Young Pent-Hartigan drove her back to the farm. She said goodbye to him and promised to dine with him very soon. Then he drove off; and with the retreating noise of his engine the last invader of the farm’s quietude was gone. Quiet flowed back into the sunny empty rooms like the returning sea. The only sounds were the tiny ones of a summer’s day that is drawing towards evening.
Flora went upstairs and changed from her party dress into a tweed suit in which she could fly without feeling cold. She brushed her hair and cooled her hands and forehead with eau-de-Cologne. Then she packed, and labelled her trunk for 1, Mouse Place. It would be sent off tomorrow. She took with her only the Pensées, ‘The Higher Common Sense’ and what Chaucer has summed up for all time as ‘a bag of needments’.
It was six o’clock when she came slowly downstairs again. The kitchen was tidy and empty. All signs of the feast had been cleared away. Only the awning was left, its stripes of red and white glowing against the deep blue sky of early evening. The shadows of the bean rows were long across the garden, and their flowers were transparent red in the sunlight. All was cool, quiet, blessedly peaceful. Flora’s supper was neatly laid and of the Starkadders there was not a sign. She supposed that they must all be asleep upstairs or else gone a-mollocking off to Godmere. She hoped they would not come downstairs before she left. She loved them all dearly, but this evening she just did not want to see them any more.
She sat down, with a sigh, in a comfortable deep chair, and relaxed all her limbs. She would sit here, she thought, until half-past six; then she would eat her supper; and then go out into the Big Field and sit on the stile under the may-tree and wait for Charles.
Her dreamy musings were interrupted by the distant soft janglings of bells. She recognized the sound: it was made by the bells that (copying a heathen foreign fashion he had once seen demonstrated on the talkies) Adam had hung round the necks of Graceless, Pointless, Feckless and Aimless.
Even as she listened a procession came into sight. It wound across the rising path which she could see, silhouetted against the blue sky and held as if in a frame by the open door, from where she sat.
It was Adam and the cows, on their way to Hautcouture Farm.
Adam went first, wearing his ancient hat and his age-green corduroys. The liddle mop was slung round his neck. His head was lifted to the sinking sun, whose strong rays turned him to gold. He was singing the bawdy song he had learned for the wedding of George I.
Behind him came the cows in single file, still wreathed with their wedding garlands of wallflowers. They swung their heads in lowly content, and their bells chimed in time to Adam’s singing.
Slowly they passed across the frame of the doorway. Then they were gone. Nothing could be seen save the green path, rising away into the empty blue of the evening sky. The dying sound of the bells came back to Flora, softly and more softly, until it was lost in silence.
Smiling, Flora drew her chair to the table and ate her supper. She did not think of anything, except that in an hour she would see Charles, and tell him about everything she had done, and hear what he had to say about it all.
When she had finished her supper she wrote an affectionate little letter for Reuben, explaining that her work at the farm was now finished, and that she felt she would like to go back to Town. She promised to come down again very soon to see them all, and enclosed a pound note and her earnest thanks for Mrs Beetle.
She left the note open on the table, where everybody could read it, and not even a Starkadder could be alarmed by it or mysterious about it. Then she slipped on her coat, picked up her bag of needments, and sauntered out into the cool evening.
The Big Field was covered with long, fresh grass which threw millions of tiny lengthening shadows. There was not a breath of wind. It was the loveliest hour of the English year: seven o’clock on Midsummer Night.
Flora crossed the grass to the stile, the cool grass swishing against her ankles. She sat down on the step of the stile, leaning her back comfortably against the gate part, and stared up into the black boughs of the may-tree. Beneath, they were in shadow. Above, they held their white flowers and green leaves up into the gold of the last sun-rays. She could see the flowers and leaves dazzling against the pure sky.
The shadows grew slowly longer. A cold, fresh smell came up out of the grass and fell from the trees. The birds began their sleep song.
The sun had almost disappeared behind the black traceries of the may hedge on the far side of the field. Such of his rays as struck through the branches were still, heavy and of the softest gold.
The air cooled slowly. Flowers shut before Flora’s very eyes, but gave out fragrance still. Now there were more shadows than light. The last blackbird that always flies chattering across a summer evening’s quiet came dashing down the meadow and vanished in the may hedge.
The countryside was falling asleep. Flora drew her coat round her, and looked up into the darkening vault of the sky. Then she glanced at her watch. It was five to eight. Her ears had caught a steady, recurrent murmur that might or might not have been the beating of her own blood.
In another moment the sound was the only one in the whole of heaven. The aeroplane appeared over the top of the may hedge, swooping downwards. The under-carriage touched the earth, and then it was taxi-ing comfortably to a standstill.
Flora had stood up as it came in sight. Now she went down the field towards it. The pilot was getting out of the cockpit, loosening his helmet, looking towards her. He came across the grass to meet her, swinging his helmet in his hand, his black hair ruffled by the way he had dragged off the cap.
It was purest happiness to see him. It was like meeting again a dearest friend whom one has loved for long years, and missed in silence. Flora went straight into his open arms, put her own round his neck, and kissed him with all her heart.
Presently Charles said:
‘This is for ever, isn’t it?’
And Flora whispered: ‘For ever.’
It was nearly dark. The stars and moon were out, and the may-trees glimmering. Flora and Charles sighed at last, looked at one another and laughed, and Charles said:
‘Look here, I think we ought to go home, you know, darling. Mary’s waiting for us at Mouse Place. She got back a day earlier. What do you think? We can talk when we get there.’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Flora, placidly. ‘Charles, you do smell nice. Is it stuff you put on your hair, or what? Oh, it is nice to think what years and years we have got in which to find out things like that! Quite fifty years I should think, wouldn’t you, Charles?’
Charles said he hoped so; and added that he did not put stuff on his hair. He also added inconsequently that he was glad he had been born.
They were both in rather a state of dither, but Charles finally pulled himself together, and began to jab purposefully at the interior of the aeroplane, while Flora hovered round telling him all about what she had done at Cold Comfort, and also about Mr Mybug; and Charles laughed, but he said Mr Mybug was a little tick and Flora ought to be more careful. He also said she was the Local Busybody, adding that he did not approve of people who interfered with other people’s lives.
Flora heard this with delight.
‘Shall I be allowed to interfere with yours?’ she asked. Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.
‘No,’ said Charles. And he grinned at her disrespectfully, and she noticed how white and even his teeth were.
‘Charles, you have got heavenly teeth.’
‘Don’t fuss,’ said Charles. ‘Now, are you ready, my dearest darling? Because I am, and so’s the Speed Cop. We’ll be home in half an hour. Oh, Flora, I’m so unbearably happy. I can’t believe it’s true.’ He snatched her roughly into his arms, and looked longingly down into her face. ‘It is true, isn’t it? Say “I love you”.’
And Flora, unutterably moved, told him just how much she did.
They climbed into the aeroplane. The roar of the propeller rose into the exquisite stillness of the night. Soon they were rising above the elms, that were faintly silvered by the moon, and the countryside lay spread beneath them.
‘Say it again.’
She saw Charles’s lips move, as the farm dropped away beneath them, and guessed what he was saying.
He was fully occupied with keeping the machine clear of the topmost branches of the elms, and could not look at her, but she saw by his troubled profile that he feared (so fantastically beautiful was the night and this discovery of their love) that it might be some cruel mistake.
Flora put her warm lips close to his cap.
‘I love you,’ she said. He could not hear her very well, but he turned for a second, and, comforted, smiled into her eyes.
She glanced upwards for a second at the soft blue vault of the midsummer night sky. Not a cloud misted its solemn depths. Tomorrow would be a beautiful day.
THE END
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