The bullfinch was now being sentimental; he piped very low and with great expression. “O, Tannebaum, O, Tannebaum, wie grün sind Deine Blätter” he piped, hopping rather heavily from perch to perch, with one beady black orb fixed on Stephen.
Then Angela said: “It’s a curious thing, but I feel as though I’ve known you for ages. I don’t want to behave as though we were strangers—do you think that’s very American of me? Ought I to be formal and standoffish and British? I will if you say so, but I don’t feel British.” And her voice, although quite steady and grave, was somehow distinctly suggestive of laughter.
Stephen lifted troubled eyes to her face: “I want very much to be your friend if you’ll have me,” she said; and then she flushed deeply.
Angela held out her undamaged hand which Stephen took, but in great trepidation. Barely had it lain in her own for a moment, when she clumsily gave it back to its owner. Then Angela looked at her hand.
Stephen thought: “Have I done something rude or awkward?” And her heart thumped thickly against her side. She wanted to retrieve the lost hand and stroke it, but unfortunately it was now stroking Tony. She sighed, and Angela, hearing that sigh, glanced up, as though in inquiry.
The butler arrived bringing in the tea.
“Sugar?” asked Angela.
“No, thanks,” said Stephen; then she suddenly changed her mind, “three lumps, please,” she had always detested tea without sugar.
The tea was too hot; it burnt her mouth badly. She grew scarlet and her eyes began to water. To cover her confusion she swallowed more tea, while Angela looked tactfully out of the window. But when she considered it safe to turn round, her expression, although still faintly amused, had something about it that was tender.
And now she exerted all her subtlety and skill to make this queer guest of hers talk more freely, and Angela’s subtlety was no mean thing, neither was her skill if she chose to exert it. Very gradually the girl became more at her ease; it was uphill work but Angela triumphed, so that in the end Stephen talked about Morton, and a very little about herself also. And somehow, although Stephen appeared to be talking, she found that she was learning many things about her hostess; for instance, she learnt that Angela was lonely and very badly in need of her friendship. Most of Angela’s troubles seemed to centre round Ralph, who was not always kind and seldom agreeable. Remembering Ralph she could well believe this, and she said:
“I don’t think your husband liked me.”
Angela sighed: “Very probably not. Ralph never likes the people I do; he objects to my friends on principle I think.”
Then Angela talked more openly of Ralph. Just now he was staying away with his mother, but next week he would be returning to The Grange, and then he was certain to be disagreeable: “Whenever he’s been with his mother he’s that way—she puts him against me, I never know why—unless, of course, it’s because I’m not English. I’m the stranger within the gates, it may be that.” And when Stephen protested, “Oh, yes indeed, I’m quite often made to feel like a stranger. Take the people round here, do you think they like me?”
Then Stephen, who had not yet learnt to dissemble, stared hard at her shoes, in embarrassed silence.
Just outside the door a clock boomed seven. Stephen started; she had been there nearly three hours. “I must go,” she said, getting abruptly to her feet, “you look tired, I’ve been making a visitation.”
Her hostess made no effort to retain her: “Well,” she smiled, “come again, please come very often—that is if you won’t find it dull, Miss Gordon; we’re terribly quiet here at The Grange.”
III
Stephen drove home slowly, for now that it was over she felt like a machine that had suddenly run down. Her nerves were relaxed, she was thoroughly tired, yet she rather enjoyed this unusual sensation. The hot June evening was heavy with thunder. From somewhere in the distance came the bleating of sheep, and the melancholy sound seemed to blend and mingle with her mood, which was now very gently depressed. A gentle but persistent sense of depression enveloped her whole being like a soft, grey cloak; and she did not wish to shake off this cloak, but rather to fold it more closely around her.
At Morton she stopped the car by the lakes and sat staring through the trees at the glint of water. For a long while she sat there without knowing why, unless it was that she wished to remember. But she found that she could not even be certain of the kind of dress that Angela had worn—it had been of some soft stuff, that much she remembered, so soft that it had easily torn, for the rest her memories of it were vague—though she very much wanted to remember that dress.
A faint rumble of thunder came out of the west, where the clouds were banking up ominously purple. Some uncertain and rather hysterical swallows flew high and then low at the sound of the thunder. Her sense of depression was now much less gentle, it increased every moment, turning to sadness. She was sad in spirit and mind and body—her body felt dejected, she was sad all over. And now someone was whistling down by the stables, old Williams, she suspected, for the whistle was tuneless. The loss of his teeth had disgruntled his whistle; yes, she was sure that that must be Williams. A horse whinnied as one bucket clanked against another—sounds came clearly this evening; they were watering the horses. Anna’s young carriage horses would be pawing their straw, impatient because they were feeling thirsty.
Then a gate slammed. That would be the gate of the meadow where the heifers were pastured—it was yellow with kingcups. One of the men from the home farm was going his rounds,
