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.