john sat down to breakfast at about nine o’clock, or thereabouts, the following wednesday morning. it was the feast of our lady’s assumption; he had been to mass at delancey chapel.
a letter was lying in his place. he took it up, and opened it. here are its contents.
“dear john,—unexpected business has brought me over to london. it seems a thousand pities to go back to ireland without seeing you. could you get rooms for me at your sequestered spot for ten days or so? send me an early wire if possible, and i’ll come down by the train arriving tomorrow evening.
“your affectionate sister,
“elizabeth darcy.”
now, it is very certain that, from the time of our mother eve, women have played an important part [pg 217]in the affairs of mankind, either for good or ill. but it is equally certain that john had not the faintest conception of the part elizabeth would play in the life of at least one person by this her proposed visit.
“elizabeth suggests coming down for a few days,” said john tentatively, and helping himself to bacon.
“elizabeth?” echoed corin, gazing enquiringly at john.
“my sister, mrs. darcy. i forgot you didn’t know her.”
“by all means advocate her coming,” quoth corin. “i shall be delighted to make her acquaintance.”
“i wonder—” began john, and stopped.
“well?” queried corin.
“i wonder whether mrs. trimwell has another room. elizabeth suggests that i should take rooms for her. she wants an early reply.”
“then my suggestion,” remarked corin calmly, “is that you ask mrs. trimwell. on the whole it would be simpler and more practical than merely wondering.”
“brilliant man!” responded john genially. and he rang the bell.
[pg 218]
mrs. trimwell, it appeared, had not. she was profuse in her apologies for the lack of accommodation. you would have imagined that she was entirely to blame for the fact that the white cottage possessed merely three bedrooms and a cupboard, so to speak. tilda and benny—aged four—slept in the cupboard.
“but there’s the green man what isn’t seven minutes’ walk from here, and though i’ll not vouch for the cooking myself, a bit of bacon and a cup of coffee for breakfast is what any idiot might rise to, it being pleasanter for the lady not to be afoot too early, and the beds i believe is clean, while for other meals she’ll natural take them along of you.”
of course chance—so-called—had a hand in the arrangement. if elizabeth had both slept and breakfasted at the white cottage, i’ll vouch for it that matters would not have happened precisely as they did; indeed, they would probably have been totally different.
john finished his breakfast, and then took a telegram to the post-office.
he was genuinely, undeniably pleased that elizabeth was coming. he had a sensation of [pg 219]something like exultation in the thought. she was so extraordinarily reliable. never under any circumstances did elizabeth “let you down,” to use a slang phrase. there was never the smallest occasion to remind elizabeth that the intimate remarks you made to her were confidences. it was a foregone conclusion in her eyes. she would no more dream of repeating them than she would dream of tampering with another person’s letters. also, so reflected john, she never reminded you that you had made them, unless it was entirely obvious that you desired to be so reminded. she never glossed over any difficulty, but faced it squarely with you. the only people who were ever disappointed in elizabeth were those who looked for a maudlin sympathy from her, who desired her to fight their battles, when she was fully aware that they alone could fight them. yet elizabeth was entirely feminine, from the top of her glossy brown hair, to the tip of her dainty shoes. john, perhaps more than any one else in the world, understood and appreciated both her strength and her femininity. it was therefore with a feeling of intense satisfaction that he dispatched his telegram.
[pg 220]
“things move when elizabeth’s around,” reflected john.
and then he walked on to the green man.
john, on the platform of whortley station, surveyed the people there collected with idle interest.
it was market day in whortley. stout market women, clutching empty, or partially empty, baskets, sat on benches, their feet squarely planted on the ground. leather-gaitered men, whose clothes gave forth a powerful aroma of horses and cattle, strolled up and down, and talked in groups. children, hot and tired, and consequently slightly irritable, bickered with each other, or poked sticks at bewildered and exhausted hens in crates. somewhere in the back regions of the station a couple of refractory oxen were being driven into trucks. an atmosphere of almost aggressive patience pervaded the much-tried porters.
“’eat may be mighty good for the ’arvest,” remarked one motherly looking woman, wiping her face with a large white handkerchief, “but i do say as ’ow it’s a bit trying to the spirit, and likewise the body.”
[pg 221]
“it’s the tempers of most people it gets at,” replied her neighbour succinctly.
to which remark john responded with an inward and fervent acquiescence. there was no denying the heat; there was no denying the sultriness of the dusty platform.
john strolled down to its further end.
behind the town the sky was crimsoning to sunset. the roofs of the dingy houses were being painted red-gold in its light. the smoke from a factory hung like a veil in the still air, lending mystery to the atmosphere. the buildings lay in a web of colour,—blue, grey, purple, and gold. a cynic might have likened the sunset glory to the glamour with which some foolish people endow a merely sordid existence. in a measure, too, his simile might have been justifiable; but, whereas he would have scoffed, john, with something of the same simile in mind, thanked god for the gift of imagination.
and then, far to the right, he caught a glimpse of white smoke above a dark serpent of an oncoming train.
