When she recalled her promise to send it him she found that there was no one to send. In shame and self-reproach, she packed a little basket, and resolved to carry it to him. The day was lovely. She put her broad-brimmed straw hat, trimmed with forget-me-not bows, on her head, and started on her walk.
The bank of the Tamar falls from high moorland many hundreds of feet to the water’s edge. In some places the rocks rise in sheer precipices with gullies of coppice and heather between them. Elsewhere the fall is less abrupt, and allows trees to grow, and the richness of the soil and the friable nature of the rock allows them to grow to considerable dimensions. From Morwell House a long détour through beautiful forest, affording peeps of mountains and water, gave the easiest descent to the quay, but Eve reserved this road for the ascent, and slid merrily down the narrow corkscrew path in the brushwood between the crags, which afforded the quickest way down to the water’s edge.
‘Oh, Mr. Jasper!’ she exclaimed, ‘I have sinned, through my forgetfulness; but see, to make amends, I have brought you a little bottle of papa’s Burgundy and a wee pot of red currant jelly for the cold mutton.’
‘And you have come yourself to overwhelm me with a sense of gratitude.’
‘Oh, Mr. Jasper, I am so ashamed of my naughtiness. I assure you I nearly cried. Bab—I mean Barbara—would never have forgotten. She remembers everything. Her head is a perfect store-closet, where all things are in place and measured and weighed and on their proper shelves. You had no dinner yesterday.’
‘To-day’s is a banquet that makes up for all deficiencies.’
Eve liked Jasper; she had few to converse with, very few acquaintances, no friends, and she was delighted to be able to have a chat with anyone, especially if that person flattered her—and who did not? Everyone naturally offered incense before her; she almost demanded it as a right. The Tamar formed a little bay under a wall of rock. A few ruins marked the site of the storehouses and boatsheds of the abbots. The sun glittered on the water, forming of it a blazing mirror, and the dancing light was reflected back by the flower-wreathed rocks.
‘Where are the men?’ asked Eve.
‘Gone into the wood to fell some pines. We must drive piles into the bed of the river, and lay beams on them for a basement.’
‘Oh,’ said Eve listlessly, ‘I don’t understand about basements and all that.’ She seated herself on a log. ‘How pleasant it is here with the flicker of the water in one’s face and eyes, and a sense of being without shadow! Mr. Jasper, do you believe in pixies?’