‘I ’ud like to work,’ Annie answered, not unreadily, as she took off her hat and laid it on the bed; ‘I’m always accustomed to sit an’ work at home, whenever there’s any spare time of any sort. It doesn’t seem natural to sit with idle hands, and I don’t like it ... it gives one time to think ...’
The deep sigh with which she broke off did not escape her companion, and Alice looked up anxiously. Annie did not resent the glance, she appeared to welcome it; at that moment she must have felt in need of sympathy.
‘Mother an’ me’s had words,’ she murmured, half-reluctantly, as if in answer to her companion’s eyes; her industrious fingers occupied all the while with the sock that she had taken in her hand. ‘Mother is so foolish, she will not understand that there’s some things about which one cannot talk; she wishes me to behave as if I was a child, an’ I know I shall never be a child again.’
The words had a pathetic sound, perhaps because of the pathos of the dark eyes she raised—a glance almost childish in its simplicity, and yet, at the same time, too suggestive of womanhood. At that moment it was not possible to look at her without some intuition of danger; and ‘farmer’s Alice,’ in spite of her precision, had enough clearness of sight to be forewarned. It may be that an anxiety lurking at her own heart made her more able than usual to feel for another woman’s trial; for, in spite of her resolves—and she could be resolute—she had been herself more or less troubled all the day. The sound of that trouble could be heard in her voice, an undertone beneath its quietness.
‘We can’t expect things to be always right,’ she said; ‘there’s worries upon t’ best o’ days—there’s the colt in the garden, or else there’s father ill, or t’ boys steal the fruit, an’ we can’t find who they be. Mr Bender, he says we all on us have trials; an’ I’m sure it’s true, so I suppose it must be so.’
The tremor in her voice had more effect on her companion than the indisputable wisdom of her words; Annie vaguely realised, unconscious that she did so, a sensation that she was receiving sympathy. That loosed the restraint that held her heart in bands, and the wish to speak became irresistible. Her companion listened and worked, and felt troubled and confused, as one before waters too deep for her to sound.
‘Alice, have you seen t’ Thackbusk when it’s late at night,’ cried Annie, ‘when t’ mist have risen so as you can’t see t’ moon? you can’t think how strange it looks and big an’ solemn, t’ great flat fields, an’ t’ willows in the dusk. I mind me of a night about a year ago when I ran out there because mother scolded me, an’ I got frighted with the great mists all round me, an’ all the grass white and strange wi’ moon an’ mist. An’ now I keep feeling as if I was there again, an’ all t’ mist round me, an’ keepin’ me from home, an’ I keep wantin’ t’ light in mother’s window, an’ it’s not there, an’ I can’t get back to it. I don’t know what to do with t’ feeling, that I don’t—it a’most makes me cry—and I can’t get free from it.’
She put up her hand to shield her eyes for an instant, and then went on quietly with her work, though not before a sudden catching of her breath had told of trouble as plainly as her words. Her companion was in no haste to break the silence, and some minutes passed without a word from either. Outside the window the pigeons gleamed and fluttered, and clouds and blue sky looked down upon the yard.
‘Annie,’ said Alice softly, ‘won’t you come with me, an’ hear Mr Bender speak in Harmenton—he’s going to hold a class-meetin’ there to-day, for the sake o’ them as can’t get over to the town? I didn’t think of going, not to-day, but I’d be glad enough if you’d like to come with me.’
If her voice trembled now it was from shyness, and a little pink colour gave some warmth to her cheek, for she was not accustomed to speak to those around her of the religious exercises in which she indulged herself. Some time ago, Alice had chosen, as the church-people in the village sarcastically observed, to give her parents ‘more trouble nor she was worth by taking up with them Dissenters in the town’—and they had added that ‘her parents they were too soft with her, they should ha’ let her know their mind, that they should.’ At the same time the village Dissenters, who were numerous, were not on their part disposed to be pleased with her, they said that ‘she held her nose a deal too high, she ’ud have to come down afore her life was done.’ This was hard upon Alice, who at the desire of her parents had abstained from attending the red chapel at the bottom of the hill—though it must be owned that her obedience was the easier because she preferred the Wesleyan place of worship in the town. A young heart has a natural instinct for the place where its religion was first stirred into life, a yearning like that which makes us turn back again to visit the scenes where our childhood played. Poor Alice, although confirmed, was entirely ignorant of the history, the claims, the pretensions of the Church; she was only aware of the help that touched her life as the wounded man of the hand of the Samaritan. And certainly since that time her life had found new happiness, a transfiguration of duty which made all things sublime.