Philip slept like a log and awoke with a start to find Harold tickling
his face with a feather. There was a shout of delight when he opened
his eyes. He was drunken with sleep.
“Come on, lazybones,” said Jane. “Sally says she won’t wait for you
unless you hurry up.”
Then he remembered what had happened. His heart sank, and, half out of
bed already, he stopped; he did not know how he was going to face her;
he was overwhelmed with a sudden rush of self-reproach, and bitterly,
bitterly, he regretted what he had done. What would she say to him that
morning? He dreaded meeting her, and he asked himself how he could have
been such a fool. But the children gave him no time; Edward took his
bathing-drawers and his towel, Athelstan tore the bed-clothes away; and
in three minutes they all clattered down into the road. Sally gave him
a smile. It was as sweet and innocent as it had ever been.
“You do take a time to dress yourself,” she said. “I thought you was
never coming.”
There was not a particle of difference in her manner. He had expected
some change, subtle or abrupt; he fancied that there would be shame in
the way she treated him, or anger, or perhaps some increase of
familiarity; but there was nothing. She was exactly the same as before.
They walked towards the sea all together, talking and laughing; and
Sally was quiet, but she was always that, reserved, but he had never
seen her otherwise, and gentle. She neither sought conversation with
him nor avoided it. Philip was astounded. He had expected the incident
of the night before to have caused some revolution in her, but it was
just as though nothing had happened; it might have been a dream; and as
he walked along, a little girl holding on to one hand and a little boy
to the other, while he chatted as unconcernedly as he could, he sought
for an explanation. He wondered whether Sally meant the affair to be
forgotten. Perhaps her senses had run away with her just as his had,
and, treating what had occurred as an accident due to unusual
circumstances, it might be that she had decided to put the matter out
of her mind. It was ascribing to her a power of thought and a mature
wisdom which fitted neither with her age nor with her character. But he
realised that he knew nothing of her. There had been in her always
something enigmatic.
They played leap-frog in the water, and the bathe was as uproarious as
on the previous day. Sally mothered them all, keeping a watchful eye on
them, and calling to them when they went out too far. She swam staidly
backwards and forwards while the others got up to their larks, and now
and then turned on her back to float. Presently she went out and began
drying herself; she called to the others more or less peremptorily, and
at last only Philip was left in the water. He took the opportunity to
have a good hard swim. He was more used to the cold water this second
morning, and he revelled in its salt freshness; it rejoiced him to use
his limbs freely, and he covered the water with long, firm strokes. But
Sally, with a towel round her, went down to the water’s edge.
“You’re to come out this minute, Philip,” she called, as though he were
a small boy under her charge.
And when, smiling with amusement at her authoritative way, he came
towards her, she upbraided him.
“It is naughty of you to stay in so long. Your lips are quite blue, and
just look at your teeth, they’re chattering.”
“All right. I’ll come out.”
She had never talked to him in that manner before. It was as though
what had happened gave her a sort of right over him, and she looked
upon him as a child to be cared for. In a few minutes they were
dressed, and they started to walk back. Sally noticed his hands.
“Just look, they’re quite blue.”
“Oh, that’s all right. It’s only the circulation. I shall get the blood
back in a minute.”
“Give them to me.”
She took his hands in hers and rubbed them, first one and then the
other, till the colour returned. Philip, touched and puzzled, watched
her. He could not say anything to her on account of the children, and
he did not meet her eyes; but he was sure they did not avoid his
purposely, it just happened that they did not meet. And during the day
there was nothing in her behaviour to suggest a consciousness in her
that anything had passed between them. Perhaps she was a little more
talkative than usual. When they were all sitting again in the hop-field
she told her mother how naughty Philip had been in not coming out of
the water till he was blue with cold. It was incredible, and yet it
seemed that the only effect of the incident of the night before was to
arouse in her a feeling of protection towards him: she had the same
instinctive desire to mother him as she had with regard to her brothers
and sisters.
It was not till the evening that he found himself alone with her. She
was cooking the supper, and Philip was sitting on the grass by the side
of the fire. Mrs. Athelny had gone down to the village to do some
shopping, and the children were scattered in various pursuits of their
own. Philip hesitated to speak. He was very nervous. Sally attended to
her business with serene competence and she accepted placidly the
silence which to him was so embarrassing. He did not know how to begin.
Sally seldom spoke unless she was spoken to or had something particular
to say. At last he could not bear it any longer.
“You’re not angry with me, Sally?” he blurted out suddenly.
She raised her eyes quietly and looked at him without emotion.
“Me? No. Why should I be?”
He was taken aback and did not reply. She took the lid off the pot,
stirred the contents, and put it on again. A savoury smell spread over
the air. She looked at him once more, with a quiet smile which barely
separated her lips; it was more a smile of the eyes.
“I always liked you,” she said.
His heart gave a great thump against his ribs, and he felt the blood
rushing to his cheeks. He forced a faint laugh.
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because you’re a silly.”
“I don’t know why you liked me.”
“I don’t either.” She put a little more wood on the fire. “I knew I
liked you that day you came when you’d been sleeping out and hadn’t had
anything to eat, d’you remember? And me and mother, we got Thorpy’s bed
ready for you.”
He flushed again, for he did not know that she was aware of that
incident. He remembered it himself with horror and shame.
“That’s why I wouldn’t have anything to do with the others. You
remember that young fellow mother wanted me to have? I let him come to
tea because he bothered so, but I knew I’d say no.”
Philip was so surprised that he found nothing to say. There was a queer
feeling in his heart; he did not know what it was, unless it was
happiness. Sally stirred the pot once more.
“I wish those children would make haste and come. I don’t know where
they’ve got to. Supper’s ready now.”
“Shall I go and see if I can find them?” said Philip.
It was a relief to talk about practical things.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I must say…. There’s mother coming.”
Then, as he got up, she looked at him without embarrassment.
“Shall I come for a walk with you tonight when I’ve put the children to
bed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you wait for me down by the stile, and I’ll come when I’m
ready.”
He waited under the stars, sitting on the stile, and the hedges with
their ripening blackberries were high on each side of him. From the
earth rose rich scents of the night, and the air was soft and still.
His heart was beating madly. He could not understand anything of what
happened to him. He associated passion with cries and tears and
vehemence, and there was nothing of this in Sally; but he did not know
what else but passion could have caused her to give herself. But
passion for him? He would not have been surprised if she had fallen to
her cousin, Peter Gann, tall, spare, and straight, with his sunburned
face and long, easy stride. Philip wondered what she saw in him. He did
not know if she loved him as he reckoned love. And yet? He was
convinced of her purity. He had a vague inkling that many things had
combined, things that she felt though was unconscious of, the
intoxication of the air and the hops and the night, the healthy
instincts of the natural woman, a tenderness that overflowed, and an
affection that had in it something maternal and something sisterly; and
she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of charity.
He heard a step on the road, and a figure came out of the darkness.
“Sally,” he murmured.
She stopped and came to the stile, and with her came sweet, clean
odours of the country-side. She seemed to carry with her scents of the
new-mown hay, and the savour of ripe hops, and the freshness of young
grass. Her lips were soft and full against his, and her lovely, strong
body was firm within his arms.
“Milk and honey,” he said. “You’re like milk and honey.”
He made her close her eyes and kissed her eyelids, first one and then
the other. Her arm, strong and muscular, was bare to the elbow; he
passed his hand over it and wondered at its beauty; it gleamed in the
darkness; she had the skin that Rubens painted, astonishingly fair and
transparent, and on one side were little golden hairs. It was the arm
of a Saxon goddess; but no immortal had that exquisite, homely
naturalness; and Philip thought of a cottage garden with the dear
flowers which bloom in all men’s hearts, of the hollyhock and the red
and white rose which is called York and Lancaster, and of
love—in-a-mist and Sweet William, and honeysuckle, larkspur, and London
Pride.
“How can you care for me?” he said. “I’m insignificant and crippled and
ordinary and ugly.”
She took his face in both her hands and kissed his lips.
“You’re an old silly, that’s what you are,” she said.