“The place wants seeing to,” he said with dissatisfaction, looking at the weeds in the bed. “It wants a mistress. You should see the garden at Turle House. Nancy manages that. Nancy in some sort of way must be your cousin. We are all relations.”
It was the last day of September, and there had been a frost early in the morning. The blackened marrow plants straggled on their mound. Daborn had clamped the beet the day before, and the broken leaves, with their wine-colored stems, were scattered. The plumy foliage of the carrots had died down. The sparkling parsnip leaves were yellow, and dew glittered on the crinkled, bluish leaves of the savoys with their tight hearts. The sun shone brightly, but the air was crisp. Everything was ominous of winter. Pamela shivered as she looked at the solid chimney stacks of Folly Corner, and pictured an iron winter in the fastness of that old house, with Gainah as grim companion.
They went through the yard into the road. Daborn had the dogcart out. Pamela stopped by the wall of the granary, her foot twined in a bit of trailing periwinkle.
“Give me the basket,” she said, “and good-by.”
Jethro looked at her.
“You’d better come too,” he said. “Jump in.”
“No. My dress; no gloves.”
“Tuck your hands under the rug. At Liddleshorn we’ll buy gloves. Jump up. We shan’t want you, Daborn. Here’s the basket. Miss Crisp will hold the reins.”
Pamela still hesitated, looking back at the house, and remembering she had promised Gainah that she would mark some pillow-slips. But it was such a magic morning, with an intensely blue sky—a March sky almost, with a spice of frost lurking behind the hot sun. There were long trails of red bryony berries on the hedges; glittering gossamer webs were woven across the clumps of broom on the common. Jethro looked so strong and masterful—such a man! She believed that in the end she would marry him whether she wanted to or not. He had a rough manner of command with women—savage, yet tender. Pamela, like a woman, loved it. She lifted her foot, swung up to the blue cushion, and a moment later they were bowling smoothly along the road.
He didn’t speak. He flicked at the mare with a tinge of pettishness. Pamela sat well back. She felt a person of some importance; every small girl they met bobbed her little skirts into the dust, and the heavy-footed laboring men lifted a finger to their hair as Jethro bowled by in the flashing sunshine.