Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/156

 With a defiant stare from her oyster-coloured eyes, she marched out of the room.

Phœbe tiptoed in, as to a chamber of death, and brought him his porridge. But, after a few mouthfuls, he pushed the plate away, and got up. He went out to the flagged yard and stood staring at the bent figures of the pickers in the strawberry beds. The shrieks of pigs that were having their snouts ringed came from the direction of Chard's farm. How beastly uncomfortable to have a ring put through one's nose on a stewing hot day like this! He had seen Chard do it once; the pig standing upright before him, its front feet on his chest, its shrieks full in his face, as he stood with his inexorable, pale grin, driving the iron skillfully home.

The sun blazed on his bare head, the flags burned his feet. Mrs. Machin came out of the house and turned down the drive.

"I wouldn't take a man off to drive me into Mistwell," she called back, "so I'm walkin'. I've told Snailem to fetch my trunk when he takes the fruit in."

Before Derek had time to reply, a window was thrown open upstairs, and Fawnie's voice cried, derisively,

"Get along out, ole woman! We don' want you. Hurry up, now."

Mrs. Machin, her face contorted with rage, stared up, speechless, at the window a moment, and then rushed through the gate, the picture of black and impotent fury.

A delighted chuckle came from above. Derek strode around under the window and looked up. She was sitting on the sill, half-dressed, her arms and shoulders brown as a nut in the sun, her small, red mouth open in laughter, her bronze-coloured eyes dancing with triumph.

"Fawnie, Fawnie, you're a little devil. You ought to be whipped." But he laughed in spite of himself.