§ 7

Godfrey did not forget his appointment. He arrived punctually at three o’clock, and not finding Peter at home, waited with the patience of his kind. A further symptom of Peter’s demoralization was his forgetting to tell anyone at Starvecrow when he would be back, so Godfrey, who was really anxious to have his matter settled and could scarcely believe that anything so important to himself should seem trivial in the stress of another’s life, felt sure that Mr. Alard would soon come in, and having hitched his reins and assured himself that Madge would stand for ever, went into the office and waited.

Here Jenny Alard found him at about half-past three, just wondering whether it would be good manners for him to smoke. She had come up to see Vera, but finding she had gone out in the car, looked in at the office door in hopes of finding Peter. Godfrey was sitting rather stiffly in the gate-backed chair, turning his box of gaspers over and over in his large brown hands. Jenny came into the room and greeted him at once. She and her family always took pains to be cordial to their social inferiors. If the man in the office had been an acquaintance of her own rank, she would probably have bowed to him, made some excuse and gone out to look for her brother—but such behaviour would never do for anyone who might imagine it contained a slight.

“Good afternoon. Are you waiting for my brother? Do you know when he’ll be in?”

He rose to greet her, and as they shook hands she realised what a shadow his inferiority was. He stood before her six feet high, erect, sun-burned—his thick hair and bright eyes proclaiming his health, his good clothes proclaiming his prosperity, a certain alert and simple air of confidence speaking of a life free from conflict and burden.

“Mr. Alard made an appointment for three. But they tell me he’s gone to Canterbury.”

“It’s a shame to keep you waiting. You’re busy, I expect.”

“Not so terrible—and it’s the first time he’s done it. I reckon something’s gone wrong with the car.”

“He hasn’t got the car—Mrs. Alard is out in it. Perhaps he’s missed his train.”

“If he’s done that he won’t be here for some time, and I can’t afford to wait much longer. I’ve a man coming to Fourhouses about some pigs after tea.”

“I expect there’s a time-table somewhere—let’s look.”

She rummaged among the papers at the top of the desk—auction catalogues, advertisements for cattle foods and farm implements—and at last drew out a local time-table. Their heads bent over it together, and she became conscious of a scent as of straw and clean stables coming from his clothes. She groped among the pages not knowing her way, and then noticed that his hands were restless as if his greater custom were impatient of her ignorance.

“No—it’s page sixty-four—I remember ... two pages back ... no, not there—you’ve missed it.”

His hands hovered as if they longed to turn over the leaves, but evidently he forbade them—and she guessed that he shrank from the chance of touching hers. She looked at his hands—they were well-shaped, except for the fingers which work had spoiled, they were brown, strong, lean—she liked them exceedingly. They were clean, but not as Peter’s or Jim’s or her father’s hands were clean; they suggested effort rather than custom—that he washed when he was dirty in order to be clean rather than when he was clean in order to prevent his ever being dirty.... What a queer way her thoughts were running, and all because of his hands—— Well, she would like to touch them ... it was funny how he held back even from such a natural contact as this—typical of his class, in which there was always consciousness between the sexes ... no careless, casual contacts, no hail-fellow and hearty comradeship, but always man and woman, some phase of courtship ... romance....

“I can’t find it.”

She thrust the book into his hands, and their fingers touched· He begged her pardon—then found the page. She did not notice what he said—her pulses were hammering. She was excited not so much by him as by herself. Why had her whole being lit up so suddenly?—What had set it alight? Was it just this simple deferential consciousness of sex between them, so much more natural than the comradeship which was the good form of her class? Sex-consciousness was after all more natural than sex-unconsciousness, the bridling of the flirt more natural than the indifference of the “woman who has no nonsense about her.” She felt a deep blush spreading over her face—she became entirely conscious before him, uneasy under his alert, dignified gaze.

He was picking up his hat—he was saying something about the two-forty-five being in long ago and his having no time to wait till the four-forty.

“I’ll call in tomorrow—I’ll leave word with Elias that I’ll call in at twelve tomorrow.”

“I’m so sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing,” she faltered.

“Oh, it’s no matter. I’m not busy today. Mr. Alard must have missed his train.”

She found herself going out of the room before him. His smart gig stood outside the door—the mare whinnied at the sight of him. Jenny thought how good it must be to drive horse-flesh instead of machinery.

“You haven’t taken to a motor-car yet, I see.”

“I don’t think I ever shall. It ud feel unfriendly.”

“Yes, I expect it would after this”—and she patted the mare’s sleek neck.

“A horse knows you, you see—and where you go wrong often he’ll go right—but a car, a machine, that’s got no sense nor kindness in it, and when you do the wrong thing there’s nothing that’ll save you.”

Jenny nodded. He warmed to his subject.

“Besides, you get fond of an animal in a way you can’t of a machine. This Madge, here. I’ve raised her from a filly, and when I take her out of the shafts she’ll follow me round the yard for a bit of sugar—and you heard her call to me just now when I came out? That’s her way. You may pay three thousand pounds for a Rolls Royce car but it won’t never say good evening.”

He laughed at his own joke, showing his big splendid teeth, and giving Jenny an impression of sweetness and happiness that melted into her other impressions like honey.

“Did she recognise you when you came back from the war?—You were in Mesopotamia weren’t you?”

“Yes—three years. I can’t say as she properly recognised me, but now I’ve been back a twelve-month I think she fits me into things that happened to her before I left, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I understand.”

He had been talking to her with his foot on the step, ready to get into his gig. Then suddenly he seemed to remember that she did not live at Starvecrow, that she too had a journey before her and no trap to take her home.

“Can I give you a lift, Miss Alard?—I’m passing Conster.”

“Yes—thank you very much,” said Jenny.