The Nasyngton grocer’s horse was old and unused to hurrying: it did not hurry now; and the striding figure of his master was soon lost to Turner’s solicitous eye round a bend.
But when he reached the house he was offended to find no one there. “Well!” Turner muttered. Whereupon the Nasyngton grocer thought fit to ask a question.
“Oh, go ’ome!’ said Turner sharply. Then he waited for a long time. And he got bored to death; for there was nothing for him to do about the house, he didn’t know whether they were to stay or go to London. “’Anging about!” he muttered. Turner, like his master, liked to know where he was; and now he wasn’t anywhere, unless being between Nasyngton and London and going without lunch was being somewhere.
He waited for hours; it was after two o’clock, and he was hungry; and, examining the kitchen, he found half a loaf of bread and one egg. “Scramble it!” he mimicked viciously. He boiled it.... And then Turner had a curious feeling: he felt that he didn’t belong to this Nasyngton house to-day, he belonged to Upper Brook Street, where he would have been this moment but for having said “Right about turn.” And so, having that curious feeling, Turner stood on the front door steps and smoked a cigarette. He stared at the Kennet. It was still, placid. “Nothing rising.” ...
And then he had to throw his cigarette away—for round the corner of the drive strode a dark figure. Right at him.... Turner was shocked. “Talk about sweat!” he said later to Mrs. Hope. His master’s face glistened with it, it dripped from him; if he had been wearing a hard collar it would have melted; his dark hair was all over the place, and there was a dry, red rim around his eyes as though he had been in a great wind. Turner pulled himself together and took a letter out of his pocket. It was addressed in pencil, and he had great hopes of that letter.
“Letter, sir,” he muttered. “Came just after you left this——”
The dark figure was gone into the house.
3
In the sitting-room Ivor looked at the letter. That pencilled scrawl, so careless always—so much more careless on this envelope, so faint! But how? He stared at it.... Dear God, she had written it in bed yesterday, just in case he might not come! Fearing.... Forgiving him, humbling herself. And then, for the first time, he gave a sob. He knew everything that was in that letter, every word. Her lips were by his ear, telling him the words of that letter. “I’m sorry to have been a beast, Ivor, I’m so sorry. Everything is all right, Ivor, everything. I’m so sorry I hurt you ... only, you see, you aren’t casual enough.... Keep your eyebrows straight for me, my darling, don’t bring them down into the darkness. Be a little more casual, Ivor....” Oh! he not casual enough!... And it was impossible for him to open that thin envelope crushed in his hand.
Turner tiptoed to the door of the sitting-room. He had heard that sob, and was amazed and afraid. And then Turner saw a strange thing. He saw a one-armed man without resource in his mind trying to tear across an unopened envelope. The one-armed man had his knee up to and pressed against the edge of the table, and under the knee was half the envelope, and his fingers were childishly tearing at the other half; and at last the other half came away in his fingers.... Then eyes looked at Turner at the door; and Turner ran away.