her step by his side and the look of her lips and eyes through the
mist. His interest was beginning to wake again. "I am going to the
Cottage with some tickets for that Garden Fête for the Hospital which
Miss Ethel and Miss Temple are helping to get up."
"Oh, can I take them?" said Caroline.
"No, thank you. I have a message from Miss Temple to deliver as well,"
he answered.
There was practically no one to be seen on the road--only a few distant
objects moving in the mist--and it would have been awkward for either
of them to leave the other, so they settled down to walk all the way to
the Cottage together.
She spoke abruptly, nervously. "I'm leaving soon, you know. I'm going
into an office. I can type, but I can't do shorthand. Still, I aren't
afraid of work. If only I could get a bit more practice I should be a
very quick typist--the teacher says so."
He walked on, saying nothing, and she thought she had offended him--no
doubt he feared she was going to ask him to give her a job. She
flushed crimson and added quickly: "I shall find a job all right. A
friend of mine is looking round for me."
He turned to her, smiling, and his tone was slightly more familiar than
it would have been to a girl of his ordinary acquaintance. "I see.
The friend I saw you with at the dance. Well, I hope he'll find what
you want."
"I have no doubt he will, thank you," said Caroline.
Wilson was silent for a few minutes. "Look here," he said, "I think we
have a spare machine at the office that I could lend you for a time to
practise on. You must have practice."
Then he waited complacently for her to swing round towards him--as she
did--her eyes and voice filled with surprised gratitude: for he was
getting on well in the world himself, and he liked sometimes to feel
what a good-hearted fellow he was, in spite of it.
"Oh, that's all right," he said. "But I am sorry you have to leave
Miss Wilson."
"So am I, in a way. But you must look after yourself in these days,"
said Caroline, repeating her formula. "Things aren't like they used to
be." She paused. "My goodness, I'm glad they aren't! Fancy if I had
had to be another Aunt Ellen all my life."
He laughed, pleased with himself and her. "Well, I must own that I'm
glad I was not born into a stagnant world."
A sense of power--of vitality heightened by the stormy times in which
they lived, ran through them both as they spoke. It was rather like
the feeling of a strong swimmer in a roughish sea, with fitful sunshine
and little breakers far out towards the horizon.
By this time they had reached the Cottage and Caroline went in to
announce Wilson's arrival. Mrs. Bradford was still reading her paper,
but Miss Ethel had not yet returned from her errand to see if the
workmen were still working at the new houses.
"I can't think," said Mrs. Bradford, "what Ethel means by going on like
this. She just ran out with a shawl round her, and has been absent
three-quarters of an hour. I told her the men had stopped work, but
she would go to see for herself. I am afraid she may have fallen over
a brick or something in the fog." She turned to Caroline. "I wish you
would just go and see."
Caroline went out at once and Wilson followed her with a word to Mrs.
Bradford. As they crossed the garden the privet hedge loomed like a
wall, and above it could be seen the dim outline of brickwork left
jaggedly unfinished. Caroline stumbled as she went through the little
side gate beyond the hedge, but righted herself immediately, and Wilson
withdrew the hand he had put out to help her. Then they walked
cautiously among the bricks in the long grass, calling out: "Are you
there? Are you there?" But all was dead silence. At last Caroline
caught her foot on something soft--dreadful. She had yet no idea why
it was dreadful. Then she bent closer. "Miss Ethel! It's Miss
Ethel!" She went down on her knees in the long grass. "Miss Ethel!
Are you hurt?"
There was no answer, and Caroline said over her shoulder in a quick,
low voice: "You'd better go and fetch a doctor. We must not move her
until we know if she has broken anything. Send Mrs. Bradford with some
rugs."
And though she was so terribly sorry, she was also pleased with her
self-control. Aunt Ellen and Aunt Creddle would not have been able to
take it like this when they were nineteen. This was what darted
through Caroline's mind, even while she spoke.
But the next moment Miss Ethel moaned a little and began to sit up,
looking round her affrightedly at the half-built walls in the mist.
"What's the matter? What's the matter? I'm on the wrong side of the
hedge." Then she remembered and began to shiver violently from head to
foot. "I know. I came to see if the men were working. But they were
not. The field was all empty. It--I was so sure I heard them--it
startled me not to find them here. I think I must have fainted."
"Hush! Don't bother to talk now, Miss Ethel," said Caroline. "You are
all right now."
"You are sure you have not broken any bones?" said Wilson.
"Bones? No." Miss Ethel was recovering herself quickly. "It's
nothing. I shall be all right in a minute or two. Here, give me your
hand, Caroline."
"I daresay you tripped over a brick, Miss Ethel; I very nearly did,"
said Caroline, helping her to rise.
"Yes, that was it, that was it!" said Miss Ethel, speaking with a sort
of exhausted eagerness.
At first as they went up the field she held Wilson's arm, but soon
released it and went forward alone. "I'm all right now," she insisted.
"Quite all right."
Mrs. Bradford came out into the hall as they entered, and billows of
salt mist followed them in. "Shut the door, please," she said. "Then
you were not lost, Ethel. What on earth were you doing out there? I
began to get quite uneasy about you."
Miss Ethel, turning quickly, gave a look at the two who followed her,
but she herself had no idea of its pathos and urgency. "I just tripped
on a brick and was stunned for a few minutes--nothing to matter."
So Caroline and Wilson knew they were to let it go at that.
"And had the men gone?" said Mrs. Bradford.
"Yes." She paused. "I thought I would just have a look round."
"You are so restless, Ethel; why can't you keep quiet like me?" said
Mrs. Bradford fretfully. "It is a great mercy you didn't break a leg."
Caroline went out of the room to make a cup of tea for Miss Ethel, and
when she was lighting the gas-ring Wilson came in hurriedly, saying in
a low voice: "I say, you won't mention anything about leaving them
to-night, will you!"
"What do you take me for?" whispered Caroline back.
"A girl with her head screwed on the right way," he said. "Then you'll
stay and look after them for a little while longer, anyway? I may tell
Miss Temple that, may I?"
"You can tell who you like. I shall not mention leaving until Miss
Ethel is better," said Caroline.
"Good girl! And I won't forget the typewriting machine," he answered.
"One good turn deserves another. That sounds like Miss Panton, doesn't
it?" And with that he hurried out of the kitchen.
_Chapter VIII_
_The Height of the Season_
The sea-roke lasted for nearly two days and then lifted, the damp,
chill air giving place to cloudless sunshine. But even now, when the
sun was setting, no cool wind blew in from the sea across the promenade
thronged with people in thin dresses. This was so unusual in Thorhaven
that those familiar with the place kept saying to each other at
intervals: "Fancy being able to sit here at this hour without a coat!
The air from the sea puffs into your face as if it came out of an
oven----"
The band played outside to-night--not in the hall--and a woman with a
good voice strained by open-air concerts during the past summer was
singing a song in which the words "love" and "roses" seemed to come
with more frequency and on higher notes than the rest, so that they
reached the extremist limits of the promenade, floating above the heads
of Caroline and Wilf as they sat extended on canvas chairs watching
those who walked slowly up and down. It was the night of the visitor
_in excelsis_. Stout, important matrons wearing the dresses they had
for afternoon calls at home in the towns moved slowly along in small
groups, with a solid man or so in attendance who smoked his pipe or
cigar and said little, but that little rather jocular. Girls tripped
by, either pale with the heat, or flushed, or protected from extremes
of temperature by a heavy layer of powder: and flappers with pert faces
and fluffy hair swung gaily along, always with a generous display of
fat neatly-stockinged leg. But it was all charming, particularly in
the evening light, because there was about it all such an appealing
atmosphere of youth and summer.
Caroline and Wilf leaned back at their ease in their chairs, making
remarks on those who went past. He was tired with the day's work in a
stifling office in Flodmouth, and she with her extra household
occupations at the Cottage owing to Miss Ethel's indisposition.
"Good thing I happen to be only relieving Lillie this week," she said.
"If it had been my turn to stop all day, I don't know what they would
have done at the Cottage. But Miss Ethel is better now. I had meant
to tell them I was leaving--that night she was taken ill, you know."
"Well, I think it is a pity you hadn't got it done," said Wilf.
"They'll be up to any dodge to keep you now. I know 'em." And he
shook his head wisely.
"You surely don't imagine Miss Ethel sort of felt I was going to give
notice, and so fell down and hurt herself on purpose?" said Caroline,
laughing.
But Wilf, pallid and exhausted with a burning day in a Flodmouth
office--his nerves slightly upset by too many cigarettes--was in no
mood to be chaffed.
"I never gave a hint at anything so ridiculous," he answered fretfully.
"I simply say that in my opinion you are not in your right position
there, and if you consult my wishes, you'll make other arrangements as
soon as possible. I did tell you so before, I think."
"And I meant to do it," said Caroline. "Honour bright, I did." She
glanced at him sideways. "I don't care about it any more than you.
Only I promised Mr. Wilson I would stop on until Miss Ethel was better."
"Wilson!" said Wilf. "What's he to do with it, I should like to know.
He doesn't seem to me to bother much about the old girls as a rule."
Then certain vague memories of that dance in the promenade hall which
had not been entirely obliterated by Wilson's skilful treatment came
back with renewed vividness. "I see what it is; he's after you
himself. So long as you stop at the Cottage, he knows where to put his
hand on you. You needn't think I was such an owl as not to see he was
taken with you that night on the promenade. You know--when you had the
red dress on. But you needn't flatter yourself much over that sort of
attention, I can tell you. He'd have gone on just the same with any
sort of girl out of Flodmouth who happened to take his fancy for the
minute. You don't know men of his sort like I do. And now you're
silly enough to stop on at the Wilsons just because he asks you: even
when I ask you not. It's time you learnt----"
"Don't talk rot!" interrupted Caroline--a sudden heat of anger flushing
her all over as she jumped up from her seat. "I'm nothing to Wilson
and he's nothing to me. Look there--if you want any proof. That
doesn't look as if he had eyes for any other girl but his own, does it?"
Wilf glanced in the direction indicated, and Caroline sat down again.
Then they both watched Wilson coming down the promenade with Laura
Temple, whose happy face was turned towards her lover with a glow of
trust and confidence upon it that no one could mistake: and when he
looked at her, his rather coarse-featured, harsh face was softened a
little, as if irradiated by that glow. They walked close together,
talking gaily as they threaded in and out of the crowd from which
advancing twilight had begun to steal the bright colours. Soon all
girls wearing white, even those with bold features and exaggerated
coiffures, became exquisite in that half light: and across the still
expanse of darkening sea the Flamborough Beacon swung out,
white--white--red; a night made for young lovers.
But the two who sat on the long chairs by the rail of the promenade
were letting it all go by, engrossed in their own pricking
dissatisfaction. "Well, what does it matter to me whether Mr. Wilson
and Miss Temple look soppy over each other, or not?" said Caroline.
Then she rose again abruptly: "My head aches. I'm tired of watching
all these people go past. It makes me feel dizzy. Let's go for a turn
on the cliff."
He remained obstinately seated on the canvas chair, his legs stretched
out before him. "What's the use? When we've just paid twopence each
for our chairs? They'll be snapped up in a minute and we shan't get
any when we come back."
"All right. You stop where you are," said Caroline, walking away.
He let her go until she reached the exit that led towards the cliff
top, then reluctantly rose from his seat and with long strides caught
her up. "Oh, don't you come if you don't want to. I'm all right," she
said over her shoulder.
"Don't be soft. People would think we'd quarrelled," said Wilf.
"Let them think, then," said Caroline.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" He stood still. "I can go back if you don't
want me, you know. I'm not one to force myself on anybody."
"All right. Go back." They stood on the cliff beyond the promenade
peering into each other's angry faces, in the translucent dusk
reflected from the great expanse of sky and sea.
"You mean that?"
"Yes, I do."
"You want things to come to an end between us?"
"I'm not particular." She paused, then drew a long breath. "Yes--as
you put it like that--I do."
"Well, if you do it now, it's done for good. You won't whistle me back
again, you know. I'm not that sort. If I go, I go." He paused,
adding with a sudden spurt of anger at her injustice: "And I shan't
come back if you crawl on your hands and knees after me from one end of
the promenade to the other. I haven't done nothing. What's the matter
with you? But I can tell you. You're gone on that Wilson."
"I aren't gone on him," said Caroline angrily. "A man I hardly know.
You must have got a bee in your bonnet, Wilf."
"I may, or I may not, but I'm not going to have my future wife conduct
herself in a silly style without saying a word," he answered with
youthful pomposity.
"Your wife! It hasn't got to that yet," said Caroline. Then she
thrust her face nearer to his, adding impulsively: "It would be years
and years before we could think of marrying. I didn't plan ahead like
that when we started keeping company, and I don't feel as if I could
ever look on you as a future husband, Wilf. I don't feel I ever shall
want to marry you--not now it comes to it."
"Then that's why you wouldn't have my ring," he said, his face blank
and pale in the twilight. He began to see that it was all real--not
just a "tiff" such as they had had before.
"I suppose so," said Caroline, her tone changing too--becoming anxious
and slightly troubled. "I didn't realize at the time, but I expect I
was shying away from the idea, if you know what I mean?"
"Oh, I know what you mean well enough. You're tired of me, and you
want to turn me down. But let me tell you you won't find fellows like
me growing on every gooseberry bush. I've always treated you like a
gentleman--I have. I never hinted a word when you were going out as
day girl to that woman who keeps a little shop in your street, though I
could see some of my pals thought I was walking out a bit beneath
myself. And this is the return I get." He jerked his hat back on his
head. "It's enough to make a chap go to the dogs and enjoy himself:
blest if it isn't!"
"I'm sorry, Wilf. I know I'm behaving like a perfect pig, but when it
comes to marrying, you must have the right sort of feeling, or where
are you?" said Caroline.
"Well, I only know one thing. I wish to goodness I had bought that
second-hand motor-bike I wanted, instead of saving up the money against
getting married! Why, I fair couldn't sleep for thinking about it: and
now Simpson has bought it. And it was all for you. And now this is
how I'm treated."
"Oh, Wilf! You never told me. I never knew about the motor-bike,"
said Caroline, taken aback.
"There's lots of things you don't know about," said Wilf. "However, if
you're bent on ending it all, I shan't try to stop you. _I_ aren't one
to force myself upon a girl that doesn't want me."
Caroline's lip began to tremble "Wilf, if I'd known about you giving
up the motor-bike I wouldn't never have spoken as I did. I do feel a
beast. But you have to think about yourself in this world or nobody'll
think for you. I can't see any reason in going on as we are doing for
years and then getting married when we're both dead sick of it all and
of each other. We only keep each other back. We should be better
free."
"Meaning you want to be free?" He had to pause a minute, owing to a
thickness in his throat. "All right. I shan't hold you to it. You go
and see if you can find a chap that can marry you straight off. That's
what you want. You'd never have broken with me if I'd had a big house
and plenty of money. I should not have been too young for you then.
You'd not have had to chuck me over then, to better yourself."
She was weeping now--very grieved to hurt him, and yet, beneath her
softness, an iron determination to do what was best for herself; no
thought of sacrifice because of his pain entering her head. "I'm so
sorry, Wilf. I'm so sorry," she murmured.
But he felt she was implacable. She was armoured by that phrase of
hers, she'd "got to do the best for herself," and he knew he had no
weapon to pierce that armour.
They both stood on the edge of the cliff in silence, looking towards
the north where the Flamborough lights gleamed out at regular intervals
across the dark water. The promenade lay behind them, a fringe of pale
lights twinkling along the shore.
Caroline was crying for the sorrow she had given Wilf, but that only
lay on the surface, though genuine enough. Beneath that, all
unknowing, she mourned a loss which nothing could restore. She and
Wilf had given each other that first bloom of young attraction--bright
glances, touches, cool kisses almost without passion--and no power
could bring that back. They felt miserable, standing there with the
little waves coming in--whish! whish!--upon the gravelly patch of sand:
for there lay at the bottom of their hearts a sense of something
irretrievably wasted, which they could never have in life any more.
"Well." He spoke first, bitterly. "I hope you may get your rich chap.
As you've no more need for me, I may as well go."
"I'm not throwing you over for that, Wilf," said Caroline in a low
voice.
His subdued mood spurted up with a sudden irritability of jarred nerves
again. "Then what are you for? That's what I should like to know."
"I--I----" She sought to give him a true answer. "You're not old
enough. I want a man, now I'm older. You won't be twenty-one for two
years."
"A man!" He swung round towards her, peering with fury through the
twilight into her face. "A man! What d'you call me? What do you take
me for? A man!" He paused, choking for breath, then shouted out: "Go
and find your man, then. I don't want you, I don't want you. I
wouldn't have you at a gift. A man! Not if you went down on your
hands and knees----" He was walking away as he spoke, shouting over
his shoulder, almost incoherent with the rage engendered by that sudden
stab in his tenderest spot. Just before he was beyond ear-shot, he
paused a second and called out: "There'll be no going back. You
needn't think it. I shall pay the first instalment of a new bike in
the morning."
So the dusk swallowed up his slim figure, and she was left by herself
on the cliff. After a while a couple came along closely entwined and
when they were close on her the girl said with a start: "Carrie? Is
that you all by yourself? Where's Wilf?"
"Oh, he is a bit further on," said Caroline, striving to make her voice
sound casual. "Don't you stop for me."
"All right! So long as you haven't pushed him over the cliff, Carrie,"
said the girl, laughing: then she and her young man went their way,
forgetting all about other people.
Caroline waited until they had gone some little distance before she
followed them, and as she walked alone on the cliff path with the stars
coming out, she had the strangest feeling of loneliness--of lacking
something that had always been there since she grew up. It was rather
as if she had cast some article of clothing which she had been in the
habit of wearing.
On reaching the more crowded part of the cliff near the promenade her
first instinct was to keep out of sight; for she had no young man with
her, and vaguely felt that she would look odd without one at this time
of night. It seemed so "queer" to be walking by herself on the cliff
in such an evening hour--but a further strangeness came with the
thought that she actually did not possess a "boy" at all. Nobody to
wait for her at the gate when she went out in the evening. No one to
hang round the pay-box at the promenade entrance to take her home. The
sense of missing something was a great deal stronger now than the sense
of freedom; she almost wished she had kept in with Wilf, despite that
other feeling that made her desire to break with him.
It was a relief to mingle with the crowd coming out from the promenade,
because people might suppose she had just left her post at the gate;
but she still kept that odd sensation--lightened of a weight, and yet
comfortless--as if she had "cast" something which had been more
necessary to her than she ever realized.
_Chapter IX_
_Wedding Clothes_
Miss Ethel was walking up and down the garden with Laura Temple, both
talking.
"I heard Caroline practising on the typewriter as I came through the
hall. The kitchen door was open," said Laura.
"Yes. She goes out much less now than she used to do. I fancy she has
broken off her engagement with that young man."
"I'm glad Godfrey thought of lending her a machine, for it may make her
more satisfied to remain with you; but I daresay that was his idea,"
said Laura. "He is like that."
"Is he?" said Miss Ethel rather shortly, and added after a moment: "It
was very kind of him, of course." She paused again, then broke out
vehemently: "I hate and detest all this conciliating and kowtowing. If
only I could manage the work myself, I wouldn't do it."
"But you can't--at least, not in this house," said Laura. She also
paused, looking deprecatingly at Miss Ethel. "Now, in one of those
little new houses in Emerald Avenue, you might manage all right."
"Oh, well, there are none to let," said Miss Ethel, "so that is out of
the question."
"But there is one for sale," said Laura: and with that she put her hand
through her companion's arm. "Miss Ethel," she went on rather timidly,
"Godfrey was wondering if anything would induce you to sell the
Cottage. He says he can get a most splendid price for it just now, if
you cared to sell. A man who made a tremendous lot out of trawlers or
something of that sort in the war is ready to give almost anything you
like to ask for it. And Godfrey could offer you a house in Emerald
Avenue with vacant possession. You would be quite comfortable there,
besides having so much less work."
"Why didn't Godfrey come and tell me that himself, instead of sending
you to do his job?" said Miss Ethel. "But his commercial instinct is
his ruling passion, of course. He'd make use of anything or anybody
for business purposes." She waited a second, then burst forth: "He'd
tan his grandmother if he could get a connection by selling her skin."
"You do him a great injustice," said Laura indignantly. "If he did not
consider this a good thing for you, he would never have suggested it."
"Well, perhaps not," responded Miss Ethel, exercising great
self-control; for she remembered that Godfrey was a Wilson, while the
girl to whom she spoke was after all not one yet. "I dare say he means
it for the best. But I'd rather starve here than live in Emerald
Avenue. Please tell him that. I'm not so fond of my fellows that I
could tolerate hearing the next-door neighbour snore through the
bedroom wall--which I understand you can do in these houses, if he
snores loud enough. I'm used to a decent privacy." She paused. "I
couldn't stand it, Laura," she added in a different tone. "Let us talk
about something else. I want you to come indoors and see your wedding
present."