“What else? No, tell me.”
“The whiteness of your feet,” he whispered.
Again they were in fairyland. Yellow as a topaz set in turquoise the sun stood free in the heavens. Inhabitants of the fearless morning went busily about their tasks. Clear as a mirror, through the perfumed stillness of meadows the river ran. Mists curled from ofif its surface and hung white in tree-tops. Within hand-stretch fish leapt; peering over the side of the punt, they could follow their retreat through waving weeds and black willow-stumps. Only a magpie noticed their passage and became interested, fluttering from bough to bough and asking them, “What d’you want? What d’you want?” Dragon-flies ventured forth as the sun’s heat strengthened; butterflies and the teeming insect world rose out of water-lilies and foxgloves—out of the destructible homes which Nature builds for their brief and perishable existence. He and she, drifting through the golden quiet with clasped hands, seized their moment unquestioningly, and were thankful for it.
Ahead they saw swans; then cattle wading knee-deep. Rounding a bend, they came in sight of a trellised garden, with green tables set out on a close-cut lawn. Boats swung idly in the stream, tethered to a landing. In the background was a thatched house, from whose chimney smoke waved back in a thin plume. When they came near enough they made out a white post, with a sign swinging from it. On the sign was depicted a brown bird, fluttering its wings in a golden cage; painted over it were the words, The Winged Thrush. In lifting their eyes to read the sign they caught sight of the faint moon, weakly smiling, as though saying, “I’ve got to go. They won’t let me stay. Goodbye, and good luck.”
They landed, leaving their foolish disguises in the punt. Through the dew-drenched wistfulness of summer roses they approached the inn, and entered. The room was strewn with sawdust, and stale with the smell of beer and tobacco. An ostler-like person, with a full-blown face and little blue pig’s eyes, met them. They asked for breakfast. He knew his business well enough to suggest that missie would prefer to have it in an arbor.
While they ate he hovered round them, continually inventing excuses to interrupt their privacy. He reminded them of the magpie in his frank display of curiosity. He informed them that trade was wery bad. He’d ‘arf a mind to try ‘is luck in Australy. If it weren’t for the young bloods from Henley, he’d ‘ardly take a ‘appeny from month to month. Did they know of anyone, an artist chap for h’instance, who’d like to combine pleasure with business by tryin’ his ‘and at runnin’ a nice pub? An artist chap could paint that bloomin’ bird out, and call the place The White Hart or somethin’ h’attractive. Whoever ‘eard of an inn payin’ which was called The Winged Thrush? People didn’t want their meals messed about by a bloomin’ poet. Not but what the sitiyation was so pleasant that he’d tried to write poetry ‘isself—love-poetry for the most part. His verses allaws came to ‘im when ‘e were groomin’ the ‘orses. If things didn’t brisk up, ‘e’d give Australy a chance, as ‘e’d many times promised.
At last he left them. Cherry gazed out dreamily across the river. “I wonder, is it true that one has always to pay with sorrow for happiness?”
Peter shivered. How old she could be when she chose to borrow other people’s disillusions! He tried to restore her to cheerfulness. “What a pagan notion! It’s the old idea of the gods being jealous. You shouldn’t think such thoughts.”
“But happiness does bring sorrow,” she insisted. “We shall have to pay for this to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.”
Her voice trailed off, giving him a vision of all the tomorrows when he would be without her. And he wasn’t sure of her. She had told him that she didn’t love him. He drew her closer. “But a sorrow’s crown of sorrows is to have no happier things to remember—to be old and never to have been young, to be lonely and never to have been loved. You mournful little person, do you think you’d be any happier because you’d never known happiness?”