“We can do it this way if you wish,” he said softly at last. “We can find topics upon which one or both of us is able to converse eloquently and at some length. And when we have reached the end of the walk and arrived back at the house we can each congratulate ourselves on the fact that we allowed not a moment’s silence to descend between us after the first few awkward minutes. We can take a cheerful farewell of each other and that will be it. The end of the story.”
She did not know what she was supposed to say. He had asked no question.
“Yes,” she said.
“It is what you wish?” He bent his head closer to hers, and she risked turning her own to look into his eyes, darker than usual in the shade of the trees, only a few inches from her own.
It was her undoing.
“No,” she said, not knowing exactly what she meant but quite certain that she did not want to chatter politely with him about inconsequential matters when this was their last time alone together.
Ever.
“No,” she said again, more firmly, and she smiled fleetingly and turned her head to look ahead along the path once more. “But in what way are we to do it, then?”
“Let us simply enjoy the afternoon and each other’s company. Let us laugh a little,” he said. “But real enjoyment and real laughter. Let’s be friends. Shall we?”
It was foolish to feel tragic. This time next week, next year, she would look back and wonder why she had not taken full advantage of every moment instead of living with the emptiness of what the future would hold. How did she know the future would be empty? How did she know there would even be a future?
“What a good idea,” she said-and laughed.
“I think it quite brilliant.”
He laughed too, but though their laughter was about nothing at all-her comment and his retort could hardly be called witty-it felt very good. And suddenly she felt happy. She would not peer into the future.
“Have you noticed,” she asked him, “how we live much of our lives in the past and most of the rest of it in the future? Have you noticed how often the present moment slips by quite unnoticed?”
“Until it becomes the past?” he said. “ Then it gets our attention. Yes, you are perfectly right. How many present moments will there be before we arrive back at the house, do you suppose? How long is a present moment, anyway? One could argue, perhaps, that it is endless, eternal.”
“Or more fleeting than a fraction of a second,” she said.
“I believe,” he said, “we are dealing with the half-empty-glass attitude versus the half-full-glass attitude again. Are we by any chance talking philosophy? It is an alarming possibility. If we are not careful we will be trying to decide next how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
“None at all or an infinite number,” she said. “I have never been sure which. If there is a correct answer.”
“Well,” he said, chuckling, “shall we agree to live this particular endless moment strictly in the present tense? Or this myriad succession of present moments?”
“Yes, we will so agree,” she said, laughing with him again.
And as they strolled onward, Susanna lifted her face to the changing patterns of light and shade, warmth and coolness, and was aware of the sounds of birdsong and insect whirrings and the scurrying of unseen wildlife and the smells of earth and greenery and a masculine cologne. She felt every irregularity, every small stone on the path beneath her feet, the firm but relaxed muscles of his arm beneath her hand, warm through the sleeve of his coat.
She turned her head again to smile at him and found that he was smiling back-a lazy, genuine, happy smile.
“I see a seat up ahead,” he said. “It is my guess that it looks out on a pleasing prospect.”
“It does,” she said. “This path was very carefully constructed for the pleasure of the walker, as you observed yourself when we walked to the waterfall.”
They stood behind the seat for a while, looking through what appeared to be a natural opening between trees across wide lawns to the house and stables in the distance. An old oak tree in the middle of the lawn was perfectly framed in the view.
And she was here now looking at the view, Susanna thought, deliberately feeling the soft fabric of his coat sleeve without actually moving her hand.
“The path moves up into that hill,” she said, pointing ahead. “There are some lovely views from up there. The best, though, I think, is the one down onto the river and the little bridge.”
They stopped a number of times before they came there, gazing alternately out onto the cultivated beauty of the park and over the rural peace and plenty of the surrounding farmland.
“I wish you could see Sidley,” he said, squinting off into the distance when they were looking across a patchwork of fields, separated by low hedgerows. “You did say you had never been there, did you not? It always seems to me that there is nowhere to compare with it in beauty. I suppose I am partial. Undoubtedly I am partial, in fact. It smites me here.” He tapped his heart and then turned to her suddenly and smiled roguishly. “It smites this chest organ, this pump.”
“The heart, the center of our most tender sensibilities,” she conceded, “even if only because we feel they must be centered somewhere. It must indeed be wonderful to have a home of your very own. I can well imagine that you would come to see it more with the emotions than with the eye or the intellect.”
“I hope you will have a home of your own one day,” he said, tapping her hand as it rested on his arm.
They strolled onward, following the path down through the lower, wooded slopes of the hill until it climbed again into the open and they could see down to the river, narrower here than it was closer to the lake. And there was the little wooden footbridge that spanned it, so highly arched that the path across it formed actual steps up to the middle and down the other side. The water flowing beneath it was dark green from the reflections of trees growing thickly up the slopes from its banks.
“Ah, yes,” he said as they stopped walking, “you were quite right. This is the best view of all. Even better than the view from the waterfall. That is spectacular, but like most of the views here it encompasses both the wilderness and the outside world. This is nothing but wilderness.”
Susanna let go of his arm and turned all about. The hill rose behind them to meet the sky. On the other three sides there was nothing to see but trees. Below were more trees and undergrowth and ferns and the river and bridge.
“I had not really noticed that before,” she said. “But it is true. That must be why I love being just here so much. It offers total…”
“Escape?”
But she frowned and shook her head.
“Retreat,”she said. “It is a better word, I think.”
“Shall we sit down for a while?” he suggested. “There is no seat just here, but I don’t suppose the ground is damp. There has been no rain for several days, has there?”
He stooped down on his haunches and rubbed his hand hard across the grass. He held the hand up, palm out, to show her that it was dry.
She sat down, drawing her knees up before her and clasping her arms about them. He stretched out on his side beside her, lifting himself onto one elbow and propping his head on one hand while the other rubbed lightly over the grass.
The sun beamed down warm on their heads.
“Oh, listen,” she said after a few moments.
His hand fell still.
“The waterfall?”