Chapter 11
Flo felt sorry for Mr. Nadin. However Mrs. Nadin stormed he so seldom answered back. He was not exactly meek, but he absorbed everything that she said with a kind of independent resignation. If Mrs. Nadin was upstairs or in the outhouses and Mr. Nadin came in late for his afternoon cup of tea, Dot sometimes would say:
“If you can’t come in to time, you deserve to do without.”
“Keep your lip to yourself,” he would answer quietly, but with unmistakable authority.
Flo liked it. But why didn’t he do the same to Mrs. Nadin?
The abandonment of Colonel was only one of many somewhat similar happenings. Flo soon got into the habit of trying to help the farmer all she could. She thought that he needed help; and more important to herself, though she did not admit it, she preferred working out-of-doors.
The boys did not do much. Bert was perfunctory towards farm work; Clem was lazy. The only thing that he liked was going off in the trap with Job. Where he went to most times Flo did not know; and she was often in bed when she heard the clatter of hooves and the rolling of the iron-tyred wheels. Then she would lie till she heard his stockinged tread and saw the yellow candle light in a broad bar beneath her door. She watched its brilliance rise up the side cracks, then grow dim and disappear as Clem went along the landing. Perhaps it was foolish, but she did not feel at ease till he had climbed the stairs and gone. There was no lock or bolt, and it would be so simple for him to walk in. Otherwise Flo soon got to like her room. It was the one place where she could get away effectively from Mrs. Nadin’s perpetual harsh talk; where she could feel that she had a little part of life still her own. There, in silence only faintly disturbed occasionally by the sleepy cheep of a sparrow under the stone-slated eaves, or the sly running of mice somewhere in the walls or beams, and in steady friendly candle light she wrote home. From there she tried to tell her mother what her new life was like:
“If only it wasn’t so far from you, it would be alright. I don’t like Dot. She’s stuck up and no mistake, but I wish Ivy could see some of the things she has. Not that they’re any better than mine, really, tell Mrs. Howell. The only thing is I don’t get much time to wear them. Saturday and Sunday we feed men who come to catch fishes in the lake, though they don’t much. Monday is wash-day, and the ironing we have in the afternoon! You’d go dotty, but we get through. Tuesday . . . well, I’m not going to go over everything. But I should get some time off, shouldn’t I?. . I don’t like asking, because Mrs. isn’t the sort you can ask much, though she’s not too bad when you get used. Talks and talks and talks, and quite funny at times. Sets on to Mr. Nadin something awful, but don’t tell Mrs. Howell. I wish she’d set on to Dot as she does on to him. I think that’s all this time, but I’ll write again. How’s town looking? I can’t think it’s still there, it’s so different here. If you see Mrs. Mawson in the market, tell her I’m doing what she said. She’ll know what. I love you, Mother. Good night and lots of XXXXXX.”
Next morning Flo asked Dot where she could post the letter.
“What tales have you been telling?”
“Nothing,” said Flo.
“Bert’ll post it . . . if he can remember,” said Dot. She stood a moment hesitating, then walked to the fireplace.
Bert said, “Ay, I’ll non forget,” and slipped the envelope into his right-hand pocket. This was Flo’s second letter. She thought of Mrs. Mawson telling her to stick up for herself, and wondered whether asking about a half-day off would come under what her friend had meant. Only there was always so much to do that Flo did not like asking. But Mrs. Nadin might have been able to pick up her thoughts for on the second Thursday morning, while Flo was peeling potatoes, Mrs. Nadin said: “I reckon you’re like all the rest an’ want ta goo sky-larkin’ a bit?”
“How d’you mean?”
“Bit o’ time off a’ter the lads. There’ll be noo folk if there’s noo courtin’. When you’ve washed up, happen we’ll manage ’bout you after dinner.”
But it was three before Flo got upstairs to change. Only now that she was free she had no idea where to go. Her brief ride from the station through Moss had not left a very attractive memory. It seemed a long walk there if there was nothing more than she had already seen. She leaned on the window sill and looked across the valley to where on the hill were other farms, small and grey, each with its sheltering group of sycamores or ash trees. She got her father’s glasses, and these seemed to bring the farms closer, but that was all. In any of these farmhouses there might be a girl of her own age free for the afternoon, not knowing what to do. But how could they get to know each other? Was there no market where they could meet? Flo wondered. Why hadn’t she asked?
Anyway, she could dress in her best. There was no telling what might happen. So she started to change. She had to go down again to wash at the sink. There was no one in the kitchen, but as she was drying herself she heard Clem on the flags. She hid her shoulders with the towel, as a cape, and dashed for the door. He had just opened the outer door which she had shut. He grinned, and as she turned he caught the towel and gave it a tug. The corner nearest to him was dragged out of her clutch and fell down her back, but she ran on up the passage, hearing his laugh. After dressing she listened acutely, trying to decide whether he was still in the kitchen, but no sound came. She took a last look into the glass. Because she could not see the hem of her skirt she had to put the chair in front of the dressing-table and stand on it. She was satisfied and hoped that there would be someone nice to see her. She felt just as smart as the first time when she tried the costume on. She hadn’t had any money so far, but part of her things were paid for, anyway, and she wondered which part. She thought that it would be a good plan to decide each half-day, if she got them regular, what it was that she had worked for that week, and what she was going to work for in the next week. She decided that the first thing she would pay off would be the blouse, but how much of it was represented by the week—no, ten days—which she had already worked? Had she bought the front or the back, or only a sleeve, say? This was a problem she could not answer, and she frowned as she lifted her skirt to step down. She wished that she had been told how much each of the things had cost; all she knew was that Mrs. Howell had told her that she would have to work at least six months before she could expect to get more than a very little pocket-money. Flo frowned more as she thought going down the stairs. How nice it would be when she really began to earn and could send something home!
She was upset to find Clem leaning in the back doorway. He turned and said that if she was going into Moss he’d take her. He was going with the float.
“I’m not going into Moss; I’m going the other way,” said Flo.
She felt like turning back up the stairs, but she forced herself to walk on. As she stepped out he heaved his weight off the door post and went on with her.
“Got a date already, eh? You’ll get lost,”, he said in a teasing drawl.
She ignored him.
“Not coming?” he asked again, quizzingly, as they got to the float.
She walked on feeling annoyed and foolish. She heard him say, “She won’t have us, Job. We’re jilted!” The back of her neck burned with her cheeks, and she knew he must be able to see it under her turban and would be laughing. At the gate she turned abruptly rightward, but the wall was not high enough to hide her and she walked on stiffly, looking straight in front. The float rattled over the yard and she heard it craunch round in the lane. She was tempted to look back to make sure that it was going the other way, only she knew that Clem might still be watching. However, the sounds went fainter and she slowed to a saunter. The road went straight for a quarter mile, then disappeared to the left of some thorn bushes. She had not the least idea where it led. A hundred yards from the yard gate the wall on the right ended. She was past the house and the cabin and the hawthorns by which the boat-house was sheltered and unexpectedly she came to a wide open space and saw the lake broadspread. It was a mile long and half a mile across, and seen from there seemed to fill the valley. There was a gradual slope of coarse grass and scattered sedge tufts, then a strip of low-growing weeds of a kind that could survive periodic drownings, and finally an edge of clayey silt and stones. She walked down, drawn as a child would have been, and the nearer to the water she got the farther and wider the lake seemed to spread. A pleasant breeze was coming from the west down the length of the lake, raising little waves that splashed along the strand, tossing tiny beads of spray towards her shoes as if inviting her to play. It was so very like the sea that for a moment she imagined herself back on the coast at Aldingham, looking across Morecambe bay. The breeze blew away the hotness from her cheeks and seemed to cleanse her and she breathed in deeply, coolness spreading under her breasts, till she felt buoyant and wanted to run. She turned leftwards and started to walk briskly just out of reach of the breaking water. The sound was lifted to her; it was a gentle, friendly sounds friendly as the prattle of children. Fifty yards along the land went out in a curving sweep rightward. A brake of hawthorns, low-growing alders and bramble mounds hid her from the road, and she felt free and ran for twenty yards till she suddenly thought of Bert. Perhaps he was in the bushes somewhere. He always seemed to be somewhere near the lake. She stopped and looked round, but there was nothing, only the lapping water and the bushes and the sky. In front a ridge rose just high enough to hide everything beyond. This was the backbone of the point which formed the bay round which she was going. She went on to the tip of the point and looked into the west with the breeze, and the little waves flowing all round, as it seemed. The continual hurry of the waves gave her the impression of moving forward into them as in the prow of a boat. The sensation pleased her and she stood there five minutes, feeling pink coming into her cheeks. On her left behind the point the lake ended in a pear-shaped lagoon, three hundred yards long and at its widest part two hundred yards. Across to the opposite shore from where she stood was about one hundred and fifty yards, and she noticed what she thought was a curious thing. Far out the waves ran independently, tossing, slapping, and sometimes falling over one another, but as they approached the lagoon entrance there was an increasing orderliness; they went together inexplicably into continuous swells which moved into the opening in bow formation, each swell about two feet behind its forerunner. These swells or regular corrugations were higher than any of the individual waves farther out. The fore part of the bow passed into the lagoon first at the centre of the entrance, the ends of the swells lagging slightly along the shores. The swells had a brave look, as if they were determined to overwhelm everything, and then twenty yards within the lagoon they seemed to forget. They lost their robustness and became smaller and smaller, till forty yards past the point they were simply ripples which meekly smoothed themselves into the untroubled stillness of the far end. There Flo saw as the stalk of the lagoon pear a stream which came in between banks green with spring freshness. A quarter-mile away the little valley was shut in by a ridge grown with larches just beginning to tint, as if some of the dye of the grass had been taken up by their roots. The larches stood above the ridge against the sky, reminding Flo of pictures of the Canadian Rockies; but this was smaller, more friendly and pretty. Then she shortened her gaze to the left of the lagoon. Near where the stream came in the bank went up twenty feet or more, almost into a cliff, though all grass, topped with rough hawthorns and hollies. Flo’s gaze following the ridge hesitated all at once. There was something in the dark hollow under the cliff, something which at first she could not make out. Concentrating, she saw a man apparently sitting down, so that after all she had not been alone. She had been watched and she felt resentful; by his mere presence he had somehow spoiled the whole scene and experience. She turned, intending to walk to the road by the way that she had come. Her instinct was to ignore the stranger, but the narrowness of the point compelled her during the first twenty yards very nearly straight in his direction, and she could not close her eyes to him. He was waving, not in greeting, but signalling urgently with bent arm which he drew towards himself. She was struck by his otherwise static attitude. It seemed unnatural. On reaching the place where she should have gone down the ridge leftward out of his view she paused doubtfully. There was a slight lull in the rush of breeze, and a shout reached her, not as any particular word, but an appeal of some kind. What could he want?