“... and you’ll tell me about every one, and everything that’s going on in the place ...” Jim stopped a bit there ... and then, in a whisper, “and about Nelly...?”
Then Christina felt the wave die down, and she grew cold. Everything suddenly turned black and lonesome, all in a minute. She felt giddy, as if the world had begun to sink away from under her feet. But she said nothing. Indeed, why should she? Wouldn’t it be the queer world, if people did what they say they do, and just told out whatever they think? They don’t; nor they couldn’t; it would never answer....
All Christina could say, was: “Next week? why then, that’s short notice!”
And Jim helped her to drive the cows into their shed, and got her the stool, and she sat down and began to milk. Just the way he was always helping her! and he stood beside her, for a bit, advising her about this thing and that thing; and she felt as if it was all a dream.
But one thing was real enough to her. She knew Jim was only delaying there, in the hopes of seeing Nelly coming out from the house, to help to carry in the milk. And poor Christina felt ashamed of the satisfaction it was to her, that as likely as not Nelly would forget all about the cows, and the dairy, and the evening’s work.
She had that satisfaction; not a sight of Nelly was to be seen. And Jim, after waiting a bit, thinking that maybe Christina would be bidding him to come into the house, or stay to his supper there, just went off home to wherever he was stopping.
He had short notice, sure enough, for so long a journey. But what matter for that? If you have little, you travel light. Christina, that was always busy at some industering, had a grand lot of stockings of her own spinning and knitting, ready to put into his bundle. Nelly had nothing, and she cried down tears to turn a mill, over that. But Christina had the fashion still, when she would go to the Shop, that she’d bring home a lucky-bag to Nelly, as if she was a child still. She did that, the very day before Jim started. And what was in the lucky-bag, but a grand breast-pin, that had a stone in it, shining like a diamond, only of course it couldn’t be that! Nelly offered the pin to Jim for a keepsake, and he was as proud as if it really was a diamond she had for him.
Jim went off, and of all the friends he left behind him you’d think Christina cared the least. But there’s many a one like that. They’ll be able for the day’s work, and will keep bright and busy; ay, and have a smile and a pleasant word for every one. But underneath all that, there’s something aching, aching...! unknown to all the world, except themselves.
It’s like the “swallyin’-holes” you come on now and then in the boggy bits of Ardenoo. You may be walking along, happy and contented, in the sunshine, making your way through heather and brambles and fern; sweet smells coming up to you from the bog-myrtle and meadow-sweet; and suddenly with a gasp you stop short! There at your feet, you’ll see a gaping hole, half hidden by moss and rushes ... and when you look down, far, far below the warm, smiling surface of the bog, you see water, black and deep and silent.
“It’s not me, at all; it’s Nelly he wants!” Christina kept saying to herself, always, always, while she’d be going about her work, up and down, early and late, as busy as ever she could be. Busier than ever, indeed! It seemed now as if she never could rest, and couldn’t be easy, unless she was doing something, for the old father, or little Nelly.