The word had hardly died away before Gainah, in her dim blue cotton gown with the skimped skirt and straight bodice, put her head in at the door and asked harshly if the newly-found cousin meant to stay to dinner.
[CHAPTER III.]
HER past was tightly packed away behind her—packed as remorselessly, as perfectly, as she had corded her boxes; with much effort and expenditure of strength, but with a perfect regard to safety. She was out of London. Never again would she let her eyes of anguish light on the prison.
She was driving with Jasper along the dusty Sussex road, which barely a week before she had trudged wearily and with many misgivings. The prosperity and ease and promise of her new life struck at her, soothed her, with many minute details—the soft carriage-rug, the sleek coat of the mare, the polished harness. She had a passion for ease, for pretty things, for worldly status.
Folly Corner became her home—her sheltered home. Time passed. As the weeks wore on her face grew mobile and careless, dull pink begun to timidly bloom on her skin, her eyes brightened. She was happy, occupied, free from anxiety. Above all, she had plenty of pence, need never deny herself a penny pleasure—and she was one of those mercurial women who can be made happy by a bar of French chocolate, and miserable by a shabby hat. Once she said, with a bitter-sweet laugh, to Jethro:
“I was never made for responsibility. I ought to live in a harem. A bon-bon, a pat on the head from my master, would make me absolutely content.”
He seemed amused at first, then he looked puzzled, and then displeased. He had decided already in his serious, practical way, that she was to be his wife, and whimsicality struck him as unorthodox—nearly as bad as dissent. The Jaynes had always been stanch churchmen, and never spoke without first weighing every word.
Sometimes, in spite of herself, she gave a backward thought. Sometimes the hunted, tragic gleam lighted its taper in her happy eyes. Some shadow of the old grief, some touch of the old delirious joy and misery, stirred her. Rain against the window, a rumble of thunder, a shrieking wind, or a harsh voice was enough to frighten her. She felt a gnawing uncertainty. Would this peace, this ease, continue?
When these uncomfortable thoughts assailed her she plunged fiercely into work, clicking her needle and thimble through new calico, or darting about the rambling house with a duster. She was pathetically anxious to earn her salary, to be absolutely independent of Jethro’s charity. She had not yet decided whether her torn heart would allow her to marry him when the time came.