No: my Monnerie days were over; even though it had taken a full pound of their servile honey to secrete this ounce of rebellious wax.
How oddly chance events knit themselves together. That very morning I had received a belated and re-addressed letter which smote like sunbeams on my hopes and plans. It was from Mrs Bowater:—
"Dear Miss M.,—I send this line to say that I am still in the land of the living. I have buried my poor husband but have hopes some day of bringing him home. England is England when all's said and done, and I can't say I much approve of foreign parts. It's a fine town and not what you might call foreign to look at the buildings, but moist and flat and the streets like a draughtboard. And the thought of the cattle upsets me. Everything topsy-turvy too with Spring coming along and breaking out and we here on the brink of September. It has been an afflicting time though considering all things he made a peaceful end, with a smile on his face as you would hardly consider possible.
"The next fortnight will see me on board the steamer again, which I can scarcely support the thought of, though, please God, I shall see it through. I have spent many days alone here and the strangeness of it all and the foreign faces bring up memories which are happier forgotten. But I'm often thinking what fine things you must be doing in that fine place. Not as I think riches will buy everything in this world—and a mercy too—or that I'm not anxious at times you don't come to harm with that delicate frame and all. Wrap up warm, miss, be watchful of your victuals and keep early hours. Such being so, I'm still hoping when I come home, if I'm spared, you may be of a mind to come to Beechwood Hill again and maybe settle down.
"I may say that I had my suspicions for some time that that young Mr Anon was consumptive in the lungs. But from what I gathered he isn't, only suffering from a stomach cough—bad cooking and exposing himself in all weathers. I will say nothing nearer. I shall be easier off as money goes, but you and me needn't think of that. Fanny doesn't write much and which I didn't much expect. She is of an age now which must reap as it has sown, though even allowing for the accident of birth, as they say, a mother's a mother till the end of the chapter. I must now close. May the Lord bless you, miss, wherever you may be.
Yours truly,
"E. Bowater (Mrs)."
Surely this letter was a good omen. It cheered me, and yet it was disquieting, too. That afternoon I spent in the garden, wandering irresolutely up and down under the blue sky, and fretting at the impenetrable wall of time that separated me from the longed-for hour of freedom. On a sunny stone near a foresty bed of asparagus I sat down at last, tired, and a little dispirited. I was angry with myself for the last night's failure, and for a kind of weakness that had come over me. Yet how different a creature was here to-day from that of only a week ago. From the darkened soil the stalks sprang up, stiffened and green with rain. A snail reared up her horns beneath my stone. An azure butterfly alighted on my knee, slowly fanning its turquoise wings, patterned with a delicate narrow black band on the one side, and spots of black and orange like a Paisley shawl beneath. Between silver-knobbed antennæ its furry perplexed face and shining eyes looked out at me, sharing my warmth. I watched it idly. How long we had been strangers. And surely the closer one looked at anything that was not of man's making.... My thoughts drifted away. I began day-dreaming again.
And it seemed that life was a thing that had neither any plan nor any purpose; that I was sunk, as if in a bog, in ignorance of why or where or who I truly was. The days melted on, to be lost or remembered, the Spring into Summer, and then Winter and death. What was the meaning of it all—this enormous ocean of time and space in which I was lost? Never else than a stranger. That couldn't be true of the men and women who really keep the world's "pot boiling." All I could pray for was to sit like this for a while, undisturbed and at peace with my own heart. Peace—did I so much as know the meaning of the word? How dingy a patchwork I had made of everything. And how customary were becoming these little passing fits of repining and remorse. The one sole thing that comforted me—apart from my blue butterfly—was an echo in my head of those clapping hands, whoops and catcalls—and the white staring faces in the glare. And a few months ago this would have seemed an incredible degradation.
There stole into memory that last evening at Wanderslore. What would he think of me now? I had done worse than forget him, had learned in one single instant that for ever and ever, however dearly I liked and valued him and delighted in his company, I could not be "in love" with him. I hid my face in my hands. Yet a curious quiet wish for his company sprang up in me. How stiff-necked and affected I had been. Love was nothing but cheating. Let me but confess, explain, ask forgiveness, unburden myself. Those hollow temples, that jutting jaw, the way he stooped on his hands and coughed. My great-aunt, Kitilda, had died in her youth of consumption. A sudden dread, like a skeleton out of the sky, stood up in my mind. There was no time to delay. To-morrow night, Adam or no Adam, I would set off to find him: all would be well.
As if in response to my thought, a shadow stole over the stones beside me. I looked up and—aghast—saw Fanny.