In parishes with scattered farms and no real village, gossip has not
quite its proper wings; and the first intimation Steer had that his
niece was being slighted came from Bowden himself. Steer was wont to
drive the seven miles to market in a small spring cart filled with
produce on the journey in, and with groceries on the journey out,
holding his east-wind face, fixing his eyes on the ears of his mare.
His niece sometimes sat beside him--one of those girls whose china
is a little too thin for farm life. She was educated, and played the
piano. Steer was proud of her in spite of his low opinion of her
father, who had died of consumption and left Steer’s sister in poor
circumstances. Molly Winch’s face, indeed, had refinement; it coloured
easily a faint rose pink, was pointed in the chin, had a slightly
tip-tilted nose, and pretty truthful eyes--a nice face.
Steer’s mare usually did the seven miles in just under forty minutes,
and he was proud of her, especially when she overhauled Bowden’s mare.
The two spring carts travelled abreast of each other just long enough
for these words to be exchanged:
“Mornin’, Bowden!”
“Mornin’! Mornin’, Miss Molly, ’aven’t seen yu lately; thought yu were
visitin’!”
“No, Mr. Bowden.”
“Glad to see yu lukin’ up s’well. Reckon Ned’s tu busy elsewhere just
now.”
It was then that Steer’s mare drew well ahead.
‘My old mare’s worth two of his,’ he thought.
Bowden’s cart was distant dust before he turned to his niece and said:
“What’s the matter with Ned Bowden. When did you see him last?”
His shrewd light eyes noted her lips quivering, and the stain on her
cheeks.
“It’s--it’s a month now.”
“Is it--is it?” was all Steer said. But he flicked the mare sharply
with his whip, thinking: ‘What’s this? Didn’t like that fellow’s
face--was he makin’ game of us?’
Steer was an abstemious man; a tot of sloe gin before he embarked for
home was the extent of his usual potations at ‘The Drake.’ But that day
he took two tots because of the grin on the face of Bowden, who would
sit an hour and more after he had gone, absorbing gin and cider. Was
that grin meant for him and for his niece?
A discreet man, too, he let a fortnight pass while he watched out. Ned
Bowden did not come to church, nor was he seen at Steer’s. Molly looked
pale and peaky. And something deep stirred in Steer. ‘If he don’t mean
to keep his word to her,’ he thought, ‘I’ll have the law of him, young
pup!’
People talked no more freely to Steer than he to them; and another week
had passed before he had fresh evidence. It came after a parish meeting
from the schoolmistress, a grey-haired, single lady, much respected.
“I don’t like Molly looking so pale and daverdy, Mr. Steer. I’m
grieved about Ned Bowden, I thought he was a steady boy.”
“What about him?”
“That girl at Bowden’s.”
Steer flopped into the depths of consciousness. So everybody round
had known, maybe for weeks, that his niece was being jilted for that
cross-bred slut; known, and been grinning up their sleeves, had they?
And that evening he announced:
“I’m goin’ round to Bowden’s, Molly.”
She coloured, then went pale.
“They shan’t put it up on you,” he said, “I’ll see to that. Give me
that ring of his--I may want it.”
Molly Winch silently slipped off her amethyst engagement ring, and gave
it him.
Steer put on his best hat, breeches and gaiters, took a thin stick, and
set out.
Corn harvest was coming near, and he crossed a field of his own wheat
into a field of Bowden’s oats. Steer was the only farmer round about
who grew wheat. Wheat! In Bowden’s view it was all his politics! But
Steer was thinking: ‘My wheat’s lookin’ well--don’t think much of
these oats’ (another of his ‘foreign expressions’; oats were ‘corn’ to
Bowden). ‘He’ll have no straw.’
He had not been in Bowden’s yard since the day he executed the yellow
whippet dog, and his calf twitched--the brute had given it a shrewd nip.
The girl Pansy opened the door to him. And, seeing the flush rise into
her pale cheeks, he thought: ‘If I were to lay my stick across your
back you’d know it, my girl.’
Bowden had just finished his supper of bacon, beans and cider, and was
smoking his pipe before the embers of a wood fire. He did not get up,
and there seemed to Steer something studied and insulting in the way he
nodded to a chair. He sat down with his stick across his knees, while
the girl went quickly out.
“Butiful evenin’,” said Bowden. “Fine weather for the corn. Drink o’
cider?”
Steer shook his head. The cautious man was making sure of his
surroundings before he opened fire. Old Mrs. Bowden sat in her chair
by the hearth with her little old back turned to the room. Bowden’s
white-headed bobtail was stretched out with his chin on his paws;
a yellow cat crouched, still as the Sphinx, with half-closed eyes;
nothing else was alive, except the slow-ticking clock.
Steer held up the amethyst ring.
“See this?”
Undisturbed by meaning or emotion, Bowden’s face was turned slowly
towards the ring.
“Ah! What about it?”
“’Twas given to my niece for a purpose. Is that purpose goin’ to be
fulfilled?”
“Tidden for me to say. Ask Ned.”
Steer closed his hand, slightly covered with reddish hairs.
“I’ve heard tales,” he said. “And if he don’ mean to keep his word I’ll
have the law of him. I’ve always thought my niece a sight too good for
him; but if he thinks he can put a slight on her he’s reckonin’ without
the cost--that’s all.”
Bowden blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Ned’s a man grown.”
“Do you abet him?”
Bowden turned his head lazily.
“Don’t you come here bullyin’ me.” And again he puffed out a cloud of
smoke. Its scent increased the resentment in Steer, who was no smoker.
“Like father, like son,” he said. “We know what _your_ father was like.”
Bowden took his pipe from his mouth with a fist the size of a beefsteak.
“With the old lady settin’ there! Get out o’ my house!”
A wave of exasperated blood flooded Steer’s thin cheeks.
“You know right well that she hears naught.”
Bowden replaced his pipe. “’Tes no yuse tachin’ yu manners,” he
muttered.
Something twitched in Steer’s lean throat, where the reddish-grey hair
covered his Adam’s apple.
“I’ll give your son a week; and then look out.”
A chuckle pursued him to the door.
‘All right!’ he thought, ‘we’ll see who’ll laugh last.’