The rain was abating. It was hardly making darkness among the oaks any more. Connie wanted to go; yet she sat on. But she was getting cold; yet the overwhelming inertia of her inner resentment kept her there as if paralysed.

Ravished! How ravished one could be without ever being touched. Ravished by dead words become obscene, and dead ideas become obsessions.

A wet brown dog came running and did not bark, lifting a wet feather of a tail. The man followed in a wet black oilskin jacket, like a chauffeur, and face flushed a little. She felt him recoil in his quick walk, when he saw her. She stood up in the handbreadth of dryness under the rustic porch. He saluted without speaking, coming slowly near. She began to withdraw.

‘I’m just going,’ she said.

‘Was yer waitin’ to get in?’ he asked, looking at the hut, not at her.

‘No, I only sat a few minutes in the shelter,’ she said, with quiet dignity.

He looked at her. She looked cold.

‘Sir Clifford ‘adn’t got no other key then?’ he asked.

‘No, but it doesn’t matter. I can sit perfectly dry under this porch. Good afternoon!’ She hated the excess of vernacular in his speech.

He watched her closely, as she was moving away. Then he hitched up his jacket, and put his hand in his breeches pocket, taking out the key of the hut.

‘‘Appen yer’d better ‘ave this key, an’ Ah min fend for t’ bods some other road.’

She looked at him.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘I mean as ‘appen Ah can find anuther pleece as’ll du for rearin’ th’ pheasants. If yer want ter be ‘ere, yo’ll non want me messin’ abaht a’ th’ time.’

She looked at him, getting his meaning through the fog of the dialect.

‘Why don’t you speak ordinary English?’ she said coldly.

‘Me! AH thowt it WOR ordinary.’

She was silent for a few moments in anger.

‘So if yer want t’ key, yer’d better tacit. Or ‘appen Ah’d better gi’e ‘t yer termorrer, an’ clear all t’ stuff aht fust. Would that du for yer?’

She became more angry.

‘I didn’t want your key,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to clear anything out at all. I don’t in the least want to turn you out of your hut, thank you! I only wanted to be able to sit here sometimes, like today. But I can sit perfectly well under the porch, so please say no more about it.’

He looked at her again, with his wicked blue eyes.

‘Why,’ he began, in the broad slow dialect. ‘Your Ladyship’s as welcome as Christmas ter th’ hut an’ th’ key an’ iverythink as is. On’y this time O’ th’ year ther’s bods ter set, an’ Ah’ve got ter be potterin’ abaht a good bit, seein’ after ‘em, an’ a’. Winter time Ah ned ‘ardly come nigh th’ pleece. But what wi’ spring, an’ Sir Clifford wantin’ ter start th’ pheasants...An’ your Ladyship’d non want me tinkerin’ around an’ about when she was ‘ere, all the time.’