Caroline Read online

  “No, I wouldn’t, Caroline.”

  “Of course you would, darling. It’s only natural that you should. A lot of jolly young people instead of a dull old sister like me.”

  “Don’t, Caroline! I wouldn’t go to Sybil’s party for anything, now I know there’s a chance of going out with you. I’d much rather be with you. You know I would.”

  Her heart was full of fervent love for Caroline, but beneath it nagged the thought that it was strange how Caroline always seemed to have fixed some engagement for days when her friends asked her to tea. She hated herself for the thought, but she couldn’t quite get rid of it.

  “You ought to go to Sybil’s, darling.”

  “No, I won’t. I’d hate it, anyway. I don’t want to go. I only want to be with you.”

  It was strange, too, how Caroline made you say things like that, thought Fay. You didn’t really want to say them because they weren’t quite true, and you tried hard not to, but you couldn’t help it. Caroline wanted you to say them and expected you to say them, and her will was so strong that you couldn’t hold out against it. It was only lately that she’d begun to feel like this about Caroline, and it worried her terribly.

  Caroline was looking down at her with a tender smile.

  “Well, then, we’ll go off on Friday, shall we?” she said. “We’ll forget that there are such things as exams in the world and just enjoy ourselves. It will be lovely, won’t it?”

  She had been meaning to take Fay out on Friday, she assured herself. She’d meant to take her out soon, anyway, and Friday was the most convenient day. . . . Fay didn’t really care for girls of her own age—she’d often said so—and they did her no good. It was a kindness to give her an excuse for not going to Sybil’s party. It would be a silly, noisy, schoolgirlish sort of affair that Fay would hate. And—she loved taking Fay out. She was such a perfect companion, intelligent, responsive, quick to see what one meant, to follow one’s mood, with quaint original ideas of her own which she expounded with a delicious touch of shyness.

  It thrilled Caroline to think that she had moulded this alert sensitive mind, that she knew its every turn of thought, that it belonged to her utterly, utterly. . . .

  Fay sat motionless, her head turned away. She’d have to tell Sybil that she couldn’t go to her party, after all. She’d hate doing it. It had happened so often before, and Sybil would think that she didn’t want to go to it. They all thought her stand-offish and conceited because she joined in with so few of their activities, and hurried home the minute school was over. She’d been looking forward to Sybil’s party terribly, not only because she liked Sybil, but—she ought to tell Caroline about that, too. She wanted to tell her, but somehow she couldn’t. She’d tell her tomorrow. She didn’t know why she felt so ashamed of it. She hadn’t felt ashamed of it till she tried to tell Caroline and found that she couldn’t. And yet there wasn’t really anything to be ashamed of. It was just that, as she was setting out from Sybil’s, Sybil’s brother was setting out, too, to go to the pillar-box at the end of the road—and they had walked as far as the pillar-box together. That was all it was. Only—he’d been kind and friendly and had joked about the history mistress, who’d been to tea at Sybil’s the day before, and had made her laugh, and afterwards, as she walked home by herself, she’d felt happy and excited and as if life were rather jolly after all. She’d still felt like that when she reached home, but she didn’t feel like that any longer. Life wasn’t really jolly at all, and. . . . She ought to tell Caroline about it. It was wrong not to. Caroline had often made her promise to tell her everything—every little thing that happened to her—and had promised faithfully on her side that she’d never be cross with her, even if she’d done something wrong, as long as she told her. It wasn’t anything wrong, and it ought to be quite easy to tell her. (“Billy walked with me as far as the pillar-box. He had a letter to post. Sybil’s brother, you know.”) Caroline wouldn’t be cross with her, but her eyes would go rather blue and it would all be spoilt. Caroline would think it cheap and silly (though she wouldn’t actually say so), and it would become cheap and silly as soon as she’d told Caroline about it. . . . That was why she didn’t want to tell her. Not tonight, at any rate. She didn’t want it to be spoilt tonight. She’d tell her tomorrow. She must tell her tomorrow. She’d feel wicked until she had told her. Caroline wouldn’t mind at all if she said that she didn’t like Billy and hadn’t wanted him to walk to the pillar-box with her, but that somehow would be the final disloyalty, worse than all the other hateful little disloyalties that surged continually beneath her love for Caroline, making her feel sometimes sick with shame.

  “Fay, darling,” Caroline was saying, “I’ve got something to tell you. . . .”

  Fay looked up. A wild unreasonable hope had flashed into her mind that Caroline was going to say she could take up her music again and drop her scholarship work.

  “You know about my mother, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  It always seemed strange to her that she and Caroline had different mothers. She didn’t remember her own mother at all, of course.

  “Well, I heard from her this morning. She’s coming to England. I’ve asked her to come and live with us.”

  “You mean, here?”

  “Yes.”

  Fay considered. . . . Caroline’s mother. . . . Almost her own grandmother. Fay saw her—a little old lady in a shawl, leaning on a stick, creeping about the house, sitting in an armchair by the fire, knitting. It would be rather a nuisance in a way, but she probably wouldn’t make much difference. Old people didn’t. Molly Master’s grandmother lived with them. She was very deaf and spent most of her time dozing in armchairs. And she kept thinking that Molly was one of her own daughters. . . . It was rather funny, but, of course, one mustn’t laugh at it. Caroline’s mother would probably be like that. She’d run away from her husband with another man, which was a very wicked thing to do, but it was so many years ago that it didn’t matter much now. Like the things in history that were wicked, but no one minded because it was all so long ago. She couldn’t be wicked still, of course. Old people were never wicked. They repented and turned good as soon as they got old.

  “I don’t think that her coming need affect you at all,” Caroline was saying. “I’ll give her a bed-sitting-room upstairs, and, of course, we shall love to have her down here if ever she likes to come. But I think that what she’ll want is just peace and rest and quiet. You know about her, don’t you, darling?”

  “Yes,” said Fay, feeling rather uncomfortable, as she always did when Caroline’s voice took on that deep solemn note.

  “I don’t want you to judge her. I don’t judge her myself. I’m sure that she’s been amply punished for anything she did wrong. We must just try to make her happy and comfortable for the rest of her life.”

  “Yes,” said Fay, deciding that the old woman was going to be a dreadful nuisance, but that one must just put up with it.

  Caroline was drawing her fingers gently through Fay’s curls.

  “Your hair was just this colour when you were a baby,” she said dreamily. “I used to be so afraid it would grow darker, but it never has done. . . .”

  Again that quick response of loving gratitude stirred tumultuously at Fay’s heart. Throughout her childhood she had found comfort in Caroline’s arms for every little hurt and unhappiness. Ever since she could remember Caroline’s tenderness had surrounded her on every side. It still surrounded her as much as it had done in the days when she had cried herself to sleep if for any reason Caroline was not there to give her goodnight kiss, when her worst nightmare was to look for Caroline and not to find her. It still surrounded her, but often now it seemed to hem her in, to suffocate her. The stark disloyalty of that thought made her catch her breath with horror. Suppose Caroline ever discovered how unworthy she was of all she had done for her, how resentful and grudging and ungrateful. . . .

  Even the happiness she had felt after walking to the pilla
r-box with Billy seemed just another proof of her wickedness.

  A rush of mingled emotions swept over her. She gave a little choking gasp, then turned and buried her face on Caroline’s knee, sobbing uncontrollably. Caroline leant down and put her arms about her tenderly.

  “Sweetheart . . . why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know,” sobbed Fay.

  She was crying because she was unhappy and tired, because she loved Caroline so terribly and yet was so hatefully disloyal to her. . . .

  Chapter Four

  CAROLINE walked slowly up the narrow path to the small newly-painted front door. She hated the poky jerry-built houses of the little “garden estate,” and felt indignant whenever she thought of Susan’s having to live in one. The spurious artisticness that was the delight of the estate agent’s heart (he described it as “old-world atmosphere”) only damned them the more in Caroline’s eyes. The green-painted shutters served no ostensible purpose, the diamond-paned windows let in insufficient light, the pretentious little porches were quite out of keeping with the style of the rest of the architecture. They were inhabited chiefly by a fleeting population of people who were attracted by the green shutters, diamond panes, porches, and the smallness of the deposit required to secure immediate occupation, and who discovered too late that the “rest as rent” did not leave sufficient margin in their budget for solvency.

  Susan had at first been delighted with the little house and had refused even to listen to Caroline’s criticisms. But then Susan had been mad in those days, her reason and common sense swept away in the whirlwind of her love for Kenneth. Caroline had done her best to save her. She had certainly nothing to reproach herself with on that score. She had pointed out to her what such a marriage would mean. She had reasoned with her and pleaded with her, but Susan, intoxicated with happiness, had only laughed and said, “Oh Caroline, what nonsense you talk! You don’t even begin to understand.”

  Poor little Susan! She was learning her mistake at last, and Caroline was deeply thankful that she was at hand to help. Susan had thought that she could do without her but she couldn’t. She needed her now more than she had ever needed her in her life before. Caroline’s face softened at the thought. It gave her a warm happy feeling to know that her “children” still needed her, still turned to her in all their troubles. Robert . . . Susan . . . Fay. Robert’s marriage would have been a failure but for her, she was standing by Susan now to steer her course into calmer waters, while Fay was almost as dependent on her as when she’d been a baby. If only one could prevent those one loved from making such tragic mistakes! If only she could have prevented Robert from marrying Effie, Susan from marrying Kenneth!

  She glanced at the neglected little garden, and her lips tightened. Surely Kenneth might keep that tidy at any rate. Even if he had to live in this appalling place he might at least keep a remnant of self-respect.

  Susan opened the door. She wore a flowered cretonne overall and looked flushed and excited.

  “Come in, darling,” she said. “I’ve cooked a lovely lunch for you all by myself. I’m really growing into the world’s best cook. Ken said so last night. Let me hang up your coat. He said he’d never tasted such delicious stew in his life. We co-operate so well that we’re thinking of going out as cook and housemaid if all else fails. I do the cooking and he sets the table and washes up and does the grates. . . . Take your hat off, darling, and make yourself at home. . . . That’s right. . . . Now come along in. . . .”

  Caroline followed her into the little dining-room. It was furnished in fumed oak—pull-out dining-table, chairs, sideboard, bureau, and bookshelves. The fireplace consisted of a gas stove set in a blue-tiled surround with a white-painted shelf above it on which were a clock and a china bird. The walls were distempered in cream colour. At the windows hung curtains of flowered cretonne of the same pattern as Susan’s overall. One or two coloured woodcuts hung on the wall. The whole contents of the room could not have cost more than a few pounds, and it was probably the counterpart of hundreds of other dining-rooms throughout the “estate,” but, for all that, it struck a pleasant, cheerful, welcoming note. The table was laid for lunch, with embroidered mats on the bare wood and a bowl of roses in the centre.

  “How do you like the bureau in the window?” said Susan.

  “Wasn’t it there before?”

  “Oh Caroline! After much heart-searching Ken and I decide to move it there and you don’t even know it wasn’t there before!”

  Caroline laughed.

  “I’m sorry, but one can hardly see the wood for the trees in this room. Everything’s so close to you that you can’t focus it.”

  “Oh, you and your spacious Georgian rooms!” teased Susan. “I’ve no patience with the airs you put on. I believe you’re jealous. I’m just going to dish up, darling. I won’t be a minute.”

  She went into the kitchen and soon returned with a dish of chops and mashed potatoes.

  “A very simple meal but quite good chops and cooked to a turn. . . . You know, it’s a great honour for you to have lunch in here. I generally have it in the kitchen myself.”

  “Oh Susan!”

  “Don’t look so horrified. I love the kitchen, especially since I put up those blue-and-white check curtains, and I’ve got a table-cloth to match, and the Windsor chair’s in there, and it gets all the morning sun.”

  “This room certainly doesn’t get much. Nor does the lounge, does it?”

  “The lounge gets the afternoon sun.”

  “Or rather what the window lets in.”

  “Yes, you have to sit well in the window to get it, I admit, but that makes one appreciate it all the more.”

  “Darling, you don’t know how I admire you for making the best of things like this.”

  “Oh Caroline, you adorable idiot!” Susan was still smiling, but something of her glow had faded. “I suppose it does seem horribly pokey and cheap to you.”

  “Of course it doesn’t, darling,” said Caroline hastily. “I think it’s all lovely. Simply lovely.”

  Dear old Caroline, thought Susan affectionately. She’s overdoing it now. She looked round the little room and saw it suddenly as Caroline must be seeing it. It had seemed so perfect before Caroline came, but now it didn’t seem perfect any longer. It seemed cheap and shoddy and makeshift. Her happiness turned slowly to a vague discontent.

  “How’s Kenneth going on?” said Caroline.

  The glow returned to Susan’s face.

  “He’s an angel, he really is, Caroline. He gets up early and lights the fire and brings me a cup of tea every morning. He’s so sweet to me.”

  “But darling, the other day you said——”

  “I know,” interrupted Susan, flushing. “We’d just had a row. It was my fault really. We made it up as soon as I got home.”

  Caroline shrugged faintly and was silent.

  Susan collected the plates and dishes on a tray.

  “Now I’ve got a really lovely soufflé for you, darling. You never thought I’d turn out such a good cook, did you? I won’t be a minute.”

  “Can’t I help?”

  “Of course not.”

  She returned a few moment’s later with a banana soufflé and a jug of cream.

  “How do you like the dish?” she said as she set down the soufflé. “I got it at Woolworth’s.”

  “Susan, darling, can’t Kenneth really afford to buy you any decent things?”

  “I adore shopping at Woolworth’s,” said Susan lightly, and added after a slight pause, “When’s your mother coming, Caroline?”

  “I haven’t heard yet. I expect she has a fair amount of settling up to do before she can get away.”

  “I think it’s perfectly marvellous of you to have her.”

  “My dear, it’s only my duty.”

  “You want a spoon for the cream, don’t you? Aren’t I an idiot? I never can learn to set a table properly.” She went to the kitchen and returned with the spoon. “You don’t mind ha
ving lunch with me in an overall, do you, darling?”

  Caroline smiled wryly.

  “I won’t pretend I enjoy watching you being gradually transformed into a household drudge,” she said half whimsically, half seriously. “After all, I gave up a good many years of my life so that you should have a better fate than that.”

  “Oh, darling. . . .”

  “I’m not complaining. Anything I did for you, for all of you, I did because I loved doing it, but—can’t Kenneth afford even to keep a general servant?”

  “I have Mrs. Pollit three mornings a week, you know, and she’s an awfully good worker. She gets through all the rough work. She went only just before you came this morning. Honestly, I quite like housework, Caroline.”

  “Well, my dear, it’s your own business, of course. I don’t want to interfere.”

  “Don’t talk about interfering, Caroline. I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t always say just what you thought. Ken says that he hopes things will be better next year and then we can spend a bit more on the house.”

  Caroline said nothing, and there was a short silence.

  “How’s Fay?” asked Susan at last.

  “Quite well. . . . She’s working very hard, of course.”

  “Ken saw her in the town the other day and thought she looked rather tired.”

  “How ridiculous! She doesn’t look tired at all. She has quite enough relaxation. She’s having Sybil to tea this afternoon.”

  “Sybil Dickson?”

  “Yes. Sybil asked her to her birthday party last week, and she couldn’t go as we’d planned to go over to Little Houghton that day, so Fay asked her to tea today to make up for it. She didn’t really want to have her. She said only last night that she wished she weren’t coming.”

  “She’s a funny kid, isn’t she? How do you like the soufflé?”

  “It’s delicious.”