“Ta row with.” He smiled tantalisingly. “Like a sail?” Straightening, he half turned to go back in. Flo took a step and saw just inside a narrow wooden stage with three boats afloat and motionless beside it. Past them, as from a cave, she saw the boats and the punt that she had first seen, and beyond was the steel-blue expanse of the lake. She felt an unusual pleasant sense of intimateness with the water as she stood there on the wooden stage. In the shadow the water was green and threw up a faint moving light, like marbling, on the walls and low roof; and there was a constant tiny jabble and suck of ripples talking as it were in whispers to the boats. This feeling of intimateness was somehow akin to the feeling she had known in glass-roofed Barrow market among the flowers and vegetables and quiet murmuring people in that time that all at once seemed a terribly long way off. She was stricken with a choking homesickness that made tears start in her eyes with such unexpectedness that she could not blink them away. She smudged them off hurriedly with the cuff of her blue working frock. Bert Nadin was bending to pull in the slack of the rope to the nearest boat, and she was sure that he had not noticed. She coughed, trying to clear herself, but she could not speak. The boat began to slip towards them, starting V-shaped flutings on either side, and causing the faint green marblings all round to run and mingle as at play.
“This is Swallow, the best of ’em,” Bert was saying.
“Oh, but I can’t, I can’t,” exclaimed Flo.
“Why not; feart o’ being seasick?” he asked, glancing up so that she saw his profile lit by the light from the door and against the dark water.
“No, no; I must go,” and she stepped backward and turned and ran.
Why, she did not know; except that she wanted to get away to where she could get the choking out of her throat and the smart out of her eyes. She ran up the bank and stumbled into the cabin and dropped her elbows on the long table and sobbed. She wanted her mother; she wanted to feel her mother’s arms about her shoulders, to have her comfort. Flo let herself sob wildly, till all at once she was afraid and looked up, as alert and tense as an animal, staring between fingers still curved about her face. At the window was Bert. His hand was held to shade the glass from refraction, and for several seconds he looked in intently; then he turned and went away. She watched him to the boat-house. Her paroxysm was over. What would he think? The one fact that was a bit of solace was that it had not been Clem. She felt that Clem would certainly have taken advantage; but perhaps Bert wouldn’t say anything. Abruptly she got up and looked round the unfamiliar place and wondered what it was for. They were all preparing for something . . . Mrs. Nadin, Bert, and herself . . . but for what? This question helped her. The intense depression which had overwhelmed her lifted as she brushed and dusted and washed the American cloth. She was surprised when Dot passed the window; she had forgotten her.
“Finished?” asked Dot, looking about pryingly. “Whatever have you been doing?”
“How d’you mean? Working,” said Flo, in no mood to be put on.
“Your face,” Dot took her unawares. “Have you been crying?”
“Crying? No . . . why . . . why should I?” stammered Flo, feeling her cheeks going hotter.
“Huh, crying for your mammy and you’ve only just come. You know you’ve got to stick here?”
“I didn’t say I’d been crying,” said Flo, feeling murderous. “I haven’t. I’ve been working. You should have been helpin’ . . . leaving me to it all. I . . . I . . .”
“Now then, remember who you’re talking to,” broke in Dot in a higher, harsh voice somewhat like her mother’s. “I won’t be spoken to like that by any pauper’s brat, you . . . you pimply little tarnach.”
“I’ll speak to who I like. I’m not going to be treated like . . .”
“You’ll be treated how I like; you’ll see how you’ll be treated. How long are you going to be? I’ll tell her you’ll be coming in an hour or two,” she finished sarcastically, and abruptly she picked up the long brush and marched out.