“I understand,” said Thrale.
“And meanwhile you might help me,” said the woman. “I come over here with a horse and cart to raid the seedsmen’s shops. If we leave them the women would eat all the beans and peas and things, you know; enough to feed us for the winter gone in a week, and no one any the better. Isn’t it awful how careless we are?”
4
She was a fair, clear-eyed girl, with the figure and complexion of one who had devoted considerable attention to outdoor sports. She was wearing a man’s Norfolk jacket (men’s clothing was so plentiful), and a skirt that barely reached her knees, and did not entirely hide cloth knickerbockers which might also have been adapted from a man’s garment. Below the knickerbockers she displayed thick stockings and sandals. Her splendid fair hair furnished sufficient protection for her head, and she had dressed a pillow of it into the nape of her neck as a shield for the sun.
Thrale looked at her with a frank curiosity as they made their way up the town to a seedsman’s shop. She had left the horse and cart there, she explained, while she explored other streets of the town.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Eileen, of Marlow,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be another Eileen there, so one name’s enough.”
“Is that how your community feel about it?” he asked.
She smiled. “We’re beginning,” she said.