On Monday evening Caroline stood at the corner of Emerald Avenue, not sure whether to go down it or not, for she had not visited the Creddles since Mr. Creddle so ignominiously took her back to the Cottage at midnight.
While she was hesitating a cab-load of sunburnt children, accompanied by a stout, jolly-looking mother, went by on their way to the railway station. It was the beginning of that exodus which would grow more general every day during the next fortnight until the season was over. Already cards had appeared in one or two windows, and those who had let their houses furnished for "August month" while they found shelter in tumble-down cottages, tents or converted railway carriages, were coming back—glad now the money was in their pockets that they had borne the discomfort, though each year on departing they said "Never again!" A sea-gull flew across the sky with the pink sunset on its outspread wings, and below, the grey church stood in a tender haze against a sheet of gold. But this peaceful time at the end of summer only increased Caroline's restlessness. There was nothing she wanted to do. She neither liked to walk alone, nor to find friends.
So she stood there listlessly, trying to make up her mind whether she should go to see Aunt Creddle or not; and as she did so a slim woman of about forty who had been very pretty came down the Avenue. Caroline remembered quite well what Mrs. Creddle had said about her. She had gone into an office as typist instead of being in service like the other sisters, and thought herself too fine for those who wanted her, but was not fine enough for those she wanted. So one sister married a farm labourer who became a prosperous farmer, the other did not disdain a chimney sweep, and both now possessed houses and children and warm places of their own in the world, while the prettiest still tripped with a rather over-bright smile about the Thorhaven streets, aware of really superior refinement, but not finding much comfort in it.
She stopped to speak to Caroline—and without knowing why, Caroline felt as if a cold wind out of the future had blown drearily across her mind.
"Waiting for Wilf?" asked the girl, smiling. "He must have missed you, for I met him a minute ago. I suppose you are going to this new play there is on at the Cinema."
"Oh, I don't know," said Caroline vaguely. "I don't see much of Wilf now. Lovely night, isn't it?"
This was crude but sufficient, and the woman went on, leaving Caroline once more aimlessly pondering. At last she began to walk slowly down the Avenue to the Creddles' house, calling out at the door as usual: "Hello, aunt!"
Mrs. Creddle at once came out of the kitchen, her jolly face rather anxious. "You never came near yesterday, Carrie. We couldn't think what had gotten you."
"I was busy at home when I wasn't at the prom.," said Caroline. "I've come now to see if Winnie would like to go with me to the pictures."
"Well——" Mrs. Creddle hesitated. "Your uncle was in a fine taking on Thursday night. He seems to have an idea in his head that you were with somebody you daren't speak about. But you'd never have aught to do with a married man, I'm sure, Carrie."
"Well, you may make your mind easy, aunt. The man I was with was single. But I'm not going to say anything more about him. If I have to be answerable to you and uncle for every young fellow I chance to walk home from the prom. with——"
"You know we don't expect that," said Mrs. Creddle, still a little uneasy. "But I told your uncle I could trust you, and I do."
"Where is uncle?" said Caroline, seizing on the nearest pretext for changing the subject.
"Oh, he's gone to the Buffaloes," said Mrs. Creddle; and though her tone implied contempt and disapproval, it was but the natural prejudice of all good women for an institution purely masculine. "They have a Grand Council or some such rubbish to-night," she added; then she raised her voice and called "Winnie!" and imparted the joyful news to a little, rosy-faced girl whose eyes shone with ecstasy. To go to the pictures—at night—and with Cousin Carrie—Life could hold no more, and she sped off to change her frock, like an arrow from the bow.
Caroline had turned away and was staring rather moodily out of the window. Then she felt a hand on her arm. "Carrie, it wasn't young Mr. Wilson you were with, was it?" Mrs. Creddle said in a low voice.
In the involuntary start which followed the words she had her answer; letting her hand drop, she turned an agitated face towards Caroline. "Then you weren't after no good on Thursday night. Your uncle was right. Oh, Carrie, how could you—with him going to be married in a fortnight? I should have thought you would have more self-respect."
Caroline swung round upon her, eyes ablaze. "Who told you I was with Mr. Wilson? You don't want to listen to everything you hear in Thorhaven, surely! And if I was, I was doing no wrong."
"I don't know how you could, Carrie," repeated Mrs. Creddle. "Trapesing about at night with Miss Laura's young man when you ought to have been abed—and after the way she has always treated us all. Why, the very frock Winnie is putting on now is made out of one of hers. I should take shame to try and make mischief between her and her young man, and with him going to be married directly."
"Don't talk such rot, aunt. I have done nothing to be ashamed of," said Caroline rudely, "and I've not set eyes on him since Thursday night. You may talk about Miss Laura—but I owe her nothing. I've paid all back, and more." She paused a moment, but pride, suspense, emotion unnaturally repressed—all combined to betray her into saying what she had never meant to say to any human being. "You think I've behaved badly, do you? Well! I might have taken him away from her altogether. He wanted to throw her over, only I wouldn't have it."
"Oh!" Mrs. Creddle gasped; then went on in a low tone of apprehension and unhappiness. "I didn't think it was as bad as that, Carrie."
"Bad!" Caroline stared with genuine surprise at this reception of her bomb-shell. "He wanted tomarryme, I tell you."
Mrs. Creddle shook her head. "Poor Miss Laura! Well, I didn't think he was that sort, but you never know." She paused, then said gently: "My dear little lass, don't you know all men talk like that when they want to make fools of silly girls? I don't suppose there's hardly a girl gone wrong in Thorhaven but the man has sworn he wanted to marry her. It's a trick as common as sin."
"You don't know what you're talking about! You've lived among a low lot in this terrace until your mind has got poisoned," cried Caroline, maddened with anger and shame. "You're a wicked woman to have such horrible thoughts. I'm telling you the truth. May I die to-night if I aren't!"
"Oh, Carrie!" said Mrs. Creddle, wincing as if she had been struck. "How can you speak to me like that? I don't doubt you think it is all true. I don't doubt he said he would throw her over and marry you. But he didn't mean it. You never suppose he is going to give up Miss Laura and all that money, to marry a girl that is nobody and has nothing; I can't believe it! I never should believe it unless I saw you with his wedding-ring on your finger."
"You can believe or not, as you like," replied Caroline, regaining a little of her self-control. "At any rate, you must swear to keep it to yourself, or I will never tell you anything again as long as I live."
"I shan't want to spread such news abroad, you may be sure," said Mrs. Creddle. "But you must promise me not to trust yourself with him alone any more, Carrie. You don't know men as I do, and he can't be up to any good if he talks like that to you."
"Oh, very well," said Caroline, looking out of the window.
"I can see he's got hold of you," said Mrs. Creddle anxiously. "Oh dear! I don't know what I am to do. I daren't tell your uncle, for there's no saying what that would lead to. But you must be fond," she continued, exasperated, "if you think he really wants to make you his wife. Just fancy your marrying a relation of Miss Ethel's! Why, she'd fall down dead on the spot!"
"That wouldn't stop me," said Caroline grimly. "Lots of matches far more unequal than that come off nowadays. But you may make your mind easy. I aren't going to marry him—and I aren't going to behave in the way you seem to be afraid of, either. Only I'll just tell you this, aunt—I can never, never feel the same to you again after what you've said."
"Well, I can't help it!" answered Mrs. Creddle. "You'll come to thank me some day, Carrie, and I suppose I shall have to wait for that." All the same, the good woman's lip was trembling.
But Caroline, angry and dry-eyed, went to the door and called in a shrill voice: "Winnie! Winnie! Are you ready?"
Once outside, however, in the broad evening light, with the cool wind from the sea touching her face and the colours of the girls' bright dresses on the road growing faint, like flowers in a garden at sunset, Caroline began to feel somewhat less bitterly towards Mrs. Creddle. She remembered that her aunt had been in service as a girl, and that no self-respecting maid-servant of those days would have walked out late at night with a man who was a relative of their mistress, nor would any decent-living gentleman have suggested such a thing. But Aunt Creddle forgot that she was a business girl—self-poised, making her own position in the world as she chose.
Still her pride continued to smart even when she reached the little Thorhaven picture house. She sat down in the semi-darkness and fixed her eyes mechanically on the screen before her, but very little of Winnie's clear happiness communicated itself to her. After a while, however, she did begin to feel less miserable, because no one can be the cause of that rippling joy in a delighted child without being touched by it a little. But her main feeling was relief. At last she was free to be as utterly wretched as she liked. No one could peer into her mind as she sat there, apparently enjoying herself; she was wrapped in a secrecy so deep that no human being could touch even the fringe of what she was thinking about, for Winnie's remarks were only like the chirp of a bird on the window-sill when the window is closed.
But beneath all her restless unhappiness she was still certain that every word Godfrey said to her on Thursday night was sincere. A sort of nobleness in her own love—despite the flippant beginnings of it—made her able to believe that he had not considered money or ambition any more than she had done. It was the defenceless kindness of Laura herself which had conquered them both. They were unable deliberately to deal her such a blow.
But across her thoughts came the legend on the screen after the whirl of moving figures. At first she followed the words without being aware of them; when all at once they leapt into her consciousness with a sort of shock.
"I swear I want to marry you!"
Immediately on that a man appeared on the screen with a girl in his arms, but Caroline was not going to let her mind accept any possible relationship between this story and her own. Then Aunt Creddle's speech forced itself through the barrier she tried to put up and she had to remember: "Men always talk like that, Carrie. Don't you know that men always talk like that when they want to get over a girl?"
She moved restlessly in her seat, turning to Winnie: "This is a silly film."
But she had to go on thinking about it. Supposing Aunt Creddle were right? No, she couldn't be!
The memory of Godfrey's face as he looked up at her on the cliff ledge after she had refused him came back more vividly than the picture on the screen. That was real. If she were to doubt him, she must doubt the sea booming on the sands and the moon in the sky——
But if men did always say that? He might love her. She could not believe that he felt no real love for her then. But could he be wanting her love and everything else as well—like the man in the film?
She remembered that at the beginning of the interview he had suggested their being friends after his marriage. Could it be that he really had that in his mind all the time? Did he somehow know—though he loved her so then, and really meant what he said—that he was not going to mean it twenty-four hours later?
Suddenly she felt an overwhelming desire to ask him these questions. She must know. She must have an answer. It was all very well to say they would not meet again. When she said it she meant it most sincerely; but there must be some sort of settling up before they parted for the whole of their lives. It could not be cut off short like that; just a kiss and running away down a dark garden. They must for once know exactly where they stood before the shutter went up and they could never truly look into each other's thoughts any more.
She turned to the child, who sat wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked, staring at the pictures. "I say, Winnie, I think we must be going home now," she said. "It's getting late."
She spoke gently, with a guilty consciousness of dragging Winnie away from a rare treat; but her restlessness would not let her sit still watching these changing, grimacing faces any longer.
Poor Winnie looked a little crestfallen but cheered up under the promise of chocolates, and a minute or two later they were outside in the starlit night, tasting the salt freshness of the air.
Caroline halted a moment, looking down, taking no notice of Winnie, then she said abruptly:
"We'll go by Beech Lane."
"But that's so dark," pleaded Winnie, looking up anxiously, sensitive as children are to the changed atmosphere when something goes wrong in the mysterious grown-up world.
"Oh no; not with the houses still lit up," said Caroline.
"There's such a lot of trees. I hate them old trees," said Winnie under her breath.
But Caroline did not hear her, and the two walked on silently, side by side, under the shadow of the large beech trees which formed an avenue beside the pavement. They went so very slowly that Winnie asked if Caroline were tired, but receiving no answer she plodded on, still full of the vague puzzled discomfort which all children know, and which they never speak of to any human soul. At last she felt the hand in her own close nervously, and then two people emerged from a gateway in front of them.
"Oh!" she said, in her high little voice, "there's Mr. Wilson and Miss Temple. They're going into the house. I like Miss Temple, don't you? She gave mother——"
"Hush!" interrupted Caroline, her whole being absorbed in watching the couple who now stood together in the bright light which streamed from the open door.
"Coming in, Godfrey?" said Laura. Caroline could hear quite plainly from her dark ambush under the beeches.
Then followed a moment's silence, during which Caroline's heart beat so loudly that it almost seemed to her as if they must hear the thump! thump! thump! ever so far away, like a sound of drums beating. Then Godfrey said: "Oh yes; I'll come in. It is only about half-past nine."
She went first into the house, and he waited outside a moment with the light streaming through the doorway full on his face. All at once Caroline started to run—she must see him alone. She must speak to him.
"Cousin Carrie!" piped Winnie. "You're hurting my hand! You're hurting my hand!" But the door closed before they got across the road, and they were alone in the dark lane.
Caroline looked at that shut door, moved by an emotion which was not only the outcome of the experience of the moment, but which was also a part of her very flesh and blood. Her own mother. Aunt Creddle, Aunt Ellen, generations of women before them—all had lived "in service" and had watched the drama of life going on behind room doors which were always closed lest "the servants" should hear or see. And so acute had these senses become, sharpened by closed doors, that they always did see and hear, though they did not in the least resent this attitude of their employers, considering it just a part of the existing scheme of life.
But Caroline was different; and as she walked slowly along with Winnie disconsolately trudging by her side, she had an angry sense of being shut out from all sorts of things which she had as much right to possess as any other girl. She hated that shut door—Laura and Godfrey inside, and herself outside; then she thought how easily she could destroy all that if she liked, and how Laura's easy, flowery courtship was only possible becausesheallowed it.
Winnie spoke again and had to be answered; then Caroline went back to the aching round of thoughts again. She wouldn't be put aside like that—knowing nothing. She would give up, but she would not be left outside, guessing what was going on behind closed doors.
She tramped along, dull, dry-eyed, assailed by a strange feeling that she belonged nowhere, neither to Aunt Creddle's sort, nor to Laura's; yet all the time passionately aware that she was a "business girl" and as good as anybody.
Then there was Winnie again. Well, poor kid, she'd had no sort of an evening—— "Look here, Winnie, I'll take you again next week and we'll stop all the time."
"Honour bright?" said Winnie.
"Honour bright!" said Caroline. So Winnie cheered up, because she knew Cousin Carrie did not break promises.
During the night the wind freshened, then for three days it blew half a gale from the south-west. The sea was no longer a playfellow for little boys and girls, but a monster whose white fangs gleamed through the grey-blue water far out towards the horizon, ready to crunch the bones of ships and sailors alike with a sort of roistering glee.
A few visitors still fought their way up and down the promenade; and if of a sanguine temperament, they shouted above the wind, as they passed Caroline in the pay-box, that this reallyoughtto blow the cobwebs away! But the furnished houses and apartments near the sea, where a turn-up bed on the landing could not be obtained for love or money six weeks ago, were now mostly empty. Even the visitors from Flodmouth who had remained in Thorhaven because they were so near home, began to think comfortably of lighted streets, theatres, cinemas, concerts—a general settling down to their ordinary routine of work and play.
When Caroline came out of the pay-box at the tea hour, she also realized that the season was over. A sort of flat finality lay over everything, despite the crispness of the air and the aromatic, clean fragrance of the masses of sea-weed which had been torn from the floor of the ocean in the storm and now lay drying on the shore.
Well, that was all over. She said so to herself as she walked away, feeling dull, resigned—it would be all the same a hundred years hence.
She had not seen Godfrey since that night on the way from the cinema when she and Winnie caught a glimpse of him from under the dark shadow of the trees, therefore it was plain that he must be avoiding her. He knew her hours at the promenade, and could easily have said a word in passing through even if he did not wish for anything more. He had taken her at her word; but being a woman, the desire to talk everything out grew during those three long stormy days to an agony of exasperation which was almost worse to bear at the moment than the loss of Godfrey himself.
After passing out of the promenade she came back again, saying to Lillie over her shoulder that she would go home by the cliff because she had a headache and a blow would do it good. She told herself the same thing. But beneath all that she was eagerly aware that Godfrey's lodgings lay in that direction. As she went down the terrace she could see the windows all open and the landlady moving about inside with a duster. For a moment she stood perfectly still, experiencing that sensation of physical sickness which comes from sudden emotional disappointment. She did not think at all, only suffered under the maddening frustration of her desire to have it all out with Godfrey once more before they finally parted. The waves and the sky did not exist for her, though they would always give dignity to the memory of what passed between Godfrey and herself that night on the cliff top. For while the seaside accords with frothy impermanence in love as no other background seems able to do, it is because those playing at passion feel subconsciously how little their light loves matter in face of that unchangeableness. Caroline stood there until she recovered herself; then the landlady came to shake the duster from the window and she walked slowly towards the Cottage.
The ladies were already seated at tea when Caroline opened the front door. Miss Ethel at once rose from the table with a dish of jam in her hand. "Caroline's tea," she said briefly.
"But you have not taken any yourself," objected Mrs. Bradford. "And I must say I don't see why Caroline should have it when our stock is getting so low."
"We promised to board and lodge her properly in return for her service, and I'm going to do it," said Miss Ethel with a tightening of the lips.
"Well, no one can say she has done her fair share of the bargain; at least, during the last few days," said Mrs. Bradford. "She seems in a sort of dream. Here! give me a bit more of that jam before you take it away."
"Caroline has never forgotten to bring my morning tea once since I was ill," said Miss Ethel. "But she certainly does not seem herself now. I don't know what is the matter with her."
"Got her head full of young men, no doubt," said Mrs. Bradford. "It makes some girls like that, of course."
She glanced instinctively at her husband's picture, speaking as one having first-hand information on all amatory matters.
Miss Ethel went into the kitchen where Caroline was already lifting the kettle from the fire; but when the girl turned round, her face looked so queer and drawn despite the colour which the wind had whipped into her cheeks, that Miss Ethel felt sorry. Still, the barrier of "the room door" had not been more immovably established in the consciousness of Aunt Ellen and Aunt Creddle, than the iron law of not "talking to the servants" in the minds of Miss Ethel and Mrs. Bradford. They had been so trained in the idea—though, it only became general about a hundred and fifty years ago—that when Miss Ethel now wanted to speak of Caroline's unhappy looks as one simple, ordinary human being to another she could not manage to do it. She meant to be kind and yet was obliged to assume the tone and manner—throwing her voice flute-like, as it were, across a gulf neither must cross—which her mother had always employed in speaking to the servants.
"Oh! Caroline," she said, placing the jam on the table. "I thought you might like some of this for your tea. It is very stormy out to-night, is it not? I hope you have not caught cold?"
She had a habit of beginning that way—"Oh! Caroline"—when she intended to give an order or make a request.
In making her perfunctory reply, Caroline never imagined for one moment that her own healthy appetite was often satisfied at Miss Ethel's expense. She had bargained for food, and food was there; and there was an end of it. But the front-door bell rang, and something in Miss Ethel's expression did then pierce her self-engrossment.
"Is anything the matter, Miss Ethel?"
"No, no." Miss Ethel stood there, pressing her thin hands together—striving to speak calmly. "It is only the people to look over the house, I expect." Then she turned round and walked with her head erect across the hall.
The door opened to disclose a short, thin, alert man with a taller, well-nourished woman in handsome clothes, wearing a thick coating of scented powder on her full cheeks and thick nose. Over her whole person was written in characters for all to read the consciousness of having plenty of money. It was new to her, and never for a moment could she forget it; while her husband also fedhissatisfaction in having plenty of money every time he looked at her. And yet they were not unkindly people; ready to do a kindness if it did not take away from them any of the luxuries, pleasures, delightful enviousness in others less successful, which gradually would give them atrophy of the soul.
So they thought good-naturedly enough, that though the old girl looked a bit frosty and forbidding, that was no wonder—it must be a nasty jar to have to turn out of a house where you had lived so many years. And they made every allowance for the somewhat ceremonious manner in which she conducted them through the rooms.
"Ah yes; when I used to see you come into the front seats at the Flodmouth concerts with your respected father, and me in the shilling gallery, I little thought—— But it's one down and the other come up in these days, Miss Wilson. Same all the world over."
"Look, William!" said the wife, jogging her husband's arm. "That's a beautiful old bureau." Then she turned to Miss Ethel. "I dare say you have a lot of old furniture here that will be too big for your little house. Couldn't we offer to relieve you of some of it? I could do very well with that bureau and no doubt other things besides."
William whipped out his pocket-book. "Yes, Miss Wilson, you just say what you want to part with, and I'll have the lot valued by anybody you like. Pity to let the things go out of the house." He paused, suddenly noticing the grey shade on Miss Ethel's face: then added encouragingly: "You're quite in the fashion, you know, Miss Wilson. Everybody's doing it, from dukes downwards."
"Of course," said Miss Ellen. [Transcriber's note: Ethel?]
Mrs. Bradford sat stolidly silent, taking no part in the affair, not even when the little man said in a low voice: "Deaf, I see. A great affliction—a great affliction!"
At last they had seen everything, and stood once more in the hall before the open door. "Well, we came just as a matter of form," said the husband. "Never do to buy a pig in a poke, you know! But we shall go straight to Mr. Wilson and tell him we have decided to buy. You may make your mind at rest about that. Of course, there is a good deal to be done inside. But what I say is, it is a gentleman's house."
Then the wife said, glancing through the open door. "Oh! by the way, Miss Wilson, we wondered if you would mind our man coming in one day to dig up the privet hedge? You know labour is so difficult to get in Thorhaven, and we happen to have a man engaged for another month; so perhaps you——" Her voice trailed off into silence, for she was a little abashed by that look in Miss Ethel's pale eyes. "It won't look so pretty, of course, but it will let light and air into the house."
"Oh yes," said Miss Ethel, smiling with strained lips.
Then they went down the drive, leaving her there in the doorway staring at the privet hedge. Over the hedge, a fire had just been lighted in the scarcely completed bungalow, so that the white smoke streamed like a flag from the tall chimney, just moved a little from the south so that it swung over towards the Cottage. A week or two more and the hedge would be down. There would be no barrier at all between this quiet garden and all those rows of houses which had been marching on, nearer and nearer, ever since the first one was built. As Miss Ethel stood there, she felt beaten. She knew at last, what she had fought so hard not to know, that the powers against her in the world were too strong—that her opposition was ridiculous and futile. Nothing that she could ever say or do would make the slightest difference.
She returned to the room where Mrs. Bradford was sitting. "They will be sending some one to take up the hedge in a few days," she said.
"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bradford, startled into animation. "Oh, what a thing it is to be without a man in a matter like this! I know my dear husband would never have allowed it."
But Miss Ethel was at the window again, quietly looking out. "They say it will let light and air into the house. It won't look so pretty, but it will let light and air into the house."
Then they ceased speaking for the moment because Caroline had come into the room to take away the tea-tray; but before she had closed the door, Mrs. Bradford began again, still for her excitedly: "Ethel! Mrs. Graham ran in for a minute while you were upstairs, and she says Laura Temple's wedding is put off." There came a sudden crash of crockery just beyond the door. "Caroline!" cried Miss Ethel, "have you let the tray fall?"
Caroline did not answer at first; then she said in a low voice: "There's nothing broken, Miss Ethel."
But she did not move away—only forced her hands to hold the tray steadily so that they should not know she was there. The next moment she heard Miss Ethel cross the room and was obliged to go back to the kitchen.
There she stood washing up over the sink, seething with a conflict which almost maddened her. The old habit of Aunt Creddle and Aunt Ellen—grown into an instinct in course of generations—to guess, and listen for chance words, and piece together any drama that was going on "in the room" because their own lives were so circumscribed, fought with her own free impulse to return openly and ask the plain question: "Do you know why Miss Temple's engagement is broken off?"
The conflict made her feel terribly over-excited and nervous; but she had one over-mastering reason for not obeying that impulse to ask a direct question—she was afraid lest these two women might see she was in love with Godfrey. Then she happened to glance at the clock, and saw she was already late for the promenade; but as she hurried down the drive she heard the whistle of a railway engine and stood perfectly still just as if some one had called to her. But that was the five-twenty-five train, of course. That by which Godfrey invariably returned when he had spent the day in the city, was half an hour later. If she waited outside the station until it came in, she would be certain to see him. Hemustspeak to her then. This maddening agony of uncertainty and suspense would be over at least.
But as she hurried along to the station with the moist west wind in her face, she saw—behind those engrossing thoughts—the other girl waiting angrily to be released from the pay-box. Still, that didn't matter to Caroline. Nothing mattered in the world, but getting that talk with Godfrey. For she had reached a point now, when all these business men and shopping ladies who began to flow past her from the platform—drawing their scarves closer, and buttoning their coats as they merged into the cool, salt air after the warmer atmosphere of the city—seemed no more to her than flies buzzing round a path she was bent on following.
Wilf came past, taking long strides and wearing a new hat which he removed slightly; giving a sideways, condescending nod which said as plainly as words: "If you're waiting forme, miss, it's no go!"
But though she nodded in return, she was not actually aware of him. Her heart beat unevenly and she felt a suspense which ran through every nerve and every vein—she had no feeling beyond it. Her face was ashen as she stood by the entrance to the station, with the breakers beyond looking cruel in the cold light. Her eyes shone black, owing to the pupils being so distended, but she appeared pinched and quiet as she stood there, at the edge of the crowd, for her whirling emotions had now reached that point which looks like stillness.
All of a sudden the blood rushed up over her forehead, and she instinctively put her hand to her heart because it seemed to be leaping out of its place. Here was Godfrey at last, walking with another man. She moved forward and stood directly in his way, so that he must see her. "Good evening," he said, then continued his conversation with the broad, prosperous-looking merchant who walked by his side.
Caroline remained planted there, staring after them with an almost foolish expression on her face. She could not take it in. It seemed incredible. Then the two men vanished round the corner, and at the same moment she heard a girl saying in her ear: "Cheer up, Carrie! If Wilf hasn't caught this, he will get the next. He isn't dead."
"What do you mean?" said Carrie, but her voice sounded muffled and vague, even to herself.
"Why, you came to meet your boy, didn't you? And he hasn't turned up. That's what you looked like, anyway," said the girl, laughing.
Carrie made an immense effort to fight off that feeling of faintness, saying jerkily: "Oh, well, I'm off with Wilf, you know." But the words seemed to echo in some great, vague place a long distance away.
During the evening and many hours of the night Caroline remained in a white heat of anger and hurt pride which left no room for regret. It was true, then, that Godfrey had only been behaving to her all the time as Aunt Creddle said gentlemen did behave to working girls upon whom they bestowed their attentions. She'd been treated exactly like any little ignorant servant girl waiting at a street corner for her young man: just such a one as her aunts and her mother had been; and yet she felt violently that she was different. In the middle of the night she woke to find herself muttering: "I aren't going to stand it! I aren't going to stand it!" Then she bit the sheet to prevent herself from breaking out into a storm of weeping. She loved him so, but was no longer certain of his love. She could give him up almost gladly if he loved her and would always love her—but this was more than she could bear. There seemed to her no paradox in that—it was just what she felt.
Then she saw his heavily cut face on the darkness, as he had looked when he walked past her with that other man—both of them solid, self-contained, out of her reach! And with that the cold wave of anger swept over her again, overwhelming her. "I can't stand it! I aren't going to stand it. He'd no right to treat me like that, as if I were dirt beneath his feet. I'm as good as he is."
So the conflicting thoughts went on during the night hours; all the doubts and feelings which she had inherited, or had imbibed from the Creddles, warring with her own independence and pride. A girl like herself was good enough for any man. He'd no right to insult her by passing her like that in the street when they'd kissed as they did on the cliff top. She'd given him up, but she was going to be treated properly—not like a girl who had done something of which they were both ashamed. And again the helpless threat: "I aren't going to stand it!"
At last it was time to get up, and after a while to go down to the promenade. She was by now so exhausted with emotion that she could not feel any more and let her perceptions drift vaguely over outside things. A bill was up on the road-side, announcing the Benefit Concert for the band for that evening; another advertised second-hand tents and folding chairs for sale, cheap. A girl told her about a tent that had blown down the day of the gale, revealing a fat lady in a bathing towel—behaviour of rude Boreas which seemed to have put an end to bathing from tents for the season. Then a man came down the road with a barrow, crying, "Meller pears! Fine meller pe-a-a-rs!" Caroline bought some to take to Aunt Creddle, though she had had no definite thought of going there when she started ten minutes earlier than usual, but the ache of her exhausted emotion drew her subconsciously towards the jolly, serene nature as a hurt child runs to its mother.
The house door was open, so she walked straight in and put the pears down on the table. But she did not kiss her aunt, because she instinctively feared that the slightest breath of emotion might upset her self-control. "I bought these off a barrow. Don't know if they'll be sweet," she said. "Can't stop!"
"Sit down a minute," said Mrs. Creddle. "You look fit to drop. Aren't you feeling well, Carrie?"
"Oh, I'm all right," she answered impatiently. "What's that you are ironing?"
"It's some curtains for Miss Temple. I was there ironing yesterday, but didn't get these finished."
Caroline sharply turned with her back to the kitchen, looking out of the window. "Did they say anything about the wedding being put off?"
"Yes. Miss Laura's got a chill. Something to do with her digestion. She can't scarcely eat nothing."
"Oh!" Caroline could not say another word.
"Of course, it's hard on Mr. Wilson; but I think she's in the right on it. No use going away to them grand hotels if you can't enjoy the food," pursued Mrs. Creddle.
"Did you—did you hear how long it was put for?" said Caroline.
"Not exactly, as you may say," answered Mrs. Creddle. "Miss Panton came into the kitchen while I was there, and she said delays was dangerous. You know her way. She seemed to think it would be next month." She paused, then added uncomfortably: "I was on pins and needles for fear they might have heard about you and Mr. Wilson, Carrie, you know—being about the lanes at night together, and that. But I'm sure they hadn't." She paused again. "Well, I aren't sorry you had a lesson that night you were locked out, Carrie. Your mother and I had the same sort of temptations when we were out in placing—though you mayn't think it. There was a young gentleman from college in my last situation who begged me almost on his bended knees to walk out with him, but I knew what that led to." She paused again. "Cheer up, lass; it hurts a bit at the time, but it's all for the best. Once bitten, twice shy."
"You're always talking about what people did whenyouwere young," said Caroline, turning away abruptly.
"I know that. Things is very altered since my day," said Mrs. Creddle. "But there's some things——"
"I've no patience with people like you, aunt," said Caroline. "You know everything has changed, and yet you go on expecting girls to be the one thing that hasn't. It isn't common sense."
She was flinging out of the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think nobody's felt like you before about a young man, but they have."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I've a bit of a head, but that's all," said Carrie.
After that she went away. But all the same she was a little comforted—real, disinterested love being the one ointment that can soothe tender hearts not yet cauterized by pain.
So the day passed; then the next wore on towards evening, with no sign of Godfrey. And all through the long hours, Caroline sat in the pay-box looking out of her little window—small, set face, very pale, and bright eyes intently watching—like some creature of the wild behind a gap in the thick leafage.
Now it was past sunset. The residents of Thorhaven had taken possession of their town again and the few visitors who remained were sprinkled about inconspicuously among the audience in the concert hall—the dominant factor no longer. Caroline exchanged greetings with many of her acquaintances who emerged from the seclusion entailed by letting rooms or vacating houses, and now shook their feathers like hens coming off the nest with the pleasant knowledge of a nest-egg successfully achieved. "Pretty good season, considering," ran the verdict; but the general mind was a happy one, in spite of a certain feeling of exhaustion. "Pickles!" said Lillie's mother. "I give you my word, Carrie, one lot ate cheese and pickles after the promenade every night to that degree it fair curdles my inside to think of. But as I say, each person's inside is their own. Live and let live, say I." And the good woman hurried on to spend part of the proceeds of this wise neutrality, her Sunday hat still quite like new from lack of use, and a holiday spirit radiating from her rather worn features.
Caroline had responded to all these greetings, but she was glad when the concert began in the promenade hall and only a few stragglers passed through the barrier at long intervals. Once more she was free to resume that silent, intent watch which had occupied nearly the whole day.
But night was coming on fast now—with a heavy ground-swell and a wild streak of orange on the western sky. Caroline never thought once of the sea, and certainly was not conscious of being affected by it—she was, in fact, not aware of it at all. Yet it was just because she did most deeply respond to it that her affair with Godfrey was lifted for her beyond the trivial into those regions where passion really has dignity. That interview of theirs on the cliff top would have been poignant for both if it had taken place in a dingy back sitting-room; but something must have been absent—that unforgettable thrill which comes when beauty is joined to great emotion.
After a while, Caroline saw a woman leave the concert hall to cross the promenade, which already gleamed darkly with rain-drops. As she went through the turnstile she said: "I doubt we shall have a wet night." Then followed a storm of applause from the hall. "There!" added the woman, "I wish I could have stopped for the encore, but I had to get away, though I was forced to squeeze past Miss Temple and her gentleman on my way out. She does look bad, my word! Them that said it was all a tale about her being ill, have only to look at her. Well, good night."
Caroline waited a moment, then thrust her head forward and peered round the black space between her and the hall; and as she did so, her likeness to some watching wild creature became intensified. Then she withdrew her head, rose from her seat and came out of the pay-box, looking over her shoulder. With light, quick steps she went round the glass walls of the hall until she reached a place through which she could see the occupants of the front seats. Just as she came to a stand, seeking for Laura with heart throbbing and every pulse alert, the singer returned to give the encore.
The voice was long past its prime, but a window above had been opened wide for ventilation and the song could be heard clearly enough. As Caroline peered in vain through the glass dimmed by heat and human breath, the sentimental words floated out over her head; and the heavy organ-like accompaniment of the ground-swell made them more than ever ephemeral. A few bars of music, sounding so thin and strange against the booming of the sea, and then the next verse:
Now we are young,Life's meaning all grows clear,Does he but whisper low:"My dear—my dear!"