‘That’s right then,’ said Martin’s mother encouragingly. ‘Take her out, Martin darling, and shew her the rock-garden. Martin and I have been making a rock-garden, Judith—I may call you Judith, mayn’t I?’ She laid a hand again on Judith’s arm. ‘It’s such fun. Martin and I are both ridiculous potterers and experimenters. Are you like that?’
‘Not practically, I’m afraid.’
‘Ah, well, it’s a delightful hobby. It keeps me busy and healthy, doesn’t it, Martin?’ She looked up into his face, and he put a large hand upon her little shoulder. ‘There,’ she added, ‘Run along now. Don’t let Martin take you in the fields or up to his precious farm: you’ll spoil your pretty shoes. Aren’t they darling shoes, Martin? And such a pretty frock.’
With little pats and handwavings and vague benevolence she saw them out of the French windows down the steps into the garden.
Martin said:
‘Wait. I’ll take a gun. We’re simply tripping over rabbits this year. It’s awful.’
She did not hear properly; nor, when Martin came back to her, did she grasp the significance of the gun over his shoulder.
He led her out of the garden by a wooden bridge over a stream half-hidden in forget-me-nots, kingcups and iris plants; through the meadow where grazed the pedigree cows which, so he said, were his mother’s pride; over a stile and up on to the chalky rabbit-pitted hillside.
She was standing among the willow trees, and out of the moonlight a voice was saying in a low hurry: ‘I love you’—and saying another thing damnably characteristic: ‘Lovely Judy! Lovely dark eyes!’ His teeth gleamed as he smiled in the moonlight.... He closed his eyes.... It was all in such bad taste, in such bad taste....
Martin was pointing out the marches of the estate. There were beech copses and farms and two gentle folds of sun-drenched sheep-strewn hill between them and its final hedgerows.