They left the tree and went back to the Marshalls, and then down the
hill to Mrs Caffyn and Clara. Clara was much better for her rest,
and early in the evening the whole party returned to Letherhead,
Clara and Mrs Caffyn going on to Great Oakhurst. Madge kept close to
her sister till they separated, and the two men walked together. On
Whitmonday morning the Letherhead people came over to Great Oakhurst.
They had to go back to London in the afternoon, but Mrs Caffyn and
Clara were to stay till Tuesday, as they stood a better chance of
securing places by the coach on that day. Mrs Caffyn had as much to
show them as if the village had been the Tower of London. The wonder
of wonders, however, was a big house, where she was well known, and
its hot-houses. Madge wanted to speak to Clara, but it was difficult
to find a private opportunity. When they were in the garden,
however, she managed to take Clara unobserved down one of the twisted
paths, under pretence of admiring an ancient mulberry tree.
'Clara,' she said, 'I want a word with you. Baruch Cohen loves me.'
'Do you love him?' 'Yes.'
'Without a shadow of a doubt?'
'Without a shadow of a doubt.'
Clara put her arm round her sister, kissed her tenderly and said, 'Then I am perfectly happy.'
'Did you suspect it?'
'I knew it.'
Mrs Caffyn called them; it was time to be moving, and soon afterwards
those who had to go to London that afternoon left for Letherhead.
Clara stood at the gate for a long time watching them along the
straight, white road. They came to the top of the hill; she could
just discern them against the sky; they passed over the ridge and she
went indoors. In the evening a friend called to see Mrs Caffyn, and
Clara went to the stone bridge which she had visited on Saturday.
The water on the upper side of the bridge was dammed up and fell over
the little sluice gates under the arches into a clear and deep basin
about forty or fifty feet in diameter. The river, for some reason of
its own, had bitten into the western bank, and had scooped out a
great piece of it into an island. The main current went round the
island with a shallow, swift ripple, instead of going through the
pool, as it might have done, for there was a clear channel for it.
The centre and the region under the island were deep and still, but
at the farther end, where the river in passing called to the pool, it
broke into waves as it answered the appeal, and added its own
contribution to the stream, which went away down to the mill and
onwards to the big Thames. On the island were aspens and alders.
The floods had loosened the roots of the largest tree, and it hung
over heavily in the direction in which it had yielded to the rush of
the torrent, but it still held its grip, and the sap had not forsaken
a single branch. Every one was as dense with foliage as if there had
been no struggle for life, and the leaves sang their sweet song, just
perceptible for a moment every now and then in the variations of the
louder music below them. It is curious that the sound of a weir is
never uniform, but is perpetually changing in the ear even of a
person who stands close by it. One of the arches of the bridge was
dry, and Clara went down into it, stood at the edge and watched that
wonderful sight--the plunge of a smooth, pure stream into the great
cup which it has hollowed out for itself. Down it went, with a
dancing, foamy fringe playing round it just where it met the surface;
a dozen yards away it rose again, bubbling and exultant.