It was a late afternoon early in September. The day had been
wonderful. Over the bald crown above Druidsdale the sun came
slanting across the Irish Sea from a crimsoning sky beyond the purple
crests of the Morne mountains. Stowell and Gell had been camping out
for two days in the Manx hills, and, parting at a junction of paths,
Gell had gone down towards Douglas while Stowell had dropped into the
cool dark depths of the glen that led homewards.
Victor was as brown as a berry. He was wearing long, thick-soled
yellow boots almost up to his knees, with his trousers tucked into
them, a loose yellow shirt, rolled up to the elbows of his strong
round arms, no waistcoat, his Norfolk jacket thrown over his left
shoulder, and a knapsack strapped on his back.
With long, plunging strides he was coming down the glen, singing
sometimes in a voice that was partly drowned by the louder water
where it dipped into a dub, when, towards the Curragh end of it, on
the "brough" side of the river, he came upon a startling vision.
It was a girl. She was about seventeen years of age, bare-headed and
bare-footed, and standing ankle-deep in the water. Her lips, and a
little of the mouth at either side, were stained blue with
blackberries--she had clearly been picking them and had taken off
shoes and stockings to get at a laden bush.
She was splendidly tall, and had bronze brown hair, with a glint of
gold when the sun shone on it. The sun was shining on it now,
through a gap in the thinning trees that overhung the glen, and with
the leaves pattering over her head, and the river running at her
feet, it was almost as if she herself were singing.
With her spare hand she was holding up her dress, which was partly of
lace--light and loose and semi-transparent--and when a breeze, which
was blowing from the sea, lapped it about her body there was a hint
of the white, round, beautiful form beneath. Her eyes were dark and
brilliantly full, and her face was magnificently intellectual, so
clear-cut and clean. And yet she was so feminine, so womanly, such a
girl!
She must have heard Stowell's footsteps, and perhaps his singing as
he approached, for she turned to look up at him--calmly, rather
seriously, a little anxiously but without the slightest confusion.
And he looked at her, pausing to do so, without being quite aware of
it, and feeling for one brief moment as if wind and water had
suddenly stopped and the world stood still.
There was a moment of silence, in which he felt a certain chill, and
she a certain warmth, and both a certain dryness at the throat. The
girl was the first to recover self-control. Her face sweetened to a
smile, and then, in a voice that was a little husky, and yet sounded
to him like music, she said, as if she had asked and answered an
earlier question for herself:
"But of course you don't know who _I_ am, do you?"
He did. Although she was so utterly unlike what he had expected
(what he had told himself he expected) he knew--she was Fenella
Stanley.
As often as he thought of it afterwards he could never be quite sure
what he had said to her in those first moments. He could only guess
at what it must have been by his vivid memory of what she had said in
reply.
She watched him, womanlike, for a moment longer, to see what
impression she had made upon him, now that she knew what impression
he had made upon her. Then she glanced down at her bare feet, that
looked yellow on the pebbles in the running water, and then at her
shoes and stockings, which, with her parasol, lay on the bank, and
said:
"I suppose you ought to go away while I get out of this?"
"Why?"
He never knew what made him say that, but she glanced up at him
again, with the answering sunshine of another smile, and said:
"Well, you needn't, if you don't want to."
After that she stepped out of the river, and sat on the grass to dry
her feet and pull on her stockings. As she did so, and he stood
watching, forgetting (such was the spell of things) to turn his eyes
away, she shot another look up at him, and said:
"I remember that the last time I was in these parts you ordered me
off, Sir."
"And the last time I was at Government House you turned me out of the
tennis court," he answered.
She laughed. He laughed. They both laughed together. Also they
both trembled. But by the time she had put on her shoes he was
feeling braver, so he went down on his knees to tie her laces.
It was a frightening ordeal, but he got through at last, and to cover
their embarrassment, while the lacing was going on, they came to
certain explanations.
Yesterday the Governor had telegraphed to the Deemster that he would
like to fulfil his promise to visit Ballamoar and stay the night if
convenient. So they had driven over in the carriage and arrived
about two hours ago, and were going back to-morrow morning.
"Of course you were not there when we came," she said, "being, it
seems, a gentleman of gipsy habits, so when Janet (I mean Miss
Curphey) mentioned at tea that you were likely to come down the glen
about sunset....
"Then you were coming to meet me?" he said.
She laughed again, having said more than she had intended and finding
no way of escape from it.
When all was done and he had helped her up (how his fingers tingled!)
and they stood side by side for the first time (she was less than
half a head shorter than himself and her eyes seemed almost on the
level of his own) and they were ready to go, he suddenly remembered
that they were on the wrong side for the road. So if she hadn't to
take off her boots and stockings and wade through the water again, or
else walk half a mile down the glen to the bridge, he would have to
carry her across the river.
Without more ado she let him do it--picking her up in his quivering
arms and striding through the water in his long boots.
Then being dropped to her feet she laughed again; and he laughed, and
they went on laughing, all the way down the glen road, and through
the watery lanes of the Curragh, where the sally bushes were singing
loud in the breeze from the sea--but not so loud as the hearts of
this pair of children.