THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER
THE next day Farmer Robson’s daughter was seated at her work, when the
sound of footsteps announced a visitor; and, as she rose to meet the
disturber of her solitude, the door opened, and Annie Salter entered
the room. Her appearance was not at all expected there; for Annie was
not often a visitor at the Farm.
And perhaps it might also be correct to say that her appearance at that
moment was not at all desired, since Alice had come upstairs when her
noontide meal was done with the intention of allowing herself a quiet
afternoon. On her little bed in the corner there lay in heaps a variety
of garments in much need of repair, for it had been her intention, as
an industrious daughter of the house, to accomplish the family mending
in these hours of loneliness. She was an exquisite needlewoman, and the
prospect of stitching did not alarm her--already she had taken up a
pair of socks, and with needle and cotton in hand was ready to begin.
When Annie entered she remained standing where she had risen, with her
left hand deep in the sock and her needle in the right.
She entered the room where this image of neatness stood--poor,
passionate Annie, with her dark eyes dull and tired, her pouting lips
pale with sickness or weariness, and the straying hairs bright and
rough beneath her hat. She was neat, indeed--Jenny’s child could not be
otherwise--but not with the conscious neatness of the farmer’s
daughter, and at that moment she looked tremulous and ill, unwilling to
talk and only fit for rest. Without saying a word or holding out her
hand, she sat down in the chair Alice silently offered; and almost
unconsciously put out her hand, and took up a sock from the heap upon
the bed. The action might have been called mechanical, but it raised
her at once in the opinion of her companion.
‘Would you like to work?’ Alice asked, hospitably; ‘I’ve needles,
cotton and thimble, everything; I can put the big basket between us on
a chair, and then we can take from it what we want. Only don’t be
troubled, as if you must be helping me, ’cause I’ve plenty of time to
get through all to-day.’
‘I ’ud like to work,’ Annie answered, not unreadily, as she took off
her hat and laid it on the bed; ‘I’m always accustomed to sit an’ work
at home, whenever there’s any spare time of any sort. It doesn’t seem
natural to sit with idle hands, and I don’t like it ... it gives one
time to think ...’
The deep sigh with which she broke off did not escape her companion,
and Alice looked up anxiously. Annie did not resent the glance, she
appeared to welcome it; at that moment she must have felt in need of
sympathy.
‘Mother an’ me’s had words,’ she murmured, half-reluctantly, as if in
answer to her companion’s eyes; her industrious fingers occupied all
the while with the sock that she had taken in her hand. ‘Mother is so
foolish, she will not understand that there’s some things about which
one cannot talk; she wishes me to behave as if I was a child, an’ I
know I shall never be a child again.’
The words had a pathetic sound, perhaps because of the pathos of the
dark eyes she raised--a glance almost childish in its simplicity, and
yet, at the same time, too suggestive of womanhood. At that moment it
was not possible to look at her without some intuition of danger; and
‘farmer’s Alice,’ in spite of her precision, had enough clearness of
sight to be forewarned. It may be that an anxiety lurking at her own
heart made her more able than usual to feel for another woman’s trial;
for, in spite of her resolves--and she could be resolute--she had been
herself more or less troubled all the day. The sound of that trouble
could be heard in her voice, an undertone beneath its quietness.
‘We can’t expect things to be always right,’ she said; ‘there’s worries
upon t’ best o’ days--there’s the colt in the garden, or else there’s
father ill, or t’ boys steal the fruit, an’ we can’t find who they be.
Mr Bender, he says we all on us have trials; an’ I’m sure it’s true,
so I suppose it must be so.’
The tremor in her voice had more effect on her companion than the
indisputable wisdom of her words; Annie vaguely realised, unconscious
that she did so, a sensation that she was receiving sympathy. That
loosed the restraint that held her heart in bands, and the wish to
speak became irresistible. Her companion listened and worked, and felt
troubled and confused, as one before waters too deep for her to sound.
‘Alice, have you seen t’ Thackbusk when it’s late at night,’ cried
Annie, ‘when t’ mist have risen so as you can’t see t’ moon? you can’t
think how strange it looks and big an’ solemn, t’ great flat fields,
an’ t’ willows in the dusk. I mind me of a night about a year ago when
I ran out there because mother scolded me, an’ I got frighted with the
great mists all round me, an’ all the grass white and strange wi’ moon
an’ mist. An’ now I keep feeling as if I was there again, an’ all t’
mist round me, an’ keepin’ me from home, an’ I keep wantin’ t’ light in
mother’s window, an’ it’s not there, an’ I can’t get back to it. I
don’t know what to do with t’ feeling, that I don’t--it a’most makes me
cry--and I can’t get free from it.’
She put up her hand to shield her eyes for an instant, and then went on
quietly with her work, though not before a sudden catching of her
breath had told of trouble as plainly as her words. Her companion was
in no haste to break the silence, and some minutes passed without
a word from either. Outside the window the pigeons gleamed and
fluttered, and clouds and blue sky looked down upon the yard.
‘Annie,’ said Alice softly, ‘won’t you come with me, an’ hear Mr Bender
speak in Harmenton--he’s going to hold a class-meetin’ there to-day,
for the sake o’ them as can’t get over to the town? I didn’t think of
going, not to-day, but I’d be glad enough if you’d like to come with
me.’
If her voice trembled now it was from shyness, and a little pink colour
gave some warmth to her cheek, for she was not accustomed to speak to
those around her of the religious exercises in which she indulged
herself. Some time ago, Alice had chosen, as the church-people in the
village sarcastically observed, to give her parents ‘more trouble nor
she was worth by taking up with them Dissenters in the town’--and they
had added that ‘her parents they were too soft with her, they should
ha’ let her know their mind, that they should.’ At the same time the
village Dissenters, who were numerous, were not on their part disposed
to be pleased with her, they said that ‘she held her nose a deal too
high, she ’ud have to come down afore her life was done.’ This was hard
upon Alice, who at the desire of her parents had abstained from
attending the red chapel at the bottom of the hill--though it must be
owned that her obedience was the easier because she preferred the
Wesleyan place of worship in the town. A young heart has a natural
instinct for the place where its religion was first stirred into life,
a yearning like that which makes us turn back again to visit the scenes
where our childhood played. Poor Alice, although confirmed, was
entirely ignorant of the history, the claims, the pretensions of the
Church; she was only aware of the help that touched her life as the
wounded man of the hand of the Samaritan. And certainly since that time
her life had found new happiness, a transfiguration of duty which made
all things sublime.
Into the innermost sanctuary of her religious life we can have no
desire and have no right to pry, but the outward manifestation of such
feeling is a common ground upon which all feet may tread. To complete
then the sketch of this dissenting maiden we may add that her sense of
duty, at all times clear and keen, was of that nature which loves the
harmony of perpetual details, small and numberless. Alice had her
little laws with regard to all things that she did, the making of a
pie-crust or the wearing of a gown--and this habit, almost unconscious
before the time of her conversion, she recognised now as the principle
of her life. A disposition by nature opposed to morbidness saved her
from dangers that might have been possible; although it must be owned
at the same time that these endless regulations were not always
convenient to others in the house. A life thus self-governed is mostly
solitary, but Alice had not the warmth that desires companionship; with
a truth and sincerity of nature that rendered her capable of friendship
she generally preferred to go on her way alone. She was thin, slender,
and quiet (to conclude her description with her portrait), and usually
dressed in some dark, sober gown; without being pretty she was not
inharmonious, and it was this sensation which satisfied those near her.
The villagers said that ‘t’ girl was well eno’, an’ a good girl too who
’ud do her duty well, but if you wanted a face as lads ’ud like there
was Thackbusk Annie was worth ten on her.’ There were a few lads,
however, as it seemed, who had found the daughter of the farmer fair
enough.
And now these two rivals, for once in unison, were close together in
Alice’s little room, whilst without pigeons fluttered, and the yard-boy
came and went, and the light of a sober noon-tide shone on the yard.
The girls were silent, but both were deeply moved, each indeed more
thrilled than she would have dared to say--Annie with a delirious sense
of pressing danger; Alice with a secret anxiety that affected her like
shame. Oh! why should she mind if Nat came to see Miss Gillan, and had
been engaged to do joining work for her?.... the Gillans they were a
bad lot, that they were; but it wasn’t the place o’ the boy to think o’
that. She should not mind--but it was not easy to forget that low
in her heart there stirred a secret pain, a fear for one who had been
an old companion, and who was yielding now to other influence than
hers. For Alice had played with Nat when they were children, had
reproved him for errors and tempers even then; and, although actually
by a few weeks his junior, had not tried to restrain a mother’s love
for him. A woman loves the position of a guardian; and such anxiety
tends to tenderness.
‘Alice, I’ll go with thee,’ cried Annie suddenly, remembering at length
that she had not answered; ‘I’ll hear Mr Bender, an’ all he says, it
may be he’ll be able to tell me what to do. I know I’m not good, an’ I
haven’t been religious; an’ when I’m angry then I forget everything;
but we’ll go to-day an’ we’ll hear all he says--whatever happens
that’ll do no harm to us.’ And, moved by a common impulse, the two
girls rose and put their work away. They would go together, and learn
to be good; whatever happened that would do no harm to them.