1
Harriett’s ringed fingers had finished dipping and drying the blue and white tea-service. She sat for a moment staring ahead down-stream. Sitting opposite her, Gerald watched her face with a half smile. Miriam waited sitting at her side. It was the first moment of silence since she had come home at midday. From the willow-curtained island against which they were moored came little crepitations and flittings. Ahead of them the river blazed gold and blue, hedged by high spacious trees. “Come-to-tea, come-to-tea, hurryup-dear,” said a bird suddenly from the island thicket.
“D’you know what bird that is, Gerald?” asked Miriam.
“Not from Adam,” breathed Gerald, swaying on his seat with a little laugh. “It’s a bird. That’s all I know.”
“We’d better unmoor, silly,” muttered Harriett briskly, gathering up the tiller ropes.
“Look here, let me do something this time, pull or something.”
“You sit still, my dear.”
“But I should simply love to.”
“You shall pull down-stream if you like later on when the bally sun’s down. My advice to you now is to go and lounge in the bow.”
“Oh yes, Mim, you try it. Lie right down. It’s simply heavenly.”
The boat glided deliciously away up-stream as Miriam, relinquishing her vision of Harriett sitting very upright in the stern in her white drill dress, and Gerald’s lawn-shirted back and long lean arms grasping the sculls, lay back on the bow cushions with her feet comfortably outstretched under the unoccupied seat in front of her. Six hours ago, shaking hands with a roomful of noisy home-going girls—and now nothing to do but float dreamily out through the gateway of her six weeks’ holiday. The dust of the school was still upon her; the skin of her face felt strained and tired, her hands were tired and hot, her blouse dim with a week of school wear, and her black skirt oppressed her with its invisible burden of grime. But she was staring up at a clean blue sky fringed with tree-tops. She stretched herself out more luxuriously upon her cushions. The river smoothly moving and lapping underneath the boat was like a cradle. The soft fingers of the air caressed her temples and moved along the outlines of her face and neck. Forty-two days ... like this. To-morrow she would wake up a new person ... sing, and shout with Harriett. She closed her eyes. The gently lifting water seemed to come nearer; the invading air closed in on her. She gave herself ecstatically to its touch; the muscles of her tired face relaxed and she believed that she could sleep; cry or sleep.