Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/420

412 what it would be. But a woman’s no dam foresight.”

“Nay, what does it matter!” said I.

“Sunday’s the only day we can have a bit of peace, so she might keep ’em quiet then.”

“I suppose it was the only time, too, that she could have a quiet gossip,” I replied.

“But you don’t know,” he said, “there seems to be never a minute of freedom. Teenie sleeps in now, and lives with us in the kitchen—Oswald as well—so I never know what it is to have a moment private. There doesn’t seem a single spot anywhere where I can sit quiet. It’s the kids all day, and the kids all night, and the servants, and then all the men in the house—I sometimes feel as if I should like to get away. I shall leave the pub as soon as I can—only Meg doesn’t want to.”

“But if you leave the public-house—what then?”

“I should like to get back on a farm. This is no sort of a place, really, for farming. I’ve always got some business on hand, there’s a traveller to see, or I’ve got to go to the brewers, or I’ve somebody to look at a horse, or something. Your life’s all messed up. If I had a place of my own, and farmed it in peace——”

“You’d be as miserable as you could be,” I said.

“Perhaps so,” he assented, in his old reflective manner. “Perhaps so! Anyhow, I needn’t bother, for I feel as if I never shall go back—to the land.”

“Which means at the bottom of your heart you don’t intend to,” I said laughing.

“Perhaps so!” he again yielded. “You see I’m doing pretty well here—apart from the public-house: