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Page 34
After supper, I took a stroll to see the river. It was a silver grey
evening, with just the last lemon and pink streaks of the sunset
staining the sky. There had been a shower, and somehow the smell of the
dust after rain mingled with the mignonette in the garden brought back
vanished scenes of small-boyhood, when I caught minnows in a bottle, and
dreamt of a shilling rod as happiness unattainable. I turned aside from
the road in accordance with directions, and walked towards the stream.
Holloa! someone before me, what a bore! The angler is hidden by an
elder-bush, but I can see the fly drop delicately, artistically on the
water. Fishing upstream, too! There is a bit of broken water there, and
the midges dance in myriads; a silver gleam, and the line spins out, and
the fly falls just in the right place. It is growing dusk, but the
fellow is an adept at quick, fine casting--I wonder what fly he has
on--why, he's going to try downstream now? I hurry forward, and as I
near him, I swerve to the left out of the way. S-s-s-s! a sudden sting
in the lobe of my ear. Hey! I cry as I find I am caught; the tail fly is
fast in it. A slight, grey-clad woman holding the rod lays it carefully
down and comes towards me through the gathering dusk. My first impulse
is to snap the gut and take to my heels, but I am held by something less
tangible but far more powerful than the grip of the Limerick hook in my
ear.
'I am very sorry!' she says in a voice that matched the evening, it was
so quiet and soft; 'but it was exceedingly stupid of you to come behind
like that.'
'I didn't think you threw such a long line; I thought I was safe,' I
stammered.
'Hold this!' she says, giving me a diminutive fly-book, out of which she
has taken a scissors. I obey meekly. She snips the gut.
'Have you a sharp knife? If I strip the hook you can push it through; it
is lucky it isn't in the cartilage.'
I suppose I am an awful idiot, but I only handed her the knife, and she
proceeded as calmly as if stripping a hook in a man's ear were an
everyday occurrence. Her gown is of some soft grey stuff, and her grey
leather belt is silver clasped. Her hands are soft and cool and steady,
but there is a rarely disturbing thrill in their gentle touch. The
thought flashed through my mind that I had just missed that, a woman's
voluntary tender touch, not a paid caress, all my life.
'Now you can push it through yourself. I hope it won't hurt much.'
Taking the hook, I push it through, and a drop of blood follows it.
'Oh!' she cries, but I assure her it is nothing, and stick the hook
surreptitiously in my coat sleeve. Then we both laugh, and I look at her
for the first time. She has a very white forehead, with little tendrils
of hair blowing round it under her grey cap, her eyes are grey. I didn't
see that then, I only saw they were steady, smiling eyes that matched
her mouth. Such a mouth, the most maddening mouth a man ever longed to
kiss, above a too-pointed chin, soft as a child's; indeed, the whole
face looks soft in the misty light.
'I am sorry I spoilt your sport!' I say.
'Oh, that don't matter, it's time to stop. I got two brace, one a
beauty.'
She is winding in her line, and I look in her basket; they _are_
beauties, one two-pounder, the rest running from a half to a pound.
'What fly?'
'Yellow dun took that one, but your assailant was a partridge spider.' I
sling her basket over my shoulder; she takes it as a matter of course,
and we retrace our steps. I feel curiously happy as we walk towards the
road; there is a novel delight in her nearness; the feel of woman works
subtly and strangely in me; the rustle of her skirt as it brushes the
black-heads in the meadow-grass, and the delicate perfume, partly
violets, partly herself, that comes to me with each of her movements is
a rare pleasure. I am hardly surprised when she turns into the garden of
the inn, I think I knew from the first that she would.
'Better bathe that ear of yours, and put a few drops of carbolic in the
water.' She takes the basket as she says it, and goes into the kitchen.
I hurry over this, and go into the little sitting-room. There is a tray
with a glass of milk and some oaten cakes upon the table. I am too
disturbed to sit down; I stand at the window and watch the bats flitter
in the gathering moonlight, and listen with quivering nerves for her
step--perhaps she will send for the tray, and not come after all. What a
fool I am to be disturbed by a grey-clad witch with a tantalizing mouth!
That comes of loafing about doing nothing. I mentally darn the old fool
who saved her money instead of spending it. Why the devil should I be
bothered? I don't want it anyhow. She comes in as I fume, and I forget
everything at her entrance. I push the armchair towards the table, and
she sinks quietly into it, pulling the tray nearer. She has a wedding
ring on, but somehow it never strikes me to wonder if she is married or
a widow or who she may be. I am content to watch her break her biscuits.
She has the prettiest hands, and a trick of separating her last fingers
when she takes hold of anything. They remind me of white orchids I saw
somewhere. She led me to talk; about Africa, I think. I liked to watch
her eyes glow deeply in the shadow and then catch light as she bent
forward to say something in her quick responsive way.
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