Miss Ethel was sawing off the dead branch of a tree that threatened to fall on the path when Mrs. Bradford came out of the house and walked slowly across the garden, saying as she passed: "I don't know what you want to do that for, Ethel. You look quite overheated. Why don't you get a man to do it?"
Miss Ethel—beads of perspiration on her flushed forehead and hands trembling with exertion so that she could scarcely hold the saw—replied with pardonable acerbity: "I didn't get a man because I couldn't. You know that. Talk about unemployment! I only know you can't get a jobbing gardener for half a day, even if you put your pride in your pocket and crawl all round Thorhaven on your hands and knees asking one to come as a favour—besides, what would he charge?"
"Well, leave the branch, then," said Mrs. Bradford. "You do worry yourself so, Ethel."
"Somebody must worry," retorted Miss Ethel. Then the bough split unexpectedly and fell, causing her to graze her hand so that it bled. Immediately afterwards there came a loud crash from the other side of the hedge, and for a moment the two women felt their hearts jump with the old sense of helpless, defiant waiting on fate which they had experienced when bombs fell from enemy aircraft during the war. But the next second they remembered they were safe—though that had ceased to be a thing to thank God for.
"It's only a cartload of bricks being tipped," said Mrs. Bradford rather faintly.
"Only!" said Miss Ethel. "Don't you know that means they are beginning to build? And just on the other side of our hedge! And then you calmly stand there and say 'Only!' I wish I were made like you, Marion."
But she very obviously entertained no such desire, and Mrs. Bradford walked on, saying over her shoulder: "I really came out to remind you about going to Laura Temple's. If you really want to see her, it's high time you went."
Miss Ethel pulled her watch out of her belt, glanced at it and hurried indoors, but came out again almost immediately in a hat, with a bundle of papers in her hand. As she went down the road, she—like every one else—being unable to take in all the impressions that pressed round her, only absorbed those which fed the dominant idea in her mind, automatically neglecting the rest. So when she turned out of the garden gate and caught a glimpse of the cornfields beyond the Cottage where a lark was singing, she missed the idea of permanence—seed-time and harvest never failing—which might have soothed her mind, and only thought how soon these fields too would be built over and spoilt.
Change—change everywhere; not only thrones falling and ancient estates going to the hammer, but little people like herself and Marion all over the world made to feel it every hour. The very spire pointing upwards against the blue-grey sky reminded her less of the eternal message than of something in the service which was different from what it used to be when she was a girl.
But at last she reached a part of Thorhaven which did unconsciously soothe and console her, for it remained just the same: white cottages clustered under high trees and a little house facing the road where Laura Temple lived with an old governess. The house was plain, built close on to the pavement after the old Yorkshire village fashion; and a flagged passage led through it to the garden behind; so when the doors stood open, as now, a blaze of sunlight and clear colour was framed in the further doorway.
While Miss Ethel stood waiting on the step, Laura entered from the garden with some flowers in her hands. "Oh! Do come in, Miss Wilson," she said. "This is nice of you." And she led the way into a square room hung with white curtains and light chintz covers; not an "artistic" room at all, but one which somehow matched the garden outside, as well as Laura herself.
In a well-cushioned chair by the sunny window sat a short, stout lady with very pretty pink hands and faded blue eyes, who rose up from her knitting to greet the visitor. She was the old governess who lived with Laura, and her real name was Panton, but she had always been "Nanty" in the far-off nursery days, and so she was called still by intimates of the family whose various branches she had trained to read and spell. Now she was—as she herself said—eating the bread of idleness; her two great and absorbing interests in life being Laura and knitting. She had been afflicted doubtless with adenoids in her own childhood, but at that time they were not generally considered removable. At all events, she now confused her M's and B's intermittently, as she always had done, and never troubled herself about it, being an easy-going person.
She did not mind, for instance, telling anyone how Laura called to see her one day when she was living in lodgings in Flodmouth, and there and then invited her to come and keep house. But she could not tell what caused this sudden impulse, because she did not know. As a matter of fact, it was just one of those trifles which do influence human conduct by touching the emotions—and always will, let cynics say what they may. And the ridiculous thing which touched this hidden spring in Laura was a very stale, untouched, highly ornamented cake which Miss Panton cut with fingers that trembled from eagerness—so pleased and excited was she by having a visitor at last. "I rather thought I might have had a good bany callers—my papa was so well down here in the old days. But there does not seeb to be anybody left."
The familiar "seeb"—the sudden picture of poor old Nanty waiting there for those callers, descendants of her papa's substantial circle, who never came—the glow of a generous girl newly engaged who wants to make everybody else happy—all this had influenced Laura to say, without waiting to think: "Come and live with me until I am married. I'd simply love to have you, Nanty. Miss Wilson is always saying I ought to have a chaperone since I ceased wandering about and went to live in my own little house at Thorhaven."
So that was how Miss Panton came to be sitting in that pleasant corner of the sunny room, doing her knitting and listening while Laura talked to Miss Ethel about the nursing fund in which they were both interested. Occasionally Miss Panton would push forward mechanically a conversational counter from the little store she kept always by her. Thus when Miss Ethel spoke of the bricks that had arrived on the other side of the privet hedge, Nanty glanced up for a second to remark in her throaty little voice: "It is hard. That lovely garden of yours, Miss Ethel—— But tibe and tide wait for no ban!" Then she sighed and resumed her absorbing occupation, satisfied that she had taken her due part in the social amenities.
This habit of using ready-made platitudes arose no doubt from laziness of mind, as well as from the natural timidity produced by being a nursery governess in days when such unfortunate young females hovered ever uncertainly between basement and drawing-room. She had got into the way then of making remarks at the luncheon table which she knew must be correct, because they were in all the copy-books.
Now she and Laura lived very happily together, and this pleasant feeling was intensified by the rather exaggerated adoration of the girl's lover which such a situation is apt to produce. The little household circled round his goings and comings, and the young mistress of it lavished on Wilson all the family affection she had at the disposal of a large circle, if she had been blest with one, as well as the pure passion of a woman deeply in love.
At last Miss Ethel finished her business, closed her little notebook and made a brisk remark about the building in the next field, because she was always very careful not to hurt Miss Panton's feelings.
"Delightful! Delightful!" said Nanty, seeking the appropriate conversational counter—"at least, I bean——" She paused, breathed hard, and added with a rush: "I'm sure Mr. Wilson was deeply distressed at being obliged to be the one to sell it. But if he had not done so, somebody else would. Business is business," she concluded, pink to the nose-end with the effort.
Laura's colour also rose a little. "Yes. I know Godfrey was sorry. Only he is tremendously keen to get on, of course, and you can't afford—I sometimes think he is too keen."
But Miss Ethel was not going to have that. It must be made plain at once, that thoughshe, herself, might run down her own second cousin, he was the sort of man whom any girl ought to be proud to marry, even though she did possess an agreeable sum of money at her own sole disposal. "I have always considered Godfrey a gentleman—if that is what you mean?" she said stiffly.
But Laura was looking out of the window and did not listen. "Oh, here is Godfrey!" she said, jumping up. "Will you excuse me a moment, Miss Ethel?" And she hurried off to prevent an awkward meeting.
But before she reached the door, Godfrey was already in the room—alert, buoyant, with his air of being well fed, well bathed, well groomed and entirely certain of himself. Immediately after greeting Laura, he turned to Miss Ethel. "I am very glad to have come across you," he said, "I am afraid you felt hurt about that field before your house; but the Warringborns meant to sell, so of course I couldn't tell them to take their business elsewhere. And they were urgent, so the whole thing was arranged hurriedly."
Miss Ethel drew down her mouth but said nothing; and before Laura could make some trivial remark Miss Panton nervously filled in the pause by murmuring: "Quite so. Delays are dadegerous."
Then Miss Ethel rose to go, and having recovered herself a little she did manage to say a civil word to Wilson about the weather—because after all he was her kinsman, and must be supported here as such.
A few minutes later, Wilson and Laura followed along the same road. "Then I suppose we may take it that diplomatic relations have now been resumed?" he said with a grin.
Laura smiled—but kindly—feeling some pity for Miss Ethel. "After all, it is hard to have people looking over your hedge when you have always had the place absolutely private. Only she will make such a tragedy of the inevitable."
But Godfrey was not greatly concerned with Miss Ethel's feelings. "I say, Laura," he began eagerly, pointing to some new houses. "There are tremendous opportunities in Thorhaven for a man with capital. If only I had twenty thousand pounds at my disposal, I could be a rich man in ten years' time."
She looked up at him quickly, flushing a little. "Well, you can have, Godfrey. I'd like you to have it. I get possession of my money on my marriage, you know: and, thank goodness, it is not in trust. My father had a perfect horror of leaving things in trust."
"I'm not sure I agree with him there," said Godfrey. "You might have got hold of a chap who would make ducks and drakes of your money. But as things are, it is all right, of course. The only question is—shall you always be absolutely comfortable about it? Because, if you would even feel the very faintest——"
"But I don't! I never shall," interposed Laura. "You know I'd trust you with a million if I had it."
He slipped his hand through her arm, for just then they turned the corner and met the sea wind full in their faces. "Dear old girl: there are not many like you."
Laura felt herself propelled along so easily with his thick-set figure between her and the wind from the sea; the warm vitality that came out from him and seemed to run also through her veins, making her feel stronger, gayer, more exuberantly full of energy than she ever did when alone. She wanted to tell him her feelings, after the way of lovers, and so she turned to him with a little quick pressure of his arm in hers as they neared the pay-box. "Godfrey! I feel as if I could jump over the moon. Don't you? It must be this lovely morning."
He let his glance rove idly over the promenade gardens and the road leading to it, which certainly looked their best on this day of real summer, when there was hot sunshine to warm the breeze, and girls and children in pink and blue and white and yellow playing on the sands. The sea was a sparkling green and a couple of boys ran out into the surf, shouting as they ran.… But though Wilson had an eye for beauty, he was thinking chiefly of the row of villas which could be built where a cornfield now grew—and lodging-houses on the cliff top with steps down from the gardens to the shore—and the money rolling in. Then he heard Laura speaking to the girl in the pay-box as she went through the barrier; and with a sudden jolt of the memory the nymph in the flame-coloured gown came back to mind, though he had forgotten all about her from the night of the promenade dance until the present moment.
He hesitated a few seconds, then he also stepped forward and peered in at the little window with Laura, who was still talking; and instantly, his sudden curiosity fell flat like a bubble pricked. For he saw just enough resemblance in this ordinary, pale, alert little girl, with the bright eyes and the freckles on her nose, to make sure she was the same person, and after that one glance he stood looking away to sea with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly, awaiting his lady's pleasure. He was no longer curious.
Caroline, defiantly aware of all this, answered Laura's pleasant remarks at random. She was not going to have him tell about the red dress in his own way—since he had evidently never thought again of it or her—making a funny tale to amuse Miss Laura—she'd tell it inherway! "Miss Temple, I wanted to tell you, I wore that flame-coloured dress you gave Aunt Creddle at the promenade dance the other night. She burnt mine ironing it out, so I borrowed that at the last minute. But I did it no harm and gave it back to her next day." The words came out breathlessly, in a little rush, and the bright eyes peered defiantly through the little window.
"Oh, what a pity to give it back," said Laura. "I expect it suited you, and really I only gave it to Mrs. Creddle, because Mr. Wilson disliked it so much." She smiled round at him, then turned again to Caroline. "Do wear it again, and then I can let you have the shoes and stockings to match. They are such a peculiar shade that they will go with nothing else I have."
"No, thank you," said Caroline abruptly: but the next minute she smiled into the face so near her own, softening her refusal—for she could not help feeling the charm of that open-eyed kindness with which Laura had looked out at the world since she was in the cradle. It was so real: and yet it formed a weak spot in Laura's nature. For she wanted so much to be liked that she was—as some one had once said of her—just a little bit disappointed if a stray cat did not purr as she went past. Now she answered quite eagerly, but with a perfectly genuine eagerness: "Oh, I do hope you'll change your mind. Anyway, I'll send the shoes and stockings, though I'm afraid the shoes will be too big for you."
Then she went off, leaving Caroline tingling from head to foot with annoyance against Wilson. To think he should treat her in that way, as if the dance the other night were something to be ashamed of. Only wait until he tried to speak to her when Miss Temple was not there, and he should see what would happen.
But Wilson was walking by Laura's side on the promenade without the remotest intention of talking to Caroline again: and he had so lost interest in her that he was almost surprised to hear his lady ask how the dress looked.
"I spoke to the girl because I mistook her for you from the back," he said.
"But did she look nice in it?" persisted Laura.
"Nice?" He paused, and she was so tall that his face was almost on a level with her own. Then he glanced back at the pay-box. "Poor little devil! She can't have known herself, if she happened to see her reflection that night. The dress worked miracles. I can hardly believe it was the same girl."
"She is engaged to some young man in an office in Flodmouth, I believe," said Laura. "I wonder if you could do anything for him?"
"I'm afraid not. We don't interfere in each other's office arrangements in Flodmouth business circles," he said, teasing her, though he saw and appreciated that kindness always welling up in her like a spring, ready for every one. "All right, old girl. If I have a chance, I'll do what I can," he added, "but the youth only looks about nineteen, so they have plenty of time yet."
"Nobody has too much time to be happy in," said Laura, smiling at her lover. "Fancy, if we had fallen in love with each other and married ten years ago, we should have been all that to the good."
He laughed. "We might have been all that to the bad," he said. "You don't know what I was like at nineteen, Laura."
So they went along, very happy, laughing and talking together, viewed with envy, contempt or sympathy by the girls and women who read and worked round the band-stand. A thin stream of music drifted out with a sort of melancholy sprightliness to join the deep sound of waves breaking and drawing back from the gravel on the sands. In the distance Caroline looked out from her little window at Wilson's broad back and hated them both, in spite of Laura's kindness. They'd everything—everything. What right had one girl to have so much more than another?… Then a bevy of children came through the barrier, and when she next looked the lovers had vanished.
But later in the morning when Wilson returned home alone by way of the promenade, he glanced at Caroline in passing the barrier with the faintest renewed stirring of curiosity. Surely there must have been something—he couldn't quite have imagined itallthat night at the dance. Then he saw a bill near the gate announcing another dance this week, and that made him say lightly, as he went through the iron turnstile: "Shall you be at the dance on Thursday? You ought to wear that red dress again."
"No, I aren't—I'm not going to wear the dress any more." She spoke rudely, abruptly—saying to herself that this was what she had expected.
He read her thoughts with ease, smiling to himself, for he knew something about women. But as he looked at her closely in the strong light, he became aware of a velvety texture in her skin which is usually seen only in children. She had a powdering of freckles on her nose, and her pupils had dilated with anger until her eyes looked black; her head was very erect on her slim shoulders. He thought to himself that here were traces of the nymph after all—-at least, here was a girl who might conceivably look like one by artificial light and in the right gown. And beyond that, he was vaguely conscious of something in her that was pliant yet unbreakable—or almost unbreakable—and which defied him and all the world.
"What will your other cavalier say to that?" he said. "I expect he will want to see you take the shine out of all the other girls once more."
"Excuse me. There is some one waiting to come through," said Caroline with immense aloofness.
But inwardly she was furious with herself for feeling a just perceptible response to his virile personality and his absolute sureness. Anything hewanted—— Then she bent her mind resolutely upon a respected inhabitant of Thorhaven.
"Yes, lovely day, isn't it?" she said. "I suppose you're full up with visitors?"
The woman replied that she was full up, and furthermore that she would remain in the same happy condition until October, then said casually as she moved off: "I didn't know you were living servant with Miss Wilson. I suppose you'll stop there altogether when this job on the promenade is done?"
"I aren't—I'm not living servant with her," said Caroline sharply. "Who's been telling you that? I simply went to light the fire for them in the morning and do a few odd jobs until they could get somebody permanent."
"But I always understood from Mrs. Creddle you were going to be servant there," persisted the woman. "She once told me your aunt Ellen promised years ago."
"Very likely she did," said Caroline. "I can't help that. Everybody must do the best they can for themselves."
"Well, you're right there," answered the woman, and saying Amen thus to the creed of her day, she took up her basket and went through the turnstile.
One afternoon at the turn of the tide, a sort of transformation scene took place along the sands and on the promenade; a bank of cold vapour advanced from the sea, through which the sun glimmered faintly yellow, then disappeared. The girls' thin blouses began to flap limply against their chilled arms; matrons turned a little red or blue about the nose; children's hair either curled more tightly or hung limp, while their cheeks took on a lovely colour in the cool dampness; tiny beads of moisture hung on everybody's eyelashes. Those who had come out to the seaside from the hot streets of Flodmouth felt when they emerged from the railway station, as if they were plunging into a cold vapour bath.
When Caroline went to relieve her colleague Lillie at tea-time, she was met by a stream of nurses, protesting infants and middle-aged women on their way home. And as the men who had just arrived from a day's business in the city made straight for their lodgings, Thorhaven in the very midst of the season took on an air of exclusion—of remoteness. You could notice the wash of the waves again now.
The mist crept steadily along inland, muffling the church, the trees beyond—almost hiding the privet hedge from Miss Ethel as she glanced out of the window.
"A heavy roke. I hope it won't last," she said; but she was not really thinking of what she was saying because her attention was engrossed by the noises on the other side of the hedge. Never the same continuously, but always changing, so that the ear never became dulled by knowing what to expect. A sharply whistled tune. Voices. The knock, knock, knock of a tool on a hard substance. A sound of scraping. Then blessed silence for a few seconds. Then knock, knock, knock again. She turned impatiently to Mrs. Bradford, who sat close up to the window reading the paper. "Thank goodness, it is nearly five; the men will be gone directly."
"You should try to get used to it," said Mrs. Bradford. "You have let it get on your nerves." And she returned at once to the newspaper in which she was reading a minutely-reported divorce case; for though a stolid and intensely respectable woman she loved to read these reports. "It is plain to see that the husband wants to get rid of his wife," she said after a while.
"Well, that seems easily done nowadays," said Miss Ethel, listening still as she spoke. "Perhaps women don't realize that though they can easily get rid of an unsatisfactory husband, it will be just as easy for a satisfactory husband to get rid of them."
But Mrs. Bradford did not care for abstract questions. "I expect the Marchioness will have the custody of the children," she said.
So Miss Ethel took up the other half of the paper to try and distract her mind from the noises over the hedge. But every head-line seemed to dart at her sore consciousness as if it were a snake's head with a sting in it. Murder. Unrest. Strikes. Dissatisfactions. Change. The whole outlook was indescribably comfortless and depressing to her. She felt something akin to the vague, apprehensive misery—beyond reason or common sense—which people feel during the rumble of a distant earthquake.
"I hate reading the papers," she said, flinging the sheet down.
"You shouldn't read the parts that worry you. I don't," said Mrs. Bradford. "But you always were one to work yourself up about things. I remember once how you fretted over some little newsboys with no stockings on, when we went into Flodmouth as children to see the pantomime. You worried yourself and everybody else to death. But they were used to it, as dear father said, and it did them no harm. You are of the worrying sort, Ethel, and you should try to hold yourself in."
"Poor world if nobody worried," said Miss Ethel; then she rose abruptly and carried out the tea-tray.
Soon she was back again with a duster in her hand, beginning to dust the large bookshelf, which had been overlooked for a day or two. As her duster passed over the red-leather backs of the old bound volumes ofPunchshe saw with a wistful inner eye—as if she looked back to a Promised Land on which the gate was shut for ever—that world of swells and belles, of croquet and sunshine, of benevolence to the "poor" and fingers touching forelocks, black being black and white white.
Then Mrs. Bradford spoke again. "Why not leave that dusting, Ethel? You have been at it all day."
"Somebody must," said Miss Ethel, going on dusting.
"Well, I only wish I could do more," said Mrs. Bradford, comfortably turning her page with a rustling crackle. "But my legs have given way ever since I was married. I don't know why, I'm sure; but marriage does seem to affect the constitution in queer ways."
Miss Ethel felt—as she was intended to feel—that it was not within her power to comprehend the mysteries of the conjugal state; so acquiescing from long habit in her sister's torpidity, she went on with her dusting.
But her head ached appallingly, and she looked at the clock-hands nearing five with a feeling that she could bear the sounds of building so long and no longer. If they lasted a single minute beyond that time something inside her head would snap. Knock—knock—knock; scrape—scrape; the thud of something thrown down. She felt her breath coming fast as she waited for the moment when her aching senses would be lulled by the cessation of it all—when she would rest on a blissful silence.
"Thank God, it's five o'clock!" she said, flinging down her duster.
"Yes. The men will be leaving work now," said Mrs. Bradford.
Miss Ethel continued her work again, moving quietly about the room. Wave after wave of wet salt air was rolling in from the sea, pressing upon that which travelled slowly inland, so that the roke grew very dense, and the little house seemed to be cut off from all the world.
Miss Ethel sat down and leaned her head back with her eyes shut: Mrs. Bradford continued to read the paper, then rustled a page and looked at her sister over it. As she did so, Miss Ethel sat up with a jerk and stared across the room.
"Bless me!" said Mrs. Bradford, "what are you staring at me like that for, Ethel? Do I look ill?" And she began to wonder if she felt ill, for she always feared a stroke.
"Listen!" said Miss Ethel in an odd tone. "Don't you hear them? They are working overtime."
Mrs. Bradford took her paper up irritably. "Goodness! Is that all." She also listened, then added: "What nonsense you talk, Ethel! There is not a sound. They have stopped work for the night."
Miss Ethel walked to the window where the grey air clung to the glass and stood there a moment, listening intently. It was true. She could hear nothing.
But as soon as she sat down by the fire and was not thinking, it began again—knock, knock, knock.…
"They are there still," she said. "They must be."
"I tell you they are not," said Mrs. Bradford. "You have simply got the noise on your nerves. If you don't take care, you will be really ill. You think about the noise morning, noon and night, until you fancy you hear it."
"I'm not a fool," said Miss Ethel. "Surely I know whether I hear a noise or not."
"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I saw a case in the paper of a man who fancied he heard a drum beating when there was nothing at all, really."
"But I'm not 'a case,'" said Miss Ethel, tartly, pressing her hand to her forehead. "And I'm going to see if the men reallyhaveleft or not."
Mrs. Bradford glanced out of the window. "Well, you must want something to do," she said. "You might just hand me that sheet you were reading, as you go out."
The door banged. Miss Ethel's dim form was visible for a moment as she passed the window then the mist hid her altogether.
Caroline was also engulfed in it as soon as she came out of the little shelter at the entrance of the promenade. She could taste it on her lips, the wet drops clung to her eyelashes. Lillie, who had just arrived to take her place, looked all out of curl like a moulting bird, but both of them were spiritualized by the grey mist which blurred their outlines and through which their lips and eyes showed fresh and wistful.
"Pity you've got your new hat on, Carrie," said Lillie, shaking out her knitted cap. Then she giggled. "But I suppose you were expecting to meet your boy at the train."
Carrie shook her head. "No, I'm going back home first. I have to see about supper."
"I expect you'll take the place on altogether when the season's over," said the girl.
"Not me!" said Caroline, answering the faint echo of condescension in the other's tone. "I've told you time and again, Lillie, how it was I went there. What's more, I'm telling Miss Ethel to-night that I can't stop any longer."
She had not meant to do it precisely on this evening, but suddenly found herself in possession of a full-fledged decision.
"What are you going to do after the prom. closes then," said Lillie.
"Take a post in an office in Flodmouth," said Caroline.
"But you can't do typewriting or shorthand," said Lillie, unimpressed. "You won't find it so easy. I know I had my work set to get a decent job to go to in October, and I'm thoroughly trained. I only took to this on account of my health. I never——"
"You've told me that before," interposed Caroline shortly. "And I can do typewriting. I have been taking lessons with Miss Wannock."
"Well, I wish you luck, I'm sure," said Lillie shortly, shutting down the little window with a click to keep out the damp. She was sufficiently good-hearted, but the trades union spirit was in her and she did not like the idea that another girl should find a post without going through exactly the same training as herself.
Caroline turned towards the main road where nobody could be distinguished twenty yards away and men looked like trees walking; but after a minute or two she noticed something in the general shape and gait of a man coming her way which made her feel sure it was Wilson. She wondered whether he would speak if he caught her up, or whether he would fail to recognize her in the mist, or would give a brief good afternoon and pass on. She slackened speed a little, for though she was still angry with him it would be a "bit of fun" to hear what he had to say. There was also another and far more potent reason. If he walked with her, Lillie would be proved in the wrong; for he would not walk and talk with one whom he regarded as his relatives' maid-servant. But he was nearly past and did not look her way.
"Good evening, Mr. Wilson," she piped then; her voice sounding crudely loud to herself in the grey stillness. But she had to prove her place in the world—make certain of it, lest she should lose it.
"Oh!" He swung round, peering into her face—at first not remembering her. Then something in her bright glance reminded him. "So it is you, is it? Hurrying home to get ready to dance again to-night, I suppose?" He spoke indifferently, disinclined for adventure in the chill, damp atmosphere of this late afternoon. Still he went on, being by nature somewhat expansive. "Is Miss Wilson at home this afternoon, do you know?" then fell into step by Caroline's side without thinking of it.
"Yes. Were you wanting to see her?" said Caroline; but underneath, she was saying to herself: "If I'd done what Aunt Creddle wanted, and been a servant out and out, I should never have walked with Mr. Wilson like this." She felt consciously proud of being a "business girl"—one of the great company that had every evening free, and could wear low necks and powder their faces. But there was more than that in it——
Wilson glanced sideways at her, vaguely satisfied with the lightness of her step by his side and the look of her lips and eyes through the mist. His interest was beginning to wake again. "I am going to the Cottage with some tickets for that Garden Fête for the Hospital which Miss Ethel and Miss Temple are helping to get up."
"Oh, can I take them?" said Caroline.
"No, thank you. I have a message from Miss Temple to deliver as well," he answered.
There was practically no one to be seen on the road—only a few distant objects moving in the mist—and it would have been awkward for either of them to leave the other, so they settled down to walk all the way to the Cottage together.
She spoke abruptly, nervously. "I'm leaving soon, you know. I'm going into an office. I can type, but I can't do shorthand. Still, I aren't afraid of work. If only I could get a bit more practice I should be a very quick typist—the teacher says so."
He walked on, saying nothing, and she thought she had offended him—no doubt he feared she was going to ask him to give her a job. She flushed crimson and added quickly: "I shall find a job all right. A friend of mine is looking round for me."
He turned to her, smiling, and his tone was slightly more familiar than it would have been to a girl of his ordinary acquaintance. "I see. The friend I saw you with at the dance. Well, I hope he'll find what you want."
"I have no doubt he will, thank you," said Caroline.
Wilson was silent for a few minutes. "Look here," he said, "I think we have a spare machine at the office that I could lend you for a time to practise on. You must have practice."
Then he waited complacently for her to swing round towards him—as she did—her eyes and voice filled with surprised gratitude: for he was getting on well in the world himself, and he liked sometimes to feel what a good-hearted fellow he was, in spite of it.
"Oh, that's all right," he said. "But I am sorry you have to leave Miss Wilson."
"So am I, in a way. But you must look after yourself in these days," said Caroline, repeating her formula. "Things aren't like they used to be." She paused. "My goodness, I'm glad they aren't! Fancy if I had had to be another Aunt Ellen all my life."
He laughed, pleased with himself and her. "Well, I must own that I'm glad I was not born into a stagnant world."
A sense of power—of vitality heightened by the stormy times in which they lived, ran through them both as they spoke. It was rather like the feeling of a strong swimmer in a roughish sea, with fitful sunshine and little breakers far out towards the horizon.
By this time they had reached the Cottage and Caroline went in to announce Wilson's arrival. Mrs. Bradford was still reading her paper, but Miss Ethel had not yet returned from her errand to see if the workmen were still working at the new houses.
"I can't think," said Mrs. Bradford, "what Ethel means by going on like this. She just ran out with a shawl round her, and has been absent three-quarters of an hour. I told her the men had stopped work, but she would go to see for herself. I am afraid she may have fallen over a brick or something in the fog." She turned to Caroline. "I wish you would just go and see."
Caroline went out at once and Wilson followed her with a word to Mrs. Bradford. As they crossed the garden the privet hedge loomed like a wall, and above it could be seen the dim outline of brickwork left jaggedly unfinished. Caroline stumbled as she went through the little side gate beyond the hedge, but righted herself immediately, and Wilson withdrew the hand he had put out to help her. Then they walked cautiously among the bricks in the long grass, calling out: "Are you there? Are you there?" But all was dead silence. At last Caroline caught her foot on something soft—dreadful. She had yet no idea why it was dreadful. Then she bent closer. "Miss Ethel! It's Miss Ethel!" She went down on her knees in the long grass. "Miss Ethel! Are you hurt?"
There was no answer, and Caroline said over her shoulder in a quick, low voice: "You'd better go and fetch a doctor. We must not move her until we know if she has broken anything. Send Mrs. Bradford with some rugs."
And though she was so terribly sorry, she was also pleased with her self-control. Aunt Ellen and Aunt Creddle would not have been able to take it like this when they were nineteen. This was what darted through Caroline's mind, even while she spoke.
But the next moment Miss Ethel moaned a little and began to sit up, looking round her affrightedly at the half-built walls in the mist. "What's the matter? What's the matter? I'm on the wrong side of the hedge." Then she remembered and began to shiver violently from head to foot. "I know. I came to see if the men were working. But they were not. The field was all empty. It—I was so sure I heard them—it startled me not to find them here. I think I must have fainted."
"Hush! Don't bother to talk now, Miss Ethel," said Caroline. "You are all right now."
"You are sure you have not broken any bones?" said Wilson.
"Bones? No." Miss Ethel was recovering herself quickly. "It's nothing. I shall be all right in a minute or two. Here, give me your hand, Caroline."
"I daresay you tripped over a brick, Miss Ethel; I very nearly did," said Caroline, helping her to rise.
"Yes, that was it, that was it!" said Miss Ethel, speaking with a sort of exhausted eagerness.
At first as they went up the field she held Wilson's arm, but soon released it and went forward alone. "I'm all right now," she insisted. "Quite all right."
Mrs. Bradford came out into the hall as they entered, and billows of salt mist followed them in. "Shut the door, please," she said. "Then you were not lost, Ethel. What on earth were you doing out there? I began to get quite uneasy about you."
Miss Ethel, turning quickly, gave a look at the two who followed her, but she herself had no idea of its pathos and urgency. "I just tripped on a brick and was stunned for a few minutes—nothing to matter."
So Caroline and Wilson knew they were to let it go at that.
"And had the men gone?" said Mrs. Bradford.
"Yes." She paused. "I thought I would just have a look round."
"You are so restless, Ethel; why can't you keep quiet like me?" said Mrs. Bradford fretfully. "It is a great mercy you didn't break a leg."
Caroline went out of the room to make a cup of tea for Miss Ethel, and when she was lighting the gas-ring Wilson came in hurriedly, saying in a low voice: "I say, you won't mention anything about leaving them to-night, will you!"
"What do you take me for?" whispered Caroline back.
"A girl with her head screwed on the right way," he said. "Then you'll stay and look after them for a little while longer, anyway? I may tell Miss Temple that, may I?"
"You can tell who you like. I shall not mention leaving until Miss Ethel is better," said Caroline.
"Good girl! And I won't forget the typewriting machine," he answered. "One good turn deserves another. That sounds like Miss Panton, doesn't it?" And with that he hurried out of the kitchen.
The sea-roke lasted for nearly two days and then lifted, the damp, chill air giving place to cloudless sunshine. But even now, when the sun was setting, no cool wind blew in from the sea across the promenade thronged with people in thin dresses. This was so unusual in Thorhaven that those familiar with the place kept saying to each other at intervals: "Fancy being able to sit here at this hour without a coat! The air from the sea puffs into your face as if it came out of an oven——"
The band played outside to-night—not in the hall—and a woman with a good voice strained by open-air concerts during the past summer was singing a song in which the words "love" and "roses" seemed to come with more frequency and on higher notes than the rest, so that they reached the extremist limits of the promenade, floating above the heads of Caroline and Wilf as they sat extended on canvas chairs watching those who walked slowly up and down. It was the night of the visitorin excelsis. Stout, important matrons wearing the dresses they had for afternoon calls at home in the towns moved slowly along in small groups, with a solid man or so in attendance who smoked his pipe or cigar and said little, but that little rather jocular. Girls tripped by, either pale with the heat, or flushed, or protected from extremes of temperature by a heavy layer of powder: and flappers with pert faces and fluffy hair swung gaily along, always with a generous display of fat neatly-stockinged leg. But it was all charming, particularly in the evening light, because there was about it all such an appealing atmosphere of youth and summer.
Caroline and Wilf leaned back at their ease in their chairs, making remarks on those who went past. He was tired with the day's work in a stifling office in Flodmouth, and she with her extra household occupations at the Cottage owing to Miss Ethel's indisposition.
"Good thing I happen to be only relieving Lillie this week," she said. "If it had been my turn to stop all day, I don't know what they would have done at the Cottage. But Miss Ethel is better now. I had meant to tell them I was leaving—that night she was taken ill, you know."
"Well, I think it is a pity you hadn't got it done," said Wilf. "They'll be up to any dodge to keep you now. I know 'em." And he shook his head wisely.
"You surely don't imagine Miss Ethel sort of felt I was going to give notice, and so fell down and hurt herself on purpose?" said Caroline, laughing.
But Wilf, pallid and exhausted with a burning day in a Flodmouth office—his nerves slightly upset by too many cigarettes—was in no mood to be chaffed.
"I never gave a hint at anything so ridiculous," he answered fretfully. "I simply say that in my opinion you are not in your right position there, and if you consult my wishes, you'll make other arrangements as soon as possible. I did tell you so before, I think."
"And I meant to do it," said Caroline. "Honour bright, I did." She glanced at him sideways. "I don't care about it any more than you. Only I promised Mr. Wilson I would stop on until Miss Ethel was better."
"Wilson!" said Wilf. "What's he to do with it, I should like to know. He doesn't seem to me to bother much about the old girls as a rule." Then certain vague memories of that dance in the promenade hall which had not been entirely obliterated by Wilson's skilful treatment came back with renewed vividness. "I see what it is; he's after you himself. So long as you stop at the Cottage, he knows where to put his hand on you. You needn't think I was such an owl as not to see he was taken with you that night on the promenade. You know—when you had the red dress on. But you needn't flatter yourself much over that sort of attention, I can tell you. He'd have gone on just the same with any sort of girl out of Flodmouth who happened to take his fancy for the minute. You don't know men of his sort like I do. And now you're silly enough to stop on at the Wilsons just because he asks you: even when I ask you not. It's time you learnt——"
"Don't talk rot!" interrupted Caroline—a sudden heat of anger flushing her all over as she jumped up from her seat. "I'm nothing to Wilson and he's nothing to me. Look there—if you want any proof. That doesn't look as if he had eyes for any other girl but his own, does it?"
Wilf glanced in the direction indicated, and Caroline sat down again. Then they both watched Wilson coming down the promenade with Laura Temple, whose happy face was turned towards her lover with a glow of trust and confidence upon it that no one could mistake: and when he looked at her, his rather coarse-featured, harsh face was softened a little, as if irradiated by that glow. They walked close together, talking gaily as they threaded in and out of the crowd from which advancing twilight had begun to steal the bright colours. Soon all girls wearing white, even those with bold features and exaggerated coiffures, became exquisite in that half light: and across the still expanse of darkening sea the Flamborough Beacon swung out, white—white—red; a night made for young lovers.
But the two who sat on the long chairs by the rail of the promenade were letting it all go by, engrossed in their own pricking dissatisfaction. "Well, what does it matter to me whether Mr. Wilson and Miss Temple look soppy over each other, or not?" said Caroline. Then she rose again abruptly: "My head aches. I'm tired of watching all these people go past. It makes me feel dizzy. Let's go for a turn on the cliff."
He remained obstinately seated on the canvas chair, his legs stretched out before him. "What's the use? When we've just paid twopence each for our chairs? They'll be snapped up in a minute and we shan't get any when we come back."
"All right. You stop where you are," said Caroline, walking away.
He let her go until she reached the exit that led towards the cliff top, then reluctantly rose from his seat and with long strides caught her up. "Oh, don't you come if you don't want to. I'm all right," she said over her shoulder.
"Don't be soft. People would think we'd quarrelled," said Wilf.
"Let them think, then," said Caroline.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" He stood still. "I can go back if you don't want me, you know. I'm not one to force myself on anybody."
"All right. Go back." They stood on the cliff beyond the promenade peering into each other's angry faces, in the translucent dusk reflected from the great expanse of sky and sea.
"You mean that?"
"Yes, I do."
"You want things to come to an end between us?"
"I'm not particular." She paused, then drew a long breath. "Yes—as you put it like that—I do."
"Well, if you do it now, it's done for good. You won't whistle me back again, you know. I'm not that sort. If I go, I go." He paused, adding with a sudden spurt of anger at her injustice: "And I shan't come back if you crawl on your hands and knees after me from one end of the promenade to the other. I haven't done nothing. What's the matter with you? But I can tell you. You're gone on that Wilson."
"I aren't gone on him," said Caroline angrily. "A man I hardly know. You must have got a bee in your bonnet, Wilf."
"I may, or I may not, but I'm not going to have my future wife conduct herself in a silly style without saying a word," he answered with youthful pomposity.
"Your wife! It hasn't got to that yet," said Caroline. Then she thrust her face nearer to his, adding impulsively: "It would be years and years before we could think of marrying. I didn't plan ahead like that when we started keeping company, and I don't feel as if I could ever look on you as a future husband, Wilf. I don't feel I ever shall want to marry you—not now it comes to it."
"Then that's why you wouldn't have my ring," he said, his face blank and pale in the twilight. He began to see that it was all real—not just a "tiff" such as they had had before.
"I suppose so," said Caroline, her tone changing too—becoming anxious and slightly troubled. "I didn't realize at the time, but I expect I was shying away from the idea, if you know what I mean?"
"Oh, I know what you mean well enough. You're tired of me, and you want to turn me down. But let me tell you you won't find fellows like me growing on every gooseberry bush. I've always treated you like a gentleman—I have. I never hinted a word when you were going out as day girl to that woman who keeps a little shop in your street, though I could see some of my pals thought I was walking out a bit beneath myself. And this is the return I get." He jerked his hat back on his head. "It's enough to make a chap go to the dogs and enjoy himself: blest if it isn't!"
"I'm sorry, Wilf. I know I'm behaving like a perfect pig, but when it comes to marrying, you must have the right sort of feeling, or where are you?" said Caroline.
"Well, I only know one thing. I wish to goodness I had bought that second-hand motor-bike I wanted, instead of saving up the money against getting married! Why, I fair couldn't sleep for thinking about it: and now Simpson has bought it. And it was all for you. And now this is how I'm treated."
"Oh, Wilf! You never told me. I never knew about the motor-bike," said Caroline, taken aback.
"There's lots of things you don't know about," said Wilf. "However, if you're bent on ending it all, I shan't try to stop you.Iaren't one to force myself upon a girl that doesn't want me."
Caroline's lip began to tremble "Wilf, if I'd known about you giving up the motor-bike I wouldn't never have spoken as I did. I do feel a beast. But you have to think about yourself in this world or nobody'll think for you. I can't see any reason in going on as we are doing for years and then getting married when we're both dead sick of it all and of each other. We only keep each other back. We should be better free."
"Meaning you want to be free?" He had to pause a minute, owing to a thickness in his throat. "All right. I shan't hold you to it. You go and see if you can find a chap that can marry you straight off. That's what you want. You'd never have broken with me if I'd had a big house and plenty of money. I should not have been too young for you then. You'd not have had to chuck me over then, to better yourself."
She was weeping now—very grieved to hurt him, and yet, beneath her softness, an iron determination to do what was best for herself; no thought of sacrifice because of his pain entering her head. "I'm so sorry, Wilf. I'm so sorry," she murmured.
But he felt she was implacable. She was armoured by that phrase of hers, she'd "got to do the best for herself," and he knew he had no weapon to pierce that armour.
They both stood on the edge of the cliff in silence, looking towards the north where the Flamborough lights gleamed out at regular intervals across the dark water. The promenade lay behind them, a fringe of pale lights twinkling along the shore.
Caroline was crying for the sorrow she had given Wilf, but that only lay on the surface, though genuine enough. Beneath that, all unknowing, she mourned a loss which nothing could restore. She and Wilf had given each other that first bloom of young attraction—bright glances, touches, cool kisses almost without passion—and no power could bring that back. They felt miserable, standing there with the little waves coming in—whish! whish!—upon the gravelly patch of sand: for there lay at the bottom of their hearts a sense of something irretrievably wasted, which they could never have in life any more.
"Well." He spoke first, bitterly. "I hope you may get your rich chap. As you've no more need for me, I may as well go."
"I'm not throwing you over for that, Wilf," said Caroline in a low voice.
His subdued mood spurted up with a sudden irritability of jarred nerves again. "Then what are you for? That's what I should like to know."
"I—I——" She sought to give him a true answer. "You're not old enough. I want a man, now I'm older. You won't be twenty-one for two years."
"A man!" He swung round towards her, peering with fury through the twilight into her face. "A man! What d'you call me? What do you take me for? A man!" He paused, choking for breath, then shouted out: "Go and find your man, then. I don't want you, I don't want you. I wouldn't have you at a gift. A man! Not if you went down on your hands and knees——" He was walking away as he spoke, shouting over his shoulder, almost incoherent with the rage engendered by that sudden stab in his tenderest spot. Just before he was beyond ear-shot, he paused a second and called out: "There'll be no going back. You needn't think it. I shall pay the first instalment of a new bike in the morning."
So the dusk swallowed up his slim figure, and she was left by herself on the cliff. After a while a couple came along closely entwined and when they were close on her the girl said with a start: "Carrie? Is that you all by yourself? Where's Wilf?"
"Oh, he is a bit further on," said Caroline, striving to make her voice sound casual. "Don't you stop for me."
"All right! So long as you haven't pushed him over the cliff, Carrie," said the girl, laughing: then she and her young man went their way, forgetting all about other people.
Caroline waited until they had gone some little distance before she followed them, and as she walked alone on the cliff path with the stars coming out, she had the strangest feeling of loneliness—of lacking something that had always been there since she grew up. It was rather as if she had cast some article of clothing which she had been in the habit of wearing.
On reaching the more crowded part of the cliff near the promenade her first instinct was to keep out of sight; for she had no young man with her, and vaguely felt that she would look odd without one at this time of night. It seemed so "queer" to be walking by herself on the cliff in such an evening hour—but a further strangeness came with the thought that she actually did not possess a "boy" at all. Nobody to wait for her at the gate when she went out in the evening. No one to hang round the pay-box at the promenade entrance to take her home. The sense of missing something was a great deal stronger now than the sense of freedom; she almost wished she had kept in with Wilf, despite that other feeling that made her desire to break with him.
It was a relief to mingle with the crowd coming out from the promenade, because people might suppose she had just left her post at the gate; but she still kept that odd sensation—lightened of a weight, and yet comfortless—as if she had "cast" something which had been more necessary to her than she ever realized.