Free The Stepson by Martin Armstrong Page A

that this strong young woman should live in luxury and idleness, an exquisite treasure whose sole use must be to please her husband and herself.
    â€˜Why should you work, my dear?’ he asked her. ‘Haven’t you worked enough during the last ten years?’
    â€˜I have,’ replied Kate. ‘I’ve worked too much. But now I’m working too little. I’ve found out lately that idleness is not happiness; not for me, anyhow. You see, I’m the kind that must have something to do. Besides, here there’s something to work for. At home it seemed as if I had nothing that was worth the labour: that was what made the work too much. I could do the same amount of work here and it wouldn’t be too much; in fact, I should be the happier for it.’
    â€˜Yes, I can see that,’ said Ben. ‘There’s sense in that. I couldn’t do without work myself. Only I had a fancy that you should have a life of peace and quietness here.’
    Kate shook her head, smiling. ‘It doesn’t suit me. I’m not that sort. Perhaps when I’m an old woman …’
    â€˜When you’re an old woman, my girl, I shan’t be here. I shall be safely tucked away into Appleton churchyard and you’ll be free to do what you like. And so you are now, for the matter of that. If you’re not happy without work, work you must have. All I want is for you to please yourself.’
    And so Kate worked; and again the weeks went by. March came in with two days of bland sunshine, bringing a delicious foretaste of spring, and Kate, moving about the old house and the farmyard, occupied with her share of the day-long labour, had found a new happiness in the contentment of work done and work to do. Yes, she told herself, she was content. Yet sometimes, when she sat for a moment alone in the parlour, or in the dark hours of midnight or early morning when she lay in the room upstairs under the red canopy by the side of the sleeping Ben, an almost forgotten sadness stirred in her heart, as if some hidden self, whose small voice was unheard when the daytime self was active, were weeping over a deeply buried sorrow. Then Kate, comparing her full, contented life with the old bleak life at Penridge, told herself that this small voice was the voice that cries for the moon, that complains quietly and stubbornly in every human heart because the impossible is not the possible and earthly life is notthe life of paradise. And yet, though she told herself as much, Kate did not attempt to silence this voice that made itself heard in her moments of loneliness. No; she indulged it, listening in a kind of rapture to its regrets and lamentations and hopeless desires. But such moments of withdrawal into the depths of her being were moments secret and apart: they did not intrude upon the active part of her life.
    The days lengthened; the year moved on towards Easter; and one day when Kate was in the dairy, helping Mrs. Jobson to churn, a figure darkened the window-pane behind them.
    It was Ben. In his hand he carried a sheet of paper.
    â€˜A letter from the lad,’ he said, putting his head in through the open window. ‘He’ll be coming on Thursday, he says – over Easter. Ah, you’ll like David, Kate, I’ll be bound. Won’t she, Mrs. J.?’
    Mrs. Jobson’s face expanded into a smile of indulgent ecstasy.
    â€˜Well,’ she said, ‘Mrs. Humphrey’ll be hard to please if she doesn’t.’

VII
    Two days later, being market-day, Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey drove in their gig into Elchester. Kate loved these visits to town. The drive there and back and the hours spent in the crowded, bustling streets refreshed and exhilarated her. To visit the shops, spending money freely on all that was needed in the house, was a thrilling adventure to her who, before her marriage, had had to pinch and squeeze and reckon every penny that was spent. It was an adventure, too, to feel, as