SHE waited until supper was over, and then she asked Jethro for half an hour alone in the little room looking due north, where he kept his papers, his boots, his agricultural catalogues, stray packets of seeds, and so on.
The door shut on them. It was nearly dark—the sun setting luridly and throwing a coppery light across the wall. The oak bureau filled one corner of the tiny room; turned full to the gaping hearth was a high-backed oak chair, with the initials “J. J. 1625” cut into its back. An oak chest beneath the window, carved also, and bearing the initials “J. J. 1604,” with a coat of arms, showed that the Jaynes had in the past been even more important people than they were now. A shadow passed the window. Edred, a dog at his heels, the usual fat cigar in his mouth, shouted through, saying that he’d stroll up to Turle and tell Nancy that he couldn’t go to Malling on Thursday. He gave Pamela a significant look and moved off. The copper light burned on the wall again. There was a strong scent of jasmine; the wan white blossoms looked in at the open window. Pamela sat in the chair by the grate, her head against the carved wood.
“I wanted to speak to you about my—about Edred,” she said.
“I’m going to speak to him myself,” Jethro returned promptly. “He oughtn’t to be loafing about here like this. The place is big enough for all of us, but it’s bad for a man to be out of collar so long.”
“He’s very anxious to get something to do. He is full of ideas. He is very clever.”
Jethro did not answer. He was sitting on the end of the chest, his back to the window, one foot in a heavy shoe idly dangling. His clean-cut, rugged face was in shadow; her guilty conscience made her fancy that his mouth was relentless.
“He doesn’t want to go to sea again,” she straggled on. “His nerves have been tried—you can understand that?”
“What does he want?”
She heard the wicket-gate creak. Through the summer haze and the misty, heavy-leaved trees she saw him pass along the road; white dog at his heels, burning tobacco between his lips.
“He wants two hundred pounds. He would go away from Folly Corner; never come back, never trouble you for a penny more, for a meal, even.”