Secret Bread | Page 9

Parson's side.
"Must be going, Phoebe," he remarked carelessly; "I've a heap of things to do for to-night, you see. Morning, Mr. Lenine!"
And he set off again, with his thumbs in his belt.
CHAPTER III
THE KITCHEN
Annie Ruan and three of the children were assembled in the great kitchen preparing for the supper party that was to be held after the Neck had been cried. The world without was still steeped in the golden light of full afternoon, but the small windows only looked on to the courtyard and let little of the gleam into the low-ceiled room; dimness veiled the corners, and through it each plate on the old dresser held a faintly glimmering crescent of light. On a sheet of iron laid upon the open hearth the last loaves of barley-bread were baking under a crock, and Vassilissa Beggoe was preserving the leaven for next week's breadmaking by the simple process of placing it in a saucer of water, where it would mildew in peace.
Vassilissa was the youngest of the four Beggoes,--only three years older than Ishmael. She was the most like Archelaus in face, and showed promise of a sleek, white and gold beauty to come; at present, being far too tall for her age, she seemed unable to manage her long legs and arms, but her movements had the graceful ungainliness of a young animal. She was muffled in a dirty print pinafore, and above its faded blue her neck looked a delicate privet-white, and would have looked whiter still had it been cleaner. In the dusk her little pale head, the shape of it clearly defined by the way in which she wore her hair sticking stiffly out from her nape in two tiny plaits, took on a quality suggestive of a frescoed angel--a delicately-modelled, faintly-shadowed quality that she might miss in a stronger light. Putting the saucer of leaven on the untidy dresser, she spoke over her shoulder to her mother.
"I be gwain to give myself a rub over and put on my Sunday gown. I be gwain now."
Annie paused in the act of washing a plate, and let the film of dirty water run off it into the pan again. Then she drew a deep breath, as though the greasy-smelling steam that wavered up towards her nostrils were the sweetest of incense. Vassilissa, who was accustomed to this silent gathering of the forces before her mother broke into specially impassioned speech, began calmly to untie her pinafore.
"That's right!" cried Annie, with sudden vigour; "go off and make yourself fine, and lave me to wash all the cloam that's been standen' up in grease these three days. Vanities o' the flesh are all you think on, 'stead of helpen' your mother as has done everything for 'ee since you was naught but a young babe, and that scrawlen' come night there was no gettin' any sleep. You might not be a maid toall for the help I get of 'ee."
"I'll help wi' the cloam," said a big, heavily-made boy who was seated at one end of the table, eating a pasty. He crammed the last pale, stodgy morsel into his mouth and pushed back his chair, saying:
"I'll do the cloam for 'ee, mother. Lave the maiden be."
John-James was a good-natured, thick-headed boy, the third in the family, and the one of her children who seemed to have inherited Annie's peasant blood undiluted. He supplied the restful element in a house where the eldest-born was hot-tempered and revengeful and the second son more like a girl-child for sharpness and a woman grown for scheming. Tom had already made up his mind to be Mr. Tonkin's office boy, and from that he meant to become articled clerk, and from that--who could tell? Tom remained quiet on the subject of his ultimate intentions, but he was fighting his mother's apathy and natural habit of opposition to attain the first step in his career. Mr. Tonkin, who, as Ishmael's guardian, visited fairly frequently at the Manor, was expected to the supper that night, and Tom meant matters to come to a head. He had noticed what an influence the Methodist lawyer had over his mother and meant to use it for his own ends. Annie had a secret fear of Tom; Archelaus she adored, and Vassilissa came only second; but John-James she held of small account. She turned on him now even while she gave the dish into his hands.
"There you go, John-James Beggoe, talken' as though I grudged my own cheild maken' herself 'ansome. Vassie, my worm, you may have that bit o' blue ribbon I bought last Corpus Fair--'tes in the chest."
Vassie was off before her mother had time to change her mind, and John-James began slowly to rinse the china through the darkened water, on whose surface the