Richard spent the night at Plashers Mead, and Guy heard the halting account of two years' uncertainty, of the bungalow that had been taken and embowered against Margaret's coming, and of the way in which his bridge had spanned not merely the river, but the very ocean, and even time itself.
Pauline's birthday morning was cloudless, and Guy, though to himself he was inclined to blame the action as weak, went to church and knelt beside her. Then afterwards there was the scene of breakfast on the lawn that already, with only this first repetition, wore for him an immemorial air, so that he could no longer imagine a May Day that was not thus inaugurated. The presentation of his poems in proof had not a bit less wonderful effect than he had hoped, for Pauline could never finish turning over the pages and loving the ludicrously tumble-down binding.
"Oh, it's so touching! I wish they could all be bound like this. And how I adore Richard's paper-knife."
The four lovers disappeared after breakfast to enjoy the flashing May Day, and Monica, left alone with her mother, looked a little sad, she, the only one of those three lovely daughters of the Rectory still undisturbed by the demands of the invading world.
May that year was like the fabled Spring of poets; and Guy and Pauline were left free to enjoy the passionate and merry month as perhaps never before had they enjoyed any season, not even that dreamed-away fortnight at Ladingford last year. They had ceased for a while with the engagement of Richard and Margaret to be the central figures of the Rectory, whether for blame or commendation, and, desiring nothing better than to be left without interference, they were lost in apple-blossom to every-day existence. Guy, with the prospect of his poems appearing in the Autumn, felt that he was justified in forgetting responsibilities and, having weathered the financial crisis of the March quarter, he had now nothing to worry him until Midsummer. That was the date he had fixed upon in his mind as suitable for making a determined attempt upon London. He had planned to shut up Plashers Mead and to take a small room in Chelsea, whence he would conquer in a few months the material obstacles that prevented their marriage. The poems, now that they were in print, seemed a less certain talisman to fame; but they would serve their purpose, indeed they had served their purpose already, for this long-secluded time would surely counterbalance the too easy victories of journalism. He would surely by now have lost that spruce Oxford cleverness, and might fairly expect to earn his living with dignity. The least success would justify his getting married, and Pauline would enjoy two years spent high in some London attic within the sound of chirping sparrows and the distant whispers of humanity. They would perhaps be able to afford to fly for magic weeks to Plashers Mead, pastoral interludes in that crowded life which lay ahead. How everything had resolved itself latterly, and how the gift of glorious May should be accepted as the intimate and dearest benefaction to their love! He and Pauline were together from earliest morn to the last minute of these rich and shadowy eves. They wreathed their boat with boughs of apple-blossom and went farther up the river than they had ever gone. The cuckoo was still in tune, and still the kingcups gilded all that hollow land; there was not yet the lush growth of weeds and reeds that indolent June would use to delay their dreaming progress; and still all the trees and all the hedges danced with that first sharp green of Spring, that cold and careless green of Spring.
Then when the hawthorn came into prodigal bloom, and all the rolling country broke in endless waves of blossom, Pauline in her muslin dress seemed like an airy joy sustained by all these multitudinous petals, dancing upon this flowery tide, this sweet foam of May.
"My flower, my sweet, are you indeed mortal?" he whispered.
The texture of her sleeve against his was less tangible than the light breeze that puffed idly from the south to where they sat enraptured upon the damasked English grass. Apple-blossom powdered her lap and starred her light-brown hair, and around them like a Circean perfume drowning the actual world hung the odorous thickets of hawthorn.
The month glided along until the time of ragged-robins came round again, and as if these flowers were positively of ill omen to Guy and Pauline, Mrs. Grey suddenly took it into her head again that they were seeing too much of each other.
"I said you could see Pauline every day," she told Guy. "But I did not say all day."