§ 4
Well, there was no time for reflection, either happy or sorrowful—she must start off for Ashford, or her father would be kept waiting. Once again, after many times, she experience the relief of practical action. Her disposition was eminently practical, and the practical things of love and life and religion—kisses and meals and sacraments—were to her the realities of those states. A lover who did not kiss and caress you, a life which was based on plain living and high thinking, a religion without good outward forms for its inward graces, were all things which Stella’s soul would never grasp.
So she went out to the little “tenant’s fixture” garage, filled the Singer’s tank and cranked her up, and drove off comforted a little in her encounter with life’s surprises. The day was damp and mild. There was a moist sweetness in the air, and the scent of ploughed and rain-soaked earth. Already the spring sowings had begun, and the slow teams moved solemnly to and fro over the January fields. Surely, thought Stella, ploughing was the most unhurried toil on earth. The plough came to the furrow’s end, and halted there, while men and horses seemed equally deep-sunk in meditation. Whole minutes later the whip would crack, and the team turn slowly for the backward furrow. She wouldn’t like to do a slow thing like that—and yet her heart would ache terribly when it was all gone, and she would see the great steam ploughs tearing over the mile-long fields of the West ... she would then think sorrowfully of those small, old Sussex fields—the oldest in the world—with their slow ploughing; she would crave all the more for the inheritance which Peter might have given her among them....
She was beginning to feel bad again—and it was a relief to find that the car dragged a little on the steering, pulling towards the hedge, even though she knew that it meant a punctured tyre. The Singer always punctured her tyres like a lady—she never indulged in vulgar bursts, with a bang like a shot-gun and a skid across the road. Stella berthed her beside the ditch, and began to jack her up.
Well, it was a nuisance, seeing that her father would be kept waiting. But she ought to be able to do the thing in ten minutes ... she wished she was wearing her old suit, though. She would make a horrible mess of herself, changing wheels on a dirty day.... The car was jacked up, and Stella was laying out her tools on the running board when she heard a horse’s hoofs in the lane.
It seemed at first merely a malignant coincidence that the rider should be Peter; yet, after all, the coincidence was not so great when she reflected that she was now on the lane between Conster and Starvecrow. She had heard that Peter had lately taken to riding a white horse—it was all part of the picture he was anxious to paint of himself as Squire. He would emphasize his Squirehood, since to it he had sacrificed himself as freeman and lover.
She had never seen him looking so much the Squire of tradition as he looked today. He wore a broadcloth coat, corduroy breeches, brown boots and leggings and a bowler hat. Of late he had rather increased in girth, and looked full his forty years. Unaccountably this fact stirred up Stella’s heart into a raging pity—Peter middle-aged and getting stout, Peter pathetically over-acting his part of country gentleman—it stirred all the love and pity of her heart more deeply than any figure of romance and youth. She hoped he would not stop, but considering her position she knew she was hoping too much.
He hitched the white horse to the nearest gate and dismounted. They had not been alone together since the summer, though they had met fairly often in company, and now she was conscious of a profound embarrassment and restraint in them both.
“Have you punctured?” he asked heavily.
“No, but the tyre has,” said Stella.