The Stepson by Martin Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page B

began to unrope Kate’s boxes. Mrs. Jobson stood aside for Kate to enter the house, and the two women went in together.
    The pleasant, homely smell of the house, the stone-flagged passage, the savour of roast meat as she passed the kitchen door, and the voice of the large kindly woman following her, reassured and cheered Kate in those first strange moments of initiation.
    â€˜Now to the right, ma’am,’ Mrs. Jobson’s voice directed her. ‘And now if you’ll let me go in front I’ll show you the way upstairs. You’ll find dinner ready in here,’ she said, opening a door at the foot of the stairs as they passed it, ‘when you come down.’
    Kate followed the old woman’s wide stern that waddled up the stairs in advance of her. At the top they turned to the left and Mrs. Jobson opened the first door. She stood aside, Kate went in, and the old woman, closing the door behind her, padded off down the passage.
    Kate, suddenly alone, stood with beating heart gazing at the room. It was large and low. Two great beams divided the whitewashed ceiling. The floor sloped a little towards the long, low lattice window through which Kate could see a red roof backed by the dark tangle of a leafless tree. The sun laid a long splay of golden phosphorescence on the wide oak planks of the flooring on which, here and there, lay a coloured rug. At the far end of the room a red canopy towered to the ceiling: under it a white intricately crocheted counterpane lay like a thick covering of snow on the great oak bedstead. In the corner, between the wide fireplace and the window, stood a chest-of-drawers with a fringed white cover spread on its top, on which were a looking-glass and a pair of tall candlesticks. The quiet cave of the looking-glass was filled with a limpid patchwork of planes light and dark, black and grey, gold andsilver and red. Kate stepped hesitating up to it. It seemed to her for a moment that, when she looked into it, some other face than her own would look back at her; the face, perhaps, of one of those two other women whom Ben had mentioned to her but not described. One after the other they had moved about that room, combed their hair in the looking-glass, slept and perhaps died in the great bed under the red canopy. A faint shiver stirred like a small cold snake between her shoulder-blades. But it was her own reflection, the reflection of her new self in the blue dress and the newly flowering face, that looked back at her, and she took off her hat, shook it to unravel the wind-tangled feather, and then patted and smoothed her hair.
    Then, going to the door, she opened it, looked out, and like some beautiful, timidly adventuring animal, stole down the passage, down the stairs, and into the doorway which Mrs. Jobson had pointed out to her. Ben’s voice greeted her as she entered the room:
    â€˜That’s right! Now you’re at home.’
    A young woman, large limbed and sulky faced, whom Kate had not seen before, brought in a tray loaded with plates and vegetable-dishes. She did not look at Kate, Ben said nothing, and Kate herself was too shy to greet her of her own accord. She went out and returned in a moment with a great covered dish, and Kate and Ben sat down to dinner.

V
    Days passed and by degrees Kate began to settle into her new life. Wonderfully rich and varied it seemed to her after the narrow monotony of her existence at Penridge. It was as if she had stepped from a stifling cupboard into a large, light, airy room. Infinite variety surrounded her. The old, rambling, endearing house, dappled with sunlight and friendly shadows, so warm and roomy and hospitable; the barns, the stables and cow-byres with the solemn, friendly beasts that paced into them or out of them at their appointed hours; the fowl-houses, the neat hens and pompous cocks that picked about in the yard outside the house door; the ducks that paddled and swam in the green-scummed pond outside the