CHAPTER IV
THE HOME THAT WAS RANTANNED
IN that home the lamp had been lighted for the evening, and the mother and daughter sat in silence at their work, for the timid efforts of poor Jenny at conversation had been negatived by the determined silence of her child. Yet, though Annie had been quiet, it had not been the quietness of resignation, she had trembled and quivered like a frightened animal; and during the uproar that had been three times repeated had been scarcely able to keep herself in her seat. It had not been terror by which she was moved, but rage; a rage that glowed in her eyes and worked in her troubled lips, a condition of feeling that was no doubt assisted by her physical weakness, but which was yet such shattering agitation as only the sensitive can feel. Her face had inherited much beauty from her mother, but it was a more vivid beauty, more easily seen and felt; and in its best moments had never the look of patience that had belonged to her mother in her girlish days. Yet, as I have said, the eyes of any stranger would, no doubt, have proclaimed her the more beautiful of the two.
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.’
‘I did but hide by the stone-pit,’ muttered Nat, dismayed at the storms that were rushing on his head; ‘there wasn’t an eye of ’em all as saw me, but of course ye find fault wi’ me, ye always do.’
He pulled out a chair, and threw himself down upon it, an expression of sullen resistance on his face, thrusting out his legs in a most determined manner, and screwing his mouth as if he were whistling silently. The eyes of his mother and sister rested on him meanwhile, with the silent opposition that is most hard to bear.
‘I want some tea,’ muttered Nat, with his hands in his pockets, resolved to make the best of his position.
‘The things is locked up,’ his mother replied, ‘and I can’t be troubled to get ’em out for ye. I don’t care to give ye tea when ye do such tricks as them.’
‘All right, I’m not hungry,’ the boy said, with a gulp, as if he were exercising some control upon himself; he had seen, no doubt, the tears in his mother’s eyes, and did not wish to continue the dispute. But Jenny received the remark as an expression of indifference, and her unwonted anger could no longer be restrained.
‘I wish ye would go to bed,’ she cried out to him; ‘I can’t bear the look of ye, indeed I can’t.’ The boy got up in a sulky, slouching way, as if he were delaying the operation as long as possible; an expression which almost served to conceal the fact that, after all, he was doing as he was told. Unlike his sister, who did not practise obedience, Nat generally yielded, although defiantly; his mother, poor soul, was scarce conscious of the fact, she only observed the defiance, as mothers often do. Her daughter was always consistently imperious, but to her daughter she was accustomed to submit; it was the imperfect obedience of her son that, far more often, was able to rouse her wrath. To-night she was sore with anxiety, shame, and pain; and, in their own fashion, the gentle take revenge.
‘Ay, go off,’ she said; ‘that’ll be some comfort at least. If father was here he’d hasten thy steps for thee.’
‘Look here, mother,’ cried Nat, stopping short, and with a gasp, for his nature was as emotional as it was passionate, ‘ye’ve no call to say all these things to me, as if I’d been settin’ on to do ye harm..... What do it matter what t’ village says o’ father? I’m sure he merits the worst as they can say..... But I doubt if I’d stuck to him i’sted o’ ye he’d not send me hungered to bed as ye do now.’ His words were caught suddenly with a sob, and, turning hastily, he ran out of the room. The sound of the door he banged made echoes there, but the two women did not disturb them by their words.
Annie turned round upon her cushions, glad of the absence of her brother, because it left her able to shed a few tears unperceived; whilst her mother bent over the sewing in her hand, with trembling fingers that could scarce guide her thread. With the reaction of a timid and conscientious nature, she was now being seized with terror, uneasy about her boy, and sure that he might be ill if he went for so many hours without a meal. Although quite certain that he would reject any food, she longed to go to his room, and entreat him to come and eat; at the same time being not at all ready to forgive him, for her anger was enduring, although it was not strong. She would have stolen up the stairs to his bedside, but she dared not move with her daughter so near to her.
It is probable that her son would not have received her well; but the attempt at reconciliation might have produced some result; it might, at any rate, have averted an adventure that was to produce enduring consequences. For when poor Jenny, about an hour afterwards, went up to her room to put away her work, she found that the window of the room was open, that the boy’s bed was empty, and that Nat was gone.