Then came the last day before the returning day.
“We will go for a long walk inland,” said Charlie. “It will be my last sight of English trees for a long while; and if autumn has carried off some of their beauty, it has added more of its own.”
That afternoon Mrs. May announced that she was going for a walk up to Walmer Castle, and asked if the little master might go with her. Hugh was delighted—the sea was a perennial joy to him—to whom country lanes did not seem marvellously different from London squares and parks. Lucy gratefully assented. She never knew whether it was an accident, or whether the kind woman realised that she and Charlie would be thankful for a quiet ramble and an undisturbed conversation.
Perhaps they did not talk much during that walk. Hearts were too full and tears too near the surface. But each uttered solemnly those expressions of mutual love and faith which must generally lie half hidden under the little commonplaces of daily life. Each, as it were, rendered back the mutual charge of the other,—Charles promising faithfully to take care of himself, and to remember all the precautions Lucy would insist on, if she were with him,—Lucy pledging herself to keep as free as possible from worrying, to remember that, under all the circumstances, the coming of letters must be more or less uncertain and far between, adding a voluntary clause that she would do her very best to be brave and wise under any unforeseen conditions which might arise, and under which she could not seek Charlie’s counsel and support. That voluntary clause was due to Lucy’s tender self-reproach against the household secret that she was keeping, even for her husband’s own sake. Charlie received it, with assurances that he knew she would keep her word. Little did either of them then think how that little pledge was to return to their minds, to their common soothing and upholding!
Lucy felt that this quiet hour of spiritual nearness was their true farewell. With its thrilling emotions would be blent for ever the memory of the solemn November afternoon sky—sunless, but with suggestions of sunlight in its delicate opal hues—and the square tower of Munceam church, lifting its grey head from a mass of foliage, glorious with vivid autumn tints.
After that came the bustle of final packing, the farewell to Mrs. May—to whom Lucy felt she owed something which was not included in her modest bill—the railway journey, the return home. The house was in apple-pie order, and at this critical juncture Charlie ceased to wonder at Pollie’s unrestrained, fast-flowing tears. The Brands “looked in” late that night in evening dress on their way from a dinner-party. Jem Brand talked loud and fast to Charlie, while Florence patted her sister’s hands and whispered that she had not secured her a servant yet—they would go about that business together—the interest and excitement would be cheering to Lucy’s loneliness—there were still three or four days to pass before Pollie left—plenty of time.
“Plenty of time!” Lucy echoed absently. “What did it really matter? Charlie was going away!”
Then it was over. Lucy came back from seeing her husband on board the Scotch steamer for Aberdeen. She felt as if she had died, and had come to life again in an emptied earth. How strange the street noises sounded! How strange the familiar house looked! Even little Hugh seemed somehow different!
Lucy had not experienced enough to know that the worst was not yet. She had still to expect her husband’s telegram of his safe arrival in the north. She could look forward to one or two letters from him written from Peterhead. And when these came, full of cheer, of pleasant descriptions of scenery, fellow-passengers, and friendly welcome, together with good accounts of the dear wanderer’s own progress towards strength, poor Lucy began to feel as if she had passed the sharpest corner of her woe, and almost to congratulate herself on her own bravery.
Alas, beyond “the strong pull” on one’s courage and submission, there comes “the long pull.”