CHAPTER XV

On a perfect summer afternoon in mid-July, Lady Mary sat in the terrace garden at Barracombe, before the open windows of the silent house, in the shade of the great ilex; sometimes glancing at the book she held, and sometimes watching the haymakers in the valley, whose voices and laughter reached her faintly across the distance.

Some boys were playing cricket in a field below.  She noted idly that the sound of the ball on the bat travelled but slowly upward, and reached her after the striker had begun to run.  The effect was curious, but it was not new to her, though she listened and counted with idle interest.

The old sisters had departed for their daily drive, which she daily declined to share, having no love for the high-road, and much for the peace which their absence brought her.

It was an afternoon which made mere existence a delight amid such surroundings.

Long shadows were falling across the bend of the river, below the wooded hill which faced the south-west; whilst the cob-built, whitewashed cottages, and the brown, square-towered church lay full in sunshine still.  The red cattle stood knee-deep in the shallows, and an old boat was moored high and dry upon the sloping red banks.

The air was sweet with a thousand mingled scents of summer flowers:  carnations, stocks, roses, and jasmine.  The creamy clusters of Perpetual Felicity rioted over the corner turret of the terrace, where a crumbling stair led to the top of a small, half-ruined observatory, which tradition called the look-out tower.

Flights of steps led downwards from the garden, where the bedded-out plants blazed in all their glory of ordered colour, to the walks on the lower levels.  Here were long herbaceous borders, backed by the mighty sloping walls of old red sandstone, which, like an ancient fortification, supported the terrace above.

The blue larkspur flourished beside scarlet gladioli, feather-headed spirea, and hardy fuchsia.  There were no straight lines, nor any order of planting.  The Madonna lilies stood in groups, lifting up on thin, ragged stems their pure and spotless clusters, and overpowering with their heavy scent the fainter fragrance of the mignonette.  Tall, green hollyhocks towered higher yet, holding the secret of their loveliness, until these should wither; when they too would burst into blossom, and forestall the round-budded dahlia.

In the silence, many usually unheeded sounds made themselves very plainly heard.

The tapping of the great magnolia-leaves upon the windows of the south front; the rustling of the ilex; the ceaseless murmur of the river; the near twittering or distant song of innumerable birds; the steady hum of the saw-mill below; the call of the poultry-woman at the home-farm, and the shrieking response of a feathered horde flying and fighting for their food—­sounds all so familiar as to pass unnoticed, save in the absence of companionship.