"I've been thinking," Bobby remarked one evening to Prudence, when they
strolled up the road together in the dusk, "about our talk the other
afternoon; and I've come to the conclusion that it's not the fault of
the place, it's our own fault, that we find life dull. One place is
much like another. Either we want too much, or else we are dull in
ourselves and can't get the enjoyment out of life that is there for our
taking. That's what I make of it anyhow."
Prudence considered this.
"Possibly I want too much--I think I do," she said after a while. "And
so do you. We are the children of our age, Bobby; we've learnt to think
for ourselves; when one begins to think one ceases to accept things
unquestioningly. I'm alive to my finger tips. I want to enjoy. I am
not satisfied merely to exist; a worm does that. I want to experience
life to the full. Don't you?"
"I suppose I do," Bobby agreed--"when you put it that way."
Prudence was triumphant.
"There you are, you see. It's just the way a thing is put. For the
moment you almost convinced me that the discontent lay in myself, and
now I convince you that there is substantial ground for discontent. No
one should remain quiet under dissatisfying conditions; we should each
strive for individual liberty. Youth is the time in which to do things,
and youth passes quickly. When we are old we cease to strive because
the spirit of adventure leaves us; but the hunger for the things which
we have missed remains. And that makes us bitter."
"How do you know?" demanded Bobby, with a cynical smile for her youth.
"Know!" she repeated, and faced him, her eyes alight and scornful. "One
has only to look around and note the disappointed, dull, sour people one
meets; people who have had their chance and missed it, because they
reasoned as you do; people who have not possessed courage or initiative,
but in whose blood the desire for enjoyment has worked as surely as it
works in ours. Do you suppose Agatha has never wanted to marry and
manage a man and a home of her own? Do you suppose Matilda doesn't
hunger for children, and Mary for a lover? Didn't daddy desire love?
He married twice, and the second time at least was not merely a matter
of expediency. I'm colder perhaps, harder anyway. I don't want
anything but just to get away from Wortheton and live my own life
independently, and order my days as I please."
Bobby stared at her open-mouthed, bereft in his astonishment of the
power of speech. Prudence suddenly laughed.
"You old thing!" she cried. "I've properly scandalised you. Why do you
set my thoughts working along these lines? You are just a boy."
"Oh, shut it!" he ejaculated. "You aren't much older."
"A girl is a lot older than a boy," she said. "She apprehends life more
fully; your sex, until you are a responsible age, is just out for fun.
But there's a time limit to one's capacity for enjoyment. In a few
years I shall settle down to the routine, whatever it is that offers;
and if I haven't had my good time, I'll just be a discontented dull
reflection of the others. I know. And I'm going to guard against
that."
"But how?" he persisted. "What do you mean to do?"
"I haven't thought that out," Prudence answered after a moment for
reflection. "I don't know that I should confide in you if I had."
He smiled at that, and stopped and lighted himself a cigarette.
"I don't care what you do," he said, and added cheerfully: "I only hope
you will have a good time. You know you're awfully pretty, Prue, and--
and interesting, and all that."
"Am I?" Prudence laughed again, and there was a note of satisfaction in
her mirth. "I thank Providence that I am pretty; it makes things
easier. But if I were plain I should still insist on my good time. It
doesn't necessarily include the homage of man. That's a side issue. It
is sometimes a means to an end, but the end is the thing which matters.
I want my own individual life."
"I don't want any own individual life like that," Bobby confessed in
thoughtful seriousness. "I want a home of my own, of course, and--a
wife, and all those jolly things."
"At seventeen?" she scoffed.
And then he confided to her that he had met the divinity he hoped to
marry at the home of a school chum. She was nearly as old as he was,
and she was quite prepared to marry him as soon as circumstances
permitted. She was a ripping good sort and very high spirited.
"You had better invite her to stay at Wortheton before the ceremony,"
Prudence advised him. "If that doesn't put her off, you'll be sure of
her genuine affection anyway."
"I'm sure of that now," he returned confidently.
"You've made good use of your time," was all she said.
His words, the ring in his young voice, called up a mental picture of a
strong clear-cut face looking up at her in the uncertain light of a
moonlit night in May. She felt that somehow Bobby had outdistanced her.
"Here we are," she exclaimed abruptly, "you and I, mooning, as we've
mooned for years whenever the vacation came round. When we were
children we mooned along and talked of splendid things--the things we
meant to do, the positions we could create for ourselves in a world that
was open and defenceless to our attacks; and now we moon sentimentally
and talk of love instead."
"But that's splendid too," he affirmed with young enthusiasm.
"Is it? ... I wonder. I think perhaps it's just a little disappointing
also... moonshine, like the rest."
"Rot!" said Bobby elegantly. "Something's changed you, Prue--or some
one... Which?"
"The curate perhaps," Prudence returned flippantly. "Marriage with him
would not be moonshine exactly, but it would be a trifle dull--just the
distractions which the parish offered, and on Sundays his sermons to
listen to."
"There would be stimulation in the way of jealousy," Bobby suggested
helpfully. "Think of all those women who work braces for him and lounge
slippers. You'd have to compete, you know."
"They cease all that when the curates marry," Prudence returned with
disgust. "If they only kept it up there would be some excitement
offering; but they don't."
She turned and began to retrace her steps.
"Goodness knows how we got on this topic! Your brain is love-sick,
Bobby, and you're infecting me. If my memory serves me, there have been
three ideal girls in your life already--and one of them was Mabel
North."
"Oh! that," said Bobby, colouring, "was all rot. This is the real
thing."
"It's always the real thing till the newer attraction comes along. You
needn't resent that; it's true not only in your case. We are unstable
as the waters which start from infinitesimal raindrops and run down in
flood to the sea."
Bobby chuckled.
"Your image doesn't apply aptly to every one," he said. "One can't
think of Uncle William in connexion with all that broiling strife."
"Oh!" Prudence made a gesture which conveyed fairly adequately her
contempt for the person referred to. "Some raindrops form into puddles,
and the puddles cheat themselves into believing that they are the sea,
and ridicule the idea of any expansion beyond their own muddy limits.
William's is a complete little destiny in itself. And he never suspects
the mud at the bottom because he never stirs it up."
"How can you be sure of that?" Bobby inquired. "You are taking it too
much for granted that the old boy's life is lived on the surface. He
takes his annual holiday."
"Well!" said Prudence, and turned her head and surveyed his grinning
countenance with mixed emotions. "That's the most evil suggestion I've
heard from you. I'm not fond of brother William, but I think you ought
to be ashamed of yourself."
He only laughed.
"There's a bit of the old Adam in him as well as in the rest of us, I
imagine," he said, and drew her hand within his arm affectionately.
Thus, walking closely, they pursued their way along the dim country road
which their childish feet had trodden and made familiar in its every
aspect; which knew too the steadier tramp of their adolescent youth, and
which in the near future was to know but seldom the lighter tread of the
girl, whose feet stirred the unconscious dust that in the years ahead
would lie undisturbed by her passing, when, in the pursuance of her
destiny, the confined vista of her childhood, with its sense of security
and dulness, should have become an elusive memory of drab and peaceful
things.