Cunning Murrell by Arthur Morrison

Author:Arthur Morrison [Morrison, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2015-01-12T23:00:00+00:00

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XIV. — AN INVITATION OVER A FENCE

IT was natural that Dorrily Thorn should do what was possible to withdraw her aunt from the notice of the neighbours, in the circumstances wherein she stood—and, indeed, in a smaller measure, to withdraw herself Jarge Crick’s fantasies had not only grown by his own embellishments and expansions, but by the repetition and imagination employed in carrying them through the district; and soon there was not a household in all Rochford Hundred that had not the news of the horrid bedevilment of Castle Hill on the night when Abel Pennyfather’s cow went astray, and scarce half a dozen that had the same tale, except in so far as all agreed that Mrs Martin made a leading figure in it. More, Em Banham was “took comical” again, and was growing worse. The shock of the explosion and the excitement of fair day had expended their influence, and now, in the dull round of daily muddle that was all her life, she was relapsing into the state of “all-overs” that Cunning Murrell’s art had proved to have been the demoniac work of Mrs Martin. The consequent demeanour of the villagers was unpleasant. There was something peculiarly insufferable in the laboured civility of the most of them, something more hopeless and repellent altogether than the mere persecution of daring hobbledehoys who cried “Witch!” and flung clods. When a woman changed her course, so as to pass to the right, offered her “Good morning” with a visible anxiety to get it out before the other could speak (a needful precaution with all witches), and went off out of sight as quickly as might be, there was that in the civility that made it worse than insult. It could not be resented, and it was sign of a cutting off from human accord.

So that the two women kept to themselves more than ever, and did none of the occasional field work wherewith they had aided their small resources in other years. Instead they busied themselves more in their own little garden, whose produce went a good way toward keeping them in food. Dorrily found that this work was good for her aunt, who was quiet and seemingly happy so long as she was undisturbed; though the clouding of her mind persisted, and made the girl’s loneliness harder to support than ever.

The night succeeding that on which Dorrily had been awakened by the sound of shots, was another of little rest for Mrs Martin, albeit there was no disturbance from without; and when she showed some signs of fatigue in the garden the next morning, Dorrily was quick to persuade her to rest, and soon had the satisfaction to see her dozing in her armchair in the keeping-room. So she left her there, partly closed the door, and returned to her work.

She had piled aside the early bean-stalks which she had rooted up, keeping one or two of the largest for earwig-capture, and now she set to loosening the ground they had occupied.

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