“Perhaps you would like to be alone, my dear—and I must go and see poor Mrs. Peter. I came here first, because I wanted to tell you ... but now I must go to Starvecrow.”
(Starvycrow ... being desolate it crieth after me.)
He stooped and kissed her averted face.
“My darling ... I’m so sorry.”
She felt a lump rise in her throat as if it would choke her—it broke into a great sob.
“Cry, dearest—it will do you good.”
She gently pushed him from her—but when he was gone, she did not cry.
§ 28
The little shrill bell of Vinehall church, the last of a large family of pre-Reformation bells, was still smiting the cold air, but Stella could not pray any more than she could weep. Neither could she remain indoors. She put on her furs and went out. She wished she had the car—to rush herself out of the parish, out of the county, over the reedy Kentish border, up the steep white roads of the weald, away and away to Staplehurst and Marden, to the country of the hops and the orchards.... But even so she knew she could not escape. What she wanted to leave behind was not Vinehall or Leasan or Conster or even Starvecrow, but herself. Herself and her own thoughts made up the burden she found too heavy to bear.
She walked aimlessly down Vinehall Street, and out beyond the village. The roads were black with dew, and the grass and primrose-tufts of the hedgerow were tangled and wet. There was nowhere for her to sit down and rest, though she felt extraordinarily tired at the end of two furlongs. She turned off into a field path, running beside the stacks of a waking farm, and finally entering a little wood.