There was silence. To ease the strain of his self-consciousness Edwin
stepped down from the stone floor of the porch to the garden. He felt
rain. And he noticed that the sky was very much darker.
"By Jove!" he said. "It's beginning to rain, I do believe."
"I thought it would," she answered.
A squall of wind suddenly surged rustling through the high trees in the
garden of the Orgreaves, and the next instant threw a handful of wild
raindrops on his cheek.
"You'd better stand against the other wall," he suggested. "You'll
catch it there, if it keeps on."
She obeyed. He returned to the porch, but remained in the exposed
portion of it.
"Better come here," she said, indicating somehow her side.
"Oh! I'm all right."
"You needn't be afraid of me," she snapped.
He grinned awkwardly, but said nothing, for he could not express his
secret resentment. He considered the girl to be of exceedingly
unpleasant manners.
"Would you mind telling me the time?" she asked.
He took out his watch, but peer as he might, he could not discern the
position of the hands.
"Half a second," he said, and struck a match. The match was blown out
before he could look at the dial, but by its momentary flash he saw
Hilda, pressed against the wall. Her lips were tight, her eyes blazing,
her hands clenched. She frowned; she was pale, and especially pale by
contrast with the black of her plain austere dress.
"If you'll come into the house," he said, "I can get a light there."
The door was ajar.
"No thanks," she declined. "It doesn't really matter what time it is,
does it? Good night!"
He divined that she was offering her hand. He clasped it blindly in the
dark. He could not refuse to shake hands. Her hand gave his a feverish
and lingering squeeze, which was like a contradicting message in the
dark night; as though she were sending through her hand a secret denial
of her spoken accents and her frown. He forgot to answer her `good
night.' A trap rattled furiously up the road. (Yes; only six yards
off, on the other side of the boundary wall, was the public road! And
he standing hidden there in the porch with this girl whom he had seen
for the first time that evening!) It was the mail-cart, rushing to
Knype.
She did not move. She had said `good night' and shaken hands; and yet
she remained. They stood speechless.
Then without warning, after perhaps a minute that seemed like ten
minutes, she walked away, slowly, into the rain. And as she did so,
Edwin could just see her straightening her spine and throwing back her
shoulders with a proud gesture.
"I say, Miss Lessways!" he called in a low voice. But he had no notion
of what he wanted to say. Only her departure had unlocked his throat.
She made no sign. Again he grinned awkwardly, a little ashamed of her
and a little ashamed of himself, because neither had behaved as woman or
man of the world.
After a short interval he followed in her steps as far as the gap in the
hedge, which he did not find easily. There was no sign of her. The gas
burned serenely in her bedroom, and the window was open. Then he saw
the window close up a little, and an arm in front of the drawn blind.
The rain had apparently ceased.
------------------------------------------------------------------------