The management of the house she left entirely to Martha, which was wise enough, seeing she knew nothing of houses. John coming in of an evening never knew what was in store for him; it gave life an added savour. He approached Adam and Eve, his heart a-flutter—what would she be like this time?—opened the low door and stepped within. And there she would be, standing before the hearth waiting for him, mischievous and radiant, brass earrings winking, a knot of ribbons in her raven curls, dressed in scarlet, cream, purple or blue, cloth of gold or silver lace—all worn and torn if you came to examine closely, but, in the leaping firelight, gorgeous.
Sometimes she would spend the evening wooing him, sidling into his arms, rubbing with her cheek and purring in her cat fashion; and sometimes she would take her guitar and, sitting cross-legged before the hearth, sing the songs by which she had made her living. Pretty, innocent twitters for the most part, laments to cruel Chloes, Phyllises and Celias in which despairing Colins and Strephons sang of their broken hearts in tripping, tuneful measures; morris and country airs she gave also and patriotic staves—
“Tho’ the Spaniards invade Our Int’rest and Trade And often our Merchant-men plunder, Give us but command Their force to withstand, We’ll soon make the slaves truckle under.”
Such stuff stirred John. As the lyrics lulled him, he would inflate his chest and tap his toe on the flags in time with the tune, very manful.
All this heady stuff intoxicated the recluse. He felt a spell on the place, could scarcely believe it was the same dark kitchen in which he had sat alone for seventeen years, listening to the stream, the rain and the wind. It was like living in a droll-teller’s story where charcoal burners fell asleep on enchanted barrows and woke in fairy-land or immortals put on mortal flesh and sojourned in the homes of men. Reared on superstition among a race that placed balls on their roofs and hung rags about holy wells to keep off witches, he almost smelt magic now. At times he wondered if this strange creature he had met on the high moors under the moon were what she held to be, if one day she would not get a summons back to her own people, the earth gape open for her and he would be alone again. There had been an authentic case in Zennor parish; his own grandmother had seen the forsaken husband. He would glance at Teresa half fearfully, see her squatting before the blaze, lozenges of white skin showing through the rips in her finery, strong fingers plucking the guitar strings, round throat swelling as she sang—