Twice before have we seen
her on that errand--when she first was love-stricken for Miss Le Pettit
in the farmhouse parlour, and again when on her search for work she saw
the querulous young Mrs. Lear in the dim kitchen. Since then she had
gone monotonously enough on her errand, avoiding speech even with the
elder Mrs. Lear as much as possible, and seeing Primrose not at all--an
easy matter, since the girl kept her room, or lay on the horsehair sofa,
languidly stitching woollen roses on a handscreen, for all the world
like the spoilt bride of some great gentleman.
There seemed never any violence of thought or emotion at Upper Farm,
even the sulks of Primrose were petty in nature, her jealousies made her
voice shrill but did not take her by the throat with that intolerable
aching stormier women know too well, while her graceless husband was
irritated on the surface of his mind as some shallow pool is fretted
over its bed of soft ooze, retaining no trace when the ripples have
died. The elder Lear, as befits a good countryman content with his
station in life, was too hard-worked for anything save a tired back on
his entry at night, and the old wife too occupied with her Martha-like
toil for searching into the sensibilities either of herself or of her
daughter-in-law.
Loveday, without reasoning on the matter, had yet ever been aware
that this slight tide of feeling was all that ever lapped against the
household at Upper Farm, therefore when she saw one magpie in the last
field before the yard gate she accepted the sign for her own despairing
heart alone.
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