Part 2 (2/2)
”Jenifer Keast, maybe?” pursued his mother.
”Happen Jenifer, happen another. A maid's a maid,” mumbled the disconcerted Archelaus.
Tom put his boots on the settle and stood up.
”It makes me sick to hear you, Archelaus,” he declared slowly, but with extraordinary venom for a boy of fifteen; ”Jenifer Keast! Have you no sense of who you are that you should think of Jenifer Keast?”
”She'm a fitty maid,” muttered Archelaus.
”A fitty maid! Listen to the great bufflehead! She's fitty enough but with nothing to her but the clothes on her back. You've no call to be leading a maid toall yet. S'pose you was ever master of Cloom, what would you be wanting with Jenifer Keast?”
”Master o' Cloom! That's plum foolishness. We all d'knaw I'd be master o' Cloom if right were right, but there's the law siden' wi' the cheild; devil run off wi' en!”
”If the devil don't somebody else might,” said Tom, ”and then Cloom'd be mother's and ours. Eh, I wish I was the eldest; I'm the only one with a headpiece on me.”
”Th' cheild's healthy enough,” grumbled Archelaus.
”My children are all healthy; I never buried but the one between Tom and John-James and the one as never drew breath,” interrupted Annie, ”and if the cheild is set up by the law he's your own flesh and blood. He would have been as fine a cheild as any of 'ee if he'd kept his place.”
”I'm not saying nothing against the brat,” cried Tom in exasperated tones; ”anyone'd think I wanted'n to die by the way you go on at me. I don't--it don't matter to me, for I'm going to be a lawyer like Mr.
Tonkin to Penzance, but Archelaus'll be a fool if he don't look higher than Jenifer Keast.”
”I'm not looken' to lead no maid,” cried the badgered Archelaus, s.n.a.t.c.hing the light. ”Do 'ee grudge a chap a kiss or two? What's the harm in kissen'? You knew all about it when you was young, mother; you're a nice one to talk to a chap, you are!”
With which unfilial gibe he disappeared.
Annie was one of those women who like a buffet, verbal or physical, from a man, whether he be husband, brother, or son. She looked after Archelaus with pride.
”He be rare and like his da when he's got the uglies,” she said; ”he'll look fine at the head o' the table to-night, will Arch'laus.”
”Parson Boase'll put Ishmael at the head of the table,” announced Tom carelessly, with a sly glance at his mother. Annie whipped round at him in blank surprise, while even John-James paused in his was.h.i.+ng-up and stood gaping over a dish.
”Gwain to put my own cheild auver my head and the head of my first-born, is 'ee?” cried Annie. ”Eh, that pa.s.son! Sim'me he's lacken' his senses!
Sim'me that when the law lets a man like that come shoven' and meddlen'
in a woman's house that the law's lacken' its senses too!”
”Don't fret about the law,” advised Tom; ”I've heard tell the law can be turned any way a clever chap has a mind. I'll see what I can do with it when I'm to Mr. Tonkin, and then perhaps we'll all snap our fingers at Parson Boase.”
”Tom do talk a wunnerful pa.s.sel o' nonsense,” remarked John-James placidly as his brother picked up his boots and went out. But Tom was of the truly great who can always contain themselves when there is nothing to be gained by an explosion, and he disappeared without answering.
Annie and John-James proceeded to put the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the kitchen--John-James doing all the real good that was done, and Annie setting things backwards and forwards in her strange aimless way.
Upstairs Va.s.sie was tying her hair--brushed out now into a short, crimped fluff that made her look more like an angel than ever--with the blue ribbon; while Archelaus and Tom greased their locks with the remains of Tom's stolen b.u.t.ter. Soon Annie and John-James also went upstairs to prepare themselves for the feast, and the kitchen grew slowly dark.
Ishmael staggered across the last field with his bucket of fuel, his lean little arms aching under its weight, but his mind singing the triumphant refrain:
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