The willow wren had been silent a long while, and was looking for worms, when at last for Mr. Dunnock also the mood of ecstasy passed; he looked about him startled and bewildered, and then, reassured by finding he was alone, he shook his head sadly, and the first glance of fear was replaced by a bitter smile as he hurried back to the vicarage at top speed.
“Lay my meals on a tray in future,” he said to Maggie a few minutes later. “And put the tray on the table in the passage outside my study. I shall hear if you tap on the door.” Words which were repeated to Anne when she came down to lunch. She was content to be alone, but at dinner she was disturbed at this alteration in her father’s habits, wondering whether he were unwell, or whether by any chance Maggie were right in believing that he wished the change to be permanent. But this seemed to her so unlikely a possibility that she did not dwell on it, and, when the meal was over, she lit the lamp and settled down with her drawing-board in front of her; she had at last begun the fashion plates which she had been projecting all the winter. The fine weather had returned after Richard Sotheby’s departure, and for the first day of warm sunshine Anne had found happiness enough in being out of doors, a happiness shot through with irritation against herself.
“I am wasting my life looking at this pear blossom. What does it matter to me whether the fruit set or not? I shall be gone before the gathering.” But her habitual interest had been too strong for her, and she had watched the bees flying in and out among the masses of curdy petals with delight.
“I am lingering on. I shall linger all my life. I must go now; I must leave home to-day.”
But it was impossible to leave on the day before Easter, and instead of packing her box, she had gone to the church to pin up the notice saying: “There will be no service on Saturday, when the church will be open for decoration.”
When Saturday had come she had gone herself to help the little girls, and it was not until after Easter was over that the fashion plates had been begun. The results of her labours surpassed Anne’s expectations; such fashion plates as hers she felt sure would excite the Parisian dressmakers.
“I must send them to Richard at once,” she said as she took out the drawing-pins. But the thought of waiting for a letter, and the agony of uncertainty in which she saw herself, dismayed her. In her mood of exultation delay of any kind seemed impossible.
“But I will wait all the same,” she said, “until I have finished a dozen, and then I shall go to Paris myself to seek my fortune. I will write and tell Richard that I am coming.”
The letter was put off; she would not write until she knew the day and the hour of her arrival, and for several days she worked hard, shutting herself up in her room every morning when the bed had been made. When she laid down her brush it was to plan how she would have her hair cut off in London, and how she would buy herself a smart dress for the journey, for she believed that she would never impress a dressmaker in such rags as she possessed. With her mind full of such matters, Anne rose and looked out of her window; the first blush of pink petals was showing through the early green of the apple trees; in another week they would be in full blossom. Under the trees Mr. Dunnock was standing with his arms raised above his head, gazing up at the sky, a pose which Anne found sufficiently startling to make her look again, carefully screening her eyes from the sunlight. Her father stood motionless; every little while she could see a small bird fly up and settle on his shoulder.
“I have scarcely spoken to father for three days; I must speak to him now and tell him of my plans,” and as she made this resolution, she saw him moving slowly across the lawn. As he came nearer she saw that a crowd of little birds was following him, a wild twittering came from them, they were mobbing him as though he were a cat or an owl; at every moment birds would settle on his head or shoulders, or on his up-raised hands, and then would fly off again.