The Stepson Read Online Free PDF

have done, something which had occurred in the school, some suggestion about food or clothing, or to discuss thecareful spending or saving of his meagre salary. Never did he thaw out of his cold, colourless formality to talk freely and idly for the mere human sake of talking. Kate could vaguely remember long, happy talks with her mother when they were alone together; stories about her mother’s childhood, about people she remembered and places she had seen, about things that had happened, cheerful and sad, things that ought to have happened but never did, hopes and dreams of the future, jokes and laughter. But those happy times had been over these fourteen years and now Kate’s life was a silent one. She talked indeed — long desultory conversations winding like an intricate embroidery from flower to flower, and changing from colour to colour. But these conversations were inaudible and Kate’s lips did not move, for they were with herself.
    And so her talk with young Graham on their homeward walk together had loosened again all her pent-up emotions. Was it any wonder that she fell in love with him in the space of an hour, that the walk home was like one long, happy dream?
    But it was a dream soon ended. For as they entered the village they had met the Schoolmaster coming out of the post office. For a moment he had stared surprised at the couple: then young Graham had stepped forward and delivered his message and, wishing them good evening, had moved away across the green towards his cottage.
    The meeting with her father and young Graham’s departure had been so sudden that for a moment Kate stood staring at the young man’s retreating back, too dazed by the sudden, lamentable change to hear her father’s voice. He repeated his question.
    â€˜How came you to be walking with that young man, Kate?’
    Kate coloured. ‘He is one of the under-gardeners at the Hall,’ she said, ‘and as he was coming this way, we came together.’
    Her father made no reply, but as they walked home to the school he resumed:
    â€˜Don’t forget, Kate, that young Graham is only a labourer. You must not walk or talk with him in future. You can say good morning or good evening, of course, if you pass him; but nothing more, remember. Do you understand?’
    Kate felt her heart shrink in her breast. She was not sure enough of her voice to reply.
    â€˜Do you understand, Kate?’ the Schoolmaster had repeated; and in a dry voice Kate had replied:
    â€˜Yes, Father.’
    And that was the end. Kate was not then bold enough or desperate enough to revolt against her father. Next time she saw young Graham he was leaning over his garden gate and she passed him with a brief good evening. She could see the disappointment and reproach in his friendly brown eyes; for a moment she had even seen in them theimpulse to speak to her and delay her. But the impulse had ebbed back and he had not replied, and she had hurried home, run up to her bedroom, and fallen sobbing on her bed. And sometimes, at night, during the following weeks, as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling, she had imagined to herself that he was with her and that his strong arms were tightening round her body. Then, by slow degrees, her feeling for him had been suppressed, and after some months it seemed to her that she felt hardly a pang when she met him walking with a pretty girl from the next village. A year later he had got a better job elsewhere and he and his mother left Penridge.
    So her first flower of love had withered before it had bloomed, and her mind, retarded and stunted by that chilling experience, had shrunk back into itself and she was again the joyless, apathetic servant of her father. But, unknown to her father and even to herself, the repressed flame of life began to eat inwards, spreading unseen in a fiery core which would some day break out, sudden and volcanic, into an uncontrollable conflagration.
    She herself realized