d flappings, with the
whistle and pipe of the chimneys, with crashing of unclosed doors, with
rattled lattices and scud and scream and shriek and hum and roar of the
wild December storms. Every morning would break to huge shapes of rain
swept up the valley, one after another until the gales of dawn died away
to a steady drench of water. Then Jenny would sit in the hot room, where
the slab glowed quietly into the mustiness, and idly turn the
damp-stained pages of year-old periodicals, of mildewed calendars, even
of hymn-books. At last she would sally forth desperately, and after a
long battle with wind or gurgling walk through mud and wet, she would
return to a smell of pasties and saffron cake and sometimes the cleaner
pungency of marinated pilchards.

Some time before Christmas the gales dropped; the wind veered releasing
the sun, and for a fortnight there was fleckless winter weather. These
were glorious mornings to wander down through the west garden past the
escallonias aromatic in the sunlight, past the mauve and blue and purple
veronicas, out over the watery meadows and up the hill-sides, where the
gorse was almond-scented about midday in the best of the sun. Here for a
week she and May roamed delightfully, until they found themselves in a
field of bullocks and, greatly terrified, went back to the seashore.
"Handsome weather," old Mrs. Trewhella would say, watching them set out
for their long walks, and, after blinking once or twice at the sun,
thumping back to the kitchen, back to household superintendence and the
preparation of heavy meals for the farm workers. Jenny was not inclined
to talk much with them. They lived a life so remote from hers that not
even the bridge of common laughter could span the gulf. Dicky Rosewarne,
for all his good looks, was detestably cruel with his gins and snares
and cunning pursuit of goldfinches and, worse, his fish-hooks baited for
wild duck. Yet he was kind enough to the great cart-horses, conversing
with them all work-time in a guttural language they seemed perfectly to
comprehend. Bessie Trevorrow, the dairymaid, was even less approachable
than Dicky. She had the shyness of a wild thing, and would fly past
Jenny, gazing in the opposite direction. Once or twice, under the
pressure of proximity, they embarked upon a conversation; but Jenny
found it difficult to talk well with a woman who answered her in
ambiguous phrases of agreement or vague queries. Old Man Veal Jenny
dislike