She lit the candles in brass candlesticks on the table, and when the lad entered the room she was standing by them, her two hands leaning on the table near her hat, her dark eyes as sorrowful as if they had been filled with tears. He entered to this sight—a poor, untaught boy, his foolish brain only too full of expectation; he entered to see the dark room, the shining candles, and this sorrowing, beautiful image whose eyes were fixed on him. In that one instant her mastery was gained; already the unworthy triumph she had desired was won.
*****
Jenny sat alone that night in her raftered cottage, waiting for the children who were in no hurry to return; on her mind a dread—a wife’s dread—which made her tremble lest each passing foot-fall should be her husband’s step. Alone, quite alone, with no human comfort near her, she had endured the tumult before her door that night, the shouts, the clashing of the Rantan, braying out her griefs openly, to the ears of all. And then, when that thrice-repeated clamour ceased at length, she was left to a silence still more hard to bear, left to stitch patiently with her never-wearied needle, and to wonder why the children did not come. Her mother’s heart had time to become frightened, agitated, before at eleven o’clock there was at last a sound of footsteps; and Annie, wan, chilled, and feverish, sank down in a chair on the hearth, and turned her face away—succeeded after a minute or two by the brother, who had not that day entered his home, and who seemed now as weary and feverish as herself, and still more determined than she was not to speak. Jenny asked no questions, and only said a word or two; and Annie kissed her, and went up to her room; whilst Nat, without kissing her, also stole upstairs, and undressed hastily, and lay down in his bed. He slept, village-fashion, in the corner of his mother’s room, which he had occupied almost since he was born.
He slept soon, heavily; the young slumber hard and well; but to his mother no such relief could come—the poor mother who felt a pang beneath her anger, because her boy could sleep though he would not speak to her. Poor Jenny, sleepless, sat up in her bed that night, and, with the pain of the bruise which her husband’s hand had caused, felt the anxiety of new forebodings which she had not experienced before. Afraid of her children with the fear of a timid mother, and longing to trust them, to be at peace with them, she yet knew that she must gather courage to address them, and demand from their lips the story of the night—though herself as ready to shrink before the prospect as a nervous child before the confession of its fault. She did not murmur, or pray, or even weep, she tried to submit as she always did submit; it was only her tremulous fear of danger near her treasures, which compelled her to attempt some action for their good. ‘I can’t bear to vex them,’ she murmured to her pillow as, at last worn out, she laid down her head to sleep—a sleep as broken and fitful as the dread of an anxious mother, whose power to guard those she loves is more feeble than her will.
[CHAPTER XI
THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER]
THE next day Farmer Robson’s daughter was seated at her work, when the sound of footsteps announced a visitor; and, as she rose to meet the disturber of her solitude, the door opened, and Annie Salter entered the room. Her appearance was not at all expected there; for Annie was not often a visitor at the Farm.
And perhaps it might also be correct to say that her appearance at that moment was not at all desired, since Alice had come upstairs when her noontide meal was done with the intention of allowing herself a quiet afternoon. On her little bed in the corner there lay in heaps a variety of garments in much need of repair, for it had been her intention, as an industrious daughter of the house, to accomplish the family mending in these hours of loneliness. She was an exquisite needlewoman, and the prospect of stitching did not alarm her—already she had taken up a pair of socks, and with needle and cotton in hand was ready to begin. When Annie entered she remained standing where she had risen, with her left hand deep in the sock and her needle in the right.
She entered the room where this image of neatness stood—poor, passionate Annie, with her dark eyes dull and tired, her pouting lips pale with sickness or weariness, and the straying hairs bright and rough beneath her hat. She was neat, indeed—Jenny’s child could not be otherwise—but not with the conscious neatness of the farmer’s daughter, and at that moment she looked tremulous and ill, unwilling to talk and only fit for rest. Without saying a word or holding out her hand, she sat down in the chair Alice silently offered; and almost unconsciously put out her hand, and took up a sock from the heap upon the bed. The action might have been called mechanical, but it raised her at once in the opinion of her companion.
‘Would you like to work?’ Alice asked, hospitably; ‘I’ve needles, cotton and thimble, everything; I can put the big basket between us on a chair, and then we can take from it what we want. Only don’t be troubled, as if you must be helping me, ’cause I’ve plenty of time to get through all to-day.’