The Romantic | Page 4

Daddy left, doing nothing. She could pay.
She would go down to the farm now, this minute, and see if they would take her.
As she crossed the field she heard the farmyard gate open and shut.
The man came up towards her in the narrow path. He was looking at her as he came, tilting his head back to get her clear into his eyes under the shade of his slouched hat.
She called to him. "Is this your farm?" And he halted.
He smiled; the narrow smile of small, fine lips, with a queer, winged movement of the moustache, a flutter of dark down. She saw his eyes, hard and keen, dark blue, like the blade of a new knife.
"No. I wish it was my farm. Why?"
She could see now it wasn't. He was out tramping. The corner of a knapsack bulged over his right shoulder. Rough greenish coat and stockings--dust-coloured riding breeches--
But there was something about him. Something tall and distant; slender and strange, like the fir-trees.
"Because whoever's farm it is I want to see him."
"You won't see him. There isn't anybody there."
"Oh."
He lingered.
"Do you know who he is?" she said.
"No. I don't know anything. I don't even know where I am. But I hope it's Bourton-on-the-Hill."
"I'm afraid it isn't. It's Stow-on-the-Wold."
He laughed and shifted his knapsack to his left shoulder, and held up his chin. His eyes slewed round, raking the horizon.
"It's all right," she said. "You can get to Bourton-on-the-Hill. I'll show you." She pointed. "You see where that clump of trees is--like a battleship, sailing over a green hill. That's about where it is."
"Thanks. I've been trying to get there all afternoon."
"Where have you come from?"
"Stanway. The other side of that ridge."
"You should have kept along the top. You've come miles out of your way."
"I like going out of my way. I did it for fun. For the adventure."
You could see he was innocent and happy, like a child. She turned and went with him up the field.
She wouldn't go to Bourton-on-the-Hill. She would go back to the hotel and see whether there was a wire for her from Gwinnie.... He liked going out of his way.
"I suppose," he said, "there's something the other side of that gate."
"I hate to tell you. There's a road there. It's your way. The end of the adventure."
He laughed again, showing small white teeth this time. The gate fell to with a thud and a click.
"What do I do now?"
"You go north. Straight ahead. Turn down the fifth or sixth lane on your right--you'll see the sign-post. Then the first lane on your left. That'll bring you out at the top of the hill."
"Thanks. Thanks most awfully." He raised his hat, backing from her, holding her in his eyes till he turned.
He would be out of sight now at the pace he was going; his young, slender, skimming stride.
She stood on the top of the rise and looked round. He was halting down there at the bend by the grey cone of the lime kiln under the ash-tree. He had turned and had his face towards her. Above his head the battleship sailed on its green field.
He began to come back, slowly, as if he were looking for something dropped on his path; then suddenly he stopped, turned again and was gone.
There was no wire from Gwinnie. She had waited a week now. She wondered how long it would be before Gwinnie's mother's lumbago gave in and let her go.
* * * * *
She knew it by heart now, the long, narrow coffee-room of the hotel. The draped chimney piece and little oblong gilt-framed mirror at one end; at the other the bowed window looking west on to the ash-tree and the fields; the two straight windows between, looking south on to the street.
To-night the long table down the middle was set with a white cloth. The family from Birmingham had come. Father and mother, absurd pouter-pigeons swelling and strutting; two putty-faced unmarried daughters, sulking; one married one, pink and proper, and the son-in-law, sharp eyed and bald-headed. From their table in the centre they stared at her where she dined by herself at her table in the bow.
Two days. She didn't think she could bear it one day more.
She could see herself as she came down the room; her knitted silk sport's coat, bright petunia, flaming; thick black squares of her bobbed hair hanging over eyebrows and ears. And behind, the four women's heads turning on fat necks to look at her, reflected.
Gwinnie's letter was there, stuck up on the mantel-piece. Gwinnie could come at the week-end; she implored her to hang on for five days longer, not to leave Stow-on-the-Wold till they could see it together. A letter from Gibson, repeating himself.
The family from Birmingham were going through the door; fat