I had always felt my weakness,in comparison with her constancy and fortitude;and now I felt it more and more.Whatever I might have been to her, or she to me,if I had been more worthy of her long ago,I was not now, and she was not. The time was past.I had let it go by, and had deservedly lost her.
That I suffered much in these contentions,that they filled me with unhappiness and remorse,and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it was required of me,in right and honour, to keep away from myself,with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh--which consideration was at the root of every thought I had concerning her--is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed.
I had thought, much and often,of my Dora’s shadowing out to me what might have happened,in those years that were destined not to try us;I had considered how the things that never happen,are often as much realities to us, in their effects,as those that are accomplished.The very years she spoke of, were realities now,for my correction; and would have been, one day,a little later perhaps,though we had parted in our earliest folly.I endeavoured to convert what might have been between myself and Agnes,into a means of making me more self-denying,more resolved, more conscious of myself,and my defects and errors. Thus,through the reflection that it might have been,I arrived at the conviction that it could never be.
These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies,were the shifting quicksands of my mind,from the time of my departure to the time of my return home,three years afterwards.Three years had elapsed since the sailing of the emigrant ship;when, at that same hour of sunset,and in the same place,I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me home,looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship reflected.
Three years. Long in the aggregate,though short as they went by.And home was very dear to me,and Agnes too--but she was not mine--she was never to be mine.She might have been, but that was past!
CHAPTER 59. RETURN
I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening.It was dark and raining,and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year.I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach;and although the very house-fronts,looking on the swollen gutters,were like old friends to me,I could not but admit that they were very dingy friends.
I have often remarked--I suppose everybody has--that one’s going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an old house on Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that a neighbouring street, of time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience, was being drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul’s Cathedral looking older.
For some changes in the fortunes of my friends,I was prepared. My aunt had long been re-established at Dover,and Traddles had begun to get into some little practice at the Bar,in the very first term after my departure.He had chambers in Gray’s Inn, now; and had told me,in his last letters,that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the dearest girl in the world.
They expected me home before Christmas;but had no idea of my returning so soon.I had purposely misled them,that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise.And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets.
The well-known shops, however,with their cheerful lights, did something for me;and when I alighted at the door of the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house,I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first,that so-different time when I had put up at the Golden Cross,and reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then;but that was natural.
‘Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?’ I asked the waiter,as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire.
‘Holborn Court, sir. Number two.’
‘Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe?’ said I.
‘Well, sir,’ returned the waiter, ‘probably he has, sir;but I am not aware of it myself.’
This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare,looked for help to a waiter of more authority--a stout,potential old man, with a double chin,in black breeches and stockings,who came out of a place like a churchwarden’s pew,at the end of the coffee-room,where he kept company with a cash-box, a Directory,a Law-list, and other books and papers.
‘Mr. Traddles,’ said the spare waiter.‘Number two in the Court.’
The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me.
‘I was inquiring,’ said I, ‘whether Mr. Traddles,at number two in the Court,has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?’
‘Never heard his name,’ said the waiter,in a rich husky voice.
I felt quite apologetic for Traddles.
‘He’s a young man, sure?’ said the portentous waiter,fixing his eyes severely on me.‘How long has he been in the Inn?’
‘Not above three years,’ said I.
The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden’s pew for forty years,could not pursue such an insignificant subject.He asked me what I would have for dinner?
I felt I was in England again,and really was quite cast down on Traddles’s account.There seemed to be no hope for him.I meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak,and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity.