The canary loved them both, but Joan was his favourite; for her he would
do almost anything. He bathed while she held his bath in her hands, and
would dry himself on her short grey hair. At times Mrs. Ogden felt
jealous of these marks of esteem. "I'm a perfect slave to that bird,"
she often complained, "and yet he won't come to me like that."
But her jealousy never got beyond an occasional grumble, the little
canary managed to avoid being a bone of contention; Bobbie was a mutual
tie, a veritable link of love between them.
At Barnstaple they changed again, and got into the small toy train that
wanders over the moors to Lynton. The sun was setting across the wide,
misty landscape, turning pools that the rain had left into molten gold,
sending streams of glory earthward from behind the banked-up
storm-clouds. Joan sat with Bobbie's cage on her knee; she might easily
have put it down beside her, there was room on the seat, but she liked
the nearness of the bird. She wished that he were big enough to take out
and hug.
A great peace possessed her, one of those mysterious waves of well-being
that came over her at times. "Feeling otherworldly," she described it to
herself. Mrs. Ogden was dozing, so there was no one to talk; the small
puffings and rumblings of the train alone broke the silence. She closed
her eyes in sensuous enjoyment. The little bird shook out his feathers
and cracked a seed, while the twilight deepened and the lamp flashed out
in the carriage. Joan sat on in a kind of blissful quiescence. "All is
as it should be," she thought dreamily, "and I know exactly why it is
so, only I can't quite find the words. Somewhere at the back of my mind
I know the why of everything."
3
On the second afternoon after their arrival, Joan sat alone in the hall
of the hotel. Mrs. Ogden had gone to lie down; she had scarcely got over
the fatigue of the journey. Joan picked up a paper idly; she had no wish
to read the news, but since the paper was there she might as well glance
through it. Two young girls with bobbed hair and well-tailored clothes
had come on to the veranda from the garden.
One of them was in riding-breeches. They sat down with their backs to
the open window, through which their voices drifted. "Have you seen that
funny old thing with the short grey hair?"
"Yes, you mean the one at lunch? Wasn't she killing? Why moire ribbon
instead of a proper necktie?"
"And why a pearl brooch across her stiff collar?"
"I believe she's what they used to call a 'New woman,'" said the girl in
breeches, with a low laugh. "Honey, she's a forerunner, that's what she
is, a kind of pioneer that's I got left behind. I believe she's the
beginning of things like me. Oh! hang it all, I've left my gloves in the
garden; come on, we must look for them." And they went down the steps
again.
Joan laid down the newspaper and stared after them. Of course they had
not known that she was there. "A forerunner, a kind of pioneer that's
got left behind." She shoved the hair back from her forehead. Yes, they
were right, that was what she had been, a kind of pioneer, and now she
had got left behind. She saw the truth of this all round her, in women
of the type that she had once been, that in a way she still was. Active,
aggressively intelligent women, not at all self-conscious in their
tailor-made clothes, not ashamed of their cropped hair; women who did
things well, important things; women who counted and who would go on
counting; smart, neatly put together women, looking like well-bred young
men. They might still be in the minority and yet they sprang up
everywhere; one saw them now even at Seabourne during the summer season.
They were particular about their clothes, in their own way; the boots
they wore were thick but well cut, their collars immaculate, their ties
carefully chosen. But she, Joan Ogden, was the forerunner who had
failed, the pioneer who had got left behind, the prophet who had feared
his own prophecies. These others had gone forward, some of them released
by the war, others who had always been free-lances, and if the world was
not quite ready for them yet, if they had to meet criticism and ridicule
and opposition, if they were not all as happy as they might be, still
they were at least brave, whereas she had been a coward, conquered by
circumstances. A funny old thing with grey hair, who wore moire ribbon
instead of a necktie and a brooch in the wrong place; yes, that was what
she had come to in twenty years.
She sprang up and hurried out of the hotel. On her way to the town she
unfastened the pearl brooch and hurled it into the bushes. It was twenty
minutes to six. She arrived at the shop she wanted just as they were
putting up the shutters.
"I'm not too late, am I?" she inquired breathlessly.
The clerk behind the counter reassured her. "You've just ten minutes,
madam."
"Then show me some stiff collars, the newest pattern." She chose half a
dozen hastily. "And now some neckties, please."
She made the best selection she could from the limited stock at her
disposal, and left the shop with her parcel under her arm. Half way up
the drive to the hotel, she stood still and stared incredulously at her
purchases; she had spent considerably over thirty shillings--she must
have gone mad! She walked on slowly with bent head. A pioneer that had
got left behind; what an impulsive fool she was! Pioneers that got left
behind didn't count; they were lost, utterly lost in the desert. How
could the young turn back for the old? In any case they didn't do it,
and one could not catch up with the young when one was forty-three.