Read Under the Greenwood Tree; Or, The Mellstock Quire Page 10

  CHAPTER IX: DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL

  The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holidayweeks at home, returned again to Mellstock.

  Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick inaccidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about theneighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A handkerchiefbelonging to her had been providentially found by his mother in clearingthe rooms the day after that of the dance; and by much contrivance Dickgot it handed over to him, to leave with her at any time he should benear the school after her return. But he delayed taking the extrememeasure of calling with it lest, had she really no sentiment of interestin him, it might be regarded as a slightly absurd errand, the reasonguessed; and the sense of the ludicrous, which was rather keen in her, dohis dignity considerable injury in her eyes; and what she thought of him,even apart from the question of her loving, was all the world to him now.

  But the hour came when the patience of love at twenty-one could endure nolonger. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild air ofindifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object of his questat the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade andgloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself there.

  He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage-windowsopposite by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great hurry ofbusiness, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have done with suchtrifling errands.

  This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found itlocked to keep the children, who were playing 'cross-dadder' in thefront, from running into her private grounds.

  She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be done,which was to shout her name.

  "Miss Day!"

  The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to thecottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as apleasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons ingardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day continueddigging and pulling as before.

  He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage-windows yet more stoically,and shouted again. Fancy took no notice whatever.

  He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning suddenlyabout and retiring a little distance, as if it were by no means for hisown pleasure that he had come.

  This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the school atthe back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door opened, andthree-quarters of the blooming young schoolmistress's face and figurestood revealed before him; a slice on her left-hand side being cut off bythe edge of the door. Having surveyed and recognized him, she came tothe gate.

  At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did itcontinue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a question meditatedseveral hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours--the meditation,after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it wasimpossible to say.

  "Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with." He held it outspasmodically and awkwardly. "Mother found it: under a chair."

  "O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't thinkwhere I had dropped it."

  Now Dick, not being an experienced lover--indeed, never before havingbeen engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in a smallschoolboy way--could not take advantage of the situation and out camethe blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter moments and asleepless night:-

  "Good morning, Miss Day."

  "Good morning, Mr. Dewy."

  The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside,unchanged in his condition from what he had been before he called. Ofcourse the Angel was not to blame--a young woman living alone in a housecould not ask him indoors unless she had known him better--he should havekept her outside before floundering into that fatal farewell. He wishedthat before he called he had realized more fully than he did the pleasureof being about to call; and turned away.