George ran down the hill, his heart thumping heavily at his ribs.... She
had her back towards him.
“Can I be of any assistance?” he said in his best manner. But she didn’t
need to be rich now; there was that little house at Bedford Park.
She turned round.
It was Gertie Morrison!
Silly of him; of course, it wasn’t Miss Morrison; but it was
extraordinarily like her. Prettier, though.
“Why, Mr. Crosby!” she said.
It _was_ Gertie Morrison.
“You!” he said angrily.
He was furious that such a trick should have been played upon him at
this moment; furious to be reminded suddenly that he was George Crosby
of Muswell Hill. Muswell Hill, the boarding-house—Good Lord! Gertie
Morrison! Algy Traill’s Gertie.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said, shrinking from him. She saw he was angry with
her; she vaguely understood why.
Then George laughed. After all, she hadn’t deliberately put herself in
his way. She could hardly be expected to avoid the whole of England
(outside Muswell Hill) until she knew exactly where George Crosby
proposed to take his walk. What a child he was to be angry with her.
When he laughed, she laughed too—a little nervously.
“Let me help,” he said. He scratched his fingers fearlessly on her
behalf. What should he do afterwards? he wondered. His day was spoilt
anyhow. He could hardly leave her.
“Oh, you’ve hurt yourself!” she said. She said it very sweetly, in a
voice that only faintly reminded him of the Gertie of Muswell Hill.
“It’s nothing,” he answered, as he had answered five years ago.
They stood looking at each other. George was puzzled.
“You are Miss Morrison, aren’t you?” he said. “Somehow you seem
different.”
“You’re different from the Mr. Crosby I know.”
“Am I? How?”
“It’s dreadful to see you at the boarding-house.” She looked at him
timidly. “You don’t mind my mentioning the boarding-house, do you?”
“Mind? Why should I?” (After all, he still had another week.)
“Well, you want to forget about it when you’re on your holiday.”
Fancy her knowing that.
“And are you on your holiday too?”
She gave a long deep sigh of content.
“Yes,” she said.
He looked at her with more interest. There was colour in her face; her
eyes were bright; in her tweed skirt she looked more of a country girl
than he would have expected.
“Let’s sit down,” he said. “I thought you always went to Mar—to
Cliftonville for your holiday?”
“I always go to my aunt’s there in the summer. It isn’t really a
holiday; it’s more to help her; she has a boarding-house too. And it
really is Cliftonville—only, of course, it’s silly of mother to mind
having it called Margate. Cliftonville’s much worse than Margate really.
I hate it.”
(This can’t be Gertie Morrison, thought George. It’s a dream.)
“When did you come here?”
“I’ve been here about ten days. A girl friend of mine lives near here.
She asked me suddenly just after you’d gone—I mean about a fortnight
ago. Mother thought I wasn’t looking well and ought to go. I’ve been
before once or twice. I love it.”
“And do you have to wander about the country by yourself? I mean,
doesn’t your friend—I say, I’m asking you an awful lot of questions. I’m
sorry.”
“That’s all right. But, of course, I love to go about alone,
particularly at this time of year. _You_ understand that.”
Of course he understood it. That was not the amazing thing. The amazing
thing was that she understood it.
He took his sandwiches from his pocket.
“Let’s have lunch,” he said. “I’m afraid mine are only beef.”
“Mine are worse,” she smiled. “They’re only mutton.”
A sudden longing to tell her of his great adventure of five years ago
came to George. (If you had suggested it to him in March!)
“It’s rather funny,” he said, as he untied his sandwiches—“I was down
here five years ago——”
“I know,” she said quietly.
George sat up suddenly and stared at her.
“It was you!” he cried.
“Yes.”
“You. Good Lord!... But your name—you said your name was—wait a
moment—that’s it! Rosamund!”
“It is. Gertrude Rosamund. I call myself Rosamund in the country. I like
to pretend I’m not the”—she twisted a piece of grass in her hands, and
looked away from him over the hill—“the horrible girl of the
boarding-house.”
George got on to his knees and leant excitedly over her.
“Tell me, do you hate and loathe and detest Traill and the Fossetts and
Ransom as much as I do?”
She hesitated.
“Mr. Ransom has a mother in Folkestone he’s very good to. He’s not
really bad, you know.”
“Sorry. Wash out Ransom. Traill and the Fossetts?”
“Yes. Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes.” Her cheeks flamed as she cried it, and
she clenched her hands.
George was on his knees already, and he had no hat to take off, but he
was very humble.
“Will you forgive me?” he said. “I think I’ve misjudged you. I mean,” he
stammered—“I mean, I don’t mean—of course, it’s none of my business to
judge you—I’m speaking like a prig, I—oh, you know what I mean. I’ve
been a brute to you. Will you forgive me?”
She held out her hand, and he shook it. This had struck him, when he had
seen it on the stage, as an absurdly dramatic way of making friends, but
it seemed quite natural now.
“Let’s have lunch,” she said.
They began to eat in great content.
“Same old sandwiches,” smiled George. “I say, I suppose I needn’t
explain why I called myself Geoffrey Carfax.” He blushed a little as he
said the name. “I mean, you seem to understand.”
She nodded. “You wanted to get away from George Crosby; _I_ know.”
And then he had a sudden horrible recollection.
“I say, you must have thought me a beast. I brought a terrific lunch out
with me the next day, and then I went and lost the place. Did you wait
for me?”
Gertie would have pretended she hadn’t turned up herself, but Rosamund
said, “Yes, I waited for you. I thought perhaps you had lost the place.”
“I say,” said George, “what lots I’ve got to say to you. When did you
recognise me again? Fancy my not knowing you.”
“It was three years, and you’d shaved your moustache.”
“So I had. But I could recognise people just as easily without it.”
She laughed happily. It was the first joke she had heard him make since
that day five years ago.
“Besides, we’re both different in the country. I knew you as soon as I
heard your voice just now. Never at all at Muswell Hill.”
“By Jove!” said George, “just fancy.” He grinned at her happily.
After lunch they wandered. It was a golden afternoon, the very afternoon
they had had five years ago. Once when she was crossing a little stream
in front of him, and her foot slipped on a stone, he called out, “Take
care, Rosamund,” and thrilled at the words. She let them pass unnoticed;
but later on, when they crossed the stream again lower down, he took her
hand and she said, “Thank you, Geoffrey.”
They came to an inn for tea. How pretty she looked pouring out the tea
for him—not for him, for them; the two of them. She and he! His thoughts
became absurd....
Towards the end of the meal something happened. She didn’t know what it
was, but it was this. He wanted more jam; she said he’d had enough.
Well, then, he wasn’t to have much, and she would help him herself.
He was delighted with her.
She helped him ... and something in that action brought back swiftly and
horribly the Gertie Morrison of Muswell Hill, the Gertie who sat next to
Algy and helped him to cabbage. He finished his meal in silence.
She was miserable, not knowing what had happened.
He paid the bill and they went outside. In the open air she was Rosamund
again, but Rosamund with a difference. He couldn’t bear things like
this. As soon as they were well away from the inn he stopped. They leant
against a gate and looked down into the valley at the golden sun.
“Tell me,” he said, “I want to know everything. Why are you—what you
are, in London?”
And she told him. Her mother had not always kept a boarding-house. While
her father was alive they were fairly well off; she lived a happy life
in the country as a young girl. Then they came to London. She hated it,
but it was necessary for her father’s business. Then her father died,
and left nothing.
“So did my father,” said George under his breath.
She touched his hand in sympathy.
“I was afraid that was it.... Well, mother tried keeping a
boarding-house. She couldn’t do it by herself. I had to help. That was
just before I met you here.... Oh, if you could know how I hated it. The
horrible people. It started with two boarders. Then there was
one—because I smacked the other one’s face. Mother said that wouldn’t
do. Well, of course, it wouldn’t. I tried taking no notice of them.
Well, that wouldn’t do either. I had to put up with it; that was my
life.... I used to pretend I was on the stage and playing the part of a
landlady’s vulgar daughter. You know what I mean; you often see it on
the stage. That made it easier—it was really rather fun sometimes. I
suppose I overplayed the part—made it more common than it need have
been—it’s easy to do that. By-and-by it began to come natural; perhaps I
am like that really. We weren’t anybody particular even when father was
alive. Then you came—I saw you were different from the rest. I knew you
despised me—quite right too. But you really seemed to hate me, I never
quite knew why. I hadn’t done you any harm. It made me hate you too....
It made me want to be specially vulgar and common when you were there,
just to show you I didn’t mind what you thought about me.... You were so
superior.
“I got away in the country sometimes. I just loved that. I think I was
really living for it all the time.... I always called myself Rosamund in
the country.... I hate men—why are they such beasts to us always?”
“They _are_ beasts,” said George, giving his sex away cheerfully. But he
was not thinking of Traill and the Fossetts; he was thinking of himself.
“It’s very strange,” he went on; “all the time I thought that the others
were just what they seemed to be, and that I alone had a private life of
my own which I hid from everybody. And all the time _you_.... Perhaps
Traill is really somebody else sometimes. Even Ransom has his secret—his
mother.... What a horrible prig I’ve been!”
“No, no! Oh, but you were!”
“And a coward. I never even tried.... I might have made things much
easier for you.”
“You’re not a coward.”
“Yes, I am. I’ve just funked life. It’s too much for me, I’ve said, and
I’ve crept into my shell and let it pass over my head.... And I’m still
a coward. I can’t face it by myself. Rosamund, will you marry me and
help me to be braver?”
“No, no, no,” she cried, and pushed him away and laid her head on her
arms and wept.
Saved, George, saved! Now’s your chance. You’ve been rash and impetuous,
but she has refused you, and you can withdraw like a gentleman. Just say
“I beg your pardon,” and move to Finsbury Park next month ... and go on
dreaming about the woman. Not a landlady’s vulgar little daughter, but——
George, George, what are you doing?
He has taken the girl in his arms! He is kissing her eyes and her mouth
and her wet cheeks! He is telling her....