Part 21 (1/2)

”Mrs. Maddison, will you come with us? I think that will about trim us.”

Mrs. Maddison obeyed him with alacrity, and the first boat pushed off.

Mrs. Hooper, Alice, Sorell, two St. Cyprian undergraduates and Nora's girl friend, Miss Watson, followed in the second.

Then, while the June evening broadened and declined, the party wound in and out of the curves of the Cherwell. The silver river, br.i.m.m.i.n.g from a recent flood, lay sleepily like a gorged serpent between the hay meadows on either side. Flowers of the edge, meadow-sweet, ragged-robin and yellow flags, dipped into the water; willows spread their thin green over the embattled white and blue of the sky; here and there a rat plunged or a bird fled shrieking; bushes of wild roses flung out their branches, and everywhere the heat and the odours of a rich open land proclaimed the fulness of the midland summer.

Connie made the life of the leading boat. Something had roused her, and she began to reveal some of the ”parlour-tricks,” with which she had amused the Palazzo Barberini in her Roman days. A question from Pryce stirred her into quoting some of the folk-songs of the Campagna, some comic, some tragic, fitting an action to them so lively and true that even those of her hearers who could not follow the dialect sat entranced. Then some one said--”But they ought to be sung!” And suddenly, though rather shyly, she broke into a popular _canzone_ of the Garibaldian time, describing the day of Villa Gloria; the march of the morning, the wild hopes, the fanfaronade; and in the evening, a girl hiding a wounded lover and weeping both for him and ”Italia” undone.

The sweet low sounds floated along the river.

”Delicious!” said Sorell, holding his oar suspended to listen. He remembered the song perfectly. He had heard her sing it in many places--Rome, Naples, Syracuse. It was a great favourite with her mother, for whom the national upheaval of Italy--the heroic struggle of the Risorgimento--had been a life-long pa.s.sion.

”Why did Connie never tell us she could sing!” said Mrs. Hooper in her thin peevish voice. ”Girls really shouldn't hide their accomplishments.”

Sorell's oar dropped into the water with a splash.

At Marston Ferry, there was a general disembarking, a ramble along the river bank and tea under a group of elms beside a broad reach of the stream. Sorell noticed, that in spite of the regrouping of the two boat loads, as they mingled in the walk, Herbert Pryce never left Connie's side. And it seemed to him, and to others, that she was determined to keep him there. He must gather yellow flag and pink willow-herb for her, must hook a water-lily within reach of the bank with her parasol, must explain to her about English farms, and landlords, and why the labourers were discontented--why there were no peasant owners, as in Italy--and so on, and so on. Round-faced Mrs. Maddison, who had never seen the Hoopers' niece before, watched her with amus.e.m.e.nt, deciding that, distinguished and refined as the girl was, she was bent on admiration, and not too critical as to whence it came. The good-natured, curly-haired Meyrick, who was discontentedly reduced to helping Alice and Nora with the tea, and had never been so bored with a river picnic before, consoled himself by storing up rich materials for a ”chaff” of Douglas when they next met--perhaps that evening, after hall? Alice meanwhile laughed and talked with the freshman whom Meyrick had brought with him from Marmion. Her silence and pallor had gone; she showed a kind of determined vivacity. Sorell, with his strange gift of sympathy, found himself admiring her ”pluck.”

When the party returned to the boat-house in the evening, Sorell, whose boat had arrived first at the landing-stage, helped Constance to land.

Pryce, much against his will, was annexed by Nora to help her return the boats to the Isis; the undergraduates who had brought them being due at various engagements in Oxford. Sorell carried Constance off. He thought that he had never seen her look more radiant. She was flushed with success and praise, and the gold of the river sunset glorified her as she walked. Behind them, dim figures in the twilight, followed Mrs.

Hooper and Alice, with the two other ladies, their cavaliers having deserted them.

”I am so glad you like Mr. Pryce,” said Sorell suddenly.

Constance looked at him in astonishment.

”But why? I don't like him very much!”

”Really? I was glad because I suppose--doesn't everybody suppose?”--he looked at her smiling--”that there'll be some news in that quarter presently?”

Constance was silent a moment. At last, she said--

”You mean--he'll propose to Alice?”

”Isn't that what's expected?” He too had reddened. He was a shy man, and he was suddenly conscious that he had done a marked thing.

Another silence. Then Constance faced him, her face now more than flushed--aflame.

”I see. You think I have been behaving badly?”

He stammered.

”I didn't know perhaps--whether--you have been such a little while here--whether you had come across the Oxford gossip. I wish sometimes--you know I'm an old friend of your uncle--that it could be settled. Little Miss Alice has begun to look very worn.”

Constance walked on, her eyes on the ground. He could see the soft lace on her breast fluttering. What foolish quixotry--what jealousy for an ideal--had made him run this hideous risk of offending her? He held his breath till she should look at him again. When she did, the beauty of the look abashed him.

”Thank you!” she said quietly. ”Thank you very much. Alice annoyed me--she doesn't like me, you see--and I took a mean revenge. Well, now you understand--how I miss mamma!”

She held out her hand to him impulsively, and he enclosed it warmly in his; asking her, rather incoherently, to forgive his impertinence. Was it to be Ella Risborough's legacy to him--this futile yearning to help--to watch over--her orphaned child?