‘Aren’t we friends,’ said Catherine, looking up at him with a smile.
‘Aren’t we,’ said Christopher, in deep contentment.
The chimney stacks of an old house on their right among trees attracted her, and they turned off the main road to go and look at it. The house was nothing specially beautiful, but the road that led to it was, and it went winding on past the house through woods even more beautiful.
They followed it, for the main road was uninteresting, and this one, though making a detour, would no doubt ultimately arrive at Andover.
Charming, this slow going along in the soft, purple evening. The smell of the damp earth and grass in the woods they passed through was delicious. It was dead quiet, and sometimes they stopped just to listen to the silence.
Companionship: what a perfect thing it was, thought Catherine. To be two instead of one, to be happily two, with no strain, no concealing or pretending, quite natural, quite simple, quite relaxed—so natural and simple and relaxed that it was really like being oneself doubled, but oneself at one’s best, at one’s serenest and most amusing. Could any condition be more absolutely delightful? And, thought Catherine, to be two with some one of the opposite sex, some one strong who could take care of one, with whom one felt safe and cosy, some one young, who liked doing all the things the eternal child in oneself liked doing so much, but never dared to for want of backing up, for fear of being laughed at—how completely delightful.
They came, on the outer edge of the woods, to a group of cottages; a little hamlet, solitary, tucked away from noise, the smoke of its chimneys going straight up into the still air, so small that it hadn’t even got a church—happy, happy hamlet, thought Catherine, remembering her past week of church—and in one of the cottage gardens, sheltered and warm, was the first flowering currant bush she had seen that year.
It stood splendid against the grey background of the shadowy garden, brilliant pink and crimson in the dusk, and Christopher stopped at her exclamation, and got off and went into the cottage and asked the old woman who lived there to sell him a bunch of the flowers; and the old woman, looking at him and Catherine, was sure from their faces of peace that they were on their honeymoon, and picked a bunch and went to the gate and gave it to Catherine, and wouldn’t take any money for it, and said it was for luck.
It seemed quite natural, and in keeping with everything else that afternoon, to find a nice old woman who gave them flowers and wished them luck. In Salisbury people had all seemed extraordinarily amiable. This old woman was extraordinarily amiable. She even called them pretty dears, which filled their cup of enjoyment to the brim.
After this the country was very open, and solitary, and still. No signs of any town were to be seen; only rolling hills, and here and there a little group of trees. Also a few faint stars began to appear in the pale sky.