CHAPTER VI
Theyhave been gone two days. I could scarcely have believed that forty-eight hours can so comparably measure Eternity. For two days the house in Mount Street—so far, at least, as I am concerned with it—has been empty. Yet I have had plenty to do. There have been numberless letters to write. In an odd way it has amused me to find how many people the most common necessities of life bring into one's existence. Consider tradesmen alone! It took me one day at least of conscientious hard work to go through and settle up all my accounts. Yesterday I went into the Park in the morning. There may have been signs of buds swelling on my plane tree, but possibly that was my imagination.
In the afternoon I wrote to my father and those few men to whom it seemed I owed a letter. That did not take me long. There were only two. As a matter of fact, I wrote two more but tore them up. Upon re-reading, they gave me the impression that I was taking myself too seriously.
And now this morning, the morning of the third day since Moxon's departure, I was sitting in my room. Everything is complete. I cannot think of one thing I have left undone. For Moxon himself, I have left a letter. It was the last and perhaps the most difficult I had to write. But there it is, sealed and addressed, lying on the top of the others on my desk.
For a little while I had considered whether I should write anything to Clarissa. I suppose this is the most selfish moment in my life. The slightest contemplation showed me how cruel a thing it would be. The letter is not written. And now there is nothing more to be done. I cannot forbear smiling, just for a moment, at that bright yellow row of crocuses which adorns my window-boxes. They have come up with such success, but have failed so utterly to fulfil the purpose for which they were intended. I wonder if those in Cruikshank's garden are any better than these.
It strikes me with quaint amusement, too, that had I been able to raise sweet peas, I might now be waiting with growing interest to see the first sight of their little heads of green. But sweet peas do not grow in London. I am not surprised. These later days in February can be bitter cold. I find myself compelled for comfort's sake to close the little strip of open window and poke up the fire into a more cheerful blaze.
The sky is all grey outside. A faint rent of blue was visible for one short moment this morning. Just in that single instant it brought me a sudden rush of eagerness, eagerness to see the whole raiment without one seam of clouds, as it was so many days last May in Ballysheen. But the grey soon swept over it. It looks now as though we were not far from rain. Yet, as the hall-porter at the club remarked, it is difficult to say. There is no broad horizon from which to see the way the weather comes. It is curious that I should wonder about it one way or another. It matters so little. It does not matter at all.
So this is the end of my adventure. I feel that I have taken up my pen to but little purpose. It will not be so when I put it down. In less than half an hour the ink on it will be dry. I can scarcely believe that not a year has passed since that morning when I sat in the Park watching the little nursery maid with her electrician. It was the same night that I heard the story of Clarissa and her gown of canary-colored satin. It was the same night I horrified Moxon by introducing that poor creature with her sodden clothes—and now!
But all this delay in a measure is unnerving me. I have nothing more to write, I—
There is something strange in that. I have still more to write. The bell has rung—the electric-bell which rings in Moxon's room. Probably it is a tradesman whose account is settled by cheque, and sealed up in one of those envelopes on my desk. Shall I answer it? It has just rung again. He will ring once more, perhaps, and then go away.
He has rung once more. If I could only see the doorstep from the window! Oh!—but let him ring and go away! Let him go on ringing! He will soon tire of it, and I shall be left in peace.