“You’ll kiss me before I go?” he asked.
She stood with averted face, and did not reply. His forehead was twitching in a puzzled frown.
“Lettie!” he said.
She did not move or answer, but remained with her face turned full away, so that he could see only the contour of her cheek. After waiting awhile, he flushed, turned swiftly and set his machine rattling. In a moment he was racing between the trees.
Chapter 4
Kiss when She’s Ripe for Tears
It was the Sunday after Lettie’s visit. We had had a wretched week, with everybody mute and unhappy.
Though spring had come, none of us saw it. Afterwards it occurred to me that I had seen all the ranks of poplars suddenly bursten into a dark crimson glow, with a flutter of blood-red where the sun came through the leaves; that I had found high cradles where the swan’s eggs lay by the water-side; that I had seen the daffodils leaning from the moss-grown wooden walls of the boat-house, and all, moss, daffodils, water, scattered with the pink scarves from the elm buds; that I had broken the half-spread fans of the sycamore, and had watched the white cloud of sloe-blossom go silver grey against the evening sky: but I had not perceived it, and I had not any vivid spring pictures left from the neglected week.
It was Sunday evening, just after tea, when Lettie suddenly said to me:
“Come with me down to Strelley Mill.”
I was astonished, but I obeyed unquestioningly.
On the threshold we heard a chattering of girls, and immediately Alice’s voice greeted us:
“Hello, Sybil, love! Hello, Lettie! Come on, here’s a gathering of the goddesses. Come on, you just make us right. You’re Juno, and here’s Meg, she’s Venus, and I’m — here, somebody, who am I, tell us quick — did you say Minerva, Sybil dear? Well, you ought, then! Now, Paris, hurry up. He’s putting his Sunday clothes on to take us a walk — Laws, what a time it takes him! Get your blushes ready, Meg — now, Lettie, look haughty, and I’ll look wise. I wonder if he wants me to go and tie his tie. Oh, Glory — where on earth did you get that antimacassar?”
“In Nottingham — don’t you like it?” said George, referring to his tie. “Hello, Lettie — have you come?”
“Yes, it’s a gathering of the goddesses. Have you that apple? If so, hand it over,” said Alice.
“What apple?”
“Oh, Lum, his education! Paris’s apple — Can’t you see we’ve come to be chosen?”
“Oh, well — I haven’t got any apple — I’ve eaten mine.”
“Isn’t he flat — he’s like boiling magnesia that’s done boiling for a week. Are you going to take us all to church then?”
“If you like.”
“Come on, then. Where’s the Abode of Love? Look at Lettie looking shocked. Awfully sorry, old girl — thought love agreed with you.”
“Did you say love?” inquired George.
“Yes, I did; didn’t I, Meg? And you say ‘Love’ as well, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what it is,” laughed Meg, who was very red and rather bewildered.
“‘Amor est titillatio’—‘Love is a tickling’— there — that’s it, isn’t it, Sybil?”
“How should I know.”
“Of course not, old fellow. Leave it to the girls. See how knowing Lettie looks — and, laws, Lettie, you are solemn.”
“It’s love,” suggested George, over his new neck-tie.
“I’ll bet it is ‘degustasse sat est’— ain’t it, Lettie? ‘One lick’s enough’—‘and damned be he that first cries: Hold, enough!’— Which one do you like? But are you going to take us to church, Georgie, darling — one by one, or all at once?”
“What do you want me to do, Meg?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
“And do you mind, Lettie?”
“I’m not going to church.”
“Let’s go a walk somewhere — and let us start now,” said Emily somewhat testily. She did not like this nonsense. “There you are, Syb — you’ve got your orders — don’t leave me behind,” wailed Alice.
Emily frowned and bit her finger.
“Come on, Georgie. You look like the finger of a pair of scales — between two weights. Which’ll draw?”
“The heavier,” he replied, smiling, and looking neither at Meg or Lettie.
“Then it’s Meg,” cried Alice. “Oh, I wish I was fleshy — I’ve no chance with Syb against Pem.”
Emily flashed looks of rage; Meg blushed and felt ashamed; Lettie began to recover from her first outraged indignation, and smiled.
Thus we went a walk, in two trios.
Unfortunately, as the evening was so fine, the roads were full of strollers: groups of three or four men dressed in pale trousers and shiny black cloth coats, following their suspicious little dogs: gangs of youths slouching along, occupied with nothing, often silent, talking now and then in raucous tones on some subjects of brief interest: then the gallant husbands, in their tail coats very husbandly, pushing a jingling perambulator, admonished by a much-dressed spouse round whom the small members of the family gyrated: occasionally, two lovers walking with a space between them, disowning each other; occasionally, a smartly dressed mother with two little girls in white silk frocks and much expanse of yellow hair, stepping mincingly, and, near by, a father awkwardly controlling his Sunday suit.
To endure all this it was necessary to chatter unconcernedly. George had to keep up the conversation behind, and he seemed to do it with ease, discoursing on the lambs, discussing the breed — when Meg exclaimed:
“Oh, aren’t they black! They might ha’ crept down th’ chimney. I never saw any like them before.” He described how he had reared two on the bottle, exciting Meg’s keen admiration by his mothering of the lambs. Then he went on to the peewits, harping on the same string: how they would cry and pretend to be wounded —“Just fancy, though!”— and how he had moved the eggs of one pair while he was ploughing, and the mother had followed them, and had even sat watching as he drew near again with the plough, watching him come and go —“Well, she knew you — but they do know those who are kind to them —”
“Yes,” he agreed, “her little bright eyes seem to speak as you go by.”
“Oh, I do think they’re nice little things — don’t you, Lettie?” cried Meg in access of tenderness.
Lettie did — with brevity.
We walked over the hills and down into Greymede. Meg thought she ought to go home to her grandmother, and George bade her go, saying he would call and see her in an hour or so.
The dear girl was disappointed, but she went unmurmuring. We left Alice with a friend, and hurried home through Selsby to escape the after-church parade.
As you walk home past Selsby, the pit stands up against the west, with beautiful tapering chimneys marked in black against the swim of sunset, and the head-stocks etched with tall significance on the brightness. Then the houses are squat in rows of shadow at the foot of these high monuments.
“Do you know, Cyril,” said Emily, “I have meant to go and see Mrs Annable — the keeper’s wife