The Woman Who Had Imagination by H.E. Bates Page A

hoofs on the rough, sun-baked road. Down in the valley the sun seemed hotter than ever. The brake passed a group of haymakers resting and sleeping in the noon-heat under the shade of a great elm tree. They waved and called with sleepy greetings. A woman sitting among them suckling a baby looked up with sun-tired eyes. Further on a group of naked boys bathing in a sloe-fringed pond jumped up and down in the sun-silvered water and about the grass pond-bank, waving their wet arms and flagging their towels. In the brake there was a thin ripple of giggling, the women suddenly ducking their heads together and whispering with suppressed excitement. The blond man and the frizzy-haired dark manargued and taunted each other with unending but friendly vehemence. And under the intense sunshine and the dazzling fierce July light the slowness of the brake was intolerable. Up the hills it crawled as though the horses were sick. Down hill the brakes hissed and checked the wheels into the deathly pace of a funeral. Henry sat drugged by the heat and the wearisome pace of progress. Faintly, through the sun-heavy air, came the strokes of one o’clock from a church tower. Already it was as if the brake had travelled all day. And now, with the strokes of the clock dying away and leaving the air limitlessly silent beyond the little noises of the brake it seemed suddenly as if the journey might last for ever.
    Twenty minutes later the brake went down hill through an avenue of elms towards a square church tower rising like a small sturdy grey fortress out of a village that seemed asleep except for a batch of black hens dust-bathing in the hot road. The sudden coming of the brake sent the fowls squawking and cluttering away in panic-feathered half-flight.
    â€˜Ah! Your old horses are too slow for a funeral. Might have had a Sunday dinner for nothing if you’d been sharper. What d’ye feed ’em on? Too slow to run over an old hen. Gee there! Tickle ’em up a bit.’ And mingled with these shouts the repeated cry:
    â€˜And don’t forget to stop at the churchyard.’
    The frizzy-haired man began to stand up and wave his arms. He became ironically tender towards theblond man. ‘I feel sorry for you. It’s like taking money from a kid. Pity your mother ever let you come out.’ The blond man kept shaking his head with silent wisdom. The brake crawled slowly by the churchyard wall. ‘A bit farther,’ cried the dark man with excitement. ‘T’other side o’ that yew-tree. Gee up a bit.’ The passengers were craning their necks, laughing, standing up, bantering remarks. With mock sadness the frizzy-haired man patted the blond man on the back, shaking his head. ‘Feel sorry for you,’ he said in a wickedly dismal voice. The blond man airily waved his hand with a gesture of pity. ‘Not half so sorry as you’ll feel for yourself in a minute,’ he said.
    The frizzy-haired man did not listen. He was beginning to survey the tombstones with great excitement, craning his neck. Suddenly the blond man seized him and held him aloft like a child.
    â€˜Now can you see, ducky?’ he cried.
    â€˜A bit farther! Farther! Steady now. Whoa there! Whoa!’
    The brake stopped. The small man wriggled down from the blond man’s arms. There arose a pandemonium of laughter and shouts in the brake. The driver stood up and chinked the money in his hand. The small man spoke with twinkling irony.
    â€˜Oh! No, it ain’t there, is it? It ain’t there? It’s melted. Well, well, I must be boss-eyed. The sun’s so hot it’s melted. Would you believe it? Fancy that. Just fancy that. It ain’t there.’
    The blond man was staring with dumb gloom at a gravestone.
    â€˜What are you looking at?’ began the small man mercilessly. ‘What? — If it ain’t a tombstone I’ll never. Well, well!’
    â€˜I’ll be damned,’ the blond man was