I heard no more. He went on speaking, but I heard no more. The series of surprises had done their work, and I could attend to nothing further. I believe he continued to express regret and offer advice, but what he said fell on my ear with the indifferent trickling of water when one is not thirsty. At first anger, keen resentment, and disappointment surged within me, for why, I asked myself, did she not say good-bye? I walked up and down on the hot stubble, my hands deep in my pockets and myself deep in conflicting emotions, while Menzies-Legh supposing I was listening regretted and advised, asking myself why she did not say good-bye. Then, gradually, I could not but see that here was tact, here was delicacy, the right feeling of the truly feminine woman, and began to admire her all the more because she had not said it. By degrees composure stole upon me. Reason returned to my assistance. I could think, arrange, decide. And before Edelgard came back with the two children, mere heated débris of that which had lately been so complete, what I had decided with the clear-headed rapidity of the practical and sensible man was to give up the Elsa, lose my money, and go home. Home after all is the best place when life begins to wobble; and home in this case was very near the Eckthum property—I only had to borrow a vehicle, or even in extremity take a droschke, and there I was. There too the delightful lady must sooner or later be, and I would at least see her from time to time, whereas in England among her English relations she was entirely and hopelessly cut off.
Thus it was, my friends, that I did not see Frau von Eckthum again. Thus it was our caravaning came to an untimely end.
You can figure to yourselves what kind of reflections a man inclined to philosophize would reflect as the reduced party hastily packed, in the heat and glare of the summer morning, that which they had unpacked a week previously amid howling winds and hail showers in the yard at Panthers. Nature then had frowned, but vainly, on our merriment. Nature now was smiling, equally vainly on our fragments. One brief week; and what had happened? Rather, I should say, what had not happened?
On the stubble I walked up and down lost in reflection, while Edelgard, helped (officiously I thought, but I did not care enough to mind) by Menzies-Legh, stuffed our belongings into bags. She had asked no questions. If she had I would not have answered them, being little in the mood as you can imagine to put up with wives. I just told her, on her return from seeing Jellaby off, of my decision to cross by that night’s boat, and bade her get our things together. She said nothing, but at once began to pack. She did not even inquire why we were not going to look at London first, as we had originally planned. London? Who cared for London? My mood was not one in which a man bothers about London. With reference to that city it can best be described by the single monosyllable Tcha.
I will not linger over the packing, or relate how when it was finished Edelgard indulged in a prolonged farewell (with embraces, if you please) of the two uninteresting fledglings, in a fervent shaking of both Menzies-Legh’s hands combined with an invitation—I heard it—to stay with us in Storchwerder, and the pressing upon old James in a remote corner of something that looked suspiciously like a portion of her dress-allowance; or how she then set out by my side for the station steeped in that which we call Abschiedsstimmung, old James preceding us with our luggage while the others took care for the last time of the camp; or with what abandonment of apparent affectionate regret she hung herself out of the train window as we presently passed along the bottom of the field and waved her handkerchief. Such rankness of sentiment could only make me shrug my shoulders, filled as I was by my own absorbing thoughts.
I did glance up, though, and there on the stubble, surrounded by every sort of litter, stood the three familiar brown vehicles blistering in the sun, with Menzies-Legh and the fledglings knee-deep in straw and saucepans and bags and other forlorn discomforts, watching us depart.
Strange how alien the whole thing seemed, how little connection it seemed to have with me now that the sparkling bubbles (if I may refer to Frau von Eckthum as bubbles) had disappeared and only the dregs were left. I could not help feeling glad, as I raised my hat in courteous acknowledgment of the frantic wavings of the fledglings, that I was finally out of all the mess.
Menzies-Legh gravely returned my salute; our train rounded a curve; and camp and caravaners disappeared at once and forever into the unrecallable past.
CHAPTER XXI
THUS our caravaning came to an end.