The Stepson by Martin Armstrong

farmyard gate; the dairy with its cool, curdy smell, its scrubbed shelves, wide, softly gleaming bowls, and clanking pails; all these homely things comforted and rejoiced her heart. She felt a thrill of pleasure every time she emerged from her bedroom and stepped down the wide, leisurely stairs; whenever she heard from the farmyard the lowing of cattle or the bark of a dog. And how cheering it was to live in the midst of a community. Her society was no longer confined to one dry, unsympathetic creature who never emerged from his cold correctness: she was surrounded now by a little world of folk all occupied with the business of the farm. Not only was thereher husband and pleasant, busy Mrs. Jobson, who seemed with the help of only one girl to carry on her broad shoulders half the business of the farm: there were also the various men that worked on the farm, from old George, the hind, down to the boy Peter, a smiling, red-faced lad who was to be met turning the cows out to pasture or perched high on a cart loaded with straw or turnips, and always singing or whistling when he was not shouting strange orders to horses or cows in a voice modelled on that of George.
    The only member of the community who seemed to be unfriendly was Emma, the sulky-faced girl who helped Mrs. Jobson. Emma seemed to be determined to ignore Kate. She would never, when she could avoid it, speak to her; and when she was obliged to speak, she did so shortly, sulkily, and with a closed, unsmiling face. Kate had tried, during the first few days, to win Emma out of her sulkiness, but finding her friendly attempts repulsed she had withdrawn into herself and when she spoke to Emma now her words, though civil, were brief and cold, and her eyes cold and unflinching under the darkly gathered brows. Emma’s dislike troubled and annoyed her more than she knew. It was as if Emma were resolved to exclude her, as far as she could, from the new life into which she was settling so happily. At first she had felt shy and diffident in her new position, but soon courage came to her and she began to take pleasure in her new dignity and her sense ofpower as mistress of this large, busy community. And so, as time went on, from feeling merely pained she grew to feel resentful and to consider Emma’s studied unfriendliness as an impertinence. But one dissonant note was, after all, not a very great matter.
    In her new happiness, Kate was changing. Her nature grew warmer and began slowly to unfold. Her pale, dark-browed face was no longer cold and sombre; its quietness now was the quietness of serenity, its coldness often warmed to a subtly changing expressiveness, and a variety and music came into her voice which were never there before. Happiness had come to her in time, stirring her to life before the life had withered within her, and now, like woods and gardens under a mild March weather, her winter was blossoming into spring.
    She herself knew it: she was aware not only of the daily delight of waking to rediscover her happiness, but of little thrills of rapture which flashed through her at unexpected moments, intimate lightnings that fluttered her heart for no known cause; and, feeling them, she smiled to herself and then blushed for smiling. Each morning when she did her hair before the looking-glass it was a marvellously changed face whose eyes met hers, and her heart beat with a secret pleasure in her new beauty.
    For Ben Humphrey, too, this November had brought a new happiness. He loved Kate deeply: all his vagrant affections and desires had once morecome to rest in her. In her his life had resolved itself into unity again. Whenever in the long hours of work his mind turned for a moment from what he was busy with, he realized again with a glow of delight that Kate awaited him in the house. The zest of work was crowned now with that richer zest of the beautiful young woman who had become his. It delighted him to entice her by degrees out of her reserve, to watch her