"By Jove!" exclaimed Steele, when he vaulted a stile and came upon her,
picking primroses from the hedge. "This is a piece of luck!"
Prudence looked up from her occupation. The sunlight was in her
surprised blue eyes, in her hair; it shone on her white dress, and on
the pale wilting flowers in her hand. The effect of her was dazzling--a
white shining thing of milk and roses against the soft greens of the
bank. He had sprung upon her unawares, and it took her a little while
to recover from her astonishment. And yet she had been thinking of
him--thinking how agreeable it would be if the event which was now
realised could only befall. She had been guilty of loitering, of
watching the field-path furtively, and wishing she knew which direction
he took when he walked abroad. And now he stood before her, gay, and
unmistakably pleased, with a laugh in his grey eyes which expressed his
satisfaction. He had been thinking about her as she had been thinking
of him, and wishing that he had made better use of his time that
afternoon, and discovered her favourite haunts. It was all right now;
they had found one another. That was good, because on the morrow he was
going away.
"You'd never guess how hard I've been wishing I might happen upon you
this morning," he said as they shook hands. "It looks as though wishing
had brought its reward. I'm rather a believer in telepathy. Something
of what has been in my mind must unconsciously have transmitted itself
to yours. Have you given me any thought, I wonder? I've given you so
many," he added, observing her blush.
"I was thinking of you at the moment you appeared," Prudence answered
with audacious candour. "You see, William mentioned at breakfast that
you were leaving to-morrow. I wondered why you came? So few people
come here--except commercial travellers."
"There are one or two at the hotel," he said, laughing. "Save that they
possess enormous appetites, I haven't observed them particularly. The
landlady informed me that they are very exclusive. I came on the firm's
business--Morgan Bros. We're woollen too, you know."
"Yes I know. Mr Morgan stays with us sometimes."
She regarded him with renewed interest. It was a little disappointing
to discover that he followed the same occupation as William; she had
placed him in her thoughts amid more romantic surroundings. The
factory, despite its financial magnificence, struck her as rather
sordid. He became aware of the criticism in her eyes and smiled in some
amusement.
"I'm just a paid man," he volunteered. "Nothing very gorgeous about my
position."
"But that's an advantage," she said, and smiled in sympathy. "At least,
you can leave."
"True. I never thought of it like that. My principal concern has been
to evade leaving; it has loomed so very imminent at times. I say, let's
sit on this stile in the shade of that jolly elm and talk. You're not
in a hurry, are you?"
"No," answered Prudence, who knew that she ought to be at home sewing in
the morning-room, knew also that she had not the smallest intention of
going back now. "I'm not in any hurry. It's--pleasant here."
"Yes, isn't it? I don't think I have ever seen prettier country than
this. You were gathering primroses?"
"Just a few late ones." She held the bunch up and surveyed their
drooping beauty. "It's almost a pity; they looked so sweet in the
hedge."
"They look sweeter where they are," he said quite sincerely, though
obviously without sufficient reason for the comparison; the primroses
were so unmistakably dying. "Put one in my button-hole, will you? It
will recall a pleasant morning."
She complied without hesitation, laughing when the task was accomplished
because the flower drooped its head.
"A bit shy," he commented. "It is going to raise its face and smile at
me when I put it in water, later."
"Will you really do that?" she asked.
"Why, of course. You don't suppose I would allow a gift of yours to
fade into a memory?"
"But it will fade," she insisted, "in spite of your efforts. All these
pleasant things fade so swiftly."
He turned more directly towards her and looked into her eyes. She had
taken off her hat, and sat with her shoulders against the tree and
looked steadily back at him.
"Yes," he admitted; "that's uncomfortably true. But something remains."
"Something?" Her eyes questioned him, wide childlike eyes with a hint
of womanhood lurking in their blue depths. He drew a little nearer to
her.
"Something," he repeated--"subtle, intangible--an emotion, a memory...
Call it what you will... Some recurring brightness which is to the
human soul what the sunlight is to the earth--a thousand harmonies
spring from the one source. My primrose will fade, but for me it can't
die; nor will the kind hand that gathered it and placed it where it is
be forgotten either. There are things one doesn't forget."
"I suppose there are," acquiesced Prudence, her thoughts by some odd
twist reverting to William's table manners. "Sometimes one would like
to forget."
"I shouldn't," he averred--"not this, at least."
She roused herself with a laugh.
"I was thinking of other things--I don't know why--horrid things. Are
you one of a large family?"
"No," he answered, surprised. "I'm an only son--and rather a bad
investment. Why?"
"There are eight of us," said Prudence--"counting Bobby."
"Who is Bobby?"
"He's a dear," she answered, as though that explained Bobby. "He's at
college: when he leaves he will have to go into the factory; and he
hates it so. But there isn't any help for it. He is the only Graynor
to carry on."
"I don't think his case calls for sympathy exactly," he remarked dryly,
with a contemplative eye on the tall red chimneys, an eye that travelled
slowly over the wide spring-clad countryside and came back to her face
and rested there in quiet enjoyment.
"You don't know," she returned seriously, "how the kind of life we lead
here stifles an imaginative person."
"You find it dull?" he said. "I suppose it may be. Most country towns
are dull."
"The country isn't to blame," she explained; "it's the routine of dull
business, dull duties, dull pleasures, and duller people. You've no
idea... How should you know? Virtue, as practised in Wortheton, is a
quality without smiles, and enjoyment is sinful. Instead of idling
happily here I ought to be at home sewing garments for the poor, like
the others are doing. I shall be reproved for flaying truant... and I
don't care."
She laughed joyously. Steele, ignoring the larger part of her
communications, leaned towards her, intent on bringing her back to a
particular phrase that stuck in his memory.
"Are you happy sitting here--with me?" he asked.
"I'm always happy," Prudence replied calmly, "when I've some one to talk
to who isn't Wortheton."
"Oh!" he said, a little damped. "So that's it? Well, I'm happy sitting
here talking with some one who is Wortheton."
"I'm not up to sample," she said, amused. "If you want local colour,
call at the Vicarage--or take William as a specimen. Wortheton is
earnest in woof."
She looked so pretty and so impish as she drew her invidious comparisons
that Steele was unable to suppress a smile of sympathy. Her criticism
of her brother was wanting in loyalty; but he could find in his heart no
blame for her: he did not like William, possibly because William had so
pointedly refrained from extending further hospitality to him. The
young man had counted on an extension, and was disappointed.
"You'll shake the dust off your feet some day," he hazarded, and thought
how agreeable it would be to assist in the escape. Visions of scorching
across country in a motor with her beside him floated pleasantly through
his brain.
"Some day," she returned a little vaguely, and looked pensively into the
distance. "Yes, I'll do that... But it's so difficult to find a way."
"Time will solve that difficulty, I expect," he said.
She glanced towards him brightly, a look of expectant eagerness shining
in her eyes. He felt that when the opportunity offered she would not be
slow in seizing it, and was unreasonably angry at the thought of his own
uncertain prospects, which offered not the faintest hope of his ever
being able to hire, much less own, the necessary car in which to scorch
across country with anyone.
"You say such nice, encouraging things," she observed. "I hope time
won't be long in solving the difficulty. It would be horrid to be
forced to live here until I am middle-aged."
"I'm afraid you will be disappointed when you get out into the world,"
he said. "Life is pretty much the same elsewhere as here, I take it.
It is what we make it--largely."
"It is what other people make it for us--largely," she mimicked him. "I
could have quite a good time if I was allowed to. When Bobby is home we
do contrive a little fun, but it generally ends in disaster. They sent
him back to school a week before term commenced once. Agatha managed
that. It is always Bobby who reaps the blame; I am punished
vicariously."
"I call that vindictive," Steele said.
"We called it that--and other things." She smiled reminiscently. "It's
odd how these little things stick in the memory. I never sew without
recalling that exasperating week when I broke needles maliciously six
days in succession. I break them occasionally now--in memoriam."
He laughed aloud.
"I don't fancy Miss Graynor gets it all her own way," he said.
Prudence swung her hat by the brim and gazed up at a patch of blue sky
between the trees. A little frown puckered her brow. She had ceased to
think of Agatha; her mind was intent on the man beside her, the man who
was merely a new acquaintance and yet seemed already a tried and
sympathetic friend. She liked him. She wished he were staying longer
in Wortheton. She wished William had invited him to spend his last
evening at Court Heatherleigh. Strictly speaking, courtesy demanded it;
but William was not always courteous. She held a well-founded belief
that William sought to punish her by this omission; and it pleased her
to reflect that she was in a sense getting even with him through the
present informal meeting. She promised herself the satisfaction of
relating her morning's experience at lunch for his and Agatha's
delectation. They so entirely disapproved of such harmless pleasures.
"If you've really nothing to do," she said, "let us go for a stroll in
the woods. It's lovely there; and we can talk... I feel like a recluse
enjoying an unexpected holiday: I want to make the most of it. And I
love to talk."
"So do I--with some people," he returned in his level, pleasant voice,
and lent her a hand to assist her down from the stile. "It's as well to
be hung for a sheep as a lamb, don't you think? Why not enlarge on the
idea? I know a shop where we can procure quite edible pasties. If you
are agreeable, I could fetch provisions, and we can picnic in the
woods."
"But that's a capital idea," said Prudence, with a careless disregard
for developments, which further evidenced the emancipation Miss Agatha
already foresaw.
"There'll be such a row," she said cheerfully, as they walked across the
fields side by side. "It was just such another excursion that Bobby was
sent back to school for."
"For a little thing like that!" He laughed. "Well, they can't send me
back to school anyhow, and I have a comfortable feeling in my mind that
you'll be able to keep your end up. Miss Graynor would be wise to
recognise that her day is done. I'll return with you and take my share
of the censuring. With luck I might be asked to stay to tea."
This audacity amused them both. There was gladness in the spring day,
the gladness of irresponsible youth, the gladness of life in its promise
with the hope of its fruition unfulfilled and undaunted. The two gay
young hearts, in their mutual pleasure in one another, were in tune with
the brightness of the May morning; and the two gay young voices rang out
in clear enjoyment and awoke the echoes in the shady woods.