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The weeks after that passed by uneventfully, with the exception (and perhaps for the precise reason) of Tamara and Andrew taking an impromptu holiday to the Antilles. They had, it seemed, found a common language at last.
Aqueous operations at Jake and Harriet’s farm home were still running from the mains, much to Jake’s fury and per Harriet’s resigned expectations. She worked her way through her husband’s tempestuous moods with great dedication and fervour, though they kept the volume away from prying ears, which would be sure to dutifully pass any dropped eaves to Tamara upon her return.
Overall, the village was quite peaceful even for Jake, who found that his mother’s enemy’s cronies dropped most of their suspicious behaviour when the shepherd was away. Some chilliness persisted, but it rather mirrored his own and gave him some amusement when he was in his best of post-coital moods.
The valley he lived in gave him no end of inspiration and pleasure. The glistening sea of green laid freshly cut before the lovers on a glorious morning, the silver ghost of overnight rainfall still in the sky and providing a melancholy backdrop for Jake’s vivid imagination. He felt the sun’s rays strike each individual blade of grass as it forced its way through the rainclouds to reach the couple’s shimmering patch of earth in these English hills.
“I could almost live like this,” he said quietly to himself, startling Harriet somewhat. She said nothing, knowing he had not intended to share his innermost despair so candidly.
She, too, greatly appreciated the heavenly sight before her eyes, but her contemplation was one of simple peace. She saw the high-definition outline of the fluffy trees in bright, tennis-ball green over a dark silver sheet of cloud which only made her wish she had acrylics with her.
Where Jake had spotted an odd, man-shaped shadow standing unnaturally in the nearby stream, Harriet admired the uprooted young oak which had thrust its thickest branch upright through the water in defiance of its untimely fall.
Where Jake observed a panicked vole seeking to escape the gliding buzzards’ all-seeing eyes, Harriet saw an industrious fieldmouse digging around for a perfect home.
In his own way, the sullen man saw the natural beauty of the scene: the constant tug-of-war between good and evil. The glowing greenery never stood out more perfectly than with a chilling thundercloud lurking in the background.
In fact, Jake had to hold in some of the jaw-clenching that oftentimes came with Harriet’s naive expressions of awe. He always pretended to be amused by the girl’s tendency to voice her every sweeping emotion when faced with unutterable (or so it should be) natural beauty, but today it was somehow impossible for him to perform his usual relaxed chuckle and firm embrace. The view was too hostile to merit such wonderment, and he felt she either knew it and was trying to smooth it over, or she was painfully oblivious to the earth’s cruelty even as it so plainly showed itself to them.
If anything, he thought, she should be gasping in horror as the storm cloud approached and swarms of shadowy birds fled the hemisphere with the approach of winter. He gripped her hip harder than usual in a disguised attempt to contain his stress. Harriet turned to him and revealed the top of her breasts in their loose cotton covering by placing her hands on his chest, the fabric drooping away from her skin. She directed her sultriest gaze straight into his tense face, too overwhelmed to suspect what turbulence was rocking his mind.
“I would just love you to take me on top of that green, green hill,” she purred. “Our hill.”
Jake paused to glance at her exposed front, but the sexual urge that would normally have flooded his entire being felt cavernously distant.
“It’s going to rain. Can’t you see?” he spoke through gritted teeth and quickly added, “darling. By the time we made it up there we would be drenched.” And I would be blamed for your subsequent flu by the villagers, he added to himself. “Come in now, Harry. Let’s get warm.”
“But I’m not –” but he had already begun to walk back.
He must be annoyed about something, Harriet speculated, forlorn. Though he did call me Harry, so it can’t be me. Is Tamara coming home soon, I wonder? She adjusted her frock and trotted after her man.
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