Chapter 11: The Beautiful Twilight

The first couple of days at Ambleside were a delight to Joy. In the change from the roar and ceaseless whirl of London was such a sense of peace that it influenced even the pain of her heart-hunger. Here in this lovely place, where despite the life and movement of the little town nature seemed to reign, was something to calm nerves overstrung with waiting and apprehension. It was a relief to her at first, a pleasure later, to walk about the pleasant roads with her father; to take long drives beneath shady trees or up on the hillside where the lake lay below like a panorama; to sit on the steamer’s deck and drift along the beautiful lake.

Her father was now and again impatient, not with her but because of the non-arrival of the motor which he had ordered in London. It had not been quite ready when they left and so it was arranged that it should follow them. He wanted to have it in possession so that they could fly all over the region; the American in him was clamorous for movement, for speed and progress! He kept up an endless telegraphing with the motor people in London, and when at last they wired that the car was nearly ready he got a map and traced out the route. Each day he marked out a space that he thought it ought to have covered, crediting it for every hour of daylight with top speed. After all, no matter what our ages may be, we are but children and the new toy but renews the old want and the old impatience; bringing in turn the old disillusionment and the old empty-hearted discontent. And the new toy may be of any shape: even that of a motor-car—or a beating human heart.

Partly out of affection for her father and so from sympathy with him, and partly as a relief to herself, Joy looked eagerly for the coming of the car. She used to go with him to the post office when he was sending his telegrams. Indeed she never left him; and be sure he was glad of her companionship. Now and again would come over her an overwhelming wave of disappointment—grief—regret—she knew not what—when she thought of the friendship so romantically begun but failing so soon. The letters from Aunt Judy used to worry and even humiliate her. For Judy could not understand why there was no meeting; and her questions, made altogether for the girl’s happiness but made in the helplessness of complete ignorance, gave her niece new concern. She had to give reasons, invent excuses. This in itself, for she was defending the man, only added fuel to her own passion. Joy’s love was ripening very fast; all her nature was yielding to it. Each day seemed to make her a trifle thinner. Her eyes seemed to grow bigger and at times to glow like lamps. Whenever she could, she kept looking out on the road by which He might come. Walking or driving or in the hotel it was all the same. In the sitting-room her seat was near the window, her place at table where she could command a view. All this added to her beauty and so her father took no concern from it. He thought she was looking well; and as she was hearty and always, whilst with him, in good spirits and vivacious and even eager in her movements, he was more than satisfied.

One morning as she was sitting alone close to the window, presumably reading for she had a book in her lap, she caught sight with the tail of her eye of a figure that she knew. There was no mistaking on her part that tall, upright man with the springy step; the image was too deeply burned into her heart for that. For a fraction of a second her heart stood still; and then the wave of feeling went over her. Instinctively she drew back and kept her head low so that only her eyes were over the line of the window sill. She did not wish to be recognised—all at once. With the realisation of her woman’s wishes came all the instinctive exercise of her woman’s wiles. He was walking so slowly that she had time to observe him fully, to feast her eyes on him. He was looking up at the hotel, not eagerly she thought, but expectantly. This, though it did not chill her, somehow put her on guard. She slipped behind the window curtain and peeped cautiously. As he came closer to the hotel he went still more slowly. He did not come to the door as she expected, but moved along the street.

This all puzzled her; puzzled her very much. She knew that Judy had written to him of their coming to London, she had seen his reply to her letter; and Judy with her usual thoughtful kindness had mentioned—as though by chance, for she was the very soul of kindly discretion—that when she knew what locality and hotel had been fixed on for the visit to the Lakes she would tell him. It was evident, that he knew they were there and in the hotel; why, then, did he not come to see them. How she would have hurried, she thought, had she been the man and loved as she did! She had no doubting whatever of his good faith. “Perfect love casteth out fear.” And doubt is but fear in a timid form. She accepted in simple good faith that he had some purpose or reason of his own. Her manifest duty to him, therefore, was not to let any wish or act of hers clash with it. So she set herself to think it all out, feeling in reality far happier than she had done for many weeks. It was not merely that she had, after long waiting, seen the man; but she was now able to do something for him—if indeed it was only the curbing of her own curiosity, her own desires.

She rose quietly and went to her bed-room which was at another side of the house—on the side towards which He had passed. Her father was writing letters and would not want her; he had said at breakfast that he would not be able to go out for an hour or two. In her room she went cautiously to her window and, again hiding behind the curtains, glanced into the street. She felt quite sad when she only saw his back as he walked slowly along. Every now and again he would stop and look round him as though admiring the place and the views as the openings between the houses allowed him to see the surrounding country. Once or twice she could see him look out under his eyebrows as though watching the hotel without appearing to do so. Presently he turned the corner of the next street to the left, moving as though he wished to go all round the hotel.

She sat down and thought, her heart beating hard. Her face was covered with both her hands. Forehead and cheeks and neck were deeply flushed; and when she took away her hands her eyes were bright and seemed to glow. She seemed filled with happiness, but all the same looked impossibly demure; as is woman’s nature, playing to convention even when alone.

Before she left her room she had changed her clothes, putting on after several experiments the frock which she thought the most becoming. She did not send for her maid, but did everything for herself; even to hanging up the discarded frocks. Then she went back to the sitting room and took as before her seat at the window, keeping however a little more in the background. She wanted to see rather than to be seen. With her eyes seemingly on her book, but in reality sweeping under her lashes the approaches to the hotel like searchlights, she sat quite quietly for some time. At length the eyes suddenly fell for an instant under an uncontrollable wave of diffidence; she had seen Him pass into the garden opposite to the hotel and go secretively behind some lilac bushes opposite the doorway. But after that one droop of the eyes, there was scarce even the flicker of an eyelid; she did not want to lose a single glimpse of him.