BOOK I

THE CROWDED STREET

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

ANDERBY WOLD

THE BODLEY HEAD

THE CROWDED STREET

BY WINIFRED HOLTBY

LONDON

JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1924

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY JARROLD AND SONS LTD. NORWICH

TO

JEAN FINLAY McWILLIAM

AN UNWORTHY RETURN

FOR THE DELIGHT OF

HER LETTERS

"Beware!

You met two travellers in the town

Who promised you that they would take you down

The valley far away

To some strange carnival this summer's day.

Take care,

Lest in the crowded street

They hurry past you with forgetting feet,

And leave you standing there."

VERA BRITTAIN

CONTENTS

PAGE

PROLOGUE--DECEMBER, 1900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

BOOK I

CLARE--JUNE, 1903-APRIL, 1907. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

BOOK II

MRS. HAMMOND--JANUARY, 1914-SEPTEMBER, 1915. . . . . . . . . . . . 97

BOOK III

CONNIE--SEPTEMBER, 1915-FEBRUARY, 1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

BOOK IV

MURIEL--AUGUST, 1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

PROLOGUE

December, 1900

THE CROWDED STREET

PROLOGUE

From the crowded doorway to the piano at the other end of the room the

surface of the floor stretched, golden, empty, alluring. Ladies in

white trailing gowns, the mothers and aunts of other little girls at

the party, drifted across it like swans on a lake. Their reflections

floated after them, silver-white along the gold. When Muriel rubbed

her foot against the floor she could feel with joy its polished

slipperiness, broken only at rare intervals by velvet-brown knots in

the wood.

Mrs. Marshall Gurney was talking to Mrs. Hammond, so Muriel could wait

in the shelter of the doorway. Soon she too would have to cross that

shining space and join the other children on the chairs near the wall.

She was grateful for the interval of waiting. It was fun to stand

there, peering round her mother's skirts at the straight rows of

cracks running together up the floor till they met somewhere under the

piano. It was fun to watch the black jackets of small boys approaching

small girls in stiff muslin dresses who grew like paper flowers round

the walls. It was fun to tell herself over and over again that this

was the Party, the Party, the Party--and even while saying it to know

that the Party lay in none of these things; neither in the palms nor

the piano, the pink sashes nor the programmes, even though these had

pencils dangling seductively from scarlet cords; nor in the glimpse of

jellies and piled-up trifles seen through the half-open door of the

supper-room as she walked along red carpets to shake the terrifying

splendour of Mrs. Marshall Gurney's white-gloved hand. No, the Party

lay in some illusive, indefinable essence of delight, awaiting Muriel

beyond the golden threshold of the hall.

"Muriel has been looking forward so much to your party," Mrs. Hammond

was saying. "She has never been to one at the Assembly Rooms before."

Mrs. Hammond was small and soft and dove-like. She cooed gently when

she talked, and visitors spoke of her to Muriel as "Your Dear Mother."

For the Party she wore a new lilac satin gown and amethysts round her

pretty throat. Muriel knew that she was more beautiful than anyone in

the world.

Mrs. Marshall Gurney replied in the deep throaty voice that belonged

to her because she was Mrs. Marshall Gurney. Muriel could not hear

what she said, but Mrs. Hammond answered with her gentle little laugh,

"Oh, yes, she's only eleven and rather shy." So Muriel knew that they

were talking about her.

Grown-ups, of course, always did talk about children as though they

were not there. Muriel wished that it wouldn't make her feel hot

inside as though she had been naughty, or had begun to cry in front of

strangers. Connie, she thought enviously, rather liked it.

What did it matter? What did anything matter? She was at the Party.

Her new dress had been made by her mother's dressmaker. It had cost

her hours of breathless standing, trying to keep still while that

dignified lady crept round her on her knees, with pins in her mouth,

for all the world as though she were only nine and a half like

Connie, and were playing at bears. There had been a lengthy ceremony

of dressing before the nursery fire, with Connie dancing around

irrepressibly, wanting to try on Muriel's sandals and silk mittens,

and to touch the soft folds of her sash. All the way to Kingsport,

dangling her legs from the box-seat of the brougham--she always rode

outside with Turner, because to sit inside made her sick--Muriel had

watched the thin slip of a moon ride with her above the dark rim of

the wolds, and she had sung softly to herself and to the moon and to

Victoria, the old carriage horse, "I'm going to the Party, the Party,

the Party."

And here she was.

The ecstasy caught and held her spellbound.

Most of the chairs round the wall were full now. Mrs. Marshall Gurney

had been seized upon by Mrs. Cartwright. "It's nearly time to begin

dancing," said Muriel's mother. "We must get your programme filled.

There are a lot of little boys here whom you know. Look, there's

Freddy Mason. You remember him, dear, don't you?"

Muriel remembered Freddy. Once, when they had all gone to tea at his

father's farm, Freddy had taken Connie and her to play on the stacks.

They had climbed a ladder--dizzy work this at the best of times,

paralysing when Freddy followed close on one's heels, recounting

grisly details of recent accidents. Half-way up, Muriel had felt her

hands slip under the weight of a great sack of corn, and the earth

sprang up to meet her before the grinding thud of her shoulder on the

ground, when she fell as those poor men had fallen. She had scrambled

fearfully across the slippery barley straw, shuddering from the pain

of a fall that she had felt, although she still miraculously crouched

on the top of the stack, instead of lying broken in the yard. She had

sat with her legs hanging over space at the top of Freddy's lovely

slide, clutching at the treacherous straw with desperate fingers,

watching the hens, small as flies, pecking in the yard below, while

fear tickled the soles of her feet, and fear breathed on her paling

cheeks. Then, as merciful release or culminating agony, she was not

sure which, Freddy had pushed her over, and she had dropped limply

down, down, down, with a blinding rush, till she lay half buried in

straw below the stack, past hope, past fear, past speech, past agony.

That had been a long time ago. But she did not now want to dance with

Freddy.

"I don't think----" she began in her prim little voice. She was about

to add--"that I want to dance with Freddy," when Mrs. Hammond finished

her sentence for her.

"Of course he'll want to dance with you, dear." Mrs. Hammond claimed

that she knew what went on in Muriel's mind--her own child's mind. She

often finished Muriel's hesitating sentences for her. "You mustn't be

so shy, dear," she reproved gently. "Well, Freddy, how is your mother?

I hope her cold is better. You know my little Muriel, don't you? Of

course. You were so kind showing her round your nice farm that summer.

Dear me, what a big boy you've grown since then! She did enjoy it,

didn't you, dear?"

The edge of Muriel's chair had become a shelf of yielding straw,

slipping, slipping beneath her. Miles away below, hens, small as

flies, pecked on the polished floor.

"Where's your programme, dear?" asked Mrs. Hammond. Muriel produced

it, but hope died in her heart as the scarlet pencil moved in Freddy's

stubby fingers.

Polka, barn-dance, waltz. . . .

Her eye ran down the list of dances. Freddy's name alone marred the

virgin whiteness of the opposite page. At the thought of the second

polka she shivered. Still, he had only asked for one dance. That could

not spoil the Party.

A gentleman with a red flower in his buttonhole crossed the room and

sat down by the piano. From the way that he walked, Muriel knew that

he was going to be one of the funny ones. She could always tell.

The gentleman ran his fingers along the piano like playing a scale,

only prettier. In a minute the black coats and muslin dresses would

twirl together in a solemn polka. Muriel did not want to dance. She

wanted to sit and watch the moving figures weaving strange patterns of

shadow across the gleaming floor. She wanted to hear the music, and to

tap her foot against the side of her chair to the beat of its "_One_,

two, three, four."

The rows round the wall dissolved. Already Nancy Cartwright--a forward

child, Mrs. Hammond said--had lured her blushing partner towards the

centre of the room. A second couple followed, and a third.

"Haven't you got a partner for this?" asked Mrs. Hammond.

"Not just for this, Mother," Muriel murmured, vaguely aware of duty

unfulfilled.

"Oh, dear, well, let me see," said Mrs. Hammond.

She rose and began to search the room. Muriel wanted to run, to call,

to stop her; but she dared not venture into that revolving traffic of

dancers. She sat very still, while the circling skirts brushed against

her knees.

If only she could be quiet, and watch and listen, somehow during her

vigil the Party would come upon her.

From the ceiling swung dark festoons of gleaming laurel and holly, and

vivid flags, and lanterns of orange and vermilion. A child's laugh

rang out, challenging the echoes of the skipping tune. Oh, be still,

be still, said Muriel's dancing heart, and somehow here shall be

delight.

The drooping leaves of a palm tickled the back of the pianist's neck.

His left hand stopped banging out the bass chords and swooped as

though to kill a fly. It missed the leaf, and flung itself back on to

the keyboard to do justice to the Fortissima of the Coda. Back swung

the leaf over the edge of his collar. Up went the hand, clutching and

waving. There followed a battle royal between the palm and the polka.

Muriel's chuckles now rose to her throat, but, being a polite child,

she sought to stifle them. This would be something to tell Connie.

Connie might be trying sometimes, but her sense of humour was superb.

With a savage tug the gentleman at the piano had wrenched a leaf from

the palm and flung it aside. At the expense of the polka he had

striven for peace. With a sudden burst of rapture, Muriel saw that it

was the wrong leaf. Her laughter broke out, delicious, uncontrollable.

Of such delights was the Party made.

Mrs. Hammond stood by Muriel's side.

"Muriel, dear, here is Godfrey Neale. He arrived late and has not got

a partner for this dance."

Muriel rose politely to do her duty. Mrs. Hammond was so obviously

pleased that Godfrey had not found a partner. And, after all, the

thing to do at parties was to dance.

Muriel did not dance well. Madame Bartlett, whose classes she attended

every Wednesday, said that she was a stick. Music was beautiful,

especially the sort that made clean patterns of sound, interlacing

like bare branches against a clear sky. But while Muriel's mind

responded to its movement her body did not. She hopped round Godfrey

with disconsolate politeness. Only her feathery slenderness made his

progress endurable.

He was taller than she, and much, much older. Quite fourteen, she

thought with awe. Godfrey Neale, Godfrey Neale; vaguely she was aware

of him as something splendid and remote, of a lovely house behind tall

iron gates on the road to Wearminster.

They bumped into another couple.

Muriel became suddenly and devastatingly aware of her own shortcomings.

She tried to remedy these by moving her feet with conscientious

accuracy.

"_One_, two, three, hop! _One_, two, three, hop!"

"I beg your pardon," murmured Godfrey.

Only then did she realize that she had been counting aloud.

The next hop brought her down with unexpected violence on to Godfrey's

shining dancing pump.

"Sorry!"

"Oh, that's nothing. A fellow kicked me at f--footer last week and

made no end of a bump."

"Did he really? How awful! Did it hurt?"

"Oh, nothing to speak of. I say! That was a near shave!"

In her concern, Muriel started suddenly to the right and nearly

accomplished the downfall of the offending palm. She had just been

summoning her courage to lay before this dazzling creature her

greatest conversational gift, the story of the tickling episode. But

their latest peril put her tale to flight. Still, she felt that some

further effort was required of her.

"Do you often go to parties?" She whispered so softly that he had to

ask her to repeat her question.

Repetition emphasized its inanity. She blushed, gulping and trying to

control her quavering voice.

"Do you often go to parties?"

"Not very often. These things are a bit slow. I like footer, and

riding. I'm going to Winchester next autumn."

"Oh!"

Muriel wondered what mysterious connexion bound Winchester to

parties. Winchester, county town of Hampshire. Was that right?

Hampshire--Winchester-on-the-Itchen. Muriel had been considered rather

good at geography. Places could come real to you. Winchester. Parties.

She saw the city, rich with swinging lanterns, while down the lighted

streets from every window the tunes of polkas beat and sang.

"_One_, two, three, four! _One_, two, three, four!"

The music stopped. In the fairy streets of Winchester, and in the

Assembly Rooms of Kingsport there was silence.

Godfrey dropped Muriel's hand and clapped vigorously. He faced life

with a genial determination to find every one as pleasant as they so

obviously found him. Though he had not exactly enjoyed his dance with

Muriel, he smiled down at her kindly. She was a queer little thing,

but not bad, though she couldn't dance for nuts.

She smiled back at him gratefully, as though she said, "Thank you for

not telling me how badly I dance."

He enjoyed the comfortable feeling of having conferred a favour on

her. Muriel's smiles were like that.

The polka was not repeated. The pianist turned to concentrate his

attention upon the palm. Godfrey led Muriel back to her mother.

"Did he ask you for any more dances, dear?"

"No, mother."

That was the first dance. A second and third followed while Mrs.

Hammond talked to Nancy Cartwright's mother, and no one took any

notice of Muriel. She sat quietly, enjoying the Party. There seemed to

be no better thing than to watch and listen.

Mrs. Hammond turned.

"Let me see your programme, dear."

On the empty page Freddy's name sprawled, conspicuous in its isolation.

"Dear me," observed Nancy Cartwright's mother, "doesn't Muriel know

the children here? I must get Nancy to introduce her to some little

boys. Nancy's getting such a little flirt. So popular . . ."

"Muriel is very shy." Mrs. Hammond's voice was, for her, quite stiff.

"She really knows almost every one. But of course I like a child to be

a child; and she hasn't been going about in the way these Kingsport

children do."

But in spite of her implied contempt for the more sophisticated

Kingsport children, Mrs. Hammond rose at the end of the dance and

found another partner for her daughter. He was a small, pink person in

a very short Eton jacket. He danced even worse than Muriel, and in

their progress they managed to do a considerable amount of damage to

the other couples. After two turns round the room he deserted her with

relief. She stood by the door, a little dazed and intimidated, while

far away she could see the haven of her mother's chair separated from

her by a whirlpool of frothing muslin dresses.

Near the door sat poor Rosie Harpur. Everybody called her "poor Rosie"

in a general conspiracy of pity. She had not yet danced one dance. Her

plump hands grasped an empty programme. Her round head nodded above

the frill of her white frock like a melon on a plate. She had

straight, yellow hair and staring blue eyes, and reminded Muriel of

her doll, Agatha, whom three years ago she had discarded without

regret.

Funnily enough, Mrs. Marshall Gurney was talking about poor Rosie at

that moment. Muriel could hear quite well.

"Poor Rosie, I really don't know what to do with that child. I wish

that they wouldn't bring her to parties. One has to ask her of course,

for the parents' sake, but it's hopeless to try to find her partners."

Muriel's orderly mind registered a new item of information. The

unforgivable sin at a party was to have no partners. To sit quietly

in the drawing-room at home was a virtue. The same conduct in

the Kingsport Assembly Rooms was an undesirable combination of

naughtiness and misfortune. In order to realize the Party in its full

magnificence, one must have a full programme. All else was failure.

Enjoyment of the music, the people, the prettiness--all this counted

for nothing. It was not the Party.

Shame fell upon her. Taking advantage of the general confusion when

the dance ended, she tried to steal unobserved from the room. Mrs.

Marshall Gurney, however, saw her.

"Well, Muriel, quarrelled with your partner? How are you getting on?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Plenty of partners?"

Plenty? Oh, yes, plenty. Three was more than enough. Muriel tried to

reconcile her conscience to the lie.

"Yes, thank you," she said.

The great lady nodded.

"That's right, then."

Muriel ran away.

She hadn't told a story. She hadn't. All the same, she felt as though

she had.

Under the stairs she found a twilight alcove that would serve to hide

her confusion. She was about to enter it when the murmur of voices

told her that it was already occupied. Back to the cloak-room she ran,

growing now a little desperate in her longing for solitude. A motherly

old lady in black silk and bugles looked up from her seat by the fire.

"Well, dearie, have you lost something?"

Not daring to risk a second prevarication, Muriel fled.

The door of the supper-room stood open. Inside she saw a glitter

of glass and silver, of quivering crimson jellies and high-piled

creams, of jugs brimming with orange cup and lemonade. There were no

questioning grown-ups to drive her from that sanctuary. She slipped

inside and curled up on a chair near the door. From far away came

sounds of music, of laughter, of occasional faint echoes of applause.

She drew her programme from its hiding-place in her sash and, with her

head cocked on one side and the tip of her tongue between her lips,

began to write.

"First polka . . . Godfrey.

"First Schottische . . . Billie.

"First waltz . . . Frank."

And so on, to the end of the list. When the programme was full she

surveyed it with pride. Now, if anybody asked her, it could be

exhibited without shame.

How pretty the tables looked! In every tumbler a Japanese serviette of

coloured paper had been folded. One was like a lily, one a crown.

Kneeling up on her chair she hung ecstatically over one arranged like

a purple fan. A silver dish, filled with pink sweets and chocolates in

silver paper, stood at her elbow. How perfectly enchanting it all was!

Nobody could mind if Muriel took one sweet. They belonged to the

Party, and she was at the Party. They were there for her. And as she

did not dance. . . . She used so little of the Party.

She stretched out tentative fingers and took a sweet, the smallest

sweet, for she was not a greedy child. Daintily biting it, crumb by

crumb with her firm little teeth, she ate every morsel with fastidious

delight.

This was the Party. At last it had come to her, almost. Shielded

safely from the alarming and incomprehensible regulations of the

world, she could find the glorious thing that had kept her wakeful

through nights of anticipation.

She did not notice when the music ceased.

Suddenly there came a sound of voices from the corridor. An invisible

hand flung wide the door, and they were upon her.

The room was full of people, and they were looking at her, mothers

with disapproving faces, little girls and boys with smug and

round-eyed wonder, her own mother horrified, almost in tears, Mrs.

Marshall Gurney, tactful and insufferable.

"Of course your little Muriel is welcome to the sweets. I dare say

that she felt hungry. Children so love these almond fondants--from

Fuller's."

"Oh, Muriel, how _could_ you be so naughty?"

It was dreadful to see her mother look like that.

"Muriel Hammond's been stealing all the sweets! I say, do you think

she's left us any supper?"

That was Freddy Mason. He was laughing. They were all laughing.

Laughing or scolding, or looking the other way and pretending not

to notice.

It was more terrible than the worst of nightmares.

But the hour that followed was more terrible still. Her mother wanted

to take her straight home, but Mrs. Marshall Gurney would not allow

that. There she had to sit on that chair by the door all through

supper. She had to try to eat the patties and cakes and jellies. She

simply could not swallow.

"She's full up already," said Nancy Cartwright ruthlessly.

How could Muriel explain that it had only been one little pink sweet,

the smallest of the sweets, not even the fat round one with an almond

on it?

They made their escape as soon as possible, Muriel and her shamed,

unhappy mother.

The drive home was almost the worst of all.

"Muriel, how could you be so naughty, dear? How could you disappoint

me so?"

Fat tears ran down Muriel's cheeks, and dripped on to the collar of

her scarlet cloak.

Because her mother had forgotten that she had to ride outside,

half-way home, Muriel began to feel sick. But she dared say nothing,

for all that she could say must be used as evidence against her.

"I never thought that my little Muriel could be so naughty and so

greedy. Didn't you _know_ that people at parties don't go and eat up

all the supper? I don't know what Mrs. Marshall Gurney will think."

It was dreadful.

But how could she explain that it had only been the smallest sweet?

When they reached home, Connie was bobbing up and down on her bed in

the firelit nursery.

"Was it lovely?" she demanded. "Was it lovely, Muriel?"

Mrs. Hammond spared Muriel the pain of a reply.

"Muriel has been a very naughty girl, Connie. And you must lie down

and go to sleep and not talk to her."

To be told no more? Muriel naughty? Good Muriel? Muriel who had always

been held up as a model to naughty Connie? Here indeed was a nine

days' wonder.

Connie snuggled down with expectant submission in her blankets; but

even after Mrs. Hammond had kissed Muriel "Good night" with grave

displeasure the culprit would say nothing. She lay gazing at the

flickering fire-light with wide, tear-filled eyes, and saying over

and over to herself, "The Party was spoilt, The Party was spoilt."

For, in her unhappiness, this was the most poignant anguish, that by

some mysterious cruelty of events Muriel had never found the Party.

BOOK I

CLARE

June, 1903--April, 1907

I

On the evening of June 23rd, 1852, Old Dick Hammond, then still known

as Young Dick, locked the door of the little oil-shop, dropped the key

in his pocket, and turned westward up Middle Street in Marshington.

Beyond the village, black against the sunset, a broken windmill

crowned the swelling hill, even as the hill crowned Marshington.

"One day," he vowed to himself, "my son shall marry a lady and build a

house on Miller's Rise."

It was typical of Dick that he made his vow before the first sack

had been sold from the factory that eventually brought to him his

moderate fortune. Yet more typical was the promptitude with which he

forestalled his son and began himself to build the house at Miller's

Rise. When Young Arthur Hammond rode to Market Burton to court Rachel

Bennet, a house stood already prepared and waiting for his lady.

Whatever other objections the Bennet family might have raised against

Rachel's lover, at least they could not deny that he was offering her

the finest home in Marshington.

Fifteen years after Arthur's wedding, the house was more than a mere

dwelling place. Wind and rain had dimmed the aggressive yellow of the

brick walls, half covered now by ivy and the spreading fans of

ampelopsis. The tender olive and faint silver-green of lichens had

crept across the slates roofing the shallow gables. The smooth lawn

sloping to the laurel hedge along the road, the kitchen garden

overstocked until it suffered from perennial indigestion, the stiff

borders by the drive, wherein begonias, lobelia and geraniums were

yearly planted out, regardless of expense; all these testified that

the vows of Old Dick Hammond had been fulfilled in no grudging spirit.

"Eleven bedrooms, three real good sitting-rooms, and no making up for

lost space on the kitchens," Dick had declared. "When you go in for

bricks and mortar, go handsome. It's a good investment. Houses _is_

summat."

The house had been something more than the symbol of Old Dick's

fulfilment. It had been the fortress from which Rachel Hammond had

advanced with patient fortitude to recapture the social ground that

she had forfeited by marrying Dick Hammond's son. Old Dick had

mercifully died. When his continued existence became the sole obstacle

to the fulfilment of his vow, nature performed her last service to him

and removed it.

The death of her father-in-law had made it a little easier for Rachel

Hammond to live down the origin of his son, but even by 1903 she still

spoke with deference to Mrs. Marshall Gurney, and never passed the new

store on the site of the old oil-shop without a shudder. She kept her

difficulties to herself, and no one but her sister Beatrice knew how

great at times had been the travail of her soul. Beatrice alone stood

by her when she ignored the early callers from the Avenue and the

Terrace. No small amount of courage had enabled a young bride to

refuse the proffered friendship of auctioneers' wives and the

Nonconformist section of the village, when refusal might have meant

perpetual isolation. Old Dick Hammond had been a mighty witness before

the Lord among the Primitives; but for a whole year of nerve-racking

anxiety his daughter-in-law sat in the new house that he had built,

awaiting the calls of that Upper Marshington to whom Church was a

symbol of social salvation, and Chapel of more than ecclesiastical

Nonconformity.

Beatrice alone supported Mrs. Hammond when she carried the war into

the enemies' camp by inviting a formidable series of Bennet relatives,

Market Burton acquaintances, and Barlow cousins to purify the social

atmosphere of Miller's Rise. Sunday after Sunday these invincible

reserves appeared in the Hammond pew. The success of that campaign had

been slow but solid, and Mrs. Hammond, sitting in her elm-shadowed

garden on this summer afternoon bowed in gracious but satisfactory

acknowledgment to the hand that waved from Mrs. Waring's carriage,

rolling handsomely along the road.

She put down her sewing and gazed dreamily beyond the garden. The air

was heavy with sweet summer sounds and scents, melting together into a

murmurous fragrance; the breath of the wind on new-mown grass, the

cooing of doves, the sleepy orchestra of bees. On the upper stretch of

lawn the two little girls, Muriel and Connie, were making a restless

pretence at lessons with the governess, Miss Dyson.

Mrs. Hammond paused in her work, a faint frown on her smooth forehead.

Then she spoke, to herself rather than to her sister:

"Mrs. Cartwright said yesterday that Mrs. Waring is sending Adelaide

to school."

"School?" echoed Beatrice. Having been offered no clue yet, she knew

not whether to approve or to decry. Seventeen years spent as the one

unmarried daughter of a large family had taught Beatrice Bennet that

she existed only upon other people's sufferance. Since her parents had

died, she passed her time in a continual succession of visits from one

brother or sister to another, paying for their hospitality by lending

her approval, such as it was, to register or to confirm their own

opinions.

Mrs. Hammond had not hitherto expressed her opinion on the subject of

schools. Beatrice could therefore only wait and listen.

"To school?" she repeated, as her sister kept silence. "Did she say to

which school?"

"She was uncertain." Mrs. Hammond resumed her sewing. Her plump, white

hands with round, beautifully-polished nails, conveyed in repose a

deceptive impression of gentle ineffectiveness. Directly she began

to hem, inserting and withdrawing her needle with sharp, decisive

movements, the flashing diamonds on her finger cut through the

idle softness of that first impression. Her hands never fluttered

uncertainly above her work. She moved directly to the achievement of

her aim, or she kept still. Just now she sewed, with rapid ease, a

petticoat for Connie.

"Connie's hard on her things," she observed. "You'd hardly believe how

fast she grows, and then she tears them like a great tom-boy." She

sighed, clipping off a thread with her sharp scissors. "Mrs. Waring

seems to be thinking of York for Adelaide."

"There are good schools in York," suggested Beatrice.

"Well, there's the Red Manor School. Miss Burdass is a lady. Daisy and

Marjorie are going there, and now perhaps Adelaide. But I'm not sure."

"Mrs. Marshall Gurney's little girl still has a governess, hasn't

she?" suggested Beatrice with a helpful air.

Mrs. Hammond's eyes turned for one instant to the drooping figure of

Miss Dyson, now trailing wearily towards the house.

"Mrs. Marshall Gurney found a treasure in Miss Evans," she remarked

dryly. "I have already tried five for the children. You know that; but

they seem to be either feeble sorts of creatures like this Miss Dyson

or pert young minxes like that Porter girl. Mrs. Marshall Gurney

hasn't got to deal with Arthur."

Mrs. Hammond never alluded directly to those other troubles of her

married life unconnected with her husband's social position; but

Beatrice nodded now in perfect comprehension. With a spinster's

licence, she always believed the worst of husbands.

"Besides," her sister continued, "it's not only governesses. I was

talking it over last night with Mr. Hammond." She called her husband

Mr. Hammond sometimes from habit, because her subconscious mind

recognized that conversation with Beatrice was conversation with an

inferior, and prompted her accordingly. "He agreed with me that the

girls must go somewhere where they'll make nice friends. After all,

there are really very few nice people round Kingsport."

Beatrice followed her sister's glance beyond the flat meadows to where

Kingsport lay veiled in a light haze from the river Leame. The city

rose so slightly from the fields and gardens that its silver houses

gleamed like a pool of mercury poured on stretched green cloth,

leaving little drops and flattened balls before it had rolled

together Marshington, Danes, Kepplethorpe, and Swanfield over on the

pale horizon.

"I have to think of the future," Mrs. Hammond remarked.

Her sister nodded.

"Have you decided, then?"

"I did mention Heathcroft to Arthur. Mrs. Hancock's school is not very

large, but the dear Bishop recommends it, and I understand that even

the Setons of Edenthorpe thought of sending their little girls there."

"The Setons. Now, let me see, aren't they some connection of the

Neales?"

"Mrs. Neale was a Miss Henessey, and the Henesseys are cousins to the

West Riding Setons."

All Bennets had the gift of tracing genealogies by faith rather

than by sight. A naive confidence in the magic of Birth dignified a

curiosity that arose not from snobbishness alone.

A shadow fell across the lawn, darkening the upturned daisy-faces at

their feet.

"Well, well, well! Gossiping your heads off as usual, you two women?"

boomed Mr. Hammond's hearty voice.

They turned and looked up to where his figure dominated them,

ponderous, aggressive, radiating heat and energy. Arthur Hammond had

driven from the mill, but his great legs were encased from the knees

downwards in leather gaiters, and from the knees upwards in vast

checked breeches. His face was crimson, and his thick, darkly red hair

damp with perspiration. He wiped his head and whiskers with a blue

silk handkerchief, smoothing carefully into shape the heavy moustache

of which he was inordinately proud. He beamed contentedly upon his

women.

"Well, Mrs. H., how's tricks?"

His wife flushed slightly at the vulgarity of his phrase, even while

she felt, faintly across a gulf of disenchantment, the fascination of

his great virility.

"We have been discussing a school for the children, Arthur," she said,

her pretty voice as usual reacting with increased gentility in his

presence. "Beatrice agrees with me that Hardrascliffe has many

advantages."

"Bee knows a thing or two, what? Well, Mrs. H., I leave it to you. I

make the cash, Bee, but I let my wife do the spending."

It was true. His faith in her perspicacity was absolute. His offences

against her womanhood had never dimmed his appreciation of her wisdom.

"You really think that it would be the best thing, Arthur?" Mrs.

Hammond asked, with an assumption of deference only permitted when she

had already made up her mind.

"Ay, ay. Do what ye will with the lasses. If they'd 'a been lads, I

might ha' had sommat to say."

He lowered his great bulk slowly into the third garden chair. The

little girls came running across the daisied lawn, Connie dancing

ahead, Muriel following more sedately. Though she was fourteen, Muriel

still looked a child in her short holland dress and round straw hat.

"Father, Father," shrilled Connie. "When did you come home? Have you

been to Kingsport? How did the new bay mare go?"

They were singularly alike, Arthur Hammond and his younger daughter.

He smiled down at her with fond assurance.

"She went like old Miss Deale goes when she sees the curate coming

round t' corner."

"What do you mean, father? How does she go?"

"Arthur, I wish that you wouldn't say such things before the

children," reproved his wife's sweet voice.

He laughed enormously, putting his hand out and drawing Connie closer

to him, and thinking what a jolly thing it was to be sitting in

his pleasant garden with the day's work done, and an evening of

uninterrupted domesticity before him.

"Ay, Connie," he asked, "how would you like to go to school, eh? At

Hardrascliffe with old Mrs. Hancock, who'd beat you like anything if

you're a bad girl?"

"Oh, Father!" Connie glowed rapturously, understanding exactly how far

his threats were serious.

Muriel stood quietly before them, her slim hands clasped, her grave

eyes contemplative. She saw the sun lighting the pale brown of her

mother's hair to the soft shadow of gold. She saw the deep blue of

her aunt's flowing skirt against the speckled green and white of the

unmown stretch of lawn. She saw her father and sister, their two red

heads together, plotting some game of boisterous childishness that was

peculiarly theirs. She saw the wind among the lime trees tumbling

their leaves to delicate patterns of green light and shade.

Her wide eyes narrowed with the intensity of her secret thought.

"Mother," she asked unexpectedly, "do you suppose that there are many

families in Marshington as happy as we are?"

A faint shadow crossed her mother's face, like a wind-blown cloud

across a flower. Then she answered with the gentleness that she

reserved especially for her children.

"Well, dear, I hope that many families are happy."

But Mr. Hammond, thrusting Connie aside, clapped his hand against his

thigh and guffawed loudly. "Well, if that doesn't beat everything.

That's a real good 'un, that is. A happy family, well, well, well.

Which puts me in mind, Bee, did you ever hear tell of Bob Hickson and

_his_ happy family?"

Beatrice, part of whose profession it was to have heard no tale

before, gathered her scattered wits to give attention. Connie, bored

by the prospect of a tale that she had heard before, danced off among

the grass and buttercups; but Muriel, who had put her question

seriously, stood patiently watching, a little puzzled, a little

rebuffed, a little sad.

II

So Muriel was sent to cultivate suitable friendships under the

guidance of Mrs. Hancock. Because she believed that school was a place

where one learnt things, she had been pleased to go. She wanted to

draw, to paint, to play the piano as no one before had played it.

Most of all, she wanted to learn about Higher Mathematics and the

Stars. Muriel felt rather vague about the exact meaning of Higher

Mathematics. But she knew that she found in figures a sober and

unfailing delight. They slid through her mind like water, separating

easily into their factors, uniting quickly for multiples and

additions, revealing their possibilities at a glance as a clear pool

reveals the pebbles below its water. Then in figures lay a comforting

assurance of absolute truth. In a world where Muriel was beginning to

suspect that most conclusions were at best a compromise, she found

triumphant satisfaction in the unquestionable certainty that, in all

places and at all times, two and two made four.

At Marshington, Muriel's odd tastes had been discouraged. At school,

she felt assured that she would reach her heart's desire. She would

make wonderful friendships, win all the prizes, filling her beautiful

mother's heart with pride, and Heathcroft with the glory of her

triumphs.

Before a week had passed, she began to make discoveries. First, with

a dull ache of disappointment, she found that school was not so

different from Marshington after all; indeed, in a queer way the new

place seemed to be more familiar than her home, as the type may be

more familiar than the individual. At home, for instance, her mother

said, "Muriel, I wish that you would keep the school-room cupboard a

little tidier." At school untidiness became a crime, to be punished

by order marks, to the disgrace of the whole form or bedroom. The

accidental regulations of Marshington life were shaken out of their

environment and transformed into infallible rules.

For Mrs. Hancock had been a wise woman when she founded her private

school for girls at Hardrascliffe. Opening in business an eye to the

main chance that she would have closed in private life, she realized

that a head mistress has to make a choice. Generations are like

divinities, and he who is not for them is against them. A school must

be run either for the parents or for the children. As a business

woman, Mrs. Hancock knew that the parents who pay the bills are the

indispensable factor of success. She also knew that, for most of her

parents, the unacknowledged aim of education was to teach their

children to be a comfort to them. And how could a child be a comfort

to parents whom she makes uncomfortable? Mrs. Hancock determined that

no education received in her school should be responsible for this

disaster.

Possibly these considerations influenced her when, during her first

term, Muriel unexpectedly asked for an interview. In response to her

"Come in, my dear," a small shy person stood before her, whose slight

figure was tense with a tremendous effort of courage.

"Well, Muriel?" Mrs. Hancock smiled, with that famous motherly manner

so much praised among her parents.

"Mrs. Hancock----" hesitated Muriel. Her temerity was born of deep

desire. "You said that those of us who wanted to learn special

subjects and things--extras--might come and ask you."

"Well, dear, I don't remember, though, that your mother said---- Now,

let me see, where is her letter?" Mrs. Hancock searched among the

orderly papers on her desk. "I don't remember that she asked for you

to learn any extras, except dressmaking, perhaps, if it fitted in to

your time-table."

"It wasn't Mother. It's me." Muriel groped her way to an untutored

request. "I want--please, may I have lessons on Astronomy?"

"Astronomy?" Mrs. Hancock gasped. "My dear child, what are you talking

about?"

Muriel, whose opinion of the wisdom of all grown-ups was sublimely

high, did not take it upon herself to explain. She only protested

fervently that she wanted to, always had wanted to, know more about

the stars, and to do calculations and things. It must be confessed

that it all sounded rather silly. The triumphant thing, the towering

audacity of her desire, collapsed into the futility of ruined hopes.

She felt that the tears were coming. Her unique adventure beyond

habitual self-effacement was going to fail. She gazed appealingly at

the head mistress.

Then, with a kindliness that Muriel found consoling even though it

sounded the death knell to her hopes, Mrs. Hancock explained how

there were some things that it was not suitable for girls to learn.

Astronomy, the science of the stars, was a very instructive pursuit

for astronomers, and professors (these latter being evidently a race

apart), but it was not one of those things necessary for a girl to

learn. "How will it help you, dear, when you, in your future life,

have, as I hope, a house to look after? If you really want to take up

an extra, I will write to your mother about the dressmaking. You are

quite clever with your fingers, I think, and though it is usual to

begin a little later, perhaps----"

"But, but----" Muriel began. She knew now quite certainly that she had

resolved to become a great mathematician. She was not quite sure what

this involved, nor could she trace her resolution to the day when she

first read _The Life of Mary Somerville_ in the _Lives of Fine Women_

Series. She was certain that fate held for her something more exciting

than dressmaking lessons, and yet her initial failure sapped her

courage. She resigned herself to the wisdom of Mrs. Hancock.

Whatever doubts Muriel might have felt about that wisdom, Mrs. Hancock

had none. Acceptance of the conclusions reached by experienced and

older people, Muriel was told, was one of the first lessons to be

learnt by rash, unthinking youth. One day Muriel would laugh at her

childish fancies. She did not want to be considered different from

other girls, did she? Mrs. Hancock had noticed with regret a tendency

to hold herself aloof, to be a little odd. That should not be. Muriel

must learn to conform to the standards of other, wiser people. One day

she would be grateful to Mrs. Hancock.

Muriel, of course, was grateful. She failed to explain to her head

mistress that her aloofness was not of her own making; but she had

learnt her lesson. She never again asked Mrs. Hancock for anything

until she said good-bye to her on her last day at school.

And yet that interview affected her life more deeply than she might

have guessed. For at the dressmaking classes, Muriel met Clare.

III

It happened during Muriel's second term. She sat in the big school-room,

opposite to the door that led up three steps into the hall. The

dressmaking class was half over, and Muriel, while her fingers

carefully tacked gathered nun's veiling, allowed her thoughts to dance

away as usual into a delightful day-dream. Always at this time Muriel

used her leisure moments to compose the next instalment of a secret

serial history of which she was the heroine. In her dreams, her

failures and timidities slipped from her. She became fascinating and

audacious. Mistress of life, surrounded by adoring friends, she stood

triumphant, poised on the threshold of some great adventure.

At the moment, having rescued the head girl, Rosalie Crook, from a

terrible death by drowning, Muriel, still pale and dripping, was

received upon the storm-swept sea-shore into the magic circle of

"Them," the great ones. "They" were the élite, the prefects and the

games captains, the popular and famous, surrounded by the ineffable

prestige of tradition-making youth. Yet Rosalie, with tear-filled

eyes, bent forward to her companions. "Did you know," she cried,

"that Muriel has often been lonely and neglected? Do you know that she

has lived in hourly dread of croc-walks, for fear lest she should not

have a partner; that she has shrunk in terror from Speech Day, in case

no one should ask her to sit next them? That she has been at school

two terms, but nobody has asked her to be their friend? Who will be

her friend now? I, for one, would have liked that honour, girls, that

honour." Her voice quivered with emotion as They, with one accord,

rose to claim the friendship of Muriel Hammond. The raging wind swept

their ringing voices out to sea, as . . . the door opened and Mrs.

Hancock entered, followed by Clare Duquesne.

Muriel rose obediently with the rest of the class, according to the

Heathcroft rule of courtesy, but afterwards the action appeared as

the natural result of instinctive allegiance to the triumphant

personality, not of the head mistress, but of Clare.

Clare stood at the top of the three steps, smiling down at the class,

not shyly, not stupidly, but with an assured and indestructible

friendliness. She was as much mistress of the situation as a famous

actress who has entered amid deafening applause to take her call. Not

beautiful, but with the confidence of beauty, not tall, but with a

radiant suggestion of height, Clare was utterly unlike anything that

Muriel had seen before. From the surprising bow upon her sleek brown

hair, to the shining buckles on her trim brown shoes, from her odd

short dress of pleated tartan to the frill of muslin round her firm

young neck, she defied all Marshington and Hardrascliffe conventions

of the proper attire for young girls of fifteen. Wholesome as an

apple, tranquil as a September morning, and unmysterious as a glass of

water, she yet held for Muriel all mystery and all enchantment. From

that moment, without calculation or condition, Muriel gave her heart

to Clare Duquesne.

"Now, girls," announced Mrs. Hancock. She never called her pupils

"young ladies," having informed their parents that this savoured of

middle-class gentility. They, anxious to fling off the least suspicion

of resemblance to the class to which they almost all belonged, had

approved with emphasis. "Now, girls, I want you to make room in your

class for Clare Duquesne. She has come unexpectedly in the middle of

the term because her mother has been called to the South of France on

account of her father's health. I want you therefore to be specially

kind to her, and to give her a pleasant welcome, as I know that you

will."

Having made her speech, Mrs. Hancock prepared to withdraw, but this

surprising Clare forestalled her.

"Thank you immensely," she said in her clipped, precise voice,

speaking as though English were a well-known yet foreign language to

her. "It is very kind of you to take so much trouble over me. But,"

she bubbled with laughter, the dimples quivering in her rounded

cheek, "I have no talent with my needle. Félix bet me five francs

that I would never learn even to sew on a button."

Mrs. Hancock, slightly surprised, but still benevolently gracious,

smiled kindly. "And who is Félix, Clare?"

"Félix? Didn't you know? He's my father." She turned to the class with

an engaging air of frankness. "You know, Mamma and I always call him

Félix, because she hates to hear me say Mamma or Papa. It makes her

feel her age, she says, and when you are on the stage it is a crime to

feel your age--on account of the dear public, is it not so?"

Clare's voice deepened to the rich intonation of Sophie O'Hallaghan,

the charming Irish-American actress who had married the half-brother

of Lord Powell of Eppleford, and who was, incidentally, Clare's

mother.

Mrs. Hancock had not intended to divulge the profession of Clare's

mother. It was, she considered, the approval of the dear Bishop

always in her mind, a delicate subject upon which one might have

expected Clare to preserve a little reticence. Especially since Félix

Duquesne had been considerate enough to write his distinguished but

embarrassing French prose in--French, and was, through his family

connections, of unprecedented value as a parent. But Clare knew no

more of reticence than a lark on a spring morning or a kettle on the

boil. She saw no reason for Mrs. Hancock's sudden stiffness, and

continued to smile at her with complete urbanity.

"Well, Clare," replied the head mistress, "I think that perhaps while

you are at school you had better refer to your father by his proper

title. Is there an empty place, Miss Reeve, for Clare? Now girls, go

on with your work. There is no reason for you to let Clare's arrival

interrupt it. You can continue just the same."

She swept from the room, masking a faint uneasiness behind her

gracious majesty of deportment, but for the first time questioning

her wisdom in admitting this new pupil.

In the school-room, however, Providence for once had favoured Muriel.

The empty chair to which Clare was conducted by Miss Reeve was next to

hers, and when Clare turned towards her with that dazzling smile

Muriel knew, for all Mrs. Hancock might say, that things would never

be quite the same for her again.

IV

The term after Clare's arrival Muriel lay in bed staring at the faint

blur against the wall where Clare lay asleep. The room was dark and

still, but near the pale translucent panels of the window the curtains

stirred as though moved by the breathing of the seven girls.

The miracle that had led Clare to her on that first day still endured.

Clare and Muriel slept in the same room. Of course that did not mean

that they were friends. Clare had immediately marched with her

cheerful serenity right into the most exclusive circle of the elect,

of "Them." But to see Clare was an education; to speak with her a

high adventure. To sleep in the same room with her, to see her

bath-salts and her powder, only permitted at Heathcroft because she

was her father's daughter, to touch her underclothing, embroidered

in a Belgian convent--this was to live perpetually on the threshold

of a marvellous world, removed by millions of miles from school or

Marshington.

She was wonderful, this Clare Duquesne. At night Muriel would raise

her head above the bed-clothes and try to tell herself that this was

really true, that the world was large enough to hold people so

different as Clare and Muriel. Muriel, for all her brave dreams, knew

herself to be of those whose eager, clutching hands let slip prizes,

friendships and achievement, as quickly as they grasp them. But

Clare, lazy, careless, happy Clare, laughed when she made mistakes,

was amused by her arithmetic, hopelessly confused by premature

acquaintance with the metric system, cared nothing for her erratic

spelling, and swung up her average of weekly marks by her staggering

proficiency in languages. Her supremacy at singing and dancing cost

her no more effort than the wearing of fine raiment cost the lilies of

the field. Her French and German were more fluent than her clipped,

accentuated English. She could swear in Spanish, order a dinner in

Dutch, and write a love-letter in Italian. Impish as a street-urchin,

sophisticated as a cocktail, fearless of life, loved by it and its

lover, judging no man as no man judged her, she dazzled Heathcroft as

a glorious, golden creature not wrought from common clay.

Muriel's heart went out to her in a great wave of adoration.

Passionate emotion, stronger than any she had known, even on the

hushed silver morning of her First Communion, filled her small body

like a mighty wind.

"Oh, I would die for her," she breathed ecstatically. "O God, if

you've planned anything awful to happen to Clare, let it happen to me

instead. I could bear anything for her, even if she never knew how I

cared. But do let me know her. Let me get to be her friend!"

Forlorn hope, thought Muriel next day, preparing reluctantly for the

school walk. As usual the time was trapping her, and she had no

partner. Life at Heathcroft being organized upon the partner system,

this was Muriel's daily and hourly terror--to have no one to walk

with, to be driven as an enforced intruder to walk with the last

couple in the crocodile, to feel the checked resentment of the juniors

upon whom she was thus imposed.

She stood in front of the small glass, pushing the elastic of her

sailor hat beneath her long, brown plait, and thinking, "Well, there's

one thing about Connie coming here next term. I'll never have to walk

alone again." Which just showed how little at this time she knew her

Connie.

Then she heard Clare's voice.

"Will you not walk with me, Muriel?"

Muriel gasped. She could not believe that Clare had spoken. But there

was no other Muriel in the school, and no other voice like Clare's.

Yet, Clare, who could walk with "Them," surely she would never ask

Muriel? They never walked with those who were not of the elect. They

would not so imperil their dignity. But, of course, Clare never

bothered about her dignity. Years afterwards, when Muriel referred to

"Them," Clare asked with interest, "Who were 'They'?" But when Muriel

said, "Oh, you, and Rosalie and Cathie and Patricia. All the people

who counted." Then Clare laughed. "Oh, was I one? How perfectly

thrilling! And I never knew. What things we miss!" But now Muriel

only blushed and asked: "I beg your pardon?"

"I haven't got a partner," Clare said. "Will you walk with me?"

Muriel, blushing and palpitating, answered, "If you like." Always,

when she was profoundly moved, she became a little stiffer and more

prim, not gauche, but prim, like a Victorian teapot, or a bit of

sprigged muslin.

Clare never noticed. She was arranging her blue serge coat with the

air of a mannequin trying on a Paris model.

"Would you mind holding my collar straight?" she asked.

They took their place in the crocodile.

All the way along the Esplanade Clare chattered. Muriel at the time

was too much bewildered by her strange good fortune to remember

everything that Clare was saying, but she retained a glowing

impression of Clare skating outside a gay hotel in Switzerland, of

Clare in a box at the Comédie Française, listening to one of her

father's plays, of Clare crossing the Irish Channel in a ship, and

being sea-sick all the way. It was perhaps the most unquestionable

proof of Clare's attraction that even her sea-sickness became

distinguished.

Before Muriel had said three words, the girls had reached the cliffs

beyond the Esplanade. Beyond the asphalt and clipped box hedges of the

Promenade, the cliffs sprawled untidily. They were not even real

cliffs, but ragged slopes, overgrown with coarse grass and tamarisk,

sprinkled with yarrow, and patched with stunted bushes of rusty gorse.

Far below the tide crept up in circles, flat as paper, and washed

back, dragging with white sickles at the shelving sand. The place had

a deserted look, and Clare was bored.

"What shall we do now?" she asked obligingly, when Miss Reeve gave the

order to break rank.

She waited for Muriel to entertain her.

"Oh, I'll do anything _you_ like," said Muriel fatally.

They strolled along the winding path. Abruptly to their right rose a

steep rock, witness of the time before the landslide, when the cliffs

had been cliffs. For fifteen feet it frowned above the way to the

sands. Clare stood still, gazing at it in contemplative silence. Then

she had an idea.

"Muriel," she suggested, "do let's see if we can climb that rock. No

one can see us now. Miss Reeves's miles away. I'll go first. Come on,

do."

Clare was like that. She never noticed natural things except as a

potential background to her own action. But, having decided to act,

she was prompt. She tore off her gloves and faced the rock. Muriel

stood, suddenly smitten dumb by an agony of apprehension. But without

looking back, Clare began to climb. Agile as a cat, she scrambled with

firm hand-grips and burrowing toes, clutching at the sheer side of the

rock and chuckling to herself.

"Clare! You can't. You'll fall. You'll be killed."

Muriel meant to cry out all these things, but somehow she said

nothing. She only stood at the bottom of the rock while a sick

numbness robbed her of her strength.

Then Clare was up. She swung herself easily on to the summit of the

rock. Her figure was outlined against a windy sky. Her laughing face

looked down at Muriel.

"It's glorious up here," she called. "But what a wind! I say, do come

on, Muriel!"

Before she had thought what she was doing, Muriel began to climb.

"Whatever I do, I mustn't funk in front of Clare," she thought.

Her fingers tore at the sharp ledges of the rock. Her toes slipped on

the uneven surface. She grasped at a brittle root of broom. It came

away in her hand. She almost fell. Unused to climbing, blind with

fear, she hardly saw the places for her hands to hold.

Clare, completely oblivious of her distress, stared calmly out to sea.

"Oh, Muriel, there's such a big steamer on the horizon. Do hurry up

and tell me where it's going."

But Muriel could not hurry. She was beyond hope, beyond sight, almost

beyond fear. For she had just remembered Freddy Mason's stories of the

Ladder, and how the men carrying sacks up it had overbalanced and

fallen to their doom, far in the yard below.

Her grasp loosened. Rock and sky swung round her. Her feet slipped on

the narrow ledge.

She must not fail Clare; here was the time to test her courage.

Fear swooped upon her, tore her fingers from the rock, poured drops of

perspiration on her forehead.

"Clare!" shrieked a voice that was not surely hers. "Clare, I'm

slipping!"

Clare's round face appeared between the edge of the rock and the

reeling sky. Clare's voice remarked imperturbably: "Oh, well, if you

do fall you haven't far to go, so it won't hurt. But hold on a bit and

I'll give you a hand."

She came over the edge again. Her solid, shapely ankles were on a

level with Muriel's hat, her eyes. A firm hand reached down for

Muriel's clutching, sticky one.

"That's all right. Come along. You've got a great dab of mud on your

nose, Muriel."

She never faltered. Somehow they both scrambled over the edge. Muriel

flung herself down on the short turf, too sick and humiliated to

notice even Clare.

She had disgraced herself. She had failed. Her cowardice was flagrant.

Far from conducting herself heroically, she had risked Clare's own

safety because she was afraid. Far more than her nerve had failed

then. Her confidence in her whole personality was shaken. Black with

the unlit blackness of youth, the future stretched before her.

"Muriel"--when Clare pronounced her name it sounded warm and

golden--"do you not think that the girls here are like children?"

Muriel opened her eyes and stared as if to discover some connection

between this remark and her own disgraceful exhibition of childishness.

But there was none. Clare, astounding, incalculable Clare, had not

even noticed the tragedy of Muriel. She had taken it for granted that

if you couldn't climb, you couldn't, and that was your affair. She

continued meditatively:

"You must know what I mean, for you are different." Oh, glorious

triumph! Mrs. Hancock forgotten, Muriel glowed at the delightful

thought that she was different. "Have you not observed? How many of

them have had _affaires de cœur_? But very few!"

"_Affaires de cœur_?" It is hard to grope with a meagre French

vocabulary when one has just emerged from one physical and two

spiritual crises. Affaires! Muriel's knowledge of Marshington

phraseology assisted her. De Cœur--of the heart. Of course.

"Why, Clare, you can't mean being in love!"

"And why not?" asked Clare serenely. "I have had five affairs. There

was the student at the Sorbonne, and the man who played with Mamma in

New York, and my cousin Michael at Eppleford, and, and----"

"But were you in _love_ with them?"

"My dear child, no! Why should I be?"

"Then, how?"

"Dear me, _chérie_, have you never observed that I am very attractive?"

Her laugh rang out, merry and spontaneous.

"What a solemn face! Muriel, do you ever smile? No, no, I shan't fall

in love for years. Perhaps never. But crowds and crowds of men will

fall in love with me. That's why Félix decided that I had better come

to school. 'They're beginning too soon,' he said. 'You mustn't cut out

your mother yet, child.' And he sighed. He's terribly sentimental, my

Félix. I'm sure I didn't mind. On the whole it bores me. Men in love

are so terribly alike, I think, don't you?"

Fascinating, incredible conversation!

"Of course, really, I'm rather grateful to Félix," Clare continued

sagely. "It's no use getting it all over too soon. And of course one

day one might go too far, and really I don't want to marry yet,

however rich he was. What do you think?"

"But, Clare, do--do men fall in love with _all_ women if we let them?"

"Why, of course. Else why be a woman?" Clare responded with

tranquility. "Of course there are some, poor dears, like Miss Reeve, I

suppose, and most schoolmistresses, and missionaries, and things, but

they are hardly _women_, are they?"

"I--I don't know. I----"

Somehow, it must be confessed, Muriel had always thought of these

unfortunates as women. That merely showed her terrible simplicity.

With a sigh, she pondered over her ignorance of Life.

"Oh, Muriel, do look at Miss Reeve coming up the path!" Clare darted

forward and peered over the edge of the rock. The young lady from the

Swiss hotel, the sophisticated philosopher on Life, had vanished. The

Irish urchin, impish, grinning, disreputable, took her place. "Do just

watch her hat bobbing along the path! It's as round as a soup plate.

Why do people wear such hats? It should be forbidden by law. Here,

hand me one of those little stones. Quick!"

Unthinking and hypnotized, Muriel obeyed.

Plop! went the stone, right into the middle of Miss Reeve's round hat.

Clare was back behind the rock.

"Oh, Clare, she'll see you," agonized Muriel.

Clare chuckled. "She won't. I never get found out."

But for once she was wrong. Her crimson scarf, blown by the wind,

waved a bright pennon from the rock. Nobody else at Heathcroft wore

such a scarf.

"Clare Duquesne, Clare Duquesne!" Miss Reeve's shrill voice was ripped

to ribbons of sound by the wind.

Clare leant down, smiling benignly upon the furious lady on the path.

"You called?" she inquired politely.

"What are you doing there? Come down! How dare you?"

"How dare I come down? Well, it does look rather steep. I'm not sure

that we can _this_ way," pondered Clare, her head on one side.

"Don't deliberately misunderstand me. Who threw that stone?"

"The stone?" Clare's innocent voice repeated, but Muriel knew that the

situation was growing serious. With the ardent heroism of a martyr,

she flung herself into the breach--in other words, her head appeared

over the rock by the side of Clare. Desire to serve her beloved had

vanquished fear, hesitation and conscientiousness.

"It wasn't Clare's fault, Miss Reeve," she called. "We were trying to

get to the other path, and--and I slipped, and that set some stones

rattling down, and Clare came to stop me falling, and I do hope that

nobody's hurt."

Relieved to find that this was not a situation requiring to be dealt

with by a major punishment, an embarrassing ordeal at the best of

times, devastating when the culprit was Clare Duquesne, Miss Reeve

contented herself with a haughty stare.

"I do not think that you two have been behaving very nicely. It is

not ladylike to climb these high rocks, and I am sure that it is

dangerous. Please come down at once, both of you."

It was impossible to scold two heads detached from bodies, appearing

from the sky like cherubs from a Christmas card cloud. Muriel and

Clare withdrew.

Safely back behind the rock, Clare chuckled delightedly.

"I didn't know you had it in you, Muriel; that was quite magnificent."

But Muriel, to her own surprise as much as Clare's, suddenly began to

cry, aloud and helplessly, like a little child.

"But, Muriel, _chérie_, what is the matter?"

"I don't know. I'm so sorry to be so stupid. I think--I--you know, I

didn't mean to tell a lie. It just came out."

"You? What? Is that all? But you didn't. We _were_ going to the lower

path--sometime. And that stone _was_ loosened with your foot. And you

did slip. That wasn't a lie. It was a stroke of genius."

Then, with a sudden access of delighted interest, Clare turned upon

Muriel.

"My dear, is it possible that you have a temperament? And I never

guessed it. But how very odd. I should not have thought it somehow. It

just shows that you never can tell. And I _have_ been so bored with

these suet dumplings of girls." _Them_! The elect and sacred "Them"

suet dumplings! Muriel forgot her tears. "Although I, thank heaven, I

have no temperament myself. That is why Félix says that I shall never

be a singer."

She flashed her dazzling smile upon the embarrassment of Muriel, who,

resolutely determined to acquire a temperament--whatever this might

be--immediately, was returning thanks to a benevolent providence who

sends success to people in spite of their own failures.

V

Friendships at Heathcroft should usually be registered, like births,

deaths, and marriages, with all due publicity and certitude. It was

just like Muriel that, right up to the moment of leaving school, she

should never know whether she could really call herself Clare's

friend.

She stood on the platform, waiting for the arrival of the York train

that was to carry Clare off to London, Leipzig, singing lessons and

Fame. Clare, radiant, blossoming already into a young lady in a hat

sent by her mamma from Paris, smiled serenely from the carriage window

down at Muriel.

"Au revoir," she laughed. Her rich voice lightly dropped the words for

Muriel to take up or to leave as she would. Clare did not care.

"Good-bye, Clare," Muriel replied solemnly. She made no fuss about it,

for that would have been cheek, as though she had some right to mind

saying good-bye. "I hope that you will have a good time in Germany. I

expect that when I see you again you will be a famous singer. But

don't forget that if ever you _should_ want to stay in Yorkshire we

should love to have you at Miller's Rise."

"Oh, thank you, _chérie_, I shall not forget."

She smiled and waved her hand, tossing back to Muriel, like a fallen

flower, the invitation that had cost such terrific courage to propose.

But Muriel rushed away to her own carriage on the local line to

Kingsport with a sense of desolation that ached sullenly beneath the

excitement of being grown-up at last.

Because Muriel did not much care for babies, they pursued her in

railway trains and buses with relentless faithfulness. The carriage

into which she hurled herself after Connie's vanishing figure was hot

and overcrowded, and directly opposite to Muriel sat a baby, wriggling

on its mother's knee, its mouth smeared with chocolate and crumbs of

biscuits.

"Disgusting," thought Muriel. "How like Connie to choose a carriage

full of babies." For Connie was at this time indiscriminately

friendly, always scraping acquaintance with babies, all crumbs and

chocolate, or puppies, all smells and fleas. And now, because of her

lack of sensitiveness, Muriel at this crisis in her life had to endure

a slow train, where at every station people with baskets crowded in

upon her, even more hurriedly than her own overwhelming emotions.

Connie would come by this train, because it arrived at Marshington

half an hour before the express, and Muriel always tried to be

unselfish. She might have guessed what it would be like, for

circumstances never had much reverence for her feelings. Perhaps that

was why she had come to think that they did not much matter herself.

The world was all right. It was she who was wrong, caring for all the

wrong things. She could not, however hard she tried, stop herself from

loving Clare, though passionate friendships between girls had been

firmly discouraged by the sensible Mrs. Hancock. Their intimacy, she

considered, was usually silly and frequently disastrous. If carried

too far, it even wrecked all hope of matrimony without offering any

satisfaction in return. Love was a useful emotion ordained by God and

regulated by society for the propagation of the species; or else it

inspired sometimes the devotion of a daughter to a mother, or a parent

to a child. It could even be extended to a relative, such as a cousin

or an aunt. Or in a somewhat diluted form it might embrace Humanity,

engendering a vague Joan-of-Arc-Florence-Nightingale-Mrs.-Beecher-Stowish

philanthropy, to which Muriel aspired faintly, but without much hope

of realization. But Love between two girls was silly sentiment.

By loving Clare, Muriel knew that she had been guilty of extreme

foolishness. And she wanted so much to be good.

The words of Mrs. Hancock's farewell interview returned to her through

the smoke-laden atmosphere of the train. "My dear, to-morrow you are

going to take your place in the world outside your school, and there

are one or two things that I want you to remember. I believe that

sometimes you girls laugh at those words of Kingsley's, 'Be good,

sweet maid, and let who will be clever,' but they contain a great

truth, Muriel. Character, my dear, to be a fine womanly woman, that

matters so much more than intellectual achievement. To serve first

your parents, then, I hope, your husband and your children, to be

pure, unselfish and devoted, that is my prayer for each one of my

girls." Mrs. Hancock coughed. She had repeated this little homily so

often that she did not hesitate for words, and yet now and then,

unguessed by her hearers, would come a moment of wistful doubting

whether this message contained the final expression of her wisdom.

Below her worldly wisdom, Mrs. Hancock, like Muriel, wanted to be

good. "I want you to remember the school motto, dear, '_Læta sorte

mea_,' Happy in my lot. God will, I hope, give you happiness, but if

He chooses to send you disappointment and sorrow you will, I hope,

resign yourself to His dear will."

Forget? How could Muriel forget? It had been so sweetly solemn. A vast

desire seized upon her then to serve, to be devoted, to be faithful.

Sometimes at the early service she had knelt in the dim chancel, and

thought the fluttering candle flames above the altar to be stirred by

the soft breathing of the Holy Ghost. Then, too, she had prayed with

passionate ardour for self-abnegation and for service. But last night

the desire had swept upon her with rushing, mighty wings, and she

had stood gazing into Mrs. Hancock's face with eloquent eyes, and

murmuring, "I will try. I will try."

Connie's strident voice swung Muriel back from the dream of life to

its business:

"Did you say that his name was Tommie? That's a nice name, isn't it?

Tommie, Tom! No, my sister isn't fond of babies."

"Oh, I am," protested Muriel, always ready to sacrifice her tastes to

other people's feelings. "Sometimes," she added, respectful to the

truth. Her appealing eye sought those of the baby's mother, who nodded

understandingly.

"Lor, bless you! I know. A bit scared of 'em, eh? You wait till you've

had eight on 'em like me. Then a bairn's neither here nor there as the

saying goes. Ah've got six an' buried two, dearie me, but Ivy's in

service now, so I'm not complaining. The Lord's will be done, as I

says to Mrs. Dalton, who's had fourteen. The Lord's will be done so

long as He don't overdo it."

"Of course," smiled Muriel shyly, feeling somehow that the answer was

inadequate.

Was that really the end of it all? Six alive and two buried, and the

Lord's will being done, while one's face grew florid and coarse, with

a network of purplish veins across the cheek, and days and nights

passed in an endless race to keep abreast with small domestic duties?

Life's not like that. Life's not like that, vowed Muriel. Fiercely she

fought this sense of inexorable doom for the salvation of her dreams.

Surely God made the world most beautiful, and set within it to delight

man's heart music, and lingering scents, and the clear light of dawn

through leafless trees. To teach man the holiness of law, He set

the stars to ride their courses; for patience, He showed the slow

fertility of earth; for wisdom, He granted an eternal hunger that

would snatch its secret from the lightning, and their riddle from the

tombs of ancient men. He gave man beauty of body, and delight in

swift, free, movement. He gave him friendship, and the joy of service.

And, lest these things should be too sweet, and cloy with sweetness,

He gave him danger, that man might know the glory of adventure. And,

lest man should grow weary in his wandering, God gave the last and

deepest mercy, Death.

Not quite in definite words, Muriel thought this, but somehow her

heart told her that Life was this joyous, regal journey. She was grown

up. The whole world lay before her. The great adventure, which just

must end right, was about to begin.

She raised her hand to feel the long plait falling between her narrow

shoulders. Soon there would be a cold feeling at the back of her neck.

Her hair would be twisted up below her hat. Did being grown up really

make such a difference?

The train jerked on. Beyond the window the flat, dun country slid

past wearily. Hot July fields, ripening into dusty yellow for the

harvest, paddocks dried to rusted fawn, hundreds and hundreds of

allotments, variegated as a patchwork quilt, speckled with crazy tool

sheds, seamed with straight dykes, splashed here and there with the

silver-green of cabbages, or the faded motley of a wilted border of

July flowers--this was the country that surrounded Marshington. After

the ringing splendor of the wind-swept wolds, the stale flatness of

the plain seemed doubly depressing.

But Muriel was not depressed. Marshington to her was not a select

residential suburb of Kingsport, compensating for its ugliness by

its respectability. It was the threshold of life, the gateway to a

brimming, lovely world, whence she might start upon a thousand strange

adventures. Its raw, red villas were transfigured. Its gardens glowed

to meet her. When she could see from the right-hand window the

elm-crowned hill of Miller's Rise, her excitement almost choked her.

She leaned back in her seat, half wishing that she need never rise,

but Connie darted to the window.

"I say, Mu, hadn't we better pull the bags down? Look out! There's

your tennis racket. Where's my book box? My book box, Mu? Good-bye,

Tommie, bye-bye! See, Muriel, he's ta-ing his little hand at us!

Isn't he an angel? Oh, there's Father! Cooee, father, cooee! We're

here! We're here!"

VI

It really mattered. To have a belt that fastened trimly on to one's

new serge skirt, a safety-pin that under no circumstances would expose

itself to public view, a straw hat that sat jauntily (so long as it

was not _too_ jaunty) upon one's piled up hair, all these things meant

more than just "being tidy."

Being grown up was puzzling. It seemed to make no difference at all in

most things, and then to matter frightfully in quite unexpected ways.

It meant, for instance, not so much the assumption of new duties as

the acceptance of new values.

Was she more stupid than other people, or did every one feel like this

at first? She was travelling in a land of which she only imperfectly

understood the language. Would she learn gradually, as one learnt

French at Heathcroft, or would the new significance of things suddenly

flash out at her, like the meaning of a cipher when one has found the

key?

"My dear child, you were never thinking of going to the Club with

_that_ terrible handkerchief? You must have a linen one. Scent? No, I

think not for a young girl. It seems a little fast, I think, Beatrice,

don't you? And whatever happens, a girl in her first season must not

give people the impression that she is fast."

People. People. Until she had grown up, Muriel had been woefully

ignorant of how important People were. At Heathcroft, if you were

naughty, you offended God. At Marshington, if you were "queer" you

offended People. Perhaps the lesser offence was noticed by the lesser

deity, and yet the eye of the All-Seeing could hardly have been more

observant than the eye of People, who measured worth by the difference

between a cotton and a linen handkerchief.

Muriel was going for the first time to the Recreation Club since she

had left school. Connie, who, being still a schoolgirl, cared for none

of these things, walked beside her in sulky silence. She disliked the

Club, because, as a junior member, she could only sit on the Pavilion

steps to watch the sedate activities of her elders.

The Club being on the north-west side of Marshington, the Hammonds had

about half a mile to walk from Miller's Rise, a half-mile which Mrs.

Hammond improved by final injunctions to her daughter.

"The first time is so important, dear," she said.

By the time that they had reached the wire-topped gate, Muriel was in

a state of frigid and self-conscious terror. In a dream she followed

her mother's lilac-coloured linen across the wide grass path to the

Pavilion, wondering whether she ought to smile at Mrs. Lane, and

whether her hat was straight, and whether that terrible pin was

showing yet above her skirt. But at last she was seated safely on

the steps with Connie, while Mrs. Hammond was swept away by Mrs.

Cartwright for a game of croquet. She sat quite still, waiting for the

familiarity of the things she saw to remove the strangeness of her new

attitude towards them. At least she could play her old game of

Watching People, a game made doubly thrilling by the realization that

now she, too, was one of the grown-ups. That thought amused her a

little as she listened to Mrs. Marshall Gurney's rich, authoritative

voice in conversation with Colonel Cartwright. Absurd that Muriel

should now be grown up-like Colonel Cartwright! He was not a real

colonel, Mrs. Hammond had once said. He had made lots of money by

manufacturing soap. (Was soap more vulgar than sacks? Father made

sacks.) But he had taken advantage of the Volunteer Movement to win a

bloodless victory over the more exclusive circles of Marshington. Even

Mrs. Marshall Gurney, who would hardly otherwise have known the

creator of the Cartwright Complexion, loved to punctuate her comments

upon life by "Ah, Colonel," and "Oh, Colonel."

She was saying it now.

"Ah, Colonel, if it were merely a question of leaving the Parish."

"Deuced fine girl, though, Mrs. Marshall Gurney, deuced fine girl."

The colonel gallantly hid the traces of a Yorkshire accent behind a

barrage of military phrases. "We shall miss her at the Club. I must

say that I like to see her playing with young Neale. They make a

damned fine couple."

"Oh, there's nothing in that, I do assure you, Colonel. Take it from

me. He really takes no more notice of Delia than of any of the other

girls about here. Except, of course, that she has had rather more

practice at tennis than most of the others, and he likes a good game,

being such a splendid player. He plays for his college at Oxford, you

know. The other day, he told Phyllis----"

"Of course"--Mrs. Parker's gruff masculine voice cut across her

pleasant amble--"Godfrey Neale knew the Vaughans long before Mrs.

Neale condescended to associate with any of us."

Mrs. Marshall Gurney bridled. Muriel could hear offended dignity in

every creak of her basket chair.

"I hardly think so, Mrs. Parker," she said with majesty. "I used to

dine at the Weare Grange when Godfrey was quite a little boy. After

her trouble Alice Neale turned to me a great deal. Why, Godfrey and

Phyllis . . ."

"Godfrey Neale never _looks_ at Phyllis M.G.," whispered Connie with

scorn. "Old Mrs. M.G. always makes out that they are bosom friends.

Doesn't he play beautifully, though?"

On the court to the right of the Pavilion, a vigorous set was in

progress. That tall splendid young man in the perfect flannels,

with his shirt just open enough to show his fine brown throat, and

the conquering air of the accomplished player in his sure, swift

movements, that was Godfrey Neale, really and in the flesh Godfrey

Neale, no longer a mythical but heroic figure, whose exploits, riches

and tastes were whispered breathlessly at Marshington tea-tables, or

described by the more imaginative with the assurance of intimacy.

That was Godfrey Neale. And Muriel had actually spoken to him. Once at

a dance, years and years ago, a party memorable for bitter shame,

Muriel had not only spoken but danced with Godfrey. He had been a

witness of her dire calamity. Did he remember?

"Well, I think it distinctly lacking in a sense of duty, that Delia

should go gallivanting off to college just now when her father's

getting old," the denunciation from the veranda continued.

"Old?" snapped Mrs. Parker, who was only forty-five herself. "I was

not thinking of his age, but that we should have to get a curate, and

I don't know who's going to pay for him. All that I do hope is that,

after all this, Delia will learn a little common politeness. I have

rarely met a more disagreeable young woman than she is now."

"Well, I can't see why we should have to pay for a curate in order

that the vicar's daughter might learn to be a lady," said Mrs.

Marshall Gurney, quite tartly for her. Usually her consciousness

of her own superiority helped her to regard with tolerance the

failures of other people. But Delia Vaughan, as the one person in

Marshington who refused to recognize that superiority, had committed

the unpardonable sin. She had done more than that. Mrs. Marshall

Gurney looked across the courts to where Phyllis, charming in her blue

dress, was playing languidly in a ladies' double while Delia flaunted

her intimacy with Godfrey Neale. Her heavy face hardened. "I can't

think where she gets it from. Her mother was a delightful woman, one

of the Meadows of Keswick, you know, and the dear vicar, even if he is

a little unpractical, is a scholar and a gentleman. I hear that his

last book has been a great success."

Mr. Vaughan wrote books. That was magic in itself for Muriel. _A

Critical Survey of the Relation between Scutage and the Subsidy_, his

latest triumph, did not sound frightfully thrilling, but it was a

manifestation of profound scholarship which left Marshington mystified

but complacent. Marshington liked to feel that its vicar's academic

distinction was in some way a tribute to its own intelligence.

"Jolly good shot!" cried Connie, as a cannon-ball service from Godfrey

Neale ricochetted along the grass and struck the step of the Pavilion

with a resounding thump. "Muriel, isn't his service _wonderful_?"

"Splendid," murmured Muriel absently, straining to catch further

scraps of gossip from the group behind her. She settled down again

just in time to hear Mrs. Parker remark acidly:

"Delia Vaughan is one of those girls who pride themselves that,

however objectionable they may be to your face, they are even more

offensive behind your back. _She_ may call it being outspoken. I call

it sheer ill-breeding."

The set was over. Bobby Mason collected the balls, and Daisy Parker

fluttered round him apologetically. "I'm so sorry that I played so

badly."

It always seemed curious to Muriel that Mrs. Parker should have such a

fluffy daughter. She supposed that Daisy must have inherited her

femininity from her father. Mrs. Parker, with her caustic tongue and

masculine garments, looked more like the mother of Delia Vaughan.

Muriel shivered with delightful apprehension as the victors strolled

towards the steps. Life could never be dull while it contained beings

so romantically distinguished as Delia and Godfrey Neale.

She heard Godfrey say, with his charming little stammer, "Thanks

awfully, p--partner. That was a splendid game."

Marshington gloried in Godfrey's stammer. In him it appeared as a

gracious concession to human weakness, a sign that in spite of

Winchester, Oxford, and the Weare Grange, Godfrey was a man of like

infirmities to other men.

But not even the stammer impressed Delia Vaughan. That disagreeable

young woman dropped idly on to the Pavilion steps quite close to

Muriel and sat leaning forward, her racket against her knees.

"Godfrey, is there any tea?" she suggested. "And you need not think

that the splendid game was due to _your_ good play, my friend. Your

first two services were abominable."

Fancy anyone daring to talk to Godfrey Neale like that!

Godfrey handed a tea-cup to Delia.

"Would you like some bread and butter, or shall I g--get you some of

those little round buns?"

"Have they sugar on top?" asked Delia.

"Sugar? No, currants, not sugar. There is only one bun with sugar on

it, and I want it for myself."

"Then you can't have it. How like a man to think that he has

an indisputable right to the best bun. Bring me the sugar one,

and--Godfrey, Miss Hammond hasn't had any tea yet. Have you, Miss

Hammond?"

"Oh, s--sorry," said Godfrey Neale, and handed to Muriel his other

cup.

Never before had Delia appeared to notice the existence of Muriel.

Godfrey had never spoken to her since the Party. And here was Delia

attending to her desire for tea, and Godfrey handing her his own cup!

The traitor blushes glowed in Muriel's face, and chased themselves

across her neck like the shadows of cloud across the tennis courts.

"Oh, I'm all right," she gasped. "Please keep that. It's your cup,

isn't it?" She could not bear this unendurable honour.

"You must have that. Godfrey can fetch another. He is growing fat and

lazy."

"Connie," desperately blundered Muriel, seeking as usual to cast the

responsibility of life's gifts on to someone else, "don't you want

this?"

"Godfrey, get two more cups," said Delia.

But Connie unexpectedly replied:

"No thank you, Miss Vaughan, Freddy Mason promised to bring me some."

"Did he?" whispered Muriel, under the sheltering stir of Godfrey's

departure back to the Pavilion.

"No, of course he didn't. But do you think I was going to have that

Vaughan girl showing off in front of me? You've got no pride, Muriel."

So after Godfrey Neale returned, Muriel, being without pride, drank

gratefully the cup of shame, while Connie thirsted proudly by her

side.

At that moment, Mrs. Hammond, returning from her croquet, appeared

round the corner of the Pavilion with Mrs. Cartwright. She saw Muriel

on the steps. She saw Godfrey Neale bending over her with a plate of

little cakes. Muriel, looking up, saw the sudden gleam that crossed

her face, like winter sunlight on a melting pool.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Neale. Home from Oxford, I suppose? Have you had

some good tennis?"

"I thought s--so, Mrs. Hammond, but my partner tells me that I have

been playing abominably," smiled Godfrey.

"Muriel, I hope that you haven't been scolding Mr. Neale," Muriel's

mother began.

Mrs. Cartwright's eye flashed balefully upon her. Between them, Muriel

was in despair. To say nothing was to act a lie, to let her mother go

on thinking that she had been honoured by Godfrey's partnership. He

would think that she was showing off. It was an unendurable position.

Muriel blushed; Godfrey Neale hesitated smilingly; Mrs. Cartwright

awaited in triumph the revelation of Mrs. Hammond's error. Delia's

clear voice cut the tension of the listeners:

"As a matter of fact, it was I who scolded Godfrey. He and Miss

Hammond are just about to take their revenge on me."

"Well, I hope that they are not _too_ hard on you," smiled Mrs.

Hammond, and passed on to her triumph, while Muriel sat speechless at

the unexpected turn of events.

"Look here, Delia, is that a challenge?" asked Godfrey, too polite to

show surprise.

"Of course. Directly I have finished my tea. Go and find Dennis

Smallwood and tell him that he can play with me. He's asked me about

six times to-day, because he wants to practise for the tournament. Of

course this is if Miss Hammond has no objection," she added, inclining

her head towards the miserable Muriel who sat crumbling her bread and

butter, and wishing that she might plunge into her tea-cup and remain

engulfed there for ever.

The proximity of the gods is exhilarating, but when they descend from

their machines they are apt to be a little overwhelming.

"I--I'm so bad," stammered Muriel. "I've hardly played this year. I

shall spoil your game."

"If I had thought that you played well," remarked Delia imperturbably,

"do you think that I should have chosen you as a handicap for

Godfrey?"

After that, there could be no escape. Godfrey returned, followed by

the obliging Dennis. Delia stood up and flung off her jacket.

Muriel felt a little sick. These things simply did not happen. If

only she could be a success. If only she could by some miracle play

brilliantly. She tried to picture the delight on her mother's face. In

a dream she rose, nervously fingering her racket.

"Muriel!" came Connie's hoarse whisper. "Your safety-pin's showing at

the back!"

She clutched at her belt. "Excuse me," she murmured.

"Toss for courts, please," commanded Delia, ignoring her.

"Excuse me," she repeated, measuring the distance between the steps

and the cloak-room door.

"The sun ought to be fairly well behind the roof," said Delia.

"Rough."

"Smooth it is. You'll have to face the sun," cried Godfrey.

"Come along, Miss Hammond."

"But----" protested Muriel weakly, but too late. Dennis gathered up

the balls and sauntered leisurely with Delia across the court. Muriel

was left, her back and the terrible, indecent safety-pin exposed to

the full gaze of Social Marshington in the Pavilion. Once, she had a

nightmare that while shopping in Middle Street all her clothes fell

off. Even that had not been as embarrassing as this.

Godfrey was measuring the net.

"Bit higher, Smallwood. G--good thing that we won the toss, Miss

Hammond. The sun's awful."

A good thing that they won the toss! Muriel, hearing a burst of

laughter from the Pavilion, felt sure that somebody had seen the pin.

She gave a sickly smile.

The other courts were deserted. The whole of Marshington was there on

the veranda. The whole of Marshington, finishing its tea, had nothing

better to do than to watch the set. Muriel felt fifty eyes boring

holes into her humiliated back.

Her mother would see. Her mother would see the pin. And the first time

was so important.

She made a despairing effort to recapture her self-possession. At

Heathcroft she had been counted as quite a steady player. Well, now

she would show Marshington. She would show them that, in spite of the

safety-pin, she could at least play tennis. If Godfrey Neale liked

girls because they played well, then he should have no cause to

dislike her.

"Service!" called Delia.

Muriel steeled herself for effort.

The first ball came driving, clean and straight, across the court.

Muriel, dazed but optimistic, put out her racket. The ball sped on

unchecked and bounded against the Pavilion steps.

"Fifteen love!" called Dennis.

"Hard luck," consoled Godfrey.

"I'm _so_ sorry," murmured Muriel.

Godfrey returned the second serve to Delia. She flashed it back to

him. Really, it wasn't _nice_ for a girl to drive so straight and so

efficiently. Delia's tall, white figure became to Muriel something

malevolent and ruthless.

Godfrey returned the ball again, but Dennis at the net put out his

long arm and sent the ball crashing down at Muriel's feet, to rise and

soar far above her head, beyond her reach, beyond hope.

"Thirty love," called Dennis.

"My fault. I didn't place it well," said Godfrey.

"I am _so_ sorry," pleaded Muriel.

Her time of trial came again. She stood up brave and stiff.

"Play!" called the vicar's daughter.

Muriel played.

She played with such goodwill that the ball rose into the cloud-flecked

sky.

"Forty love," called Dennis, polite but obdurate.

Godfrey Neale, infected perhaps by his partner's impotence, lost the

next point.

"Game," announced Dennis. "Neale, look to your laurels."

"Your service, partner." Godfrey smiled his charming smile. "I messed

up that last game fearfully."

Had he not seen that it was her fault? She could have kissed his hand

for his forbearance. Negotiating carefully, so as not to expose to him

at least the shameful pin, Muriel picked up the balls.

She could not decide whether to hold two or three. Which had she

generally done at Heathcroft? She could remember nothing. They seemed

suddenly to have grown large and slippery, heavier than cannon-balls.

Surely it must be bowls that she was playing, and not tennis?

She was losing her nerve. She felt it going, and she could not stop

it.

She would not lose her nerve.

She stepped back carefully, three paces from the line.

"Service," she called, in a voice that would not have roused a rabbit.

That, as it happened, was unimportant, for her first ball hit the net,

and her second, slow and careful to avoid mistakes, sailed gently into

the wrong court.

"Love fifteen," said Godfrey. "Bad luck, partner."

"_So_ sorry," repeated Muriel mechanically.

She _would_ serve the next one well.

"Play!" she shouted, and with all her strength she smote.

"Oh! Oh, Mr. Neale, I _am_ so sorry!" For Muriel's ball, driven at

last fair across the court, had hit the unfortunate partner right

between his shoulders.

"My fault," he said gallantly. "I got in the way. I stopped a

s--splendid service too."

Entirely unnerved, she sent a ball so cautiously that it dropped

before it reached the net. Godfrey picked it up and brought it to her.

Crimson-faced now, she was forcing back her tears. He looked down at

her, kindly, carelessly, not even noticing her discomfort.

"I say," he said, "I'm awfully glad that you hit me just now. It's a

favourite trick of Delia's, but if she sees other people doing it

she'll stop, just from perversity. She's a bit like a cyclone when she

gets going, isn't she?"

The humorous twist of his smile, the appeal to her criticism of his

friend, the flattery of his attention, soothed Muriel's injured

vanity. She giggled. Then with a sudden burst of confidence, she

whispered:

"She's like the Day of Judgment, I think. I always remember all my

misdoings in her sight. I--I'm terrified of her."

He laughed. "So am I, to tell the honest truth. But she's a ripping

sport really, so for goodness' sake don't tell a soul."

They laughed, sharing a secret together, Muriel and Godfrey Neale.

With one sentence he had drawn her in to the magic circle of his

intimacy. She forgot her double faults and the safety-pin. She began

to play to redeem his game against the girl who terrified him.

Her next serve went straight and hard. In her amazement, Delia failed

to return it.

"Fifteen thirty," cried Godfrey. "Well done, partner. Do it again."

She did it again, not once nor twice. For the rest of the set, she

played with serious care, keeping out of the way for Godfrey's

smashing volleys. The air shimmered with dancing gold. Never before

shone grass so green. Never were balls so white. Never was the joy of

swift movement so exhilarating.

They won the next game and the next. Delia, half amused at the little

Hammond child's spirit, was playing badly.

From the Pavilion, Muriel heard Mrs. Waring's voice:

"Your little daughter plays a good game, Mrs. Hammond. You must be

pleased to have her at home now."

"Yes, it is delightful. Naturally I missed her dreadfully," answered

Muriel's mother.

Someone beyond the net was asking, "Shall we play it out or have

sudden death?"

"Sudden death," declared Delia, in the voice of a judge; but Muriel

did not care. Neither death, pestilence, nor famine could affright her

now.

"Game--and set," said Godfrey Neale. "By Jove, Miss Hammond, we must

have some more like that!"

Sunning herself in his smile, she walked back to the Pavilion.

Congratulatory smiles met her. For some reason, utterly unguessed by

her, she had become a heroine. That Delia's defeat could be sweeter

than honey to Marshington never occurred to her. She accepted the

glory of the moment as it came.

"I say, Mu"--she had forgotten Connie. She turned upon her now with

sudden irritation. But Connie had had no triumph. She was thirsty. She

was bored. She thought that Muriel had had enough success--"do you

know that your safety-pin's come undone, and you've got your blouse

all out behind?"

Muriel fled to the cloak-room.

VII

The excitement of Muriel's _début_ at the Club was not repeated. She

certainly went often enough, and once or twice Godfrey Neale spoke to

her. She did not, however, play with him again, but sat for most

afternoons on the steps of the Pavilion until asked to join a Ladies'

Double with Nancy Cartwright and Sybil Mason and poor Rosie Harpur,

who had also just left school, and who could play tennis no better

than she danced. Then the tennis season closed, and Connie returned

to school, and Muriel learnt how to order joints from the butcher's

and stores from the grocer's, and passed cakes at her mother's

tea-parties, and helped her with the accounts for the Mother's Union

and the G.F.S., and wondered when her real Life was going to begin.

Then came November and the Lord Mayor's dance, and Muriel woke up next

morning to remember that she had come out.

It would all have been wonderful, if only her hair had kept tidy. Next

morning she sat before her looking-glass and wrestled with aching arms

to cure her hair of its irresistible tendency to fall in heavy locks

upon her shoulders. It had spoilt everything, the band, the supper,

the confused medley of names upon her programme. From her first ball,

Muriel brought home only the memory of a scrambling rush to the

cloak-room, and of her mother's worried face bending above hers in the

long mirror.

She rested her chin on her hands and gazed at her thin, solemn face in

the glass, wondering whether she was really very plain, or whether she

would improve with time, as Mrs. Cartwright said that Adelaide had

done.

She was so much absorbed by these reflections that she did not at

first hear Annie, the housemaid, who knocked and came straight in with

the ostentatious familiarity of the old servant.

"Miss Muriel, a telegram for you."

"For me?" People were not in the habit of sending telegrams to Muriel.

She was not that kind of person.

"It's addressed to Muriel Hammond," remarked Annie stolidly. She, too,

found something unbecoming in the sending of telegrams to Miss Muriel.

Muriel took the envelope and fingered it. "Where's Mother?" she asked

slowly.

"Mrs. Hammond's in the kitchen."

"Oh."

For a moment, Muriel's training fought with her curiosity. Then her

training conquered. She seized her rope of hair, twisted it lightly

round her head, and fled downstairs with the unopened envelope.

Mrs. Hammond was alone in the kitchen writing up the menu for the day.

She raised her eyebrows at Muriel's flying entrance.

"Well, dear? Oh, Muriel, what have you been doing to your hair?"

"Doing it. Oh, Mother, there's a telegram."

"For me, dear?"

"No. It's for me." She hesitated, still afraid lest her mother should

consider the receipt of telegrams by her improper.

To her surprise, Mrs. Hammond took it quite calmly.

"Well, Muriel, who is it from?"

Muriel opened the envelope and read: "Can you have me week or longer

harribels have measles Felix not due England till 24th no money to go

Italy Duquesne."

She read it to herself. She read it aloud to her mother. She could not

believe her eyes.

"What does it mean?" asked Mrs. Hammond.

Muriel explained. "It's Clare, Clare Duquesne. You remember, my great

friend at Heathcroft, at least she wasn't exactly my friend, but I

always wanted her to be. She went to Germany to learn singing."

"Yes, but I don't understand. Does she want to come here?"

"Well--I--she--I think. It looks as though she had been going to stay

with the Harribels, and they had measles."

"But, who is Félix?"

"Félix is her father, Félix Duquesne, you know, the writer; he writes

in French, and it's Clare's mother who insists that he shall be called

Félix because 'Mother' and 'Father' make her feel so old and when you

are on the stage you have to keep young because of the dear public,"

Muriel explained, feeling that somehow she was not being as clear as

she might have wished.

"But, my dear child, you can't expect her to come here on her own

invitation like this at a moment's notice. I never heard of such a

thing. And uninvited. Really, I don't know what girls are coming to."

"But I did say--I mean I didn't ever think that she'd come, only I did

say that I knew we should be pleased to see her. You see----"

Mrs. Hammond frowned. "Now Muriel, this is really too bad of you.

Can't you see what a position you put me into? You know how much I

want you to have the things that you like, and I should have been glad

enough to let you have a school friend to stay at some proper time,

but you know that Father doesn't like just anyone, and just now----"