The anxieties of the Lady Mallorings of this life concerning the moral
welfare of their humbler neighbors are inclined to march in front of
events. The behavior in Tryst's cottage was more correct than it would
have been in nine out of ten middle or upper class demesnes under
similar conditions. Between the big laborer and 'that woman,' who,
since the epileptic fit, had again come into residence, there had passed
nothing whatever that might not have been witnessed by Biddy and her two
nurslings. For love is an emotion singularly dumb and undemonstrative
in those who live the life of the fields; passion a feeling severely
beneath the thumb of a propriety born of the age-long absence of
excitants, opportunities, and the aesthetic sense; and those two waited,
almost as a matter of course, for the marriage which was forbidden them
in this parish. The most they did was to sit and look at one another.
On the day of which Felix had seen the dawn at Hampstead, Sir Gerald's
agent tapped on the door of Tryst's cottage, and was answered by Biddy,
just in from school for the midday meal.
“Your father home, my dear?”
“No, sir; Auntie's in.”
“Ask your auntie to come and speak to me.”
The mother-child vanished up the narrow stairs, and the agent sighed. A
strong-built, leathery-skinned man in a brown suit and leggings, with a
bristly little moustache and yellow whites to his eyes, he did not, as
he had said to his wife that morning, 'like the job a little bit.' And
while he stood there waiting, Susie and Billy emerged from the kitchen
and came to stare at him. The agent returned that stare till a voice
behind him said: “Yes, sir?”
'That woman' was certainly no great shakes to look at: a fresh, decent,
faithful sort of body! And he said gruffly: “Mornin', miss. Sorry to say
my orders are to make a clearance here. I suppose Tryst didn't think
we should act on it, but I'm afraid I've got to put his things out, you
know. Now, where are you all going; that's the point?”
“I shall go home, I suppose; but Tryst and the children—we don't know.”
The agent tapped his leggings with a riding-cane. “So you've been
expecting it!” he said with relief. “That's right.” And, staring down
at the mother-child, he added: “Well, what d'you say, my dear; you look
full of sense, you do!”
Biddy answered: “I'll go and tell Mr. Freeland, sir.”
“Ah! You're a bright maid. He'll know where to put you for the time
bein'. Have you had your dinner?”
“No, sir; it's just ready.”
“Better have it—better have it first. No hurry. What've you got in the
pot that smells so good?”
“Bubble and squeak, sir.”
“Bubble and squeak! Ah!” And with those words the agent withdrew to
where, in a farm wagon drawn up by the side of the road, three men were
solemnly pulling at their pipes. He moved away from them a little, for,
as he expressed it to his wife afterward: “Look bad, you know, look
bad—anybody seeing me! Those three little children—that's where it is!
If our friends at the Hall had to do these jobs for themselves, there
wouldn't be any to do!”
Presently, from his discreet distance, he saw the mother-child going
down the road toward Tod's, in her blue 'pinny' and corn-colored hair.
Nice little thing! Pretty little thing, too! Pity, great pity! And he
went back to the cottage. On his way a thought struck him so that he
well-nigh shivered. Suppose the little thing brought back that Mrs.
Freeland, the lady who always went about in blue, without a hat! Phew!
Mr. Freeland—he was another sort; a bit off, certainly—harmless, quite
harmless! But that lady! And he entered the cottage. The woman was
washing up; seemed a sensible body. When the two kids cleared off to
school he could go to work and get it over; the sooner the better,
before people came hanging round. A job of this kind sometimes made
nasty blood! His yellowish eyes took in the nature of the task before
him. Funny jam-up they did get about them, to be sure! Every blessed
little thing they'd ever bought, and more, too! Have to take precious
good care nothing got smashed, or the law would be on the other leg! And
he said to the woman:
“Now, miss, can I begin?”
“I can't stop you, sir.”
'No,' he thought, 'you can't stop me, and I blamed well wish you could!'
But he said: “Got an old wagon out here. Thought I'd save him damage by
weather or anything; we'll put everything in that, and run it up into
the empty barn at Marrow and leave it. And there they'll be for him when
he wants 'em.”
The woman answered: “You're very kind, I'm sure.”
Perceiving that she meant no irony, the agent produced a sound from
somewhere deep and went out to summon his men.
With the best intentions, however, it is not possible, even in villages
so scattered that they cannot be said to exist, to do anything without
every one's knowing; and the work of 'putting out' the household goods
of the Tryst family, and placing them within the wagon, was not an hour
in progress before the road in front of the cottage contained its knot
of watchers. Old Gaunt first, alone—for the rogue-girl had gone to Mr.
Cuthcott's and Tom Gaunt was at work. The old man had seen evictions
in his time, and looked on silently, with a faint, sardonic grin. Four
children, so small that not even school had any use for them as yet,
soon gathered round his legs, followed by mothers coming to retrieve
them, and there was no longer silence. Then came two laborers, on their
way to a job, a stone-breaker, and two more women. It was through
this little throng that the mother-child and Kirsteen passed into the
fast-being-gutted cottage.
The agent was standing by Tryst's bed, keeping up a stream of comment
to two of his men, who were taking that aged bed to pieces. It was his
habit to feel less when he talked more; but no one could have fallen
into a more perfect taciturnity than he when he saw Kirsteen coming up
those narrow stairs. In so small a space as this room, where his head
nearly touched the ceiling, was it fair to be confronted by that lady—he
put it to his wife that same evening—“Was it fair?” He had seen a mother
wild duck look like that when you took away its young—snaky fierce about
the neck, and its dark eye! He had seen a mare, going to bite, look not
half so vicious! “There she stood, and—let me have it?—not a bit! Too
much the lady for that, you know!—Just looked at me, and said very
quiet: 'Ah! Mr. Simmons, and are you really doing this?' and put her
hand on that little girl of his. 'Orders are orders, ma'am!' What could
I say? 'Ah!' she said, 'yes, orders are orders, but they needn't be
obeyed.' 'As to that, ma'am,' I said—mind you, she's a lady; you can't
help feeling that 'I'm a working man, the same as Tryst here; got
to earn my living.' 'So have slave-drivers, Mr. Simmons.' 'Every
profession,' I said, 'has got its dirty jobs, ma'am. And that's a fact.'
'And will have,' she said, 'so long as professional men consent to do
the dirty work of their employers.' 'And where should I be, I should
like to know,' I said, 'if I went on that lay? I've got to take the
rough with the smooth.' 'Well,' she said, 'Mr. Freeland and I will take
Tryst and the little ones in at present.' Good-hearted people, do a lot
for the laborers, in their way. All the same, she's a bit of a vixen.
Picture of a woman, too, standin' there; shows blood, mind you! Once
said, all over—no nagging. She took the little girl off with her. And
pretty small I felt, knowing I'd got to finish that job, and the folk
outside gettin' nastier all the time—not sayin' much, of course, but
lookin' a lot!” The agent paused in his recital and gazed fixedly at
a bluebottle crawling up the windowpane. Stretching out his thumb and
finger, he nipped it suddenly and threw it in the grate. “Blest if that
fellow himself didn't turn up just as I was finishing. I was sorry for
the man, you know. There was his home turned out-o'-doors. Big man, too!
'You blanky-blank!' he says; 'if I'd been here you shouldn't ha' done
this!' Thought he was goin' to hit me. 'Come, Tryst!' I said, 'it's not
my doing, you know!' 'Ah!' he said, 'I know that; and it'll be blanky
well the worse for THEM!' Rough tongue; no class of man at all, he is!
'Yes,' he said, 'let 'em look out; I'll be even with 'em yet!' 'None o'
that!' I told him; 'you know which side the law's buttered. I'm making
it easy for you, too, keeping your things in the wagon, ready to shift
any time!' He gave me a look—he's got very queer eyes, swimmin', sad
sort of eyes, like a man in liquor—and he said: 'I've been here twenty
years,' he said. 'My wife died here.' And all of a sudden he went as
dumb as a fish. Never let his eyes off us, though, while we finished up
the last of it; made me feel funny, seein' him glowering like that all
the time. He'll savage something over this, you mark my words!” Again
the agent paused, and remained as though transfixed, holding that face
of his, whose yellow had run into the whites of the eyes, as still
as wood. “He's got some feeling for the place, I suppose,” he said
suddenly; “or maybe they've put it into him about his rights; there's
plenty of 'em like that. Well, anyhow, nobody likes his private affairs
turned inside out for every one to gape at. I wouldn't myself.” And with
that deeply felt remark the agent put out his leathery-yellow thumb and
finger and nipped a second bluebottle....
While the agent was thus recounting to his wife the day's doings, the
evicted Tryst sat on the end of his bed in a ground-floor room of Tod's
cottage. He had taken off his heavy boots, and his feet, in their thick,
soiled socks, were thrust into a pair of Tod's carpet slippers. He sat
without moving, precisely as if some one had struck him a blow in the
centre of the forehead, and over and over again he turned the heavy
thought: 'They've turned me out o' there—I done nothing, and they turned
me out o' there! Blast them—they turned me out o' there!'...
In the orchard Tod sat with a grave and puzzled face, surrounded by
the three little Trysts. And at the wicket gate Kirsteen, awaiting
the arrival of Derek and Sheila—summoned home by telegram—stood in the
evening glow, her blue-clad figure still as that of any worshipper at
the muezzin-call.