been enough.
T HEO PLUCKED at the roadside hedge as he walked home from church, crushing its leaves and throwing them away. Someone would have a devil of a time cleaning his gloves. Perhaps he would ruin them altogether. The prospect left him strangely unmoved.
He sighed aloud and scattered a handful of broken leaves. She’d robbed him of the one thing he did well, the widow had. That was the worst of it. He could laugh off his own ineptitude in those pursuits for which he cared nothing, as long as he could count himself a virtuoso in more important matters. But how was he to think of himself, faced every day with the way she shrank from his practiced touch? If he wasn’t a man who knew how to please women, then what was he at all?
The rumble of cart wheels came up behind him: he stepped closer to the hedge and lifted his hat as some farm family drove past, festive in their Sunday best and animated as though they were bound for a pleasure-party instead of just come from a sermon about a farmer struck dead while celebrating his bountiful harvest. The man and several of the boys raised their hats in return. One girl waved, and ducked her head shyly when he waved back.
Such charming looking people. Why couldn’t their sort live on his land, instead of the sullen Weavers? But some of the laborer families had seemed congenial enough, and perhaps even the Weavers improved on acquaintance. He ought to give them that chance. He might expend a little energy on duty today, and see where it took him. If he met with more disaster in the afternoon’s appointment with Mrs. Russell, he could at least have some sense of effectuality in other areas.
The plan coalesced as he finished his walk home. Call on the laborers and pay them attentions, the widow had said, and this much he could certainly manage with competence. He set the cook to wrapping up some parcels of beef and tea and even a few lumps of sugar while he went about the house gathering up other odds and ends. A sense of benevolent purpose swept through him, bringing his first real relief from that debacle of yesterday afternoon. He would win these people over with his gentlemanly condescension, and reports of it would surely reach Granville’s ears and help his greater cause.
An hour later he climbed the rise to the Weaver cottage with a slowing step. The calls had not gone precisely as he’d envisioned. He’d made a beginning, to be sure. No one could doubt the pleasure and surprise with which each humble housewife had received his parceled gifts. But neither could anyone miss the lingering distrust that met his visit. The husbands were all away at work—he ought to have anticipated this, by the absence of these families from church—and the wives answered his polite remarks and queries with uneasy monosyllables, for the most part.
Well, one more stop would finish his tribute to duty, for better or worse. He pushed the gate open and went in.
Even from this distance the baby’s cries were audible, making no great incentive to approach the house. The eldest daughter stood at one side of the yard, emptying a pail into the pig’s trough. She glanced up as he latched the gate, and dropped her eyes again before he had time to tip his hat. Poor thing. She must have come to expect neither courtesy nor any notice at all from such callers as the family did have.
He crossed to that side of the yard and took off his hat. “Good day,” he said.
The girl curtseyed silently, never raising her eyes from the pig, who applied itself to the trough with fierce purpose.
“How do you do?” He replaced his hat. Perhaps she was a mute?
“Well, thank you.” She spoke without expression, as though it were a practiced response, and still her head was inclined swineward.
So he considered the animal too. “How is your pig?” he asked after a moment.
Here was a question for which the girl hadn’t any rote answer. She pursed her mouth, concentrating. “She’s wicked,” came
T HEO PLUCKED at the roadside hedge as he walked home from church, crushing its leaves and throwing them away. Someone would have a devil of a time cleaning his gloves. Perhaps he would ruin them altogether. The prospect left him strangely unmoved.
He sighed aloud and scattered a handful of broken leaves. She’d robbed him of the one thing he did well, the widow had. That was the worst of it. He could laugh off his own ineptitude in those pursuits for which he cared nothing, as long as he could count himself a virtuoso in more important matters. But how was he to think of himself, faced every day with the way she shrank from his practiced touch? If he wasn’t a man who knew how to please women, then what was he at all?
The rumble of cart wheels came up behind him: he stepped closer to the hedge and lifted his hat as some farm family drove past, festive in their Sunday best and animated as though they were bound for a pleasure-party instead of just come from a sermon about a farmer struck dead while celebrating his bountiful harvest. The man and several of the boys raised their hats in return. One girl waved, and ducked her head shyly when he waved back.
Such charming looking people. Why couldn’t their sort live on his land, instead of the sullen Weavers? But some of the laborer families had seemed congenial enough, and perhaps even the Weavers improved on acquaintance. He ought to give them that chance. He might expend a little energy on duty today, and see where it took him. If he met with more disaster in the afternoon’s appointment with Mrs. Russell, he could at least have some sense of effectuality in other areas.
The plan coalesced as he finished his walk home. Call on the laborers and pay them attentions, the widow had said, and this much he could certainly manage with competence. He set the cook to wrapping up some parcels of beef and tea and even a few lumps of sugar while he went about the house gathering up other odds and ends. A sense of benevolent purpose swept through him, bringing his first real relief from that debacle of yesterday afternoon. He would win these people over with his gentlemanly condescension, and reports of it would surely reach Granville’s ears and help his greater cause.
An hour later he climbed the rise to the Weaver cottage with a slowing step. The calls had not gone precisely as he’d envisioned. He’d made a beginning, to be sure. No one could doubt the pleasure and surprise with which each humble housewife had received his parceled gifts. But neither could anyone miss the lingering distrust that met his visit. The husbands were all away at work—he ought to have anticipated this, by the absence of these families from church—and the wives answered his polite remarks and queries with uneasy monosyllables, for the most part.
Well, one more stop would finish his tribute to duty, for better or worse. He pushed the gate open and went in.
Even from this distance the baby’s cries were audible, making no great incentive to approach the house. The eldest daughter stood at one side of the yard, emptying a pail into the pig’s trough. She glanced up as he latched the gate, and dropped her eyes again before he had time to tip his hat. Poor thing. She must have come to expect neither courtesy nor any notice at all from such callers as the family did have.
He crossed to that side of the yard and took off his hat. “Good day,” he said.
The girl curtseyed silently, never raising her eyes from the pig, who applied itself to the trough with fierce purpose.
“How do you do?” He replaced his hat. Perhaps she was a mute?
“Well, thank you.” She spoke without expression, as though it were a practiced response, and still her head was inclined swineward.
So he considered the animal too. “How is your pig?” he asked after a moment.
Here was a question for which the girl hadn’t any rote answer. She pursed her mouth, concentrating. “She’s wicked,” came
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