Part 62 (1/2)
”'E 'as,” said Kipps, irritably, holding firm to disaster.
”She say so?”
”She don't know, of course, but you depend upon it that's it. She told me she knew something was on, and when she found 'im gone and a note lef' for her she knew it was up with 'im. 'E went by the night boat. She wrote that telegram off to me straight away.”
Ann surveyed his features with tender, perplexed eyes; she had never seen him so white and drawn before, and her hand rested an inch or so away from his arm. The actual loss was still, as it were, afar from her.
The immediate thing was his enormous distress.
”'Ow do you know----?” she said and stopped. It would irritate him too much.
Kipps' imagination was going headlong.
”Sold up!” he emitted presently, and Ann flinched.
”Going back to work, day after day--I can't stand it, Ann, I can't. And you----”
”It don't do to think of it,” said Ann.
Presently he came upon a resolve. ”I keep on thinking of it, and thinking of it, and what's to be done and what's to be done. I shan't be any good 'ome s'arfernoon. It keeps on going 'round and 'round in my 'ead, and 'round and 'round. I better go for a walk or something. I'd be no comfort to you, Ann. I should want to 'owl and 'ammer things if I 'ung about 'ome. My fingers is all atwitch. I shall keep on thinking 'ow I might 'ave stopped it and callin' myself a fool.”...
He looked at her between pleading and shame. It seemed like deserting her.
Ann regarded him with tear-dimmed eyes.
”You'd better do what's good for you, Artie,” she said.... ”_I'll_ be best cleaning. It's no use sending off Gwendolen before her month, and the top room wants turning out.” She added with a sort of grim humour: ”May as well turn it out now while I got it.”
”I _better_ go for a walk,” said Kipps....
And presently our poor exploded Kipps was marching out to bear his sudden misery. Habit turned him up the road towards his growing house, and then suddenly he perceived his direction--”Oh, Lor'!”--and turned aside and went up the steep way to the hill crest and the Sandling Road, and over the line by that tree-embowered Junction, and athwart the wide fields towards Postling--a little, black, marching figure--and so up the Downs and over the hills, whither he had never gone before....
--2
He came back long after dark, and Ann met him in the pa.s.sage.
”Where you been, Artie?” she asked, with a strained note in her voice.
”I been walking and walking--trying to tire myself out. All the time I been thinking what shall I do. Trying to fix something up all out of nothing.”
”I didn't know you meant to be out all this time.”
Kipps was gripped by compunction....
”I can't think what we ought to do,” he said, presently.
”You can't do anything much, Artie, not till you hear from Mr. Bean.”
”No; I can't do anything much. That's jest it. And all this time I keep feelin' if I don't do something the top of my 'ead'll bust.... Been trying to make up advertis.e.m.e.nts 'arf the time I been out--'bout finding a place, good salesman and stock-keeper, and good Manchester dresses, window-dressing--Lor'! Fancy that all beginning again!... If you went to stay with Sid a bit--if I sent every penny I got to you--I dunno! I dunno!”
When they had gone to bed there was an elaborate attempt to get to sleep.... In one of their great waking pauses Kipps remarked in a m.u.f.fled tone: ”I didn't mean to frighten you, Ann, being out so late. I kep' on walking and walking, and some'ow it seemed to do me good. I went out to the 'illtop ever so far beyond Stanford, and sat there ever so long, and it seemed to make me better. Just looking over the marsh like, and seeing the sun set.”...