“Old folks should have the best of what’s going,” Agnes said. She knew the best was on the table to-night, but he did not seem to be making much of a meal. Perhaps excitement had taken his appetite away, or more probably he was over-tired with the slow drive. Now and then he looked again at the alien “mug,” but she never saw him lift it to his lips. Old folks always wanted a little tempting to their food, but she had been so certain he would be suited to-night. A vague sense of disappointment touched her mind, in spite of the fact that it was still busy with Bob’s words. “I never hear such a thing as that about Bob!” she said again. “Surely to goodness Father’s had enough o’ his spot!”
“Ay, well, if he’s set on waiting, I reckon nobody’ll say him nay. He’ll nobbut be throwing away his time an’ that’ll be all.”
“It’s Marget’s nastiness—that’s what it is!” Agnes frowned. “She knows he’s glad to be shot of her, and she’s by way of having a slap.”
“That’s about it,” Thomas agreed, with a nod. He was glad now that he had spoken out, because Agnes had laid the bogey right away. First she had laughed, and then she had gone to the root of the matter and shown him the cause. The shadow lying on that first good hour had only been thrown by jealousy, after all. Bob had seen all the changes and novelties at the farm, and of course Agnes would know about them, too. It was Marget who gave the slap, as Agnes said; Bob was only the arm through which it struck. Jealousy—that was it; nothing but jealous lies. Under all the roofs of the kingdom none would be happier than Kit....
And Kit had fallen back again in his chair, staring vacantly in front of him with lifeless eyes. He was staring straight through the window that held the rolled-back sea, but all that he really saw was a cottage-kitchen wall. As far as he knew, he was back at Marget’s again, at the inhospitable board which he had loathed. Thomas saw that his plate of food was barely touched, and that the cup of tea had never been touched at all. His hands, lying at rest along the cloth, pointed knife and fork towards the roof.... His son reached a gentle finger towards his arm, and at once he shrank away as at a blow. Knife and fork went clattering down as he clutched at his knee for the fiddle that wasn’t there. Finding nothing, he glanced furtively from his companions to the floor, and then terror seized him, and he looked wildly around the room. Quite suddenly he became still again when he saw the fiddle under the shroud. He frowned a little, and made as if to rise; and then remembrance came into his eyes, and he sank back. Thomas, waiting for that moment, drew a breath of relief....
His voice, slow and easy, broke the last of the spell.... “You’re getting on terble badly wi’ your tea. I doubt you’re not taking kindly to the ham.”
Kit said the ham was grand, as he had said of the cup, and the smug, terrible chair that was waiting for him to die. He had always been partial to ham, he said, and Marget had never given him as much as a slice. But, all the same, he made no attempt to empty his plate, and his knife and fork were under the table and he let them lie. “It don’t taste quite the same as it used,” he pleaded at last. “I reckon there’s no pigs gangs down just like your own....”
He felt ashamed of himself again when he saw the disappointment in Agnes’s face, but she did not try to force him into eating the ham against his will. She did not even say that folks were hard to suit, as Marget most certainly would have said. “Have a bit o’ butter wi’ your bread,” she coaxed instead, pushing the shining pat within his reach, and he felt comforted for a moment, and forgot that he had seen Marget sitting in her place. He made a determined effort to receive an impression of light and space, of comfort and kindliness and the atmosphere of home. He said to himself peace where there was no peace, and not for one moment did he succeed. Agnes was busy talking about Marget again, and he pushed the butter away and drifted back.... Nothing had happened to rescue him from prison, after all, and he was in danger of losing his home of vision as well....
“We’ll have a trap, one o’ these days,” Agnes was saying, “and ride round by Bob’s. Marget’ll be madder than ever when she sees Father getting that perked up and fat!”
“He shall play fiddle all down t’road,” Thomas grinned, “an’ Marget’ll just have to bide and let him be!” They looked at each other across the table and laughed, and Thomas leaned back in his chair and chuckled and slapped his knee. They were so busy with the picture in their minds that they forgot to notice anything else. “Eh, well, never mind her, poor crabt body!” he finished at last. He took up his knife and fork with a smile still lingering on his face, and felt his father’s aloofness in the silence like a chill current in a quiet stream. The fork half-raised in the air came to a halt.... “Butter not right, neither, eh, old dad?”