Chapter 8

The boys told him. Reuben listened in silence save for one ejaculation of "the dirty bitch!"

David nudged William.

"And she asked us particular to say as she'd never regretted the day she left Odiam, or wished herself back there, nuther."

"She wur purty s?afe to say that—for who'd have her back, I'd lik to know? Larmentable creature she always wur, spanneling around lik a mangy cat. Always thin and always miserable—I'm glad to be shut of her. But she seemed cheery when you saw her?"

"Unaccountable cheery—and she drank three bottles of six ale."

"Um," said Reuben.

The boys had one or two secret talks about Caro. She also stimulated that habit of "thinking" which their father so thoroughly disapproved of. Somehow their encounter with her, combined with their encounter with Richard, seemed to have modified their enthusiasm for Odiam. They could not help comparing that supper at Newhaven with that dinner at Rye, and wondering if it was true what she had said about Richard having got away in time, whereas she had been too late.

"And yet she was glad she'd gone—she'd rather be free too late than not at all."

"Bill, do you think that if we stay here, Odiam 'ull' do for us wot it did for Caro?"

"I d?an't think so. F?ather was much harder on Caro than he is on us."
 
"He's not hard on us—but he's unaccountable interfering; it maddens me sometimes."

"Seems as if he didn't trust us—seems sometimes as if he was afraid we'd go off like the others."

"Reckon he is—he saw how we envied Richard."

"Davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him."

"I d?an't say as I want to do that."

"Besides, it ?un't likely as we'd do as well fur ourselves as Richard. We've no Miss Bardon to trouble about us—reckon we'd come to grief like Albert."

"Maybe we would."