“No,” said Flo.
“Huh!” was the satisfied comment. “Into ’is pocket it would ’a gone and I’d ’a seen nowt. But we’ll see about this.”
She rolled back the wristbands of her tight black moire frock and went off into the pantry. Flo, relieved, walked back to the sink. Apparently there was nothing wrong about Jack Knight taking the calf, except as it affected Mr. Nadin. Dot was by the sink.
“Time you’d done,” she said coldly. “If you dawdle you’ll be no good here.”
Flo kept silent.
“Don’t you answer when you’re spoken to? Didn’t they teach you that in the paupers’ place?”
Flo nearly asked, “What paupers’ place?” but stopped just in time. “I didn’t know what there was to say,” she answered.
“Sulking won’t do you any good.”
“No,” said Flo.
“And don’t answer me back like that.”
“No,” said Flo again, flustered.
“No, what?”
“No . . . no . . .?”
“Don’t you know to say ‘miss’?”
“Eh! What’s that?” demanded Mrs. Nadin coming unexpectedly. “Lesson in manners? Lesson in daftness, more like. If you want ta start miss-ing an’ madaming, goo on th’midden; that’s best place for that muckment.”
Dot retorted: “You’ve no right to have a girl. You spoil them all. Of course she ought to say ‘miss’. Any maid should.”
“You shut you’re trap,” said Mrs. Nadin briskly, but without anger. “You’ve too much ta say, all of a piece. If she suits me she’ll suit you, or you lump it, as the Irishman said to the donkey when he shoved it to the mule.”
Dot did not reply, but stepped closer to the sink and when Flo stood aside pushed the kettle stiffly under the tap straight in front of her. Momentarily the water hit on the outside and splattered them, but it wet Flo more than Dot. As the fire was being poked to seat the kettle, Bert came in.
“What’s Jack payin’ for yon cawfe?” asked Mrs. Nadin at once.
“Didna know as he were takin’ one,” said Bert without interest.
“Nao, I thought not. Bit o’ ’bacca money as we’re non supposed ta know about. Your dad thinks he’s smart, but he’s non th’ony smart one.”
“It’ll be bull-calf,” said Bert. “Pass us the paper, Dot.”
“Get it yourself; you’re as well able to.”
Flo wondered what would happen when the farmer came. She felt guilty, as if she had made a trap for him. All at once she thought of taking the greasy water out to the grid on the excuse that it might choke the sink pipe. Then, possibly, she could warn him.
“Eh, where you goin’?” asked Mrs. Nadin. “Boilin’ water and soda’ll soon start th’pipe agen; dunna bother that road.”
Flo turned back, and a short time after heard the farmer coming. Before he was properly inside Mrs. Nadin was at him: “What about that bull-cawfe, you tight-fisted sinner?”
“Bull-cawfe?” he repeated, appearing to blink.
“Non of your soft,” snapped his wife belligerently. “That as Jack Knight took.”
“Didna know as he’d took it,” said the farmer with the same lack of hurry.
“Nao; but you know how much he’s payin’, an’ that’s what. Where do I get mi extras, eh? Odd shillings here, odd shillings there, all into thy long pocket and away ta keep th’ Kicking Donkey kicking.”
Mr. Nadin sat in the high-backed chair by the fire and asked Dot for his cup as if the tirade had nothing to do with him.
“Run this place on nowt, like Patsy’s donkey, for all you care. A belly on you like a tank when it comes ta beer; why the damn it doesn’t drown you beats me.”
No one appeared to be attending; only Flo felt that she was responsible. At first chance she’d tell the farmer she was sorry, but that it had all come about unexpectedly. After a brief space of silence she was astonished to hear the farmer quietly declare:
“I’ll take Flo out ta milking; she’s the making of a good ’un,” and then he took a long audible suck from the edge of his cup.
“Take ’er, will you? Then you’ll pay her wages,” retorted Mrs. Nadin.
The farmer did not trouble to reply.
Chapter 8
Friday, Flo had been warned, was baking day. She thought of her mother’s modest baking and wondered why it should be worth naming a day for it. But as soon as the morning porridge was done out she was taken to the end of the yard away from the road into a small outhouse which she had never gone into before. The wash-boiler, she recognized at once, but alongside was what looked somewhat like a child’s wash-boiler. There was the same raised fire-hole beneath, but the brickwork instead of being square, made a round funnel three feet high; and instead of there being a boiler inside, all she found was a flat iron plate a foot below the open top.
She lit a fire beneath the plate without being able to guess what its use was. She was told to make a big fire, which would go together into a good redness. When she got back to the kitchen Mrs. Nadin had her sleeves up and was standing on a wooden stool nearly hidden from her waist up in a tremendous wide-mouthed earthenware crock, which she called a “panchion”. She mixed energetically and was too busy to nag anybody. All that she appeared to have in the panchion was oatmeal to which she kept adding a little milk and more water till it mixed into a thinnish paste.
“That’s the stuff to put guts into you,” she said, stepping down.
It wasn’t clear to Flo whether she referred to the exercise of mixing, or to eating the oatmeal. She told Flo to carry the panchion, and Flo got hold, but could scarcely move it. Mrs. Nadin laughed and told her to fetch one of the boys. Clem was just pouring milk into the sieve outside the shippon and seemed glad enough to leave his bucket. Flo waited to see what happened. Mrs. Nadin dipped up a big spoonful of the mixture and dropped it on the hot plate where it quickly spread thinly and evenly. After a very short time she adroitly turned it over with a flat wooden shovel, like a butter pat twelve inches across. When a moment or two later she lifted it out of the open top of the “oven” it was a flat cake a quarter of an inch thick and twelve inches or more in diameter.
“If you’ve never had ’em hot off a griddle, you’ve missed summat good,” announced Mrs. Nadin. “Fetch a dinner plate.”
She dropped the next one like a pancake on the plate and told Flo to spread it with honey. The oaty flavour and the rich brown honey, which was from heather, were new to Flo, and she thought that she had never tasted anything nicer. On getting back to the wash-house she was surprised to see how the stack of oat-cakes was growing. When eventually Mrs. Nadin finished it was nearly two feet high.
“Are we going to eat all those?” asked Flo.
“All be gone by Tuesday, dunna worry,” said Mrs. Nadin.
After breakfast she began another baking, which to Flo was equally surprising. The panchion was nearly filled with flour into which lard was rubbed. Flo had never seen this done, and she stared fascinated, but she was sent to the attic, where she was tantalized by warm, sweetened smells that seemed to arrive in waves. When at last she went into the kitchen again the table was covered with pastries, some ready for the oven, some already crisped and browned. There were four dinner-plate pies, six dinner-plate jam tarts decorated with criss-crossed strips; and, to Flo most surprising of all, a pasty which covered the bread board and looked as if it would scarcely fit into the oven. Mrs. Nadin balanced the oven shelf on the fender and carefully shovelled the pasty on to it and in it went.
“Whatever’s in it?” asked Flo, unable to keep quiet.
“Currants an’ raisins . . . dunna you like them?” asked Mrs. Nadin, wiping back a finger of hair, leaving a flour smear over her left eye.