Steven Acroyd, Mr. Greathead’s chauffeur, was sulking in the garage.
Everybody was afraid of him. Everybody hated him except Mr. Greathead,
his master, and Dorsy, his sweetheart.
And even Dorsy now, after yesterday!
Night had come. On one side the yard gates stood open to the black
tunnel of the drive. On the other the high moor rose above the wall,
immense, darker than the darkness. Steven’s lantern in the open doorway
of the garage and Dorsy’s lamp in the kitchen window threw a blond
twilight into the yard between. From where he sat, slantways on the step
of the car, he could see, through the lighted window, the table with the
lamp and Dorsy’s sewing huddled up in a white heap as she left it just
now, when she had jumped up and gone away. Because she was afraid of
him.
She had gone straight to Mr. Greathead in his study, and Steven,
sulking, had flung himself out into the yard.
He stared into the window, thinking, thinking. Everybody hated him. He
could tell by the damned spiteful way they looked at him in the bar of
the “King’s Arms”; kind of sideways and slink-eyed, turning their dirty
tails and shuffling out of his way.
He had said to Dorsy he’d like to know what he’d done. He’d just dropped
in for his glass as usual; he’d looked round and said “Good-evening,”
civil, and the dirty tykes took no more notice of him than if he’d been
a toad. Mrs. Oldishaw, Dorsy’s aunt, _she_ hated him, boiled-ham-face,
swelling with spite, shoving his glass at the end of her arm, without
speaking, as if he’d been a bloody cockroach.
[Illustration]
All because of the thrashing he’d given young Ned Oldishaw. If she
didn’t want the cub’s neck broken she’d better keep him out of mischief.
Young Ned knew what he’d get if he came meddling with _his_ sweetheart.
It had happened yesterday afternoon, Sunday, when he had gone down with
Dorsy to the “King’s Arms” to see her aunt. They were sitting out on the
wooden bench against the inn wall when young Ned began it. He could see
him now with his arm round Dorsy’s neck and his mouth gaping.
And Dorsy laughing like a silly fool and the old woman snorting and
shaking.
He could hear him. “She’s my cousin if she _is_ your sweetheart. You
can’t stop me kissing her.” _Couldn’t_ he!
Why, what did they think? When he’d given up his good job at the
Darlington Motor Works to come to Eastthwaite and black Mr. Greathead’s
boots, chop wood, carry coal and water for him, and drive his shabby
secondhand car. Not that he cared what he did so long as he could live
in the same house with Dorsy Oldishaw. It wasn’t likely he’d sit like a
bloody Moses, looking on, while Ned—
To be sure, he had half killed him. He could feel Ned’s neck swelling
and rising up under the pressure of his hands, his fingers. He had
struck him first, flinging him back against the inn wall, then he had
pinned him—till the men ran up and dragged him off.
And now they were all against him. Dorsy was against him. She had said
she was afraid of him.
“Steven,” she had said, “tha med ’a killed him.”
“Well—p’r’aps next time he’ll knaw better than to coom meddlin’ with
_my_ lass.”
“I’m not thy lass, ef tha canna keep thy hands off folks. I should be
feared for my life of thee. Ned wurn’t doing naw ’arm.”
“Ef he doos it again, ef he cooms between thee and me, Dorsy, I shall do
’im in.”
“Naw, tha maunna talk that road.”
“It’s Gawd’s truth. Anybody that cooms between thee and me, loove, I
shall do ’im in. Ef ’twas thy aunt, I should wring ’er neck, same as I
wroong Ned’s.”
“And ef it was me, Steven?”
“Ef it wur thee, ef tha left me— Aw, doan’t tha assk me, Dorsy.”
“There—that’s ’ow tha scares me.”
“But tha’ ’astna left me—’tes thy wedding claithes tha’rt making.”
“Aye, ’tes my wedding claithes.”
She had started fingering the white stuff, looking at it with her head
on one side, smiling prettily. Then all of a sudden she had flung it
down in a heap and burst out crying. When he tried to comfort her she
pushed him off and ran out of the room, to Mr. Greathead.
It must have been half an hour ago and she had not come back yet.
He got up and went through the yard gates into the dark drive. Turning
there, he came to the house front and the lighted window of the study.
Hidden behind a clump of yew he looked in.
Mr. Greathead had risen from his chair. He was a little old man, shrunk
and pinched, with a bowed narrow back and slender neck under his grey
hanks of hair.
Dorsy stood before him, facing Steven. The lamplight fell full on her.
Her sweet flower-face was flushed. She had been crying.
Mr. Greathead spoke.
“Well, that’s my advice,” he said. “Think it over, Dorsy, before you do
anything.”
That night Dorsy packed her boxes, and the next day at noon, when Steven
came in for his dinner, she had left the Lodge. She had gone back to her
father’s house in Garthdale.
She wrote to Steven saying that she had thought it over and found she
daren’t marry him. She was afraid of him. She would be too unhappy.
[Illustration: Then all of a sudden she had burst out crying ...]