Runaway

towards her, and playful. There were times when he did not need to ask why he was with her, when teasing her, being teased by her, made the time flow by with sparkling ease.
    The water
was
delicious, and marvellously cold.
    “People come to see Tessa,” she said, sitting down across from him. “You never know when there’ll be somebody here.”
    “Do they?” he said. The wild idea occurred to him that she might be perverse enough, independent enough, to be friends with a girl who was a semi-pro, a casual rural prostitute. To have remained friends, anyway, with a girl who had turned bad.
    She read his thoughts—she was sometimes smart.
    “Oh,
no
,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything like that. Oh, that is absolutely the worst idea I ever heard. Tessa is the last girl in the world— That’s disgusting. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. She is the last girl— Oh, you’ll see.” Her face had gone quite red.
    The door opened, and without any of the usual prolonged good-byes—or any audible good-byes at all—a man and woman, middle-aged, worn but not worn-out, like their car, came along the path, looked towards the swing and saw Nancy and Ollie but didn’t say anything. Oddly enough Nancy didn’t say anything either, didn’t call out any lively greeting. The couple went to opposite sides of the vehicle and got in and drove away.
    Then a figure moved out of the doorway’s shadow and Nancy did call out.
    “Hey. Tessa.”
    The woman was built like a sturdy child. A large head covered with dark curly hair, broad shoulders, stumpy legs. Her legs were bare and she was wearing an odd costume—a middy blouse and skirt. At least it was odd for a hot day, and considering the fact that she was no longer a schoolgirl. Very likely it was an outfit she had once worn at school, and being the saving type she was wearing it out around home. Such clothes never wear out, and in Ollie’s opinion they never flattered a girl’s figure either. She looked clumsy in it, no more and no less than most schoolgirls.
    Nancy brought him up and introduced him, and he said to Tessa—in the insinuating way that was usually acceptable to girls—that he had been hearing lots about her.
    “He has not,” said Nancy. “Don’t believe a word he says. I just brought him along out here because I didn’t know what to do with him, frankly.”
    Tessa’s eyes were heavy-lidded, and not very large, but their color was a surprising deep, soft blue. When she lifted them to look at Ollie they shone out at him without any particular friendliness or animosity, or even curiosity. They were just very deep and sure and they made it impossible for him to go on saying any silly polite things.
    “You better come in,” she said, and led the way. “I hope you don’t mind if I finish my churning. I was churning when my last company came and I did stop it, but if I don’t get at it again the butter might go bad on me.”
    “Churning on Sunday, what a naughty girl,” said Nancy. “See, Ollie. This is how you make butter. I bet you just thought it came out of a cow ready-made and wrapped up to go in the store. You go ahead,” she said to Tessa. “If you get tired you can let me try it for a while. I just came out to ask you to my wedding, actually.”
    “I heard something about that,” Tessa said.
    “I’d send you an invitation, but I don’t know if you’d pay any attention to it. I thought I’d better come out here and wring your neck till you said you’d come.”
    They had gone straight into the kitchen. The window blinds were down to the sills, a fan stirring the air high overhead. The room smelled of cooking, of saucers of fly poison, of coal oil, of dishcloths. All these smells might have been in the walls and floorboards for decades. But somebody—no doubt the heavy-breathing, almost grunting girl at the churn—had gone to the trouble of painting the cupboards and doors robin’s-egg blue.
    Newspapers were spread around the churn to save the floor, which was worn into hollows on the regular traffic routes around the table and stove. Ollie would have been gallant enough with most farm girls to ask if he could have a go at the churning, but in this case he didn’t feel quite sure of himself. She didn’t seem a sullen girl, this Tessa, just old for her years, dishearteningly straightforward and self-contained. Even Nancy quieted down, after a while, in her presence.
    The butter came. Nancy jumped up to take a look at it,