"I be a bit mazed like, sir," admitted Brightly.
"I want some pipes, please—a lot. Don't laugh, Aubrey," said Boodles, looking down on the tray, with moisture in each eye and a frown on her forehead. She had no money to spare, poor child, only a threepenny-bit and four coppers; but she would have parted with the lot to feed the hungry had not Aubrey taken and restrained her charitable little hand.
"Give him this," he whispered.
"Feed the little dog," said Boodles, as she gave Brightly the coin, which was half-a-crown, as white and big, it seemed to Brightly, as the moon itself. Then they went on, while Brightly was left to see visions and to dream. He called out to tell them they had taken neither pipes nor tie-clips, but his asthmatic voice was drowned as usual by the noises of the fair, and it was quite a different set of faces and figures that went before him. He picked Ju up, tucked her under his arm, and shuffled away to buy food. He had seen the girl's face with pity on it through his big glasses, only dimly, but it was enough to show him what she was; something out of the church window, or out of the big black book they read from, the book that rested upon the wings of a golden goose, or perhaps she had come from the wonderful restaurant called Jerusalem just to show him and Ju there was somewhere or other, either in Palestine or above Dartmoor, some very superior Duke of Cornwall who took a kindly interest in worms, himself, and other creeping things. Brightly stopped, oblivious to holiday-makers, and tried to think of Boodles' name. He found it just as he reached the place where he could obtain a royal meal of scraps for threepence. "Her's a reverent angel, Ju," he whispered.
Beyond the bridge, which crossed the Tavy near the entrance to the field where the main pleasure-fair was making noises curiously suggestive of a savage war-dance, Thomasine walked slowly to and fro. She had been doing that ever since eleven o'clock, varying the occupation by standing still for an hour or so gazing with patient cow's eyes along the road. Pendoggat had promised to meet her there, and treat her to all the fun of the fair. He had told her not to move from that spot until he arrived, and she had to be obedient. She had been waiting four hours in her best clothes, sometimes shaking the dust from her new petticoat, or wiping her eyes with her Sunday handkerchief, but never going beyond the bridge or venturing into the fair-field. One or two young men had accosted her, but she had told them in a frightened way she was waiting for a gentleman. She had seen her former young man. Will Pugsley, pass with a new sweetheart upon his arm; and although Thomasine was unable to reason she was able to feel miserable. Pendoggat was upon the other side, kicking a calf he had purchased along the road, enjoying himself after his own manner. He had forgotten all about Thomasine, and all that his promise and the holiday meant to her. Besides, Annie Crocker was with him like a sort of burr, clinging wherever he went, and not to be easily shaken off; and she too wanted to be in the fair-field; only, as she kept on reminding him, it was no place for a decent woman alone, and she couldn't go unless he took her. To which Pendoggat replied that she wasn't a decent woman, and if she had been nobody would want to speak to her. They swore at each other in a subdued fashion whenever they found themselves in a quiet corner.
"Come on, my love! Come along wi' I, and have a ride on the whirligig," shouted a drunken soldier with a big wart on his nose, staggering up to Thomasine, and grabbing at her arm. The girl trembled, but allowed the soldier to catch hold of her, because she did not know she had a legal right to resist. After all this was a form of courtship, though it was rather rough and sudden. Like many girls of her class Thomasine did not see anything strange in being embraced by a man before she knew what his name was. The soldier dragged her to the parapet of the bridge and kissed her savagely, heedless of the passers-by. Then he began to take her to the fair-ground, swearing at her when she hung back.
"I've got to bide here," she pleaded. "I'm waiting for a gentleman."
The drunken soldier declared he would smash the gentleman, or any one else, who tried to take his prize from him; but he proved to be a man whose words were mightier than his deeds, for when he saw a big policeman approaching with a question in his eye he abandoned Thomasine and fled. The girl dusted her clothes in a patient fashion and went on waiting.
The next local excitement was the arrival of Peter and Mary in a kind of whirlwind, both of them well warmed with excitement and Plymouth gin. Thomasine nodded to them, but they did not see her. Mary had been buying flower-seeds for her garden, a whole packet of sweet-peas and some mignonette. Peter had objected to such folly when he discovered that the produce would not be edible. Their garden was small, and they could not waste good soil for the purpose of growing useless flowers. But Mary was always insisting upon being as civilised as she could. "Miss Boodles du grow a brave lot o' flowers in her garden, and she'm a proper young lady," she said. Mary knew she could not become a proper lady, but she might do her best by trying to grow "a brave lot o' flowers" in her garden.