As he passed the railings of Mary's garden he heard through a lull in the storm the clop, clop of hoofs on the road before him, and Sarah Bannister drove past in a flurry of black shadows and yellow carriage lights. Upstairs in the Wold Farm, a single light burned and Mike, thinking it to shine from Mary's room, sighed sentimentally and murmured a paternoster for her soul's salvation. Neither his experiences as a soldier in India and Africa nor the indifference of his fellow workers on the farm had robbed him of a simplicity which somehow confounded the Mary of Anderby with the Lady of Sorrows.
Unfortunately for his pious intention the light before his shrine was only a candle carried by Violet into the spare bedroom where Foster and Ursula had decided to spend the night rather than face the violence of the storm.
Chapter IV
THE QUEEN
Next morning Mike's devotion met with its reward, for as he rode along the village street, swinging his legs from the shaft of a turnip cart, he saw Mary emerge from her garden and turn towards him along the road.
Mike was whistling a tune as he rode, for after the storm the morning air was radiantly clear. In its cold clarity the sweeping curves of the Wolds, the filigree tracery of black branches against the sky, and the sturdy outline of the Norman church on the hill were as boldly defined as in an etching. From every blackened twig on the hedgerows trembled a lucid drop of moisture. There was a salt sting in the wind from the sea six miles away.
Mary seemed part of the freshness and gaiety of the morning. Mike watched her as she strode forward along the path, loving her buoyant, confidant movements and the sheen of her brown hair, like wet beech leaves below her small fur-trimmed cap.
She smiled at Mike. Her smile caught the sunlight and dazzled him.
"Well, and how does Becky go?"