Next day Anne arose to be at once aware of the heavy task before her. As
she set her house in order she would stop abstractedly and sit down to
think what was best to be done. Then she would work feverishly as if
_that_, at any rate, was a thing that could be accomplished.
It was a wet day, chilly and rueful. There were not even clouds in the
sky to vary the steady grey, and the heaven itself seemed to have
slipped from its height and to be close upon the earth. Trees, grass,
hedges were drenched, and remained motionless with leaves drooping under
an added weight. The ditches were noisy, but beyond the occasional
rattle of a cart there was no other sound than the rain, a sound so
unvaried that it presently became as a silence, and one imagined that
the world had ceased to have a voice. Anne opened the door many times
and looked out to see always the same grey sheet before her. The gutter
on the shippon splashing its overflow on the flags of the yard, the hens
crowding dejectedly within the open door of the henhouse, and the water
lying green between the cobble-stones of the path. Nothing could be done
in the garden. The sodden flowers would not be fit for to-morrow's
market. The pony had cast its shoe and must be shod before next day.
"This is more important than the pony," Anne said to herself, putting on
her market-cloak and drawing on with difficulty her elastic-sided boots.
She fastened her skirt high with an old silk cord and took her umbrella.
Remembering that she had not covered the fire, and that it would have
burnt away before she returned, she took a bucket out to the coal-house.
The wet dross hissed and smoked as she covered the fire. She drew out
the damper to heat the water, turned back the rag hearthrug lest a
cinder should fall on it in her absence, and once more taking her
umbrella, and lifting the key from its nail on the cupboard door, went
out into the rain. She locked the door on the outside, and hid the big
key on the ledge of the manger in the shippon. Then she was outside in
the steady rain, on the gritty turnpike road washed clean to the stones.
As she set off, it was a small relief to her that she would not be
noticed, unless when she passed the cottages, because there were few
workers in the fields, and none who could help it out of doors.
It was a walk of five miles which was before her, and soon the sinking
of heart with which she had set out, began to disappear before the
necessity of setting one foot before the other in a steady walk. The
irritating pain of rheumatism began, too, to vex her and distract her
thoughts. It was not a very familiar country to her after she had passed
the Ashley high road. There were fewer houses. The farms were larger,
and portions of an old forest remained here and there uncut. But there
was no variation in the gloom of the sky or the folding curtain of rain.
She grew tired and hot, and a little breathless, and as again the
dryness of her throat and tightness of her lips reminded her of the
humiliation of her unsought and unaided errand, she saw before her about
a quarter of a mile on the high road which led to Marwell, the new red
brick house with stucco ornaments, built by the horse-breeder, Burton.
She went towards it with lagging feet.
It was a prosperous and vulgar building, with a beautiful garden, for
his garden was Burton's pride. Even in the sodden wet the flowers, not
wholly beaten down, showed how well cared for and excellent their
quality. The sward was even and trim, and the fruit-trees on the side of
the house had yielded prizes to their owner. The path to the door was of
new red tiles, and two large red pots held standard rose trees on either
side of the stained-glass entrance. Anne rang the new bell which clanged
loudly and followed the servant (a girl from a distance), to the showy
drawing-room, chilly and unused in its atmosphere. It was the kind of
house which impressed the country people by its "improvements," and at
which Anne went to the side door to leave her butter. But she was so
absorbed in her duty to the girl that she gave no thought to this, which
at another time she would have considered to be "taking a liberty." She
alone of the girl's old friends seemed to have this burden laid upon
her, and as she entered the house she was overwhelmed with the blame of
its having happened, and the difficulty now of recovering innocence
lost.