Читать книгу Captures - John Galsworthy - Страница 5

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The girl Pansy turned the handle of the separator, and its whining drone mixed with the thoughts and feelings, poignant yet formless, of one who had little say in her own career. There was an ache in her loins, for hay harvest was ever a hard week; and an ache in her heart, because she had no leisure, like Molly Winch and other girls, who could find time for the piano and to make their dresses. She touched her hard frieze skirt. She was sick of the ugly thing. And she hastened the separator. She had to feed the calves and set the supper before she could change into her Sunday frock and go to evening church—her one weekly festivity. Ned Bowden! Her fancy soared to the monstrous extravagance of herself and Ned walking across the fields to church together, singing out of one hymn-book; Ned who had given her a look when he passed just now as if he realised at last that she had been thinking of him for weeks. A dusky flush crept up in her pale cheeks. A girl must think of somebody—she wasn’t old Mother Bowden, with her hands on her lap all day, in sunlight or fire-shine, content just to be warm! And she turned the handle with a sort of frenzy. Would the milk never finish running through? Ned never saw her in her frock—her frock sprigged with cornflowers; he went off too early to his courting, Sunday evenings. In this old skirt she looked so thick and muddy. And her arms—— Gazing despairingly at arms browned and roughened her fancy took another monstrous flight. She saw herself and Molly Winch side by side ungarbed. Ah! She would make two of that Molly Winch! The thought at once pained and pleased her. It was genteel to be thin and elegant; and yet—instinct told her—strength and firmness of flesh had been desirable before ever gentility existed. She let the handle go, and, lifting the pail of ‘waste,’ hurried down with it to the dark byre, whence the young calves were thrusting their red muzzles. She pushed them back in turn—greedy little things—smacking their wet noses, scolding them. Ugh! How mucky it was in there—they ought to give that byre a good clean up! Banging down the empty pail, she ran to set out supper on the long deal table. In the last of the sunlight old Mother Bowden’s bright eyes seemed to watch her inhumanly. She would never be done in time—never be done in time!

The beef, the cider, the cheese, the bread, the pickles—what else? Lettuce! Yes, and it wasn’t washed, and Bowden loved his lettuce. But she couldn’t wait—she couldn’t! Perhaps he’d forget it—if she put some cream out! From the cool, dark dairy, down the little stone passage, she fetched the remains of the scalded cream.

“Watch the cat, Missis Bowden!” And she ran up the wriggling narrow stairs.

The room she slept in was like a ship’s cabin—no bigger. She drew the curtain over the porthole-like window, tore off her things and flung them on the narrow bed. This was her weekly change. There was a hole in her undergarment, and she tore it wider in her hurry. ‘I won’t have time for a good wash,’ she thought. Taking her one towel, she damped it, rubbed it over her, and began to dress furiously. The church bell had begun its dull, hard single chime. The little room was fiery hot, and beads of sweat stood on the girl’s brow. Savagely she thought: ‘Why can’t I have time to be cool, like Molly Winch?’ A large spider, a little way out from one corner of the ceiling, seemed watching her, and she shuddered. She couldn’t bear spiders—great hairy things! But she had no time to stretch up her hand and kill it. Glancing through a chink left by the drawn curtain to see whether Ned had come down into the yard, she snatched up her powder puff—precious possession, nearest approach to gentility—and solemnly rubbed it over face and neck. She wouldn’t shine, anyway! Under her Sunday hat, a broad-brimmed straw, trimmed with wide-eyed artificial daisies, she stood a moment contemplating her image in a mirror the size of her two hands. The scent of the powder, as of gone-off violets, soothed her nerves. But why was her hair so fine that it wouldn’t stay in place? And why black, instead of goldeny brown like Molly Winch’s hair? Her lip drooped, her eyes looked wide and mournful in the glass. She snatched up her pair of dirty white cotton gloves, took her prayer-book, threw open the door, and stood listening. Dead silence in the house. Ned Bowden’s room, his father’s, his old grandmother’s were up the other stairs. She would have liked him to see her coming down—like what the young men did in the magazines, looking up at the young ladies beautiful and cool, descending slowly. But would he look at her when he had his best on, going to Molly Winch? She went down the wriggling staircase. Gnats were still dancing outside the porch, ducks bathing and preening their feathers in sunlight which had lost all sting. She did not sit down for fear of being caught too obviously waiting, but stood changing from tired foot to foot, while the scent of powder mingled queerly with the homely odour of the farmyard and the lingering perfume of the hay stacked up close by. The bell stopped ringing. Should she wait? Perhaps he wasn’t going to church at all; just going to sit with Molly Winch, or to walk in the lanes with her. Oh, no! That Molly Winch was too prim and proper; she wouldn’t miss church! And suddenly something stirred within the girl. What would she not miss for a walk in the lanes with Ned? It wasn’t fair! Some people had everything! The sound of heavy boots from stair to stair came to her ears, and more swiftly than one would have thought natural to that firm body she sped through the yard and passed through the door in its high wall to the field path. Scarcely more than a rut, it was strewn with wisps of hay, for they had not yet raked this last field, and the air smelled very sweet. She dawdled, every sense throbbing, aware of his approach behind her, its measured dwelling on either foot which no Bowden could abandon, even when late for church. He ranged up; his hair was greased, his square figure stuffed handsome into board-like Sunday dittoes. His red face shone from soap, his grey eyes shone from surplus energy. From head to foot he was wonderful. Would he pass her or fall in alongside? He fell into step. The girl’s heart thumped, her cheeks burned under the powder, so that the scent thereof was released. Young Bowden’s arm, that felt like iron, bumped her own, and at the thrill which went through her she half-closed her eyes.

“I reckon we’re tu late,” he said.

Her widened eyes challenged his stare.

“Don’t you want to see Molly Winch, then?”

“No, I don’t want any words about that dog.”

Quick to see her chance, the girl exclaimed:

“Ah! ’Twas a shame—it was, but she’d think more of her uncle’s leg than of ’im, I know.”

Again his arm pressed hers. He said: “Let’s go down into the brake.”

The bit of common land below the field was high with furze, where a few brown-gold blossoms were still clinging. A late cuckoo called shrilly from an ash-tree below. The breeze stirred a faint rustling out of the hedgerow trees. Young Bowden sat down among the knee-high bracken that smelled of sap and put his arm about her.