The Stepson (6 page)

Kate followed the old woman's wide stern that waddled up the stairs in advance of her. At the top they turned to the left and Mrs. Jobson opened the first door. She stood aside, Kate went in, and the old woman, closing the door behind her, padded off down the passage.

Kate, suddenly alone, stood with beating heart gazing at the room. It was large and low. Two great beams divided the whitewashed ceiling. The floor sloped a little towards the long, low lattice window through which Kate could see a red roof backed by the dark tangle of a leafless tree. The sun laid a long splay of golden phosphorescence on the wide oak planks of the flooring on which, here and there, lay a coloured rug. At the far end of the room a red canopy towered to the ceiling: under it a white intricately crocheted counterpane lay like a thick covering of snow on the great oak bedstead. In the corner, between the wide fireplace and the window, stood a chest-of-drawers with a fringed white cover spread on its top, on which were a looking-glass and a pair of tall candlesticks. The quiet cave of the looking-glass was filled with a limpid patchwork of planes light and dark, black and grey, gold and
silver and red. Kate stepped hesitating up to it. It seemed to her for a moment that, when she looked into it, some other face than her own would look back at her; the face, perhaps, of one of those two other women whom Ben had mentioned to her but not described. One after the other they had moved about that room, combed their hair in the looking-glass, slept and perhaps died in the great bed under the red canopy. A faint shiver stirred like a small cold snake between her shoulder-blades. But it was her own reflection, the reflection of her new self in the blue dress and the newly flowering face, that looked back at her, and she took off her hat, shook it to unravel the wind-tangled feather, and then patted and smoothed her hair.

Then, going to the door, she opened it, looked out, and like some beautiful, timidly adventuring animal, stole down the passage, down the stairs, and into the doorway which Mrs. Jobson had pointed out to her. Ben's voice greeted her as she entered the room:

‘That's right! Now you're at home.'

A young woman, large limbed and sulky faced, whom Kate had not seen before, brought in a tray loaded with plates and vegetable-dishes. She did not look at Kate, Ben said nothing, and Kate herself was too shy to greet her of her own accord. She went out and returned in a moment with a great covered dish, and Kate and Ben sat down to dinner.

Days passed and by degrees Kate began to settle into her new life. Wonderfully rich and varied it seemed to her after the narrow monotony of her existence at Penridge. It was as if she had stepped from a stifling cupboard into a large, light, airy room. Infinite variety surrounded her. The old, rambling, endearing house, dappled with sunlight and friendly shadows, so warm and roomy and hospitable; the barns, the stables and cow-byres with the solemn, friendly beasts that paced into them or out of them at their appointed hours; the fowl-houses, the neat hens and pompous cocks that picked about in the yard outside the house door; the ducks that paddled and swam in the green-scummed pond outside the farmyard gate; the dairy with its cool, curdy smell, its scrubbed shelves, wide, softly gleaming bowls, and clanking pails; all these homely things comforted and rejoiced her heart. She felt a thrill of pleasure every time she emerged from her bedroom and stepped down the wide, leisurely stairs; whenever she heard from the farmyard the lowing of cattle or the bark of a dog. And how cheering it was to live in the midst of a community. Her society was no longer confined to one dry, unsympathetic creature who never emerged from his cold correctness: she was surrounded now by a little world of folk all occupied with the business of the farm. Not only was there
her husband and pleasant, busy Mrs. Jobson, who seemed with the help of only one girl to carry on her broad shoulders half the business of the farm: there were also the various men that worked on the farm, from old George, the hind, down to the boy Peter, a smiling, red-faced lad who was to be met turning the cows out to pasture or perched high on a cart loaded with straw or turnips, and always singing or whistling when he was not shouting strange orders to horses or cows in a voice modelled on that of George.

The only member of the community who seemed to be unfriendly was Emma, the sulky-faced girl who helped Mrs. Jobson. Emma seemed to be determined to ignore Kate. She would never, when she could avoid it, speak to her; and when she was obliged to speak, she did so shortly, sulkily, and with a closed, unsmiling face. Kate had tried, during the first few days, to win Emma out of her sulkiness, but finding her friendly attempts repulsed she had withdrawn into herself and when she spoke to Emma now her words, though civil, were brief and cold, and her eyes cold and unflinching under the darkly gathered brows. Emma's dislike troubled and annoyed her more than she knew. It was as if Emma were resolved to exclude her, as far as she could, from the new life into which she was settling so happily. At first she had felt shy and diffident in her new position, but soon courage came to her and she began to take pleasure in her new dignity and her sense of
power as mistress of this large, busy community. And so, as time went on, from feeling merely pained she grew to feel resentful and to consider Emma's studied unfriendliness as an impertinence. But one dissonant note was, after all, not a very great matter.

In her new happiness, Kate was changing. Her nature grew warmer and began slowly to unfold. Her pale, dark-browed face was no longer cold and sombre; its quietness now was the quietness of serenity, its coldness often warmed to a subtly changing expressiveness, and a variety and music came into her voice which were never there before. Happiness had come to her in time, stirring her to life before the life had withered within her, and now, like woods and gardens under a mild March weather, her winter was blossoming into spring.

She herself knew it: she was aware not only of the daily delight of waking to rediscover her happiness, but of little thrills of rapture which flashed through her at unexpected moments, intimate lightnings that fluttered her heart for no known cause; and, feeling them, she smiled to herself and then blushed for smiling. Each morning when she did her hair before the looking-glass it was a marvellously changed face whose eyes met hers, and her heart beat with a secret pleasure in her new beauty.

For Ben Humphrey, too, this November had brought a new happiness. He loved Kate deeply: all his vagrant affections and desires had once more
come to rest in her. In her his life had resolved itself into unity again. Whenever in the long hours of work his mind turned for a moment from what he was busy with, he realized again with a glow of delight that Kate awaited him in the house. The zest of work was crowned now with that richer zest of the beautiful young woman who had become his. It delighted him to entice her by degrees out of her reserve, to watch her nature unfold in the warmer atmosphere of the life into which he had brought her. He kept reminding her that she was free now to follow her own devices.

‘Come to me, mind, whenever you want money,' he told her. ‘You can have all the money you want within reason. And there's no need for you to do any work, remember. Just please yourself. Don't forget you're mistress here.'

And it would certainly have pleased the old man best if Kate had consented to become an idle, luxurious creature, a thing apart from the farm and sacred to him alone, for he loved to treat her as something to be petted and pampered and did not see that this was the one thing in their intercourse that alienated and embarrassed her. Her dignity and restraint recoiled from the old man's childish endearments, and Ben, finding himself thwarted, would redouble his efforts, ignorant that he was only increasing the gulf between them. Happily, such moods were only occasional. In his customary state, alert, kindly, and
cheerful, Kate found old Ben a delightful companion: his natural cheeriness thawed her coldness and reserve and in his company she became cheerful and animated also. Her affection for him was real; strong enough, indeed, to make it possible for her to tolerate his love.

Little by little, both indoors and out of doors, Kate became familiar with the farm. Ben had encouraged her to pry into every hole and corner.

‘Get to know the place, my dear,' he said to her. ‘The more you know it, the better you'll like it'; and Kate, feeling that she was a stranger and an intruder, had opened doors and peeped into cupboards, and sometimes Mrs. Jobson, when she had a moment to spare, would assist Kate in these researches, showing her the store-room or taking her into the linen-closet and displaying the table-linen, bed-linen, and towels, all neatly disposed upon their appointed shelves with sprigs of lavender between their folds.

‘But how beautifully it's kept,' said Kate admiringly, and Mrs. Jobson's heart warmed towards her, for it was she who kept it.

Out of doors she examined hen-houses, strange-smelling and white with droppings, where she peeped into the rows of boxes, finding a large pinkish brown egg in one, a white one in another, or a sham one made of shining white pottery, to encourage the hens to lay; and sometimes, too, a great buff or black hen filling the whole box in which it crouched, which
glared at Kate with a fierce hectic eye and growled if she ventured too near.

When she went into the stables and cow-byres, the munching beasts turned their great heads and stared at her with solemn, benevolent eyes. Sometimes, going from stall to stall with George the hind, or Peter the boy whom she had happened to meet as she went about the farm, she would hear from them the names of the different horses and cows and learn gradually to recognize them when she met them in the fields or on the roads.

Once, leaving the farmyard and turning down a green lane, she came upon a gate in a high holly-hedge, and stopping to lean over it she saw that she was looking into an orchard, a beautiful half-wild and half-formal place where old twisted fruit-trees stood in rows. The trees were leafless now, but as she moved away she resolved that she would return in the spring when all the trees would be white with blossom.

But the thing that delighted Kate above everything else was the huge barn whose long thatched roof had been one of the first things that met her eye as she drove after her wedding into the farm. To enter through the great double doors and close them behind her was like entering a church, for, once inside, it seemed to her that she had left the world of every day behind her and stepped suddenly into an ancient, peaceful silent world filled with mild twilight
and soft darknesses. Screens of sunlight cast from the slit between the almost closed doors or from a gap in the planking of the barn's wooden sides partitioned the darkness as if with luminous and impalpable walls, and here and there small, keen sunshafts shot from holes in the roof, where the birds had burrowed through the thatch, and stretched ropes of shining gold from roof to floor, lighting into vague visibility an intricate structure of grey beams and timbers high overhead. Ben had told her that this barn was reputed to be four hundred years old, and it seemed to Kate, as she stood enclosed in its soft twilight and hushed quietude, that its antiquity was an actual presence, lulling the mind and soothing the heart into a blessed tranquillity. Here, it seemed to her, she would always find peace and consolation whenever she felt the need of them.

Another of her earliest and pleasantest discoveries came one day when she ventured to unbolt the door which gave upon the front of the house. This door stood open in the height of summer to let a draught through the house, but at other times it was not used and was always kept bolted. Kate, feeling guilty and inquisitive, drew the stiff bolts, glancing timidly over her shoulder as she did so, and when at last she had got the door to open she went out and closed it behind her. A square plot of grass lay before her, fenced by a low stone wall and divided into two equal halves by a flagged walk which ran straight from the
doorstep to a green gate. One or two aged and contorted fruit-trees rose out of the grass, and in a small round bed on each side of the walk stood a rose-bush. On one of them a belated pink rose was still blooming. Kate stood entranced, gazing down at it: then stooping over it she smelt it. A delicious fragrance surprised her sense; it seemed to her for a moment that summer was already come. She could hardly tear herself away from the bush, stooping and inhaling its sweetness again and again; but at last she continued her way to the gate, opened it, and went out. The field on the edge of which she stood dropped in a single steep slope to the flat meadows on either side of the wandering Eavon, from whose grassy banks rose here and there a posturing willow. From there the land ran on, field after field of plough and pasture, into the blue horizon, and throughout its length were strewn shining rags and strips of the winding river, diminishing in the distance to mere flecks in the vague foreshortening of green and brown. For awhile Kate stood and gazed into the distance: then, recalling herself from the wide expanse to the spot on which she stood, she returned into the little front-garden. The old house-front, a patchwork of sober stone and mildly twinkling glass, regarded her benevolently, and Kate noticed that a great twisted pear-tree sprawled its flattened boughs over all the right half of the house-front, running horizontally along the base of each window and springing up vertically
on either side of it. A leafless rose over-arched the door and climbed to the upper window, and about the window on the left of the door a Pyrus opened its arms. Before many months it would be bright with the scarlet rosettes of its first bloom. Kate paused again, glancing once more about her as if to print upon her mind all she had seen; then, turning on her heel, she went back into the house.

The upper part of a large cupboard in the sitting-room was fitted with shelves and the shelves were filled with books, and Kate, looking through them, had found novels by Scott, Dickens and Thackeray, some bound volumes of
The Leisure Hour
, and a huge illustrated Bible. One evening, after some rummaging with a candle, Ben brought out of it an old-fashioned photograph-album in a thick, panelled leather cover. When supper was over and the scowling Emma had cleared the table, they sat at the table looking through the album. The first photographs dated back fifty or sixty years. In Kate's eyes they were extraordinarily ridiculous.