The ostler from the Admiral’s Head, who had come to meet some expected visitor who never arrived, leaned forward with drowsy interest from his seat on his cab and surveyed the scene with grim detachment, promising himself that on the following night at his familiar bar table, he would be the center of public interest as he satisfied legitimate local curiosity with regard to this unwonted occurrence.
Nance could not help smiling as she saw the excellent Fingal, his long overcoat flapping about his legs, bending forward between the buffers of the engine and peering into its metallic belly. She noticed that he was tapping with his knuckles on the polished breast-plate of the monster and uttering a clucking noise with his tongue, as if calling for a recalcitrant chicken.
It was not long before Mr. Traherne, growing desperate as the oblivious porter approached the last of the station lamps, fell flat on his face and proceeded to shove himself clean under the engine. The vision of his long retreating form, wrapped in his cassock, thus worming himself slowly out of sight, drew from Nance a burst of laughter, and as for Linda, she clapped her hands together like a child.
He soon reappeared, to the relief of all of them, with his recaptured pet in his hand, and scrambled back upon the platform, just as the last of the lamps went out, leaving the place in utter darkness.
Nance, her laughter gone then, had a queer sensation as they moved away, that the ludicrous scene she had just witnessed was part of some fantastic unreal dream, and that she herself, with the whole tragedy of her life, was just such a dream, the dream perhaps of some dark driverless cosmic engine—of some remote Great Eastern Railway of the Universe!
The morning of the fourth of November dawned far more auspiciously than any day which Rodmoor had known for many weeks. It was one of those patient, hushed, indescribable days—calm and tender and full of whispered intimations of hidden reassurance—which rarely reach us in any country but England or in any district but East Anglia. The great powers of sea and air and sky seemed to draw close to one another and close to humanity; as if with some large and gracious gesture of benediction they would fain lay to rest, under a solemn and elemental requiem, the body of the dead season’s life.
Nance escaped before noon from Miss Pontifex’s work-room. She and Linda had been invited by Dr. Raughty to lunch with him and Hamish at the pastry-cook’s in the High Street. It was to be a sort of modest celebration, this little feast, to do honour to the good news which Mr. Traherne had brought them the night before and which was corroborated by a letter to Nance herself from the head doctor, with regard to Adrian’s astonishing improvement.
Nance felt possessed by a deep and tumultuous excitement. Baptiste surely must be near England now! Any day—almost any hour—she might hear of his arrival. She strolled out across the Loon to meet Linda, who had gone that morning to practise on the organ for the following Sunday’s services.
As she crossed the marsh-land between the bridge and the church, she encountered Mrs. Renshaw returning from a visit to Baltazar’s grave. The mistress of Oakguard stopped for a little while to speak to her, and to express, in her own way, her sympathy over Adrian’s recovery. She did this, however, in a manner so characteristic of her that it depressed rather than encouraged the girl. Her attitude seemed to imply that it was better, wiser, more reverent, not to cherish any buoyant hopes, but to assume that the worst that could come to us from the hands of God was what ought to be expected and awaited in humble submissiveness.