Daphne du Maurier - Hungry Hill

She turned and saw him, and instead of shrieking in distress and shame, as his sisters would have done, she looked up at him, and smiled, and said, "Why do you not come in too? It is cool and lovely."

He felt himself go scarlet, and the sweat broke out on his forehead. Saying nothing, he turned away and began to walk rapidly in the opposite direction until his foot caught in a rabbit-hole and overturned him, and he slipped sideways into the heather, cursing and blaspheming, and sat for a while nursing his injured ankle, while a lark rose from in front of him and hovered in the air, singing his song of freedom.

Presently-hours must have passed, he thought; he did not care- he heard someone come and sit beside him, and turning he saw Fanny-Rosa, dressed once more, her face glowing with her swim, her hair wet on her shoulders.

"You think me shameful," she said softly, "you have a great disgust at me."

"Ah, no," he said swiftly, sweeping her with his eyes, "you don't understand. I came away because you were so lovely…?

And he stammered, and could say no more, because she was smiling at him, and the smile was too much.

"You won't tell Miss Brodrick, will you?" she pleaded. "She would never ask me to Clonmere again, and maybe she would write and tell my mother."

"I won't tell anyone, ever," said John.

They were silent, and she began to pluck at the grass with her hands, which were small and slim. She laid them beside his a moment in contrast, and then, when he still said nothing, she put her hands on top of his, and in a low, quiet voice she said: "I think you are angry with me."

"Angry?" he said. "Fanny-Rosa, how could anyone be angry with you?"

And suddenly he had his arms round her, and she was lying on her back in the heather, with her eyes closed, and he was kissing her.

After a while she opened her eyes, but she did not look at him. She watched the lark flying overhead, and then she put up her hand and touched his cheek, and his mouth, and his eyes, and his dark hair, and she said: "You've wanted to kiss me for a long time, have you not?"

"For nearly ten months," he told her, "I have thought of nothing else."

"Is it a disappointment to you," she said, "now that you have?"

"No," he said, land he wished he could tell her something of the fullness in his heart, something of the tenderness he felt for her, something of the longing that swept his whole body. But words were things of such difficulty, he could not juggle with them, he could only look down at her lying there in the heather, and suffer and worship.

"I thought," she said, "that it was only your old greyhounds you cared for," and she held up her hands for him to kiss the fingers one by one. "That day you came to Andriff," she told him, "in the winter comd you remember? — it was you who seemed light-hearted then, and your brother who was serious. But now that I know you both better I think it is the other way round. Henry is gay, and you are solemn."

When she spoke of Henry he was aware instantly of a pang of jealousy, and he remembered how she had laughed and flirted with his brother all through lunch, and had not looked at him. The memory made a twist in his mind, and he sat up, and gazed out across the hill, and the lark that had been singing overhead came down to earth and was hidden.

"You like Henry, don't you?" he said. "Everyone does."

"I like you both," she said.

In the distance they could hear the sound of voices calling, and Fanny-Rosa made a face.

"They are wondering what can have happened to us," she said. "Perhaps we should be going back."

She got up and brushed her dress, humming to herself, and John, watching her, a pain in his heart, thought how little she guessed the feeling that possessed him, and how foolish she would think him did she know.

He had held her and kissed her, and this was to him a thing of so great a magnitude that he knew in all certainty his life from henceforward would be coloured by what had happened that afternoon. Never would he forget the sight of her naked body in the water, never would he lose the touch of her hands and her lips, as she lay in the heather.

But for Fanny-Rosa it had been an interlude, a moment of enjoyment after her bathe, and he wondered, loving her, whether she would have done likewise with his brother, or Willie Armstrong, or the young officers from Doon Island. She gave him her hand now, like a child, as Jane used to do, and led him across the hill back to the lake, and as they walked she told him some nonsensical story about Simon Flower and his tenants-how he had given them all whisky one Christmas and sent every man home drunk-and he looked at her profile and the cloud of chestnut hair, and the happiness he had was sharp, and bitter-sweet.

She dropped his hand when they came within sight of the others. That is the end of it, he thought; now the day is finished, there will not be anything more, and he went silently to see to his horse, and saddle him, and help Tim with the rest of the horses; for to have laughed and chatted and made conversation, as Fanny-Rosa was doing, would have been beyond his power. They were alien to him now, the group of people; he would rather be alone or in the company of stolid Tim.

"What a day it has been, and how I have enjoyed it!" Henry was saying, "and you are all to come and see me embark on the Henrietta, and wave farewell."

Down they went through the stones and the heather to the track where the carriage had been left, Fanny-Rosa starting the lilting chorus of a song, and the others joining in, the young officers loudest of all. The brilliant blue of the sky had faded now to the still white of a September evening, and little mackerel clouds had gathered about the sun. The first shadows fell upon Hungry Hill. The lovely day, thought Jane, is coming to its close, and behind us we leave the lake, and the rocks, and the heather, and our voices will not trouble the stillness again. Already the day belongs to the past, something we shall look back upon and say to one another, "Do you remember this? Do you remember how Henry laughed, and sang a song with Fanny-Rosa Flower?"

So the party descended to the road, and clattered down the hill into Doonhaven. And there, in the square, were Casey, and another man, and the groom from Castle Andriff, waiting to hold the horses, and everyone dismounted and walked with Henry to the harbour, where the Henrietta lay at anchor, the men casting the sails from the yards preparatory to departure.

Captain Nicholson was on the quayside, having superintended the final stowing of the cargo, and Copper John stood beside him, with the master of the vessel. He smiled as he saw his son approach, and, with a word to the others, came to meet him.

"Not too tired, boy?"

"No, sir. I have had one of the happiest days of my life," said Henry. ' "Good. That is what all of us wished for you. You have cut it rather fine, though.

No time for prolonged farewells, or anything of that sort. The master wishes to weigh anchor as soon as you go on board. The wind is fair, and if it holds you should have a speedy passage to Bronsea."

Henry kissed his sisters, shook hands with his brother and his friends, and the usual forced words of jollity came to the lips of each in turn. "Bring us all back a shawl, Harry, from the Barbados," said Eliza, and "Do remember your cough medicine, dear," from Barbara, while there were injunctions from the young officers not to lose his heart to the native ladies. "Get well quickly, my boy, that is the only thing that concerns me," said his father, and then Henry turned and went down the steps to the waiting boat, and the boat pulled out across the harbour to the Henrietta.

He stood up in the stern, waving his hat, and smiling.

"We will meet in Naples," he called to Fanny-Rosa. "That's a promise, isn't it?"