A cool draught met her from the back door. Yellow light from the kitchen falling over the passage emphasised the outer darkness. The grandfather clock told her that it was only half-past five. Mrs. Nadin was bending near the fire which was roaring fiercely behind a “blower” made of part of an iron sheet advertisement. The edges where the enamelling survived showed bright yellow, making Flo think of mustard. The handle in the centre was a clumsy piece of hoop iron.
“’Mornin’,” said Mrs. Nadin in the same staccato manner. “Set them basins out.”
With a piece of charred flannelette she grabbed the blower and, carrying it like a shield, walked swiftly to the door. Specks of glowing soot eddied over her and the thing smelt. She dumped it with a clatter against the wall outside. The fire tossing its flames up the great chimney fascinated Flo by its prodigality. At home Mrs. Royer had always been so niggardly with coal. Already the white cloth was newly laid on the big oblong table pushed towards the corner behind the door. Flo set five thick white basins in a row and then was told to add another. Mrs. Nadin spooned dollops of stiff oatmeal stew from a big-bellied brown pot out of the oven into an iron pan and poured milk on it generously from a two-quart blue enamel jug.
“Come an’ wipe; an’ keep an eye on this,” she ordered, “an’ if you let it burn, Dickie help you, ’cos I winna.”
So Flo wiped the supper pots and every now and then vigorously stirred the porridge on the bar. From outside came more lowings, occasional shouts, little explosive clatterings of clogs on cobbles. Then steps passed along the passage and Flo caught sight of Clem going out.
“Allus late; he’ll be late at his own funeral, that man,” said Mrs. Nadin to no one in particular.
After a while the farmer and the two sons came in, all with hair anyhow, and in jackets which at first glance seemed mainly holes and frayed edges. They sat morosely and mechanically spooned up the porridge.
“Going to let us have another milker, Monica?” asked the farmer.
“Am I hellas like,” came the pat retort.
He went on gulping enormous spoonfuls at an unvarying steady rate. After the last spoonful he pushed his basin into the centre and at once got up and went out without speaking again. Bert soon followed, but Clem, after pushing his basin away, rested for nearly five minutes on his elbows, hands loosely linked, arms lying in a “V”.
“Happen you’d like ta stop an’ do the housework an’ let Flo go out,” said Mrs. Nadin tersely.
“No; I’d sooner let Dot go. Where is she?” he asked in his slow manner. “Thinks she’ll retire now, I bet.” But after that he slouched out.
“She’ll not retire on me,” said Mrs. Nadin to his back. She went along the passage and from the stair foot bawled: “Now, our Dot, d’you come down, or mun I come an’ make you?”
Flo heard some sort of reply, though she was unable to catch it clearly. Mrs. Nadin came back apparently satisfied, but after a further ten minutes her impatience boiled up again.
“Go up an’ if she isna out, pull th’ clothes off an’ bring them down here,” she ordered. Thinking that she must be joking, Flo hesitated. “What are you waiting for?” Mrs. Nadin demanded. “Dunna you understand plain English?”
Flo set off, scared by the little woman’s viciousness. She was not sure even which was the right room, but she tapped on the only shut door on the first landing and got in reply an unwelcoming, “Come in.” Dorothy Nadin was still in bed, and stared questioningly. The flame of the candle on the chair near her trembled a little.
“Please, miss, you’re to get up,” Flo murmured. “Missis sent me.”
“Did she? Didn’t she send a cup of tea?”
“No,” said Flo.
“Well, don’t stop and stare.”
“She said I was to take the clothes down,” Flo explained steadily, moving a step nearer.
“Did she? You dare!”
“I . . . I don’t suppose she meant it, but she . . . she seemed to,” said Flo at a loss. “She’s . . .”
“She meant it all right; but if you try . . .”
The threat was unfinished. The speaker had not moved except to turn her head so that she could look straight at Flo. Flo shifted her weight uneasily and unconsciously ran her tongue along her top lip. “What can I tell her?”
“What you like; only get out,” said Dot; but suddenly she tossed the clothes down and sat up. She was in a pink flannel nightdress with narrow cream lace at the close neck and round the wrists. She was thinner than Flo had thought.
Dot felt her hair, which was very dark. The two legs of one of the big copper-wire pins round which it was wound had come untied and she slowly drew the pin out, leaving the lock dangling, a single absurd spiral down her left cheek. Then she seemed to become aware of Flo still waiting. “Are you stuck there?” she demanded.
“No,” Flo answered. “Shall I tell her you’re getting up?”
“No; if you want the clothes, take them; tell her I’ve done with them,” and she lifted her feet over the edge and got out with unwilling deliberation. Flo turned away and went back to the kitchen.
“Well, where’s th’ clothes?” demanded Mrs. Nadin at once.
“She’s out, so I didn’t think you’d want them,” said Flo. There was no reply.
After that Mrs. Nadin kept herself too busy to nag Flo. They washed the porridge things, and reset for breakfast. Bacon was cut in two-feet rashers which curled right round the great iron frying-pan. This bacon had only three thin lines of lean, but it smelt clean and sweet and appetizing. Two lots had been done and lay crisped on a big oval willow-pattern meat dish in the oven before Dot came down. Her lock was back in its pin, and she looked neat in an ironed overall-apron covered with tiny little marigolds.
“Lady La-di-da now, eh?” said Mrs. Nadin. “I didna take her on ta do thy work. Get toasting fork.”
Dot did not answer, but Flo felt the coolness of her antagonism. Whenever in their work they moved near one another, Dot either passed her over with an uninterested stare or looked past her as if she did not know that she was there.
“Has she bitten thee? What’s up with her as you dunna like?” demanded Mrs. Nadin unexpectedly just as the grandfather clock began to grind inwardly ready to strike seven.
“No,” said Dot, “she doesn’t trouble me. She’ll be useful for serving in the cabin, I should think.”
“Yes, an’ so will you, madam,” said Mrs. Nadin grimly.
The clock finished its chime with a sigh, thankful to get that done with, and up the path came Clem. Bert came five minutes later, but there was no sign of the farmer.
“Fetch him,” ordered Mrs. Nadin, and Flo went out into the grey chill morning. He wasn’t in the shippon, nor where the horses were. She tried to push the big door that reached up to the slates. It had little wheels evidently intended to run on the line on the stones, but it was jammed. Then she noticed a wicket in the big door and stepped through doubtfully into the gloom of lofty space. After a moment or two she saw on the right an untidy hay mound, what was left of a stack; and on the left built up against a whitewashed wall were three tiers of bulgy sacks. There was a peculiar smell which reminded her of sawdust and of Saturday night in town at home. She wondered why; and then it came to her that it was something like the smell that came out of the public-house doors if they happened to open as she passed, only there was no smoke with this smell. But, of course, it couldn’t have anything to do with public-houses; she must be mistaken. She was about to step over the high sill back into the yard when a resonant thump of wood came from somewhere past the far wall of the barn, and then faintly she heard Mr. Nadin talking to “Monica” about something. She ventured across the broken floor into darker shadow and then made out a farther door set back in the thick wall. It gratered to her push and she looked into a square lean-to with a biggish window of dirty glass in a roof of old corrugated iron. The sides seemed to be railway sleepers. A narrow gangway divided the lean-to and there were little square pens, three on either side. Mr. Nadin was in one bending gravely forward.