The Farm by the Lake
This novel contains approximately 88,000 words which, in order to save paper, have been compressed within 226 pages There are many more words on each page than would he desirable in normal times margins have been reduced and no space has been wasted between chapters. The length of the average novel is between 70,000 and 90,000 words which, ordinarily, make a book between 228 and 320 pages This novel would ordinarily make a book of about 320 pages.
THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE AUTHORISED ECONOMY STANDARDS
Chapter 1
Lucky ones strolling Morecambe front often pointed north over the silver-blue water to the smudge fifteen miles away and described it pityingly as Barrow.
“Fancy living all your life under that . . .!”
Fortunately, those who had to live beneath the cloud were not aware of their awful fate. To them the soiled air was natural; and when any had the good chance to get away to Grange over Sands, or even five miles down coast to Aldingham, or a little farther to Baytree, they never thought that daytime at Barrow should be just as bright; they accepted the sparkle and beautiful white light as somehow due to the sea’s magic.
Flo, now that the date of her leaving Barrow was nearly come, wondered how she would live away from the town that had always been her home. Had she done right? What would it be like at . . .? Oh, such a queer name: M-O-S-S-D-Y-C-H-E she spelt slowly, half aloud; but how did you say it? she wondered. Ditch, or should it be like dike?
Along narrow Dalton Road she wandered among the slow-moving shoppers. Probably ever since she had been able to walk alone she had gone down Dalton Road on Saturday morning, and then across to the Market behind the red Town Hall. Why she had always gone in there she could not have told. All she knew was that she liked it. On cold, wet days, it was sheltered there under the ridged glass roof; and even on such a good March day as this it seemed nicer than in Dalton Road, perhaps because of a greater feeling of friendliness and intimateness that there was among the stalls. How much better it was, for instance, to see all the things piled up without a glass front to keep you away. And how much nicer stall-keepers were than shop people who, as soon as you went in at the door, swooped down just as if you were an interloper, or a thief even. The stall-keepers let you look as long as you liked; they simply went on chatting with friends at the next stall, or shouting across the passage-way to friends there. Flo always stopped longest at the flower stalls, though she liked the piled vegetables, also. But to-day the market only increased her sadness. Although indubitably she was there, she had a queer feeling that she was not really there; not a real part of it as she had always felt before; as if she were half a stranger already. She was glad to reach Mrs. Mawson’s which was against the wall. These side-stalls were considered the best, by florists anyway, because staging could be built up and backward in long steps, the top step perhaps ten feet from the ground. As she got near, Flo was aware of a yellowness, and then she saw that the stall was smothered with daffodils, hundreds, perhaps thousands, brief-stalked, small and delicate.
“Oo, how lovely!” she couldn’t help exclaiming; and Mrs. Mawson looked round from serving and smiled and said naturally, “Aren’t they?” and then went on counting and dropping coppers into a woman customer’s long pale hand.
Flo stood under the stall front and looked up and seemed to feel cleanness coming from the daffodils, as if they had brought some of the wood’s freshness with them.
“I got ’em from the Keg . . . you know the Keg, the planting up by Albertside?” said Mrs. Mawson.
“No,” said Flo, still looking at the daffodils.
“Eh, I’ll have to take you,” said her friend.
“I’m goin’ away,” said Flo. “On Monday.”
“For a holiday?” asked Mrs. Mawson with sympathetic gladness.
“No; to work,” said Flo. “To a farm.”
“Eh, now. Fancy that. . . . You on a farm! It’s hard work, though. Who’s are you going to?”
“It’s at a place called Mossd-y-c-h-e,” said Flo, spelling the end, “in Derbyshire.”
“In Derbyshire!” exclaimed Mrs. Mawson. “Is there no work nearer than that? You’ll have got it through them Home folk, eh? I wouldn’t go . . . I wouldn’t let any girl of mine go. What for do they want to send you so far off?” she demanded energetically. “Eh now!” This, however, was not for Flo but for a woman in a tight-fitting blue Harris costume. “Twopence a bunch; morning picked,” went on Mrs. Mawson in the same matter-of-fact energetic way.
“Twopence! Why, they’re only wild; a penny is ample . . . you get them for nothing.”
“But I don’t live on nothing; an’ I’ve a husband as can’t, either, though he can’t do anything,” retorted Mrs. Mawson.
“I’m afraid you all tell tales like that,” said the woman with a mechanical unfriendly smile. “If you’ll let me have them at a penny I’ll take twelve bunches.” She lifted her handbag as if to undo the clip.
“Nothing doing,” said Mrs. Mawson in her husky man-like voice. “Twopence a bunch.”
The woman went on.
“You’ve got to stick up to those sort,” said Mrs. Mawson. “If I gave way once she’d be back barging me down every week. You’ve got to keep straight against them folks . . . when you’re like me with a chap as is useless dependin’ on you.”
“I wish I could stick up for myself like you do,” said Flo. “I’d have . . .”
“You’ve got to stick up for yourself on this job,” Mrs. Mawson broke in. “And if you’re going away on a farm, you’ll have to stick up for yourself, or you’ll get all the dirty work. Where d’you say?” Flo repeated the name in the same way. “Never heard of it,” said Mrs. Mawson, turning to serve another customer with two bunches.
“Don’t they tell you anything about them?” she asked, turning back again. “Sending you all that way and you don’t know a thing! I shouldn’t wonder it’ll be someone like her as wanted ’em twelve a penny: them are the sort as takes on through Homes and Help-you schemes and all that . . .”
“I don’t know,” said Flo. “I’m fed up doing nothin’. And I get a dress an’ . . .”
“I bet you do,” interrupted her friend, “pay out of your wage. I know . . . so they have you tied and working for nothing. It’s a damn swindle. When d’you say you go?”
“Monday.”
“Eh, then I shan’t be seeing you again,” said Mrs. Mawson, her tone quite altered. “Perhaps they’ll turn out all right, you know. There’s good folk as well as bad. . . . Here, I mustn’t let you go without something; which d’you like?”
She held up two bunches taken from different places.
“I’ve no . . . no money,” said Flo.
“Money . . . who mentioned money?”
“Oh, those then,” said Flo, indicating the right-hand bunch. “They look so . . . so lovely.” The word she was searching for was “dainty”, but it didn’t come into her mind till too late. “I like these whitey petals round them,” she added, touching them gently.
“Yes, you’d wonder how they’d come out in the cold and the wind. But these are dearest; you should have these,” said Mrs. Mawson. “These are out of the garden . . . double ones. Most folk prefer ’em.”
“I don’t,” said Flo, raising the tight little boss of wild flowers to her nose. They had a very slight cool-leaves smell, which she wouldn’t have said was nice, but which somehow excited her. “Oh, if only I could see them all,” she exclaimed.