What foolish speeches makes a happy heart. Indeed Mr Anon had come to meet me, but not exactly there and then. He fetched out of his pocket the minute note that had summoned him. Here it is, still faintly scented:—
"Mrs Monnerie sends her compliments, and would Miss M.'s friend very kindly call at Monk's House, Croomham, at three o'clock on Friday afternoon. Mrs Monnerie is anxious about Miss M.'s health."
Oh, Fanny, Fanny! Precisely how far she had taken Mrs Monnerie's name in vain in this letter I have never inquired. And now, I suppose, Mrs Percy Maudlen would not trouble to tell me. But I can vow that in spite of the grime on my face the happiest smile shone through as I stuffed it into my bodice. So this was all that her harrowing "husband" had come to—a summoning of friend to friend. If every little malicious plot ended like this, what a paradise the world would be. All tiredness passed away, though perhaps it continued to effervesce in my head a little. It seemed that I had been climbing on and on; and now suddenly the mist had vanished, and mountain and snow lay spread out around me in eternal peace and solitude. If Susan Monnerie's was my first stranger's kiss, Mr Anon's were my quietest tears.
His crazy cart seemed more magical than all the carpets of Arabia. I poured out my story—though not quite to its dregs. "This very afternoon," I told him, "I was writing to you—in my mind. And you see, you have come." The shaggy pony tugged at the coarse grass. I could hear the trickling sands in the great hour glass, and chattered on in vain hope to hold them back.
"You are not listening, only watching," I blamed him.
His lips moved; he glanced away. Yet I had already foreseen the conflict awaiting me. And all his arguments and entreaties that I should throw over the showman, and drive straight on with him into the gathering evening towards Wanderslore, were in vain.
"Look," he said, as if for straw to break the camel's back, and drew out by its ribbon my Bowater latchkey.
"No," said I, "not even that. I sleep out to-night." And surely, surely I kept repeating, he must understand. How could I possibly be at rest with a broken promise? What cared I now for what was past and gone? Think what a joy, what sheer fun it would be to face Mrs Monnerie for the last time, and she unaware of it! Nothing, nothing could amuse her more when she hears of it. He should come and see; hear the crowd yell. He mustn't be so solemn about things. "Do try and see the humour of it," I besought him.
But the money—that little incentive—I kept to myself.
He stared heavily into the silvery copse that bordered the track. Motionless in their bright, withering leaves, its trees hung down their tasselled branches beneath the darkening sky. Then, much against his will, he turned his pony towards the high road. The wheel gridded on a stone, he raised his whip.