Chapter III

Nothing coming, nothing going—
Landrail craking, one cock crowing;
Few things moving up and down,
All things drowsy.

NORTH-COUNTRY SONG.

ROSALIE passed a very unquiet night, and woke from a troubled sleep shortly after dawn. The dead-weight of grief, ever present to her since her bereavement, was now, as she dimly felt, supplemented by something else—something irritating, something unpleasant. As her scattered faculties returned to her she gradually recognised that this state of feeling was produced by several small causes. The two visits which she had received yesterday, and which she had supposed to proceed from mere officious goodwill, had, as she now acknowledged, been prompted in all probability by aspirations as unjustifiable as they were unseemly. Her subsequent interview with Mrs. Greene had disagreeably enlightened her on this point, and had also made her aware of the kind of gossip to which she must expect to be subjected. Then—all through that long, lonely, heavy day Isaac Sharpe had not once put in an appearance. He, her husband’s faithful friend, the only real friend whom she herself acknowledged, had not thought fit to look in for so much as five minutes to cheer her in her desolation. As she thought of these things hot tears welled afresh to her eyes. Oh, how desolate she was! No one really cared for her, and, what was almost worse, no one seemed to believe in the sincerity of her affliction.

As she lay tossing uneasily on her pillow, and as the light grew and brightened, and the birds’ jubilant songs mingled with the distant lowing of cows, a new sense of disquietude came to her, proceeding from a different and very tangible cause. It was broad day—Monday morning—a morning of exceptional importance at the farm—and no human being seemed yet to be afoot. Reaching up her hand to the old-fashioned watch-pocket which hung in the centre of the bed, she took down Elias’s heavy silver repeater and pressed the spring. _Ting_, _ting_, _ting_, _ting_, _ting_! Five o’clock. Sitting up, she sent the two cases flying open and gazed almost incredulously at the dial beneath. Ten minutes past five—no less! She sprang out of bed and flung open her door.

‘Jane! Susan! What are you about? ’t is past five o’clock, and churning morning. How did you come to oversleep yourselves like that?’

There was a muffled murmur, a thud upon the floor, a _pat_, _pat_ of bare feet across the room above, and a door overhead opened.

‘Was ye callin’, mum?’

‘Was I calling? I should think I was calling! Have you forgotten what morning it is?’

‘Nay, missus, that I haven’t. Lord, no. ’T was this day se’ennight as poor master was buried. Dear, yes, so ’t was.’

A lump rose in Rosalie’s throat, but she steadied her voice and said coldly:

‘I am not talking of that. It is churning morning, as you know very well. You should have been up and about an hour ago. Make as much haste as you can, now, and come down.’

She closed the door with just sufficient noise to indicate the condition of her feelings, and hastened across the room to the open window. Drawing the curtains apart, she looked out. A glorious summer’s day. Not a cloud upon the pearly-blue expanse of sky, the leaves stirring gently in a fresh breeze—a breeze laden with all the exquisite spicy scents of morning: the fragrance of dewy grasses, of sun-kissed trees, of newly-awakened flowers. The monthly rose-tree climbing round her mullioned window thrust its delicate clusters of bloom almost into Rosalie’s face, but she pushed it impatiently aside. Her eyes cast a keen glance on the homely scene beyond. Above the time-worn roofs of the farm-buildings, where the green of the moss and the mellow red and yellow of the tiles were alike transfigured by this mystic glow, she could see last year’s ricks shouldering each other, their regular outlines defined, as it were, with a pencil of fire; the great meadow beyond, which sloped downwards till it reached the church-yard wall a quarter of a mile away, broke into light ripples, tawny and russet, as the breeze swept over it.

Surely these were sights to gladden a young heart—even a heart that had been sorrowing—yet the expression of Rosalie’s eyes grew more and more discontented and displeased, and a frown gathered on her brow.

The fowl were flocking impatiently about the gate of the great barn-yard; yonder, on the further side, from beneath the tiled roof of the line of pigsties she could hear loud vociferations; turning her eyes towards the stable-buildings which ran at right angles to them, she could see that the doors were fast closed, and could hear the rattling of chains and stamping of heavy hoofs within. The Church Meadow ought to have been cut to-day—the grass was over-ripe as it was; men and horses should have been at work since three o’clock. No figures appeared even in the neighbourhood of the barn; and looking beyond to the barton proper, she could see that it was empty. No wonder that the lowing of the cows had sounded distant in her ears: they were still in their pasture by the river. Poor creatures! crowding round the gate, no doubt, as the fowl were doing close at hand, all clamouring alike for the attention which was evidently withheld from them. What was everyone about? Why had not the men come to their work as usual?

She performed her toilet hastily and somewhat perfunctorily, and when at last a sleepy-looking red-haired man came slouching up the lane which led to the farm, he was surprised to see a figure in rustling print and broad-brimmed chip hat standing in the midst of a bevy of cocks and hens, scattering handfuls of grain with wide impetuous sweeps of a round, vigorous arm.

‘Hallo! What’s the hurry, Sukey?’ he inquired pleasantly.

But the face which was flashed upon him was not the rosy and somewhat vacant one of Susan, but belonged to no less a person than Missus herself.

‘What’s the hurry, Job?’ she repeated severely. ‘I should like to know why there is n’t a little more hurry? What has become of all the men? Has anybody gone to fetch the cows? What is everyone about, I say?’

Job tilted his hat a little sideways on his red locks, the better to scratch his head, and gazed at his mistress with a puzzled and somewhat scandalised expression.

‘Ye must expect things to be a bit onreg’lar for a bit, mum,’ he remarked. ‘Seein’ the loss we’ve had, and us all bein’ so upset like about poor master, we ha’n’t a-got the ’eart to go about our work as if nothin’ had happened. It bain’t to be looked for. Nay now,’ he continued mildly, ‘an’ we did n’t look to find yerself a-goin’ about this way—we did n’t, sure. It scarce seems nait’ral. If I may make so bold as to say so, it do seem’—here Job fixed an expostulatory glance on the angry young face that was confronting him—‘it d’ seem scarce right, mum.’

‘Job Hunt,’ returned his mistress haughtily, ‘you are not called upon to make remarks upon my actions; but I will tell you so much: it is my duty to see that the work in this place is properly done, and I intend that it shall be properly done. Go and call the other men at once. Tell them if they are ever again so disgracefully late they shall all be fined. Call them quickly,’ she added with an imperative tap of the foot, ‘and then go and fetch the cows.’

As she turned to re-enter the house she caught sight of Susan, who was evidently exchanging astonished and depreciatory grimaces with Job, while Mrs. Greene, in the background, was raising hands and eyes to heaven.

‘Come, get to work,’ she cried sharply. ‘Skim the cream, Susan; and you, Jane, get the churn ready. Well, Mrs. Greene, what are you staring at? Have you never seen me work before, that the fact of my turning up my sleeves need astonish you so much? I suppose you can find something to do about the house. Give me that other skimmer, Jane.’

‘Ho dear, yes, mum, I can find a plenty to do about this here house. I wur but a-lookin’ at you, mum, because it do really seem a’most too much for flesh an’ blood to be a-takin’ on itself as you be a-takin’ on yourself now, mum. Dear, yes! but it’s to be hoped as ye won’t overtax your constitootion, Mrs. Fiander.’

‘Go and clean the kitchen grate,’ said Rosalie, beginning to skim with great rapidity and decision; ‘and see that you blacklead it properly.’

‘Ho yes, mum, _I’ll_ blacklead it,’ returned the elder matron, without, however, attempting to move from the spot where she stood, and continuing to fix her eyes mournfully on her mistress—‘_I’ll_ blacklead it right enough,’ she repeated, with a kind of groan, after a pause, during which she had meditatively polished first one skinny bare arm and then the other with a not over-clean apron.

‘Well, why in Heaven’s name don’t you go, then?’ cried Rosalie impatiently, for she felt Mrs. Greene’s sorrowfully disapproving gaze right at the back of her head.

‘I be going, mum, I be going. If I mid take the liberty of remindin’ you, mum—’t is your _hat_ as you’ve a-got on your head.’

‘Well?’ inquired Rosalie, reddening ominously.

‘Well, Mrs. Fiander,’ returned the char-woman with an insinuating smile, ‘would n’t you like me to run upstairs wi’ it now and fetch you down your cap?’

‘No,’ replied her mistress very shortly; ‘if I had wished for it I should have sent for it. You need not be so officious. The strings would get in my way while I worked,’ she added a little inconsequently. She felt she was lowering herself by making this explanation, yet she could not bear that even Mrs. Greene and the two maids should think her wanting in respect to Elias’s memory.

Mrs. Greene withdrew, murmuring under her breath that it was to be ’oped as nobody would n’t chance t’ look in that morning, which was not, indeed, very likely, the hands of the old-fashioned clock in the kitchen beyond just pointing to the quarter-past six.

For some minutes nothing was heard but the clinking of the skimmers against the sides of the vats as the rich cream, clotted and crinkled and thick, was removed therefrom. The scene was a pretty one; indeed, such a dairy on such a summer’s morning must always hold a charm and a picturesqueness of its own; and now that the angular presence of Mrs. Greene was removed there was absolutely no discordant element in this cool harmony. The dairy itself was a wide, pleasant room, its buff walls and red-flagged floor throwing out the exquisite tints of the vast tracts of cream, each marked off by its own barrier of glancing tin, and varying in tone from the deep yellow of that portion destined for the morning’s churning to the warm white of the foaming pailfuls which Job poured from time to time somewhat sulkily into the vat nearest the door. Then there was the green of the gently swaying boughs without, seen through windows and open door, the brilliant patch of sunlight creeping over the uneven threshold, the glint of blue sky between sunlit green and sunlit stone. The brave array of glittering cans on the topmost shelf added their own share of brightness; the great earthenware crocks and pans, some the very colour of the cream itself, some ruddy in tone, some of a deep rich brown, lent also valuable aid; then there were tall white jars containing lard, carefully-packed baskets and smooth wooden vessels piled high with eggs, little squares of filmy gauze hung out on lines in readiness for the golden rolls of butter which they were soon to enfold. The figures of the girls themselves—for the mistress of Littlecomb Farm was no more than a girl in years—gave the necessary and very delightful touch of human interest. Susan and Jane, in cotton dresses and large aprons so immaculate that the mere sight of them was sufficient to recall that it was the first day of the week, were not without a certain rustic charm of their own; as for Rosalie, standing in the foreground, with her sleeves rolled up on her white arms, her print dress fitting so closely to her beautiful form, the hair hastily rolled up escaping into such exquisite curls and tendrils round brow and ear and shapely neck—Rosalie was as ever what her admiring old Elias had once called her—the leading article.

When the churn was fairly at work, the skim-milk duly meted out to the pigs, and the long procession of dairy cows were sauntering back to their pasture under the guardianship of Job and the three ‘chaps’ who had till then been busily milking, Rosalie removed her hat and sat down to breakfast.

The flush of annoyance still lingered on her face, and, while she ate, her glance wandered through the window to the premises without. She could hear Robert Cross and James Bundy leisurely leading out the horses, inducing them with many objurgations to stand while they were being harnessed to the rattling, creaking mower. How slow they were! They should have been in the field hours ago, and yet they slouched about as though the beautiful golden morning were not already half over. Now, at last they were starting—no, here was James coming back for something they had forgotten. Rising hastily from her chair, she leaned out of the open window, tapping impatiently on the pane. ‘What are you about, Bundy? Why on earth don’t you try and make a little more haste?’

‘Mum?’ gasped Bundy, turning round a vacant, weather-beaten countenance adorned with the smallest fraction of a nose which it was possible for the face of man to possess.

‘I say, why don’t you make more haste when you have lost so much time already?’

‘I be making so much haste as ever I can,’ responded James, much aggrieved. ‘I be just a-comin’ to fetch the ile-can. ’T would n’t be no use to get to work without the ile-can.’

‘Why did n’t you think about the oil-can while Cross was harnessing the horses? ’t is nearly eight o’clock—you have lost half your morning’s work.’

Bundy looked up at the sky; then, still in an aggrieved manner, at his mistress.

‘We was all so upset,’ he was beginning, when she interrupted him fiercely:

‘Don’t let me hear another word about your being upset! If I can attend to my business, you can attend to yours, I should think. ’T is but an excuse for disgraceful laziness.’

‘We _was_ upset,’ asserted Bundy with much dignity, ‘and, as for bein’ behind, if it comes to that we can keep on workin’ a bit later this a’ternoon.’

‘You must certainly work later this afternoon; but how long will this fine weather last, think you? Besides, you know as well as I do that it is much better for the horses to work in the early morning. There! get started now, and try to make up for lost time.’

She returned to her breakfast, and James rejoined his companion at a slightly accelerated pace. But, by-and-by, her attention was caught by the sound of voices, apparently in placid conversation. Back to the window again flew she: the village carpenter, who was supposed to be repairing the yard-gate, had just arrived, and was leaning negligently against one of the posts, while Abel Hunt, Job’s brother, a large bucket of pig-food in either hand, was leisurely talking to him.

‘I will give them a few minutes,’ said Rosalie to herself. ‘After all, I must n’t be too hard on them.’

Once more she went back to the table, finished her egg, and drank her second cup of tea, the trickle of talk meanwhile continuing without ceasing.

Pushing back her chair, she returned to the window impatiently. The carpenter had remained in the same attitude, without even unfastening his bag of tools; Abel had set down his pails, and propped himself up against the other gate-post; the pigs were wildly protesting in the background.

Rosalie recrossed the room hastily and went to the door.

‘Do you intend to gossip here all day?’ she inquired with flashing eyes.

‘We was jest a-talkin’ about the melancolly event,’ explained the carpenter.

‘You will oblige me,’ said Rosalie, ‘by keeping to your work. Abel, take those pails across to the sties at once. Remember, I will have no more dawdling.’

Abel took up his pails, and the carpenter unfastened his tools, the expression of both faces alike shocked, wounded, and astonished.

‘If this goes on,’ murmured Rosalie to herself, ‘I shall not only break my heart, but go out of my mind. Oh, Elias, you were clever as well as kind—everything seemed to go by clock-work when you were here—oh, why did you leave me?’