The two women had been bathing. It was one of Rose's complaints that Odiam did not make enough provision for personal cleanliness in the way of baths and tubs. Reuben objected if she made the servant run up and downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water to fill a wash-tub in her bedroom—they had once had a battle royal about it, during which Rose had said some humorous things about her man's washing—so in summer she relieved the tension by bathing in the Glotten brook, where it ran temporarily limpid and reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. She had persuaded Caro to join her in this adventure—according to her ideas it was not becoming for a woman to bathe alone; so Caro had conquered her objections to undressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first time the luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath.
Now they were dry and dressed once more, all except their stockings, for Rose loved to splash her bare feet in the water—she adored the caress of water on her skin. It was a hot day, the sun blinked through the heavy green of the sallows, dabbling the stream with spots and ripples of light. June had come, with a thick swarthiness in the fields, and the scent of hayseed scorching into ripeness.
Rose leaned back against a trunk, a froth of fine linen round her knees. She splashed and kicked her feet in the stream.
"Yes—I've only to look at a man like this ... and he always does it."
"But not now!" cried Caro.
"What do you mean by 'not now'?"
"Now you're married."
"Oh, no—I'm talking of before. All the same...."
"Wot!"