feeling was intensified by the rather exaggerated adoration of the
girl's lover which such a situation is apt to produce. The little
household circled round his goings and comings, and the young mistress
of it lavished on Wilson all the family affection she had at the
disposal of a large circle, if she had been blest with one, as well as
the pure passion of a woman deeply in love.
At last Miss Ethel finished her business, closed her little notebook
and made a brisk remark about the building in the next field, because
she was always very careful not to hurt Miss Panton's feelings.
"Delightful! Delightful!" said Nanty, seeking the appropriate
conversational counter--"at least, I bean----" She paused, breathed
hard, and added with a rush: "I'm sure Mr. Wilson was deeply distressed
at being obliged to be the one to sell it. But if he had not done so,
somebody else would. Business is business," she concluded, pink to the
nose-end with the effort.
Laura's colour also rose a little. "Yes. I know Godfrey was sorry.
Only he is tremendously keen to get on, of course, and you can't
afford--I sometimes think he is too keen."
But Miss Ethel was not going to have that. It must be made plain at
once, that though _she_, herself, might run down her own second cousin,
he was the sort of man whom any girl ought to be proud to marry, even
though she did possess an agreeable sum of money at her own sole
disposal. "I have always considered Godfrey a gentleman--if that is
what you mean?" she said stiffly.
But Laura was looking out of the window and did not listen. "Oh, here
is Godfrey!" she said, jumping up. "Will you excuse me a moment, Miss
Ethel?" And she hurried off to prevent an awkward meeting.
But before she reached the door, Godfrey was already in the
room--alert, buoyant, with his air of being well fed, well bathed, well
groomed and entirely certain of himself. Immediately after greeting
Laura, he turned to Miss Ethel. "I am very glad to have come across
you," he said, "I am afraid you felt hurt about that field before your
house; but the Warringborns meant to sell, so of course I couldn't tell
them to take their business elsewhere. And they were urgent, so the
whole thing was arranged hurriedly."
Miss Ethel drew down her mouth but said nothing; and before Laura could
make some trivial remark Miss Panton nervously filled in the pause by
murmuring: "Quite so. Delays are dadegerous."
Then Miss Ethel rose to go, and having recovered herself a little she
did manage to say a civil word to Wilson about the weather--because
after all he was her kinsman, and must be supported here as such.
A few minutes later, Wilson and Laura followed along the same road.
"Then I suppose we may take it that diplomatic relations have now been
resumed?" he said with a grin.
Laura smiled--but kindly--feeling some pity for Miss Ethel. "After
all, it is hard to have people looking over your hedge when you have
always had the place absolutely private. Only she will make such a
tragedy of the inevitable."
But Godfrey was not greatly concerned with Miss Ethel's feelings. "I
say, Laura," he began eagerly, pointing to some new houses. "There are
tremendous opportunities in Thorhaven for a man with capital. If only
I had twenty thousand pounds at my disposal, I could be a rich man in
ten years' time."
She looked up at him quickly, flushing a little. "Well, you can have,
Godfrey. I'd like you to have it. I get possession of my money on my
marriage, you know: and, thank goodness, it is not in trust. My father
had a perfect horror of leaving things in trust."
"I'm not sure I agree with him there," said Godfrey. "You might have
got hold of a chap who would make ducks and drakes of your money. But
as things are, it is all right, of course. The only question is--shall
you always be absolutely comfortable about it? Because, if you would
even feel the very faintest----"
"But I don't! I never shall," interposed Laura. "You know I'd trust
you with a million if I had it."
He slipped his hand through her arm, for just then they turned the
corner and met the sea wind full in their faces. "Dear old girl: there
are not many like you."
Laura felt herself propelled along so easily with his thick-set figure
between her and the wind from the sea; the warm vitality that came out
from him and seemed to run also through her veins, making her feel
stronger, gayer, more exuberantly full of energy than she ever did when
alone. She wanted to tell him her feelings, after the way of lovers,
and so she turned to him with a little quick pressure of his arm in
hers as they neared the pay-box. "Godfrey! I feel as if I could jump
over the moon. Don't you? It must be this lovely morning."
He let his glance rove idly over the promenade gardens and the road
leading to it, which certainly looked their best on this day of real
summer, when there was hot sunshine to warm the breeze, and girls and
children in pink and blue and white and yellow playing on the sands.
The sea was a sparkling green and a couple of boys ran out into the
surf, shouting as they ran. . . . But though Wilson had an eye for
beauty, he was thinking chiefly of the row of villas which could be
built where a cornfield now grew--and lodging-houses on the cliff top
with steps down from the gardens to the shore--and the money rolling
in. Then he heard Laura speaking to the girl in the pay-box as she
went through the barrier; and with a sudden jolt of the memory the
nymph in the flame-coloured gown came back to mind, though he had
forgotten all about her from the night of the promenade dance until the
present moment.
He hesitated a few seconds, then he also stepped forward and peered in
at the little window with Laura, who was still talking; and instantly,
his sudden curiosity fell flat like a bubble pricked. For he saw just
enough resemblance in this ordinary, pale, alert little girl, with the
bright eyes and the freckles on her nose, to make sure she was the same
person, and after that one glance he stood looking away to sea with his
hands in his pockets, whistling softly, awaiting his lady's pleasure.
He was no longer curious.
Caroline, defiantly aware of all this, answered Laura's pleasant
remarks at random. She was not going to have him tell about the red
dress in his own way--since he had evidently never thought again of it
or her--making a funny tale to amuse Miss Laura--she'd tell it in _her_
way! "Miss Temple, I wanted to tell you, I wore that flame-coloured
dress you gave Aunt Creddle at the promenade dance the other night.
She burnt mine ironing it out, so I borrowed that at the last minute.
But I did it no harm and gave it back to her next day." The words came
out breathlessly, in a little rush, and the bright eyes peered
defiantly through the little window.
"Oh, what a pity to give it back," said Laura. "I expect it suited
you, and really I only gave it to Mrs. Creddle, because Mr. Wilson
disliked it so much." She smiled round at him, then turned again to
Caroline. "Do wear it again, and then I can let you have the shoes and
stockings to match. They are such a peculiar shade that they will go
with nothing else I have."
"No, thank you," said Caroline abruptly: but the next minute she smiled
into the face so near her own, softening her refusal--for she could not
help feeling the charm of that open-eyed kindness with which Laura had
looked out at the world since she was in the cradle. It was so real:
and yet it formed a weak spot in Laura's nature. For she wanted so
much to be liked that she was--as some one had once said of her--just a
little bit disappointed if a stray cat did not purr as she went past.
Now she answered quite eagerly, but with a perfectly genuine eagerness:
"Oh, I do hope you'll change your mind. Anyway, I'll send the shoes
and stockings, though I'm afraid the shoes will be too big for you."
Then she went off, leaving Caroline tingling from head to foot with
annoyance against Wilson. To think he should treat her in that way, as
if the dance the other night were something to be ashamed of. Only
wait until he tried to speak to her when Miss Temple was not there, and
he should see what would happen.
But Wilson was walking by Laura's side on the promenade without the
remotest intention of talking to Caroline again: and he had so lost
interest in her that he was almost surprised to hear his lady ask how
the dress looked.
"I spoke to the girl because I mistook her for you from the back," he
said.
"But did she look nice in it?" persisted Laura.
"Nice?" He paused, and she was so tall that his face was almost on a
level with her own. Then he glanced back at the pay-box. "Poor little
devil! She can't have known herself, if she happened to see her
reflection that night. The dress worked miracles. I can hardly
believe it was the same girl."
"She is engaged to some young man in an office in Flodmouth, I
believe," said Laura. "I wonder if you could do anything for him?"
"I'm afraid not. We don't interfere in each other's office
arrangements in Flodmouth business circles," he said, teasing her,
though he saw and appreciated that kindness always welling up in her
like a spring, ready for every one. "All right, old girl. If I have a
chance, I'll do what I can," he added, "but the youth only looks about
nineteen, so they have plenty of time yet."
"Nobody has too much time to be happy in," said Laura, smiling at her
lover. "Fancy, if we had fallen in love with each other and married
ten years ago, we should have been all that to the good."
He laughed. "We might have been all that to the bad," he said. "You
don't know what I was like at nineteen, Laura."
So they went along, very happy, laughing and talking together, viewed
with envy, contempt or sympathy by the girls and women who read and
worked round the band-stand. A thin stream of music drifted out with a
sort of melancholy sprightliness to join the deep sound of waves
breaking and drawing back from the gravel on the sands. In the
distance Caroline looked out from her little window at Wilson's broad
back and hated them both, in spite of Laura's kindness. They'd
everything--everything. What right had one girl to have so much more
than another? . . . Then a bevy of children came through the barrier,
and when she next looked the lovers had vanished.
But later in the morning when Wilson returned home alone by way of the
promenade, he glanced at Caroline in passing the barrier with the
faintest renewed stirring of curiosity. Surely there must have been
something--he couldn't quite have imagined it _all_ that night at the
dance. Then he saw a bill near the gate announcing another dance this
week, and that made him say lightly, as he went through the iron
turnstile: "Shall you be at the dance on Thursday? You ought to wear
that red dress again."
"No, I aren't--I'm not going to wear the dress any more." She spoke
rudely, abruptly--saying to herself that this was what she had expected.
He read her thoughts with ease, smiling to himself, for he knew
something about women. But as he looked at her closely in the strong
light, he became aware of a velvety texture in her skin which is
usually seen only in children. She had a powdering of freckles on her
nose, and her pupils had dilated with anger until her eyes looked
black; her head was very erect on her slim shoulders. He thought to
himself that here were traces of the nymph after all---at least, here
was a girl who might conceivably look like one by artificial light and
in the right gown. And beyond that, he was vaguely conscious of
something in her that was pliant yet unbreakable--or almost
unbreakable--and which defied him and all the world.
"What will your other cavalier say to that?" he said. "I expect he
will want to see you take the shine out of all the other girls once
more."
"Excuse me. There is some one waiting to come through," said Caroline
with immense aloofness.
But inwardly she was furious with herself for feeling a just
perceptible response to his virile personality and his absolute
sureness. Anything he _wanted_---- Then she bent her mind resolutely
upon a respected inhabitant of Thorhaven.
"Yes, lovely day, isn't it?" she said. "I suppose you're full up with
visitors?"
The woman replied that she was full up, and furthermore that she would
remain in the same happy condition until October, then said casually as
she moved off: "I didn't know you were living servant with Miss Wilson.
I suppose you'll stop there altogether when this job on the promenade
is done?"
"I aren't--I'm not living servant with her," said Caroline sharply.
"Who's been telling you that? I simply went to light the fire for them
in the morning and do a few odd jobs until they could get somebody
permanent."
"But I always understood from Mrs. Creddle you were going to be servant
there," persisted the woman. "She once told me your aunt Ellen
promised years ago."
"Very likely she did," said Caroline. "I can't help that. Everybody
must do the best they can for themselves."
"Well, you're right there," answered the woman, and saying Amen thus to
the creed of her day, she took up her basket and went through the
turnstile.
_Chapter VII_
_Sea-Roke_
One afternoon at the turn of the tide, a sort of transformation scene
took place along the sands and on the promenade; a bank of cold vapour
advanced from the sea, through which the sun glimmered faintly yellow,
then disappeared. The girls' thin blouses began to flap limply against
their chilled arms; matrons turned a little red or blue about the nose;
children's hair either curled more tightly or hung limp, while their
cheeks took on a lovely colour in the cool dampness; tiny beads of
moisture hung on everybody's eyelashes. Those who had come out to the
seaside from the hot streets of Flodmouth felt when they emerged from
the railway station, as if they were plunging into a cold vapour bath.
When Caroline went to relieve her colleague Lillie at tea-time, she was
met by a stream of nurses, protesting infants and middle-aged women on
their way home. And as the men who had just arrived from a day's
business in the city made straight for their lodgings, Thorhaven in the
very midst of the season took on an air of exclusion--of remoteness.
You could notice the wash of the waves again now.
The mist crept steadily along inland, muffling the church, the trees
beyond--almost hiding the privet hedge from Miss Ethel as she glanced
out of the window.
"A heavy roke. I hope it won't last," she said; but she was not really
thinking of what she was saying because her attention was engrossed by
the noises on the other side of the hedge. Never the same
continuously, but always changing, so that the ear never became dulled
by knowing what to expect. A sharply whistled tune. Voices. The
knock, knock, knock of a tool on a hard substance. A sound of
scraping. Then blessed silence for a few seconds. Then knock, knock,
knock again. She turned impatiently to Mrs. Bradford, who sat close up
to the window reading the paper. "Thank goodness, it is nearly five;
the men will be gone directly."
"You should try to get used to it," said Mrs. Bradford. "You have let
it get on your nerves." And she returned at once to the newspaper in
which she was reading a minutely-reported divorce case; for though a
stolid and intensely respectable woman she loved to read these reports.
"It is plain to see that the husband wants to get rid of his wife," she
said after a while.
"Well, that seems easily done nowadays," said Miss Ethel, listening
still as she spoke. "Perhaps women don't realize that though they can
easily get rid of an unsatisfactory husband, it will be just as easy
for a satisfactory husband to get rid of them."
But Mrs. Bradford did not care for abstract questions. "I expect the
Marchioness will have the custody of the children," she said.
So Miss Ethel took up the other half of the paper to try and distract
her mind from the noises over the hedge. But every head-line seemed to
dart at her sore consciousness as if it were a snake's head with a
sting in it. Murder. Unrest. Strikes. Dissatisfactions. Change.
The whole outlook was indescribably comfortless and depressing to her.
She felt something akin to the vague, apprehensive misery--beyond
reason or common sense--which people feel during the rumble of a
distant earthquake.
"I hate reading the papers," she said, flinging the sheet down.
"You shouldn't read the parts that worry you. I don't," said Mrs.
Bradford. "But you always were one to work yourself up about things.
I remember once how you fretted over some little newsboys with no
stockings on, when we went into Flodmouth as children to see the
pantomime. You worried yourself and everybody else to death. But they
were used to it, as dear father said, and it did them no harm. You are
of the worrying sort, Ethel, and you should try to hold yourself in."
"Poor world if nobody worried," said Miss Ethel; then she rose abruptly
and carried out the tea-tray.
Soon she was back again with a duster in her hand, beginning to dust
the large bookshelf, which had been overlooked for a day or two. As
her duster passed over the red-leather backs of the old bound volumes
of _Punch_ she saw with a wistful inner eye--as if she looked back to a
Promised Land on which the gate was shut for ever--that world of swells
and belles, of croquet and sunshine, of benevolence to the "poor" and
fingers touching forelocks, black being black and white white.
Then Mrs. Bradford spoke again. "Why not leave that dusting, Ethel?
You have been at it all day."
"Somebody must," said Miss Ethel, going on dusting.
"Well, I only wish I could do more," said Mrs. Bradford, comfortably
turning her page with a rustling crackle. "But my legs have given way
ever since I was married. I don't know why, I'm sure; but marriage
does seem to affect the constitution in queer ways."
Miss Ethel felt--as she was intended to feel--that it was not within
her power to comprehend the mysteries of the conjugal state; so
acquiescing from long habit in her sister's torpidity, she went on with
her dusting.
But her head ached appallingly, and she looked at the clock-hands
nearing five with a feeling that she could bear the sounds of building
so long and no longer. If they lasted a single minute beyond that time
something inside her head would snap. Knock--knock--knock;
scrape--scrape; the thud of something thrown down. She felt her breath
coming fast as she waited for the moment when her aching senses would
be lulled by the cessation of it all--when she would rest on a blissful
silence.
"Thank God, it's five o'clock!" she said, flinging down her duster.
"Yes. The men will be leaving work now," said Mrs. Bradford.
Miss Ethel continued her work again, moving quietly about the room.
Wave after wave of wet salt air was rolling in from the sea, pressing
upon that which travelled slowly inland, so that the roke grew very
dense, and the little house seemed to be cut off from all the world.
Miss Ethel sat down and leaned her head back with her eyes shut: Mrs.
Bradford continued to read the paper, then rustled a page and looked at
her sister over it. As she did so, Miss Ethel sat up with a jerk and
stared across the room.
"Bless me!" said Mrs. Bradford, "what are you staring at me like that
for, Ethel? Do I look ill?" And she began to wonder if she felt ill,
for she always feared a stroke.
"Listen!" said Miss Ethel in an odd tone. "Don't you hear them? They
are working overtime."
Mrs. Bradford took her paper up irritably. "Goodness! Is that all."
She also listened, then added: "What nonsense you talk, Ethel! There
is not a sound. They have stopped work for the night."
Miss Ethel walked to the window where the grey air clung to the glass
and stood there a moment, listening intently. It was true. She could
hear nothing.
But as soon as she sat down by the fire and was not thinking, it began
again--knock, knock, knock. . . .
"They are there still," she said. "They must be."
"I tell you they are not," said Mrs. Bradford. "You have simply got
the noise on your nerves. If you don't take care, you will be really
ill. You think about the noise morning, noon and night, until you
fancy you hear it."
"I'm not a fool," said Miss Ethel. "Surely I know whether I hear a
noise or not."
"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I saw a case in the
paper of a man who fancied he heard a drum beating when there was
nothing at all, really."
"But I'm not 'a case,'" said Miss Ethel, tartly, pressing her hand to
her forehead. "And I'm going to see if the men really _have_ left or
not."
Mrs. Bradford glanced out of the window. "Well, you must want
something to do," she said. "You might just hand me that sheet you
were reading, as you go out."
The door banged. Miss Ethel's dim form was visible for a moment as she
passed the window then the mist hid her altogether.
Caroline was also engulfed in it as soon as she came out of the little
shelter at the entrance of the promenade. She could taste it on her
lips, the wet drops clung to her eyelashes. Lillie, who had just
arrived to take her place, looked all out of curl like a moulting bird,
but both of them were spiritualized by the grey mist which blurred
their outlines and through which their lips and eyes showed fresh and
wistful.
"Pity you've got your new hat on, Carrie," said Lillie, shaking out her
knitted cap. Then she giggled. "But I suppose you were expecting to
meet your boy at the train."
Carrie shook her head. "No, I'm going back home first. I have to see
about supper."
"I expect you'll take the place on altogether when the season's over,"
said the girl.
"Not me!" said Caroline, answering the faint echo of condescension in
the other's tone. "I've told you time and again, Lillie, how it was I
went there. What's more, I'm telling Miss Ethel to-night that I can't
stop any longer."
She had not meant to do it precisely on this evening, but suddenly
found herself in possession of a full-fledged decision.
"What are you going to do after the prom. closes then," said Lillie.
"Take a post in an office in Flodmouth," said Caroline.
"But you can't do typewriting or shorthand," said Lillie, unimpressed.
"You won't find it so easy. I know I had my work set to get a decent
job to go to in October, and I'm thoroughly trained. I only took to
this on account of my health. I never----"
"You've told me that before," interposed Caroline shortly. "And I can
do typewriting. I have been taking lessons with Miss Wannock."
"Well, I wish you luck, I'm sure," said Lillie shortly, shutting down
the little window with a click to keep out the damp. She was
sufficiently good-hearted, but the trades union spirit was in her and
she did not like the idea that another girl should find a post without
going through exactly the same training as herself.
Caroline turned towards the main road where nobody could be
distinguished twenty yards away and men looked like trees walking; but
after a minute or two she noticed something in the general shape and
gait of a man coming her way which made her feel sure it was Wilson.
She wondered whether he would speak if he caught her up, or whether he
would fail to recognize her in the mist, or would give a brief good
afternoon and pass on. She slackened speed a little, for though she
was still angry with him it would be a "bit of fun" to hear what he had
to say. There was also another and far more potent reason. If he
walked with her, Lillie would be proved in the wrong; for he would not
walk and talk with one whom he regarded as his relatives' maid-servant.
But he was nearly past and did not look her way.
"Good evening, Mr. Wilson," she piped then; her voice sounding crudely
loud to herself in the grey stillness. But she had to prove her place
in the world--make certain of it, lest she should lose it.
"Oh!" He swung round, peering into her face--at first not remembering
her. Then something in her bright glance reminded him. "So it is you,
is it? Hurrying home to get ready to dance again to-night, I suppose?"
He spoke indifferently, disinclined for adventure in the chill, damp
atmosphere of this late afternoon. Still he went on, being by nature
somewhat expansive. "Is Miss Wilson at home this afternoon, do you
know?" then fell into step by Caroline's side without thinking of it.
"Yes. Were you wanting to see her?" said Caroline; but underneath, she
was saying to herself: "If I'd done what Aunt Creddle wanted, and been
a servant out and out, I should never have walked with Mr. Wilson like
this." She felt consciously proud of being a "business girl"--one of
the great company that had every evening free, and could wear low necks
and powder their faces. But there was more than that in it----