Daphne du Maurier - Hungry Hill

At last they came to the lake, with shouts of relief from the young men and cries of delight from the ladies, and Barbara at once busied herself with the unpacking of the food and the setting down of rugs, in case the ground was damp-which of course it was not-and seeing that Henry was not fatigued, while Henry himself lay on his back and closed his eyes and felt the warm grass with his hands and was still and happy.

Fanny-Rosa was climbing a rock to have a better view of the bay, and pulling her petticoats above her knees to give her more freedom, and John, who wanted to be with her, watched her moodily, thinking that if he joined her the others would notice and imagine that he did so because she was showing her legs in this barefaced fashion, which would be perfectly true in a sense and yet not the whole truth. Because he could not make up his mind, he went on standing uncertainly by the side of the lake, wishing he had not come on the picnic, yet knowing that if he had stayed at home he would have been miserable, so his day was doomed anyway.

Jane had disappeared with both her young officers, and Doctor Armstrong, sighing for some reason or other, asked Barbara whether he should help her with the setting out of the food.

"Please do," she said gratefully, hoping he was not feeling unwell (for it was unlike him to sigh), and wondering in the same breath what had happened to the dozen meat patties she herself had packed in the basket. If they were lost there would not be enough chicken to go round, and she must somehow manage to warn the family to take a drumstick apiece and leave the white meat to the guests.

Now Eliza, rather red in the face and frowning, was pulling at her arm.

"I wish you would speak to Jane," she whispered fiercely. "She has gone behind a rock with those two young men. It looks so improper. I hardly know what Captain Flower will think of her."

And Barbara, still frantically searching for the meat patties, answered back rather impatiently that "Captain Flower would do well to look after his own sister, and no doubt Jane and the officers were hunting for butterflies."

Eliza sniffed, and said there were plenty of butterflies about without looking for them behind rocks, and as for that Lieutenant Davies, she could not for the life of her imagine why he had been asked to the picnic at all; he was quite odious, and his laugh was too loud; she certainly was not going to have him looking over her shoulder while she sketched, he would be dreadfully in the way.

"Perhaps he won't want to, dear," said Barbara absently, and oh, what a relief! there were the meat patties after all-she remembered now she had put them in a napkin to retain the heat better.

"Would you tell everyone that luncheon is ready?" she asked Doctor Armstrong, and he went off at once to hunt up Jane and the officers, and they all returned almost immediately, Doctor Armstrong and the young officers watching one another like suspicious terriers, and Jane herself very quiet and demure, her large brown eyes turned upon each in turn.

"How delightful this is, and how well I feel, and what nonsense that the foolish fellows of your profession, Willie, should send me to the Barbados," said Henry gaily, sitting up and looking at the food placed so temptingly in front of him. "Barbara, I starve; two meat patties, please."

And soon the whole party were assembled and tucking in to the chicken and the patties, and the cold bacon, and the jellies, as though they had never eaten before.

Fanny-Rosa sat cross-legged, like a tailor, and John wondered whether he was the only one to notice that her feet were bare beneath her dress-he could see the toes peeping out from under her.

She had sat herself down by Henry and was telling him he was the sultan of the feast, and she was a slave-girl ministering to him.

"How extremely amusing it would be if it were really so," said Henry, making her a mock bow.

"Shall I bring you back gold bangles from the West Indies, and ear-rings? Slave-girls always wear those things, you know, as a sign of submission."

"Please," begged Fanny-Rosa, "and a tambourine also, and then I will dance for you."

John wished he could talk in that easy, gay fashion. He supposed Henry had learnt how to do it on the Continent, and Fanny-Rosa too.

"If the Barbados prove disappointing,"

Fanny-Rosa was saying, "then you must come back and join us in Naples. I am quite determined to go to Naples for the winter."

"Father and mother have said nothing about Italy to me," objected her brother. "I should think such a project extremely unlikely."

"You will be with your regiment, and have nothing to do with it," said Fanny-Rosa. "If I make up my mind father and mother will obey, We will go to Naples and gaze at Vesuvius, and listen to music, which will delight father, who will become sentimental and drink more than is good for him, and I shall buy a heap of gowns and dress like a Neapolitan, and wear a flower behind my ear, and throw kisses to you, Henry, from a balcony."

"Take no notice of her," said Captain Flower. "I regret to say that both my sisters are quite mad. Matilda, the young one, is even worse than Fanny-Rosa. She spends all her time in the stables, now we have no governess in the house.

Castle Andriff is like an asylum."

"Poor Mrs. Flower!" said Barbara. "You ought to try and help her, Fanny-Rosa, and set Matilda a good example. Jane is a great help to me, and she is nearly three years younger than you."

"Ah, but Jane thinks always of other people, Miss Brodrick," said Fanny-Rosa, "and I think only of myself. "Enjoy yourself while you can," said father to me only yesterday; "we may all be dead before the year is out."

"That is certainly true," said Henry, "but before it happens let us meet in Naples, as you suggest, and I will claim that kiss from the balcony."

And so they continued through lunch, laughing, and teasing, and making plans, while John filled his mouth savagely with cold fat bacon, thinking of Lincoln's Inn, and his gloomy chambers, and the grey, damp fogs of December, that had nothing in common with sunny Naples and balconies.

After lunch there was more conversation, and then sighs, and yawns, and a feeling that everyone must do as he pleased.

Henry rested in the shade of a boulder, with Barbara beside him, under her large sunshade, and Jane and the young officers read poetry behind a clump of heather.

Eliza had planted herself down in front of a stunted gorse-bush, through which she could peer from time to time at Lieutenant Davies and tell herself how very plain he was, and look from him back to her easel, upon which a sketch of the distant harbour of Doonhaven was taking slow shape. Bob Flower was asleep and snoring loudly, which, thought Eliza, was very ill-mannered of him, and he ought to be looking after his sister, who had disappeared.

John was throwing stones aimlessly into the lake.

He had been a fool not to bring his rod, a trout was rising now in the middle, he could see the sudden ripple and the plop of the water, and he began to stroll along the edge towards the farther end of the lake, out of sight of the picnic party. How warm it was on Hungry Hill, how silent and how still. No one would know that only three miles or so to the eastward were the tall, ugly chimneys of his father's mine. The soft moss squelched under his feet, and there came to him the sour, boggy smell of the cold lake-water, and the scent of the heather as well. Poor Henry, he thought; this is what he would like, standing here with the little soft wind in his face, not lying down under a rug with his head on his arm.

A louder splash than usual caught his ear-there must be some big trout in the lake, after all-and he climbed over a boulder to have a sight of the fish, and oh, God! it was no fish jumping at all, but Fanny-Rosa, naked, with her hair falling on her shoulders, wading out into the lake, throwing the water aside with her hands.