XV

“You will not have a rise,” said Shaw. “ ’Tis too bright. Let me come and tickle them; the water’s low.” She would have pulled off her shoes and stockings and tickled the trout under the stones in high delight if Felise had permitted. They were standing in the porch, Felise with her fly-rod; Shaw just touching her here and there to complete her toilet, as an artist adds little touches daintily after the picture is finished. Felise had lately been singularly particular about her dress when she went trout-fishing. There was something of a set, preoccupied expression on her face.

On the contrary, Shaw’s round rosy countenance was full of change, lively, with some sly humour. Her blue eyes sparkled; her brown hair was disordered with work and hurry; her neck, without a collar, was soft, white, round⁠—these peasant girls often have good necks; her figure plump, so that hooks and eyes were constantly bursting. She loved her mistress dearly, and yet almost feared her. Shaw’s was one of those faces that prepossess at once, so sweet, good-natured, and happy.

“Where are the flies?” said Felise; “you have forgotten the flies.”

Shaw rushed upstairs and rummaged about. On her return, panting, she declared she could not find them.

“Go and look again!”

Shaw went, and again returned emptyhanded, out of breath, and puffing.

“You are too plump,” said Felise. “I will go and see.”

Shaw blushed at the allusion to her plumpness till her white neck was rosy, but insisted on searching a third time. Before she got upstairs Felise found the fly-book in her pocket, so forgetful had she been.

“Now, isn’t that just like it?” said Shaw. “They would say you was in love,” blushing again herself.

Felise went across the lawn (Goring and his man Abner Brown, as usual, were at work in the garden), and across the road into the meadows opposite. She did not try a cast here, for the stream was shallow and so near the hamlet the boys would be certain to have disturbed everything. Farther down she crossed by a footbridge, and left the bank of the brook to make a short route across by Glads Mill. In the rickyard by the mill she paused a moment to look down into the mill-pool.

To construct the pool it had been necessary to excavate deeply in the chalk; the water was far down, and the precipitous sides arose like walls from the surface. At one end the water entered in a cascade, having been led here by a winding water-carrier. If anyone fell into the pool they could not escape, however well they might swim; to climb up the chalk was impossible, but to prevent such an accident the edge of the pool was fenced.

Scarcely anyone ever passed without at least casting a glance down into the deep dark water, which, it was said, the sunshine never reached. Black and still, unruffled while the wind blew above, it was always the same, and always waiting⁠—waiting like Fate. The chaunt of the old mill-wheel, its quivering boom as it rolled round heavily, was reechoed in the hollow, and the rush of the cascade formed a hissing undertone.

Standing in the doorway, leaning on the hatch, the miller touched his forehead as she went on into the meads again. Some were already mown, and the grass turning to hay; in some the grass rose almost to her knee; then there were pastures full of buttercups. The hot summer sun shone on the brook, and, as Shaw had foreseen, she did not get a rise.

Felise cast where the stream rushed round a boulder; she tried at a fall⁠—at the bend where a streamlet joined the brook, where a shallow broke up the water; but she never threw twice. The fly touched the surface and was snatched away, and she walked on to the next likely place. With a curl of her wrist the line rushed out and dropped, and was immediately withdrawn; so quickly was it done that it hardly interrupted the rapid pace at which she walked. By degrees she began to miss all the places not very attractive, and tried only those which she knew were the best, and which she could not pass while making any pretence at fishing.

Throwing at one of these, her fly caught in a bush on the opposite side. A boy who had been haymaking, but had left his rake to watch the fishing, eagerly rushed forward, and had already one foot in the water to wade across and release it, when she jerked the rod sharply, snapped the gut, and went on. The boy remained sitting on the bank, with one foot in the stream, wondering at her.

Felise did not attach another fly, but cast the line just as it was without a bait. She could walk faster, having to use less care not to entangle the hooks.

From the pools, where the bright sun illumined the bottom, the trout rushed to shelter under dark roots of trees, as her form suddenly appeared on the bank. At the shallows and eddies the trout sought the deeper water or distant stones. Fly-fishers step gently, somewhat back from the bank, careful not to alarm the fish by sudden appearance or any jerking movement. Felise strode on swiftly, dipping her flyless line from time to time. She did not follow the curves of the brook, walking across the bends and so joining it again.

The farther she advanced the less attention she paid to the brook, till she ceased even pretending to cast. Her pace now became slow, and she lingered, especially by pathways; sometimes she walked up and down instead of straight on; sometimes she leaned against a tree, or sat on a rail, all the time glancing round⁠—upon the watch.

These were Martial’s fields. The grass was his by the brook, the green wheat on the hills close by, the copse on the slope.

Presently she wandered from the brook towards the copse, along an old and partly-disused rugged track between green nut-tree bushes that shut out all but the sun above. June roses flowered on the briars arching over the narrow lane, and honeysuckle, creamy-white, touched her shoulders as she passed. Felise, who had been so fond of wildflowers, did not notice the first wild roses, or the honeysuckle. Her heart was dry and heated as the sun heated the ground.

A little way apart from the disused lane stood an ancient barn by the wood. The great doors were gone, the planks as they decayed taken for firewood; the vast hollow within was empty but for a broken plough. Swallows flew in and out carelessly to their nests on the crossbeams. Two high Spanish chestnut-trees stood by the barn, and she sat down under one of them.

In the olden times of farming, when wheat was really golden, there had been a prosperous homestead much farther down in the valley, and the wheat was stored in this great barn. The homestead was now occupied as a cottage by a labourer, the barn was empty, and the farm thrown together with others and joined to Barnard’s large holding. Like many other deserted buildings, the barn was reputed to be haunted⁠—a sort of partial reputation, for if asked no one could say what shape its spectre took, or what crime it was supposed to be expiating. Standing solitary, its desolation alone seemed to have suggested the idea. The places where man’s footsteps and life have once been retain for years a memory of his presence in the guise of shadowy apparitions.

The swallows had the barn by day, the bats by night; the owls had deserted it⁠—they like mice, and there were no mice where there was no grain. The spot was absolutely solitary; hedges and trees hid the brook and meads; the wood on the hill closed the view in front. A rabbit who had been feeding, and at the sound of Felise’s footsteps hid behind some nettles, finding her to stay quiet, came out again to nibble.

There were songs in the wood, though it was now the heat of the day, and the call of the cuckoo; Felise did not hear. When the heart is full it absorbs the senses to itself⁠—hearing, sight, all are possessed by its passion.

This was the fourth time she had been here. The rod was a mere pretence; her object was to cross his path and meet him, as if by accident. But she had not been successful, though she knew he must be frequently in the fields. She had stayed near where his haymakers were at work, near where others were weeding the arable lands; by the paths, and had not seen him. When weary of waiting about, it had become her custom to resort to the solitude of the deserted barn, and there rest unseen.

Since her resolution was formed that morning at the trout-pool before her swim, she had accomplished nothing. Separated, without word or glance, how was it possible to advance her wishes? Felise’s strong and eager nature was already weary of this slow process of waiting till chance should throw him in her way. Sooner or later, if she persevered in haunting the locality, she must meet him; but how long would it be first?

Time seems so much longer in summer; the morning and the evening are far apart, and there is space between them for such a multitude of feelings, or for the same feeling to repeat itself so often. The long days became very heavy upon her; she could not endure the waiting.

Felise started again from the ancient barn, and instead of returning to the brook followed the foot of the hill beside the wood. Some wheatfields succeeded; after awhile she came round the hill and stepped into a private roadway which led direct to the Manor House. Erect and unfaltering she went straight towards Martial’s residence.