The girl Pansy turned the handle of the separator, and its whining
drone mixed with the thoughts and feelings, poignant yet formless, of
one who had little say in her own career. There was an ache in her
loins, for hay harvest was ever a hard week; and an ache in her heart,
because she had no leisure, like Molly Winch and other girls, who could
find time for the piano and to make their dresses. She touched her
hard frieze skirt. She was sick of the ugly thing. And she hastened
the separator. She had to feed the calves and set the supper before
she could change into her Sunday frock and go to evening church--her
one weekly festivity. Ned Bowden! Her fancy soared to the monstrous
extravagance of herself and Ned walking across the fields to church
together, singing out of one hymn-book; Ned who had given her a look
when he passed just now as if he realised at last that she had been
thinking of him for weeks. A dusky flush crept up in her pale cheeks.
A girl must think of somebody--she wasn’t old Mother Bowden, with her
hands on her lap all day, in sunlight or fire-shine, content just to
be warm! And she turned the handle with a sort of frenzy. Would the
milk never finish running through? Ned never saw her in her frock--her
frock sprigged with cornflowers; he went off too early to his courting,
Sunday evenings. In this old skirt she looked so thick and muddy. And
her arms---- Gazing despairingly at arms browned and roughened her
fancy took another monstrous flight. She saw herself and Molly Winch
side by side ungarbed. Ah! She would make two of that Molly Winch! The
thought at once pained and pleased her. It was genteel to be thin and
elegant; and yet--instinct told her--strength and firmness of flesh
had been desirable before ever gentility existed. She let the handle
go, and, lifting the pail of ‘waste,’ hurried down with it to the dark
byre, whence the young calves were thrusting their red muzzles. She
pushed them back in turn--greedy little things--smacking their wet
noses, scolding them. Ugh! How mucky it was in there--they ought to
give that byre a good clean up! Banging down the empty pail, she ran to
set out supper on the long deal table. In the last of the sunlight old
Mother Bowden’s bright eyes seemed to watch her inhumanly. She would
never be done in time--never be done in time!
The beef, the cider, the cheese, the bread, the pickles--what else?
Lettuce! Yes, and it wasn’t washed, and Bowden loved his lettuce.
But she couldn’t wait--she couldn’t! Perhaps he’d forget it--if she
put some cream out! From the cool, dark dairy, down the little stone
passage, she fetched the remains of the scalded cream.
“Watch the cat, Missis Bowden!” And she ran up the wriggling narrow
stairs.
The room she slept in was like a ship’s cabin--no bigger. She drew the
curtain over the porthole-like window, tore off her things and flung
them on the narrow bed. This was her weekly change. There was a hole
in her undergarment, and she tore it wider in her hurry. ‘I won’t have
time for a good wash,’ she thought. Taking her one towel, she damped
it, rubbed it over her, and began to dress furiously. The church bell
had begun its dull, hard single chime. The little room was fiery hot,
and beads of sweat stood on the girl’s brow. Savagely she thought:
‘Why can’t I have time to be cool, like Molly Winch?’ A large spider,
a little way out from one corner of the ceiling, seemed watching her,
and she shuddered. She couldn’t bear spiders--great hairy things! But
she had no time to stretch up her hand and kill it. Glancing through
a chink left by the drawn curtain to see whether Ned had come down
into the yard, she snatched up her powder puff--precious possession,
nearest approach to gentility--and solemnly rubbed it over face and
neck. She wouldn’t shine, anyway! Under her Sunday hat, a broad-brimmed
straw, trimmed with wide-eyed artificial daisies, she stood a moment
contemplating her image in a mirror the size of her two hands. The
scent of the powder, as of gone-off violets, soothed her nerves. But
why was her hair so fine that it wouldn’t stay in place? And why black,
instead of goldeny brown like Molly Winch’s hair? Her lip drooped,
her eyes looked wide and mournful in the glass. She snatched up her
pair of dirty white cotton gloves, took her prayer-book, threw open
the door, and stood listening. Dead silence in the house. Ned Bowden’s
room, his father’s, his old grandmother’s were up the other stairs.
She would have liked him to see her coming down--like what the young
men did in the magazines, looking up at the young ladies beautiful
and cool, descending slowly. But would he look at her when he had his
best on, going to Molly Winch? She went down the wriggling staircase.
Gnats were still dancing outside the porch, ducks bathing and preening
their feathers in sunlight which had lost all sting. She did not sit
down for fear of being caught too obviously waiting, but stood changing
from tired foot to foot, while the scent of powder mingled queerly with
the homely odour of the farmyard and the lingering perfume of the hay
stacked up close by. The bell stopped ringing. Should she wait? Perhaps
he wasn’t going to church at all; just going to sit with Molly Winch,
or to walk in the lanes with her. Oh, no! That Molly Winch was too prim
and proper; she wouldn’t miss church! And suddenly something stirred
within the girl. What would she not miss for a walk in the lanes with
Ned? It wasn’t fair! Some people had everything! The sound of heavy
boots from stair to stair came to her ears, and more swiftly than one
would have thought natural to that firm body she sped through the
yard and passed through the door in its high wall to the field path.
Scarcely more than a rut, it was strewn with wisps of hay, for they
had not yet raked this last field, and the air smelled very sweet. She
dawdled, every sense throbbing, aware of his approach behind her, its
measured dwelling on either foot which no Bowden could abandon, even
when late for church. He ranged up; his hair was greased, his square
figure stuffed handsome into board-like Sunday dittoes. His red face
shone from soap, his grey eyes shone from surplus energy. From head
to foot he was wonderful. Would he pass her or fall in alongside? He
fell into step. The girl’s heart thumped, her cheeks burned under the
powder, so that the scent thereof was released. Young Bowden’s arm,
that felt like iron, bumped her own, and at the thrill which went
through her she half-closed her eyes.
“I reckon we’re tu late,” he said.
Her widened eyes challenged his stare.
“Don’t you want to see Molly Winch, then?”
“No, I don’t want any words about that dog.”
Quick to see her chance, the girl exclaimed:
“Ah! ’Twas a shame--it was, but she’d think more of her uncle’s leg
than of ’im, I know.”
Again his arm pressed hers. He said: “Let’s go down into the brake.”
The bit of common land below the field was high with furze, where a few
brown-gold blossoms were still clinging. A late cuckoo called shrilly
from an ash-tree below. The breeze stirred a faint rustling out of the
hedgerow trees. Young Bowden sat down among the knee-high bracken that
smelled of sap and put his arm about her.