The Privet Hedge Part 6

"Well, have it your own way, of course. Only I can't make all this out," said Wilf. "If you didn't fancy me for a husband you might have found out before. You've had plenty of time."

"But I never _did_ think of you as a husband, somehow," said Caroline.

"We began to walk out together like boys and girls do, and it has gone on. I don't say I shall never feel different. I can't picture myself ever wanting to go with anybody but you. Only there it is." She paused, looking out to sea, and the wash of the waves brought back to some degree those feelings which she had experienced when he talked about the five thousand pounds. "I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings, Wilf. I'm sure I didn't want to. I only wanted to be straight with you."

"Well, we'll let it pa.s.s," said Wilf. "Girls have all sorts of funny feelings we don't have, I expect; and a lot would have taken the ring first and talked afterwards. I like a girl to be straight."

But he did not. He was at the stage when what he most wanted from the female s.e.x was a sugared insincerity which looked like crude candour and independence. And as they walked on again, though they were linked together, she certainly appeared less desirable to him than she had done when she was circling round the hall in Wilson's arms with her bright draperies glowing between the gaslight and the sunset.

When they had said farewell at the gate of the Cottage garden and he stood waiting until he heard Caroline safely open the front door, these discontents grew more active still. Here he was, seeing her home, and making no objection, though some one had actually said in his hearing that she was Miss Wilson's maid-servant. He had not told her this from feelings of delicacy, but he began to think that delicacy was rather wasted on her, and determined to do so at the next opportunity.

Caroline opened the door softly and was creeping up the old stairs which creaked at every step, when Miss Ethel peered out of her bedroom and caught a glimpse of flame colour beneath the open coat.

"Good night, Miss Ethel," said Caroline cheerfully.

For a moment Miss Ethel could not bring words over her lips. That Ellen's niece should return thus at midnight, opening the house door with a latch-key, while she, herself, condoned it, though she disapproved as violently as ever. She felt a sort of tingling shame and resentment like a fighter who has to retreat, as she said in a m.u.f.fled tone: "Good night, Caroline."

_Chapter VI_

_Morning Calls_

Miss Ethel was sawing off the dead branch of a tree that threatened to fall on the path when Mrs. Bradford came out of the house and walked slowly across the garden, saying as she pa.s.sed: "I don't know what you want to do that for, Ethel. You look quite overheated. Why don't you get a man to do it?"

Miss Ethel--beads of perspiration on her flushed forehead and hands trembling with exertion so that she could scarcely hold the saw--replied with pardonable acerbity: "I didn't get a man because I couldn't. You know that. Talk about unemployment! I only know you can't get a jobbing gardener for half a day, even if you put your pride in your pocket and crawl all round Thorhaven on your hands and knees asking one to come as a favour--besides, what would he charge?"

"Well, leave the branch, then," said Mrs. Bradford. "You do worry yourself so, Ethel."

"Somebody must worry," retorted Miss Ethel. Then the bough split unexpectedly and fell, causing her to graze her hand so that it bled.

Immediately afterwards there came a loud crash from the other side of the hedge, and for a moment the two women felt their hearts jump with the old sense of helpless, defiant waiting on fate which they had experienced when bombs fell from enemy aircraft during the war. But the next second they remembered they were safe--though that had ceased to be a thing to thank G.o.d for.

"It's only a cartload of bricks being tipped," said Mrs. Bradford rather faintly.

"Only!" said Miss Ethel. "Don't you know that means they are beginning to build? And just on the other side of our hedge! And then you calmly stand there and say 'Only!' I wish I were made like you, Marion."

But she very obviously entertained no such desire, and Mrs. Bradford walked on, saying over her shoulder: "I really came out to remind you about going to Laura Temple's. If you really want to see her, it's high time you went."

Miss Ethel pulled her watch out of her belt, glanced at it and hurried indoors, but came out again almost immediately in a hat, with a bundle of papers in her hand. As she went down the road, she--like every one else--being unable to take in all the impressions that pressed round her, only absorbed those which fed the dominant idea in her mind, automatically neglecting the rest. So when she turned out of the garden gate and caught a glimpse of the cornfields beyond the Cottage where a lark was singing, she missed the idea of permanence--seed-time and harvest never failing--which might have soothed her mind, and only thought how soon these fields too would be built over and spoilt.

Change--change everywhere; not only thrones falling and ancient estates going to the hammer, but little people like herself and Marion all over the world made to feel it every hour. The very spire pointing upwards against the blue-grey sky reminded her less of the eternal message than of something in the service which was different from what it used to be when she was a girl.

But at last she reached a part of Thorhaven which did unconsciously soothe and console her, for it remained just the same: white cottages cl.u.s.tered under high trees and a little house facing the road where Laura Temple lived with an old governess. The house was plain, built close on to the pavement after the old Yorks.h.i.+re village fas.h.i.+on; and a flagged pa.s.sage led through it to the garden behind; so when the doors stood open, as now, a blaze of sunlight and clear colour was framed in the further doorway.

While Miss Ethel stood waiting on the step, Laura entered from the garden with some flowers in her hands. "Oh! Do come in, Miss Wilson,"

she said. "This is nice of you." And she led the way into a square room hung with white curtains and light chintz covers; not an "artistic" room at all, but one which somehow matched the garden outside, as well as Laura herself.

In a well-cus.h.i.+oned chair by the sunny window sat a short, stout lady with very pretty pink hands and faded blue eyes, who rose up from her knitting to greet the visitor. She was the old governess who lived with Laura, and her real name was Panton, but she had always been "Nanty" in the far-off nursery days, and so she was called still by intimates of the family whose various branches she had trained to read and spell. Now she was--as she herself said--eating the bread of idleness; her two great and absorbing interests in life being Laura and knitting. She had been afflicted doubtless with adenoids in her own childhood, but at that time they were not generally considered removable. At all events, she now confused her M's and B's intermittently, as she always had done, and never troubled herself about it, being an easy-going person.

She did not mind, for instance, telling anyone how Laura called to see her one day when she was living in lodgings in Flodmouth, and there and then invited her to come and keep house. But she could not tell what caused this sudden impulse, because she did not know. As a matter of fact, it was just one of those trifles which do influence human conduct by touching the emotions--and always will, let cynics say what they may. And the ridiculous thing which touched this hidden spring in Laura was a very stale, untouched, highly ornamented cake which Miss Panton cut with fingers that trembled from eagerness--so pleased and excited was she by having a visitor at last. "I rather thought I might have had a good bany callers--my papa was so well down here in the old days. But there does not seeb to be anybody left."

The familiar "seeb"--the sudden picture of poor old Nanty waiting there for those callers, descendants of her papa's substantial circle, who never came--the glow of a generous girl newly engaged who wants to make everybody else happy--all this had influenced Laura to say, without waiting to think: "Come and live with me until I am married. I'd simply love to have you, Nanty. Miss Wilson is always saying I ought to have a chaperone since I ceased wandering about and went to live in my own little house at Thorhaven."

So that was how Miss Panton came to be sitting in that pleasant corner of the sunny room, doing her knitting and listening while Laura talked to Miss Ethel about the nursing fund in which they were both interested. Occasionally Miss Panton would push forward mechanically a conversational counter from the little store she kept always by her.

Thus when Miss Ethel spoke of the bricks that had arrived on the other side of the privet hedge, Nanty glanced up for a second to remark in her throaty little voice: "It is hard. That lovely garden of yours, Miss Ethel---- But tibe and tide wait for no ban!" Then she sighed and resumed her absorbing occupation, satisfied that she had taken her due part in the social amenities.

This habit of using ready-made plat.i.tudes arose no doubt from laziness of mind, as well as from the natural timidity produced by being a nursery governess in days when such unfortunate young females hovered ever uncertainly between bas.e.m.e.nt and drawing-room. She had got into the way then of making remarks at the luncheon table which she knew must be correct, because they were in all the copy-books.

Now she and Laura lived very happily together, and this pleasant feeling was intensified by the rather exaggerated adoration of the girl's lover which such a situation is apt to produce. The little household circled round his goings and comings, and the young mistress of it lavished on Wilson all the family affection she had at the disposal of a large circle, if she had been blest with one, as well as the pure pa.s.sion of a woman deeply in love.

At last Miss Ethel finished her business, closed her little notebook and made a brisk remark about the building in the next field, because she was always very careful not to hurt Miss Panton's feelings.

"Delightful! Delightful!" said Nanty, seeking the appropriate conversational counter--"at least, I bean----" She paused, breathed hard, and added with a rush: "I'm sure Mr. Wilson was deeply distressed at being obliged to be the one to sell it. But if he had not done so, somebody else would. Business is business," she concluded, pink to the nose-end with the effort.

Laura's colour also rose a little. "Yes. I know G.o.dfrey was sorry.

Only he is tremendously keen to get on, of course, and you can't afford--I sometimes think he is too keen."

But Miss Ethel was not going to have that. It must be made plain at once, that though _she_, herself, might run down her own second cousin, he was the sort of man whom any girl ought to be proud to marry, even though she did possess an agreeable sum of money at her own sole disposal. "I have always considered G.o.dfrey a gentleman--if that is what you mean?" she said stiffly.

But Laura was looking out of the window and did not listen. "Oh, here is G.o.dfrey!" she said, jumping up. "Will you excuse me a moment, Miss Ethel?" And she hurried off to prevent an awkward meeting.

But before she reached the door, G.o.dfrey was already in the room--alert, buoyant, with his air of being well fed, well bathed, well groomed and entirely certain of himself. Immediately after greeting Laura, he turned to Miss Ethel. "I am very glad to have come across you," he said, "I am afraid you felt hurt about that field before your house; but the Warringborns meant to sell, so of course I couldn't tell them to take their business elsewhere. And they were urgent, so the whole thing was arranged hurriedly."

Miss Ethel drew down her mouth but said nothing; and before Laura could make some trivial remark Miss Panton nervously filled in the pause by murmuring: "Quite so. Delays are dadegerous."

Then Miss Ethel rose to go, and having recovered herself a little she did manage to say a civil word to Wilson about the weather--because after all he was her kinsman, and must be supported here as such.

A few minutes later, Wilson and Laura followed along the same road.

"Then I suppose we may take it that diplomatic relations have now been resumed?" he said with a grin.

Laura smiled--but kindly--feeling some pity for Miss Ethel. "After all, it is hard to have people looking over your hedge when you have always had the place absolutely private. Only she will make such a tragedy of the inevitable."

But G.o.dfrey was not greatly concerned with Miss Ethel's feelings. "I say, Laura," he began eagerly, pointing to some new houses. "There are tremendous opportunities in Thorhaven for a man with capital. If only I had twenty thousand pounds at my disposal, I could be a rich man in ten years' time."

She looked up at him quickly, flus.h.i.+ng a little. "Well, you can have, G.o.dfrey. I'd like you to have it. I get possession of my money on my marriage, you know: and, thank goodness, it is not in trust. My father had a perfect horror of leaving things in trust."

"I'm not sure I agree with him there," said G.o.dfrey. "You might have got hold of a chap who would make ducks and drakes of your money. But as things are, it is all right, of course. The only question is--shall you always be absolutely comfortable about it? Because, if you would even feel the very faintest----"

"But I don't! I never shall," interposed Laura. "You know I'd trust you with a million if I had it."

He slipped his hand through her arm, for just then they turned the corner and met the sea wind full in their faces. "Dear old girl: there are not many like you."

Laura felt herself propelled along so easily with his thick-set figure between her and the wind from the sea; the warm vitality that came out from him and seemed to run also through her veins, making her feel stronger, gayer, more exuberantly full of energy than she ever did when alone. She wanted to tell him her feelings, after the way of lovers, and so she turned to him with a little quick pressure of his arm in hers as they neared the pay-box. "G.o.dfrey! I feel as if I could jump over the moon. Don't you? It must be this lovely morning."

He let his glance rove idly over the promenade gardens and the road leading to it, which certainly looked their best on this day of real summer, when there was hot suns.h.i.+ne to warm the breeze, and girls and children in pink and blue and white and yellow playing on the sands.

The sea was a sparkling green and a couple of boys ran out into the surf, shouting as they ran. . . . But though Wilson had an eye for beauty, he was thinking chiefly of the row of villas which could be built where a cornfield now grew--and lodging-houses on the cliff top with steps down from the gardens to the sh.o.r.e--and the money rolling in. Then he heard Laura speaking to the girl in the pay-box as she went through the barrier; and with a sudden jolt of the memory the nymph in the flame-coloured gown came back to mind, though he had forgotten all about her from the night of the promenade dance until the present moment.

He hesitated a few seconds, then he also stepped forward and peered in at the little window with Laura, who was still talking; and instantly, his sudden curiosity fell flat like a bubble p.r.i.c.ked. For he saw just enough resemblance in this ordinary, pale, alert little girl, with the bright eyes and the freckles on her nose, to make sure she was the same person, and after that one glance he stood looking away to sea with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly, awaiting his lady's pleasure.

He was no longer curious.