“Not if you hold on,” said Flo, wondering if he had seen her wave.
“But how can you hold properly when you have the leather to shift from one hand to the other . . . and to do other things?”
“Oh, I hold on all right.”
“I don’t know whether you do,” he answered gravely. “I saw you signalling to someone. If you were to fall and damage your back there’d be two lame ducks waddling about in push-chairs. You don’t know how lucky you are: you should take care.”
She thought he sounded like a father. But she was relieved because apparently he hadn’t guessed who her signal had been for.
“I do know,” she protested, looking down on his unnaturally straight legs, experiencing a gush of sympathy. “It must be horrible; I don’t know how you put up with it and keep so . . . well, you don’t really seem to mind.”
“What’s the use?” he asked, smiling slightly, but not in his eyes which she saw acorn brown and still. “I’m lucky, too, in some ways. I’m not forced to work, and I can get about. There’s the lake and . . . well, lots of things.”
“Nothing’s so bad as it can’t be worse, I suppose,” murmured Flo, feeling that it was false; the kind of thing that Mrs. Howell would have said.
“No,” Dick agreed unconvincingly. “The worst is being dependent on other people. Things I can’t do.”
“You mean me again,” Flo accused. “But I like to help.”
“I’m sure; but everybody isn’t like you.”
An elderly woman poking with a stick stood back against the hedge while he manœuvred past, and Flo had to step into the roadway. They had come to the first houses of Moss. They were villas, half red brick, half grey pebble-dash, and faced one another aloofly across the road, their backs austerely turned on the beautiful views of the valley which even passers-by had a job to see over their shoulders. The intimacy which had been growing between Flo and her companion fell away and she felt that it was time to leave him. Probably he wouldn’t want to be seen with her there, though she could not detect any change in his manner. It was simply their talk that had been stifled by the villas. Then they were between long continuous rows of gritstone, the old cottages that stood unashamed on their own doorsteps up to the road without the least attempt at a garden. Flo liked them at once; they were so much more homely than the villas. As she went past she caught the yellow flickerings in the grates of little kitchens, suggesting welcome. Dick called, “How do?” across the street to a man in a floury cap and jacket and bran-bag apron who was unloading from a horse lorry. “Non so bad. How’s yourself, sirrie?” the man called back, pausing with a sack balanced on his shoulders. The close cottages kept the talk in, almost as if they were in a room.
The road became a street, too narrow for more than one pavement, and this too narrow for the chair. Dick had to go in the roadway and Flo watched alertly for any cars coming. Then, where two pubs faced—The Royal Standard tall and haughty, its sign in a glass case hanging from iron scrollwork, The Bull low and ancient with a stone-cut head minus horns jutting over the door like a sailing ship figurehead—the street opened abruptly on the left into a square. Where Flo and Dick had come to, street and square were level; fifty yards farther on where the square ended and houses began on the left again the street was ten feet lower than the square, and went on descending steeply. The built-up side of the square was walled. Along the top were railings and a row of youngish lime trees. Over the railings leaned five men and a woman, as over a balcony, watching traffic plod uphill or coast easily down. Behind the watchers Flo saw the top of a dark stone cross; “thousands of years old” she thought at once. Two-thirds of the way up the centre piece of the cross a rope was knotted, its other end going to the tilted-up shaft of a flat cart. Over the rope hung a rectangle of dirty grey canvas giving crude shelter to a vegetable stall. To the other shaft was tied a black pony with collar and tracings on, its nose tucked into a sack on an empty orange crate.
“It’s not much, but what there is, it’s there,” said Dick, stopping at the corner below the steps of The Royal Standard.
There were seven other stalls with proper wood frames and canvas awnings, and pots were displayed in a coloured circle twelve feet across without sky protection of any kind.
“My, but it’s diff’rent from our market,” exclaimed Flo, pleased by the number of persons about, more than she had seen together since passing through Manchester.
At the far corner over the stalls, looking down another narrow street of grey houses she saw the square tower of the church; and beyond again were the hills watching as they watched over everything.
“Well, so long,” said Dick, and he gave a kind of salute and started off down the street. All five men leaning over the railings nodded to him, and Flo felt that they had been staring curiously. She started across to the pots. All the crockery seemed to be piled up, but she found that this was merely an appearance caused by the things in the centre having been placed on boxes of different heights. At one side there was a big wicker clothes basket full of odd cups. Two women kept dipping, examining cups and putting them back. Another younger woman, “just getting married” Flo thought, had an eighteen inches high “Cherry Boy” which she held at arm’s length, tilting her head leftwards while she seriously considered it. There was no one trying to sell any of these things. It looked as though anyone could have walked off with anything. Apparently the stall-holders didn’t come to Moss to try to sell much, but more as a holiday. After five minutes spent by Flo idly looking over three tea-services, the woman with the “Cherry Boy” began to stare round in a business-like way.
“Five an’ six, I think,” said a man in a slouched cap, grey shirt-sleeves, and a long apron striped light and dark blue. He was leaning against a motor van with an open back in which could be seen several not very tempting cuts of beef. “Sal’s over yonder,” nodding towards a cheese stall where two women in black aprons and gum-boots were talking. Flo watched the statuette being rolled unceremoniously in yellow paper. The stall-holder handed it over rather as though it were a pound of tripe, but the young woman at once uprighted it and carried it carefully against her breast. Flo felt envious. She turned away towards a stall that was more busy than any of the others. From the cross-pieces under the awning swung attractive blouses and summer dresses on hangers, and over the rails were neatly folded nightdresses, pyjamas, vests, petticoats and knickers. But the thirteen women clustered round were not interested in these. They were all reaching and picking things up like children dipping in a bran-tub. Flo saw that the stall was really a shallow oblong box, the sides nine inches high. In it was a great tangle of material, of many kinds, many patterns, many colours. Anyone who caught sight of an end or corner that looked interesting, got hold and gave a pull. Flo couldn’t resist. After a few seconds she managed to get to the front. At first she was shy and simply watched. It was funny. Nobody appeared to want what was on top; they all seemed sure that the best bits were underneath, so that the tangle was never left still. Everything in it was nearly continuously on the move, “like a bloody lot of squirming guts” as the butcher by the open van had often thought. At last Flo reached for a piece of sky-blue crepe-de-chine, simply to feel its silkiness, and just as her fingers were about to close it started to ebb away, to disappear beneath a heavy end of red-and-brown tweed. Flo snatched back her hand, as if it had been about to do something wrong. Then a glance across showed her a tall thin woman in gold pince-nez and a feathered straw hat vigorously tugging sky-blue by the yard. Flo couldn’t imagine what she could want crepe-de-chine for. She was tempted to grab and try to tug the material back. But she reached for a piece of deep red velvet instead because it looked so rich. There was only half a yard, but it was thick and even more luxurious to touch than to look at. While she was still enjoying it she was surprised to see the stall-holder straightening the blue crepe-de-chine along her round, scratched yard-stick. Fifteen yards, and after a little arguing the woman with the pince-nez tightened her lips and began to fiddle in her black leather handbag which had a gold clip. Flo forgot the velvet and stared after her. The antique feathered hat showed up above all other hats. It went round the outside of the cluster and Flo turned to see where the woman was going with the precious parcel. In the centre of the market stood a black-and-yellow Rolls Royce, but of antique type, with a grey-haired chauffeur in fir-green livery. The woman gave him the parcel and went on towards the pot heap.