“One night in November, when the river was in flood, my uncle remembered what Miss Meredith had said, and in his clothes he swam over instead of going round by the bridge. It was a long and difficult swim and he got bruised on the rocks; but he got through and then went to meet Miss Meredith. I do not know what happened that evening, but the next day his life was in danger from fever, and for many days he was ill. As soon as she heard, Miss Meredith came over and saw him when he was at his worst; I think someone told her that he would recover, being so vigorous a man. Some days later they picked her out of the river, and they say she had drowned herself. My uncle says that as he lay ill he was proud, and did not even ask for Miss Meredith lest she should see him as he was. But when he got downstairs and felt well and was growing stronger, they told him that she was buried in Mowland churchyard. Then he laughed terribly with long laughs, so that they say my grandmother heard him in London, and went on laughing at the magnificent jest of that beautiful woman being underground.
“She was small, with fair skin and brown hair that was pure gold where it was rolled up behind her ear, and she had a deep clear voice. Her skill in dancing was great, and as a rider only my uncle excelled her. She was generous and tender, but courageous and unforgiving, never losing either friend or enemy.
“He has quite recovered now. It is wonderful what things a man will recover from. He does not mind telling the story; I think he is even a little ashamed of his infatuation. All the women who were born in that house, at least all the Merediths, are said to have been odd, and they were all beautiful.”
“It is well for all of us,” said one, “that there are not many Arabellas in the world.”
“There are not many,” said the yeoman; and he was about to follow the rest when I saw Enid, a little anxious and it may have been apologetic, at the door. “Good-bye, Arabella,” he called, with quiet raillery.
“No!” she stamped her foot impatiently, but gently even so. He kissed her hand and looked at her; and as he rode away, I saw that she was at peace again. He shouted that they would see us by the gorse.
And so those three rode away and we walked to the meet. All the labourers on the farm where the hounds met had a holiday, and all the children too, enough of them to drown the music of the hounds. There were about twenty men and women riding, three in pink, two or three rich men and as many rich women, a lawyer, a doctor and many farmers and their boys; and everyone talked with everyone. They found a fox in the long, tumbling hill of gorse that ran almost to the river’s edge; but the scent was bad, and after running backwards and forwards for some time, they drew several little covers and there were some rapid bursts with merry music, and flying of dust on the ploughland and halloos here and there, and laughter and chatter of boys, and slow comment from the labourers. But soon all was quiet except that a child was telling a blind farmer where the hounds were and which way they were going.
The river ran at our feet in one large curve, and among banks not so steep but that it shone continually. Just below us the lover must have swum, landing in the tall oaks that came to the edge. On the farther side a road went up from the low bridge and over the hill and then, but out of sight, down to the house with the mirrors. Ten miles away, above the river, with its church tower against the sky in a manner that commanded everyone who could walk, was the little town where they still hold a Michaelmas Fair. Beyond that, faint and delicate, small and beautiful as the lines in an oyster shell, were great hills all but invisible in haze.