“I told you; you should go for Bert,” he said sympathetically.
But it was absurd to go back when he was so short a distance away. She did not reply, but went on again gingerly.
“I doubt whether you’ll be able to do it; it’s like glue,” he said, as she put her hands on the chair back. It was a quiet comment in which she felt that he also expressed thanks, His towsled hair was just below her. There was a faint golden gloss in the depth of the brownness.
“Which way,” he asked, “on or back? Which can you manage best?”
“Push, I think.”
“You’ll probably manage pulling better,” he suggested, though not insisting.
“Push,” she ordered and put her weight against the handle. His hands closed broadly on the wooden hand-wheels which were outside the ordinary wheels and of a somewhat smaller circumference. The chair moved a little. Flo strained against it. Unexpectedly both her feet slipped and she held on to save herself.
“We’re digging in; better try backward,” he advised. “You shouldn’t . . .”
“I don’t know whether I can stand backward,” she said, laughing rather uncertainly.
“If I come over on you, you’ll know about it,” he said, laughing also, but in a way that calmed her. “I’ve been in this mess before; it’s not as simple as it looks.”
“It’s only about a couple of yards this way,” she said hopefully, looking if there was more solid footing anywhere. A stone as big as her fist attracted her and she set her sole against it testingly, but after very slight pressure it skidded, leaving a greasy trail. “What horrid stuff,” she exclaimed.
“Yes; you shouldn’t have bothered,” he said at once with regret, taking all blame. “I shouldn’t have waved, only I must have been here an hour.”
“An hour! Try again,” she ordered, resuming charge.
He leaned and gripped the hand-wheels low down. Flo turned partly sideways to get the purchase of the full length of her shoes. The wheels made a quarter turn reluctantly. All at once she felt the weight of the chair towards her increase alarmingly. With a violent effort she threw it back. It poised for a moment, on balance, then fell to normal.
“I thought it was a gonner,” he said quietly and chuckled; but Flo trembled. “It’s always liable to tip. You should pull on the lower handle; it’s more awkward, but it’s best,” he said as though apologizing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down on him.
They tried again. When they pulled together the wheels turned slowly and crept back. When he leaned to shift his grip the chair felt immovable. She got into waiting and pulling with him. As they got farther back the ground was drier, and at last she could move the chair unaided. The wheels ran on to a patch of dwarfed weed. She stopped, realizing that she did not know now in which direction he wanted to go. Immediately he manipulated adroitly round to face her.
“Look at your shoes; too bad,” he said. There was grave politeness and a genuineness that pleased her. “I thought you weren’t going to come, though. I waved and waved and shouted . . .”
“It must have been the wind and the water; I never heard,” she explained, wondering whether she ought to leave him, yet not wanting to. “Which way?”
“No; you’ve done enough. I’ll take more care, thanks. I should have had more sense, anyway.”
He looked again at her shoes and asked if she had far to go.
“Only there,” she nodded in the direction of the farm.
“Prettyfield! How is it I’ve never seen you?” he asked. “I’m one of Bert’s regulars.”
“I’ve only just come. It’s the first time I’ve been by the water.”
“It’s a great place, don’t you think?” His glance circled slowly and appreciatively. While his attention was away she looked quickly at his square chin which held an unusual V-shaped dimple, in which short dark hairs sprouted. His brows were thick and met, making a straight black bar under the high forehead. His eyes came back and caught her scrutiny. Hastily she looked over his head, down the water There was silence, ended by his unhurried, husky speech. “I don’t know what I’d do without here to come to. Do you fish?”
“No,” she answered. “It always seems so . . . so slow. If you ever caught anything . . .”
“That shows . . . It isn’t what you catch, it’s the doing that matters . . . like with so many other things. So long as I’m here, I don’t mind. I like to be by the water and to see the hills.”
“Yes,” said Flo, liking his voice.
“Things get on top of you, sometimes, you know. That’s when I get away here, if I can. I’d only just put my rod up.” He let his right hand fall on the brown canvas cover tucked by his side. “I haven’t caught anything to-day . . . got caught myself instead, eh?”
“If I’d kept on the road you’d still be there,” said Flo. He smiled agreement, and she began to wipe her shoes on the weed. To get the thick of the mud off he offered a knife with a handle of brown corrugated horn and a worn blade. She crouched and scraped awkwardly, knowing his steady watching.
“Put it here,” he invited, touching the edge of the footrest. “My hands are as doesn’t matter; and it’s my fault.”
“I can manage,” she answered.
“You won’t let me pay you back anyway?”
“It was nothing. I thought I’d go all round. Is there a way?”
“Yes,” he said, willingly. “I’d show you, but I only get along this side . . . and not always that.” He smiled ruefully. “But if you go far enough there’s a bridge.” He pointed towards the larches and let his arm circle, indicating the opposite woods and the far end of the lake in turn. “And back by the main road.”
Flo wiped the knife. As she gave it to him she was struck by the paleness of the inside of his hand in contrast with the brown back. She wondered what he did; if he worked at all.
“Sure you can manage? Suppose you sink again?” she asked.
“I won’t. Once bitten, twice shy . . . like a fish. Once it’s escaped, he’ll be a good man to catch it again.” He paused and turned the chair towards the water. “You see where I came; should have kept nearer the edge. There must be a spring under that patch.”
“If you’ll be all right then . . .”
“Ever so many thanks again. Tell Bert you’ve been talking to Dick Goldbourn.”
“Yes,” said Flo. She hesitated before starting to walk across the remainder of the flat. Then there was a bank. From the top she looked back. Dick Goldbourn had not moved. He waved and impelled her to wave an answer. She wondered if he had always been like that and felt sorry for him. There was just the suggestion of a path in front. It took her up the shallow valley by the stream that was the stalk of the lagoon. Fifty yards from the head of the lagoon there were alders and willows by the water and the path went to a narrow wooden bridge beneath them. Bending rightward the path then led back towards the lake, but took her a good stone-throw away from the stream and higher up, and here, surprisingly, she found a second stream, clearer, quicker-flowing, man-guided, though the banks had long ago become grown with grass and flowering plants, thorn bushes and occasional goat willows, ash trees and small oaks. This stream’s remaining mark of artificiality was its straightness. Flo did not bother trying to think why it had been made, because there was a sudden circled disturbance of the surface and the skimming away of a shadow which she guessed must be a fish. Although she peered hard under the far bank where it seemed to have gone, all that she saw was a little flurry of fine particles start up and float away. She wondered if it was the kind offish that Mr. Goldbourn would have liked to have caught. She looked round. There he was half a mile distant close by the lake edge, resting as it seemed. Realizing that she was still in his view should he glance round, she went on more quickly to the wood’s shelter. The clear stream ran into the wood under a thick ash bough, recently barked and creamy white. The stile was high and let Flo down behind a family of old hollies, all grown together as with arms and cloaks round one another. Here the path was a narrow causeway between spinney leaves and the water. She sidled past, her back to the hollies, and noticed how the water, overarched also by alder trees from the far side, seemed to run more gently, as if it had grown older all at once. Shadow had taken away the surface gloss so that she could see every grey and brown and black pebble, and every stick and rooting of moss or weed as if she were looking through a magnifying glass. Beyond the hollies stream and path went companionably down a long clear corridor interlaced above, and at the sides shut in by ivied oak trunks and thorn bushes, by hazel and wild rose shoots tied with dead-looking honeysuckle binders which nevertheless had started proud little sage-green leaf tufts at hand-span intervals all along their length. On the right by the edge of the path the ground fell steeply, and Flo saw through boughs and twigs the gleam of the lake. Behind an ivy-muffled oak trunk she stopped. Dick Goldbourn was moving on. He seemed absorbed in picking a track, and went on slowly as if the obstructions to the wheels were many. Flo felt contrite at not having stayed. She left the path, scrambling down the bank, and went to the edge of the bushes. The water lay only five feet from them. There was a sense of intimacy in watching him across its surface, for she was by the top end of the lagoon where the swell was down to little more than a suggestion of shadows following one another. Though she could hear the wind, it was only a faint soughing at the back of the wood behind her, and she imagined that without raising her voice she could have spoken across to him. She forgot regret in trying to remember all that had happened. More than anything she had been impressed by his quiet courtesy. “A real gentleman,” she summed him up.