Chapter 8

Caroline watched him go with a most illogical sense of being deserted; then the turnstile clicked and she had to release the clutch, letting through a pleasant-looking mother with a daughter of about seventeen, both so happy in each other's company--making a lark of coming out together to hear the band on such a wet night. Caroline's unreasonable feeling of being alone and deserted deepened. For the first time in years, she consciously wanted her own mother--longed for her with an ache of the heart that almost brought tears. She seemed so alone. Aunt Creddle was goodness itself, but had her own family to think of first, of course, and could no longer take quite such a vivid interest in a niece as when her own children were quite little. Uncle Creddle had a steady kindness which nothing could change, but he too was a struggling man with a family. Besides, he was rather hard in some ways beneath his good-nature. She still remembered how he had spoken to her that evening when he found her screaming and playing about those empty houses with the boys.

No, she belonged nowhere: that was it. She did not think as the Creddles did about lots of things, and yet she did not belong to the world which girls like Miss Laura Temple lived in, either. She had got past one sort, and had not found another. All these thoughts passed confusedly through a mind that had been quickened by something incomprehensible in her experiences at Laura Temple's that afternoon. Through her thoughts she heard the hum of the sea, the tinkling fall of heavy rain on asphalt, the faint rising and falling of violin music.

She felt a sudden spirit of rebellion. Why shouldn't she have some fun? She would enjoy herself! She wasn't going to go on like this, letting people in to the promenade, doing housework, practising typewriting. Why did some girls get everything, like Laura Temple, and others nothing? It was not fair. It was not fair----

Then she saw Wilson at the little window. "Good evening. Stormy night!" he said, and passed through without any further remark.

She knew he had come straight from Laura's and was taking a short cut across the parade to his own lodgings, which were beyond the exit towards the north. He had come from no desire to see her. Still he might have spoken a word: he need not have gone through like that, as if it were only Lillie working the turnstile.

As she thought that, she felt a tear on her lips. Licking it off, she demanded furiously of herself how she could be such a fool as to cry about nothing. She must be run down. She must want a tonic.

Then she glanced up at the sound of a step approaching from the promenade, and there was Wilson's face, quite near, looking in at her little window. "You'll have a wet walk home, I'm afraid," he said.

"Yes." Her voice held a faint surprise, for he had already spoken once about the weather. "But I have an umbrella here."

"That's a good thing." He hesitated. "I might have lent you one, only it is rather large for a little girl," he added, speaking with a sort of artificial jocosity. "You must find that road rather dark and lonely on a night like this?" He paused again. "Don't you?"

For a moment or two she did not speak, and that silence somehow gave her answer an undue significance. "Yes," she said at last.

He opened his lips to speak, then suddenly his expression changed and he moved away from the window. "Wretched night! Wretched night!" he said, walking briskly on.

Caroline sat back in her chair, almost feeling as if she had been struck in the face--for a question had been asked and answered during that silence which involved all sorts of joys, fears, infidelities; then in a minute he banished them so utterly that she could scarcely believe they had ever been in question.

The next moment Mr. and Mrs. Graham were at the window. "Oh, dreadful night, is it not? You must feel the wind here."

Then they were merged into the shadow of the hall, warning each other as they went along against taking cold. Caroline saw what had happened now. Wilson had no doubt caught sight of the Grahams over his shoulder, and had not wished them to see him talking to her.

Very well!--she was in a flame from head to foot--very well! When he _did_ want----

But beneath all that she sensed a weak longing for him which she was trying to drown in a flood of exaggerated indignation. Something told her that when he did want to speak to her again she would not be able to refuse: for he was not only a man for whom she felt a personal attraction, but he was also a type towards which all her new ambitions aspired. Poised as she now was, between what she had left and where she desired to be, he represented to her an ideal--assured, educated, a gentleman.

But though he did not walk home with her--in spite of what he said of the lonely road--she was not to go by herself after all. For a young man who was a connection of the Creddles--a railway porter by trade--chanced to pass just as she was leaving the promenade, and escorted her as far as the gate of the Cottage. He was a good-looking, intelligent youth, with a pleasant, hearty manner and a fair share of those solid qualities which adorned Mr. Creddle--the very man to make a good father and a good husband. Already attracted by Caroline, he would have gone further that night if he had not been discouraged, but she thought of his broken and blackened finger-nails, and of the noise he made when he drank tea, and so they parted at the gate without anything definite being said.

But as she ran up the garden path with her self-esteem thus agreeably restored, she had not the faintest idea that she had just passed by that rarest thing in life--a chance of real happiness.

_Chapter X_

_Sunday Night_

The long street leading to the church was thronged with people who walked slowly, smiling and talking to each other, either going towards the lanes beyond the little town, or towards the sea. But a third sort, much smaller in number, threaded rather quickly in and out of the gently-moving crowds with an air of obeying some purpose within themselves and not merely enjoying the lull in the wind at sundown and the warm air. And above it all, clanging out from the grey tower, the last bell rang out a single note urgently: "Come! Come! Come!"

A good many did not notice the bell at all; others just took it in as a sound of Sunday evening which ministered pleasantly to their agreeable feeling of having nothing to do but enjoy themselves; scarcely anyone was troubled by declining that invitation, because the habit of church-going has fallen from the position of a duty to that of a compliment which the religiously disposed are willing to pay their God if quite convenient.

Caroline walked briskly, now and then glancing up at the clock on the tower as if she belonged to the purposeful minority which was making its way to the grey porch. Not that she had started out with any intention of going to the service, but her girl friend had come across an admirer at the church corner, and so it became necessary to do something in self-defence. Impossible to contemplate wandering alone on a Sunday evening without a companion of any sort. The lack of a "boy" for such a purpose made Caroline feel oddly self-conscious--as if people were staring at her and wondering. She would have been glad of the young railway porter's company now, if he had turned up, and would have welcomed him as a sort of refuge.

He sat and smoked on a bench by the sea front, however, all unaware of the opportunity that was rushing past him, never to return. At the last insistent "Come!" Caroline caught sight of Lillie with a young man rounding the next bend of the road, and the idea of being pitied for her solitary condition made her march straight up the flagged path to the church door, as if she had meant going ever since leaving home.

But once inside the church, she experienced a gradual cessation of that prickling awareness of other people's thoughts and other people's eyes which had been so uncomfortable on the road. For she was familiar with the service--having gone to the Sunday school in childhood and attended church at times since, though the Creddles were chapel folk--so that the places in the Prayer Book came automatically to her fingers, and the soothing flow of the words gave her a chance to come to herself. She did not worship in any real sense of the word, but her mind was, despite itself, attuned to peace. "From all the perils and dangers of this night----" Then, after an interval during which the sunset struck golden across a tomb in the chancel: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . now and for evermore. Amen."

She rose from her knees and her glance fell upon Miss Ethel, who sat a fair distance away in the sparsely filled side aisle. She wondered whether Miss Ethel were a really religious sort or not--you never heard her mention a word about it, and she seemed so up against everything----

Then the hymn--old-fashioned because the Vicar was away and the elderly organist who had chosen it liked that kind best. Perhaps he knew that all religion must at the last be a matter of feeling and not of reason, for he had lived such a long time in the world and really loved God. But the strange preacher who was going to occupy the pulpit looked down the church at the congregation singing and felt they required a great deal of sound teaching. So, being a good man with a high ethical standard, he stepped up into the pulpit and did his best during the opportunity which was at his disposal to correct the effect of what he considered sentimental doggerel.

But as Caroline listened to him, she felt his explanations of a reasonable faith washing away from her mind all the beautiful pictures which had been stored there and had formed part of her life, though she had not valued them. No doubt he meant well; still the explanations took away and gave nothing to fill the empty place. Soon her mind wandered and she caught sight of a hat trimmed in a way that was exceedingly smart and easy enough to copy; so that occupied her attention until she heard the familiar rustle among the congregation and the "Now" which gives release.

The clergyman stood near the east window to give the blessing with a side light slanting across his white surplice, and a thought darted into Caroline's mind, turning her hot from head to foot--Why, that was just how the Vicar would stand with the bride and bridegroom before him at the altar-rails in three weeks' time! And a vision of Laura in her veil beside Wilson's broad, strong figure gave her a queer, unhappy feeling of irritation and pain; yet somehow she wanted to indulge the pain--to press it in upon her senses by dwelling on it.

Then her healthier instincts suddenly revolted. "It's nothing to me. I aren't jealous of another girl getting married! I could be married myself to-morrow if that's all." But deep within her she felt it was not all; so rising abruptly she went out, not looking again at the chancel.

Miss Ethel came forth more deliberately, nodding to one here and there among the townspeople as she passed under the porch into the cool evening, but her salutations were not acknowledged with the appearance of gratification or respect which she had seen accorded to her parents years ago--young people from shops and post-offices nodded off-handedly back, or at most gave a somewhat condescending "Good evening, Miss Wilson," feeling in their confident youth and independence that it was they who had done her the favour.

It was all so different; that constant burden of her thoughts---- And as she walked home through the end of the sunset, the forlorn restlessness of the cat turned out of its basket and forced to wander in cold, strange places seized upon her again. She could not formulate her unease excepting by that one phrase: it was all so different.

When she reached home, Mrs. Bradford looked up with a sort of solid expectancy: "Well, did you have a good sermon?"

"I suppose so. The Vicar was not there. The man we had explained to us that there was no heaven and no God, so I suppose he was very clever."

Mrs. Bradford stared, then relaxed comfortably into her cushions once more. "Oh, you mean he held those new views about religion," she said. "I have just been reading a novel that has something about that in it. Was he young? I always like a young preacher, because their voices are generally stronger and you can hear better."

Miss Ethel had gone to the window and now stood there, looking out. The eyebrow which was affected a little by emotion or excitement gave a slight twitch occasionally and her lips were pressed close together. She saw the little flag on the roof over the privet hedge hanging quiet on the still air, and it added to her sense of being conquered by those forces which had been creeping on steadily, bit by bit, until she could not ignore them any more than the new houses.

But she had never before felt it as she did to-night, looking up at that exquisite clear sky with the sickle moon rising. She was not well, tired with the walk and the service; and a most unwonted pressure of tears ached behind her eyes, though she fiercely fought against them.

"Ethel!" said Mrs. Bradford. "What are you standing there for? Why don't you go and take off your things for supper?"

"I am going." Miss Ethel controlled her voice to speak as usual. "I'll just put the kettle on first, because Caroline won't be in for some time yet." And she began to cross the room, when suddenly, abruptly, she stopped short. Standing quite still in the midst of all those heavy chairs and tables that gleamed dimly in the falling dusk, she blurted out in a queer, strangled tone: "I hated that sermon. I don't think clergymen ought to be allowed to preach like that. They want to change God. They can't even leave God the same."

"You really do upset yourself about things so, Ethel," said Mrs. Bradford fretfully. She wanted her supper. "What does it matter to you what other people think? You should just take no notice and go on in your own way, and believe what you always have believed--as I do."

Miss Ethel made some inarticulate reply, and went out to put on the kettle. Not for any earthly consideration would she have told her sister that that was exactly what she could not do: that because she listened carefully to sermons and read articles about religion the unchanging God was gradually giving place to a vague Power which nebulously adapted itself to the needs of a changing civilization.

The gas-ring spurted under the match in her hand, lighting up with a bluish light her pale, thin face. Her lips moved as she murmured to herself for comfort: "The _same_ yesterday, to-day and for ever." But she could not find anything to hold on to in that any more.

Then she heard an unexpected sound at the door, and the next minute Caroline came in, drawing off her gloves.

"I'll see to the hot water, Miss Ethel," she said.

"You are in early to-night," said Miss Ethel.

"Yes." Caroline paused. "Oh, I have been going to tell you that I shall----" But with the words nearly over her lips, she found herself unable to speak them. "Shall be late in to-morrow," she substituted; for somehow she could not after all cut herself adrift from this house yet, though she came fresh from a conversation which had left her burning with annoyance.

She tingled still at the recollection of one girl saying to another in passing: "That's Caroline Raby! What's she doing? Oh, she's in service." And at the memory of her own sharply-flung: "I'm not in service, then! I take tickets on the promenade and I'm going into an office after that."

But though it was evident that she was regarded by some as being in service, and though she felt no higher regard for it than anyone else who has just emerged from women's oldest and grandest profession, she could not bring herself to break the threads which held her to these two women--and to something beyond them which she would not realize. But after she was in bed, she could see in the darkness the church window in the sunset, and the altar rails, and the clergyman standing as he would do when Wilson and Laura were married.

So the three women lay in bed, thinking their own thoughts, with the sea moaning--moaning--as it broke in a long even wave and withdrew on the soft sand; quite a different sound every day, though Miss Ethel had heard it for fifty-six years. But she was scarcely conscious of hearing it at all, though it had formed an accompaniment to every thought and action of her life during all those years.

But to-night--perhaps because it was so warm and still, and she had the window facing the sea wide open--she did really listen to the waves; and that sound might perhaps have comforted her, with its deep note of unhasting permanence, if the ears of her mind had also been open to hear. But she only felt its melancholy. It seemed to accentuate her forlorn sense of having nothing stationary to hold on to, not even an unchanging God.

_Chapter XI_

_The Gala_

The Thorhaven season had passed its height, and that August month, towards which all the efforts of the lodging-house keepers and tradespeople converged during the year, was nearly at an end, while on every fence and wall employed for bill sticking could be read in large letters: "A Great Gala Night will take place on Thursday, August the twenty-ninth. Splendid Illuminations. Continental Attractions. Dancing on the Green from eight to ten-thirty."

The term Continental Attractions was the inspiration of Mr. Graham, who had recently visited the South of France on account of his wife's health--at least he gave that as his reason, though Mrs. Graham told all her friends confidentially that she would never have incurred so much trouble and expense if her husband had not shown symptoms of incipient bronchitis--and she equally believed herself to be speaking the truth. Anyway, there it was; and from the visit to Cannes resulted this idea of imparting a _joie de vivre_ to the Thorhaven Gala by means of paper streamers and air balloons. There had been some consideration of squeakers and false noses; but one or two members of the Promenade Sub-Committee raised the reasonable objection that the squeakers would interfere with the band, while the false noses---- Well, there was something indefinably loose about false noses which they could feel but could not describe in words. At any rate, they were not going to allow such things on their promenade.

There was a good deal of talk concerning the Gala in the town; so that those inhabitants who were familiar with illustrated magazines and the lighter drama--and also possessed a sanguine temperament--no doubt went about picturing to themselves a still night with coloured lanterns hanging motionless against a deep blue sky, while a crowd of exuberant visitors disported themselves in pale garments and unusual attitudes for the amusement of the Thorhaven people.

But the clerk of the weather was not going to have anything so incongruous as all that, and the 29th rose cold and grey--one of those summer days which are a premonition of autumn. A strongish wind blew from the west; leaves came whirling down on the road leading to the promenade, and the sky was grey-black with clouds scudding across; while beneath it, a rising sea showed a line of white breakers in the gloom--like the cruel teeth of a monster seeking something to devour.

Still the evening came with no sign of rain; the band stationed at the edge of the green played cheerful dances with a will, and it was no fault of theirs that the music sounded so lost and futile amid the roaring of the sea--rather as if a penny whistle were to be played in a cathedral while the organ was booming out solemn music among the springing arches. Perhaps the visitors and the Thorhaven people felt something of this themselves, for they put no real zest into their attempts at carnival, but they danced rather grimly in the cold wind, with little tussocks in the grass catching their toes and the fairy lamps which edged the lawn blowing out one after the other.

At the windiest corner, near the hall, was planted the respectable middle-aged woman who sometimes assisted in cleaning the church--though she was herself an ardent Primitive--and in her arms she held a struggling mass of air balloons which seemed most anxious to escape over the North Sea to those parts of Europe where carnival is more at home. But no one seemed to be buying from her excepting a few children, whose needs were soon satisfied. Then a worn-looking young man came up and purchased two balloons for his children at home, but after that the woman stood there alone again, with the balloons buffeting about her head.

At another point farther down the promenade, a boy suffering from a slight cold in his head offered for sale a tray of those snake-like paper missiles which can be shot out suddenly with startling effect. But he seemed rather ashamed of his job and kept in the gloom as much as possible, now and then making a sale among the children, who ran in and out behind the more sheltered seats where their elders sat in winter coats.

Mr. Graham--as the originator of these attractions--felt exceedingly impatient, both with his fellow-townspeople and the visitors, as he sat watching. A chill air blew down the back of his neck and he was conscious of an incipient cold, which all added to his feeling of bitterness. "No earthly use trying!" he burst forth, rising abruptly from his seat. "English people don't know how to enjoy themselves, and it's no use trying to teach them."

He scowled first at the scene before him and then at his wife, who sat with Mrs. Bradford and Miss Ethel on a long wooden seat.

"You couldn't imagine the weather would be like this, dear," said Mrs. Graham soothingly.

"The air will do us good," added Miss Ethel, a little pink about the nose, but wishful to be polite.

"Well, there's plenty of it," he said bitterly, grabbing his hat, which threatened to blow away.

It was plain that he jested with an anxious heart, thinking of what might be said of his venture at the next Council meeting. Those very offensive fellows who always were against him would, of course, make capital out of this. . . . Suddenly he braced himself up and strode away across the lawn. They _should_ frisk, if any influence of his could make 'em!

His wife looked after him sympathetically, then turned to Miss Ethel. "That's right!" she said. "Arthur will soon put a little more spirit into them. You see he knows how it is done. I shall never forget the way he entered into the spirit of the thing that time when we were abroad. If you could have seen him going down the Plage with a sort of a rattle in his hand and his hat on one side---- But there's something in the climate, of course."

"I suppose there must be," said Miss Ethel, with an involuntary glance at the couples jigging solemnly about the grass in front of her.

They sat silent for a time, feeling colder and colder, but sparing Mrs. Graham's feeling by remaining where they were. "Isn't that Caroline?" said Mrs. Bradford, after a long pause.

"I dare say. She told me the arrangements were somewhat different this evening, and she was to come off duty at half-past nine," said Miss Ethel.

Then Mr. Graham came back and bumped himself down so heavily on the wooden seat that the ladies felt a slight jar.

"No life!" he exclaimed. "No gaiety! No _joie de vivre_!" He paused, blowing his nose. "Well, this is the last time. I'll never attempt anything of the sort again."

"You must not say that. I am sure the Thorhaven people are grateful," murmured Miss Ethel.