"Fanny will never go, and I cannot leave her."
"Why? Mother dear, what do you mean?"
"I mean that your sister is going to be married."
Married! The mere word ought not to have cut him to the heart; yet, in the state that he was in then, it did. He rose uncertainly to his feet.
"You take my breath away, mother! I know of nothing. Whom is it to?"
"Can you ask?"
"I cannot guess."
"Then it is to your friend, Mr.—no, Jack—Jack Flint."
"God bless old Jack!"
That was what Dick said upon the instant. Then he stood silent. And then—Dick sank into a chair, and laid his face upon his hands.
"I can go out alone," he whispered. "And—and I wish them joy; from my heart I do! I will go and tell them so."
XXXIII
HOW DICK SAID GOOD-BYE
The month was October; the day Dick's last in England. Both the day and the month were far spent: in an hour or two it would be dark, in a week or so it would be November. This time to-morrow the R.M.S. Rome, with Dick on board, would be just clear of the Thames; this time next month she would be ploughing through the Indian Ocean, with nothing but Australia to stop her.
"Last days," as a rule, are made bearable by that blessed atmosphere of excitement which accompanies them, and is deleterious to open sentiment. That excitement, however, is less due to the mere fact of impending departure than to the providential provision of things to be done and seen to at the last moment. An uncomfortable "rush" is the best of pain-killers when it comes to long farewells. The work, moreover, should be for all hands, and last to the very end; then there is no time for lamentation—no time until the boxes are out of the hall and the cab has turned the corner, and the empty, untidy room has to be set to rights. Then, if you like, is the time for tears.
Now Dick had made a great mistake. He had booked his passage too far in advance. For six weeks he had nothing to think of but his voyage; nothing to do but get ready. Everything was prearranged; nothing, in this exceptional case, was left to the last, the very luggage being sent to the boat before the day of sailing. If Dick had deliberately set himself to deepen the gloom that shadowed his departure, he could not have contrived things better. Maurice, for instance, with great difficulty obtained a holiday from the bank because it was Dick's last day. He might just as well have stopped in the City. There was nothing for him to do. The day wore on in dismal idleness.
About three in the afternoon Dick left the house. He was seen by the others from the front windows. The sight of him going out without a look or a word on his last day cut them to the heart, though Dick had been everything that was kind, and thoughtful, and affectionate since that evening after his return from Yorkshire. Besides, the little family was going to be broken up completely before long: Fanny was to be married in the spring. No wonder they were sad.
Dick turned to the right, walked towards the river, turned to the right again, and so along the London road towards the village.
"It is the right thing," he kept assuring himself, and with such frequency that one might have supposed it was the wrong thing; "it is the right thing, after all, to go and say good-bye. I should have done it before, and got it over. I was a fool to think of shirking it altogether; that would have been behaving like a boor. Well, I'll just go in naturally, say good-bye all round, stop a few minutes, and then hurry back home. A month ago I couldn't have trusted myself, but now——"
It was a joyless smile that ended the unspoken sentence. The last month had certainly strengthened his self-control; it had also hardened and lined his face in a way that did not improve his good looks. Yes, he was pretty safe in trusting himself now.
At the corner opposite the low-lying old churchyard he hesitated. He had hesitated at that corner once before. He remembered the other occasion with peculiar vividness to-day. Why should he not repeat the performance he had gone through then? Why should he not take a boat and row up to Graysbrooke? An admirable idea! It harmonised so completely with his humour. It was the one thing wanting to complete the satire of his home-coming. That satire had been so thoroughly bitter that it would be a pity to deny it a finishing touch or two. Besides, it was so fitting in every way: the then and the now offered a contrast that it would be a shame not to make the most of. Then, thought Dick, his foolish hopes had been as fresh and young and bright as the June leaves. Look at his bare heart now! look at the naked trees! Hopes and leaves had gone the same way—was it the way of all hopes as well as of all leaves? His mind, as well as his eye, saw everything in autumnal tints. Nor did he shirk the view. There is a stage of melancholy that rather encourages the cruel contrasts of memory.
"I'll row up," said Dick, "and go through it all again. Let it do its worst, it won't touch me now—therefore nothing will ever touch me as long as I live. A good test!"
He did row up, wearing the same joyless smile.
He stood the test to perfection.
He did not forget to remember anything. He gave sentimentality a princely chance to play the mischief with him. It was a rough and gusty day, but mild for the time of year; a day of neither sunshine nor rain, but plenty of wind and clouds; one of those blustering fellows, heralds of Winter, that come and abuse Autumn for neglecting her business, and tear off the last of the leaves for her with unseemly violence and haste. The current was swift and strong, and many a crisp leaf of crimson and amber and gold sailed down its broad fretted surface, to be dashed over the weir and ripped into fragments in the churning froth below.
Dick rowed into the little inlet with the white bridge across it, landed, and nodded, in the spirit, to a hundred spots marked in his mind by the associations of last June; those of an older day were not thought of. Here was the place where Alice's boat had been when he had found her reading a magazine—and interrupted her reading—on the day after his return. There were the seven poplars, in whose shadows he had found Miles on the night of the ball, when the miscreant Pound came inquiring for him. There was the window through which he, Dick, had leapt after that final scene—final in its results—with Alice in the empty ballroom. A full minute's contemplation and elaborate, cold-blooded recollection failed to awake one pang—it may be that, to a certain quality of pain, Dick's sense had long been deadened. Then he walked meditatively to the front of the house, and rang the bell—a thing he was not sure that he had ever done before at this house.
Colonel Bristo was out, but Mrs. Parish was in. Dick would see Mrs. Parish; he would be as civil to his old enemy as to the rest of them; why not?
But Mrs. Parish received him in a wondrous manner; remorse and apology—nothing less—were in the tones of her ricketty voice and the grasp of her skinny hand. The fact was, those weeks in Yorkshire had left their mark upon the old lady. They had left her older still, a little less worldly, a little more sensible, and humbler by the possession of a number of uncomfortable regrets. She had heard of Dick's probable return to Australia, long ago; but her information had been neither definite nor authentic. When he now told her that he was actually to sail the next day, the old woman was for the moment visibly affected. She felt that here there was a new and poignant regret in store for her—one that would probably haunt her for the rest of her days. At this rate life would soon become unbearable. It is a terrible thing to become suddenly soft-hearted in your old age!
"Colonel Bristo is out," said Mrs. Parish, with a vague feeling that made matters worse. "You will wait and see him, of course? I am sure he will not be long; and then, you know, you must say good-bye to Alice—she will be shocked when you tell her."
"Alice?" said Dick, unceremoniously, as became such a very old friend of the family. "I hope so—yes, of course. Where is she?"