she crossed the room, then put down the tray with a considerable
clatter. But the clatter was unintentional--though Miss Ethel would
not have believed this--and was due to a small piece of needlework on
the table which caused the cup and glass to stand unevenly on the tray.
Caroline heard the sharp indrawing of Miss Ethel's breath on the way to
the door, and her whole being was in a prickly heat of defiance and
embarrassment--"Only wait until to-morrow morning! To-morrow morning,
they would just hear about it. They might look somewhere else for a
girl who would let herself be spoken to as if she was something
unpleasant that crawled----"
But through the fiery mist that seemed to blind her as she re-crossed
the room, she heard another voice speaking: "Good evening, Miss Raby.
How did you like your first day at the promenade?"
It was a lovely voice, clear yet mellow, and Caroline, despite all her
anger and wounded pride, felt obliged to answer civilly: "Oh, I liked
it all right, Miss Temple, thank you."
The door closed; there was a pause while Caroline's high heels clacked
faintly across the tiled floor of the hall, and then a sound burst
forth like the sudden chattering of rooks when they are startled in
their nests by a shot fired close at hand.
"Well, I never! Coming in at a quarter to eleven and taking that
attitude!" said Mrs. Bradford, in her heavy wheezy contralto.
"It's the same in everything. The world's upside down," jerked out
Miss Ethel, flushed and tight-lipped. "Oh, we little knew what a
lovely world we lived in twenty years ago. We took it all for granted.
Good servants: low prices. People knowing their duty."
"Did they, though?" said Laura Temple. "I think it must have been
perfectly horrid to be a maid-servant in those days. Only out one
night a week, and once on Sunday at most, and kept as close during the
rest of the time as if you were in a nunnery."
"They were happy, though," said Miss Ethel. "Happier, I think, than
these girls are now. Look at Ellen! Wasn't she the picture of
content?"
Then Mrs. Graham's high voice shrilled across the buzz of talk. "Mine
actually wears silk stockings on her evenings out--silk stockings!"
"What I say," boomed Mr. Graham soothingly, "best make up your minds to
let things go. You can't alter them. My wife here worked herself up
into such a state of nerves during the war that she had to take bromide
for months, and I'm not going to let that happen again. I don't allow
any discussion of national difficulties, either at home or abroad. We
read the head-lines in the newspaper so that we know what has actually
happened, and we leave other people's speculations about things alone.
Only way to go on living with any comfort."
Mrs. Graham looked across at her husband with affection, and murmured
aside to Laura Temple: "It is really on Arthur's account that we have
banned discussion on strikes and Ireland and so on. He gets
indigestion if he dwells on painful topics. So I just make things as
comfortable as I can in our own house, and let the world take care of
itself. A wife's first duty is to make her husband happy, as you will
find out before long, my dear."
Laura smiled back at Mrs. Graham, with the colour deepening a shade
under the soft brown eyes which exactly matched her voice.
"There's no idea of our being married yet, Mrs. Graham," she said.
"For one thing, our house will not be ready for some time." But behind
her quiet words she was saying to herself that never, never would she
and Godfrey emulate Mr. and Mrs. Graham's system of guarding the common
existence from anything found disturbing to comfort, with a tame good
conscience ready to call it conjugal devotion.
"I expected to see Mr. Wilson with you to-night," murmured Mrs. Graham:
then she leaned nearer to Laura and said in a still lower tone: "I
suppose he is in disgrace here for being the agent for the sale of that
field beyond the privet hedge?"
"Yes. They think he might somehow have avoided selling it because he
is a connection of theirs," replied Laura. "But the Warringborns would
only have taken their business to another firm, of course. Godfrey
says a man must look after himself in these days. You can't afford to
offend a valuable client for the sake of a second cousin."
"Ridiculous!" said Mrs. Graham. Then she paused a moment until her
husband's voice again made confidences possible. "Oh, they will get
used to the idea of houses being built there in time. Look how
disturbed they were about Emerald Avenue when it was first started."
"Yes." Laura paused, her charming, irregular face with its creamy
complexion and frame of brown wavy hair turned to the speaker, and her
broad forehead wrinkled a little, as it was when she was puzzled or
perturbed. "But I really am sorry for them now. You see, the privet
hedge hid all those streets from the garden. They could forget there
were any there. Now they won't be able to forget." She paused. "I
simply daren't tell them who has bought Thorhaven Hall. I know it gave
even me a shock, because I always used to feel an awed sensation--the
sort you have going into a strange church or a museum when you are
little--whenever I called at the Hall. It was so dark and big and
quiet, and the old butler took your name as if you were at a funeral,
and ought to be awfully honoured to have been asked to attend. I
simply can't imagine the Perritt's there."
Mrs. Graham rose. "Oh, I believe the Perritt children are very sweet.
And there is something rather nice about Mrs. Perritt, I'm told."
Miss Ethel looked across the room, and it was evident that she heard
the last remark, for she said in a dry tone: "Lots of people would
discover something sweet about me if I came into ten thousand a year;
nothing like money for enabling the eye to detect hidden charms."
Mrs. Graham laughed somewhat uneasily. "How amusing you are, Miss
Ethel! I often tell Arthur it is quite refreshing to have a chat with
you." But for all that, she began to move towards the door.
Laura also rose, and it could be now seen that her tall figure was a
trifle angular and immature, and must remain so, for she was already
twenty-eight years old. "I will come as far as your house, Mrs.
Graham," she said. "Godfrey promised to call for me there."
"Well! No good crying over spilt milk," said Mr. Graham, standing and
shaking down his trousers--after a habit he had--with his hands in his
pockets. "Things will never be the same again in our day, Miss Ethel."
"No." Mrs. Bradford, who had been silent, as she often was,
unexpectedly entered the conversation, saying in her heavy voice:
"Things will never be the same again." And a brief silence followed
her words. You could fancy them echoing in every heart there.
"I remember getting oranges twelve a penny in Flodmouth," continued
Mrs. Bradford, stirred to unwonted intellectual effort. "Twelve a
penny! Perhaps you don't believe me, but I did."
No one taking up the gage which Mrs. Bradford thus threw down, the
guests said farewell and then went out into the starlight.
As they walked along, all Laura's thoughts were about the lover waiting
for her; but Mr. and Mrs. Graham could not get rid of that slight sense
of inward discomfort--stirred afresh by Mrs. Bradford's first
remark--which many middle-aged people experience as a result of Fate's
ruthlessly quick forcing of new wine into old bottles.
As they passed the new streets there was an odd light here and there in
the shadowy rows of houses, and when they turned the corner the
sea-wind was full in their faces. The glass roof of the Promenade Hall
glimmered faintly under the immense sweep of starlit sky, and the quiet
waves drew away--"C-raunch! C-r-raunch!"--from the piece of gravelled
shore which the tide had reached. The good-sized, semi-detached houses
built in a row opposite the promenade stood all so black and lifeless
that Mr. Graham's click of the iron gate sounded quite roistering on
the still night. Then the front door opened and light streamed out,
illuminating the figure of a man of medium height, rather stockily
built, who came quickly down the little path, calling out as he
approached: "I'd almost given you up, Laura. I should have fetched you
from the Cottage, only I thought the old girls would cut up rough. I
suppose they haven't forgiven me for that notice board yet? They think
I'm a low fellow, I know."
"No, no," said Laura, smiling. "A man with the Wilson blood in his
veins couldn't be really low, Godfrey--only misguided. You know they
think even a bad Wilson must after all be slightly better at the bottom
than other people."
"Jolly good theory," he said, throwing out his broad chest and laughing
down at his lady, who had slipped her hand through his arm. "I hope
they converted you."
Then they all laughed--though there was nothing at all amusing in his
remark--simply because he was so sure of himself and seemed to expect
it, Laura glanced up at his large-featured face with soft brown eyes
full of admiring affection, and the scar on his cheek from a shrapnel
wound still had power to move her. For he had "done splendidly" in the
war, enlisting in 1915 and showing marked courage, though his very
highly-developed instinct for self-preservation had enabled him to
escape dangers where some men might have been caught. No wonder that
as Laura stood there with her hand through his strong arm, she thrilled
to the certainty that he would break with ease through every obstacle
in life, both for himself and her.
"I'm sorry to have kept you so long," she said. "But I think we have
fixed up everything about the Fête for the Women's Convalescent Home
now. We are so short of funds that we must do something."
"Yes," said Mr. Graham, "the people who used to support it haven't the
money to give any longer; and those who have it, won't give, I suppose."
"Oh, don't let us start that all over again," said Mrs. Graham.
"Arthur, you will take cold standing here in the night air. Laura,
won't you come in for a few minutes?"
But Laura had no desire to share that cosy half-hour by the fire during
which Mr. Graham would press his Lizzie to pile on coal and put more
sugar in her cocoa for the good of her health, and she would press him
to take a little whisky and hot water--in spite of the high price--for
the same reason.
_Chapter IV_
_The Three Men_
Miss Ethel glanced out of the bedroom window next morning as she was
opening it more widely, and suddenly, as she looked, every muscle
stiffened. What were those three men doing a few yards beyond the
privet hedge? But her reason refused to let in the thought that
followed. It was preposterous to imagine they would start building
there first, with all the field to choose from. Besides, she had never
heard of the land being sold--the board was still in its place. Of
course, if the land had been sold, the board would have been removed.
She knelt down to say her prayers, beginning with the very same which
she used to repeat when she was a little girl by her mother's knee:
only the numbers of near relatives then mentioned by name had since
dwindled, one by one, as they passed over that bridge from life to
eternal life. Then "Our Father"--but the thought of the three men came
in between, and she found herself saying "Amen" without having prayed
at all. Then she started over again. "Thy kingdom come." But her
mind shot away at once from that image of divine order to the unrest by
which she was troubled. Pictures of strikes--staring headlines--these
crowded in upon her as she knelt, and she rose from her knees still
without having really prayed to God.
Then she came downstairs to breakfast to find that Caroline had cleaned
the room and had set the breakfast with a certain daintiness, while
leaving dust thick on the corners of the floor and under the clock on
the mantel-piece. Still, it was such a relief not to have to get up
and prepare the breakfast and light the fire that Miss Ethel tried to
forget the dust. Of course, after Caroline had gone out, she could go
round with a brush and duster, but it was a great rest in the meantime
not to start the day with tasks too arduous for her strength and her
unaccustomed muscles.
Mrs. Bradford, however, who never felt able to help in the house-work
herself, owing to something obscure about the legs, would persist in
talking all breakfast time about the dust and Caroline's other
shortcomings. "Never know when you have her. This week she is eating
at all sorts of hours because she has to go to the promenade and free
the other girl at meal times; then next week she will be here at meals
only. It is your affair, Ethel. When I came back I let you go on
doing the housekeeping, though I am a married woman. But I know when I
had a house to manage myself, I should never have put up with such
goings-on."
"It's all very well to talk. Neither should I, five years ago,"
retorted Miss Ethel. "In fact, I should not do so now if there were
any alternative. But you know perfectly well that we could not afford
to keep a good maid at the present rate of wages, even if we could get
one."
Mrs. Bradford contented herself with peering irritatingly through her
spectacles at the dusty places after that, because Miss Ethel's
statement admitted of no argument; for Mr. Bradford left his widow the
honour and glory of the conjugal state and practically nothing more
tangible. But to Miss Ethel's generation the mere fact of being
married meant more than the present one can understand, and she was
accustomed to acquiesce in her sister's air of heavy superiority,
though she knew herself to be much the more intelligent of the two.
Still her temper felt so rasped as she went out into the kitchen
carrying a tray of crockery that she was in no mood to receive kindly
any more new suggestions made to her, and when Caroline asked for a
latch-key as a matter of course, she replied stiffly: "I'm sorry, but I
could not think of such a thing, Caroline. I must say I rather wonder
at your asking it. Your aunt Ellen----"
"Aunt Ellen lived in different times," said Caroline, flushing and
throwing up her head. "I am going to a dance with my boy at the
Promenade Hall, and it doesn't finish till twelve. I didn't want you
to sit up so late for me, that was all."
Miss Ethel also flushed a little on her thin cheekbones, while the left
side of her face twitched a little as it did when she was agitated; but
that was all the sign she gave of the tumult of irritation, impatience
and hurt pride which surged within her. That Ellen's niece should dare
to speak to her like that! Still, she knew that she was worn out and
could not go on doing all the work of the house, and they would never
get anyone else to help them who would be as cheap and respectable as
Caroline; so she must put up with it. By a great effort, she managed
to control her temper and to say, almost agreeably: "Does Mrs. Creddle
know you are going to this dance with a young man?"
"Of course she does," said Caroline, still rather defiant. "I'm not
ashamed of it. There's nothing between me and Wilf that I should want
to hide from Aunt Creddle."
For without knowing it, Miss Ethel had touched upon a delicate point
which Caroline was far more sensitive about than Laura--for
instance--would have been; because girls of Caroline's sort have to
guard their chastity themselves, while those like Laura are careless,
because it has always been guarded for them by somebody else. Still
Miss Ethel saw that Caroline was offended, so added after a pause: "If
Mrs. Creddle approves of your going, of course it is not my affair.
But you must see for yourself that I could not let a girl under my roof
stay out until midnight without asking the question. That would be
fair neither to you nor to myself."
"No," muttered Caroline. "I didn't mean anything either. Only it has
been such a--a rotten thing in the past for every one to think that
servant girls must be misbehaving themselves if they stopped out after
half-past ten."
"They often were," said Miss Ethel grimly. "Because if they weren't,
they remembered it was time to come in and came. But here is your
latch-key." And she went out of the kitchen, not daring to trust
herself to say any more for fear she should offend Caroline and be left
without any help in the house.
But she suffered an almost physical ache from the readjustment of her
behaviour to the changed conditions of life as she went upstairs to her
bedroom. It was constantly happening like that--there was no time for
the irritation to subside before something roused it again. And Miss
Ethel took no comfort from the fact that all over the world people were
more or less suffering in the same way, because she only vaguely
realized that this was so.
She knew, however, that she felt humiliated as she handed over the
latch-key to Caroline, contrary to all her own principles, just before
the girl went out to collect tickets on the promenade during the dinner
interval.
The morning was cold for the first week in June, but a brief spell of
August weather in May had acted as a bait to the visitors that
Thorhaven lived on now, just as it used to live on the crabs and
mackerel and codling and shrimps caught in the bay. But that time was
so entirely over and done with that there were not enough real
fishermen left to man the lifeboat, and the smell of fish and brine had
departed, even from the narrow alleys in the old part of the town where
it had been for hundreds of years. Now the owners of the smallest and
most inconvenient cottages hung clean curtains, put "To Let, Furnished"
bills in the windows, and went off to camp in booths, tents, out-houses
or in any place where they could find shelter.
So this morning, though it was still so early in the year, provident
mothers with little children, and others bent on a cheaper holiday than
August could afford, were walking in light dresses about the roads,
emerging gaily from little front gates, clustering round the little
bright shops with their piles of fruit and cakes and sweets. It was a
bright-coloured company that Caroline saw about the streets as she went
along the road towards the familiar row of yellowish-red houses where
the Creddles lived.
Mrs. Creddle was ironing, and she looked up from the board almost in
tears as her niece entered the kitchen. "Oh, Carrie," she began at
once, "I thought you'd be coming. I am in such a way. I don't know
whatever you'll say to me, but I've burnt a great place on the front
width of your dress. I was pressing it out, because you'd got it all
crumpled up in your drawer upstairs, and then Winnie tumbled down on
the fender and made her nose bleed. You never saw such a sight. So
somehow in my fluster I left the iron on the dress. I can't think how
I ever came to do such a thing."
Caroline looked from the burnt front breadth to Mrs. Creddle's agitated
face and said nothing. Her disappointment was so great that she must
have "told Aunt Creddle off" if she had opened her lips, and she did
not want to do that, because she could see the poor woman was
distressed enough already.
"Oh, well; never fret!" she managed to say at last. "Plenty more
dances before I'm dead. We won't make a trouble about this one."
"But I do," said Mrs. Creddle, dissolving into tears at this kindly
address. "Me--that always wants you to enjoy yourself while you
can--to have gone and spoilt your only party dress! I could hit
myself, I could, if it would do any good."
Upon this little Winnie, still tearful from past sorrows, began to cry
loudly again. "You shan't hit yourself, Mummy. I won't let you hit
yourself."
"Here!" said Caroline, putting a parcel down on the table. "I got some
kippers as I came past the fish shop. I know Uncle Creddle fancies one
with his tea."
"You shouldn't have done that, Carrie," said Mrs. Creddle, wiping her
eyes. "Kippers is dear nowadays, and I'm sure you have plenty to do
with your money."
"Nonsense!" said Caroline. "I'm rolling in riches. You see my keep
costs me nothing, and I have all I earn to spend." She went towards
the door, saying over her shoulder: "Now, don't you worry about the
dress. I can easily get another, and you may cut this up into a Sunday
frock for Winnie."
"That I never shall----" began Mrs. Creddle: then her round face became
suddenly illuminated. "Why, yes, so I will. And then you can have the
one Miss Temple gave me to make into something for the children. It's
a queer sort of colour--neither red nor yellow--but it looks all right
by night. She said Mr. Wilson didn't like to see her in it. Of
course, she's bigger than you, but they wear things so short and loose
nowadays that I dare say if I hem the bottom up it will be all right.
My word, I am glad I thought of it. I hate keeping you away from the
dance."
Caroline paused on the threshold. "I don't like wearing other people's
clothes," she said doubtfully.
"No; but Miss Temple's different. She gives things with such a good
heart and she never talks about what she does. I can't see that you
need mind her," urged Mrs. Creddle. "There's no time to get another
dress. It's that, or stopping away from the dance."
Still Caroline hesitated, standing there on the blue linoleum with the
bright light shining through the open door on her face. "Oh! all
right," she exclaimed finally, then glanced at the clock. "Goodness, I
shall be late! You can measure the dress against my old frock. I
haven't a minute." And she was out, banging the door behind her.
But before she was many yards away, the door burst open again and Mrs.
Creddle's anxious face looked out. "Carrie! Carrie! You don't want
to tell your uncle if you come across him. He'd have a fit if he knew
you were going to the dance on the prom., let alone wearing that fine
frock. You know what he is!"
"Don't I just!" responded Caroline, her spirits beginning to rise
again. "Well, what he doesn't know he can't grieve about, so you keep
a still tongue in your head and I'll run round for the dress when I
leave the prom. after tea." Then at last she was running along the
grey pavements with the clean wind blowing towards her from the sea.
In her haste she almost ran into three men who were coming along from
the direction of the Cottage with measuring tapes and other appliances
in their hands, but she took no particular notice of them, never
dreaming that these three commonplace looking men in ordinary dark
clothes could even now be haunting another person's imagination with
the sinister effect of birds of prey who mark the approach of an
invading horde.
But Miss Ethel had seen them from her upper window, and the sight of
them walking about in the field had produced an acute physical feeling
of nausea and faintness; for her fear lest the field should be built
upon and the last seclusion spoilt, had already made one of those deep
ruts in the mind along which every thought runs when not actually
driven in another direction. And each time Miss Ethel's thoughts
passed that way, the rut was bound to become deeper. Though she
imagined herself so self-controlled, and seemed so safe as she went
quietly about her work removing the dust from corners where Caroline
had left it, she was indeed a woman in real danger, still fighting all
the great forces of change arrayed against her, and which she must give
in to or be destroyed.
_Chapter V_
_The Dance on the Promenade_
A night in June brings to the mind of most people soft airs--the scent
of roses--a time when the young can sit out-of-doors in the moonlight,
and the middle-aged may venture forth without risk of catching cold.
But even on such a night in Thorhaven there is a nipping freshness at
sunset which keeps the mind alert instead of lulling the senses--giving
an exquisite clearness to the thoughts of lovers: at any rate, to the
thoughts of lovers like Laura Temple.
But visitors did not realize this, only remarking to each other with
disapproval that it was much colder than in Flodmouth, and that you
always needed a thick coat in the evening at Thorhaven, whatever the
time of year. At the present moment, however, most of them were
hurrying away from the wide expanse of shore and sea that glimmered
under the reflection of the sunset, for dancing was to start at
half-past eight in the glass hall which filled the centre of the
promenade.