stood at a little distance taking a professional interest in the number
of tickets sold. Her first feeling of importance had worn off, but she
had the correct official air of detachment, glancing at the throng
which hurried through the barrier with a sort of indulgent superiority,
while the band under the glass roof of the hall tootled faintly against
the deep roll of the waves. The immensity of the arched sky above,
with the dim, flat land on one side, and the expanse of darkening sea
on the other, seemed to give to those dance tunes an indescribable
melancholy. They seemed to epitomize all the shortness and futility of
the little lives which had flickered for a few years on the edge of
that sea and then gone out.
Not that Caroline thought of this, being a normal, healthy girl, but a
shadow of the thought fell across her bright path and she shivered
slightly, drawing her coat closer round her throat. "Come on," she
said, turning to Wilf, who stood near waiting for her. "That band
gives me the pip, hearing it from the outside. You want something
louder than that near the sea."
"Well, you had the steam roundabouts on Bank Holiday, and you didn't
like that," said Wilf cheerfully. "Some folks are never satisfied."
"Look!" said Caroline. "There's that friend of Miss Laura Temple's."
Wilf turned to watch a group coming through the barrier. They were
young people from some of the larger houses that had been built to
accommodate business people from Flodmouth, but evidently not of the
sort that desires constant gaiety, or they would not have lived in
Thorhaven. Now they had made up a little party to come and dance in
the promenade hall, with the simple object of enjoying a fair floor and
a band that played in tune.
As they passed Wilf and Caroline, one said eagerly to the other:
"Where's Laura Temple? I don't see anything of her. She and Godfrey
Wilson were to have waited here for us."
"Oh, didn't you know? Got a sore throat and can't----"
They went on, and Caroline breathed again. She had never thought of
Laura being at a dance on the promenade, and the sudden idea of meeting
the original owner of the flame-coloured dress gave her a little shock.
The whole situation, as it might have been, opened out in front of her
for a moment or two, bristling with unpleasantnesses, and she glanced
down at the edge of colour appearing under her coat with a distinct
regret that she had been persuaded by Mrs. Creddle into wearing the
dress. Better far to have stopped at home.
Then there was Wilf, taking her arm with cool possessiveness. "Come
on, Carrie! _I_ aren't going to stop here all night while you think
over your sins." He laughed and the two girls standing near him
laughed too--not that they felt amused, but because laughter was the
accepted accompaniment to such conversations.
So they went along together under the first star that hung high in the
green sky, and the Flamborough light trembled across the water just as
they entered the hot and crowded hall. The spectators--mostly
middle-aged--sat in a solid phalanx round the sides of the room doing
knitting or crochet, hoping against hope to see other folks make fools
of themselves, or afford a spectacle of some sort that might be worth
watching.
Already several couples were whirling round on the polished floor, and
Caroline, who had come bare-headed, took off her coat at once, placed
it in a corner with Wilf's hat, and swung out into the dance. At first
Wilf and she were only conscious of being looked at and anxious to do
their steps with credit, but after a little while Wilf became agreeably
conscious that people were interested in them. He held his partner
more jauntily and redoubled his attention to the dance, occasionally
whispering some sally into Caroline's ear to show how much at ease he
was, and how dashingly he could "carry it off."
Caroline on her part now felt an exhilarated conviction that her own
appearance in the flame-coloured dress was the source of attraction;
and every time she passed a certain place where a dark screen hung
behind the glass, she glanced at a revolving vision of excited eyes and
glowing draperies.
The low rays of the sinking sun struck through the glass panes on the
western side of the hall and mingled with the gas, which was already
turned on, to create a sort of strange half-light in which nobody
seemed quite real. The couples swam round and round in this peculiar
radiance, while the heavy figures watching appeared to recede and grow
more dense.
The music ceased and they stood still, breathing quickly, hemmed in by
a large group of people. After a while Caroline suddenly felt a touch
on her shoulder from behind. "I say, Laura, I thought you were
not----" And she turned round sharply to see Wilson with outstretched
arm peering between heads. "Oh," he exclaimed--"so sorry! I took you
for Miss Temple. I only caught a glimpse of your dress."
"It's all right," said Caroline abruptly, crimson to the roots of her
hair. Then the music started again and she seized hold of Wilf's arm.
"Come along! We don't want to lose any of this."
Wilson was left behind among a group who were not dancing at the
moment, but gradually they moved away and he stood there alone, steady
on his feet--almost impressively self-reliant and sure of himself,
though he was neither tall nor handsome. As he stood idly looking on,
he began to notice the flame-coloured dress which had been Laura's
flashing in and out of the more sober garments. It displayed a good
deal of Caroline's figure, which was slim and clean made--something
like a Tanagra statuette, but less curved. He found himself watching
for her every time as she came round, and finally a thought darted
across his mind--a nymph on fire. Why!--he chuckled softly to himself,
pleased by the apt phrase and feeling clever--that was what it _was_,
by gad! But where on earth had she got a gown exactly like the one
which had suited Laura so badly?
When the music stopped he moved from his place and walked straight up
to Caroline. "I must apologize for having touched you on the arm, but
I only caught a glimpse of your dress through the crowd," he said, "and
at first I thought you were Miss Temple. She has a dress exactly like
the one you are wearing."
"Oh, it's all right," repeated Caroline, beginning to move off. Then
she suddenly stopped short. After all, he would get to know. She was
not going to look as if she were ashamed of what she had done. "It is
the same dress," she said, throwing up her head with a jerk, as she did
when she was defiant. "Miss Temple gave it to my aunt, Mrs. Creddle,
and I'm wearing it because Aunt burnt a frock of mine."
"Lucky thing she did," said Wilson easily. "I can't quite see Mrs.
Creddle in this gown--at least, if she is the lady I have encountered
at Miss Wilson's."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Wilf, feeling he owed it to his own dignity to assert
himself and join in somehow, but finding a difficulty in beginning.
"Miss Temple didn't mean it to be worn. It was to make best frocks for
the little ones or something like that," said Caroline. "But I shan't
wear it again, so they'll have the benefit of it all the same."
"Well, I'm sure the original wearer would be delighted if she could see
you in it," said Wilson.
"Just what _I_ say," put in Wilf, seizing his chance. "Never saw
Carrie look better. She'll be immensely grateful to Miss Temple for
the loan of it, of course. Wonderful how the ladies can come to the
rescue of each other. Now, we men--it's a queer thing, Mr. Wilson,
when you come to think of it, but I don't suppose there's two pairs of
legs alike in this hall."
"No?" said Wilson interestedly. "Well, I believe you are right. It is
strange what things can be discovered about life by keeping one's eyes
open. I daresay you don't let much escape yours."
"Oh, I don't go about with them _shut_, of course," said Wilf modestly.
"But I'm like that. It's no credit to me. Always was from a kid."
Wilson glanced round, letting his gaze pass over the little party from
the new villas with whom he was fairly well acquainted, then he turned
to Wilf. "I don't seem to see many people I know here. I wonder if
you would mind my having a turn with Miss Creddle?" he said. "That is,
if she does not object."
"My name isn't Creddle; it's Raby," said Caroline.
"Oh, I don't mind. I'll console myself somehow just for one dance,"
said Wilf grandly, for he was feeling greatly flattered--first by being
regarded as Caroline's keeper, and also by the deferential attitude of
this older man who had reached the place in life where he would like to
be.
"Will you be so kind, Miss Raby?" said Wilson.
So Caroline, unable to refuse, allowed him to put his arm round her and
guide her out into the moving throng. After the first moment or two
when she was entirely engrossed in feeling annoyed with Wilf, she began
to experience a most peculiar and yet agreeable sensation--as if she
need not trouble about anything in the whole world ever any more. She
remained aware of the music, of the many-coloured throng going round
and round in the last rays of the sunset which mingled so strangely
with the artificial light from the roof of the hall--still she seemed
to be carried along apart from it all; to be enclosed by something
which emanated from the man who held her, and which isolated them both.
Once or twice he made some trivial remark, but nothing to need thinking
about; and when the music stopped she felt for a second or two a sort
of dizziness--like coming too suddenly out of a dim room into a bright
sunlight.
"I must have met you somewhere before," he was saying. "I am sure I
remember your face."
"Yes." She felt the odd dizziness leaving her. With an effort she
forced herself to become alert and keen again. "I expect you've seen
me collecting tickets. I and another girl take it in turns."
"Ah! That must be what I am thinking of," he said. But he searched
his mind in vain for the recollection of a girl at that little window
in the pay-box who could by any magic of clothes and swaying steps be
transformed even for five minutes into a nymph on fire.
But Wilf came up and he had to let her go--felt, indeed, no particular
desire to detain her; for Caroline greeted her admirer with such real
relief that he had no doubt of her feelings. She just caught hold of
Wilf's arm and began at once to move in time to the music, while that
gratified young man nodded jauntily over her shoulder to Wilson and
sailed off, thinking himself very grown-up and experienced and
important--a man with a female for whom he was responsible--one of the
initiate.
Almost immediately after that Wilson went away, but it was three hours
later before Caroline and Wilf, having danced their fill, emerged into
the coolness of the midnight air. As they walked down the dim
promenade together, Wilf was still talking about Wilson. "Some chaps
say he is so stand-offish, but I always hold that people treat you as
you treat them. And if the fellows say anything of the sort to me in
the train, to-morrow, I shall just tell them they're wrong. Most
pleasant, he can be, when he likes."
"Why shouldn't he be?" said Caroline. "You're as good as he is."
"I know that, but I haven't got what he has. You don't understand the
world yet, Carrie, my dear," he said largely. "I tell you, that man
can smell when there's going to be land in the market, if there's
anything to be made out of it. Sort of second smell. Ha! ha!"
Carrie laughed. "Go on! You really _are_ a one, Wilf!" But her
encouraging laughter was a veil to hide her thoughts--the old veil used
a thousand thousand times since life and love began.
"Look here, Carrie," Wilf began again, suddenly serious. "What man has
done, man can do. I didn't mean to tell you yet, but I will." He
lowered his voice, glancing round at the calm immensity of the
moonlight night lest any one should hear him. "If I go on as I am
doing, I shall be worth five thousand pounds before I die."
Carrie clutched his arm, looking into the smooth, boyish face so near
her own, with its young curves and sharpnesses made wistful by the
moonlight. She did not know why, but was suddenly filled with a sort
of aching, protective pity when she heard those words mingling with the
sound of the sea. It was Wilf's youngness and littleness in the face
of that immensity. "Five thousand pounds before I die!" And the sea
beating on the shore just the same----
But out of it all, the only words she found were: "I know you will,
Wilf. You'll do more than that. Look how your governor spoke about
your shorthand last week."
"And that brings me," continued Wilf, growing more and more solemn and
important, "to what I really want to say. I'm going to get the ring
to-morrow, Carrie, so you'd better lend me that old one of your
mother's you have on, for a measure. I aren't going to ask you what
stones you'd like, because I shall get diamonds. A dress ring without
diamonds is nothing, and I mean my wife to have the best."
"Diamonds! Oh, Wilf!" said Carrie. But the first glow of surprise and
pleasure passed almost before it was there. "Wife!" She didn't want
that. She wasn't ready for that. "Don't think of such a thing. We
can't be married for years and years. Besides, I don't want a ring.
It--it hasn't got so far, yet. We have always been friends, but when
it comes to settling down together for life---"
He swung round. "What on earth do you mean?" he demanded. "Are you
keeping a loophole open to throw me over for somebody else?"
"No, no!" she said. "I have never thought of anybody else. I couldn't
imagine myself going with anybody but you. Only I don't want to be
tied yet. I want to feel free a bit longer."
"Is that all?" he said, then began to grow angry owing to a reaction
from his fright. "A nice fool you would make me look if you turned me
down now. I suppose you don't realize that my friends in the train
just wink at each other when they ask me to go anywhere of an evening,
knowing I shan't go. Then one chap--funny chap he is--always says,
'How's the C.R. doing?' You mayn't know where the joke comes in, but
C.R. stands for a railway as well as Carrie Raby. And after all that,
I'm to be played fast and loose with. It's carrying things a bit too
far. I don't say I agree with the times when men clubbed girls over
the head and brought them home like that, but I will say the pendulum
has swung too far. A girl can't have a boy of her own and be as free
as if she hadn't. I don't know what you think you want, Carrie."
"I've no wish to be horrid, I'm sure," said Caroline. "I do think it
is most awfully kind and generous of you to want to give me a ring.
But I feel as if I would rather not have one."
"Well, have it your own way, of course. Only I can't make all this
out," said Wilf. "If you didn't fancy me for a husband you might have
found out before. You've had plenty of time."
"But I never _did_ think of you as a husband, somehow," said Caroline.
"We began to walk out together like boys and girls do, and it has gone
on. I don't say I shall never feel different. I can't picture myself
ever wanting to go with anybody but you. Only there it is." She
paused, looking out to sea, and the wash of the waves brought back to
some degree those feelings which she had experienced when he talked
about the five thousand pounds. "I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings,
Wilf. I'm sure I didn't want to. I only wanted to be straight with
you."
"Well, we'll let it pass," said Wilf. "Girls have all sorts of funny
feelings we don't have, I expect; and a lot would have taken the ring
first and talked afterwards. I like a girl to be straight."
But he did not. He was at the stage when what he most wanted from the
female sex was a sugared insincerity which looked like crude candour
and independence. And as they walked on again, though they were linked
together, she certainly appeared less desirable to him than she had
done when she was circling round the hall in Wilson's arms with her
bright draperies glowing between the gaslight and the sunset.
When they had said farewell at the gate of the Cottage garden and he
stood waiting until he heard Caroline safely open the front door, these
discontents grew more active still. Here he was, seeing her home, and
making no objection, though some one had actually said in his hearing
that she was Miss Wilson's maid-servant. He had not told her this from
feelings of delicacy, but he began to think that delicacy was rather
wasted on her, and determined to do so at the next opportunity.
Caroline opened the door softly and was creeping up the old stairs
which creaked at every step, when Miss Ethel peered out of her bedroom
and caught a glimpse of flame colour beneath the open coat.
"Good night, Miss Ethel," said Caroline cheerfully.
For a moment Miss Ethel could not bring words over her lips. That
Ellen's niece should return thus at midnight, opening the house door
with a latch-key, while she, herself, condoned it, though she
disapproved as violently as ever. She felt a sort of tingling shame
and resentment like a fighter who has to retreat, as she said in a
muffled tone: "Good night, Caroline."
_Chapter VI_
_Morning Calls_
Miss Ethel was sawing off the dead branch of a tree that threatened to
fall on the path when Mrs. Bradford came out of the house and walked
slowly across the garden, saying as she passed: "I don't know what you
want to do that for, Ethel. You look quite overheated. Why don't you
get a man to do it?"
Miss Ethel--beads of perspiration on her flushed forehead and hands
trembling with exertion so that she could scarcely hold the
saw--replied with pardonable acerbity: "I didn't get a man because I
couldn't. You know that. Talk about unemployment! I only know you
can't get a jobbing gardener for half a day, even if you put your pride
in your pocket and crawl all round Thorhaven on your hands and knees
asking one to come as a favour--besides, what would he charge?"
"Well, leave the branch, then," said Mrs. Bradford. "You do worry
yourself so, Ethel."
"Somebody must worry," retorted Miss Ethel. Then the bough split
unexpectedly and fell, causing her to graze her hand so that it bled.
Immediately afterwards there came a loud crash from the other side of
the hedge, and for a moment the two women felt their hearts jump with
the old sense of helpless, defiant waiting on fate which they had
experienced when bombs fell from enemy aircraft during the war. But
the next second they remembered they were safe--though that had ceased
to be a thing to thank God for.
"It's only a cartload of bricks being tipped," said Mrs. Bradford
rather faintly.
"Only!" said Miss Ethel. "Don't you know that means they are beginning
to build? And just on the other side of our hedge! And then you
calmly stand there and say 'Only!' I wish I were made like you,
Marion."
But she very obviously entertained no such desire, and Mrs. Bradford
walked on, saying over her shoulder: "I really came out to remind you
about going to Laura Temple's. If you really want to see her, it's
high time you went."
Miss Ethel pulled her watch out of her belt, glanced at it and hurried
indoors, but came out again almost immediately in a hat, with a bundle
of papers in her hand. As she went down the road, she--like every one
else--being unable to take in all the impressions that pressed round
her, only absorbed those which fed the dominant idea in her mind,
automatically neglecting the rest. So when she turned out of the
garden gate and caught a glimpse of the cornfields beyond the Cottage
where a lark was singing, she missed the idea of permanence--seed-time
and harvest never failing--which might have soothed her mind, and only
thought how soon these fields too would be built over and spoilt.
Change--change everywhere; not only thrones falling and ancient estates
going to the hammer, but little people like herself and Marion all over
the world made to feel it every hour. The very spire pointing upwards
against the blue-grey sky reminded her less of the eternal message than
of something in the service which was different from what it used to be
when she was a girl.
But at last she reached a part of Thorhaven which did unconsciously
soothe and console her, for it remained just the same: white cottages
clustered under high trees and a little house facing the road where
Laura Temple lived with an old governess. The house was plain, built
close on to the pavement after the old Yorkshire village fashion; and a
flagged passage led through it to the garden behind; so when the doors
stood open, as now, a blaze of sunlight and clear colour was framed in
the further doorway.
While Miss Ethel stood waiting on the step, Laura entered from the
garden with some flowers in her hands. "Oh! Do come in, Miss Wilson,"
she said. "This is nice of you." And she led the way into a square
room hung with white curtains and light chintz covers; not an
"artistic" room at all, but one which somehow matched the garden
outside, as well as Laura herself.
In a well-cushioned chair by the sunny window sat a short, stout lady
with very pretty pink hands and faded blue eyes, who rose up from her
knitting to greet the visitor. She was the old governess who lived
with Laura, and her real name was Panton, but she had always been
"Nanty" in the far-off nursery days, and so she was called still by
intimates of the family whose various branches she had trained to read
and spell. Now she was--as she herself said--eating the bread of
idleness; her two great and absorbing interests in life being Laura and
knitting. She had been afflicted doubtless with adenoids in her own
childhood, but at that time they were not generally considered
removable. At all events, she now confused her M's and B's
intermittently, as she always had done, and never troubled herself
about it, being an easy-going person.
She did not mind, for instance, telling anyone how Laura called to see
her one day when she was living in lodgings in Flodmouth, and there and
then invited her to come and keep house. But she could not tell what
caused this sudden impulse, because she did not know. As a matter of
fact, it was just one of those trifles which do influence human conduct
by touching the emotions--and always will, let cynics say what they
may. And the ridiculous thing which touched this hidden spring in
Laura was a very stale, untouched, highly ornamented cake which Miss
Panton cut with fingers that trembled from eagerness--so pleased and
excited was she by having a visitor at last. "I rather thought I might
have had a good bany callers--my papa was so well down here in the old
days. But there does not seeb to be anybody left."
The familiar "seeb"--the sudden picture of poor old Nanty waiting there
for those callers, descendants of her papa's substantial circle, who
never came--the glow of a generous girl newly engaged who wants to make
everybody else happy--all this had influenced Laura to say, without
waiting to think: "Come and live with me until I am married. I'd
simply love to have you, Nanty. Miss Wilson is always saying I ought
to have a chaperone since I ceased wandering about and went to live in
my own little house at Thorhaven."
So that was how Miss Panton came to be sitting in that pleasant corner
of the sunny room, doing her knitting and listening while Laura talked
to Miss Ethel about the nursing fund in which they were both
interested. Occasionally Miss Panton would push forward mechanically a
conversational counter from the little store she kept always by her.
Thus when Miss Ethel spoke of the bricks that had arrived on the other
side of the privet hedge, Nanty glanced up for a second to remark in
her throaty little voice: "It is hard. That lovely garden of yours,
Miss Ethel---- But tibe and tide wait for no ban!" Then she sighed
and resumed her absorbing occupation, satisfied that she had taken her
due part in the social amenities.
This habit of using ready-made platitudes arose no doubt from laziness
of mind, as well as from the natural timidity produced by being a
nursery governess in days when such unfortunate young females hovered
ever uncertainly between basement and drawing-room. She had got into
the way then of making remarks at the luncheon table which she knew
must be correct, because they were in all the copy-books.