Oxshott Woods are calling me. I want to lie on the warm, scented pine-needles, with the sun filtering through the branches of the sad, stately trees on to my face; I want my senses to be lulled into that beatific repose which only Nature sounds can achieve. One thinks that woods—pine woods—on a calm day are still; but lie and listen carefully, and one will marvel at the multitude of sounds, at the little hoppings and twitterings, and scurryings and crawlings and peckings. You are far too lazy to turn your head, but you are conscious that little bright eyes have you well in focus, that a movement on your part will cause fear and confusion in the settlement, so—you don't turn your head. You like to know that they are there, and presently you fall asleep, and who knows what they do then?
And I am to miss all this. The woods may call, but I must lie still. The wild-rose hedges may send messages to me on the soft south wind, invitations to view their loveliness, but I must refuse them all. I must wait for another year.
Amelia is anxious to wheel me into the lane. Dimbie is more anxious, but I say "no." Who that is injured is not sensitive? I dread the encountering of curious eyes, of eyes that even might be pitying.
I want to be left alone in the garden with the birds and insects. They don't allude to my misfortune, they don't pity me. They always say the right thing.
*****
As though in direct answer to Dimbie's inquiry, the woman with the thick ankles from the Old Grange has called.
I must have fallen asleep, for I was dreaming most foolishly and beautifully that Dimbie and I were in a meadow making daisy-chains, when I was rudely brought back to my own drawing-room—Amelia had wheeled me into the house as the sun had gone—by hearing her say, "A lady to see you, mum."
A little irritably—for I didn't want to leave the daisy-chains—I looked round for the lady, but she wasn't there.
"She's on the doorstep, mum. Will you see her?"
"Of course," I said. "You must never leave people on the doorstep; it is very rude."