I looked round to see Elizabeth striking out with arms that were, like mine, milky-white to the elbow and then gloved in sunburn.
For by now I must tell you we had got our "Land Girl's complexion." This asset is gained in three distinct stages.
First stage: A scorching and very unbecoming scarlet that spread itself over the face. The recruit from town, seeing herself with a tomato-nose set between crimson cheeks, flies to her old and true friend, the powder-puff. Useless! To powder over that red is like putting a coat of transparent whitewash over a brick wall.
The second stage: Soreness and blisters; a skin that peels off in flakes like the bark of a silver birch. No help for this! Sybil had given me cucumber and benzoin lotion to cool the smart, but the only cure was that which time brought about.
Stage the third: A smooth, even wash of honey-tan over the newly-bloomed roses of the cheeks; the colour of the ripe glow on a sun-kissed peach.
Elizabeth had reached this becoming stage on the day that Colonel Fielding had seen her first at the white mare's head in the field of roots, and I was scarcely a day behind her. I laughed at the reflection in the pool of the girl whom Vic and the others still nicknamed "Celery-face!"
Rosier than ever after our swim, we dressed and strolled together down the lanes. For "the more you have of a thing the more you want it" applies to fresh air as well as to the other essentials of life.
Now that we were working out of doors all day, we found we wanted to stay out of doors in the evening! How unlike town, where, having worked all day in a stuffy office, our one idea of relaxation was an equally stuffy theatre!
But I did sometimes miss the theatre! Upon this very evening I said to Elizabeth:
"The birds are lovely tonight—listen! But do you know what? I would give anything to be going to a revue tonight; just to see some pretty girls' clothes after these weeks of felt hats and breeches! Just to hear some gay tunes from a good band!"