Stanley Weyman - Starvecrow Farm

"I know no lad you have but me," he said.

"I don't know one," she answered, seating herself on the settle, and bending forward with her elbows on her knees and her face between her hands. It was a common pose with her. "When I've a lad I want a man!" she continued-"a man!"

"Don't you call me a man?" he answered, his eyes taking their fill of her face.

"Of a sort." she rejoined disdainfully. "Of a sort. Good enough for here. But I shan't live all my life here! D'you ever think what a God-forsaken corner this is, Tyson? Why, man, we are like mice in a dark cupboard, and know as much of the world!"

"What's the world to us?" he asked. Her words and her ways were often a little beyond him.

"That's it!" she answered, in a tone of contemptuous raillery. "What's the world to us? We are here and not there. We must curtsey to parson and bob to curate, and mind our manners with the overseers! We must be proud if Madam inquires after our conduct, but we must not fancy that we are the same flesh and blood as she is! Ah, when I meet her," with sudden passion, "and she looks at me to see if I am clean, I-do you know what I think of? Do you know what I dream of? Do you know what I hope" – she snapped her strong white teeth together-"ay, hope to see?"

"What?"

"What they saw twenty years ago in France-her white neck under the knife! That was what happened to her and her like there, I am told, and I wish it could happen here! And I'd knit, as girls knitted there, and counted the heads that fell into the baskets! When that time comes Madam won't look to see if I am clean!"

He looked at her uncomfortably. He did not understand her.

"How the devil do you come to know these things?" he exclaimed. It was not the first time she had opened to him in this strain-not the first by several. And the sharp edge was gone from his astonishment. But she was not the less a riddle to him and a perplexity-a Sphinx, at once alluring and terrifying. "Who told you of them? What makes you think of them?" he repeated.

"Do you never think of them?" she retorted, leaning forward and fixing her eyes on his. "Do you never wonder why all the good things are for a few, and for the rest-a crust? Why the rector dines at the squire's table and you dine in the steward's room? Why the parson gives you a finger and thinks he stoops, and his ladies treat you as if you were dirt-only the apothecary? Why you are in one class and they in another till the end of time?"

"D-n them!" he muttered, his face a dull red. She knew how to touch him on the raw.

"Do you never think of those things?" she asked.

"Well," he said, taking her up sullenly, "if I do?"

She rocked herself back on the settle and looked across at him out of half-closed eyes.

"Then-if you do think," she answered slowly, "it is to be seen if you are a man."

"A man?"

"Ay, a man! A man! For if you think of these things, if you stand face to face with them, and do nothing, you are no man! And no lad for me!" lightly. "You are well matched as it is then. Just a match and no more for your white-faced, helpless dumpling of a wife!"

"It is all very well," he muttered, "to talk!"

"Ay, but presently we shall do as well as talk! Out in the world they are doing now! They are beginning to do. But here-what do you know in this cupboard? No more than the mice."

"Fine talk!" he retorted, stung by her contempt. "But you talk without knowing. There have been parsons and squires from the beginning, and there will be parsons and squires to the end. You may talk until you are black in the face, Bess, but you won't alter that!"

"Ay, talk!" she retorted drily. "You may talk. But if you do-as they did in France twenty years gone. Where are their squires and parsons now? The end came quick enough there, when it came."

"I don't know much about that," he growled.

"Ay, but I do."

"But how the devil do you?" he answered, in some irritation, but more wonder. "How do you?" And he looked round the bare, sordid kitchen. The fire, shooting warm tongues up the black cavernous chimney, made the one spot of comfort that was visible.

"Never you mind!" she answered, with a mysterious and tantalising smile. "I do. And by-and-by, if we've the spirit of a mouse, things will happen here! Down yonder-I see it all-there are thousands and tens of thousands starving. And stacks burning. And mobs marching, and men drilling, and more things happening than you dream of! And all that means that by-and-by I shall be knitting while Madam and Miss and that proud-faced, slim-necked chit at the inn, who faced us all down to-day-"

"Why," he struck in, in fresh surprise, "what has she done to you now?"

"That's my business, never you mind! Only, by-and-by, they will all smile on the wrong side of their face!"

He stared morosely into the fire. And she watched him, her long lashes veiling a sly and impish amusement. If he dreamed that she loved him, if he fancied her a victim of his bow and spear, he strangely, most strangely, misread her. And a sudden turn, a single quick glance should have informed him. For as the flames by turns lit her face and left it to darkness, they wrought it to many expressions; but never to kindness.

"There's many I'd like to see brought down a piece," he muttered at last. "Many, many. And I'm as fond of my share of good things as most. But it's all talk, there's nought to be done! Nor ever will be! There have been parsons and squires from the beginning."

"Would you do it," she asked softly, "if there were anything to be done?"

"Try me."

"I doubt it. And that's why you are no lad for me."

He rose to his feet in a temper at that. He turned his back on the fire.

"What's the use of getting on this every time!" he cried. And he took up his hat. "I'm weary of it. I'm off. I don't know that I shall come back again. What's the use?" with a side-long glance at her dark, handsome face and curving figure which the firelight threw into prominence.

"If there were anything to do," she asked, as if he had never spoken, never answered the question, "would you do it?" And she smiled at him, her head thrown back, her red lips parted, her eyes tempting.

"You know I would if-" He paused.

"There were some one to be won by it?"

He nodded, his eyes kindling.

"Well-"

No more. For as she spoke the word, and he bent forward, something heavy fell on the floor overhead; and she sat up straight. Her eyes, grown suddenly hard and small-perhaps with fright-held Tyson's eyes.

"What's that?" he cried, frowning suspiciously. "There's nobody upstairs?"

"Father's in bed," she said. She held up a finger for silence.

"And there's nobody else in the house?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Who should there be?" she said. "It's the cat, I suppose."

"You'd better let me see," he rejoined. And he took a step towards the staircase door.

"No need," she answered listlessly, after listening anew. "I'm not afraid. The cat is not here; it must have been the cat. I'll go up when you are gone, and see."

"It's not safe," he grumbled, still inclined to go. "You two alone here, and the old man said to be as rich as a lord!"

"Ay, said to be," she answered, smiling "As you said you were going ten minutes ago, and you are not gone yet. But-" she rose with a yawn, partly real and partly forced, "you must go now, my lad."

"But why?" he answered. "When we were just beginning to understand one another."

"Why?" she answered pertly. "Because father wants to sleep. Because your wife will scratch my eyes out if you don't. Because I am not going to say another word to-night-whatever I may say to-morrow. And because-it's my will, my lad. That's all."

He muttered his discontent, swinging his hat in his hand, and making eyes at her. But she kept him at arm's length, and after a moment's argument she drove him to the door.