Jenny sat by the lamp and threaded her needle quietly, her delicate features distinct against the light, the outline of her cheek a little marred by the hollow which had been wrought slowly by age, and care, and time. Her daughter reclined in Rob’s great, red-cushioned chair, her unbound hair lying loosely round her face, to which it served as a more radiant background, for her dark eyes were weary and her cheeks were pale. She always suffered from her own impatience, poor Annie, she had the constitution that vibrates too easily.
But, indeed, both mother and daughter were suffering to-night, and the same trouble weighed on the hearts of both, to an extent that would have surprised those who are ignorant how keenly even the scantily educated can feel. A delicate fastidiousness is not at all uncommon amongst those who shelter beneath cottage roofs; and these two women both felt disgraced and branded by the public ceremony that had rattled out their woes. Jenny bent to this new trial as she always did to trial, with no thought of protesting against her calamities; but Annie opposed to it the fierce impatience which her physical weakness left her scarce able to express. She kept turning from side to side on her red cushions, with the restlessness that is not able to be still.
‘Where’s Nat,’ she asked suddenly when, weary at last of movement, she lay still, perforce, for a moment in her seat; and, as if the question roused a sudden anxiety, Jenny let her work fall in her lap. Indeed, through all the excitement of the evening she had had no leisure in which to think of her son.
‘I can’t think,’ she replied tremulously, in a voice which had her father’s gentleness to lend its soft utterance to the accent of her mother’s ‘folk;’ ‘I haven’t set eyes on him sin’ twelve o’clock, when he came in, an’ took his meal, and went again. Ah! I’m sorry to think he’ll be comin’ through the village; it’s a bad night for him to be out in all the fuss.’
‘He won’t care about that,’ muttered Annie with a toss, for Annie and Nat were very rarely friends; ‘it’s like as he’ll on’y think it a bit o’ fun; he’s no sense to see into things, boys never have! It’s full time he should be findin’ work to do, and not be a-loiterin’ an’ dawdlin’ here; sin’ he’s so proud o’ the notice that the Squire takes o’ him, the Squire had best get him a place, an’ send him off. Here he is.’
For, as she had been speaking, the door had opened; and, as she broke off, Nat came into the room; he came in softly and with a shamefaced expression, as one who is conscious that he is very late. And, indeed, as Jenny laid down her work on her knees, there was something of severity in her eyes as she looked at him.
‘An’ where ha’ ye been, Nat, all this while?’ she asked, ‘a-leavin’ of Annie, as might ha’ wanted ye—I doubt ye’ve not worked on the allotment ground, or done any good wi’ yoursel’ through all the day! There isn’t much use in ye when ye’re out o’ work, ye go off an’ play, an’ there’s an end of all!’
‘Why, mother, I haven’t played up till noon to-day,’ said Nat, ‘and I’m goin’ at the hay to-morrow, ye know I am; there isn’t a lad in all the village as doesn’t like to have a bit o’ game sometimes. I’ve been lookin’ at them to-night,’ and his eyes sparkled; ‘I had a fine sight of ’em, though they didn’t know I was near.’
‘Ye’ve been an’ looked at ’em,’ cried Jenny, rising, with a wrath most unusual glowing in her face; ‘ye’ve been an’ took part in all their wicked ways as bring shame on the father, an’ me, an’ all on us! I didn’t think it of thee, Nat, not e’en o’ thee; ye’re a wicked boy, an’ I’ll not forget thy work.’
‘I told ye so, mother,’ cried Annie from her cushions; ‘I told ye he wouldn’t care, and ’ud think it fun. Ye’ll believe me, perhaps, next time when I speak of him, though ye always take his part whatever comes to us.’