Into the Highways and Hedges Part 18

His clothes hung on him as if they had been put on with a pitchfork, and his silky black beard straggled untidily over his old-fas.h.i.+oned flowered waistcoat.

His eyes were deep-set, blue, like his younger son's; but here the resemblance ended, for Mr. Thorpe was olive-complexioned, and his features were fine and clear cut. His was a more refined face than the preacher's. Evidently, Barnabas had inherited from his mother's side his fair skin and curly hair; also, probably, his incapacity for learning and his splendid health.

Tom Thorpe sat at the table with a pile of books in front of him; his shadow danced in the firelight, as if cruelly caricaturing the reality.

He was deformed, hunchbacked, and slightly crippled as well, one leg being oddly twisted inwards.

He had an odd face too, with a very big forehead, and rough jet black hair. He might have been taken for any age, having the sort of countenance that looks as if it had never been young, and yet is slow to grow old. In reality he was nearly forty.

His eyes were a greenish hazel, with curiously big pupils--very expressive eyes, that could be as soft as a woman's, though "softness"

was not Tom's ordinary characteristic.

The mouth showed signs of pain endured silently and frequently; the lines about it were deep, and the lips closed very tightly when he was not talking.

Seated at the other end of the table, engaged in eating her supper, which she did with a kind of injured air, as if every mouthful were pain and grief to her, was a prim middle-aged woman, with an appearance of fretful, would-be gentility.

When she had finished, she rose with a stifled sob and seemed about to clear away, but Tom jumped, or rather hopped up, shut his book with a bang of suppressed irritation, limped round the table with surprising celerity, and took the plates out of her hands.

"If you are sartain you don't want more, _I'll_ put 'em by," he said.

"I couldn't eat! not with you reading all the time, and Cousin Thorpe walking up and down like a wild beast in a cage," she murmured, with a quiver in her voice. "It takes all the heart out of one's meal!"

"But, my good soul, _you_ ain't obliged to read," said Tom, "and I'm sure you are welcome to be as many hours over your supper as you like.

If you've done, I'll put 'em off the table."

The corners of her mouth twitched downwards. "It never was cast up at me before that I take longer than is fitting over my food," she said; "but to see a person reading the whole of supper, with not a word to throw at one, and never caring what he's eating, no more than if it was dust and ashes, does break one's spirit; but if you think I consume more than I am ent.i.tled to, Tom, or if----"

"Look 'ee here!" cried Tom, "I never said nothing of the sort. Do you think I count your mouthfuls? If you dare hint such a thing again, I'll make you finish the ham before you go to bed." He caught it up by the bone as he spoke, and waved it aloft. Mrs. Tremnell looked terrified; she was always rather afraid of Tom, and could not have seen a joke to save her life. She retreated hastily from the combat to a far-off corner, where she produced a black silk workbag, and solaced her soul with tatting.

Tom put away the dishes, unwashed, with wonderful celerity, and buried himself again in his studies.

He rightly felt that if a woman were once allowed to have a hand in their extremely untidy domestic arrangements, she would never rest till she had revolutionised everything.

"Dad an' I'd be tidied out o' the kitchen before we knew where we were,"

he reflected; and poor Cousin Tremnell's desire after usefulness was vigorously snubbed whenever it durst show itself.

She sniffed over her work every now and then, and Tom glanced up irritably, yet with a suspicion of a smile at the corners of his lips.

He was just opening his mouth to speak, this time with overtures of peace, when there was a thundering knock at the outer door.

"Who ever can it be at this time of night?" cried Mrs. Tremnell. And Mr.

Thorpe paused in his restless walk.

"It's Barnabas!" cried Tom, his face lighting up. And he caught up his sticks, and was in the hall unbolting the ma.s.sive door before the others had recovered from their surprise.

They heard his joyful, "Why, lad, I thought it was you!" and then a smothered exclamation of surprise. And then Barnabas came in, bringing a whiff of icy air with him.

The moisture was hanging from his beard, and dripping from his hat, making little pools on the red bricks. But not even Mrs. Tremnell noticed that; both she and Mr. Thorpe were staring in utter astonishment at a third figure,--a slight pale woman, with hair cut short, and big sad eyes, who followed him into the room silently.

"Father, this is my wife," said Barnabas Thorpe. "I wrote you a letter about her, but I doubt you never got it. It's a dirty night, and she's a bit weary."

There was a moment's silence; then the old farmer drew himself up, and held out his hand to the stranger with a gentle dignity that would have done credit to the finest gentleman in the land.

"You are welcome, ma'am," he said. "Will you come to the fire and rest?

The storm's bad outside."

He demanded no explanation then. It was his house, and she his guest--on a night too when he wouldn't have shut out a dog,--that was enough for the present. All the rest could wait.

Cousin Tremnell burnt with curiosity; and so did the hunchback, who looked dismayed as well; but neither of them durst ask anything.

Cousin Tremnell, indeed, was too much "taken aback," as she would have expressed it, to move; but Tom hopped across the room with the kettle, and cast furtive glances at the woman who stood on the hearth slowly unwinding a heavy shawl, which she let fall at last in a heap at her feet. She was rather uncanny--like a spirit, or like one of the elves, with golden hair and no backs to them, who dance on the marsh to the destruction of the unwary, he thought.

At the second glance he revised that impression: his shrewd eyes told him that there was nothing of the temptress about this girl; she did not look bad; she had never inveigled any one; but, good Lord! what a queer wife to have! How tiny her hands were, and how still she stood; not blus.h.i.+ng, nor rolling her fingers in her ap.r.o.n, nor doing any of the things women generally do when they are nervous; but only looking gravely into the fire, and waiting patiently. He made the tea and cut thick slices of bread and ham, and then addressed himself directly to the stranger, being filled with great curiosity to hear her voice.

"Will 'ee sit down with us?" he said; and looked inquiringly at his brother, as though to ask whether this strange wife of his ate or drank like ordinary mortals.

Barnabas sat down with good appet.i.te; his wife took her place beside him, and Mr. Thorpe drew his chair to the table as a mark of respect to his unexpected guest: he had had his own supper long before.

Mrs. Tremnell brought her sewing up to the light, though she was too fl.u.s.tered to work; and Tom hopped round the table offering Barnabas'

wife everything he could think of.

On the whole, and considering the startling way in which Margaret had been introduced into their midst, it was wonderful how well the Thorpes behaved.

Meg's own father could not have shown finer courtesy than did the preacher's.

She ate her supper with outward composure, if with some inward tremor.

Meg had seen so many strange scenes, and found herself in so many strange places, since the day when she had shut the door for ever on the old life, that she was not now so completely overcome by the position as she might once have been.

The preacher was too indifferent to other people's opinions to suffer from embarra.s.sment; and, though deeply attached to his home, he had, for many a long year, held himself quite independent in the ordering of his life.

Meg noticed that he met his brother's eyes with the rea.s.suring glance that told of mutual understanding; but that he and his father had apparently little in common.

The old man's sharply chiselled and refined features, as well as his gentler accent, surprised her; and she looked up gratefully when he asked her about their journey.

"You clip your words like a Londoner," he remarked smiling; but he thought to himself that she was a pretty spoken la.s.s anyhow.

"I have always lived in London part of the year," said Meg. "We went out of town in July."

"Why?" asked Tom abruptly.

Meg looked confused, and silence fell on them.

"The upper circles vacate town at the close of the opera," said Cousin Tremnell. She was privately wondering whether the stranger had been in service, and rather hoped she had. She herself, driven by stress of circ.u.mstances, had been maid in a very "good family" for some months.

She knew that the Thorpes looked down on her for it; and, while she felt herself their superior in gentility and manners, she was yet not strong-minded enough for her self-respect to be unruffled by their opinion.

"We've naught to do wi' upper circles, and doan't want to have," said Tom. "I'm going to see about your room. Will 'ee come, lad?"

He limped off with marvellous quickness.