IV
‚ÄúDo you know‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù Hilary, began, looking down upon her from the carriage window.
“Well! Do I know what?” She smiled up at him.
That pitiless observer of the human race hesitated a moment. Then he continued: “There’s something different about you today. It must be the car.”
“Perhaps it is,” she assented. “I’m beginning to feel reckless, Hilary. Do you know what number I shall be among the Statics?” The train began to move.
“Not less than the fifty-second millionth!” she called, and waved him goodbye.
On the way home she pulled up beside a black figure plodding up the dusty hill.
‚ÄúWhat‚Äôs this? What‚Äôs this?‚Äù cried Mr.¬ÝChillingford.
“Come in and see,” she told him, and before they had climbed the hill he had accepted an invitation to tea and learned all about the car.
“I feel like going away in it at once,” she confided, over the first cups.
Mr.¬ÝChillingford lowered his spectacles and raised his eyebrows. ‚ÄúBy yourself?‚Äù
“Why not?”
‚ÄúI don‚Äôt know. No, of course. Why not?‚Äù He laughed and then they both laughed, and felt very friendly. Immediately afterwards, however, Mr.¬ÝChillingford fell into such a profound reverie that he crumbled walnut cake all over his clothes.
“Well?” she asked, at length.
‚ÄúI‚Äôm sorry. Dear me, what a mess I‚Äôve made! I was thinking you ought to begin with Ely. Just think of it! You would go down from these hills into the Midland plain, getting lower and lower the further east you went, until at last you would find yourself‚ÅÝ‚Äîas it were‚ÅÝ‚Äîat the bottom of the basin. Then you would see that colossal tower shooting up‚ÅÝ‚Äîa sublime spectacle, my dear Elizabeth. You‚Äôve not seen Ely, of course? No, I thought not. That miraculous octagon. There‚Äôs a kind of barbaric splendour about the whole place! You must begin with Ely!‚Äù He was so excited now that he deposited his cup and saucer on the plate of sandwiches.
Miss Trant, who had been staring at him in amazement, suddenly remembered, and cried: “Of course! You’re talking about a tour of the cathedrals.”
“Indeed I am. Wasn’t that the idea? Of course it wasn’t, though. How absurd of me! That was my idea, wasn’t it? I said something about it the other day. I thought that was what you were going to do. What an old egoist I’m becoming! I was thinking you might call on my old friend Canon Fothergill at Lincoln. That is, if you began at Ely. And, mind you, that’s the place to begin at. But then, of course, you are not beginning anywhere, so to speak. Just my foolishness!” And he laughed a little.
“Yes, I am,” said Miss Trant stoutly. “I’m beginning at Ely, just as you suggest. And I will call on Canon Fothergill at Lincoln, if he’ll let me. And you shall tell me where to go.”
Mr.¬ÝChillingford scrambled to his feet, spreading walnut cake in all directions. ‚ÄúI‚Äôll slip over to the rectory for my old map. It will be as good as a holiday to take a look at it again. I‚Äôve done all this, every inch, in my time, on a pushbike, you know.‚Äù
But Miss Trant brought out a map and for the next quarter of an hour their two heads were bent over it. Mr.¬ÝChillingford showered roads, towns, inns, naves, transepts, upon her, and in his excitement upset the milk jug. He brought out pencil and paper, covered two sheets with directions, crammed them into his pocket, then searched the room and declared they were lost. Miss Trant wanted to rush upstairs at once and hurl all her things into bags. ‚ÄúI‚Äôll start tomorrow morning,‚Äù she announced.
“I shouldn’t,” he warned her. “It’s Sunday tomorrow. Don’t mistake me. I’m no Sabbatarian. Besides, there’s more worship in going to look at Ely than in listening to me. But Sunday’s a bad day to begin a journey. Wait a day. Start on Monday. There never was a Monday morning yet when I didn’t want to be going somewhere.”
And it was on Monday morning that she did set out, after a tremendous Sunday of packing and instructions to the Purtons and letters to all manner of people. She had a last five minutes‚Äô talk with Mr.¬ÝChillingford, turned perilously to wave to him nearly at the corner, and then went rolling down the hill, eastward out of Hitherton. The valley lay all golden in the deep sunshine; the morning was as crisp as a nut; the roads scrawled invitations, the very wires above hummed faint calls, to the misty blue beyond; and every turn of the wheel brought her a sense of mastery, and every milestone passed, bringing nearer the unknown and the gloriously irresponsible, gave her a new little thrill. Was she going across country to Ely? She was going anywhere, anywhere, wherever she pleased. This was the road to the first of the cathedrals, but it was also the road to‚ÅÝ‚Äîwhat? She didn‚Äôt know, and delightedly she hugged her ignorance, vague and shining, a mist brightening with golden shapes, just like the morning itself.
In her bag were thirty pounds and a cheque book that would call at once on fifteen hundred more. And, snugly tucked away behind were all the nicest things she had, a dressing case she had only used once before, and four glorious historical novels, crowds of archers, Jacobites, conspirators, dragoons, crying to be let loose at the first hour of lamplight. They were all running away from Hitherton, into the adventurous blue, together. In a tangle of traffic at narrow Northleach she had to pull up beside a huge car that had come from the opposite direction. From this car a familiar long drooping moustache cautiously emerged.
“Miss Trant, isn’t it? Thought it was,” it mumbled at her. “Lovely morning. Not going far, eh?”
‚ÄúOh, good morning, Mr.¬ÝRathbury,‚Äù she called out, loudly and clearly. ‚ÄúYes, it‚Äôs absolutely wonderful, isn‚Äôt it? And I am going far, hundreds and hundreds of miles until I am lost.‚Äù And she smiled, and did not stop smiling when she found herself confronted by a purple square of face and a grey stare.
‚ÄúI beg your pardon,‚Äù shouted Mrs.¬ÝRathbury, now purpler than ever from bending so far forward. ‚ÄúWhere did you say you where going? We were coming over to look at the Hall again. We may want to see you.‚Äù
“I’m going to be invisible.” Yes, she actually heard herself saying it. And then she turned her attention to the clutch and gears, for everybody was moving again.
“What address?” came the scream, now from behind.
“No address. No‑o a‑a‑dre‑esss.” She shouted it at the top of her voice. Not for years had she made such a noise. It was splendid.
Now the road emptied itself and broadened before her. A wind from the southwest caught up to her and coloured her cheeks. (It went on and on until at last it found the smoke from Higden‚Äôs mill, where Mr.¬ÝOakroyd was spending his very last day.) She shot forward and upward, then skimmed along one of England‚Äôs little green roofs, this Miss Trant that nobody at Hitherton had ever seen and perhaps would never see.