But to-night she was tired,and had read so long that her head ached--Hamlet was laughing at her,his eyes stared through his hair at her,cynically,superciliously,contemptuously.His lip curled and his beard bristled.Moved by a sudden wild impulse she picked up "The Chaplet of Pearls"and threw it at him.It hit him (not very severely),and he gave the sharp,melodramatic howl that he always used when it was his dignity rather than his body that was hurt.
Jeremy looked up,saw what had happened,and a fine scene followed.
Mary had hysterics,stamped and screamed and howled.Jeremy,his face white,stood and said nothing,but looked as though he hated her,which at that moment he undoubtedly did.It was that look which more than anything else in the world she dreaded.
She made herself sick with crying;then apologised with an abjection that only irritated him the more;finally remembered the smallest details of the affair long after he had forgotten all about it.
II
During the first weeks at Cow Farm Mary was happy.She had then many especial private joys,such as climbing into one of the old apple trees behind the house and reading there,safe from the world,or inventing for herself wonderful adventures out of the dark glooms and sunlit spaces of the orchard,or creeping about the lofts and barns as though they were full of the most desperate dangers and hazards that she alone had the pluck and intelligence to overcome.
Then Mrs.Monk was kind to her,and listened to her imaginative chatter with a most marvellous patience.Mary did not know that,after these narrations,she would shake her head and say to her husband:"Not long for this world,I'm thinking,poor worm.not long for this world."Then,at first Jeremy was kind and considerate.He was so happy that he did not mind what anyone did,and he would listen to Mary's stories quite in the old way,whistling to himself,not thinking about her at all perhaps,really,but very patient.After the first fortnight he slipped away from her again--and now more than ever before.He went off for long walks with Hamlet,refusing to take her with them;he answered her questions so vaguely that she could see that he paid her no attention at all;he turned upon her and rent her if she complained.And it was all,she was sure,that horrible dog.Jeremy was always with Hamlet now.The free life that the farm gave them,no lessons,no set hours,no care for appearances,left them to choose their own ways,and so developed their individualities.Helen was now more and more with her elders,was becoming that invaluable thing,"a great help to her mother,"and even,to her own inexhaustible pride,paid two calls with Mrs.Cole on the wives of neighbouring farmers.Then,Barbara absorbed more than ever of Helen's attention,and Mary was not allowed to share in these rites and services because "she always made Barbara cry."She was,therefore,very much alone,and felt all her injuries twice as deeply as she had felt them before.Hamlet began to be an obsession with her.She had always had a habit of talking to herself,and now she could be heard telling herself that if it were not for the dog,Jeremy would always be with her,would play with her,walk with her,laugh with her as he used to do.She acquired now an awkward habit of gazing at him with passionate intensity.He would raise his eyes and find the great moon-faced spectacles fixed upon him with a beseeching,reproachful glare in the light of them.
This would irritate him intensely.He would say:
"You'll know me next time,Mary."
She would blush crimson and then,with trembling mouth,answer:
"I wasn't looking."
"Yes,you were."
"No,I wasn't."
"Of course,you were--staring as though I were an Indian or Chinaman.If my face is dirty,say so.""It isn't dirty."
"Well,then--"
"You're always so cross."
"I'm not cross--only you're so silly--"
"You usen't always to say I was silly.Now you always do--every minute.""So you are."Then as he saw the tears coming he would get up and go away.He didn't mean to be unkind to her;he was fond of her--but he hated scenes.
"Mary's always howling about something now,"he confided to Helen.
"Is she?"Helen answered with indifference."Mary's such a baby."So Mary began to attribute everything to the dog.It seemed to her then that she met the animal everywhere.Cow Farm was a rambling building,with dark,uneven stairs,low-ceilinged rooms,queer,odd corners,and sudden unexpected doors.It seemed to Mary as though in this place there were two Hamlets.When,in the evening she went to her room,hurrying through the passages for fear of what she might see,stumbling over the uneven boards,sniffling the mice and straw under the smell of her tallow candle,suddenly out of nowhere at all Hamlet would appear scurrying along,like the White Rabbit,intent on serious business.
He came so softly and with so sudden a flurry and scatter when she did hear him that her heart would beat for minutes afterwards,and she would not dare that night to search,as she usually did,for burglars under her bed,but would lie,quaking,hot and staring,unable to sleep.When at last dreams came they would be haunted by a monstrous dog,all hair and eyes,who,with padding feet,would track her round and round a room from which there was no escape.