Scarlet and Hyssop: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

She leaned for a few moments out of her open window, but only the faintest breeze was stirring the tree-tops, and here the air was heavy and motionless. A half-moon, a little smeared with mist, rode high in the southern heavens, making the redder lights from the rows of lanterns on the lawn look tawdry and vulgar. The tents were brilliantly lit, and she could see cards going on in one, while in another the servants were laying out supper for those who would sit late over their Bridge or conversation. Even at this distance she could distinguish Arthur Naseby's shrill tones, and laughter punctuated his sentences. He was evidently having a great success. Up and down the middle of the lawn itself, where moonlight struggled with the lanterns, she could see little groups standing talking, and in the foreground was Mildred saying good-bye to some who were going. "It is so early," Marie could hear her say; "it can hardly be Monday yet." Jack was standing by her.

Marie turned back into the room and put out the electric light, then went across to the window again. Much as she would have liked a stroll in the cool darkness of the shrubberies, she in no way wished to mingle with the group on the lawn, and receive sympathy for her indisposition and felicitations on her recovery; still less did she desire what Mildred would call a "quiet chat," before going to bed, which in other words meant to be one of a bevy of people all talking loud and listening to nobody. But by degrees the leave-takers went, and those who remained drifted back to the tents and the lights. It would be easily possible, she thought, to slip out, leaving the lawn on her left, and stroll through the trees down towards the river, where she would get the breeze without the fatigues of conversation.

She slipped a gray dust-cloak over her dress and went quietly down-stairs. The drawing-room was empty, and she passed out of the French-window on to the gravel path. In ten paces more she had gained the shelter of the long shrubbery that ran parallel to the lawn, and was screened by it from all observation. She threw the hood of her cloak back from her head. A breeze, as she had hoped, came wandering and winding up the dusky alleys from the river, laden with the thousand warm and fragrant smells of the summer, and with open mouth and ruffled hair she drank it greedily in. Her headache had ceased, and the deep, tranquillized mood of pain removed occupied her senses. The bushes on each side were gently stirred by the wind, and now a waft of the heavy odour of syringa, or the more subtly compounded impression from the garden beds, saluted her as she passed. She had left the path, and felt with a thrill of refreshment the coolness of dew-laden grass touch her feet. Above her head the leaves of the tree-tops, in the full luxuriance of their summer foliage, let through but little light, but in certain interspaces of leaf she could see from time to time a segment of the crescent riding dimly in the heat-hazed sky, or a more prominent star would now and then look down on her. Then, as she left the garden behind, a fragrance more to her mind came to her—the fragrance not of garden-beds and cultivation, but the finer and more delicate odours of July field-flowers, floating, as it were, on the utterly undefinable smell of running water from the Thames.

Thus, having passed the lawn and its occupants, she turned through into the more open spaces by a lilac-bush that stood near the path, remembering, so she thought, that there was a seat here, and a hammock much frequented by Maud. She had, it seemed, recollected the position of this to a nicety, for on rounding the lilac-bush she came straight on to the hammock, and gave a little cry of surprise to find it tenanted.

"Maud, is it you?" she asked gently.

The girl sprang up.

"How you startled me!" she cried, "Why, it is you, Lady Alston."

"Yes, dear. I slept, and my headache was really gone when I awoke, so I determined to have a stroll before going to bed. And you, too, have come away, it seems."

The girl got up.

"And you were looking for my hammock, were you not, to lie down in! Do get in. There is a seat here for me, too. Or shall I go away, if you want to be alone?"