There was no sign of a break in the weather. The sun that had dropped behind the orchard in a hot turbulence of colour last night, rose from the lake, as from a brazen pool, like a warrior refreshed. The fruit was drying; the sand was like hot metal under the feet; even the fowls clustered together in the shade with parted beaks.
Derek saw with satisfaction that the pickers were hard at work. As he waited for his breakfast, he calculated on the back of an envelope what the proceeds of yesterday's shipment would be. He thought he was not doing badly. Snailem had told him that Chard had not shipped as much. He was determined that Mrs. Machin should hear good accounts of the fruit. She had the idea, he knew, that things would go to smash without her. He had refused hot food, and Phœbe brought him a bowl of strawberries and thick cream. Cream flowed freely those days at Grimstone; Vale wondered sometimes where the next churning of butter was to come from. Phœbe creaked in and out waiting on him. She wore red knitted slippers and white cotton stockings that wrinkled about her thick ankles. Her cheeks vied with the strawberries and cream in freshness and colour.
As Derek divided the strawberries with his spoon, disclosing the sweet pink hearts of them which rapidly were smothered in cream, he heard Fawnie's voice, singing to her child. "It must be hot upstairs," he thought, "under the
152
