On our way through the meadows to the barges, I asked her what she had been doing all these years.
“For a time I tried the stage, but lately I’ve been traveling in Europe. I have no relations—nothing to keep me tethered. I roam from place to place with my maid, moving on and on again.”
“Not married?”
“I’m not the kind of woman who marries. Men like me, but when it comes to making me their wife, it’s ‘Oh no, thank you.’ They want a woman a little more stupid. Are you married?”
“Hardly.”
She shot me a penetrating glance. “Engaged?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
We came to the Lazarus barge. I piled cushions in a punt for her. She lay with her back to the prow, so that she faced me. I took the pole and pushed off into midstream.
We had the river to ourselves; its restful loneliness caused us to fall silent. We left the barges quickly; then we drifted slowly. Fields were growing white and vaporous. The air was damp, and cool, and earthy. Behind us the spires of Oxford shone like a clump of spears against the embattled, orange-tinted sky. Before us, swimming in blue haze, was Iffley Mill. Everything was becoming ill-defined—receding into nothingness. Far away across meadows to the right we caught sounds of gritting hoofs and the grinding of a wagon. Sometimes a bird uttered one long fluty cry. Sometimes a swallow swooped near us.
“Dante, all the others have passed on, and there’s only you and I. What’s happened to the Bantam?”