Like a naughty child I had been put in the corner and then sent to bed. Good. There could be no going back now. I could count on Fanny—the one thing she asked was to be free of me. As for Mrs Monnerie, her flushed and sullen countenance convinced me that my respite would be undisturbed. There was only impulsive Susan to think of. And as if in answer, there came a faint tap, and the door softly opened to admit her gentle head and shoulders.
"Ah, my dear," she whispered across at me. "I'm so sorry; and so helpless. Don't take it too hardly. I have been having my turn, too."
I twisted round, wet face and hands, as I stood stooping over my washbowl on its stool, scrutinized her speechlessly, and shook a dizzy head. The door shut. Dearest Susan: as I think of her I seem to see one of those tiny, tiny "building rotifers" collecting out of reality its exquisite house. Grace, courage, loving-kindness. If I had been the merest Miss Hop-o'-my-Thumb, I should still have been the coarsest little monster by comparison.
Scarce three safe hours remained to me; I must be off at once. To go looking for Adam was out of the question. Even if I could find him, I dared not risk him. Would it be possible for me to cover my six miles or more across undiscovered country in a hundred and eighty minutes? In my Bowater days, perhaps; but there had been months of idle, fatted, indoor No. 2 in between. A last forlorn dishonest project, banished already more than once from my mind, again thrust itself up—to creep off to the nearest Post Office and with one of my crown pieces for a telegram, cast myself on the generosity of Mr Anon. No, no: I couldn't cheat myself like that.
I was ready. I pinned to the carpet a message for Adam, in case he should dare to be faithful to me—just four scribbled uncompromising words: "The Bird is flown." With eyes fixed on a starry knot of wood at the threshold, I stood for a while, with head bent, listening at my door. I might have been pausing between two worlds. The house was quiet. No voice cried "Stay." I bowed solemnly to the gentle, silent room behind me, and, with a prayer between my teeth, bundle in hand, stepped out into the future.
Unchallenged, unobserved, I slipped along the blue-carpeted corridor, down the wide stairs and out of the porch. After dodging from tree to tree, from shrub to shrub, along the meandering drive, I turned off, and, skirting the lodge through a seeding forest of weeds and grasses, squeezed through the railings and was in the lane. From my map of Kent I had traced out a rough little sketch of the route I must follow. With the sun on my left hand I set off almost due north. How still the world was. In that silk-blue sky with its placid, mountainous clouds there was no heed of human doings.
The shoes I had chosen were good sound Bowaters, and as I trudged on my spirits rose high. I breathed in deep draughts of the sweet September air. Thomasina of Bedlam had been "summoned to tourney." "The wide world's end.... No journey!" In sober fact, it was a sorry little wretch of a young female, scarcely more than a girl, that went panting along in the dust and stones, scrambling into cover of ditch and hedge at every sound or sight of life. I look at her now, and smile. Poor thing; it needed at any rate a pinch of "courage."
Cottages came into sight. At an open door I heard the clatter of crockery, and a woman scolding a child. Two gates beyond, motionless as a block of wood, an old, old man stood leaning out of his garden of dahlias and tarnishing golden-rod. In an instant in the dumb dust I was under his nose. His clay pipe shattered on the stone. Like a wagtail I flitted and scampered all in a breath. That little danger was safely over; but it was not ruminating old gentlemen who caused me apprehension. Youthful Adam Waggetts were my dread.
At the foot of the slope there came a stile, and a footpath winding off NW. but still curving in my direction. I hesitated. Any risk seemed better than the hedged-in publicity of this dusty lane. Ducking under the stile, I climbed the hill and presently found myself clambering across an immense hummocky field, part stubble, part fresh plough. Then a meadow and cows. Then once more downhill, a drowsy farm-yard, with its stacks and calves and chickens, to the left, and at bottom of the slope a filthy quagmire where an immense sow wallowed, giving suck to her squalling piglets. Her glinting, amorous eyes took me in. Stone on to stone, I skipped across a brook, dowsing one leg to the thigh in its bubbling water. It was balm in Gilead, for I was in a perfect fume of heat, and my lungs were panting like bellows.