Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [342]
It was not till the evening that he found himself alone with her. She was cooking the supper, and Philip was sitting on the grass by the side of the fire. Mrs. Athelny had gone down to the village to do some shopping, and the children were scattered in various pursuits of their own. Philip hesitated to speak. He was very nervous. Sally attended to her business with serene competence, and she accepted placidly the silence which to him was so embarrassing. He did not know how to begin. Sally seldom spoke unless she was spoken to or had something particular to say. At last he could not bear it any longer.
“You’re not angry with me, Sally?” he blurted out suddenly.
She raised her eyes quietly and looked at him without emotion.
“Me? No. Why should I be?”
He was taken aback and did not reply. She took the lid off the pot, stirred the contents, and put it on again. A savoury smell spread over the air. She looked at him once more, with a quiet smile which barely separated her lips; it was more a smile of the eyes.
“I always liked you,” she said.
His heart gave a great thump against his ribs, and he felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. He forced a faint laugh.
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because you’re a silly.”
“I don’t know why you liked me.”
“I don’t either.” She put a little wood on the fire. “I knew I liked you that day you came when you’d been sleeping out and hadn’t had anything to eat, d’you remember? And me and mother, we got Thorpy’s bed ready for you.”
He flushed again, for he did not know that she was aware of that incident. He remembered it himself with horror and shame.
“That’s why I wouldn’t have anything to do with the others. You remember that young fellow mother wanted me to have? I let him come to tea because he bothered me so, but I knew I’d say no.”
Philip was so surprised that he found nothing to say. There was a queer feeling in his heart; he did not know what it was, unless it was happiness. Sally stirred the pot once more.
“I wish those children would make haste and come. I don’t know where they’ve got to. Supper’s ready now.”
“Shall I go and see if I can find them?” said Philip.
It was a relief to talk about practical things.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I must say.... There’s mother coming.”
Then, as he got up, she looked at him without embarrassment.
“Shall I come for a walk with you tonight when I’ve put the children to bed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you wait for me down by the stile, and I’ll come when I’m ready.”
He waited under the stars, sitting on the stile, and the hedges with their ripening blackberries were high on each side of him. From the earth rose rich scents of the night, and the air was soft and still. His heart was beating madly. He could not understand anything of what happened to him. He associated passion with cries and tears and vehemence, and there was nothing of this in Sally; but he did not know what else but passion could have caused her to give herself. But passion for him? He would not have been surprised if she had fallen to her cousin, Peter Gann, tall, spare, and straight, with his sunburned face and long, easy stride. Philip wondered what she saw in him. He did not know if she loved him as he reckoned love. And yet? He was convinced of her purity. He had a vague inkling that many things had combined, things that she felt though was unconscious of, the intoxication of the air and the hops and the night, the healthy instincts of the natural woman, a tenderness that overflowed, and an affection that had in it something maternal and something sisterly! and she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of charity.
He heard a step on the road, and a figure came out of the darkness.
“Sally,” he murmured.
She stopped and came to the stile, and with her came sweet, clean odors of the countryside. She seemed to carry with her scents of the new-mown hay, and the savour of ripe hops, and the freshness of young grass.