instead o’ you. But if you’re counting on things being just the same, you’re badly wrong. Nowt stands still, and I reckon farms is like the rest. What, I doubt you’ll not know the place when you set eyes on it again! It’ll have changed a deal in these last two years, same as you’ve changed a deal yourself. Last man let it down pretty bad; it’s a mercy he broke his neck afore so long. Landlord’s had a deal to do at it, they say, and Thomas is that set up he’s for doing a deal more. Ay, it’ll not be the same farm, no more than Kit Sill’s the same man. You’ll find it out for yourself afore you’ve been there a week. You’ll be nobbut a beggar there, you’ll think on, same as here, and owe somebody every bite. It’ll be another man’s roof over you, as used to be your own. There’ll be another chap master, telling you what’s what. There’ll be a woman for missis as baint no wife o’ yours. It’ll be bitter as salt water washing at your door....”