Part 22 (1/2)

They found their lunch of cold roast beef and salad, rhubarb tart and cream, delicious. The landlord had some good old claret in his cellar and produced it as though Sir Robin were an honoured guest. They sat to the meal by an open window. There were wallflowers under the window. In a bowl on the table were hyacinths and sweet-smelling narcissi.

After the meal Mrs. Morres was tired. ”Let me rest,” she said, ”till tea-time. What did you say was the train? Five-thirty? Will you order tea for half-past four? It is half-past two now. Go and explore the woods. I believe I shall go asleep if I'm allowed. The buzzing of the bees out there is a drowsy sound.”

Mary voted for walking up-stream, and confessed to a pa.s.sion for tracking rivers to their sources. They stepped out briskly. She was wearing a long cloak of grey-blue cloth, which became her. Presently she took it off and carried it on her arm. Her frock beneath repeated the colour of the cloak. It had a soft fichu about the neck of yellowed muslin, with a pattern of little roses. He looked at her with admiration. He knew as little about clothes as most men, and, like most men, he loved blue. She did well to wear blue on such a day. The grey of her eyes took on the blue of her garments, a blue slightly silvered, like the blue of the April sky.

As the ground ascended, the stream brawled and leaped over little boulders green with the water-stain and lichens. There were quiet pools beside the boulders. As they stood by one they saw the fin of a trout in the obscurity.

They met no one. Presently they were higher than the woods and out on a green hillside. When they first appeared the place was alive with rabbits, who hurried to their burrows with a flash of white scuts.

”If we sit down on the hillside we can see the valley,” Sir Robin said.

”We can look down into the valley at our leisure. It is filled with a golden haze. This good sun is drawing out the winter damps. You shall have my coat to sit on. Wasn't I far-seeing to bring it?”

He spread the coat, which he had been carrying on his arm, for Mary, and she sat down on the very edge of the incline. The St. Bernard laid his silver and russet head on her skirt. They had lost sight of the river now. It had retired into the woods. When they sat down Sir Robin consulted his watch, and found that they might stay for nearly an hour.

There was a bruised sweetness in the atmosphere about them, which they discovered presently to be wild thyme. They were sitting on a bed of it.

He thought of it afterwards as one of the sweetnesses that must be always a.s.sociated with Mary Gray, like the smell of violets. The full golden sun poured on them, warming them to the heart. The bees buzzed about the wild thyme and the golden heads of gorse. Little blue moths fluttered on the hillside. The rabbits, lower down the hill, came out of their burrows again and gambolled in the suns.h.i.+ne.

”How sweet it all is!” Mary said impulsively. ”I shall always remember this day.”

”And I.”

He plucked idly at the wild thyme and the little golden vetches among the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s of the hillside. A fold of the blue dress lay beside him. He touched it inadvertently, and the colour came to his cheek: un.o.bserved, because he had his hat pulled down over his eyes, and Mary was sketching for him in detail the plan of her book. It interested him because it was hers. Her voice sounded like poetry. He had not wanted poetry. Blue-books and statistics had satisfied him very well, hitherto.

But, to be sure, he had read poetry in his Oxford days. Lines and tags of it came into his mind dreamily as he listened to her voice. He did not touch that fold of her gown again. If he was sure--but he was not quite sure. And there was Nelly. He supposed Nelly cared for him if she was willing to marry him. If Nelly cared--why, then, he had no right to think of other possibilities.

Something had gone out of the glory and enchantment of the day as they went back down the hillside. Those lambs of clouds had suddenly banked themselves up into grey fleeces which covered the sun. The wind blew a little cold.

”It is the capriciousness of April,” said Mary, unconscious of any change in the mental atmosphere.

He stopped on the downhill path, took her cloak from her arm, and with kind carefulness laid it about her shoulders. As he arranged it he touched one of the soft curls that lay on her white neck, and again a thrill pa.s.sed through him. He began to wish that he had not planned this country expedition, after all. He ought really to have started this morning for the Continent. Going on Sat.u.r.day, he would have very little time to stay.

On the homeward way Mrs. Morres reproached him with his dulness. What had come to him?

He hesitated, glancing at Mary in her corner. Mary had enjoyed her day thoroughly, and was wearing an air of great content. She was carrying a bunch of the wild thyme. She had taken off her hat and her cloudy hair seemed blown about her head like an aureole. She had a delicate, wild, elusive air. He withdrew his glance abruptly.

”It is a guilty conscience,” he said. ”I ought not to come back and dine with you to-night. I ought to put you into a cab and myself into another, go home for my bag and take the night-express to Paris. The House only rises for ten days and I have to be in my place on the opening night.”

Mary looked up at him with a friendly air of being disappointed. She was engaged in putting the wild thyme into a bunch, stalk by stalk. Mrs.

Morres began to protest--

”Well, of all the deceitful persons! After luring me to spend a Good Friday in town. To be sure, I shall have Mary. Will you come to the Good Friday service at St. Hugh's with me, Mary?”

”I should love to come.”

”Very well, then. Have your bag packed and come back with me to sleep.

We shall get off the earlier on Sat.u.r.day morning. So we shan't miss you at all, Sir Robin.”

He looked at her with great contrition.