Jenny had known before that love could make her superstitious—only under its influence had she occasionally respected the mascots, charms, black cats and other gods of the age, or yielded to the stronger, stranger influences of buried urgencies to touch and try.... But she was surprised at the sudden relief which she felt at Godfrey’s words. She tried to reason herself out of the conviction that she had definitely crossed the frontier and could now never go back. She could not help feeling like one of those escaped prisoners of war she had sometimes read of during the last five years, who passed unaware the black and orange boundary posts of Holland, and, after hiding for hours from what they took for German sentries, found themselves at last confronted by the friendly Dutch guards. In vain she told herself that it made no difference whether she met Godfrey on land belonging to Conster or to Fourhouses—she was in the grip of something stronger than reason; she could not argue or scold herself out of her follies.
The answer to all her questionings was now pretty plain. She was coming to Fourhouses for the man, not for escape. No need of her own could have made a fool of her like this. She was not fancying herself in love with Ben Godfrey—she really loved him, attracted physically at first, no doubt, but as she advanced finding ever more and more solid reason for attachment. She wanted him, and why in the world shouldn’t she have him?—if he had been rich, not even the lowest rank would have made him ineligible in her people’s eyes. But because he was only “comfortable,” only had enough to live on in peace and happiness and dignity, her family would be horrified at such an alliance—“a common farmer,” she could hear them calling him, and her cheeks reddened angrily as she walked up the hill.
“Are you tired?” asked Godfrey—“let me carry your coat—it’s a terrible hot day.”
She let him relieve her, pleased at the accidental touch of his hand under the stuff. She wondered if he would say “I beg your pardon” as he had said the first time. But he was silent, indeed the whole of the way to Fourhouses he said very little, and she wondered if he was pondering her in his mind, perhaps asking himself why she had come, trying to argue away his surprise, telling himself it was just a lady’s way to be impulsive and tramp five miles to buy a mongrel pup she had scarcely noticed the day before. Now and then his glance crept towards her, sweeping sideways from deepset blue eyes, under the fringe of dark lashes. She liked his eyes, because they were not the brown bovine eyes of the mixed race who had supplanted the original South Saxons, but the eyes of the Old People, who had been there before the Norman stirred French syllables into the home-brew of Sussex names. They were the eyes of her own people, though she herself had them not, and they would be the eyes of her children ... she felt the colour mounting again, but this time it was not the flush of indignation, and when next she felt his gaze upon her, her own was impelled to meet it. For the first time on that walk to Fourhouses their eyes met, and she saw that his face was as red as hers with the stain of a happy confusion.
When they came to the farm, he invited her in, saying that he would bring her the puppies. For a moment she saw him hesitate at the parlour door, but to her relief he passed on, leading the way to the kitchen.
“Mother, here’s Miss Alard come again to see Lizzie’s pups”—he ushered her in rather proudly, she thought, standing back against the door which he flung wide open.
“You’re welcome,” said Mrs. Godfrey—“please sit down.”
She was ironing at the table, but stopped to pull forward a chair to the window, which was open. There was no fire in this, the big outer room, but from a smaller one within came the sound of cracking wood and occasional bursts of singing.
“I’m afraid I’ve come at an awkward time,” said Jenny.
“Oh, no—we’re never too busy here—and Ben ull be proud to show you the little dogs, for all he makes out to look down on them, they being no sort of class and him a bit of a fancier as you might say. You’ve had a hot walk, Miss Alard—can I get you a drink of milk? It’s been standing in the cool some while and ull refresh you.”