March blew some warm twilights to Peasmarsh, and the choristers began their summer lingering. Bessie and Robert often took the longer way home by Ellenwhornehe would not leave her now till they were at her cottage door, and often he would run home hare-footed from Eggs Hole, afraid that he might be shut out of Odiam, and perhaps his precious comradeship discovered and put under the tyrant's ban.It was a minute or two before Realf opened his swollen, watering eyes, and gazed up bewildered into the face of the woman he had said his prayers to for a dozen Sundays. She held his head in the crook of her arm, and wiped the froth and blood from his lips.
Director
"Of course he ?un't sure as it wur stolenhe may have dropped it. But policeman d?an't think that's likely.""This is the handwriting of a retainer called Oakley.""F?ather's after our land," said Tilly, and shuddered.Naomi submitted languidly. Her days passed in a comfortable heaviness, and though she occasionally felt bored, on the whole she enjoyed being fussed over and waited on. During those months her relations with Reuben's mother became subtly changed. Before her marriage there had been a certain friendship and equality between them, but now the elder woman took more the place of a servant. It was not because she waited on Naomi, fetched and carriedReuben did that, and was her master still. It was rather something in her whole attitude. She had ceased to confide in Naomi, ceased perhaps to care for her very much, and this gave a certain menial touch to her services. It would be hard[Pg 83] to say what had separated the two womenperhaps it was because one toiled all day while the other lay idle, perhaps it was a twinge of maternal jealousy on Mrs. Backfield's part, for Reuben was beginning to notice her less and less. After a time Naomi realised this estrangement, and though at first she did not care, later on it came to distress her. Somehow she did not like the idea of being without a woman associatein spite of her love for Reuben, now more passive and more languid, like every other emotion, she craved instinctively for someone of her own sex in whom she could confide and on whom she could rely.Realf suddenly seemed to shrink into himself. The next minute he was swaying unsteadily on his legs, refusing the hands held out to support him.