Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons Page A

delicately as possible, asked her cousin when and how she should pay to her the first instalment of the hundred pounds a year which Flora had anticipated that she would have to hand over to the Starkadders for her keep.
    ‘Keep it – keep it,’ said Judith, violently. ‘We will never touch a halfpenny of Robert Poste’s money. While you are here, you are here as the guest of Cold Comfort. Every middock you eatis paid for with our sweat. ’Tes as it should be, seeing the way things are.’
    Flora politely thanked her cousin for her generosity, but she privately resolved that, as soon as it was possible, she would make the acquaintance of Aunt Ada Doom, and find out if the old lady approved of this prodigal arrangement. Flora felt sure that she would not approve; and Flora herself was irritated by Judith’s remark. For, if she lived at Cold Comfort as a guest, it would be unpardonable impertinence were she to interfere with the family’s mode of living; but if she were paying her way, she could interfere as much as she pleased. She had observed a similar situation in houses where there were both poor relations and paying guests.
    But this was a point which could be settled at some other time; just now there was something more important to discuss. She said:
    ‘By the way, I adore my bedroom, but do you think I could have the curtains washed? I believe they are red; and I should so like to make sure.’
    Judith had sunk into a reverie.
    ‘Curtains?’ she asked, vacantly, lifting her magnificent head. ‘Child, child, it is many years since such trifles broke across the web of my solitude.’
    ‘I’m sure it is; but do you think I might have them washed, all the same? Could Adam do them?’
    ‘Adam? His frail arms have not the strength. Meriam, the hired girl, might have done them, but—’
    Her gaze strayed again to the window, past whose open casements a fine rain was blowing.
    Flora, who was willing to try anything once, gazed too. Judith was looking at a little hut which stood at the far end of Nettle Flitch Field, and almost abutted upon the sag-pieces which railed in the yard. From this hut came distinct cries of distress in a female voice.
    Flora looked at her cousin with enquiring eyebrows. Judith nodded, lowering her eyelids while a slow scarlet wave of blood swept over her breasts and cheeks.
    ‘’Tes the hired girl in labour,’ she whispered.
    ‘What – without a doctor or anything?’ asked Flora, in alarm. ‘Hadn’t we better send Adam down into Howling for one? I mean – in that grim-looking hut and everything—’
    Judith again made the blind animal gesture of repudiation which seemed to thrust a sodden wall of negation between herself and the world of living things. Her face was grey.
    ‘Leave her in peace … animals like Meriam are best alone at such times …’Tes not the first time.’
    ‘Too bad,’ said Flora, sympathetically.
    ‘’Tes the fourth time,’ whispered Judith, thickly. ‘Every year, in the fulness o’ summer, when the sukebind hangs heavy from the wains …’tes the same. And when the spring comes her hour is upon her again. ’Tes the hand of Nature, and we women cannot escape it.’
    (‘Oh, can’t we?’ thought Flora, with spirit, but aloud she only made such noises of tut-tutting regret as she felt were appropriate to the occasion.)
    ‘Well, she’s out of the question, anyway,’ she said, briskly.
    ‘What question?’ asked Judith, after a pause.
    She had fallen into a trance-like muse. Her face was grey.
    ‘I mean the curtains. She can’t wash them if she’s just had a baby, can she?’
    ‘She will be about again tomorrow. Such wenches are like the beasts of the field,’ said Judith, indifferently.
    She seemed bowed under the gnawing weight of a sorrow that had left her too exhausted for anger; but, as she spoke, an asp-like gleam of contempt darted into her overlidded eyes. She looked quickly across at a photograph of Seth which stood on the table.