The Privet Hedge Part 2

"You know perfectly well that Miss Ethel would let you go out nearly every night," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Creddle. "You're talking just for the sake of talking." Then she suddenly began to cry. "I can't bear for one of mine to behave like that--and I've always looked on you as my own child," she said, whimpering through a corner of her ap.r.o.n. "I've been poor all my life, but my word's been my bond. I never behaved shabby nor dishonourable to anybody that I knows on."

"I'm sorry, Aunt," said Caroline, flushing with distressful impatience.

"But you have to think of yourself in these days, or get left. It's the rule all over the world now. And if everybody did the same, we should be all all right. Don't you see?"

Mrs. Creddle shook her head. "It might work out all right if the pushing-est sort was always the best," she said. Then, after a pause, she added, turning back towards the stairs: "Well, you may go and tell them yourself. I can't!"

"I don't want you to. I'm not afraid of those two old ladies," said Caroline, "if you are. So long!"

But as she went down the terrace again, it was not her own brilliant future which she saw before her mind's eye, but the desponding curve of Mrs. Creddle's figure going upstairs again to finish the bedrooms.

Steadfastness, patience, endurance--without being actually aware of it, she saw those things embodied in that middle-aged woman's figure. Then her own spirit revolted from the suggestion. "Aunt doesn't understand," she said, half aloud. "You _have_ to think of yourself first in these days."

Such was her mood as she emerged from Emerald Avenue into the main road, walked past the long field where the square board caught the eye at once amid all that springing verdure, and entered the garden of the Cottage. Immediately afterwards the front door opened and Miss Ethel stepped briskly forth. "Oh, there you are, Caroline. I am very pleased to see you. I suppose Willis will be bringing your box shortly, but in the meantime----"

"I aren't coming. I have only come to say I aren't coming,"

interrupted Caroline--the measure of her disturbance shown by the fact that she did not correct this lapse into the Holderness dialect. "I'm applying to be ticket collector on the promenade," she added, with a sort of defiant rudeness in her tone. She sub-consciously wanted Miss Ethel to be "horrid," feeling that it would make the situation easier to carry off with satisfaction to herself.

But Miss Ethel had been working since half-past six at unaccustomed blacking of the kitchen stove and such-like tasks in order that the new maid should see how things ought to be kept and maintain the same high standard, and she was too utterly weary and disappointed now, to do anything but reply with a very slight trembling of the lip: "I think you might have let me know before this, Caroline." For she felt that if she let herself go, she might burst into ign.o.ble, undignified tears before this impertinent child--she, who never "gave way" even at a wedding or a funeral.

Caroline's quick eyes, however, had caught that pa.s.sing quiver of the lips, and for one moment all her dreams of independence trembled in the balance. She was feeling--deeply as even Mrs. Creddle could wish--that she was behaving badly. Then Miss Ethel chanced to notice Caroline's blouse, which was made from her own summer dress of twenty years ago, and an irrepressible wave of hurt exasperation swept over her, rousing her to active resentment. "I must say I think you are treating me abominably, Caroline. Surely your Aunt Creddle is not a party to this?" she said in her sharpest tone. And though she would not have mentioned the blouse or any other benefit bestowed for the world, some thought of it must have rushed along the taut wires between her own mind and Caroline's, for the girl instantly flushed crimson and became defiant again. So the wavering balance crashed down on the side of the job on the promenade. Her whole future course, indeed, was decided in that instant, just by a look and a tone--though neither was aware of what had happened.

"Aunt had no idea I was trying for the place on the prom. until this morning," said Caroline quietly. "She's very upset about it, and tried her best to make me come to live with you after all, only I wouldn't.

n.o.body can blame her."

Miss Ethel opened her lips to administer a rebuke; then she felt it was no good and stood looking drearily in front of her. In so doing, her glance fell on the square board over the privet hedge, and that seemed somehow the visible sign of everything else that was happening in her life. Everything was changed. Without another word she turned back into the house, telling herself that it was of no use to fight against change; but at the bottom of her soul, she knew she _would_ fight, so long as there was breath left in her.

"Stop a minute, Miss Ethel," said Caroline. "I am very sorry indeed I couldn't let you know before, and I have nothing against you or the place. It's only that I don't want to be a servant at all. Everybody must do the best they can for themselves in these days."

"I understand that you are like the rest of them. You want to go gadding about every night, no doubt," said Miss Ethel.

"And if I do?" said Caroline. "Where's the harm in it? Of course I want my freedom, Miss Ethel. We all do. That's why there aren't any servants to be had. You're free yourself and always have been. That's why you don't understand."

Miss Ethel felt a groping thought in the back of her mind. She--free!

The long chain seemed to rattle through the empty years since childhood as she paused, though she thought she only heard the wind in the branches. "Oh, well; I suppose it is no use my saying any more. I trust for Mrs. Creddle's sake that you may be successful in your new employment. Good morning."

But in going over the threshold she swayed a little, because she had one of her bilious headaches and had eaten nothing since rising. Those headaches had been a feature of the establishment ever since Caroline would remember, and she recalled "Aunt Ellen" arraying a spotless tray in the kitchen while she herself sat eating gingerbread by the table.

So all the kindnesses she had experienced in that house came back to war with this new spirit of p.r.i.c.kly independence, and as she was fundamentally good-natured, she felt impelled to say impulsively: "Miss Ethel, I'll tell you what I could do. I might sleep here for a week or two and light the fire, and get breakfast ready and do any odd jobs for you. I should have time for that before I went out. One fortnight in the month I should only act as supply during meal hours--and that will leave me a lot of time during the day. I'll be glad to come and do that for my board and lodging, if you like: I'm not a big eater. Only I must have my nights free and no fixed time for getting in, of course."

Miss Ethel put her hand to her swimming head. Even in this extremity she could hardly bring herself to consider such a proposal. But the thought of washing up those greasy dishes after lunch was so intolerable that everything else faded into the background, and she had to humiliate herself for the sake of necessity. "Very well," she said faintly. "I shall be glad to accept your offer for the time being. We will talk about the remuneration later, but I think you can trust Mrs.

Bradford and myself not to treat you unfairly."

"I'm not afraid of that," said Caroline, half ashamed: still she had to have it clear about her freedom. "You do understand about the evenings, though? Because I may want to go with Wilf--he's my friend, you know--to one of those dances on the prom., and then I shouldn't be back until after twelve."

"Yes, I understand," said Miss Ethel. "I'm much obliged to you," she forced herself to add, trying to rise above the dizziness which made her unable to think clearly.

"Then I'll be off and see if I can catch Willis with my box," said Caroline, hurrying away down the path.

Miss Ethel watched her go, wondering in a heavy sort of way if the girl would come back. It would not be in the least surprising if she failed to do so. Well, you could only take things as they came. Nothing was as it used to be. You couldn't calculate at all on what would happen in this strange new world. . . .

Caroline, hastening down the road, had the same thought; but to her it brought a glorious sense of fresh vistas opening, of splendid conflicts in which she and her sort were bound to be victorious--she saw already a sun rising which would really warm rich and poor alike, and would make every one in the end happy and good.

No wonder Mr. Willis smiled at her when she went flying after him once more, all wind-blown hair and eyes a-shine; but he pulled up with a pretence of grumpiness, saying over his shoulder: "Well, what is it now? Have you rued throwing up your place?"

"No; I'm only going to help them a bit until they get a girl. You can't help being sorry for Miss Ethel."

"I'm to take your box on to the Cottage after all, then?" he said in a teasing way. "Well, well, it's a queer thing how women like to change their minds. I expect they're made so."

"I'm not," said Caroline. "I knew my own mind right enough: only I couldn't leave Miss Ethel with one of her bad headaches and n.o.body to do a thing for her. You'd be the first to blame me."

But he had whipped up his horse before she finished her sentence, and was already rattling away in the direction of the Cottage.

_Chapter III_

_The Promenade_

Pale blue sky with scudding clouds--a dun sea dappled with pale silver--and that intense greyish-white light on promenade, bleak-fronted houses and spa.r.s.ely scattered visitors, which always makes everything so distinct as to seem unreal on such a day in Thorhaven--like an old copper-print.

As Caroline sat in her pay-box at the gate of the promenade, she had plenty of time to note these atmospheric conditions, but she only felt them. That grey, clear, windy brightness was mingled for all the rest of her life with what was to happen during the months between this morning and the end of September, when the job would be over. But now she was entirely immersed in her ticket issuing, when there was any to do, and in feeling excited and self-conscious and important when there was not. Book, pencil, pile of tickets were all meticulously ready, and she would not put her window down for a moment despite the north-east wind which swept round the little shelter.

But so early in the season there was scarcely a person to be seen about on the broad, grey stretch of the promenade, and the gardener's back as he worked hard at bedding out plants, looked in some way as if it still belonged to the easy-shirt-sleeved winter time, when Thorhaven was not expecting visitors. At last a little brisk woman with a neat figure came up to the turnstile, and Caroline greeted her with just that surprising warmth shown to casual acquaintances by stall-holders at a bazaar. "A season-ticket? Certainly. A pity not to get all the good out of it you can. Some people silly enough to wait until the season is half over and then pay just the same----" But the woman appreciated this cordiality at its true worth and was unresponsive. "So you've got the job. They'd be sorry to part with Maggie." Then pursing her lips, she placed her season ticket in her purse, and said with condescending asperity: "I want to go through, please."

So Caroline, thus reminded, hastily released the turnstile with her knee from within, and felt momentarily abashed. After a while, however, a solitary visitor approached the little window, and she was doubly brisk and official to make up for it.

"Day-ticket? But are you staying a week? If so, you'll find it much more to your advantage----" Until the visitor, who did not really want a weekly ticket at all, but happened to be of that ever-growing cla.s.s which is cowed at once by any sign of bureaucratic authority, did as Caroline suggested.

But little by little this first eagerness wore off, and by the time she returned from the tea interval--during which her place had been taken by the girl who acted as "supply"--she had already begun to show faint beginnings of the slightly contemptuous, detached air of the official.

She was pleasant still, but as a favour, and with the whole power of the Thorhaven Council at her back "Three in family, I think? I suppose you take one for Mildred?" And she expected Mrs. Creddle's neighbour to feel a little flattered by her remembering the size of the family.

But though justly irritated by that "Three in family, I think"--when Caroline had pulled pigtails with Mildred only yesterday, as it were--the good woman was actually pleased when Caroline "held up" a stout person in a fur coat and a motor veil to add pleasantly: "I suppose you are expecting visitors this week?" Which remark is the recognized conversational small change in Thorhaven, during spring and summer, scarcely more personal than the "Fine day!" of the country labourers who live in the still untouched country beyond the Cottage.

But if Mrs. Creddle's neighbour said to herself that Caroline would soon be too big for her boots, there remained a slight glow of satisfaction in being acknowledged as an old acquaintance while an affluent person from a car was kept waiting. It is therefore not surprising that Wilfred Ball felt the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside. Perhaps the young husband of a great prima donna may feel nearly as sophisticated and proud and "in it" when he strolls carelessly into the dressing-room where the bouquets of admirers overflow upon the floor--but this is scarcely likely, for he would not have the morning freshness still on him of a life spent so far between Thorhaven and Flodmouth.

Every now and then he took a little walk up and down the promenade, either alone or with a casual acquaintance, but he soon returned to enjoy close at hand this epoch-making evening. For now, he felt, there was nothing that could keep the Wilfred b.a.l.l.s back from those pinnacles of affluence which a combination of the more easily a.s.similated comic papers and articles on Self-Help had enabled him to envisage: Self-Help kind showing how a poor man might grow rich, and the comic papers how he might spend his money when he got it.

As the wife of a wealthy man, Caroline would be All Right. He had had his doubts before, at times, because he really felt it was a come-down for a young fellow in a seed-merchant's office to be engaged to a servant. And remorse had something to do now with his ardour, because he really had begun to wonder if he could "keep on" with it, when Caroline was a true servant, living in, like the little maids all up and down the new streets. He had seen himself standing at a corner waiting for her under a lamp-post on her nights out, and had found his faithfulness wavering.

Still, she was Caroline--and they had "gone together" ever since the time when he first perceived that a "girl" was as necessary to man's estate as a dressy lounge suit and a Homburg hat. He did not like to behave badly to her. And now he had been rewarded. He had achieved the difficult feat mentioned in those articles he so casually read in the train, of keeping one eye on the main chance and the other on the example of Sir Galahad. Now he was still engaged to somebody who took tickets on the prom. and was a young lady--and was yet Caroline. No wonder he stood and beamed, and walked away and twirled his stick and c.o.c.ked his hat, and then came back and beamed again.

Other youths of her acquaintance, or enterprising strangers going through the barrier, had to content themselves with a "Good evening, miss," or at most some more or less dashing remark about the weather; but _he_ was the one to help her on with her coat when the brilliant shades of blue and yellow on the sentry-box had faded into grey: it was _his_ privilege to walk her off with a hand through her arm, feeling sure that the three elderly spinsters and the one middle-aged gentleman who chanced to be about just there wondered who that gay dog was, and thought him no end of a fellow.

"Well, Carrie, how did you like it?" he said as they went along.

"Oh, it was all right," said Caroline in an off-handed fashion--but she also had an elated consciousness of being important, and did not care a bit though her feet were stone-cold from sitting still in the sentry-box.

So talking eagerly, they went down the main road until the last avenue was left behind and the loneliness of stars and sea-wind fronted them.

Only one light glimmered above the privet hedge from an upper room in the Cottage.