CHAPTER XXXIII
HALLIDAY was both gloomy and angry when he left home, full of that sense of unappreciated merit which cuts with peculiar keenness into the minds of those who entertain no doubt as to their own superiority over the ordinary level; but the influence of external things and the distraction of travel soon succeeded in clearing to a great degree his mental firmament. The bustle of the great station at Edinburgh, the care of selecting a comfortable corner for his journey, the hurrying and rush of less fortunate persons hampered by luggage and children, amused his mind and distracted his thoughts. He travelled, as a matter of course, in the third-class; and, equally as a matter of course, he regarded with a dignified derision the stalwart young men in deer-stalking coats, and with every superfluity imaginable in the way of wraps and sticks and dressing-cases, who indulged themselves in the luxury of sleeping-carriages. Sybarites he called them in his mind, with a half-contemptuous, half-indulgent smile—frivolous creatures, altogether unaware that in a corner of a third-class carriage a man so much their superior in everything was calmly regarding them, making the inevitable comparison between folly and its comfortable cushions, and wisdom, which, if it did not trudge afoot, yet used only such conveniences as dignified necessity required. The deer-stalking young men, who never thought of the matter, would indeed have been highly surprised had they known how they were set down at their proper value by their travelling companion. The comparison did Andrew good: it made him feel his own dignity, his superiority to the external, yet made his breast swell with a pathetic wonder. Was it perhaps possible that Joyce, after three months’ experience of luxury, should prefer these brainless ones, so much lower in the intellectual scale? Surely, surely that could not be possible. He saw with a smile that they took copies of the Field and the Sporting News into their luxurious carriages with them. He himself had the Saturday Review. There is nothing so sustaining as this sense of being better than one’s neighbours. It comforted poor Andrew, and kept him warm during his journey. The gentlemen in the sleeping-carriages might rest better, but they did not, nay could not, feel half the moral elevation of the schoolmaster in his corner of the third-class.
London, too, veiled in a grey-and-yellow fog, through which the lamps, not yet extinguished, and a line of dusky sunrise among the clouds, looked red, brought an excitement to his mind which few perhaps of the companions of his journey shared. Andrew greeted the great city as people greet it in books,—as adventurers in the days of Dr. Johnson saluted that centre of the world. He thought with a tingle of strange emotion in his breast that the great roar of humanity might become familiar to his ears ere long. He rose to the sound and commotion with a sense of predestined greatness. The people in the sleeping-carriages tumbled out drowsily, rubbing their eyes in the midst of a dream. But Andrew stepped forth inspired by the recollection of many a great man who had arrived like himself, not knowing what might befall him. His hopes, his courage rose more and more as he felt where he was—in a great place where he was sure to be understood, and where the human mind was in a perpetual progress, not stagnant as in the country. He felt, indeed, not as he had done when he left home, as if his mission were a forlorn hope, but rather as if he were coming like a conqueror to see and to vanquish. It wanted only, he said to himself, that touch of reality to chase all the chimeras away. He would, he must, find Joyce faithful as ever, keeping silence only because her plans were not yet ripened for his advancement. He would find her father full of that respect which the man of action feels for the man of mind. He would be received as an honoured guest; he would be admitted into their confidence, and made acquainted with their hopes. Visions of a noble old house in some sort of cloistered dignified centre of learning rose again before his eyes—A. Halliday, Headmaster. He did not definitely fix upon Eton or Harrow, having no actual knowledge of either of those places; but something exhilarating, sweet, a strong yet soft delusion, stole into his being. He was so entirely inexperienced and full of the ignorance of his class (although a man so well instructed), that he was not aware of any restriction upon such appointments that could not be got over by sufficiently powerful influence. Influence could do everything, Halliday thought.
He got a bath and breakfast at the nearest hotel, undiscouraged even by its grim and chill nakedness, and feeling a wonderful freedom and elation in the consciousness of thus doing what the best people did, and being waited upon, served by a man-servant (if you liked to put it in that way) like the best. It cost a good deal, but it was worth the expenditure. The fog cleared off as the morning advanced, and it was in the sunshine of a bright hazy morning that he set off on the final stage of his journey. He had dressed himself with the utmost care and all the resources of his wardrobe. His tie was blue, his coat a frock-coat of extreme solemnity, which he usually wore at funerals. He thought, as he was a traveller, that it was the right thing to wear with this a round hat such as he wore in the country. He had a pair of lavender gloves, his umbrella was very neatly rolled up—in short, at half a mile off you recognised his unquestionable character and doubtful gentility with as much ease as if he had written Andrew Halliday, schoolmaster at Comely Green, upon his manly breast; but he had not the least idea of that. His clear and ruddy complexion was a little paled by the night’s journey, and by the mixture of agitation and excitement which he could not but feel as the moment of meeting approached. He looked a most respectable young man, very respectable, honest as the day. You would scarcely have suspected, however, to see him, how superior he felt to the people in the sleeping-carriages, and how, when they got the Field and the Sporting Times at the bookstalls, he had bought the Saturday Review.
He went by the railway from Waterloo, admiring the river which ran glistening grey, like a great worm, under the shining of the wintry sun—and got out with a great heartbeat at the station. How near he was now! He felt inclined to take a walk, to see the place and look at the view, pushing off the decision for a time, the certainty—for he had so little doubt by this time that it was a certainty—of the happy meeting. To see Joyce in perhaps a few minutes; to hear her cry of astonishment and delight; to have her come up to him in her shy way, never demonstrative, unless perhaps the long separation might have made her more so. ‘Oh, Andrew! and I was just going to write to tell you——’ He would not wait till she said ‘about the headmastership.’ He would take her in his arms, whoever was there (for had he not the right?), and say, ‘About yourself, my dearest—that’s what I want to hear about.’ He thought he would take a walk first to savourer a little this delightful scene, and think how she would look and what he would say. It was so near, so very near! He would keep it at arm’s-length a little in order to enjoy it the more.
It sobered him, however, to hear that Colonel Hayward’s house was some distance off, and to receive confused instructions which he could not follow. As a matter of fact, the instructions were not at all confused, they were only too rapid and clear. ‘First turning to the right, second turning to the left; then go straight on till you pass the church; then first turning, second turning.’ How could he keep all that in his mind? It was he that was confused, not the direction. If they had said, turn to the west and then a little to the north—— He stumbled along, forgetting whether it was the first, second, or third turning he ought to take, till he came to a church, which was not the church to which he had been directed; and from thence he stumbled on again by a great many roads clothed with pretty houses, which bewildered him. He stopped finally to ask his way of a brisk little lady, who cried, ‘Oh, Colonel Hayward’s!’ her eyes dancing with instant interest, and a look full of interrogations, as if she would have liked to ask him a hundred things. Andrew could scarcely restrain himself from asking, ‘Do you know Joyce?’ He felt at once that this eager little lady jumped at some conclusion about himself, and was eager to ask who he was—perhaps whether he was the lover of whom Joyce must have spoken to everybody with whom she was intimate. And Andrew’s instinct was indeed not far wrong: for Mrs. Sitwell immediately divined him to be somebody out of the mysterious past life of which none of the Haywards spoke, and wondered whether, perhaps, he was some one with whom Joyce had got ‘entangled’ in these dark ages. She stood and looked after him when she had given him his instructions, with curious eyes, noting his long frock-coat and his low hat. How dreadful! she said to herself, and could scarcely contain the curiosity that filled her. Should she make a hurried round through the district, and then approach the Haywards’ on the other side, so as to catch him there, and see with her own eyes the position of affairs? Mrs. Sitwell knew that Joyce would be just going in with her father from their morning walk, and would be caught by the visitor, and would be unable to escape.
Certainly she must know Joyce: she must divine who he was: Andrew said this to himself, and was further exhilarated and strengthened by the idea. Of course, Joyce must have told her friends. He went on with better success this time, inspired by the little active lady with those eager eyes, who must know—and at last got to the very door. His heart was beating now very quickly indeed. Joyce’s door—so different from the cottage where he used to find her. There she had always been shy, keeping behind old Janet, never willing to permit any demonstration. Would things be different now? Would she rush to him after his long separation, laying her head upon his shoulder? This image filled Andrew’s face with light and colour as he knocked at her father’s door.
‘Is Miss Hayward at home?’ The appearance of Baker gave him a distinct sensation of pleasure. Colonel Hayward’s butler or upper servant, a domestic of a high class. Andrew would have liked to see a footman or two behind, but pleased himself with the thought that this must be considered higher ton. ‘Is Miss Hayward at home?’
‘Miss Hayward? well, I can’t say. She’s been out walking with the Colonel, and whether they’ve come back or not, I can’t tell you. Mrs. Hayward is in,’ Baker said. He was not impressed by the appearance of the visitor. He thought it must be some man from a shop, or a person about a subscription, at the best.
‘It is not Mistress Hayward but Miss Hayward I want.’
‘Very well,’ said Baker— ‘I hear you. If you’ll wait a bit, I’ll go and see.’
And Andrew had to wait, sadly against his will, outside the door. ‘You’ll excuse me, but Missis’s charges are as the door is always to be shut,’ Baker said, with a restrained chuckle, instinctively delighted to do his duty in a way that was offensive to the newcomer, whom he saw to be of inferior condition, and likely to be an undesirable guest. Andrew’s sensations when he was left outside his love’s door were not pleasant. He ceased to think of the butler as a high-class domestic, and called him in his mind a pampered menial, but consoled himself with the thought of the downfall that would happen to Baker when he knew who it was whom he had shut out. It was, however, a disagreeable moment of suspense. He tried to distract his mind by an examination of the great flower-vases at the door, the shrubs in their winter green, the perfectly swept and close-cut turf, all the careful surroundings of the place, not imposing or vast, but so exquisitely kept,—more perfect even than Bellendean. To think that he should have time to investigate all this, while she sat within with a beating heart, divining—would she divine?—his approach. When the butler described him, she would know, and come rushing out. She would rush to him, and the pampered menial would see—— At this moment the door opened quickly, and Baker said, ‘Hi! Missis will be obliged if you’ll send in your name.’
This unceremonious address startled Andrew. He said, ‘My name?’ arrested in the middle of his thoughts.
‘I suppose you’ve got one,’ Baker said.
Though this was so far from the reception he expected, he was not unprepared. He took his card-case out of his pocket, partially restored to himself by the pleasure of using it, which was a thing that did not occur often, and gave the pampered menial a card. He stepped briskly inside as he did so, resolved to bear no more of this, and followed the man as he returned to the drawing-room with the card in his hand. Andrew’s heart beat very quickly now,—his tranquillity was considerably disturbed. The moment had come: another instant and Joyce would be in his arms, putting all pampered menials to scorn——
The door opened. There was a faint rustle of ladies’ dresses, a glow of softened light, the sound of his own name, ‘Mr. Andrew ‘Alliday,’ and then a cry. She did not rush into his arms. He came to himself after that interval of excitement, and saw Joyce standing, her hands clasped, her eyes with a look of horror in them, drawing back as if she would have fled, with her face turned towards the door. He put down his hat upon the nearest chair, and crying ‘Joyce!’ went forward with outstretched arms.