smiling happily. She wore a rough tweed which exactly suited the
slight angularity and awkwardness of her tall figure, making it seem
just the kind of figure which every English girl living in the country
ought to possess, and her voice, always lovely, took on an added
sweetness as she said quickly: "Doesn't it seem strange that a month
to-day I shall be married? I can hardly believe it."
Miss Ethel responded to that rather bleakly, but asked Laura to come
and inspect some china on the kitchen dresser from which she might
choose her wedding present.
As they entered the kitchen Caroline answered Laura's greeting civilly,
but she did not rise; and while the two stood looking at the pretty
Dresden china cups, with their backs turned towards her, she continued
her typing. Then after a while Miss Ethel went away to fetch some
small silver teaspoons bearing the Wilson crest which she intended to
give with the cups, so Caroline and Laura were left alone for a few
minutes.
"I see you are practising hard," said Laura. "I hope the machine goes
well." She glanced at the pretty cups. "I do seem to be lucky, don't
I?"
"Yes. You're one of the lucky ones," said Caroline. But though she
smiled, there was a sound of bitterness in her tone which Laura was
quick to feel and understand. Poor child, it must seem a bit hard to
see another girl having a lover like Godfrey, and lovely presents, and
new clothes. Then a sudden kind thought came into her head. "Miss
Raby, I wonder if you would care to have a look at my trousseau? I am
showing it to my friends next week. Could you come in for half an
hour?"
Caroline hesitated, but the "Miss Raby," and the utter absence of
patronage, or of any other feeling but sheer good-nature, dispersed her
prickly fear of being condescended to, though she only answered rather
nonchalantly: "Thank you, Miss Temple, I should be pleased to have a
look at your things."
"That's right. What day can you come?" said Laura. "Will Tuesday do?"
"I am on duty all day next week, excepting for meal-times, but I could
get in for a few minutes about five," said Caroline.
Very soon after that Laura went away, and a little later, Miss Ethel
herself came out of the door, walking slowly across the garden because
she did not yet feel at all well. As she went, she noticed for the
first time a little flag flying on the roof-beams of the new house that
was being built just over the privet hedge. It flapped gaily in the
sea-breeze, and seemed to Miss Ethel's irritated perceptions an
impudent flag, though she did not formulate her thoughts and was
conscious only of a sense of annoyance when she caught sight of the
bright patch of colour.
As she glanced up the long hot road outside the garden, her heart
almost failed her: but she had collected for the Flodmouth hospital for
the past twenty-five years, and a strong sense of duty urged her to
continue--especially now that the people from whom she generally
collected were less able to give, and more houses had to be visited.
But she was not uplifted by any feeling of self-righteousness, because
it was just one of the things you did--and there was an end of it. It
was a part of the system of life on which she had been brought up.
Half-way between the Cottage and Emerald Avenue she saw the Vicar on
the other side of the road. His first impulse was to hasten past
without speaking, because he had grown rather weary of her constant
diatribes against the changed state of the world; for he too had his
full share of the discomforts which come from living in an age of
transition, so he felt no desire to hear Miss Ethel press the point
home. However, she had been ill and he must do the polite. But as he
expected, she at once began. In answer to his inquiries about her
health, she said abruptly: "Of course, I'm depressed. How can one be
anything else with the world as it is? Nobody seems to be happy here,
or to be sure of happiness hereafter."
"You won't mend it by being miserable," said the Vicar, rubbing his
lean chin. "I know many feel that it is wrong to be happy with so much
injustice and misery about, and there is a great danger that the best
souls--who feel this most--may therefore give up creating happiness.
But that is just the same as if the violets gave up smelling sweet
because of the stenches that abound everywhere. Joy after a while will
leave us if we are not careful--then we shall have nothing left but
bitterness and pleasure."
"Pleasure is all people want nowadays," said Miss Ethel.
"But you are one of the people--and what do you want?" said the Vicar.
"No, Miss Ethel; there are now more men and women in the world wanting
to make things right for everybody than ever before in the history of
mankind. I sometimes feel as though I could see all the millions just
waiting to be shown how to do it. One wonders----" He broke off,
flushing a little, and added rather awkwardly: "Well, I must be getting
on. I'm glad to hear you are better."
Miss Ethel continued her walk, pondering the Vicar's words. Was the
man thinking about the second coming of Christ? . . . And she
remembered how a nursemaid had read some magazine aloud to her long,
long ago by the nursery fire in which the very day and hour of the end
of the world were given. How she had trembled afterwards at the
tipping of a load of bricks in the road forbear that was the Day of
Judgment beginning. Then her thoughts came back again to the present.
Was it true that all these millions were waiting for a leader? Faith
seemed to be dying everywhere. Everything was different--everything
was different.
The words drifted achingly through her mind as she turned into the gate
of a largish house facing the main road, opening her collecting-book as
she went, so as to be ready with the name and amount. At once she
began to adjust her mind, ready for the short chat with the lady of the
house which was a necessary accompaniment of her round.
But it would be easier than usual to-day, for a topic was ready to
hand--most of the ladies on whom she called taking a lively interest in
the Temple-Wilson wedding, anxious to know if Miss Ethel had seen the
bride lately, and if it were true that the trousseau surpassed all
previous ones ever seen in Thorhaven.
This interest was so widespread, indeed, that on Tuesday afternoon when
Caroline remarked just before leaving the pay-box on the promenade that
she was going to have a look at Miss Temple's wedding outfit, the girl
who took her place immediately went through varying stages of surprise,
curiosity and envy. "She asked you! Well, you've got something out of
living with those old women for once. I wish I was going too!"
"Wish you were!" called back Caroline, insincerely. But as she went
alone down the road to the little house at the other end of the
village, her own desire to see the trousseau died away, so that when
she stood on the threshold looking through at the patch of bright
garden through the farther door, she began to wish she had not come.
As she stood there, Laura came from the garden, in which the colours
were less delicate, more vivid than before, but they still bloomed with
the peculiar, clear brightness which flowers seem to gain which have
survived the sharp spring of the East Coast.
"Oh! I am so glad you could get off, Miss Raby," she said. "Shall we
go straight up and see the things before tea?"
"I was going home to tea," murmured Caroline, a little abashed, yet
angry with herself for feeling so.
"You would not have time," said Laura, leading the way. "Please stay.
I was expecting you for tea."
Then they were in the room: and Caroline drew a long breath when she
saw the lovely garments spread forth on the bed and on the chairs and
tables. They were so exquisite in stitchery and in the fineness of the
material, that no girl who loved pretty things could look at them
without enjoyment; therefore Caroline's "Oh, Miss Temple, I never,
never saw anything so lovely!" was entirely natural and spontaneous.
Laura stood smiling and a little flushed in the midst of her dainty
garments; and the room seemed at that moment to be full of a very
charming atmosphere of girlish admiration and pleasure. One after
another the filmy things were touched softly or held up to the light,
while the two pairs of eyes--one pair deeply glowing and the other wide
and bright--met over them in sympathetic appreciation.
"But this is the sweetest of all," said Laura happily. She was
delighted to be giving pleasure, but--beneath that--she equally enjoyed
indulging her desire to be liked by everybody. As she spoke she lifted
from the bed where it lay a most exquisitely embroidered dressing-gown
with a little cap to match.
"Yes, lovely," said Caroline. But the alteration in her tone was so
marked and so sudden that Laura turned round quite sharply to see what
the matter was: and in so doing she caught something
clouded--sullen--what was it? just passing across the other girl's
face. Why, of course--how dreadfully hard to see somebody else having
all these beautiful things while you had nothing! Her sudden
realization of this point of view was so complete that she flushed
deeply from chin to forehead. What a perfect idiot she had been--when
she only meant to be kind.
All the same she was now mistaken; that change in Caroline's expression
being caused by something entirely different from what she imagined
herself to have discovered; and she would have been both startled and
surprised had she known the actual fact. As it was, her one desire was
to somehow retrieve her mistake. She looked at her pretty things,
trying eagerly to think of something that she could give without
seeming to patronize, and her glance fell on a box of coloured
handkerchiefs, so she took it up in her hand and said carelessly: "Oh!
these don't belong here. A firm from whom I bought a great many things
sent me them, and they are a kind I never use. Still I had to keep
them. I wonder if you would take them with you out of the way?"
"Very kind--I'm sure. But you'll find a use for them," murmured
Caroline, not extending her hand. The two girls looked away from each
other, both a little discomfited; and in doing so they saw a photograph
of Wilson in a silver frame which had been covered up and which the
removal of the handkerchiefs had left exposed.
In that brief silence the atmosphere subtly changed, though neither
exactly realized that it had done so.
"Well, I'm afraid I must be going now, Miss Temple," said Caroline.
"Thank you very much indeed for letting me see your things." And she
moved towards the door.
"You are forgetting your handkerchiefs," said Laura, pressing them into
Caroline's hand. "Do have them, just to please me. But you must have
a cup of tea before you go. It is all ready."
With that she led the way into the sitting-room, and Caroline lacked
the social address to disentangle herself from the situation without
being actually rude. She did not want to be that, therefore followed
Laura, and as they went into the room Wilson rose from a seat by the
window. But his heavy figure was silhouetted with a sort of hazy,
golden outline against the strong afternoon light, and so she could not
see his expression.
"Been viewing the marvels upstairs, Miss Raby?" he said easily, as she
shook hands with Miss Panton. "Take this comfortable chair, won't you?
It must be an exhausting job."
"No, have this; you'll find it much nicer," said Laura, laughing. But
as they stood together, making much of Caroline, she saw that the chair
Wilson had indicated was evidently one sacred to himself. The long,
low seat, and the small table near containing cigarettes, ash-trays,
pipes, and other conveniences, all pointed to the same care on the part
of these two women.
Caroline sat down on the chair offered by Laura and crossed her feet
with aggressive nonchalance because she was feeling nervous. "Anyway,
this is a good deal different to mine on the prom.," she said, suddenly
anxious to let Miss Panton clearly understand that she was the girl on
the promenade, and not Miss Wilson's servant.
Miss Panton looked at her over the teacups and said: "Sugar? Bilk?"
with the catarrh very much in evidence.
"I didn't tell you, Miss Raby, did I, that Miss Panton has given me a
foot-muff for the car?" said Laura, speaking rather quickly, conscious
of some odd constraint in the air. "We are going for a motor tour in
the Lake District for our honeymoon. Every one says it is ideal in
September. I have never been, oddly enough."
"Well, the glut of honeymooning couples in the Lakes is now a thing of
the past," said Wilson, smiling at his future bride. "There was a time
when a certain hotel at Windermere swarmed with them, I believe.
Everybody looking out of their eye-corners at breakfast time to see if
she knew how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee."
Miss Panton murmured something about Wordsworth, obviously thinking
that a more fitting topic to be discussed before a young person who was
taking tea on sufferance with her betters.
"Perhaps Miss Raby is like me, and doesn't care much for Wordsworth,"
said Laura, looking across at her guest in a very friendly fashion. "I
never got beyond 'We are seven,' and never wanted to."
"It's never too late to bend," retorted Miss Panton, still austere; her
glance resting with deep disapproval upon the neatly stockinged leg
which Caroline displayed.
"Come, Nanty," said Laura, laughing. "Don't be so superior. You know
you don't really care for anything but a love-story with a happy ending
yourself." She paused, looking round at them with her happy, brown
eyes: "Well, there isn't anything better: is there?"
"Of course not," said Wilson, just touching Laura's shoulder as he
passed her in handing the cake to Caroline. But as he did so his
glance met Caroline's by chance, and he became instantly aware that she
had been watching him, for she looked hastily away, while a colour
which she could not control came into her cheeks, deepening and
deepening until it almost brought tears to her eyes.
She sat near the window with the full light on her face, somehow oddly
defenceless in her extreme embarrassment, and he could see the light
powdering of freckles on her nose, as well as that curious,
camellia-petal fineness of skin which always escaped notice until the
observer came quite close, for there was a tinge of sallowness in the
colour which prevented people from admiring it at first sight.
But a decent man who is to be married in a month does not, of course,
indulge in speculations about another girl's complexion--at any rate,
he does not encourage himself in doing so--and very soon Caroline
removed temptation out of his way by rising and taking her leave.
As she said good-bye, the lovers stood in the doorway with the sunshine
on their faces and the bright flowers seen through the far door behind
them. She was glad to get away, her mind in a whirl of gratitude,
defiance, curiosity and envy which bewildered herself. Of course, it
was nice of Miss Temple to ask her to tea and treat her like any other
girl friend, but anybody could be nice when they were getting
everything in the whole world that they could want. . . . Her thoughts
paused on that. That _didn't_ always make people kind----
She started at the sound of the church clock and began to run, lest she
should be late for the promenade.
But when she arrived her budget of news proved very disappointing to
the expectant Lillie, who had lingered round the pay-box with her own
tea waiting at home in the hope of hearing in more detail what every
separate garment was like. But when she at length extracted the
information that Wilson was also there, and that the party had taken
afternoon tea together, her curiosity became intense.
"Did they look as if they were awfully gone on each other? I always
thinks she seems sweet, and I think he ought to consider himself lucky,
don't you? I say, fancy if you or I were in her place and going to be
married next month? Feel funny, wouldn't it? But I shouldn't care
much to be taking him on, should you? Too jolly cocksure for me."
"Chance is a bonny thing," said Caroline shortly. "I'll shut the door
if you don't mind. There's a fearful draught blows through this place
with it open."
The girl went round to the turnstile on her way out and addressed a
last remark to Caroline through the little window. "You needn't be
chippy with me because you haven't got twelve of everything all
hand-embroidered. It isn't my fault!" she flung over her shoulder.
And having thus revenged herself for her colleague's
uncommunicativeness, she went her way.
Caroline, left alone in her chair before the little window,
automatically scanned the faces of those passing through the barrier,
ready to release the clutch with a "Good evening" if the person were
known to her, or to say in a dull monotone, "Six-pence, please," to a
stranger. Every now and then she glanced at the darkening sky towards
the North where clouds were gathering up, and after a while, single
drops of rain began to fall. Very soon the empty promenade glittered
black under a downpour, the lights making streaks of pale gold across
it. People only came in now at infrequent intervals; a few dark
figures hurried along the promenade; while the sound of the band in the
covered hall drifted across through the open windows, mingling with the
deep voice of a storm rising far out at sea.
After a while Wilf passed through, ostentatiously indifferent. "Oh,
that you, Carrie? Good evening, I didn't see it was you at first.
Beastly night, isn't it?" And he went on jauntily, sticking his hands
in the pockets of his mackintosh.
Caroline watched him go with a most illogical sense of being deserted;
then the turnstile clicked and she had to release the clutch, letting
through a pleasant-looking mother with a daughter of about seventeen,
both so happy in each other's company--making a lark of coming out
together to hear the band on such a wet night. Caroline's unreasonable
feeling of being alone and deserted deepened. For the first time in
years, she consciously wanted her own mother--longed for her with an
ache of the heart that almost brought tears. She seemed so alone.
Aunt Creddle was goodness itself, but had her own family to think of
first, of course, and could no longer take quite such a vivid interest
in a niece as when her own children were quite little. Uncle Creddle
had a steady kindness which nothing could change, but he too was a
struggling man with a family. Besides, he was rather hard in some ways
beneath his good-nature. She still remembered how he had spoken to her
that evening when he found her screaming and playing about those empty
houses with the boys.
No, she belonged nowhere: that was it. She did not think as the
Creddles did about lots of things, and yet she did not belong to the
world which girls like Miss Laura Temple lived in, either. She had got
past one sort, and had not found another. All these thoughts passed
confusedly through a mind that had been quickened by something
incomprehensible in her experiences at Laura Temple's that afternoon.
Through her thoughts she heard the hum of the sea, the tinkling fall of
heavy rain on asphalt, the faint rising and falling of violin music.
She felt a sudden spirit of rebellion. Why shouldn't she have some
fun? She would enjoy herself! She wasn't going to go on like this,
letting people in to the promenade, doing housework, practising
typewriting. Why did some girls get everything, like Laura Temple, and
others nothing? It was not fair. It was not fair----
Then she saw Wilson at the little window. "Good evening. Stormy
night!" he said, and passed through without any further remark.
She knew he had come straight from Laura's and was taking a short cut
across the parade to his own lodgings, which were beyond the exit
towards the north. He had come from no desire to see her. Still he
might have spoken a word: he need not have gone through like that, as
if it were only Lillie working the turnstile.
As she thought that, she felt a tear on her lips. Licking it off, she
demanded furiously of herself how she could be such a fool as to cry
about nothing. She must be run down. She must want a tonic.
Then she glanced up at the sound of a step approaching from the
promenade, and there was Wilson's face, quite near, looking in at her
little window. "You'll have a wet walk home, I'm afraid," he said.
"Yes." Her voice held a faint surprise, for he had already spoken once
about the weather. "But I have an umbrella here."
"That's a good thing." He hesitated. "I might have lent you one, only
it is rather large for a little girl," he added, speaking with a sort
of artificial jocosity. "You must find that road rather dark and
lonely on a night like this?" He paused again. "Don't you?"
For a moment or two she did not speak, and that silence somehow gave
her answer an undue significance. "Yes," she said at last.
He opened his lips to speak, then suddenly his expression changed and
he moved away from the window. "Wretched night! Wretched night!" he
said, walking briskly on.
Caroline sat back in her chair, almost feeling as if she had been
struck in the face--for a question had been asked and answered during
that silence which involved all sorts of joys, fears, infidelities;
then in a minute he banished them so utterly that she could scarcely
believe they had ever been in question.
The next moment Mr. and Mrs. Graham were at the window. "Oh, dreadful
night, is it not? You must feel the wind here."
Then they were merged into the shadow of the hall, warning each other
as they went along against taking cold. Caroline saw what had happened
now. Wilson had no doubt caught sight of the Grahams over his
shoulder, and had not wished them to see him talking to her.
Very well!--she was in a flame from head to foot--very well! When he
_did_ want----
But beneath all that she sensed a weak longing for him which she was
trying to drown in a flood of exaggerated indignation. Something told
her that when he did want to speak to her again she would not be able
to refuse: for he was not only a man for whom she felt a personal
attraction, but he was also a type towards which all her new ambitions
aspired. Poised as she now was, between what she had left and where
she desired to be, he represented to her an ideal--assured, educated, a
gentleman.
But though he did not walk home with her--in spite of what he said of
the lonely road--she was not to go by herself after all. For a young
man who was a connection of the Creddles--a railway porter by
trade--chanced to pass just as she was leaving the promenade, and
escorted her as far as the gate of the Cottage. He was a good-looking,
intelligent youth, with a pleasant, hearty manner and a fair share of
those solid qualities which adorned Mr. Creddle--the very man to make a
good father and a good husband. Already attracted by Caroline, he
would have gone further that night if he had not been discouraged, but
she thought of his broken and blackened finger-nails, and of the noise
he made when he drank tea, and so they parted at the gate without
anything definite being said.
But as she ran up the garden path with her self-esteem thus agreeably
restored, she had not the faintest idea that she had just passed by
that rarest thing in life--a chance of real happiness.
_Chapter X_
_Sunday Night_
The long street leading to the church was thronged with people who
walked slowly, smiling and talking to each other, either going towards
the lanes beyond the little town, or towards the sea. But a third
sort, much smaller in number, threaded rather quickly in and out of the
gently-moving crowds with an air of obeying some purpose within
themselves and not merely enjoying the lull in the wind at sundown and
the warm air. And above it all, clanging out from the grey tower, the
last bell rang out a single note urgently: "Come! Come! Come!"
A good many did not notice the bell at all; others just took it in as a
sound of Sunday evening which ministered pleasantly to their agreeable
feeling of having nothing to do but enjoy themselves; scarcely anyone
was troubled by declining that invitation, because the habit of
church-going has fallen from the position of a duty to that of a
compliment which the religiously disposed are willing to pay their God
if quite convenient.