The night before she was to meet Maurice, there was a heavy fall of rain reminding her of the night they first drove home together. She lay awake listening to the pervading sound of the water and thinking how happy she was. There was no little sister to cuddle now; but with the thought of Maurice on his way home to her kisses, her imagination was full of company. It was a morning of gold and silver when she was first conscious of the spent night. The room was steeped in rich illuminations. Sparrows twittered very noisily, and their shadows would sometimes slip across the dingy walls and ceiling. "To-day," thought Jenny, as, turning over in a radiancy of dreams and blushes and murmurous awakenings, she fell asleep for two more slow hours of a lover's absence. The later morning was passed in unpicking and re-shaping the lucky green hat which had lain hidden since the autumn. There was no time, however, to perfect its restoration; and Jenny had to be content with a new saxe-blue dress in which she looked very trim and eager under a black mushroom hat a-blow with rosebuds.
It was about two o'clock when she went down the steps of 43 Stacpole Terrace in weather fit for a lovers' meeting. Great swan-white clouds breasted the deepening azure of May skies. The streets were dazzlingly wet with the night's rain, and every puddle was as blue as a river. In front gardens tulips burned with their fiery jets of color and the lime tree buds were breaking into vivid green fans through every paling, while in the baskets of flower-women cowslips fresh from chalky pastures lay close as woven wool. Every blade of grass in the dingy squares of Camden Town was of emerald, and gardeners were strewing the paths with bright orange gravel. Children were running against the wind, pink balloons floating in their wake. Children solemnly holding paper windmills to catch the breeze were wheeled along in mail-carts and perambulators. Surely of all the lovers that went to keep a May-day tryst, none ever went more sweet and gay than Jenny.
She left the Tube at Charing Cross and, being early, walked along the Embankment to Westminster Bridge. As she crossed the river, she looked over the splash and glitter of the stream towards Grosvenor Road and up at Big Ben, thinking, with a sigh of content, how she and Maurice would be sitting in the studio by four o'clock. At Waterloo there was half an hour to wait for the train; but it was not worth while to buy a stupid paper when she could actually count the minutes that were ticking on with Maurice behind them. It was 3.25. Her heart began to beat as the enormous clock hand jerked its way to the time of reunion. Not because she wanted to know, but because she felt she must do something during that last five minutes, Jenny asked a porter whether this were the right platform for the 3.30 from Claybridge.
"Just signaled, miss," he said.
Would Maurice be looking out of the window? Would he be brown with three weeks of Spanish weather? Would he be waving, or would he be....
The train was curling into the station. How much happier it looked than the one which curled out of it three weeks ago. Almost before she was aware of its noise, it had pulled up, blackening the platforms with passengers that tumbled like chessmen from a box. Maurice was not immediately apparent, and Jenny in search of him worked her way against the stream of people to the farther end of the train. She felt an increasing chill upon her as the contrary movement grew weaker and the knots of people became more sparse; so that when beyond the farthest coach she stood desolate under the station roof and looked back upon the now almost empty line of platform, she was frozen by disappointment.
"Luggage, miss?" a porter asked.
Jenny shook her head and retraced her steps regretfully, watching the satisfied hansoms drive off one by one. It was impossible that Maurice could have failed her: she must have made a mistake over the time. She took the envelope from her bag and read the directions again. Could he have come on the 23rd after all? No, the post card was plain enough. The platform was absolutely empty now, and already the train was backing out of the station.
With an effort she turned from the prospect and walked slowly towards the exit. Then she had an idea. Maurice must have missed the 3.30 and was coming by the next. There was another in half an hour, she found out from a porter, but it came in to a platform on the opposite side of the station. So she walked across and sat down to wait, less happily than before, but, as the great hand climbed up towards the hour, with increasing hopefulness.
Again the platform was blackened by emerging crowds. This time she took up a position by the engine. A cold wave of unfamiliar faces swept past her. Maurice had not arrived. It was useless to wait any longer. Reluctantly she began to walk away, stopping sometimes to look back. Maurice had not arrived. With throbbing nerves and sick heart Jenny reached York Road and stood in a gray dream by the edge of the pavement. A taxi drew up alongside, and she got in, telling the man to drive to 422 Grosvenor Road.