The Privet Hedge Part 9

said Caroline, repeating her formula. "Things aren't like they used to be." She paused. "My goodness, I'm glad they aren't! Fancy if I had had to be another Aunt Ellen all my life."

He laughed, pleased with himself and her. "Well, I must own that I'm glad I was not born into a stagnant world."

A sense of power--of vitality heightened by the stormy times in which they lived, ran through them both as they spoke. It was rather like the feeling of a strong swimmer in a roughish sea, with fitful suns.h.i.+ne and little breakers far out towards the horizon.

By this time they had reached the Cottage and Caroline went in to announce Wilson's arrival. Mrs. Bradford was still reading her paper, but Miss Ethel had not yet returned from her errand to see if the workmen were still working at the new houses.

"I can't think," said Mrs. Bradford, "what Ethel means by going on like this. She just ran out with a shawl round her, and has been absent three-quarters of an hour. I told her the men had stopped work, but she would go to see for herself. I am afraid she may have fallen over a brick or something in the fog." She turned to Caroline. "I wish you would just go and see."

Caroline went out at once and Wilson followed her with a word to Mrs.

Bradford. As they crossed the garden the privet hedge loomed like a wall, and above it could be seen the dim outline of brickwork left jaggedly unfinished. Caroline stumbled as she went through the little side gate beyond the hedge, but righted herself immediately, and Wilson withdrew the hand he had put out to help her. Then they walked cautiously among the bricks in the long gra.s.s, calling out: "Are you there? Are you there?" But all was dead silence. At last Caroline caught her foot on something soft--dreadful. She had yet no idea why it was dreadful. Then she bent closer. "Miss Ethel! It's Miss Ethel!" She went down on her knees in the long gra.s.s. "Miss Ethel!

Are you hurt?"

There was no answer, and Caroline said over her shoulder in a quick, low voice: "You'd better go and fetch a doctor. We must not move her until we know if she has broken anything. Send Mrs. Bradford with some rugs."

And though she was so terribly sorry, she was also pleased with her self-control. Aunt Ellen and Aunt Creddle would not have been able to take it like this when they were nineteen. This was what darted through Caroline's mind, even while she spoke.

But the next moment Miss Ethel moaned a little and began to sit up, looking round her affrightedly at the half-built walls in the mist.

"What's the matter? What's the matter? I'm on the wrong side of the hedge." Then she remembered and began to s.h.i.+ver violently from head to foot. "I know. I came to see if the men were working. But they were not. The field was all empty. It--I was so sure I heard them--it startled me not to find them here. I think I must have fainted."

"Hus.h.!.+ Don't bother to talk now, Miss Ethel," said Caroline. "You are all right now."

"You are sure you have not broken any bones?" said Wilson.

"Bones? No." Miss Ethel was recovering herself quickly. "It's nothing. I shall be all right in a minute or two. Here, give me your hand, Caroline."

"I daresay you tripped over a brick, Miss Ethel; I very nearly did,"

said Caroline, helping her to rise.

"Yes, that was it, that was it!" said Miss Ethel, speaking with a sort of exhausted eagerness.

At first as they went up the field she held Wilson's arm, but soon released it and went forward alone. "I'm all right now," she insisted.

"Quite all right."

Mrs. Bradford came out into the hall as they entered, and billows of salt mist followed them in. "Shut the door, please," she said. "Then you were not lost, Ethel. What on earth were you doing out there? I began to get quite uneasy about you."

Miss Ethel, turning quickly, gave a look at the two who followed her, but she herself had no idea of its pathos and urgency. "I just tripped on a brick and was stunned for a few minutes--nothing to matter."

So Caroline and Wilson knew they were to let it go at that.

"And had the men gone?" said Mrs. Bradford.

"Yes." She paused. "I thought I would just have a look round."

"You are so restless, Ethel; why can't you keep quiet like me?" said Mrs. Bradford fretfully. "It is a great mercy you didn't break a leg."

Caroline went out of the room to make a cup of tea for Miss Ethel, and when she was lighting the gas-ring Wilson came in hurriedly, saying in a low voice: "I say, you won't mention anything about leaving them to-night, will you!"

"What do you take me for?" whispered Caroline back.

"A girl with her head screwed on the right way," he said. "Then you'll stay and look after them for a little while longer, anyway? I may tell Miss Temple that, may I?"

"You can tell who you like. I shall not mention leaving until Miss Ethel is better," said Caroline.

"Good girl! And I won't forget the typewriting machine," he answered.

"One good turn deserves another. That sounds like Miss Panton, doesn't it?" And with that he hurried out of the kitchen.

_Chapter VIII_

_The Height of the Season_

The sea-roke lasted for nearly two days and then lifted, the damp, chill air giving place to cloudless suns.h.i.+ne. But even now, when the sun was setting, no cool wind blew in from the sea across the promenade thronged with people in thin dresses. This was so unusual in Thorhaven that those familiar with the place kept saying to each other at intervals: "Fancy being able to sit here at this hour without a coat!

The air from the sea puffs into your face as if it came out of an oven----"

The band played outside to-night--not in the hall--and a woman with a good voice strained by open-air concerts during the past summer was singing a song in which the words "love" and "roses" seemed to come with more frequency and on higher notes than the rest, so that they reached the extremist limits of the promenade, floating above the heads of Caroline and Wilf as they sat extended on canvas chairs watching those who walked slowly up and down. It was the night of the visitor _in excelsis_. Stout, important matrons wearing the dresses they had for afternoon calls at home in the towns moved slowly along in small groups, with a solid man or so in attendance who smoked his pipe or cigar and said little, but that little rather jocular. Girls tripped by, either pale with the heat, or flushed, or protected from extremes of temperature by a heavy layer of powder: and flappers with pert faces and fluffy hair swung gaily along, always with a generous display of fat neatly-stockinged leg. But it was all charming, particularly in the evening light, because there was about it all such an appealing atmosphere of youth and summer.

Caroline and Wilf leaned back at their ease in their chairs, making remarks on those who went past. He was tired with the day's work in a stifling office in Flodmouth, and she with her extra household occupations at the Cottage owing to Miss Ethel's indisposition.

"Good thing I happen to be only relieving Lillie this week," she said.

"If it had been my turn to stop all day, I don't know what they would have done at the Cottage. But Miss Ethel is better now. I had meant to tell them I was leaving--that night she was taken ill, you know."

"Well, I think it is a pity you hadn't got it done," said Wilf.

"They'll be up to any dodge to keep you now. I know 'em." And he shook his head wisely.

"You surely don't imagine Miss Ethel sort of felt I was going to give notice, and so fell down and hurt herself on purpose?" said Caroline, laughing.

But Wilf, pallid and exhausted with a burning day in a Flodmouth office--his nerves slightly upset by too many cigarettes--was in no mood to be chaffed.

"I never gave a hint at anything so ridiculous," he answered fretfully.

"I simply say that in my opinion you are not in your right position there, and if you consult my wishes, you'll make other arrangements as soon as possible. I did tell you so before, I think."

"And I meant to do it," said Caroline. "Honour bright, I did." She glanced at him sideways. "I don't care about it any more than you.

Only I promised Mr. Wilson I would stop on until Miss Ethel was better."

"Wilson!" said Wilf. "What's he to do with it, I should like to know.

He doesn't seem to me to bother much about the old girls as a rule."

Then certain vague memories of that dance in the promenade hall which had not been entirely obliterated by Wilson's skilful treatment came back with renewed vividness. "I see what it is; he's after you himself. So long as you stop at the Cottage, he knows where to put his hand on you. You needn't think I was such an owl as not to see he was taken with you that night on the promenade. You know--when you had the red dress on. But you needn't flatter yourself much over that sort of attention, I can tell you. He'd have gone on just the same with any sort of girl out of Flodmouth who happened to take his fancy for the minute. You don't know men of his sort like I do. And now you're silly enough to stop on at the Wilsons just because he asks you: even when I ask you not. It's time you learnt----"

"Don't talk rot!" interrupted Caroline--a sudden heat of anger flus.h.i.+ng her all over as she jumped up from her seat. "I'm nothing to Wilson and he's nothing to me. Look there--if you want any proof. That doesn't look as if he had eyes for any other girl but his own, does it?"

Wilf glanced in the direction indicated, and Caroline sat down again.

Then they both watched Wilson coming down the promenade with Laura Temple, whose happy face was turned towards her lover with a glow of trust and confidence upon it that no one could mistake: and when he looked at her, his rather coa.r.s.e-featured, harsh face was softened a little, as if irradiated by that glow. They walked close together, talking gaily as they threaded in and out of the crowd from which advancing twilight had begun to steal the bright colours. Soon all girls wearing white, even those with bold features and exaggerated coiffures, became exquisite in that half light: and across the still expanse of darkening sea the Flamborough Beacon swung out, white--white--red; a night made for young lovers.

But the two who sat on the long chairs by the rail of the promenade were letting it all go by, engrossed in their own p.r.i.c.king dissatisfaction. "Well, what does it matter to me whether Mr. Wilson and Miss Temple look soppy over each other, or not?" said Caroline.

Then she rose again abruptly: "My head aches. I'm tired of watching all these people go past. It makes me feel dizzy. Let's go for a turn on the cliff."