Next morning John did not permit himself any musings; he got up with
the air of a man who has something to do for the first time for many
weeks. There was nobody to do anything for him in his poor lodging; no
Jervis to unpack his things and put them in order. He had opened his
portmanteau to take out what he wanted from it, but he had not unpacked
it. It stood open with all its straps undone, and everything laid
smooth by the careful hands at home, and John closed it once more and
left it in readiness to be removed again when he went out. It was quite
early in the October morning, which was bright, and sharp, and frosty,
with patches of white rime lying in the unsunned corners, and great
blobs of cold dew hanging from the branches of the suburban trees. “My
mother has had her frost,” John could not help saying to himself, as he
went out. And all the world was astir, looking as unlike that feverish,
noisy world which had smoked and cheered at the music-halls last night,
as could be supposed. When he saw the people moving about so briskly
in the sharp, clear air, he could not but ask himself, were they the
same? Was that the man who had thumped with hands and feet, and roared
open-mouthed, at the imbecility of the comic song? or was that he who
led the chorus of exclamations at the prayer-meeting? John was in so
strange a state of mind that the one was to him very much as the other,
both phantoms--one coarsely making believe to be amused, the other
coarsely pretending to pray. He went to the bank first, where all the
clerks had just settled down in the first freshness of morning work. He
went in at the swinging doors with the early public, and stood outside
the counter looking for some one to address himself to. In his first
glance round he saw that his place at the desk in the window from which
he had so often watched Kate was filled by another; which was a small
matter enough, and yet went through him with a sudden thrill, adding
firmness to the resolution which began to form in his mind. After a
moment Mr Whichelo rose from his desk, and came forward, holding out
his hand, to meet him. “How are you, Mr Mitford? I hope I see you quite
recovered: how is the arm?” said Mr Whichelo, with bustling cordiality;
and John had to pause to explain how it was that he was able to do
without his bandages, and no longer required to wear the injured arm in
a sling.
“Mr Crediton has not come in to-day. I don’t suppose we are likely to
see him to-day; but you must know better than we do, Mr Mitford, for I
suppose you have just come from Fernwood?”
“No, it is some time since I left Fernwood. I have been at home,” said
John.
“Dear me!” said the head clerk, raising his eyebrows. Mr Whichelo
thought there was no such place as Fernwood in the kingdom, and was
naturally astonished that any man could relinquish its delights. But
then he added, with condescending moral approval, “And quite right,
too, Mr Mitford; when there is anything the matter with you, there is
no place like home.”
Then there was a momentary pause; the public were coming and going, in
small numbers as yet, but still enough to keep the doors swinging and
the clerks at the counter employed. But Mr Whichelo and John stood in
the centre, between the two lines of desks, taking no notice of the
public. John would have known quite well what to say to Mr Crediton had
he found him there, but it was more difficult with his head clerk.
“Ah, I see,” said Mr Whichelo; “you always had a very quick eye, Mr
Mitford--you perceive the change we have made.”
“I perceive you have filled up my place,” said John.
“No, no--not filled up your place; I have put in a junior temporarily
to do the work. My dear Mr Mitford,” said the head clerk, with a smile,
“if you were only an ordinary _employé_ like one of the rest----”
“I should not be worth my salt,” said John, with an attempt at a laugh.
“Very far from that; you are only too good for us--too good for us,
that is all. It seems a shame, with your education, to see you making
entries that any lad could make. But of course, Mr Mitford, you occupy
a very different position. We are all aware of that.”
“A false position,” said John. “Don’t disturb the young fellow for
me. No, I have not come back to work. I want to see Mr Crediton if I
can. You don’t expect him to-day? nor to-morrow? Then I must see him
somewhere else----”
“At Fernwood,” said Mr Whichelo; “you can always see him at Fernwood.”
“Very well,” said John. He felt as if he had got his orders when these
words were said. Of course it was to Fernwood he must go to see if
any comfort was to be had there. Fanshawe threw no light upon what he
ought to do, neither did Camelford; and Fernwood was the only place
that remained. He shook hands with Mr Whichelo again, and went out with
a certain alacrity. The junior at his desk in the window no longer
troubled him. Yes; no doubt the boy would sit there, and see Kate
come and go, and take no thought. The beautiful Miss Crediton, with
all her gaieties and splendour, would be nothing to him: far better
that he should fill that corner and make his entries, than that John
should sit there consuming his heart. Fernwood was ten miles off, but
it was a bright day, and to walk there was the best thing he could
do. It gave him time to think, and it kept up a certain rhythm of
movement and action about him which prevented him from thinking--and
that on the whole was the best. The long road spun along like a thread,
lengthening and lengthening as he went on, moving as if off a wheel,
with half-stripped trees and falling leaves, and brown hedges, and
here and there the russet glory of a bramble-branch trailing over the
humid grass. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, he seemed to hear some one
singing as he went on and on; and the gleaming line of path spun out,
circling out of the horizon on one side, back into it on the other,
and there seemed no reason why it should ever come to any pause. His
brain was giddy, and spun, too, as the road did. He went on with a
buzzing in his ears, as if he too were on the wheel, and was winding,
winding, and revolving with it, now up, now down, going on and on. What
the end was, or if there was any end, he did not seem to know. It was
the measured chant, the circles woven by mystic feet, never ending,
still beginning. He had come to the very park of Fernwood before he
roused himself from this strange dreamy sense of movement. It was a
brilliant autumn, and already the beech-trees and the oaks were dressed
in a hundred colours. The gentlemen of the party would of course be
among the covers--and the ladies---- Here John paused, and began to ask
himself what his meaning was. Was it Kate he had come to see? was it
into her hands that once more, once again, like a fool, he was going to
put his fate?
He stopped, and leaned upon a great beech, which stood with a little
forest of juniper-bushes round it, withdrawn from the road. It was on
the outskirts of the park, just where two paths met--one starting off
into the wilder tangled ground beyond the open; the other leading up
towards the house on a parallel with the avenue which John had just
left. He was crossing through the brushwood to gain this footpath, when
he stopped there against the beech-tree to collect himself, feeling
giddy. It was a huge beech, with a trunk vast enough to have hidden
a company of people, and great russet branches sweeping down, and
the juniper in circles, like the stones of the Druids, making a sort
of jungle round it. Was it an evil or a good fate that brought him
there at that moment of all others? He had scarcely stopped, and the
sound of his foot crushing down the juniper could not have ceased in
the still air, when his eye caught a gleam of colour and some moving
figures passing close to him on the other side of the beech. He stood
like one bewildered when he saw that it was Kate. She was walking
along slowly at a very meditative pace, with her head drooping and her
eyes cast down, so far occupied with her thoughts that she neither
heard nor saw nor suspected the presence of any observing bystander.
And she was not alone. Walking by her side, with his eyes upon her,
was Fred Huntley. She was gazing on the ground, but he was gazing at
her. Her face was abstracted and full of thought; but his was eager,
flushed with wishes and hopes and expectation. They were not saying
anything to each other. John did not hear a word as they went slowly
past; but imagine how it must have felt to wake up out of a feverish
haze of doubt and inquietude and unreality, and suddenly open his eyes
on such a sight! He stood spell-bound, scarcely venturing to breathe,
and heard the rustle and sweep of her dress over the grass, and her
sometimes faltering, unsteady step, and Huntley’s foot, that rang firm
upon the path. Their very breathing seemed to come to him in the air,
and the faint violet scent, which was Kate’s favourite perfume, and the
movement and rustle of her going. They passed as if they had been a
dream, and John held his breath, and all his life concentrated itself
into his eyes. Her figure detached itself so against the still autumnal
landscape, her grey dress, the blue ribbons that fluttered softly
about her, the soft ruffled feathers, lightly puffed up against the
wind in her hat--and the man by her side, with his eyes so intent upon
her. It was an affair of a moment, and they were gone; and as soon as
they had passed out of hearing, and were about to disappear among the
trees, they began to talk. He heard their voices, but could not tell
what they said; but the voices were low, toned to the key of that still
landscape, and of something still more potential than the landscape;
and John turned from the scene, which was stamped on his memory as if
in lines of fire, and looked himself as it were in the face, feeling
that this at last was the truth which had burst upon him, scattering to
the wind all his dreams.
He turned without a word, and walked back to Camelford. There seemed
no more doubt or power of question in his mind. He did not even feel
as if any painful accident had happened to him; only that it was all
over--finished and past, and the seal put to the grave of his dreams.
He even walked back with more assured steps, with less sense of a
burden on his shoulders and a yoke about his neck. It had been very
sweet and very bitter, delightsome and miserable, while it lasted; but
now it was over. And it never occurred to him that the conclusion which
he thus accepted so summarily was as unreasonable as the beginning. No;
the time of dreaming was over, he thought, and now at last there stood
revealed to him the real and the true.