§ 14

After that she must have slept, for when she next opened her eyes she had made up her mind. Jenny was not naturally irresolute but she was diffident, and this problem of escape was the biggest she had ever had to tackle. However, sleep had straightened out the twisted workings of her thought—the way was clear at last.

She sprang out of bed, alive with a glowing sense of determination. She knew that she had a great deal to plan and to do. This love affair, apart from its significance, was entirely different from any other she had had. Her intuition told her that she would have to make the openings, carry on all the initial stages of the wooing. She would have to show Godfrey that she cared, or his modesty would make him hang back. In common language she would have to “make the running.” Rather to her surprise, she found that she enjoyed the prospect. She remembered once being a little shocked by Stella Mount, who had confided that she liked making love herself just as much as being made love to.... Well, Jenny was not exactly going to make love, but she was going to do something just as forward, just as far from the code of well-bred people—she was going to show a man in a class beneath her that she cared for him, that she wanted his admiration, his courtship....

She hurried over her bath and dressing, urged by the conviction that she must act, take irretraceable steps, before she had time to think again. She had already thought enough—more thought would only muddle her, wrap her in clouds. Action would make things clearer than any amount of reflection. She would go over to Fourhouses—a litter of collie pups she had confusedly admired the day before would give her an excuse for a visit, an excuse which would yet be frail enough to show that it alone had not brought her there.

She was the first at breakfast that morning, and hoped that no one else would come down while she was in the room. Her father was generally the earliest, but today she did not hear his footstep till she was leaving the table. There were two doors out of the breakfast-room, and Jenny vanished guiltily through one as Sir John came in at the other. She was ashamed of herself for such Palais Royal tactics, but felt she would stoop to them rather than risk having her resolution scotched by the sight of her father.

She had decided to go on foot to Fourhouses—not only would it mean a more unobtrusive departure from Conster, but it would show Godfrey her determination. The purchase of a puppy she had scarcely noticed the day before was a flimsy excuse for walking five miles across country the first thing next morning. He would be bound to see at least part of its significance—and she had known and appraised enough men to realise that his was the warm, ready type which does not have to see the whole road clear before it advances.

The early day was warm; a thick haze clotted the air, which was full of the scents of grass and dust, of the meadowsweet and the drying hay. The little lanes were already stuffy with sunshine, and before Jenny had come to Brede she realised that the light tweed suit she had put on was too heavy, and her summer-felt hat was making a band of moisture round her head, so that her hair lay draggled on her brows. She took off her coat and slung it over her arm ... phew! how airless this part of the country was, with its old, old lanes, trodden by a hundred generations of hobnails to the depth of fosses ... when she was across the marsh with its trickery of dykes she would leave the road and take to the fields. The way had not seemed so long yesterday in the cool of the evening.... What would Peter say if he could see her now?—Poor old Peter! It would be dreadful for him if she carried out her scheme. He felt about things more strongly than anyone.... She was sorry for Peter.

Then she wondered what Godfrey would think when he saw her, arriving hot and tired and breathless, with her trumped up excuse for seeing him again. Would he despise her?—Perhaps, after all, he did not particularly care about her—she was a fool to be so sure that he did. He probably had that slow, admiring way with all women. Besides, it’s ridiculous to go by the look in a man’s eyes ... silly ... schoolgirlish ... novel-reading-old-maidish ... she was losing her balance in her hatred of things. She would probably find out that he was in love with some girl of his own class.... Her heart beat painfully at such an idea and her ridiculous mind denied it, but she knew that her mind was only obeying her heart.

... Or he might fail to see anything significant in her coming. He probably had one of those slow-moving country brains on which everything is lost but the direct hit. He most likely was a dull dog ... and she had thought he could make her happy—Jenny Alard, with her quick mind, high breeding and specialised education. Her longing to escape had driven her into fancying herself in love. All she wanted was to get away from home—and this door stood open. Beyond it she might find even worse restrictions and futilities than those from which she fled.

She was losing heart, and almost lost purpose as well. She stopped in the lane at the foot of Snailham hill, and looked back towards the north. Conster was hidden behind the ridge of Udimore but she was still on Alard ground—there was Crouch’s Farm beside the Brede River—and Little Float and Cockmartin, both Alard farms—and all that green width of marsh was Alard’s, with its dotted sheep. She had a preposterous feeling that if she walked off the estate on to Godfrey’s land it would be too late to turn back ... if she was going back she must go back now.

She stood in the pebbly marle, looking over the marsh to the trees where Udimore church showed a hummock of roof. She tried to examine herself, to find out in a few giddy seconds why she was going to Fourhouses. Was it simply because she was tired of convention—of county shams—of having to go without things she wanted in order to have things she didn’t want?—or was she in love with Ben Godfrey, and going to him in spite of the efforts of her class instinct to keep her back? She suddenly knew that the latter was the only good reason. If it was true that she had fallen in love with Godfrey the second time she had seen him—that afternoon, weeks back, at Starvecrow—and if all this hatred of Alard ways, this ramp against convention, was no genuine revolt against either but just the effort of her mind to justify her heart—then she had better go forward. But if, on the other hand, she really hated her life and was willing to take any way of escape—particularly if her unrest was due to the collapse of her affair with Jim Parish—if she was going to Fourhouses only to escape from Conster—then she had better turn back.

She stood for a moment hesitating, her heels deep in the silt of the lane, her eyes strained towards Udimore. Then a footstep made her start and turn round. She had the confused impression of a man and a gun, of a recognition and a greeting, all blurred together in the mists of her surprise. She had not expected to meet him so far from his farm, right off his own land ... she felt a quake of disappointment, too; for the boundaries of the two estates had now a mysterious significance, and she was sorry that she had met him before she had left Alard ground, before she had escaped.

“Good morning, Miss Alard. You’ve come a long way so early.”

“Yes; I was coming to Fourhouses—it struck me that you might be willing to sell one of those collie pups you showed me yesterday.”

This was not how she had meant to speak. She knew her voice was clipped and cold. Hang it! she might have managed to break through the wall on this special occasion. First words are the most significant, and she had meant hers to have a more than ordinary warmth, instead of which they had a more than ordinary stiffness. But it was no good trying—she would never be able so to get rid of the traditions of her class and of her sex as to show this young man that she loved him ... if indeed she really did love him.

He was speaking now—she forced herself to listen to what he said.

“I’d never sell you one of those—they’re not worth paying for. It’s only I’m that soft-hearted I couldn’t think of drowning them. I got rid of the last litter quite easily, just giving them away. So I’ll be grateful if you’ll accept one.”

“Thank you—but I really couldn’t allow—I mean....”

“Won’t you come up to the place and look at them? You’ll see for yourself they’re not much. I could let you have a really good retriever-pup later, but these collies—it’s just my sister’s Lizzie that one of our old men gave her years ago, and she’s no particular breed, and the sire’s their dog at Wickham.”

“Thanks ever so much—but you’re out with your gun, so I won’t trouble you to turn back.”

She wondered if he would make any explanation, offer some apology for carrying his gun over Alard fields. But he merely urged her again to come up to Fourhouses, and slack after her conflict, she gave way and turned with him.

“Are you bothered much with rabbits?” she asked as they walked up the hill. “We’re simply over-run with them at Conster.”

“They’re pretty bad, especially now the corn’s up. I generally take out my gun when I go round the place.”

“But is this your land?—I thought I was still on ours.”

“This is the land I have just bought from your father, Miss Alard. It was yours three months ago, but it belongs to Fourhouses now.”