"Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend,
Seeking a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end,
That self might be annulled—her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to Love!"
—Wordsworth.
The six-forty-six express from London swept majestically into the station at Wayhurst.
It was one of the events of the day in the sleepy place—the arrival of the 6.46; the evening papers came down on that train. Many residents were on the platform—the retired Army men to fetch their Pall Mall Gazette, others to meet friends. There was nobody to meet Virginia Mynors, but evidently she did not expect it. She stood among the throng, in her simplest linen suit, and searched with her eyes for the outside porter. It was some time before she could secure his services—he was busy with more important clients—and when at last he had shouldered her trunk and hat-box, it was with the remark that he couldn't "promise to be out at the villas, not much afore nine o'clock, at any rate."
Virginia intimated that nine o'clock would suit, and turned, travelling-bag and umbrella-case in hand, to brave her hot walk. It was a sultry evening. The country town was bathed in dust; the roads, though it was almost seven o'clock, seemed shadeless. After a while the girl stopped to withdraw her sunshade from the case, and proceeded on her way, holding it up with one hand, the weight of her hand-luggage in the other.
She looked pale and dispirited. Somehow, the end of her glorious London visit had tailed off in dissatisfaction. The Rosenbergs had been kind—most kind—to the last. They had insisted upon keeping her one day longer, that Mr. Bent might take them to Hendon to see some flying. But longer than that she would not stay, for Pansy, her little lame sister, had written her a letter containing the following disquieting news:
Mama is in an awfull stayt. I think she has had bad news. She says we are rewend.
This last word Virginia interpreted "ruined," and as she plodded along the High Street, and up the Balchurch Road, past Sycamore Terrace and its handsome houses, to the region of tiny villas, these words were haunting her. She had supposed their ruin already accomplished. What could have happened afresh? What had mamma been doing? Incurring debts which she could not pay? This she was constantly doing upon a small scale, in spite of the fact that her daughter rigorously supervised her cheque-book and controlled the household expenditure.
Virginia took it for granted that her mother would always spend more than she ought, and was quite used to depriving herself of necessaries in order to provide mamma with such small luxuries as expensive soap, note-paper, perfume, a library subscription, and so on. Graver expenditure than this she had not anticipated; but she was blaming herself for having yielded to the imploring desire of Mims that she should go to London, and her mother's eager advocacy of the plan. She ought not to have left mamma to the management of anything; she knew it. She was prepared to find the weekly expenses doubled, but she had still a couple of sovereigns in her purse with which she hoped to meet this deficiency.
As she moved along in the heat, laden and depressed, her face assumed an aspect of anxiety which altered it surprisingly. Seen thus, it was obvious that she was not merely slender, but sadly thin: hollows were discernible in the cheeks, shadows lurked around the smiling mouth when it was grave.
At last Laburnum Villa was reached.