The Farm by the Lake

Chapter 4

After that sorrow was forgotten in hurry. The train left at 8.10. At first the journey was an excitement; Flo had been as far as Lancaster once before with her mother on another Women’s Meeting trip and had enjoyed it, and was prepared to try to enjoy the ride again. The sun shone and there was a thrill to be had from the occasional glimpses southward of the beautiful calm on the bay. Also she was proud. She felt like a lady, the equal of anyone; in fact, superior to a girl in the opposite corner who had on a stained grey tweed coat and whose left stocking had a nine-inch ladder from the knee. This girl continually twisted a dark green handkerchief, and at the first stop asked anxiously if it was Carnforth.

“No,” said Flo. “We’re a long way yet.”

“Are you goin’ there?” asked the girl, appealing with sandy-brown eyes.

“Yes, and a lot farther . . . to Derbyshire. I have to change at Carnforth.”

“Oo, then I’ll be all right.”

“Have you got friends there?” asked Flo, feeling polite.

“No; I’m going to service. I wish they were friends. I don’t know ’em.”

Flo should have said, “Oh, you’ll be all right”, only she couldn’t. She stared out of the window, superiority forgotten, and wondered why she couldn’t have been given a place at Carnforth. She was tempted to tell that she was going into service, too, but she mastered that.

“D’you like travellin’? I don’t,” said the girl

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Flo, and felt better.

At Carnforth the girl got out first and waited and seemed to expect Flo to show her how to get off the station and how to get to the address which she had on a smudged envelope. Flo pointed hurriedly in the general direction of the exit, which she only vaguely remembered, and told her she could do no more because of the next train that she had to catch. The girl all at once seemed to shrink into herself, as an affectionate puppy does when unexpectedly scolded. Flo felt contrite and said, “Come on”, and bustled along with the crowd. The girl followed obediently as close as she could.

There was a policeman just past the barrier. “Ask him, then you’ll be all right,” said Flo.

The girl said, “Shall I?”

“Show your ticket,” said Flo.

The girl went fumbling through, too worried to thank her. After that there was twenty minutes to wait. Flo got a seat by a fat woman in brown who had her feet under a big bundle done up in a grey blanket.

“I wish I had one o’ them,” said the woman at once, looking at Flo’s bass.

“I’ve a job to carry it,” said Flo, who also had an umbrella, which was really her mother’s, and a handbag which had come from the Vicarage and had been her mother’s. “Is this where the Manchester train comes?”

“Ay. You should have straps with a ’andle on. I guess you’re goin’ into service, are you? Lady’s maid, eh?” There was an insult in the fat woman’s voice, and Flo wished that she had found someone else.

“I’m going to a farm,” said Flo without thought of a denial.

“Huh, all work an’ no play; hand all the mucky work,” was the pitying comment. “I’ve ’ad some. Where’re you goin’?”

“Derbyshire.”

“Muckiest lot o’ farms in creation; hand a mangy stingy lot as works ’em.” The woman drew vigorously up her nose and swallowed. “Scrag end o’ humanity, that’s what I call Derbyshire farmers,” she added as if that clinched it. “Too mean to spend breath blowin’ their own porridge.”

Flo didn’t know what to say.

“Never bin on a farm before?” demanded the fat woman.

“No,” said Flo uncomfortably.

“God ’elp you,” said her questioner, and turned to a thin, meek-looking woman on her other side and went on: “This ’ere young woman’s goin’ on a farm in Derbyshire. She’s goin’ to learn summat, isn’t she?” The meek woman blinked in a way apparently meant to indicate agreement. “Where exac’ly did you say it were?” asked the fat woman, turning back.

“I didn’t say at all,” said Flo, wondering whether to get up and go.

“Oh, didn’t you; then you’d better tell me now.”

“Why should I?” asked Flo reddening, remembering Mrs. Mawson’s advice.

“Eh, please yourself,” said the fat woman, “hand I’ll please myself. On’y probab’ly I could give you a few home truths.” She chuckled in a very knowing way. “There’s none many as I don’t know if it’s anywhere round Moss.”

Flo was so surprised that at once without thinking she exclaimed, “Why, that’s just where it is . . . Mossd-y-c-h-e,” spelling it out, “near Moss. Nadin’s.”

“Eh-oh!” The fat woman clapped her right hand over her knee as though applauding herself. “You’re goin’ to Peppery Monica’s. She’ll teach you summat, hand see that you don’t get rusty through doin’ nowt.” She chuckled, this time with real amusement. “Talk the back leg off a hoss, Monica can, when she gets goin’ . . . and don’t take much gettin’ goin’ neither. What made you go there?”

“I didn’t know,” Flo murmured.

“Didn’t know, hah!” The fat woman laughed loudly. “Peppery Monica . . . five foot two an’ nowt to look at . . . but I’d back ’er to ’old ’er own agen Goliath.” She poked at the meek woman with her elbow. “Did you ’ear what she says? You know Monica . . . at Prettyfields? ’Er as is wed to . . .”

“I think the train’s coming,” interrupted the meek woman, looking over her glasses up the platform.

“Eh, by gum!” ejaculated the fat woman. Instantly she dug podgy hands into the top of her bundle, hoisted it to her hip and waddled forward. The bundle collided heavily with a porter who was looking the other way. He turned angrily. “D’you want all the ruddy platform?” promptly demanded the fat woman.

“Not much ruddy hope if I do,” the man retorted, his frown changing slowly to a grin, though as it were unwillingly.

“If you’re a gentleman, open th’ door,” said the fat woman.

The porter trudged round and tugged at the first one he came to. “You’ll take all the carriage wi’ that; what’re you goin’ to do with it?” he asked.

“Hang it on the knob,” was the quick reply; and at once the woman tried to butt the bundle through the door. It stack and she leaned against it. “’Ere, you, give a shove.”

She let go and the bundle stuck where it was. The porter gave a shove and then put his shoulder to it. “What the hell did you put it in this way for?” he demanded, and began to tug to get the bundle out again. The fat woman lugged, too, and the meek woman looked over her spectacles. Flo, who had followed them, suddenly realized that she needn’t get into their carriage, and that in fact she didn’t want to, but they were going to Manchester and might be useful to her there. So she made to get into the next carriage nearer to the engine.

“’Ere, you, there’s room in ’ere,” said the voice from behind that she already knew well. “You’ll be gettin’ lost if you’ve never been to Manchester.”

The fat woman, who was now leaving it all to the porter, looked at Flo in a possessive way. Flo felt caught.

“Why the hell didn’t you leave it at the laundry?” panted the porter as he struggled to turn the bundle in his arms and get it through sideways. It went in suddenly, so that he sprawled in after it over the step.

“You’ll want goin’ to the laundry yourself if you dust the floor wi’ your waistcoat that way,” said the fat woman.

He dumped the bundle in the far right-hand corner. When he turned to get out he was obstructed by the fat woman who was helping Flo with her bass.

“You should ’a had a train of your own,” was his comment as he pushed backward into the corridor and turned to get out through the next compartment. The fat woman tugged the corridor door shut after him. Flo was wondering whether she could put the bass on the rack when the fat woman took it off her and planted it on the seat opposite to the bundle.

“If they see ail th’ luggage as we’ve got, nobody’ll push in; I like a bit o’ room,” said the fat woman, and her meek companion waited while she plumped in the seat by the platform window with her back to the engine, and while Flo on the fat woman’s nod took the opposite window seat. The meek woman then selected a place by Flo, explaining carefully that she always found it better to face the way the train was going. “You like to see where you’re goin’; I like to see where I’ve bin,” said the fat woman, placing one podgy hand on the other comfortably on the round of her stomach.

Flo felt that the ride was going to be spoilt. Little as she had travelled by train she had always liked it. She found it fascinating to glide along through strange country, past strange houses, getting intimate peeps through back windows, down strange streets, seeing life going on calmly without one, as it were; it was like watching a film, and a film that to her was more interesting and satisfying than those she had seen in cinemas. She settled, staring steadily through the window, hoping that her companions would leave her alone. The guard’s whistle shrilled; someone shouted urgently “Get in!” The porter who had been standing idle close by suddenly rushed at the door and dragged it open with a “’Ere y’are. Plenty o’ room ’ere”, and in came in a flurry a young woman with a hat-box of black patent leather with scarlet edging.

“By gum, that were a near do,” said the fat woman, staring her over.

The newcomer seemed inclined to go through into the corridor, but hesitated on seeing the obstruction of the bundle and bass.

“You’ll be all right in ’ere,” said the fat woman, taking possession of her, too. “Are you goin’ to Manchester?”

The young woman said “Yes” clearly, as if she knew how to look after herself. “I was seeing my luggage in; that’s what delayed me.”

“I always keep mine.” The fat woman nodded diagonally at her bundle. “I’m havin’ none o’ my stuff put off at the wrong shop. Where I get off, that’s where my luggage gets off. Sally, there, were once goin’ to Brummagen an’ couldn’t find ’er luggage quick enough an’ got it took to London, didn’t you Sal?”

The meek woman said, “I did, but it wasn’t my fault,” and appeared to be going to explain why it wasn’t, only her companion went on:

“You’d look well landin’ in Manchester wi’ nothing but a new hat . . . I suppose that’s what you’ve got.”

The newcomer said that it was. The train slid from under the gloomy, station canopy and in the new white light Flo saw that the young woman was made up to a doll-like white and pink with ruby lips. The collar of her long grey coat was cream fur on which her hair rested in golden spring-like curls. The neck of her blouse, which was pink neatly sprigged with tiny daisies, went down in a deep “V”.

Flo, who had been so satisfied with herself before, at once felt the contrast. Why hadn’t they let her have a fur? Why was her hair so dull and straight? And she wished she had this young woman’s confidence, for she showed no sign of being flustered over nearly missing the train; she continued to answer her questioner evenly and pleasantly.

“What are you going to Manchester for?” asked the fat woman. “She’s goin’ to a farm, hand I’ve told ’er as she doesn’t know what she’s lettin’ herself in for.”

“I shouldn’t think she does,” said the woman with the curls, smiling with very blue eyes at Flo.

“I can tell you’re not goin’ to Manchester for that, anyway,” the fat woman went on. “You’re in a shop, I should think, aren’t you?”

“I’m travelling.”

“What for, hats?”

“No; moving on.”

“Moving on; what for?”

“She doesn’t want to tell you,” put in the meek woman with a suggestion of surprise, though it might however have been her most daring effort at reproof.

“What she doesn’t want to tell, I don’t want to know,” and the fat woman turned her bland greeny-grey stare at Flo again.

Almost without pause she went on: “I’ll tell you before you get there who wears th’ breeches at Prettyfield, an’ that isn’t Emmott. No bigger than two-three penn’orth of copper she isn’t, an’ ’e’s six foot summat . . . like a telegraph pole, wi’out wires . . . and he daren’t open his mouth when she shoos him.” The fat woman laughed loudly, ha-ha, and looked through the window as if she owned the landscape and just wanted to assure herself that it was there.

Flo felt confused before the newcomer. She had taken from her patent-leather handbag a neat oblong mirror and was finnickingly touching her curls into place with long fingers.

“You’re not a hairdresser, are you?” asked the fat woman, abruptly changing again the direction of her attack.

“No,” replied the other at once. “I wish I was; what profits they must make!”

“They don’t make owt out o’ me; nor out o’ Sal,” said the questioner as if what they might make out of others didn’t matter. “Them as want to go to them can afford to pay . . . if they’re soft enough.”

Without replying the young woman went on looking at herself. For the moment she appeared to be oblivious of them. The fat woman frowned, looked as if she were about to speak; then gave it up and stared out of the window again. The train’s motion joggled her breasts in the loose front of her cheap black dress. All at one she turned on the meek woman. “Where was it you buried your Jim?”

“Pendlebury.”

“Ah!” and she was silent once more, though only for thirty seconds. “’Is name’s Emmott, an’ Monica were a Borden before ’e wed ’er,” she informed Flo, thinking it out slowly. “’E come from Hayfield way, but Monica’s an old Mossite . . . me an’ ’er went to school together. Ask ’er if she remembers Hilda Evans, that’s me as was . . . I’m married now, an’ have been . . . Collin’s my name.”

Having failed to get the information she wanted out of the young woman, the fat woman now seemed determined to give them a complete tale of her own life. Flo looked out and saw houses and felt the train slowing down.

“Preston,” announced Mrs. Collin. “We stop ’ere and I think I’ll get a cup of tea.”

As they ran along the platform she let the window down and laboriously pushed the upper part of herself through, blocking everything as completely as a blind. The tea refreshed her, and as soon as the train started again she returned to attack. “You didn’t tell me what you was,” she said, staring diagonally across.

“I’m in the profession,” said the young woman unexpectedly, and with a certain dignity.

“Eh?” exclaimed Mrs. Collin as if she had not heard right.

“In the profession,” repeated the other with added clearness.

“Oh.” Mrs. Collin looked interrogatively at her friend.

“She says she’s in the profession,” explained the meek woman carefully, her manner somehow suggesting that she would have preferred to have given a nudge with her elbow and have whispered something more concise. Flo, too, wondered what the young woman could mean and the young woman laughed tinklingly, showing big, very white, very regular teeth. Mrs. Collin appeared to be thinking it out; she seemed to suspect that she was being made fun of, but nearly a minute joggled past before she asked rather sombrely:

“What profession do you mean?”

“The profession; there’s only one profession, surely,” said the young woman, smiling now, though in a more superior way.

“There’s dozens as I knows of,” said the fat woman, scarcely disguising disgust. “There’s dentists an’ doctors an’ architects an’ chemists,” taking a deep breath, “hand druggists an’ ’erbalists an’ bone doctors an’ horse doctors an’ . . . and . . .”

“Chiropodists,” put in her meek friend helpfully.

“. . . hand chiropodists an’ professors an’ . . . hundreds of ’em.”

“But only one profession; the profession,” repeated the young woman, moving her head confidently so that her curls seemed to nod agreement.

“She means she’s on the stage,” the meek woman abruptly informed her companion in a very loud whisper across the carriage.

“Then why didn’t she say so?” demanded Mrs. Collin, apparently not at all surprised by this information.

The meek woman did not reply. Flo had been to the pictures many times, but to the theatre only twice; and this was the first actress that she was aware of having seen off the stage. The young woman was obviously proud of her job, and her smartness and self-confidence impressed Flo again. She smiled back at Flo in an open intimate way, as if she guessed that she was being envied. But there was no envy in Mrs. Collin’s tone when she shot out her next question:

“Huh, you’ll be a dancer, eh?”

“No; a singer.”

“Oh, in the chorus. . . . I see.” Mrs. Collin nodded, staring at the young woman all over again, and then added another significant, “I see”, though what she could see Flo could not guess.

“It’s a very interesting life,” said the young woman. “I’m playing on the same bill this week as Gertain Van Blogh . . . you see things and get to know the real people.”

“I bet you do,” agreed Mrs. Collin. “I suppose you get to know the men better than th’ women.”

“Not necessarily; though I’ll say some of them are a bit temperamental . . . think too much of themselves by a bit. But, gee, it’s up to them. When I become a star . . .” She laughed again, very prettily, Flo thought. Flo could imagine her in dark brown satin alone in the footlights laughing in just that way and swinging her golden curls.

“They don’t pay you much on that job; how d’you make enough to live?” demanded Mrs. Collin, entirely unimpressed.

“Oh, we manage all right,” said the young woman easily. “But, of course, if I could marry a prince, I’d take him.”

“I bet you would . . . hand quick; but you’re more like to end up in th’ lock ’ouse.”

Flo supposed that she meant the workhouse. The young woman took no notice; in fact, she beamed and seemed still to be thinking of how she might marry a prince; and Flo thought that that was what was much more likely to happen to her. But the mention of the lock house was Mrs. Collin’s final word. She sat with her hands on the bulge of her stomach apparently brooding. The young woman turned to Flo.

“Did she say you were going to a farm?”

“Yes,” said Flo.

“D’you like it?” she asked. “Ugh, it’s the last thing, the very last, that I’d like. I couldn’t stick it, I simply couldn’t. I don’t suppose that you ever go to the theatre, but if you get the chance you should come and see our show. Gertain’s fine, if she is a bit stuck up. I wish I had her voice and figure. Can she show herself? Oh gee!”

The young woman had a bubbling sort of enthusiasm and seemed glad of a listener like Flo. The meek woman stared straight to her front and did not seem to mind being talked across, simply taking no notice. Mrs. Collin seemed to have forgotten about everybody but herself.

“How long will you be in Manchester?” asked Flo.

“Oh, only a fortnight; a mouldy hole. Then we go on to the Potteries . . . Hanley Hip. The manager there, he’s a beaut; if they were all like him . . .!”

She laughed once more and began to search in her handbag and brought out a Goldflake packet and lit a cigarette with a match snipped out of a flat, green booklet. Leaning back she used the opposite seat as a footrest, carelessly crossing legs bare of stockings. Mrs. Collin turned a little to stare.

“You deserve your death,” she declared solemnly. “Wait till you’re my age an’ you’ll be as stiff as a clothes-horse wi’ rheumatics.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be dead by then,” said the young woman pertly. “A merry life and a quick one, that’s me. I want to die young.”

“You’ll manage it, I should think,” said Mrs. Collin. “If you’d ’ad to work, like what I have, you’d take more care.”

“Olive oil’s the best thing for rheumatics,” the meek woman put in unexpectedly. “Rub it in night an’ mornin’, well into the joints.”

“Emmott Nadin ’as it,” said Mrs. Collin looking informatively at Flo. “Most farmers ’as it, and serve ’em right, th’ skinny beggars. It’s non a thing as they die of, but it gives them a bit o’ hell before they gets there.” Mrs. Collin thrust her tongue along her teeth beneath her thick upper lip as if savouring her own remark. “Not as ’e’s as bad as Pepp’ry Monica . . . it’s her as should have rheumatics, hand a few other things. Mean . . . she’d squeeze a penny till it squealed.”

Flo had never heard this before. She felt inclined to laugh.

“If there’s one sort of person I can’t stick, it’s the mean sort,” said the young woman. “Thank Heaven you don’t get many in our line. We mayn’t get much, most of us, but we enjoy it.”

The meek woman somehow by her look indicated that she didn’t believe this. Mrs. Collin said succinctly, “There’s enj’yment hand enj’yment”, but Flo wished that she were going to Manchester to go on the stage instead of having to face the strange couple that the fat woman seemed to despise so. Glancing aside Flo saw sliding past a dark weed-grown pit bank and then starved-looking fields; after the good rolling country between Barrow and Lancaster this country seemed empty and unlovely, and Flo realized how far she was already from home. Then a spired tower came into view, and Mrs. Collin saw it, too, and exclaimed with genuine satisfaction:

“Eh now, there’s where you buried yo’r Bert, Sal. Best place for ’im were underground, I always thought.”

The meek woman neither nodded nor spoke, though a slightly more distant look seemed to come into her pale mild eyes. Flo forgot her own unhappiness in feeling sorry for her, and as if attracted by some intuition the meek woman turned slowly towards her and perhaps intended to smile, but did not. Instead she spoke: “Soon be in now. D’you know your way?”

The last few minutes of the run were spent with Flo trying to memorize confusing instructions from Mrs. Collin, cut into twice by the meek woman, on how she should cross from Manchester’s Victoria Station to it’s London Road Station; and then just as the train began to slow the young woman let her bare legs down from the seat and said:

“Hell, why mess about? I’m taking a taxi . . . come with me.”

She said it so matter-of-fact that Flo felt that there was nothing else to do. Mrs. Collin was struggling with the window and did not hear, but the meek woman murmured, “Be careful”, though as she did not look at any of them, Flo thought that she must be talking to Mrs. Collin, who was just putting her head out. To the first porter Mrs. Collin shouted, “Eh, you!” but the train slid on unconsideringly. As it slowed, however, another porter began to trot with them. “That!” he exclaimed when he saw the bundle. “I’ll need a damn truck.”

“Oh, no you don’t. I know the trick; I’ll never see you agen,” said Mrs. Collin peremptorily. “If I can carry it, you can.

She showed him where to grip and helped to hoist the bundle on his back, and then punched and patted at it till it was tugged through the door. Energetically she went after it, evidently bent on never losing sight of it. Her companion murmured “Good morning” very weakly and followed.

“The substance and the shadow,” commented the young woman, flicking the end of her cigarette after them. “You stay here, and when a porter comes, see he brings everything.”

Flo stood in the doorway and felt lost with all the people moving past. After a minute, however, a porter came and said, “These them?” and before she could answer he picked up the bass and hat-box and set off towards the back of the train. Flo followed and saw by the luggage-van the young woman standing posed, as it were, beside a biggish grey-green very shabby portmanteau stuck all over with partly torn-off labels. The porter hefted everything on to a two-wheeled truck and soon the things were being unloaded into a cream-and-black taxi.

“What’ll it cost? I don’t think . . .” began Flo nervously, but the young woman interrupted with, “Get in”, and handed the porter something which made him say, “Thank you, mum.” “Don’t worry, I’ve had a lucky strike,” she explained carelessly when they were both in the back seat. “When you’re in luck, run it, that’s me.”

The taxi swayed on to cobbles and began to climb. The driver hooted and swerved rightward into a broad street behind a brilliant red-and-cream tramway car. Flo felt the strange lostness of being in a big unknown city, and only hoped that she had done right in getting in with the young woman. She glanced at her. She had crossed her legs and was leaning back on the green upholstery very nonchalant, as if she were more used to travelling by taxi than by any other means. She seemed to become aware of Flo watching, and suddenly asked: “Have you got a young man?”

“No,” said Flo, abrupt, though instantly thinking of the youth on the submarine.

“I have,” said her companion, and as Flo was about to feel envious she went on: “He thinks I’m going to marry him, but I shan’t.”

“Why not?” asked Flo without trying to hide surprise.

“Oh, Archie, he’s not enough of the necessary for my liking. I’m going to marry a prince . . . or a sheik.”

“Archie . . .?” murmured Flo hesitantly.

“Oh, he’s just a bit of fun while I’ve no one else. Dotty on me, too. Do anything . . . kiss my bottom and lick my shoes, sort of thing. But I can’t stick his kind. I want somebody like a sheik, to grab me and run off with me . . . a real he-man.”

Rounding carmined lips she blew a mouthful of smoke expressively towards the frosted light-disc in the taxi roof.

“I’ve read of sheiks, but I’ve never seen one,” said Flo, nevertheless thinking that she would prefer a more ordinary person. “I don’t think I’d like to be run off with . . .”

“Just to give yourself up to a strong man!” exclaimed the young woman as though she had not heard. “He could take me where he wanted; he could do what he liked.”

She went silent, and Flo looked out and saw that they had come to a crossing where there were more tram-lines, and where on the right there was a tremendous building of buff stone, something like Buckingham Palace as she had seen, it in a newspaper. “Are you sure we’re going right?” she asked anxiously.

“Sure,” answered her companion, flicking her cigarette towards the driver, “he’s no sheik . . .” Practically all that Flo could see of him was the top of his bowler, which was right on the back of his head, and the ends of his moustache, which were ginger and projected at either side even beyond his hat brim. “. . . he’s a walrus,” added the young woman. “Only lives in beer instead of water.”

She sat up and began to feel in her handbag and brought up a tiny purse. Flo felt uncomfortable and asked how much it would be.

“A sweet nothing to you; same to the walrus; and good-bye to a packet of cigs for me. Don’t worry,” the young woman said gaily. “If you come across any sheiks in Derbyshire, let me know. There’s not as many of them as I wish to hell there were.” She seemed to find the coins she wanted and then said “Damn!”

Flo couldn’t make out what that was for, but suddenly the taxi bounced, and looking out in alarm she saw that they had left the streets and were charging up an incline towards a tremendous arched building of wood and glass.

“London Road,” said the young woman.

The car turned into a gloomy tunnel and stopped. The driver gave his hat a neat tip from the back that sent the peak almost on to his nose, and then opened the door.

“There’s only this young lady getting out here. The Oxford for me, please,” said Flo’s friend very precisely.

“Ho, yus, an’ who pays?” demanded the walrus, his moustache ends quivering.

“I do. Put the bass off, but keep the portmanteau and the hat-box.”

Flo wished that she could command as easily. She meekly took hold of the rope round the bass and leaned in at the door to say “Thank you.”

“That’s all right, love. Whenever you see my name on the bills just come in to help the applause, that’s all.”

“But wha . . . what is your name?”

“Gertie, Gertie Galbraitho . . . Madam Gertie Galbraitho, colorato soprano . . . sounds all right, doesn’t it? Look out, top of the bill! Ta-ta, love.”

She smiled and waved in a rather regal manner and then abruptly sat back. Flo stared after the taxi, but Gertie did not look. Suddenly remembering that she had her train to find, Flo turned and went forward into the deeper gloom of the inner station. A porter came towing a loaded four-wheel truck. In answer to her hesitant query he shouted “Heh up!” made a pretence of swerving, but very nearly ran the near-side solid wheels over her toes. She saw an inspector with glasses near the tip of his nose, and when she asked him, surprisingly he said, “Here, number nine. Where’s your ticket?” In this train, though she walked its full length, all she could find were four persons; two girls who looked as if they were still attending school, a man with grey hair staring into a wide-open Daily Mail, and a middle-aged woman in a non-smoking compartment. Flo got in with the woman and asked if she were right for Moss. The woman said that she should be and looked away. Flo left the bass on the seat just inside and got out again and waited. After about eight minutes a fatherly-looking guard strolled the length of the train apparently to see whether it were worth while starting with such a small load. “Ay, yo’re aw reet,” he told Flo, and for a moment she wondered what he meant; then it came to her and she smiled, and he smiled back and waited while she got in, and then he shut her safely in. At the first station the woman got up. “How far is it to Moss?” Flo asked hastily.

“I’ve no idea,” said the woman and walked away.

The guard came and turned the handle, and Flo asked him.

“Oh, yo’ con have a snooze; Aa’ll waken thee.” It was the first time that she had been called “thee”, and it sounded strange.

After that the train jogged on in a way that suggested that it didn’t care whether it got to where it was going or not. At the third station Flo heard doors slamming and saw the girls and the old man slowly climbing the exit stairs. The guard winked as he passed but did not say anything. It came to Flo that he and at least two other men, on the engine, were now engaged solely in looking after her. She felt nervous and amused and important. At the fifth station, which was larger than any of the others, about half-a-dozen passengers shut themselves away elsewhere in the train. Flo had been in it twenty minutes and began to feel anxious once more. But at the next stop the guard sounded surprised and said, “Non yet. Thee settle thisen, wench. We conna get there before we con.” This sounded reasonable, so she tried to settle, but she was weary and wished that the journey would end. The train was running through a shallow cutting with gardens on either side and houses beyond, hundreds of houses, and she felt dizzy from watching them slip past. She had never realized that there were so many people and so many homes in . . . well, her first thought was “in the world”, but she changed that to “in England”. Everyone seemed to get out at the next two stations, and the guard as he went back to his van popped in at the open window a “Non asleep yet?” but went on without waiting for her answer.

Now at last gardens were left behind, and Flo saw across grey-green fields a range of dark hills. After a bit the train curved towards them and began to climb, puffing and blowing as though it had grown old all at once. At the next station there were woods on either side. It was a very small place, and there seemed to be nothing to stop there for really. The porter asked the guard if he’d “bin to th’ dogs lately?” and the guard said no, he’d “summat better ta do wi’” his “brass”.

“Wenching, Aa reckon, eh?” said the porter, grinning.

“Nay, tha knows moor abaat that nor me,” said the guard.

Flo wondered over “wenching” while the train rumbled into a tunnel. When they ran into light once more she was surprised. It was as if the train had done a bit of mountaineering without her realizing it. They were high on a hill side, and below was a widish valley with the gleamy windings of a river. The opposite flank went up in a long straight rise and the skyline was moorland, nearly black with heather that had not yet begun to bud. Then the train ran past a wide gap in the opposite hill, and through it Flo saw hills beyond hills, as if they had all been dropped haphazard. In the gap was a little town of grey houses with grey-stone roofs, all gathered in the bottom so that she smiled at the thought that they must have tobogganed down. Looked on from above, houses dwarfed by the broad hills, the town looked nearly like a toy place; and it was queer to think of it full of strangers all with interests and friends of their own. Then she noticed that one straggling street came up the hill that the train was on, and the train stopped just past this street, and Flo asked the guard the name of the place.

“Yon’s Millgorge; but this ’ere’s cawed New Village. Another hour an’ yo’ll be wheer yo’re goin’.”

“Another hour!” exclaimed Flo, and he went off with a grin.

For another two stations the train kept along the hill overlooking the long valley. Then the guard said it was “Border Bridge”, and that in a minute or two she would be “i’ Derbyshire”. The line curved south and the engine went slower than ever and puffed more than ever. They were climbing along the side of a smaller, much nicer valley where there were more trees, and in place of the earlier river there was only a stream. This ran here and there as all young things do, and tumbled over ledges gaily and whitely.

The valley at first was narrow, and at one place there was scarcely room for the line, the stream, a road and a cottage which were all crushed together there. Then the valley began to expand; it was nearly as deep as the first valley, but wider and somehow more homely. After that the line swung in a great curve to the west, and they toiled out on to a high embankment across the entrance to a side valley that ran up into a green corner of hills on the right. Only Flo was more interested by the left side, for between the larch trees on the embankment she caught sight of a lake with trees around. At some distance away, on an arm of the lake a farmhouse stood. Then unexpectedly the train ran off the embankment into a cutting and all the valley was hidden. When once more Flo could see into the valley the lake was merely a gleam away to the left. In the valley centre far off so that it looked no bigger than a thimble a dark church tower poked up among trees, and there were the grey houses of another village round it. She wondered idly what the name of it could be, and then she noticed that the train was stopping.

“’Ere tha art, wheer thart gooin’,” announced the guard surprisingly jerking open the door.

“Here!” exclaimed Flo, flustered. “I thought you said an hour.”

“Well, tha’ll be wheer thart gooin’ in an hour, and in two hours, winna yo’?” demanded the guard, grinning again. “Wherever tha gets, tha’s wheer tha’s gooin’, or tha wouldna ’a got theer.” He leaned in and picked the bass up easily and swung it out. Flo hastily gathered her handbag and umbrella and almost tumbled after the bass. The train shrugged itself together, and went plodding up the long gradient. Flo was left beside her bass with only one other person in sight, the porter, who was waiting by the small stone ticket-collecting office. She waited, too, hoping that he would come and help, but he only lounged and whistled, as if he had all the rest of the day to waste. So she was forced to lug the bass.

Behind the opposite platform a green bank rose with a row of little black pines along the top, regularly spaced like sentinels. From behind the wooden pailings of the platform up which she was trudging the country seemed to fall away, and there were no houses anywhere. There did not seem to be any reason why a station should be there, and she suddenly wondered if she had been put out at the right place after all. Only there it was on the green-and-black board: MOSS SOUTH. The porter somehow managed to lever himself from against the wall and stood more or less upright, while he held his hand for her ticket. The bass she put down between herself and him, and said:

“Prettyfield . . . I want Prettyfield, Someone was to meet me.”

“Oh, ay,” said the porter, as if that did not in the least matter. “There’s nobody here as Aa knows of.”

“Oh,” said Flo, wondering what to do. “Then perhaps it’s not far.”

“Who were goin’ ta meet you; were it Emmott, or one of the lads?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t know there were any . . . any lads.”

“Oh ay, two on ’em, Clem an’ Bert. Yo’ dunna know them then?” The porter’s interest grew. He was long and thin-faced with very slow deep brown eyes. His gaze gradually took her all in, and then a smile spread from his eyes downward. “Yo’re non going aliving there, art?”

“How do I get there?” she asked, a bit scared of his advancing familiarity.

“Eh, tha’ll non lug that thing,” he declared, slowly stooping and testing the bass. “Aa suppose they were going ta send the trap. It’ll be Clem; it’s usually him as drives. ’E’s a lazy beggar is Clem . . . but yo’ll ’a ta be careful with ’im. Yo’re non going there ta work, are yo’?”

“If you’ll tell me the way, I’ll go,” she said as coolly as she could.

“Oh, ay, Aa’ll show yo’ that,” he promised, not at all put out. “Yo’ll have ta look out for Clem if yo’re a going a living there,” he went on lounging against the building again as though he were going to keep her there. “Bert, t’other brother, he’s a boy ta shoot.”

“Ta shoot?” said Flo, “You don’t mean he wants shooting?”

“Wants shootin’?” repeated the porter with guffaw. “Naow, course he doesna want shootin’. If one of ’em did it ’ud be Clem.”

“But you . . . you said it was the . . . the other one who was a boy to shoot.”

“Well, he is. He’d shoot at owt. If Aa had a quid for every rabbit as he’s shot—ay, or for every wild duck as ’e’s shot—Aa’d be a bloomin’ millionaire.”

“Oh,” said Flo, realizing at last that it was just another of the funny sayings they used which she would have to get used to. As the porter showed no sign of moving she stooped to lift the bass. “You said you’d tell me the way.”

“Aa’ll show it you; Aa reckon as that’s better,” he said slowly, at the same time unhurriedly levering himself away from the stonework once more, but not making any offer to help with the bass. “He’s a top-notcher at shootin’ clay-pigeons, and all; he’s got some cups for that,” he went on as he mooched in front of her through a narrow ticket-hall and out on to a broad stoned level. At the far side was a strong wooden fence of the kind that only railway companies can afford. It was chest high and he leaned his elbows in a way that told her at once that he had leaned there hundreds of times before. Immediately beyond the fence a green slope began and went right down into the valley where the church was among the trees. Instinctively she looked leftward, and saw the gleam of the lake again. Climbing from the church in easy curves was a grey road.

“Yon’s ’im,” said the porter, by which she gathered that he meant a spider-size trap and horse about a mile away, “He’s non hurryin’; he never does. They say as farming’s hard work, but by helup . . .” He spat, aiming at a thistle rosette plugged into the bank. “They dunna know what hard work is,” he declared gravely.

“Do you have a lot to do?” asked Flo, glad that he seemed to have forgotten his curiosity about her.

“Aa’ve the whole bloomin’ station to look after, any’ow, See at him; it doesna matter two batterdocks whether he’s in time for the train, but what’s ta happen if Aa’m non ’ere?”

Flo privately thought that the train would have managed all right, except, of course, that there would not have been anybody to have taken her ticket. “But what do you do between train times?” she asked, rather liking him.

“What do Aa do?” He whistled through top teeth which were yellow and brown and uneven. “What don’t Aa do? yo’ mean. There’s brushin’ and scrubbin’ and lamps ta clean an’ fill, ticket-office ta see to, fires ta make, telephone t’ answer, luggage to see to; an’ when Aa’ve done all that lot, mi time’s mi own.”

“Oh,” said Flo. If none of the people she was to mix with was worse than the porter she felt that she would be all right. She let her glance go down the hill once more, and was surprised at how far the trap had come. She could see now something of the man in it. He had his elbows on his knees, the reins held loosely in both hands. His cap was long-peaked and low so that she could not see his face, but his hair looked lightish.

“Yo’ want to watch yo’rself wi’ Clem; ’e’s a blighter,” said the porter unexpectedly; and then he went silent again, and all at once she realized that now she was looking on where she was to live for . . . well, she didn’t know for how long.

“You never showed me,” she reminded suddenly.

“It’s over yon,” he said pointing rather vaguely towards the lake which from there appeared to be completely surrounded by trees. “Near th’ reservoyer; that’s where Bert has his ducks.”