`He'll never think you're here,' laughed Mrs Flint excitedly. `He'll be sending the crier round.'
`Goodbye, Josephine,' said Connie, kissing the baby and ruffling its red, wispy hair.
Mrs Flint insisted on opening the locked and barred front door. Connie emerged in the farm's little front garden, shut in by a privet hedge. There were two rows of auriculas by the path, very velvety and rich.
`Lovely auriculas,' said Connie.
`Recklesses, as Luke calls them,' laughed Mrs Flint. `Have some.'
And eagerly she picked the velvet and primrose flowers.
`Enough! Enough!' said Connie.
They came to the little garden gate.
`Which way were you going?' asked Mrs Flint.
‘Let me see! Oh yes, the cows are in the gin close. But they’re not up yet. But the gate’s locked, you’ll have to climb.’
‘I can climb,’ said Connie.
‘Perhaps I can just go down the close with you.’
They went down the poor, rabbit-bitten pasture. Birds were whistling in wild evening triumph in the wood. A man was calling up the last cows, which trailed slowly over the path-worn pasture.
‘They’re late, milking, tonight,’ said Mrs Flint severely. ‘They know Luke won’t be back till after dark.’
They came to the fence, beyond which the young fir-wood bristled dense. There was a little gate, but it was locked. In the grass on the inside stood a bottle, empty.
‘There’s the keeper’s empty bottle for his milk,’ explained Mrs Flint. ‘We bring it as far as here for him, and then he fetches it himself.’
‘When?’ said Connie.
‘Oh, any time he’s around. Often in the morning. Well, goodbye Lady Chatterley! And do come again. It was so lovely having you.’
Connie climbed the fence into the narrow path between the dense, bristling young firs. Mrs Flint went running back across the pasture, in a sun-bonnet, because she was really a school-teacher. Constance didn’t like this dense new part of the wood; it seemed gruesome and choking. She hurried on with her head down, thinking of the Flints’ baby. It was a dear little thing, but it would be a bit bow-legged like its father. It showed already, but perhaps it would grow out of it. How warm and fulfilling somehow to have a baby, and how Mrs Flint had showed it off! She had something anyhow that Connie hadn’t got, and apparently couldn’t have. Yes, Mrs Flint had flaunted her motherhood. And Connie had been just a bit, just a little bit jealous. She couldn’t help it.
She started out of her muse, and gave a little cry of fear. A man was there.
It was the keeper. He stood in the path like Balaam’s ass, barring her way.
‘How’s this?’ he said in surprise.