Godfrey Wilson waited until Mr. Graham had departed, then strolled slowly along the promenade towards Caroline. He had no real objection to anyone knowing that he spoke to her, but preferred to say a necessary word or two about the type-writing machine when Miss Ethel and her party were not there. This is what he told himself as he went along the path to the place where she stood with another girl, watching the dancing.
All the same it was something deeper than argument which informed his movements—something stronger than common sense. It was a stirring of the insatiable curiosity of the human being who has begun to be sexually interested in another. Though not exactly coarse-fibred, he was so far removed from anything attenuated as almost to be so. He only thought of himself.
He wanted to know what she was thinking of him, whether she liked him more or less than when they last met. And yet in spite of that he believed himself to be quite honest when he assured his conscience that he only wanted to say something about a paper carrier which had not worked well. For instinct is such a wonderful hand at camouflage that he believed quite honestly—despite previous experience—that he wanted nothing more. For the most wonderful thing about this kind of deception is that the same old trick may seem new time after time. Just as a healthy woman forgets what she has gone through on having her child, so a very virile man will forget—in a way—what he has experienced in pursuit of a girl.
At any rate, Godfrey Wilson was not at all conscious of going over old ground; though when he approached Caroline saying rather formally, "Good evening, Miss Raby. I just wanted to ask you if that paper carrier was working satisfactorily now——" he could not quite ignore the suggestion of a giggle in the attitude of Caroline's companion, who moved away at once with some murmur about finding a cousin. The "Two's company and three's none!" in her tone spoke as plainly as that. Wilson felt annoyed by it.
"Oh well, that was all I wanted to know," he said when she had given the information, and he spoke rather loudly and distinctly, so that anyone near might hear.
But as Caroline at once moved away to follow her friend, he suddenly felt that he wanted to say something more.
"The Gala has not been a very gay affair, has it? Nearly over now, though," he said.
She stood still again and they both glanced up and down the long promenade, which was fast emptying: just then a heavy cloud sailed across the moon, obscuring everything but those islands of light near the gas-lamps. The little coloured globes were by now more than half blown out, while the rest flickered uncertainly, accentuating the windy darkness. It was the last dance, and the band played very quickly. The few couples left were mostly men and girls more or less in love with each other who wanted to spin out the happy hours.
"Come!" said Wilson, putting his arm round Caroline's waist, on the impulse of the moment. "Let's dance these last few bars. It is all over."
All over—— It was curious how the words echoed in his own mind as he circled round faster and faster. He would not be dancing with little girls on the Thorhaven promenade any more after to-night. He would be a married man when the next Gala took place—ranged, respected; and though he felt a deep affection for Laura, he knew it was not on that altar alone that he had sacrificed his freedom. His wife's fortune would also just lift him above the dead-level where opportunities are very few, into the region where a clever and enterprising man with ambition is certain to find many; but he was sufficiently fond of Laura to make the prospect of matrimony with her agreeable, though he was not what is called a marrying man.
But a bridegroom of his type is bound to have regrets, unless in the thrall of an engrossing passion; and to-night Wilson felt these misgivings more acutely than he had done since his engagement—perhaps because the loss of bachelor freedom was getting so near. Therefore his dance with Caroline—though such a trivial matter in itself—was not simply a dance, but a last fling: and he felt a ridiculous desire to call out to the band to go on when he heard them stopping, so as to prolong something in his own life which he knew to be nearly at an end.
He did not do so, of course; and the performers at once began to pack up, thankfully looking forward to warmth and bed. Wilson and Caroline chanced to stop dancing near the turnstile leading on to the cliff, so they went out that way, which was near his lodgings, and equally convenient for her to reach the Cottage. One or two couples passed out just before them, but Caroline and Wilson were the last, and when they stepped into the clayey ground at the beginning of the cliff path, they seemed to plunge all at once into absolute darkness.
"Careful!" cried Wilson sharply. "You'll be over the cliff in a minute, if you don't look out." And he put his hand through her arm.
The sea gleamed very faintly under the black sky as they turned their backs on it and walked cautiously along the uneven path leading to the main road. At the corner she stood still and withdrew her arm. "I can manage all right now. It was so dark under the shadow of that wall. Good night."
"Oh no. I can't let you go home alone. You would be walking into a fence or spraining your ankle over a stone heap before you got to the Cottage," he answered. "Come on." And he took her arm again. "There! You see you are stumbling already."
She had trodden carelessly, disturbed by his touch, and she felt his grasp strengthen—then felt some instinct in herself fighting against it. "No. I'll go alone. I can quite well. I'd rather. I hate bringing you so far out of your way." She spoke in short phrases, nervously.
"Of course, I can't let you walk home by yourself in this," he said, his assurance somehow increased by her fluttering nervousness. "Don't be a silly girl. What are a few hundred yards to me one way or another?"
"Oh well!" Caroline suddenly gave way, feeling she had been making ridiculously too much of it. "Must be after eleven," she murmured. "The Committee extended the time to eleven. I expect they'll wish they hadn't, when it was such a cold night."
"I suppose they've been out after eleven before." But she knew by his tone he was not thinking of what he was saying. All that they had really to say to each other seemed to be passing through the electric current which passed between his strong, warm fingers and the tingling flesh of her arm—though they actually did discourse about Mr. Graham, and the balloons, and the financial disappointment which the Gala must have been to the Committee.
But near the gate of the Cottage Caroline resolutely withdrew her arm. "Please don't come up the drive. I'd rather you didn't. Good night!" She spoke in a low voice, hurriedly.
"Sure you're all right?" he said.
"Yes. Yes. Good night," she repeated.
He let her go a few steps, then she suddenly felt an arm of iron about her, the brief touch of his lips on her cheek—heard his voice saying with a queer accent of triumph: "I knew it would be like that!"
He was gone, leaving her standing there. He had satisfied the urge of a burning curiosity which had assailed him first as she sat in the window of Laura's drawing-room, and he noticed the magnolia texture of her healthy pallor and the little golden powdering of freckles on her nose. He had fought against that recollection. He had been ashamed to have begun it there. Now as he strode away into the dark he swore to himself that he was satisfied; he would never let himself go again; that he would be faithful to Laura in thought and deed.
As for Caroline—well, he remembered that she had walked out with a young man named Wilf; probably with others before that. A kiss more or less was not a serious thing to a girl of that sort; though he felt sorry, all the same, that he had been betrayed into giving it.
Caroline made her way up the dark drive, and on reaching the door she felt in her coat pocket for the latch-key. It was not there. Then she sought hastily in her other pocket and could not find it. Evidently she had dropped it on the road somewhere, but no one could see a small article like that now, even if it lay on the pathway.
Well, there was nothing for it but to knock at the door. She looked up at the house which loomed above her, a dark block with faintly gleaming windows, and the thud, thud, made by her knuckles seemed extraordinarily loud. But the stillness which followed seemed intense—seemed only to be accentuated by the heavy sound of the sea which she never consciously heard in the daytime, any more than Miss Ethel or the other Thorhaven people.
After a while she knocked again, but the house still lay quiet—with the peculiar deadness about it of houses seen from the outside when those within are all asleep. In the room just above the front door Miss Ethel was deep in the first stupid slumber of exhaustion produced by a long day's work and the evening walk in a high wind. She was so tired that she had ceased some time ago to lie awake and listen for Caroline coming in, though she felt it was her duty to do so. But nearly every night now she went to bed early and lay like a log, not caring about anything more until the morning. If the world came to an end, she must go to bed—she could no more.
Caroline down below stood hesitating whether to throw a stone up or not, but remembered that Mrs. Bradford was so timid that she always covered up her ears with the blanket for fear of hearing burglars in the night—priding herself indeed on this timidity, and telling people that when you once had had a husband you lost your nerve for sleeping alone. So Caroline knew there was no help to be had in that quarter, and yet she did not like to startle Miss Ethel after that fall among the half-built houses which had been more than an ordinary faint, though no one made anything of it.
However, she knocked again on the door, blows that seemed to echo through the whole of Thorhaven. She glanced nervously over her shoulder, picturing the male inhabitants of Emerald Avenue and Cornelian Crescent and Sapphire Terrace, hastily flinging on trousers and boots to see what the matter was, while their wives made shrill-voiced ejaculations from the bed. She saw it all quite plainly on the darkness as the noise reverberated through the still night. Suddenly she lost her nerve. That kiss at the gate still hovered in the back of her consciousness, waiting for a fuller realization; but it had left her fluttering and tingling with emotion, so that she was less mistress of herself than usual.
Not that she had not been kissed before, and by others besides Wilf; but it had never been like this, because now for the first time a kiss woke a response which bewildered her. She began to cry.
Then she tried to pull herself together. After all, it could not be very late. What an idiot to be standing there crying, when Aunt Creddle lived only a ten minutes' walk away! Of course she could go and stay the night there. Very likely Aunt Creddle might be still up, for she took in washing for one or two people, and sometimes did the ironing after the children were in bed——
Caroline gave a sob of relief as she got to this, and turning her back on the house she began to run stumbling down the drive. When she reached the open road and was free from the heavy shadow of the privet hedge, she felt her self-confidence gradually coming back to her.
All the houses in Emerald Avenue were in darkness, but on nearing the Creddles she saw a little glimmer of light through the glass pane of the front door. It was as she had hoped, for in response to her knock, Mrs. Creddle herself unchained the door and peered out into the dark. "Is that somebody from Mrs. White's?" she asked. "I thought she wasn't expecting until next week at the——" The good woman broke off suddenly and her voice went up several notes: "You, Caroline!"
"Yes. I lost my latch-key and I can't make them hear. I was afraid I should startle Miss Ethel if I threw anything up at her window," said Caroline, speaking quickly. "I didn't know if it might give her a turn, after that fall of hers. And you can't waken Mrs. Bradford. She wraps her head up in her petticoat and sleeps like the dead."
"Well, it's a lucky thing I happened to be up finishing the ironing," said Mrs. Creddle. "Your uncle wouldn't have liked it if you'd come hammering at our door and letting the whole street know you were locked out."
"I didn't lose the key on purpose," said Caroline rather sullenly, as she followed her aunt into the warm, light kitchen. "I couldn't help it."
"What made you so late in?" said Mrs. Creddle. "Here, sit you down and I'll get you a drink of cocoa. Girls never used to be having latch-keys and careering about at all hours in my day."
"But it isn't your day now, thank goodness!" said Caroline, who was feeling excited and irritable. "I had a dance on the green after I came off duty, that was all."
"Prom's been closed a long time," said Mrs. Creddle. "I heard the next-door folks come back. But we was all young once, and I dare say you and Wilf have been kissing and making friends again on the way home. Is that it?"
For some obscure reason this question angered Caroline almost beyond bearing.
"I told you I'd done with Wilf, and I have," she said rather hysterically. "I wouldn't let him kiss me now for anything on earth. I don't know how I ever could fancy him. I——"
"Hush!" said Mrs. Creddle, glancing towards the stairs. "There's your uncle moving. I'm afraid he won't be best pleased to see you here, Carrie. And he would have pickle for his tea, though I told him not, so he's a bit fretty to start with."
Before she had finished speaking Mr. Creddle was upon them, hastily dressed in night-shirt and trousers. "Now, what's all this?" he said, and his tone certainly did betray the effect of cheap vinegar on a weak digestion.
So Mrs. Creddle explained matters while Caroline stood listening.
"Who came home with you?" said Creddle, turning with a dark face towards the two women. "I saw the bills. Dancing was over a good bit since. Who brought you home?"
"That's my business," she answered, pale and obstinate.
"Is it? Well, it's my business to take you back to your place," he said. Then he went on, raising his voice: "Do you think I'm going to have a niece of mine—that I've brought up like my own—stopping out all night? The lasses in my family and in your aunt's family, too, have always been respectable—and you will be an' all, so long as I have anything to do with you."
"I'm not going back to the Cottage to-night, though. I'm going to stop here and sleep on the sofa," said Caroline defiantly.
"Hush, Carrie," pleaded Mrs. Creddle anxiously. "That isn't the way to speak to your uncle, you know. He only means it for your good."
Mr. Creddle reached for his boots. "I won't have her stop out all night," he repeated. "What would your mother ha' thought if you'd done such a thing when you were in service?"
"Only Iaren'tin service like aunt was," answered Caroline, getting excited again. "Things are quite different from what they used to be then. You can't judge by what went on when you were young, can he, aunt?"
But Mrs. Creddle only shook her head; for somehow those words "stopped out all night" came echoing on from her youth and she felt the force of tradition at this moment no less than her husband. Always that phrase had conveyed something derogatory concerning the girl about whom it was used; and never would she or her sister Ellen have earned it while they were in service for any earthly consideration. She was still faithful to all the traditions of that skilled trade to which she had served a long apprenticeship, and which is one of the most intricate and difficult in the world. For a mass of oral knowledge handed down from one to another—accuracy, intelligence, self-control, a very high standard of personal chastity—these things formed only a part of the equipment of Caroline's aunts when they were young, and such girls as they formed an unorganized guild of service which can never be excelled in England, whatever comes. They were the best maid-servants in the world, and they did not know it. But they had a great pride in themselves, if not in their fine calling, and Mrs. Creddle felt this stir within her as she listened to her husband.
"Your uncle's right," she said. "Maybe other people will get to know you lost your key, and they mightn't believe you. You wouldn't like it to get about that you'd stopped out all night."
"I shouldn't care. I know I've done nothing wrong," said Caroline, beginning to take off her hat.
"Now, my lass!" said Creddle grimly, as he finished lacing his boots, "you're coming with me. Don't let's have no nonsense!"
"I tell you, I'm not coming," said Caroline, pale about the lips and trembling a little.
"Come! Come! Carrie," said Mrs. Creddle, beginning to cry. "Don't anger your uncle. He's that wore out he didn't know where to put himself when he got home to-night, and yet here he is with his boots on ready to take you back to your place. And he's always treated you like his own, and so have I, so far as I know how. Many's the little treat we've gone without, and never grudged it, so as to bring you up nice; and this is how you pay us back."
"Oh, aunt, I know you have," said Caroline, and her eyes filled, though they had been hard and dry a minute before. "I do know how good you and uncle have been. Only I won't be taken back as if I were a little trapesing general that had been misbehaving herself. I can't!"
"There's no talk of misbehaving," said Creddle. "And I aren't going to have any. You get your hat on and come with me."
Caroline's face stiffened; then she felt the touch of Mrs. Creddle's roughened, kind hand on her arm, and saw that jolly face puckered with crying which had smiled a welcome on her all her life. She gave a great gulp and walked to the door, Creddle following her.
For she belonged—poor Caroline—to the company of those who can really love, and they are always liable to give way suddenly when fighting those they love, because they cannot bear to see the pain.
Miss Ethel came into the kitchen as Caroline finished washing up the breakfast things. There was a constrained atmosphere about both of them which seemed even to affect the small fire which burnt sulkily in the grate, but nothing was said concerning the events of the previous night.
"Oh! Caroline, I wonder if you would kindly take a message for me to Miss Temple on your way to the promenade?" said Miss Ethel, rather stiffly.
But on the whole the affair of the previous night had been less odious than Caroline had feared. Still it had been rather like an ugly nightmare, all the same—Uncle Creddle banging on the door until one startled woman opened it while the other peered over the banisters. They had thanked Mr. Creddle, saying Caroline ought to be more careful: and Mrs. Bradford added that some burglar had no doubt picked up the key and would come and murder them in their beds. But there the matter ended.
Now, however, with the mention of Laura's name, the recollection of that kiss at the gate last night sprang up from some deep place within Caroline's consciousness and overwhelmed everything else. She could not go to Laura's door and perhaps be obliged to answer kind words and pleasant looks; she could not do it. "I'm sorry, Miss Ethel," she muttered, bending over the washing-bowl, "but there's not time."
Miss Ethel glanced at the clock and saw that there was time; but she could not insist, and so thought it more dignified to go away without making any remark. Still she felt irritated to an unreasonable degree, for her disturbed night had left her tired and nervous.
A few minutes later Caroline went out. There had been a change in the wind, which now blew lustily from the north-east, and the sun was shining. As she came down the street leading to the promenade, the surface of her mind responded to the pricking liveliness of the salt air and the sight of the open sea in front of her. A heavy rain towards dawn had washed down mud from the cliffs which the high tide had carried away, so now the water was a milky dun-colour, scattered with millions of opal lights, answering more closely just then to the thought of a jewelled sea than even the sparkling sapphire Mediterranean.
A middle-aged visitor who had passed constantly in and out through the barrier and knew Caroline by sight, gave her a sprightly "Good morning" as he went through. "Most invigorating! Most invigorating!"
"Yes. Makes you feel as if you could jump over the moon, doesn't it?" said Caroline gaily—that surface mind responding to his brisk jollity.
"Ha! Ha! So long as you haven't a liver to weigh you down," jested the rosy-faced gentleman. Then he stepped away down the promenade, well pleased with himself and his surroundings, and feeling that he was not such an old dog yet, so long as he could enjoy a joke with a girl on the promenade.
Caroline looked after him with a smile which gradually faded from her lips as the slight stimulation from without ceased to act. For beneath it all there was something inside, deep down within her, which was not to be touched by the influences of sea air or sunshine—something that watched anxiously and doggedly for one thing and would heed no other.
But the people came and went—came and went—until her knee ached with the clutch and her whole being with watching.… And still the one man she was looking for never put his broad-palmed, long-fingered hand on the iron bar or turned his heavy-featured face towards her little window.
She kept telling herself that she was tired after last night, so as to explain the ache, but her little, pale face was looking pinched in the light from the sea when Laura Temple paused at the barrier to say a few words. The two girls spoke to each other through the little window; one smiling, the other rather grave and reluctant. They talked a moment or two of trivial things—the weather, the Gala—but Caroline felt a queer animosity towards this pleasant, kind girl whose lover had kissed her the night before. Though she told her surface self that the kiss was only a "bit of fun" and meant nothing, that other self knew well enough that it had meant quite enough to constitute an injury to a bride who was to be married in less than three weeks' time.
She replied abruptly, turning over the leaves of her account book; irritated by this contradictory sense of being obliged to feel she had done an injury when she knew she really had not. So at last Laura thought she had a headache or something, and soon went on towards the Cottage.
Miss Ethel came to the door, and at once took Laura into the living-room. Mrs. Bradford sat as usual on an arm-chair, idle with a clear conscience, because of her great, successful effort in the past.
Laura greeted them both gaily, for she felt the world was an agreeable place that morning. "I received your message with an almond cake from the baker's. I do hope your news is something good, too," she said.
But Miss Ethel did not respond to the mild pleasantry. "Yes. I had to get the baker's boy to take a message, because I am not very well to-day, and Caroline declined to call round on her way to the promenade."
"Said she hadn't time," added Mrs. Bradford. "She had quite sufficient time. And considering that she came in at all hours last night after pretending to lose the latch-key, I think she might have done what Ethel asked. No doubt she had been wandering about with some man. She went to the Creddles, intending to stay the night there, but Creddle brought her back."
"Oh, I feel sure she really did lose the key," said Laura. "It is a thing I have done myself before now. And I'm sure I never wandered about at night with young men."
"But she pretended that she had been here earlier and was unable to make anyone hear. I didn't like that. We are not Rip van Winkles," said Miss Ethel crisply.
Laura laughed, anxious to conciliate them both for Caroline's sake. "I dare say she was afraid of disturbing you. She is a kind-hearted girl, I am sure, and she would remember that you have been ill, Miss Ethel."
"And yet she declined to go on a simple errand for me this morning," said Miss Ethel. "No, they are all alike: all for self. The young people of the present day think of nothing but their own amusement."
She paused and added, anxious to be just, "Though I must own that Caroline was kind when I was ill. I dare say there is something good-hearted about her, at the bottom: but it is her general attitude which I so dislike."
"If we only had Ellen back!" moaned Mrs. Bradford from the depths of the arm-chair. "Or somebody like Ellen."
"You may just as well wish for butter at fourteen-pence a pound or oranges twelve a penny like we used to get in Flodmouth Market," retorted Miss Ethel. Then her voice changed, taking on a heavy, inward note. "Those days are done. They'll never come back any more."
"I mean," said Mrs. Bradford, who had all the curiosity often shown by stupid people, "what sort of a young man Caroline has got now. A great deal depends on that." And she looked inquiringly at Laura.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Laura. "Caroline's young men are her affair, not mine."
"At any rate," said Miss Ethel, "we have not brought you here on a busy morning to talk about them. We know you must have a great deal on your hands just now, preparing for the wedding."
"Oh, it makes a great difference, having no house to get ready," said Laura, flushing at the mention of her wedding, as she could not help doing, though she felt such a sign of emotion to be ridiculous at this time of day. "We must stay in my cottage until the house Godfrey has taken is at liberty, and they say that won't be before the end of March at the earliest."
"I don't think I should have liked that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I remember how my dear husband insisted on having everything absolutely complete, down to the very toilet-tidies on the looking-glasses, before he took me home as a bride. But there are few like him." And she sighed and glanced up at the quite imposing photograph which she had long since come to believe exactly resembled Mr. Bradford in life.
Laura felt a very little annoyed for the moment, being sensitive on this point of a house because hints had not failed to reach her that Godfrey was considered to be feathering his nest at her expense; but the next minute she forgot her annoyance in a tender flow of sympathy for this other woman who had lost everything which she herself was about to possess.
"Godfrey and I thought it preferable to waiting until the spring," she said gently. "But of course I should have liked my new home to be all ready for me, as yours was."
"Well, you needn't regret the toilet-tidies," said Miss Ethel. "Green paper with magenta ribbon, if I remember right." Then she paused a moment, nervously trying to steel herself for an effort which was exceedingly painful to her. "But what we asked you to come in for was this——" She paused again to clear her throat. "We have decided to sell this house, and we thought you would kindly convey the message to Godfrey for us."
"Of course I will," said Laura readily. The question as to why a letter could not have been sent to Godfrey was latent in her tone, but Miss Ethel did not answer it, because she herself did not know how she dreaded the effort of writing the letter.
"We knew you would be seeing Godfrey this afternoon—we thought perhaps you would break it to him."
"We have only just decided," added Mrs. Bradford. "But I daresay we shall be all right in Emerald Avenue. There is a pleasant window in the front bedroom facing south. So long as I have my knitting and a warm corner I can make myself happy. My dear husband once said that my disposition made me immune from the arrows of adversity. It was a beautiful thing to say, and I have never forgotten it."
"I'll be sure to tell Godfrey," said Laura, for once bluntly disregarding Mrs. Bradford's reminiscences, because she understood far more than they thought. It was plain enough that Miss Ethel had sent in this haste so as to make the matter irrevocable—to strengthen a decision almost beyond her powers. But once they had talked openly about leaving the house, it became an established thing.
"Tell Godfrey we can be out by Christmas, if he is able to effect a sale," said Miss Ethel. "We must leave the roses, of course, as there will be no garden in Emerald Avenue. The privet hedge has been clipped this year, but it will want pruning in January."
"Oh, Miss Ethel!" said Laura, with a catch in her throat, suddenly feeling the tears running down, though she had no thought of crying a moment earlier.
For Miss Ethel, as she stood there very erect, talking in that dry, clear tone, with her thin face towards the light and the right temple twitching a little, looking out at the garden she had loved to tend, was a sight very touching to a sensitive heart. And though Laura knew that it was not such a terrible misfortune to leave an agreeable house with a nice garden for a smaller one less pleasant, she still felt—ridiculous though her reason knew it to be—that the atmosphere of the low room was charged with something momentous. The throb! throb! throb! of a heavy sea at low tide came through the window, and it sounded to Laura's excited perceptions like the tread of something dreadful coming. Perhaps she was in a state of heightened emotion owing to her nearly approaching marriage, and that made her unduly impressionable, but she did experience a queer, helpless sense of destiny approaching such as you feel in dreams.
But Miss Ethel had conquered a momentary trembling of the lips caused by Laura's tears, and she crisply broke the silence. "I dare say you think we are making a mountain out of a molehill."
"No, no," said Laura eagerly. "Only you will have less work to do, and by next year at this time you may be really glad you are not here."
"Shall I?" said Miss Ethel. "I hope it may be so!"
"Don't take it like that, Miss Ethel!" said Laura in a quick, sharp tone, most unusual for her. "Things can never be as they were again. Is it likely? Look out into the world. There's not a corner where you don't feel the backwash of a storm of some sort. You and I have lived in such a sheltered happy way here that we don't realize what's going on unless we are brought up against it by something in our own lives." She wanted to be kind—yet words which were not very kind came out in spite of herself: and she felt herself trembling a little, as if they had to do with a deep emotion of her own which it distressed her to bring to light. "You can't feel sure of anything or anybody in the whole world. Anybody may change. They can't help it, any more than you can help seeing it." She was very pale now, aghast at what had grown from a faint stirring of unformulated doubt to a spoken reality. Almost every sensitive person has trembled thus before something which has sprung up into sight through the accidental touching of a hidden spot in the mind.
But that only lasted a moment—the next, she was not going to leave it so. Every particle of her being rebelled against what she had seen and she would rather doubt her senses than her love. "I except Godfrey, of course," she said, lifting up her head with a little laugh. "Heremains stable."
"Yes. Yes. Of course," responded Miss Ethel absently, her mind so full of what they had just decided to do that she could think of nothing else. "Then you will tell Godfrey? I don't think there is any need for me to write."
"He will come in to see you, no doubt." Laura had remained standing since that moment when she rose hastily from her seat, and she went forward now with a gesture which showed she did not intend to sit down again. "I have such heaps to do this morning. I'm afraid I must run away now."
But as she touched Miss Ethel's hand with her own she was startled by its icy coldness. In a moment her sympathy flowed back again over those dreadful thoughts, washing them away. "I know you'll love your new home when you get settled, and you will have all your friends just the same. More, because you will be nearer the town." And she pressed her lips to that white cheek.
Miss Ethel did not seem to relax in that embrace, or to be in the least sensible of the natural kindness which permeated every fibre of Laura's being like the sweetness of sun-warmed fruit, but perhaps she did feel a little comforted by that soft human contact all the same.
For she went with the guest to the door and stood alone there watching until the sound of steps and the click of the gate gave place to silence. The builders had gone away for their dinner-hour, and the close-shaven grass in the sunshine near the high hedge seemed so cloistered—so much more remote than it really was. Before those new houses came, you need not see anything beyond the privet hedge unless you wished—— But now the outside was close upon her. It was time to give in and go away.
As she stood there with the neat curled hair over her forehead blowing in the wind, and her short skirt and blouse trimly set about her spare figure, she was thinking thoughts which were almost incredibly different from what she looked—seeking all over the world with a sort of desperate forlornness for a corner where her mind could find rest.
Then the very quiet of the half-built houses over the hedge reminded her that she must go in to fry the rissoles for the midday dinner, but she revolted from the anticipated smell of hot fat with a sensation of physical sickness. For she had never possessed a robust appetite, and until this last year had scarcely ever sat down to a meal prepared by herself: so she did not bring to the task that interest which a good appetite or a natural taste for cooking will give even to those who have had no previous experience.
However, it had to be done, so she went in, catching sight as she passed through the hall of a roll of music returned by Laura: but it failed to stir any regret that she was always too tired to practise nowadays. Leisure—which she had all her life regarded as a right, no more to be considered than water or air—was hers no longer.
But she had no idea that she was sharing the exact experience of thousands of women throughout England—throughout Europe: that as she stood there alone over a stove in a quiet little house in a remote part of Yorkshire, carrying out the everyday details of her narrow existence, she was more widely and actually international than the manual workers themselves.
She only knew that she loathed the smell of frying fat.
Caroline had just come back from her tea and stood at the door of the pay-box, talking to Lillie, who was about to go off duty. The bright light reflected from the sea shone on the two girls, and on some children with brown legs and streaming hair who raced along the promenade.
"Going for a walk?" said Caroline, glancing idly in front of her at the expanse of dappled water.
"No. Mother has a bad cold and we're full up with visitors. I shall go straight home."
Then—just at this least expected moment—the thing happened for which some hidden feeling within her had been so intently waiting all day. She saw Godfrey standing there as she had pictured, with his broad, long-fingered hand on the iron bar; the hand so indicative—had she but known—of the contradictions in his character.
Lillie sat down again to release the clutch, and he passed through to the promenade. "Oh, lovely afternoon, isn't it?" he said, and walked briskly away between the neat rows of bedding plants.
The two girls looked after him; at last Lillie said with a slight giggle: "Seems in a hurry, doesn't he? But I expect he's got his young lady waiting for him. My word, she'd give him beans if she knew he saw you home last night, wouldn't she?" A pause, during which Caroline failed to respond; then, rather shortly: "Well, so long!" But Caroline did not notice; her whole mind bent on Godfrey's retreating figure as it went firmly down the broad concrete walk of the promenade—for now the question she'd been craving to ask all day had been answered. He thought nothing about what happened last night. The kiss had been nothing to him. He intended to show her that he did not recognize any slightest claim on his attention which she might think she had gained from it.
Then she had to cease looking after him in order to answer a stout lady visitor who made a point of being nice to the girl at the pay-box. "Yes—a great pity the weather was not like this for the Gala."
But all the time she was saying to herself, with the queer, dazed feeling which comes from a sudden shock of discovery: "I'm gone on him! I'm fair gone on him, and him going to be married!"
Even in her thoughts she usually chose her words—just as she kept herself scrupulously "nice" underneath to match her carefully tended hands and well-brushed hair. But now she reverted back to the expressions of her earliest girlhood. "I only meant a bit of fun, and I'm fair gone on him."
Oh! it was desolating—most miserable. There was nothing on earth to be got from it but heartache. She had tried to do the best for herself, and Fate had treated her like this—stabbed her from behind. It was abominable that she should be punished so for a bit of fun when other girls got off scot-free who had done all sorts of things that she would be ashamed of doing. Life was unfair. It was horribly unfair——
An Urban District Councillor on his way home separated himself from the stream of men with bags which emerged blackly from the railway station and flowed over Thorhaven between half-past five and half-past six. "Fine evening! Fine evening!" he said, bustling through the barrier.
For a moment the agony lifted; but when he was gone it started again worse than ever—like the pain in an inflamed nerve. The waste of it! She had thrown away her best asset for nothing. She could no longer fall in love with the rich young man who might want to marry her one day—as she had always more or less sub-consciously expected—because she loved Godfrey. Instinct warned her that the best goods in her shop window were gone without any return, and for the moment her chief feeling was an intense anger against fate first and then against Godfrey.
Not that she blamed him particularly for the kiss. Any man would kiss a girl when he saw her home if he had a chance, of course. But she was vaguely furious with him because he was the cause of such a disorganization of all her life plans. She felt cheated, though she did not realize what she was cheated of, as she sat there looking out of her little window towards the north.
Through the remainder of the evening and all the next day her mood remained thus—indrawn and sombre. The people going on the promenade passed by her like marionettes, and she like another marionette responded, but there was no feeling in it at all. She might equally well have seen the whole lot of them, herself included, jerked by wires from a sardonic heaven that had no purpose, no plan—only such figures of thought were not within her scope; still the feeling was there, corroding her faith in life.
At last Saturday night came. But the week of long working hours during which she had been constantly in the sea air and yet protected from wind and rain, had left her filled with vitality, despite her bitterness of mind. The night was not dark, because of a growing moon and pale stars peppering the sky, and as she walked along the light road with no care for her footsteps she found a vent for that unusual vitality in a certain habit of her girlhood which she had almost entirely dropped during the past year or two. Often enough before that, she had walked about the Thorhaven streets imagining herself in all sorts of impossible situations, though always happy, beloved and rich. But she had since given it up, as she had put away her dolls a year or two earlier; and she now felt a secret shame in abandoning herself to it again—as if she had at fourteen taken to playing with dolls once more.
So she let herself imagine Godfrey walking by her side with his arm through hers—kissing her at the gate. After all, nobody would ever know. It hurt nobody; it was all she would ever get. Then weakened by her dreaming she actually did see Godfrey come forth from a clump of dark elders and had not the power to walk straight on as she would have done half an hour earlier. Instead, she stood still and looked at him—disturbed, unhappy, yet with the dull bitterness suddenly gone.
He was close to her before he spoke; then he said hurriedly: "I only wanted to apologize for the other night. I hope you were not offended?" But he knew quite well she was not: it was the urge of that curiosity still burning within him which drove him to find out what she had felt—how his kiss had left her—whether he had been able to reach anything in her.
"You didn't seem to be bothering much about me when you went through into the promenade," she said at last.
He was answered in part; the next moment she felt his arm through hers, just as she had been dreaming on the road, only the reality had a compelling magnetism which was beyond any dreams. "Let us go a little way along the cliff," he said. "I want to speak to you. I want to explain." He spoke excitedly, with a sort of jaded eagerness in his tone; and though she knew her own unwisdom, she went with him.
The turning towards the cliff was just beyond the Cottage, on the opposite side of the road, and consisted of a gravel path that opened out into a small space on the cliff top. It was a lonely spot, out of the way of strolling visitors at that time of night: the bench in the middle of the gravelled space lay empty in the luminous sea-twilight with a great arch of sky overhead and the waves below catching a gleam from moon and stars on every ripple. Though Thorhaven might not be beautiful on a Gala evening, with futile little lamps and starved visitors blown about by the wind, it had, on such nights as these, an exquisite, cool beauty which appealed to the spirit as well as the senses.
As they sat down, Caroline could feel his fingers trembling on her arm; suddenly his kiss struck hard on her lips and her head fell back so that he could see the dark rims of her eyelashes. "Ah! You're in it too—you're in it too," he murmured triumphantly—caring for nothing but that triumphant knowledge.
She knew what he meant—they were both in it. Their oneness enveloped her in a cloud of rapture. Then she jerked herself out of his embrace. "No. No. I can't have you kissing me. It isn't fair to take your fun out of me when you're going to be married directly. I don't know how you can want to do it."
He jumped up without speaking and walked towards the cliff edge. "Good God!" he burst out. "You don't imagine Iwantto be in love with you! I'm in hell—hell! Whatever I do, I see your face. It's beyond all reason——" He stopped short, amazed and enraged by this strange, biting curiosity which made him mad about a girl who was nothing—who was not even really pretty. What could influence men in this way—driving them to insane acts for the sake of some one woman out of all the millions? There must be something not yet understood. Suddenly he dropped on to the seat, holding his head in his hands. "I don't know what on earth I am going to do," he said.
She looked at him—so helpless in his passion—and the protective instinct of a real woman for her man began to stir in her: so, in spite of her own pain, she tried hard to find something to say that would comfort him. "You—you'll get over it," she said, her voice shaking. "It isn't as if you and I had been going together long, you know. You'll soon forget me."
"Don't!" he said sharply.
She drew back offended. "Oh! All right." She rose with a sort of dignity. "I think I'd better be going home. It must be getting late."
"Now you're vexed." He peered at her—haggard-eyed in that curious twilight from the sea. "Can't you see that everything you do and say makes me want you more? If you'd only turned out a fool!" He drew a long breath.
"I must be going home," she repeated, moving away.
He caught hold of her dress as she went. "Carrie, I can't let you go. I can't do without you."
"You'll have to," she said sombrely. "We shall both have to. There's no help for it."
He waited a moment, then the words seemed to come out of themselves—despite him. "I'm not married yet, you know."
She started. "You don't mean——" Then she backed away from him, the silhouette of her slim figure very clear against the luminous background of sea and sky—every line of it dragging at his senses—hurting him with pity. "You know you couldn't do it," she said after a pause. "We neither of us could. It would kill her. Besides, I couldn't sneak another girl's man after the banns were up and the cake bought—a girl who'd never done me any harm. I aren't so low down as all that, yet."
"Anything is better than marrying without love," he said, but he said it half-heartedly. How was a decent man to throw over a charming devoted girl to whom he was to be married in a fortnight, shaming her before all her little world after he had sought and won her? He thought of Laura's soft acquiescence with an agony of self-reproach and impatience. Then he heard Caroline speaking again, her voice low and clear with the murmur of the sea running in and out of it—he felt it go to his heart.
"It's too late to begin to think whether you'll be miserable or not now," she said. "You made her fond of you. It was your own doing. And you wouldn't get me if you did give her up. I'd no more take you from her, now she's got her wedding-dress and all, than I'd stick a knife into a baby sleeping in its pram. She worships you—can't you see that? It would spoil all her life."
"What about yours—and mine?" he said. "You don't really care for me, or you couldn't talk like that."
She looked away to the glimmering sea, not troubling to answer him. What was the use? He knew.
"Well, I'll be getting on," she said at last.
But he found the hopelessness in her voice unbearable.
"Carrie, we can't leave it like this," he said. "I can't do without you; that's a fact. We must arrange something." He hesitated. "You—you won't cease to be friends with me just because I'm married, will you?"
She moved so quickly out of the reach of his hand that she stood poised on the extreme edge of the cliff. "What do you mean?" she said fiercely. "Is that what you take me for? Then let me tell you I never carried on with a married man in my life and never shall. You're as good as married now. Leave me alone. You think you can talk to me like that because I'm fond of you. But before I'd have anything to do with those underhand ways, I'd jump over this cliff and have done with it. I would, too. I aren'tthatsort, you know—though I have behaved like a silly fool."
But her very defiance only gave his curiosity a keener edge, and he moved towards her with his hand outstretched. "You won't get out of it like that," he said. "Do you suppose I'm going to let you go now, and never see you alone again? I will see you, or I'll chuck the whole thing up to-morrow morning, come what may."
She glanced at him sideways, temporizing: "I shall be meeting you, no doubt."
But he was not to be deceived. "You mean you have done with me unless I break off my engagement. Very well. I'll do it."
She shook her head. "That's nonsense," she said sharply. "You know you can't do it."
"It is only what you did yourself," he said sullenly. "You threw over that young man I saw you with at the dance, and I don't suppose you considered it a crime."
They spoke as enemies, throwing the barbed words back and forth.
"Of course I didn't."
"But why not? It was the same thing."
"No; that was quite different," she said.
"I don't see it. Why different?"
"Because——" She struggled: but suddenly her voice began to tremble. "Oh, I didn't know what love was like then. But he never cared as Miss Laura does. And I shouldn't have minded so much about her, if I hadn't found out for myself——" She broke off. "Only three weeks from the wedding. You couldn't do it, either. Not when it came to only three weeks from the wedding, you couldn't. You know that as well as I do."
"But you always say everybody ought to do the best for themselves. I remember your saying so. What sense is there in spoiling our two lives for the sake of a third?" he said, eagerly and yet heavily. "Why can't you act up to what you believe in this instance, just as you did when you threw over that young man?"
She shook her head, looking at him through unshed tears. "I don't know," she said. "But when it comes to, you can't do it. You know you can't, either. If we were the weak sort, we might."
He let fall her hand which he had been holding and sat down heavily, almost with a groan, upon the wooden bench. It was true enough, what she said. They were both better than their word.
And yet it was not any hope of a future reward which sustained them as they sat there side by side, not touching each other, while the Flamborough lights swung out monotonously across the sea and the waves washed up with regular beat upon the shore. They imagined they believed this life to be probably all—and yet they did not seize what they could get and let everything else go. It was because love constrained them. They felt within themselves the stirring of their own immortality. But they experienced none of the exultation of sacrifice as they turned away from the cliff edge and walked silently, glumly, towards the high road, she trying to wipe the tears away with her fingers so that he should not notice.
As they neared the gate of the Cottage, Godfrey said suddenly: "You don't think I'm frightened of what people say?"
She shook her head. "I aren't so silly as that." She hesitated, then held out her hand. "It's good-bye, then." But her voice trembled again, though she tried to keep it steady, and the next minute she was in his arms, crying her heart out.
"Caroline! What are we to do? What are we to do?" he said, the tears hot in his own eyes. "I can't give you up. I can't live without you."
She clung to him, not answering, and his mind darted back to the name he had given her that first time he had his arm about her at the promenade dance. A nymph on fire. There was something just so fresh and cool about her in the midst of all her passion——
Then he felt her releasing herself gently, but with determination. "What's the use of beginning it all over again?" she said. "You know there's nothing to be done. I aren't that sort. And you aren't either. Don't you know she's got the bride-cake bought, poor girl?"
He could not speak. Her childish insistence on the wedding-cake having been purchased was like a knife through his heart. If only he had left her alone!
"I deserve to be shot for letting you in for this," he said hoarsely. Then he broke out again. "I can't stand it! I must break off my engagement—whatever it costs and however she suffers. You're suffering. And I am! Good God, I should think I am."
But he spoke the last word to empty air—and the next moment he could hear the click of the gate as she slipped away from him up the dark drive.