up, thankfully looking forward to warmth and bed. Wilson and Caroline
chanced to stop dancing near the turnstile leading on to the cliff, so
they went out that way, which was near his lodgings, and equally
convenient for her to reach the Cottage. One or two couples passed out
just before them, but Caroline and Wilson were the last, and when they
stepped into the clayey ground at the beginning of the cliff path, they
seemed to plunge all at once into absolute darkness.
"Careful!" cried Wilson sharply. "You'll be over the cliff in a
minute, if you don't look out." And he put his hand through her arm.
The sea gleamed very faintly under the black sky as they turned their
backs on it and walked cautiously along the uneven path leading to the
main road. At the corner she stood still and withdrew her arm. "I can
manage all right now. It was so dark under the shadow of that wall.
Good night."
"Oh no. I can't let you go home alone. You would be walking into a
fence or spraining your ankle over a stone heap before you got to the
Cottage," he answered. "Come on." And he took her arm again. "There!
You see you are stumbling already."
She had trodden carelessly, disturbed by his touch, and she felt his
grasp strengthen--then felt some instinct in herself fighting against
it. "No. I'll go alone. I can quite well. I'd rather. I hate
bringing you so far out of your way." She spoke in short phrases,
nervously.
"Of course, I can't let you walk home by yourself in this," he said,
his assurance somehow increased by her fluttering nervousness. "Don't
be a silly girl. What are a few hundred yards to me one way or
another?"
"Oh well!" Caroline suddenly gave way, feeling she had been making
ridiculously too much of it. "Must be after eleven," she murmured.
"The Committee extended the time to eleven. I expect they'll wish they
hadn't, when it was such a cold night."
"I suppose they've been out after eleven before." But she knew by his
tone he was not thinking of what he was saying. All that they had
really to say to each other seemed to be passing through the electric
current which passed between his strong, warm fingers and the tingling
flesh of her arm--though they actually did discourse about Mr. Graham,
and the balloons, and the financial disappointment which the Gala must
have been to the Committee.
But near the gate of the Cottage Caroline resolutely withdrew her arm.
"Please don't come up the drive. I'd rather you didn't. Good night!"
She spoke in a low voice, hurriedly.
"Sure you're all right?" he said.
"Yes. Yes. Good night," she repeated.
He let her go a few steps, then she suddenly felt an arm of iron about
her, the brief touch of his lips on her cheek--heard his voice saying
with a queer accent of triumph: "I knew it would be like that!"
He was gone, leaving her standing there. He had satisfied the urge of
a burning curiosity which had assailed him first as she sat in the
window of Laura's drawing-room, and he noticed the magnolia texture of
her healthy pallor and the little golden powdering of freckles on her
nose. He had fought against that recollection. He had been ashamed to
have begun it there. Now as he strode away into the dark he swore to
himself that he was satisfied; he would never let himself go again;
that he would be faithful to Laura in thought and deed.
As for Caroline--well, he remembered that she had walked out with a
young man named Wilf; probably with others before that. A kiss more or
less was not a serious thing to a girl of that sort; though he felt
sorry, all the same, that he had been betrayed into giving it.
* * * * * *
Caroline made her way up the dark drive, and on reaching the door she
felt in her coat pocket for the latch-key. It was not there. Then she
sought hastily in her other pocket and could not find it. Evidently
she had dropped it on the road somewhere, but no one could see a small
article like that now, even if it lay on the pathway.
Well, there was nothing for it but to knock at the door. She looked up
at the house which loomed above her, a dark block with faintly gleaming
windows, and the thud, thud, made by her knuckles seemed
extraordinarily loud. But the stillness which followed seemed
intense--seemed only to be accentuated by the heavy sound of the sea
which she never consciously heard in the daytime, any more than Miss
Ethel or the other Thorhaven people.
After a while she knocked again, but the house still lay quiet--with
the peculiar deadness about it of houses seen from the outside when
those within are all asleep. In the room just above the front door
Miss Ethel was deep in the first stupid slumber of exhaustion produced
by a long day's work and the evening walk in a high wind. She was so
tired that she had ceased some time ago to lie awake and listen for
Caroline coming in, though she felt it was her duty to do so. But
nearly every night now she went to bed early and lay like a log, not
caring about anything more until the morning. If the world came to an
end, she must go to bed--she could no more.
Caroline down below stood hesitating whether to throw a stone up or
not, but remembered that Mrs. Bradford was so timid that she always
covered up her ears with the blanket for fear of hearing burglars in
the night--priding herself indeed on this timidity, and telling people
that when you once had had a husband you lost your nerve for sleeping
alone. So Caroline knew there was no help to be had in that quarter,
and yet she did not like to startle Miss Ethel after that fall among
the half-built houses which had been more than an ordinary faint,
though no one made anything of it.
However, she knocked again on the door, blows that seemed to echo
through the whole of Thorhaven. She glanced nervously over her
shoulder, picturing the male inhabitants of Emerald Avenue and
Cornelian Crescent and Sapphire Terrace, hastily flinging on trousers
and boots to see what the matter was, while their wives made
shrill-voiced ejaculations from the bed. She saw it all quite plainly
on the darkness as the noise reverberated through the still night.
Suddenly she lost her nerve. That kiss at the gate still hovered in
the back of her consciousness, waiting for a fuller realization; but it
had left her fluttering and tingling with emotion, so that she was less
mistress of herself than usual.
Not that she had not been kissed before, and by others besides Wilf;
but it had never been like this, because now for the first time a kiss
woke a response which bewildered her. She began to cry.
Then she tried to pull herself together. After all, it could not be
very late. What an idiot to be standing there crying, when Aunt
Creddle lived only a ten minutes' walk away! Of course she could go
and stay the night there. Very likely Aunt Creddle might be still up,
for she took in washing for one or two people, and sometimes did the
ironing after the children were in bed----
Caroline gave a sob of relief as she got to this, and turning her back
on the house she began to run stumbling down the drive. When she
reached the open road and was free from the heavy shadow of the privet
hedge, she felt her self-confidence gradually coming back to her.
All the houses in Emerald Avenue were in darkness, but on nearing the
Creddles she saw a little glimmer of light through the glass pane of
the front door. It was as she had hoped, for in response to her knock,
Mrs. Creddle herself unchained the door and peered out into the dark.
"Is that somebody from Mrs. White's?" she asked. "I thought she wasn't
expecting until next week at the----" The good woman broke off
suddenly and her voice went up several notes: "You, Caroline!"
"Yes. I lost my latch-key and I can't make them hear. I was afraid I
should startle Miss Ethel if I threw anything up at her window," said
Caroline, speaking quickly. "I didn't know if it might give her a
turn, after that fall of hers. And you can't waken Mrs. Bradford. She
wraps her head up in her petticoat and sleeps like the dead."
"Well, it's a lucky thing I happened to be up finishing the ironing,"
said Mrs. Creddle. "Your uncle wouldn't have liked it if you'd come
hammering at our door and letting the whole street know you were locked
out."
"I didn't lose the key on purpose," said Caroline rather sullenly, as
she followed her aunt into the warm, light kitchen. "I couldn't help
it."
"What made you so late in?" said Mrs. Creddle. "Here, sit you down and
I'll get you a drink of cocoa. Girls never used to be having
latch-keys and careering about at all hours in my day."
"But it isn't your day now, thank goodness!" said Caroline, who was
feeling excited and irritable. "I had a dance on the green after I
came off duty, that was all."
"Prom's been closed a long time," said Mrs. Creddle. "I heard the
next-door folks come back. But we was all young once, and I dare say
you and Wilf have been kissing and making friends again on the way
home. Is that it?"
For some obscure reason this question angered Caroline almost beyond
bearing.
"I told you I'd done with Wilf, and I have," she said rather
hysterically. "I wouldn't let him kiss me now for anything on earth.
I don't know how I ever could fancy him. I----"
"Hush!" said Mrs. Creddle, glancing towards the stairs. "There's your
uncle moving. I'm afraid he won't be best pleased to see you here,
Carrie. And he would have pickle for his tea, though I told him not,
so he's a bit fretty to start with."
Before she had finished speaking Mr. Creddle was upon them, hastily
dressed in night-shirt and trousers. "Now, what's all this?" he said,
and his tone certainly did betray the effect of cheap vinegar on a weak
digestion.
So Mrs. Creddle explained matters while Caroline stood listening.
"Who came home with you?" said Creddle, turning with a dark face
towards the two women. "I saw the bills. Dancing was over a good bit
since. Who brought you home?"
"That's my business," she answered, pale and obstinate.
"Is it? Well, it's my business to take you back to your place," he
said. Then he went on, raising his voice: "Do you think I'm going to
have a niece of mine--that I've brought up like my own--stopping out
all night? The lasses in my family and in your aunt's family, too,
have always been respectable--and you will be an' all, so long as I
have anything to do with you."
"I'm not going back to the Cottage to-night, though. I'm going to stop
here and sleep on the sofa," said Caroline defiantly.
"Hush, Carrie," pleaded Mrs. Creddle anxiously. "That isn't the way to
speak to your uncle, you know. He only means it for your good."
Mr. Creddle reached for his boots. "I won't have her stop out all
night," he repeated. "What would your mother ha' thought if you'd done
such a thing when you were in service?"
"Only I _aren't_ in service like aunt was," answered Caroline, getting
excited again. "Things are quite different from what they used to be
then. You can't judge by what went on when you were young, can he,
aunt?"
But Mrs. Creddle only shook her head; for somehow those words "stopped
out all night" came echoing on from her youth and she felt the force of
tradition at this moment no less than her husband. Always that phrase
had conveyed something derogatory concerning the girl about whom it was
used; and never would she or her sister Ellen have earned it while they
were in service for any earthly consideration. She was still faithful
to all the traditions of that skilled trade to which she had served a
long apprenticeship, and which is one of the most intricate and
difficult in the world. For a mass of oral knowledge handed down from
one to another--accuracy, intelligence, self-control, a very high
standard of personal chastity--these things formed only a part of the
equipment of Caroline's aunts when they were young, and such girls as
they formed an unorganized guild of service which can never be excelled
in England, whatever comes. They were the best maid-servants in the
world, and they did not know it. But they had a great pride in
themselves, if not in their fine calling, and Mrs. Creddle felt this
stir within her as she listened to her husband.
"Your uncle's right," she said. "Maybe other people will get to know
you lost your key, and they mightn't believe you. You wouldn't like it
to get about that you'd stopped out all night."
"I shouldn't care. I know I've done nothing wrong," said Caroline,
beginning to take off her hat.
"Now, my lass!" said Creddle grimly, as he finished lacing his boots,
"you're coming with me. Don't let's have no nonsense!"
"I tell you, I'm not coming," said Caroline, pale about the lips and
trembling a little.
"Come! Come! Carrie," said Mrs. Creddle, beginning to cry. "Don't
anger your uncle. He's that wore out he didn't know where to put
himself when he got home to-night, and yet here he is with his boots on
ready to take you back to your place. And he's always treated you like
his own, and so have I, so far as I know how. Many's the little treat
we've gone without, and never grudged it, so as to bring you up nice;
and this is how you pay us back."
"Oh, aunt, I know you have," said Caroline, and her eyes filled, though
they had been hard and dry a minute before. "I do know how good you
and uncle have been. Only I won't be taken back as if I were a little
trapesing general that had been misbehaving herself. I can't!"
"There's no talk of misbehaving," said Creddle. "And I aren't going to
have any. You get your hat on and come with me."
Caroline's face stiffened; then she felt the touch of Mrs. Creddle's
roughened, kind hand on her arm, and saw that jolly face puckered with
crying which had smiled a welcome on her all her life. She gave a
great gulp and walked to the door, Creddle following her.
For she belonged--poor Caroline--to the company of those who can really
love, and they are always liable to give way suddenly when fighting
those they love, because they cannot bear to see the pain.
_Chapter XIII_
_Next Morning_
Miss Ethel came into the kitchen as Caroline finished washing up the
breakfast things. There was a constrained atmosphere about both of
them which seemed even to affect the small fire which burnt sulkily in
the grate, but nothing was said concerning the events of the previous
night.
"Oh! Caroline, I wonder if you would kindly take a message for me to
Miss Temple on your way to the promenade?" said Miss Ethel, rather
stiffly.
But on the whole the affair of the previous night had been less odious
than Caroline had feared. Still it had been rather like an ugly
nightmare, all the same--Uncle Creddle banging on the door until one
startled woman opened it while the other peered over the banisters.
They had thanked Mr. Creddle, saying Caroline ought to be more careful:
and Mrs. Bradford added that some burglar had no doubt picked up the
key and would come and murder them in their beds. But there the matter
ended.
Now, however, with the mention of Laura's name, the recollection of
that kiss at the gate last night sprang up from some deep place within
Caroline's consciousness and overwhelmed everything else. She could
not go to Laura's door and perhaps be obliged to answer kind words and
pleasant looks; she could not do it. "I'm sorry, Miss Ethel," she
muttered, bending over the washing-bowl, "but there's not time."
Miss Ethel glanced at the clock and saw that there was time; but she
could not insist, and so thought it more dignified to go away without
making any remark. Still she felt irritated to an unreasonable degree,
for her disturbed night had left her tired and nervous.
A few minutes later Caroline went out. There had been a change in the
wind, which now blew lustily from the north-east, and the sun was
shining. As she came down the street leading to the promenade, the
surface of her mind responded to the pricking liveliness of the salt
air and the sight of the open sea in front of her. A heavy rain
towards dawn had washed down mud from the cliffs which the high tide
had carried away, so now the water was a milky dun-colour, scattered
with millions of opal lights, answering more closely just then to the
thought of a jewelled sea than even the sparkling sapphire
Mediterranean.
A middle-aged visitor who had passed constantly in and out through the
barrier and knew Caroline by sight, gave her a sprightly "Good morning"
as he went through. "Most invigorating! Most invigorating!"
"Yes. Makes you feel as if you could jump over the moon, doesn't it?"
said Caroline gaily--that surface mind responding to his brisk jollity.
"Ha! Ha! So long as you haven't a liver to weigh you down," jested
the rosy-faced gentleman. Then he stepped away down the promenade,
well pleased with himself and his surroundings, and feeling that he was
not such an old dog yet, so long as he could enjoy a joke with a girl
on the promenade.
Caroline looked after him with a smile which gradually faded from her
lips as the slight stimulation from without ceased to act. For beneath
it all there was something inside, deep down within her, which was not
to be touched by the influences of sea air or sunshine--something that
watched anxiously and doggedly for one thing and would heed no other.
But the people came and went--came and went--until her knee ached with
the clutch and her whole being with watching. . . . And still the one
man she was looking for never put his broad-palmed, long-fingered hand
on the iron bar or turned his heavy-featured face towards her little
window.
She kept telling herself that she was tired after last night, so as to
explain the ache, but her little, pale face was looking pinched in the
light from the sea when Laura Temple paused at the barrier to say a few
words. The two girls spoke to each other through the little window;
one smiling, the other rather grave and reluctant. They talked a
moment or two of trivial things--the weather, the Gala--but Caroline
felt a queer animosity towards this pleasant, kind girl whose lover had
kissed her the night before. Though she told her surface self that the
kiss was only a "bit of fun" and meant nothing, that other self knew
well enough that it had meant quite enough to constitute an injury to a
bride who was to be married in less than three weeks' time.
She replied abruptly, turning over the leaves of her account book;
irritated by this contradictory sense of being obliged to feel she had
done an injury when she knew she really had not. So at last Laura
thought she had a headache or something, and soon went on towards the
Cottage.
* * * * * *
Miss Ethel came to the door, and at once took Laura into the
living-room. Mrs. Bradford sat as usual on an arm-chair, idle with a
clear conscience, because of her great, successful effort in the past.
Laura greeted them both gaily, for she felt the world was an agreeable
place that morning. "I received your message with an almond cake from
the baker's. I do hope your news is something good, too," she said.
But Miss Ethel did not respond to the mild pleasantry. "Yes. I had to
get the baker's boy to take a message, because I am not very well
to-day, and Caroline declined to call round on her way to the
promenade."
"Said she hadn't time," added Mrs. Bradford. "She had quite sufficient
time. And considering that she came in at all hours last night after
pretending to lose the latch-key, I think she might have done what
Ethel asked. No doubt she had been wandering about with some man. She
went to the Creddles, intending to stay the night there, but Creddle
brought her back."
"Oh, I feel sure she really did lose the key," said Laura. "It is a
thing I have done myself before now. And I'm sure I never wandered
about at night with young men."
"But she pretended that she had been here earlier and was unable to
make anyone hear. I didn't like that. We are not Rip van Winkles,"
said Miss Ethel crisply.
Laura laughed, anxious to conciliate them both for Caroline's sake. "I
dare say she was afraid of disturbing you. She is a kind-hearted girl,
I am sure, and she would remember that you have been ill, Miss Ethel."
"And yet she declined to go on a simple errand for me this morning,"
said Miss Ethel. "No, they are all alike: all for self. The young
people of the present day think of nothing but their own amusement."
She paused and added, anxious to be just, "Though I must own that
Caroline was kind when I was ill. I dare say there is something
good-hearted about her, at the bottom: but it is her general attitude
which I so dislike."
"If we only had Ellen back!" moaned Mrs. Bradford from the depths of
the arm-chair. "Or somebody like Ellen."
"You may just as well wish for butter at fourteen-pence a pound or
oranges twelve a penny like we used to get in Flodmouth Market,"
retorted Miss Ethel. Then her voice changed, taking on a heavy, inward
note. "Those days are done. They'll never come back any more."
"I mean," said Mrs. Bradford, who had all the curiosity often shown by
stupid people, "what sort of a young man Caroline has got now. A great
deal depends on that." And she looked inquiringly at Laura.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Laura. "Caroline's young men are her
affair, not mine."
"At any rate," said Miss Ethel, "we have not brought you here on a busy
morning to talk about them. We know you must have a great deal on your
hands just now, preparing for the wedding."
"Oh, it makes a great difference, having no house to get ready," said
Laura, flushing at the mention of her wedding, as she could not help
doing, though she felt such a sign of emotion to be ridiculous at this
time of day. "We must stay in my cottage until the house Godfrey has
taken is at liberty, and they say that won't be before the end of March
at the earliest."
"I don't think I should have liked that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I
remember how my dear husband insisted on having everything absolutely
complete, down to the very toilet-tidies on the looking-glasses, before
he took me home as a bride. But there are few like him." And she
sighed and glanced up at the quite imposing photograph which she had
long since come to believe exactly resembled Mr. Bradford in life.
Laura felt a very little annoyed for the moment, being sensitive on
this point of a house because hints had not failed to reach her that
Godfrey was considered to be feathering his nest at her expense; but
the next minute she forgot her annoyance in a tender flow of sympathy
for this other woman who had lost everything which she herself was
about to possess.
"Godfrey and I thought it preferable to waiting until the spring," she
said gently. "But of course I should have liked my new home to be all
ready for me, as yours was."
"Well, you needn't regret the toilet-tidies," said Miss Ethel. "Green
paper with magenta ribbon, if I remember right." Then she paused a
moment, nervously trying to steel herself for an effort which was
exceedingly painful to her. "But what we asked you to come in for was
this----" She paused again to clear her throat. "We have decided to
sell this house, and we thought you would kindly convey the message to
Godfrey for us."
"Of course I will," said Laura readily. The question as to why a
letter could not have been sent to Godfrey was latent in her tone, but
Miss Ethel did not answer it, because she herself did not know how she
dreaded the effort of writing the letter.
"We knew you would be seeing Godfrey this afternoon--we thought perhaps
you would break it to him."
"We have only just decided," added Mrs. Bradford. "But I daresay we
shall be all right in Emerald Avenue. There is a pleasant window in
the front bedroom facing south. So long as I have my knitting and a
warm corner I can make myself happy. My dear husband once said that my
disposition made me immune from the arrows of adversity. It was a
beautiful thing to say, and I have never forgotten it."
"I'll be sure to tell Godfrey," said Laura, for once bluntly
disregarding Mrs. Bradford's reminiscences, because she understood far
more than they thought. It was plain enough that Miss Ethel had sent
in this haste so as to make the matter irrevocable--to strengthen a
decision almost beyond her powers. But once they had talked openly
about leaving the house, it became an established thing.
"Tell Godfrey we can be out by Christmas, if he is able to effect a
sale," said Miss Ethel. "We must leave the roses, of course, as there
will be no garden in Emerald Avenue. The privet hedge has been clipped
this year, but it will want pruning in January."