If you have been there, you remember that if you turn to the right and go over the stone bridge that crosses the sleepy river, you are in the very heart of beauty. You pick your way daintily along the edge of the road, for it is carpeted so thickly with sea-pinks and yellow and crimson crows-foot that you scarcely know where to step. Sea-poppies there are, too, groves of them, growing in the sandy stretches that lie close to and border the wide, shingly beach. In summer the long, low, narrow stone bridge crosses no water, but just here is an acre or two of tall green rushes. You walk down the bank a few steps and sit under the shadow of a wall. The green garden of rushes stretches in front of you, with a still, shallow pool between you and it, a pool floating with blossoming water-weeds. On the edge of the rushes grow tall yellow irises in great profusion; the cuckoos note sounds in the distance; the sun, the warmth, the intoxication of color, make you drowsy, and you lean back among the green things, close your eyes, and then begin listening to the wonderful music of the rushes. A million million reeds stirred by the breeze bend to and fro, making a faint silken sound like that of a summer wave lapping the shore, but far more ethereal.
Thomasina Tucker went down the road, laden with books, soon after breakfast Monday morning. Appleton waited until after the post came in, and having received much-desired letters and observed with joy the week-enders setting forth, hither and thither on their return journeys, followed what he supposed to be Miss Tuckers route; at least, it was her route on Saturday and Sunday, and he could not suppose her to harbor caprice or any other feminine weakness.
Yes, there she was, in the very loveliest nook, the stone wall at her back, and in front nice sandy levels for books and papers and writing-pad.
Miss Tucker, may I invade your solitude for a moment? Our mutual friend, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, has written asking me to look you up as a fellow countryman and see if I can be of any service to you so far away from home.
Tommy looked up, observed a good-looking American holding a letter in one hand and lifting a hat with the other, and bade him welcome.
How kind of the bishop! But he is always doing kind things; his wife, too. I have seen much of them since I came to England.
My name is Appleton, Fergus Appleton, at your service.
Wont you take a stone, or make yourself a hollow in the sand? asked Tommy hospitably. I came out here to read and study, and get rid of the week-enders. Isnt Bexley Sands a lovely spot, and do you ever get tired of the bacon and the kippered herring, and the fruit tarts with Devonshire cream?
I cant bear to begin an acquaintance with a lady by differing on such vital points, but I do get tired of these Bexley delicacies.
Perhaps you have been here too longor have you just come this morning?
Appleton swallowed his disappointment and hurt vanity, and remarked: No, I came on Friday. (He laid some emphasis on Friday.)
The evening train is so incorrigibly slow! I only reached the hotel at ten oclock when I arrived on Thursday night. Miss Tucker shot a rapid glance at the young man as she made this remark.
I came by the morning express and arrived here at three on Friday, said Appleton.
Miss Tucker, with a slight display of perhaps legitimate temper, turned suddenly upon him. There! I have been trying for two minutes to find out when you came, and now I know you were at my beastly concert on Friday evening!
I certainly was, and very grateful I am, too.
I suppose all through my life people will be turning up who were in that room! said Miss Tucker ungraciously. I must tell somebody what I feel about that concert! I should prefer some one who wasnt a stranger, but you are a great deal better than nobody. Do you mind?
Appleton laughed like a boy, and flung his hat a little distance into a patch of sea-pinks.
Not a bit. Use me, or abuse me, as you like, so long as you dont send me away, for this was my favorite spot before you chose it for yours.
I live in New York, and I came abroad early in the summer, began Tommy.
I know that already! interrupted Appleton.
Oh, I suppose the bishop told you.
No, I came with you; that is, I was your fellow passenger.
Did you? Why, I never saw you on the boat.
My charms are not so dazzling that I expect them to be noted and remembered, laughed Appleton.
It is true I was very tired, and excited, and full of anxieties, said Tommy meekly.
Dont apologize! If you tried for an hour, you couldnt guess just why I noticed and remembered you!
I conclude then it was not for my dazzling charms, Tommy answered saucily.
It was because you wore the only flower I ever notice, one that is associated with my earliest childhood. I never knew a woman to wear a bunch of mignonette before.
Some one sent it to me, I remember, and it had some hideous scarlet pinks in the middle. I put the pinks in my room and pinned on the mignonette because it matched my dress. I am very fond of green.
My mother loved mignonette. We always had beds of it in our garden and pots of it growing in the house in winter. I can smell it whenever I close my eyes.
Tommy glanced at him. She felt something in his voice that she liked, something that attracted her and wakened an instantaneous response.
But go on, he said. I only know as yet that you sailed from New York in the early summer, as I did.
Well, I went to London to join a great friend, a singer, Helena Markham. Have you heard of her?
No; is she an American?
Yes, a Western girl, from Montana, with oh! such a magnificent voice and such a big talent! (The outward sweep of Tommys hands took in the universe.) Weve had some heavenly weeks together. I play accompaniments, and
I know you do!
I forgot for the moment how much too much you know! I went with her to Birmingham, and Manchester, and Leeds, and Liverpool. I wasnt really grand enough for her, but the audiences didnt notice me, Helena was so superb. In between I took some lessons of Henschel. He told me I hadnt much voice, but very nice brains. I am always called intelligent, and no one can imagine how I hate the word!
It is offensive, but not so bad as some others. I, for example, have been called a conscientious writer!
Oh, are you a writer?
Of a sort, yes. But, as you were saying
As I was saying, everything was going so beautifully until ten days ago, when Helenas people cabled her to come home. Her mother is seriously ill and cannot live more than a few months. She went at once, but I couldnt go with hernot very well, in midsummerand so here I am, all alone, high and dry.
She leaned her chin in the cup of her hand and, looking absent-mindedly at the shimmering rushes, fell into a spell of silence that took no account of Appleton.
To tell the truth, he didnt mind looking at her unobserved for a moment or two. He had almost complete control of his senses, and he didnt believe she could be as pretty as he thought she was. There was no reason to think that she was better to look at than an out-and-out beauty. Her nose wasnt Greek. It was just a trifle faulty, but it was piquant and full of mischief. There was nothing to be said against her mouth or her eyelashes, which were beyond criticism, and he particularly liked the way her dark-brown hair grew round her temples and her earsbut the quality in her face that appealed most to Appleton was a soft and touching youthfulness.