Wheep, wheep! A signal from Seaton, whom she had forgotten, wheeled them in his direction, and they came leaping three abreast up and down the dips and hollows, parted by a bush, then a disused well, until for no reason they swung away from Seaton’s repeated whistle and stamped against Vera before she could break the stony paralysis into which the sight of their seemingly unnatural advance had fixed her. Neither had Seaton time to act: she was on the crisp frost-bitten grass before he could swing the leash into a circle and intimidate his animals to a halt.
“Well,” she said, as he fastened his dogs first, “don’t bother to pick me up, will yer?” Now he ran to do so, but it was too late. He pulled at the dogs and fastened the master-lead to a bush stump, laughing as she stood up. “I’m sorry, duck,” he said. “I didn’t know they’d bowl you over like that. You must be as light as a feather. What do they feed you on down yonder?” He pointed a tobacco-branded finger to the chimneys of the Nook. “Pigtaters?”
She pulled her coat to and wiped wet hands on the pockets. “Don’t be so nosy, sharpshit. I get fed all I want.” A scornful look was thrown at his dogs: “Them whippets o’ yourn don’t get too much snap, though, by the look on ’em.”
“Nay,” he said in a quiet tone, not willing to show even slight resentment to a stranger, “they get fed plenty of stuff. Hoss meat and boiled taters. It looks so good I could eat it myself sometimes.”
He don’t seem English to me, she thought, with them brown eyes and that black mop, though it’s combed well and he’s a smart-looking chap all right. He looks like an Italian, with his skin and all, though his talk is Radford enough, I will say that for him. “My old man’s got two dogs,” she said. “Mongrels, but they’re good house-dogs. He uses ’em for fetching the birds when he goes shootin’ as well. And they allus know when a stranger’s coming up the yard, even before they see ’em, because of the feet. They never make a murmur at any of the family.”
“They must be well trained,” he conceded. “Let’s walk down the lane a bit, duck, It’s cowd standin’ ’ere.”
The dogs pulled hard, and she noticed his strong arms tugging them back. When she agreed to walk they jerked forward and nearly sprawled him into an icy rut. “Gerrr-er BACK,” he shouted.
“The old man trained our dogs right enough,” she said, hands in pockets, noticing Seaton’s leather gloves. “The poor boggers think themselves lucky if a day passes wi’out ’im taking a stick to ’em.”
“It’s like that, is it?” he said self-righteously. “I don’t like cruelty to animals. I mean, you can gi’ ’em a kick now and again if you lose your temper and don’t think what you’re doing, or if they get in your way, but it ain’t right to tek a stick to ’em.” He braced himself against the pull of the dogs and lit a crumpled cigarette from his raincoat pocket. On second thought: “Shall you have one, duck?”
“If you’ve got another. I’d better be careful when I go past our gate in case the old man sees me.”
He took a new packet from his coat and lit one for her. “Why? Has your old man tamed you as well as his dogs?”
“Don’t be daft. He just don’t like me to smoke, that’s all.”
“I see nowt wrong wi’ a woman smokin’ a fag now and again,” he said, generous and liberal at the same time. He’s a short-arse, she thought, but nice: only an inch bigger than me. “What sort o’ wok do you do?”
“I wok for me feyther, ’polsterin’.”
Her cigarette went low as they passed the gate, though the old man would sleep for a while yet. “What’s ’polsterin’?”
“Repairin’ sofys and chairs. The old man teks wok in from pubs and ’ouses. We’ve got a shop in Radford. I don’t do much tackin’ or cuttin’, though. Mostly I fetch the stuff on a handcart and tek it back. I go for the leather and cloth as well from time to time. It’s good wok, but you’ve got to be as strong as a hoss, climbing up three nights o’ stairs wi’ a sofy on your back and getting nowt but threepence for your trouble when you get there.”
“Don’t your old man pay you wages?”
“Ay,” he said, “but it ain’t a sight.”
They reached the bridge. “I’ll go no further,” she said. “The old man’ll be mad if I don’t get back in time for tea.” Which was as good an excuse as any to leave him at this point. Beyond the other side of the long bridge she saw the houses of Radford Wood-house: colliers’ houses, poachers’ dens, shops, and beer-offs.
He had expected her to walk to the main road. “You don’t want to be so terrified of your old man,” he said. “He don’t bite that bad, does he?”
“It’s not that. I’m hungry, so I think I’ll get back. I didn’t bother wi’ any dinner.”
“Come on wi’ me, then, and I’ll buy you some tea.”
“Another time I might. But not now.”
He jerked the leash so violently that he nearly throttled the dogs. They ambled back, subdued, to Vera, and she patted their heads. “I’ll pass again next week,” he said. “Shall you wait for me?”
He’s so quiet, except for them eyes. Half a pint o’ mild and a couple of hot whiskies. “If you like. I can be leaning on our gate.”
“All right then, duck. I’ll be seeing you.”
Black hair, and teeth going to bad: he couldn’t ’a bin a day over twenty-four. He walked off, with a slight swinging gait, which might, as far as she could tell, have been the way he always walked; or it might have been caused by the predatory forward pull of his three strong dogs.
She kept telling herself that she didn’t want to be married, that, even though it meant getting away from the threat of the old man’s fist and stick, she didn’t want to let herself in for something that as far as she knew might turn out to be worse. What did she know of Seaton? He was quiet, kind, and often charming in a simple sort of way; but he’d been barmy enough to ask her to marry him at the end of their second meeting, and she’d been just as barmy in saying all right. And now the three-month wait he’d agreed to was over and she sat by the window in her underwear, looking out at the garden and fields because she couldn’t stand the sight of her wedding-dress spread out on the bed behind. In half an hour she would be off to Lenton Church, in a horse-drawn cab on which Seaton had seen fit to splash part of his wages earned at an outside labouring job — saved up for what he hadn’t dared hope for when he’d “popped the question.” Vera remembered his disappointment, a black look when she mentioned the three-month wait. So how do I know what being married to him’ll be like? she wondered, nagged by the uneasy memory of their second meeting in the Cherry Orchard, a scrag-end of a field whose scrub-covered up-and-down surface matched well her feelings at that time.
To get away from home for always was a good thing, that nobody could gainsay, though Merton had hinted after seeing Seaton for the first time that he didn’t think he was much of a bargain for his gel, and that she’d realize (by God she would) what a good home she’d had when she’d lived with him a while in Nottingham. But this had only made her more anxious to escape, had cut her apprehension at the roots and made her look forward to starting a new life in a Nottingham house or flat, despite the needling of premonitions that soon came back.
There was no time left to deliberate. She closed her arms over her soft, well-shaped breasts and began to weep, the sound of it bursting upon her ears and cordoning her off from the noise of fussing in the kitchen below. She did not want to be married, was prepared to stay more months or years in peril of the old man rather than take a chance of living with someone she did not know, throw herself at a stranger after three months’ acquaintance.