the windmill was creaking in the same protesting, painful manner as claudia climbed the hill where she and colin had stood more than a year ago and looked at the view. but the waving fields of corn were all cut now, only a yellowish stubble remained. the hedges were beginning to show the approach of autumn, the yellowing leaf, the reddening berry. but it looked very much the same, just as peaceful and full of promise, though harvest-time was over. the sun was warm, but not so hot as it had been that sunday afternoon.
claudia felt her pulses stir as she gazed around her, for there is a richness and beauty in autumn that the earlier months lack. she seemed to feel nature tugging at her sleeve, whispering in her ear, calling to her to rejoice that the fruit of the earth was ripe, the time of waiting was over.
it was more than a year since she had gone to live with poor fay at rockingham, but fay was asleep now. as she stood there she thought of her with tears in her eyes, and her face turned to where in the distance a cluster of white gravestones lay bathed in the rays of the sun. by an ironic coincidence she lay in the same churchyard as[371] gilbert, though the grass had not yet grown over the little music-hall artiste. death had loosened the feeble hands that had clung so desperately—ah! how desperately in the last few weeks!—round her neck, and that duty was done.
she stood leaning against a gate, thinking a little soberly but not unhappily of many things. then she drew forth a couple of letters from her pocket. the first that she re-read was from pat, giving her a buoyant description of the harvesting on her farm, extolling the work and the climate, and cataloguing with evident pride the bushels of fruit that the trees had yielded.
“do come out, claudia, now poor fay has gone. there’s nothing to keep you in england; at least, if there is, bring the impediment with you. you must be tired out after all the troubles of the last year. i am really very worried about you, and if you don’t come i shall have to leave the farm and fetch you. colin writes me you are looking very pulled down. you are a brick to have stuck at rockingham, but that’s finished now. i’m writing to colin by the same post. when i left i gave you to him with my blessing! like my cheek, wasn’t it?
“but, seriously, the trip would interest you, and i won’t feed you exclusively on fruit! i think colin would like to see my farm. fancy his blossoming into an m.p. i’m so afraid he’ll lose his sense of humour in the house....”
claudia laughed a little as she put back the letter in the pocket of her white golf-coat.
the windmill creaked, and the wind rustling the dry leaves in the hedges blew her white serge skirt against her ankles, and seemed to sing “go! go! go!”
the other was from colin. she turned to the passage she wanted. it was on the last page.
[372]
“dearest, i don’t want to suggest any unseemly haste. it is always for you to make the decision, and i shall understand and acquiesce in anything you wish. only, sweetheart, i am a good many years older than you, and time has cheated so many lovers. shall we let him cheat us of any more years? oh! if you only knew how i long for the time when we shall always be together, when just a whispered ‘claudia’ will bring you to my side! you are with me in thought every hour of the day, but i want your dear presence. dearest of friends, best of chums, when will you let me make you my wife?”
the wind fluttered the pages of the letter, so that she could not read any more. the sun was warm on her bare hand. all the earth seemed to say “don’t delay any longer, don’t let the gods think you are ungrateful. are you afraid of happiness?”
she raised the letter passionately to her lips.
“my colin! my man!”
then hastily thrusting it into her pocket, she half-walked, half-ran down the hill to the village. her cheeks, a little thin from her self-imposed task, were a bright pink with excitement, and her whole body was aglow and superbly alive with the exercise as she pushed open a small, clanging door at the foot of the hill. there were oddments of sweets, toys and newspapers in the window, and a small boy who had just purchased some sweets that looked exactly like bootlaces stared at her in dull surprise as she passed him with a radiant smile. she had not just spent a whole halfpenny in two separate farthings’-worth at the sweet-counter, so why should she look so happy?
at the end of the shop was a small post-office department. the atmosphere was stuffy, and reeked of sealing-wax and tobacco. but the telegram would go all the same.
the romance of all the ages, of all the world, was in that piece of formal, ruled paper. the room might have been perfumed with attar of roses, and the boy with the liquorice bootlaces might have been cupid himself! the telegram was not going on the prosaic wires, but on the wings of love!
yet, when it was written, it only contained two words, beside the address:
“come. claudia.”
