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They lived in a house with a large garden at Pireford, which is on the summit of the steep ridge between the Five Towns and Oldcastle, and they kept two servants and a coachman, who was also gardener. Eva paid the servants good wages, and took care to get good value therefor.
'Why! You are back early, father! How She stopped. Something in the old man's glance gave her a premonition of disaster. To this day she does not know what accident brought him from Manchester two hours sooner than usual, and to Machin Street instead of Pireford. 'Has young Timmis been here? he inquired curtly. 'Yes. 'Ha! with subdued, sinister satisfaction, 'I saw him going out.
'That's all right, he murmured, and sighed, and placed on Eva's lips the first kiss that had ever lain there. 'Dear boy, she said later, 'you should have come up to Pireford, not here, and when father was there. 'Should I? he answered happily. 'It just occurred to me all of a sudden this morning that you would be here, and that I couldn't wait. 'You will come up to-night and see father?
By a silent understanding Clive did not enter the house at Pireford; to have done so would have excited remark, for this house, unlike some, had never been the rendezvous of young men; much less, therefore, did he invade the shop. No! Thus, the idyll, so matter-of-fact upon the surface, but within which glowed secret and adorable fires, progressed towards its culmination.
If only Clive had had the sense to make his proposal openly at Pireford some evening! If only he had left a little earlier! If only her father had not caught him going out by the side-door on a Thursday afternoon when the place was empty! Here, she guessed, was the suggestion of furtiveness which had raised her father's unreasoning anger, often fierce, and always incalculable.
'What did the young woman say to that? his uncle inquired. Clive frowned. 'I didn't see her last night, he said. 'I didn't ask to see her. I was too angry. Just then the post arrived, and there was a letter for Clive, which he read and put carefully in his waistcoat pocket. 'Eva writes asking me to go to Pireford to-night, he said, after a pause. 'I'll soon settle it, depend on that.
If Ezra Brunt refuses his consent, so much the worse for him. I wonder whether he actually imagines that a grown man and a grown woman are to be.... Ah well, I can't talk about it! It's too silly. I'll be off to the works. When Clive reached Pireford that night, Eva herself opened the door to him. She was wearing a gray frock, and over it a large white apron, perfectly plain.
The dormitories knew of Eva's 'attachment' before Eva herself. Yet none knew how it was known. The whisper arose like Venus from a sea of trivial gossip, miraculously, exquisitely. On the night when the first rumour of it traversed the passages there was scarcely any sleep at Brunt's, while Eva up at Pireford slumbered as a young girl.
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