The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holiday weeks at borne, returned again to Mellstock.
Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick in accidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about the neighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A handkerchief belonging to her had been providentially found by his mother in clearing the rooms the day after that of the dance; and by much contrivance Dick got it handed over to him, to leave with her at any time he should be near the school after her return. But he delayed taking the extreme measure of calling with it lest, had she really no sentiment of interest in him, it might be regarded as a slightly absurd errand, the reason guessed; and the sense of the ludicrous, which was rather keen in her, do his 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 no longer. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild air of indifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object of his quest at the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade and gloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself there.
He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage-windows opposite by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great hurry of business, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have done with such trifling errands.
This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found it locked to keep the children, who were playing 'cross-dadder' in the front, 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 the cottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a pheasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons in gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day continued digging 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 suddenly about and retiring a little distance, as if it were by no means for his own pleasure that he had come.
This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the school at the back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door opened, and three-quarters of the blooming young schoolmistress's face and figure stood revealed before him; a slice on her left-hand side being cut off by the edge of the door. Having surveyed and recognized him, she came to the gate.
At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did it continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a question meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours--the meditation, after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it was impossible to say.
"Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with." He held it out spasmodically and awkwardly. "Mother found it: under a chair."
"O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't think where I had dropped it."
Now Dick, not being an experienced lover--indeed, never before having been engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in a small schoolboy way--could not take advantage of the situation; and out came the blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter moments and a sleepless 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.
Of course the Angel was not to blame--a young woman living alone in a house could not ask him indoors unless she had known him better--he should have kept her outside before floundering into that fatal farewell. He wished that before he called he had realized more fully than he did the pleasure of being about to call; and turned away.
