“If you’d only follow your own motto of keeping your mouth shut, it would be better for all of us,” cried Dot, worked up. “You’ve no idea what folks say . . .”
“Let ’em say till they bust an’ be damned,” snapped Mrs. Nadin. “They’ll non say as our Dot is too proud ta goo hay-makin’, anyway. I’ll see ta that.”
When Flo thought that they should all be pleased with the fine way in which the grass had come on, bad temper seemed only to increase. Lacing his boots at six o’clock in the morning to go with Clem to start mowing in Lake Meadow, Bert said, “The sooner it’s done the better; I hope to God it’s a good time.”
“Ay,” Clem grunted. “Muckin’ the stuff about for months is a ruddy mug’s game.”
They went out and Flo was told, instead of bothering with the few jobs that she usually did beforehand, to go straight away to help with milking. She was astonished half an hour later to hear Dot walk into the thirteen shippon. Flo had not known that Dot could milk. Certainly Dot had not milked since Flo had been taken on.
“You’d best take Yorkie an’ Polly, they’re easiest,” said the farmer, looking round from his stool in the gloom at the shippon end.
That was a triumph for Flo; already she was considered a better milker than Dot. Going with her bucket to the churn unconsciously she adopted almost a swagger. As she stood in the yard pouring bubbly milk into the sieve she heard the queer chattering of the mower, which sounded angry, too, at its job, though it had been idle since the July before. After milking, and before feeding the hens, Flo ran to the gate to see what it was like. The grass lay in heavy rows all brushed, as it were, obliquely; and she was pleased by the colour, sappy pale at the bottom, shading greener with some blue, then buff, brown, and red and yellow at the top, so that the swaths looked rather like long pale rainbows, rainbows plucked from the sky and laid straight and wilting. What a funny idea that was, Flo thought, and she wished that she had someone to pass it on to. Jack Knight might have understood. Then the mower stopped suddenly, and she ran back lest she should be seen. Dot was in the yard and caught her.
“No wonder I have to help, if that’s how you work.”
“I wasn’t away a minute,” said Flo.
“Of course you were. You have too much of your own way.”
“How now?” exclaimed Mr. Nadin, putting his head unexpectedly from the shippon. “You’re allus fallin’ out, you two.”
“Falling out!” exclaimed Dot. “I’m trying to teach her her place as you ought to.”
“Oo’s a good worker about th’ farm,” said the farmer. “Best way ta drive a hoss isna allus ta be whippin’.”
His head went in again, and Dot turned and walked towards the house, stiffly indicating that she had done as much outside as she was going to do. Flo had expected that the hay would keep them terribly busy all day, but after the early morning cut everything went on very much as it did normally. Lake Meadow was simply left with its long swaths, like a triangular cloth with a plain centre and a dozen frilly rows all round. The sun shone and a pleasant breeze came across, bringing to Flo the sappy odour of the hay’s first drying. Then in the evening she heard the mower chattering again, and being free she went out and was put to following with a rake to move the swaths out of the way at the corners, or when the knife got stawed. Clem was driving with Colonel walking by the standing grass and Job pulling by his side. They worked unevenly, and Clem swore often, but Flo was fascinated by the ever-falling grass. It shivered at the touch of the guide arm which divided the grass that was fated from that which would stay for the next round. Then suddenly it lost its upright, debonair stand, sheered off at the ankles without warning by the knife which seemed to Flo to work like a saw. It was sad, she thought, and rather unfair. What a pity to kill all the flowers. They fell with the grass in a greeny-buff wave, and the pollen that shook off made her think of the fine spray that wind sometimes lifted off the waves in Morecambe Bay.
Mr. Nadin was mowing the field edges with a scythe. Bert was near the gate with a cutter-blade fixed on a spindle-legged trestle, touching up with a file the edges of the triangular knife sections. When Flo got near the gate on her sixth round she saw Dick Goldbourn there. He waved, and she remembered how she had thought it would be nice to marry him. Suppose she made up her mind, she thought, what chance had she? What chance had any girl like herself to marry men better off than themselves? She knew it happened in books, but . . .
The mower knife stuttered, jerked ineffectually, stopped. In front of it lay a wad of grass fallen forward instead of back.
“What the hell!” demanded Clem. “That’s what you’re there for.” He yelled to the horses to back. The pole tipped up awkwardly between them. Clem got down and cleared the knife, showing her the chewed grass. “The bloody knife’s as blunt as hell, anyway, but you canna expect it to cut that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Flo.
Instantly his mood changed. He grinned. Unexpectedly with his bent forefinger, he stroked her under the chin. She back-stepped hurriedly, her feet tripping, so that she sat down suddenly, foolishly.
“Oh my, I’ve got my pink drawers on!” he jibed, turning aside as though shocked.
She felt like throwing the rake at him. He spoilt the job for her. She wondered if Dick Goldbourn had seen.
They kept on till damp rose in a fine mist all over the field, and Flo felt the coolness soaking her shoes. When she went to the gate Bert had gone in to prepare feed for the horses, but Dick was still there.
“You must be weary, or I’d ask you to help me up the hill,” she was surprised to hear him say.
She exclaimed that she could do that, anyway; would be glad to. It was slightly dusky, but she could see his dark eyes looking steadily. This excited her somewhat; made her feel a little guilty. Supposing that he could guess what she had been thinking!
“No, I can’t let you,” he was saying.
“If you go now it will be all right,” she said hastily. “I can’t when all the others have gone in.”
He turned and she pushed him over the rough gate place. Down the lane he trundled himself easily; all she did was rest her hand on the chair back. For twenty yards he did not speak. She heard over the hedge quite close the farmer, sharpening his scythe.
“How do you get on with them all?” asked Dick, a little husky.
“Get on? . . . All right.”
“With Bert and Clem . . . are they decent?”
“Yes,” she answered, wondering.
“I saw you,” he said, apparently with difficulty. “He did something to you and you jumped and fell.”
“It was the swath.”
He went a little quicker down hill to the bridge. They were between the willows where it was more misty and darker.
“Perhaps you’re wondering why I asked,” Dick began again. “But I don’t trust Clem. I thought he might have been up to tricks. I suppose it’s none of my business, but . . . well, you helped me.”
“I never feel quite safe with him, but he’s never interfered before,” Flo answered. “He’s always out.”
“I’m glad.”
He rolled over the bridge and Flo began to push. Between the high banks at the steepest part it was almost dark; then they came out on the level into clearness and it seemed lighter than in the valley. They stopped by the five-sided toll-house which was now only a dwelling house. Through the small side window the leaping gleam of a good fire beckoned.
“Mustn’t it be nice . . . Like a doll’s house,” said Flo.
“D’you think so? You’re very good. We should see more of each other . . . if you’re not bored by a crock.”
“Oh, no,” said Flo earnestly, looking intently, then quickly staring up the road to Moss. “You’re not an old crock. I . . .” she almost said, “I like you,” but stopped. “I . . . I’ll be in the hay a lot; perhaps I’ll see you there, so close to the lake.”