Lady Oxford glanced up at Aubrey as he entered.
“Mr Louvaine, I owe you your quarter’s wages,” she said; “at least, so little time remains that it need not tarry, and ’tis to my conveniency to reckon with you this afternoon.” This was said in a voice that the page could hear. Then, as Aubrey came up to her, with a significant look, she laid another ten pounds in his hand, with a few words for his private ear. “Let me hear of you in time to come as a good man. God go with you! Farewell.”
Ten minutes later, Aubrey closed the door of Oxford House for the last time, and went out, truly not knowing whither he went. His primary destination of course was Shoe Lane; but after that—whither?
Through back streets he made his way to Aldersgate, and passed through it out of the City; over Snow Hill and Holborn Bridge, and down Shoe Lane to the small house where Mr Marshall “had his lodging”—to use the phrase of the time—in other words, where he and Agnes made their home in three rooms, the kitchen being open to all the lodgers to cook for themselves. Two of the rooms were moderately large; these formed the sitting-room, and the clergyman’s bedroom and study, the bedroom end being parted from the study end by a curtain between the two. The remaining room, a mere closet, was his daughter’s bedchamber. Pleasantest of the three was the sitting-room, the front half of which was the general and public portion, while the back was reserved as Agnes’s boudoir, where her little work-table and stool were set by a small window, looking out over the little garden towards Fetter Lane, bounded on the right hand by the wall of Saint Andrew’s Church. The door was opened by a rather slipshod girl, the landlady’s daughter.
“Pray you, is Mr Marshall at home?”
“He’s not, Sir; he’s gone for a country walk.”
“What time look you for him?”
“Well, about dark, I dare say. Mrs Agnes, she’s in.”
“Thank you; I will come again about dusk.” Aubrey walked up the lane, turned aimlessly to the left, and sauntered on towards Bloomsbury. It was no matter where he went—no matter to any one, himself least of all. Passing Saint Giles’s Church, he turned to the right, up a broad country road lined by flowery banks, wherein the first primroses of spring were just beginning to appear. There are primroses there yet—in flower-girls’ baskets: they bloom now no otherwise in Tottenham Court Road.
When he had gone some little distance, Aubrey grew tired. It was a warm day for the season; he sat down to rest on the flowery bank, and lost himself in unhappy thought.