She got up. “I know—I'll make the coffee, and you shall take it up, just to surprise him!”
Had Judy been less curious to hear about the dance she would have declined this invitation, but the announcement that Esme was writing reassured her. She knew of Esme's need for an audience and imagined that he would be glad to read aloud what he had written.
She took the tray, containing her own coffee and his, mounted the stairs, and knocked softly on the porch-room door.
There was no answer, and so she went straight in. He was sitting crouched over his desk, and her entry surprised him—so much so that he seemed to her to start up, and bite back an angry exclamation. At the same time his hand shot protectively across the page he was writing, but not quickly enough to mask the size of the note-paper. She had time to see that it was a small sheet, and obviously a letter, for Judy remembered that he always wrote his stories on foolscap.
His nervousness communicated itself to her. She set down the tray, trembling a little.
“It's just your coffee, Esme, your mother thought——”
He flung himself round on her. He had never looked at her, or spoken to her like this before. His face was clouded, almost sulky, his tone tetchy, and complaining.
“Hang it, it's impossible to get any privacy in this blasted house!” he shouted, and then, seeing sudden misery in her face, “—it's not you, Judy, it's ... Mother. She ... she will poke into everything! It's enough to drive a man mad!”
Judy remained uncertainly by the door. She was always at a loss when Esme flared up, but he had never been quite like this. Her eye returned to the edge of the half-written letter under his hand. Hastily he tucked it inside a blotter. His action made her heart leap.
“It was just that we ... we wanted to hear about the dance, Esme,” she faltered. “Was there anyone you knew?”
He was clearly feeling very uncomfortable about something, for he found it difficult to meet her eye, and turned sharply away, drifting over to the window.
“Yes, there was someone,” he said in a low voice. “It was Elaine.”
“Elaine?”
“Elaine Frith, the girl opposite. I didn't like the show at first, but later on it warmed up.” He turned back to her, but still failed to look her in the face. “It was a pretty marvellous ‘do,' Judy ... must have cost them a small fortune. Look—would you mind, I ... I've got to work now? Would you tell Mum I meant what I said about not being disturbed?”
Yes, of course.”
She took her cup and went swiftly downstairs. She was confused rather than alarmed by his information and irritability. He obviously resented being questioned about the dance. He was writing a letter that he wanted no one to see. Could he have got into some sort of trouble last night? Was he writing an apology to Mrs. Stafford-Fyffe, or the someone to whom he had been rude? Elaine Frith, the girl opposite? That was incredible, surely? She was never allowed out for a walk, much less to a dance, scheduled to end at 1 a.m. Her mother was in hospital. That might account for Elaine being at the dance, but why should Esme be writing to her, when she only lived at Number Seventeen, immediately opposite?
She could make nothing of it and after gulping her coffee, excused herself and went home.
She tried to read, but it was useless. The memory of Esme's manner, and the way his hand had shot over his letter the moment she entered the study, kept returning to her. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that Esme had been involved in some sort of scene at Mrs. Stafford-Fyffe's, and was bitterly ashamed of his part in it, and at pains to conceal the facts if that were possible. If he was in trouble it was her privilege to help him, but how, when he spun round like a disturbed thief the moment she spoke to him?
She went to bed early, and lay awake long after Louise had come up. The memory of Esme's clouded face invaded her dreams.
Judy got her answer about a week later, when the shop was crowded with Christmas shoppers, and she was struggling to get some bath-salts out of the window for a particularly trying customer.
Kneeling there, trying to avoid bringing a loaded stand crashing down, she saw Esme turn into the shop. In her eagerness to climb out she knocked over a stand behind her, and Mr. Myrtle, the Manager, heard the crash, and came bustling over from the cash-desk. He was a nervous little man and was finding it very difficult to keep his head in the rush of business.
“What's happened? What are you doing in the window, Miss Carver?”
Judy explained that a customer had insisted on a particular box of bath salts from the front of the window.
“All right, all right,” he said, “straighten it up, and I'll serve her ... just hand it out to me—quickly ... quickly!”
Judy gave him the bath salts and set about rebuilding the window. It occupied her at least ten minutes, and when at last she climbed out, Esme had made his purchase and gone.
She waited impatiently until lunch-hour, and then began questioning the girls. She fancied that Miss Symes must have served him, and described Esme, feature by feature. Miss Symes was amused.
“Boy friend of yours? Yes, I think I remember him. He bought an enamel powder-compact, and wanted it initialled. I told him that was hopeless if it was a Christmas present, so he gave up the idea, and wrote a note to send with it.”
“A note? You mean we're sending the compact?”
“It's in the post hamper ... hi, what's the idea? If it's your present you shouldn't spoil the surprise....”
But Judy was already burrowing in the hamper, searching desperately for a box that might contain a powder-compact. The parcels were not yet made up for post, and she found the flat box almost at once. Inside was a sealed envelope, in Esme's familiar handwriting, addressed to “Miss Elaine Frith, c/o Sutler's Commercial College, Lowel Road, East Croydon.”
For a few moments she was stunned. Mercifully, Miss Symes was due back on duty, and left her. She sat back on her heels beside the hamper, holding the compact, and staring at the neat angular characters of the address on the envelope. It was incredible—Esme sending her a powder-compact for Christmas, and doing it from her shop, just as though Elaine Frith had been an aunt, or a cousin! Suppose she hadn't been in the window when he bought it? She might then have had the humiliation of helping him to choose it! And what did this mean, quite apart from the fact that Esme was “going with” Elaine? Clearly it meant that he did not even take her into account, that he did not in the least mind her knowing about it! And this could only mean that either he wanted to hurt her—which, even now, she refused to believe —or what was far worse, that he had never so much as thought of her as his sweetheart.
For a moment she thought she was going to faint. She got up unsteadily, and went into the toilet, a tiny partitioned-off room, with a single wash-basin. She looked at herself in the spotted mirror, seeing a small, pointed face, desperate with anxiety, and pale with shock.
Suddenly she realised that she could not remain at work, devoting the entire afternoon and early evening to indecisive women and bored or bewildered men. She had to get out in the open, to think, and think, and think. She had to reason things out, fight her panic, and come to some sort of terms with herself. She made a decision instantly, hurried into the shop, and sought out Mr. Myrtle.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Myrtle, I've got to go home ... I ... I ... I'm not well... I feel terribly sick.”
Mr. Myrtle began to protest.
“You can't go home, Miss Carver; it's Christmas ... we can't cope....”
“I'm sorry—I've got to, I've got to!”, and Judy ran back into the lobby, peeled off her overall, snatched her coat, and was gone before he had time to argue.
She did not go home. Home—with Louise, and the twins, would be worse than staying at work. There would be explanations, cossetings, cups of tea, and sedatives. She did not want tea, sympathy, and sedatives. What she knew she must have was time, and a few hours' solitude in which to collect herself, catch her breath, and screw up enough courage to face thi
s appalling crisis.
She hurried up Shirley Rise towards the mill, taking the path that ran beside Oaks Road, towards the Old Roman Well. When she reached the clearing she sat down on a half-rotted seat. It was very quiet here, and she was quite alone. Last week's snow had turned to slush, and the countryside looked cheerless and desolate. All the way up the hill she had been fighting to keep back the tears, but up here there was no one to see her, and tears began to flow, bringing some sort of relief from the choking sensation that had caught at her throat ever since she had seen the envelope.
Commonsense told her to make no effort to check the tears, and soon she began to feel a little calmer. Her rage against God began to abate, and with it came the first feeble glimmerings of objectivity, a promise, no more as yet, of being able to extricate herself emotionally, and look at the situation from outside.
It was then that she realised for the first time that perhaps she was being unfair to Esme, that she alone was able to assess the depths of her devotion, and that in all these years she had never once confessed her love, not even to Louise, or to one of her few school friends—certainly not to Esme himself. It was suddenly quite clear to her that he had never thought about her as a girl—had even perhaps found her vassalage a nuisance at times.
The thought made the tears flow again, but this time she resisted them. It was too late for tears, and too late, it seemed, for a new approach to Esme, one that might conceivably make him aware of her as something more than a mere hanger-on. She made a great effort to think progressively, and bit by bit she was able to come to grips with the main issues. What were the issues? She tried to tick them off, one by one. She was in love with Esme. Esme was not in love with her. Esme was now in love with somebody else, and that somebody else was an elegant and attractive girl, with the added attraction of mystery surrounding her.
What could she do about it? Could she go to him and explain how she felt? That was unthinkable. To acquaint him now with her true state of mind would be to court his contempt or pity, and it was common knowledge that men ran away from women who stalked or plagued them. Perhaps this had been her wrong turning from the beginning, although she had always been dimly aware of this danger, and had tried hard to guard against it. In the main she had set out to make herself indispensable to him, and when they were still children, she had, she was sure, succeeded in doing so. Then this wasn't the wrong turning, and the fact that he was unaware of her love was proof that it wasn't. It was more likely that her trust in God was at fault. She had always felt quite certain that, sooner or later, Esme would do something, or say something, that would point them directly towards the altar or, failing this, that something dramatic would happen to reveal her to him—something like the blindness of Amyas, that had steered the hero into the waiting arms of Ayacanora, in the final, touching pages of Westward Ho!
Then again, she had always been told that men did not grow up as quickly as women, and had believed it for, until this moment, Esme had not shown the slightest interest in girls, not even in the way her brothers Archie, Berni, and Boxer regarded them, and she had imagined, poor fool, that this was proof of the fact that he considered himself spoken for!
She went at her problem relentlessly, plucking and plucking at the tangle to find a loose end that she could follow, and her mind was still trying to gauge the strength of his infatuation for Elaine, when she heard a sharp crackling from the bushes on her right. She looked up, and was astonished to see a big, chestnut horse step sedately into the clearing, and lower its head over a few blades of grass that sprouted beside the seat.
She was so startled that for a moment or two she completely forgot her misery. The horse was saddled, and its reins trailed in front of it, hampering its movements.
Judy looked round in all directions but there was no sign of the rider. The horse appeared to be lost, and straying.
She went over to it and picked up the reins, finding a little solace in its presence. She was standing here, not knowing what to do next, when she heard a harsh rattle of gravel on the path beyond the clearing, and a woman cantered into the clearing, riding an equally big grey, lathered with sweat.
Judy glanced at the horsewoman apprehensively, and at once thought her the most formidable-looking woman she had ever seen. She was thick-set, heavy-limbed, and coarse-featured, with little button eyes that blinked above a monstrously hooked nose. Judy thought she looked rather like a powerfully-built witch, and instinctively let go of the bridle she was holding. The horse-woman braced herself in the saddle as the grey reared and flung its head about, straining at her control.
“Don't let her go, girl!” she shouted in a harsh, rasping voice.
Judy grabbed the bridle again, just as the chestnut was turning to run. The jerk made her stagger, but she hung on, and was surprised to see the woman backing the grey towards the path.
“Lead her over there—over there by the Well!” shouted the woman, now hunched into a concentration of bulging muscle, as she wrestled with the nervous grey. “Wait a minute.... I'll come to you.... Stand, Pipeclay! Stand, damn you!”, and she raised her crop, and slashed viciously at the animal's hindquarters, at the same time straining back on the double bit.
Judy watched her manoeuvers with interest, expecting to see the grey rear again, or turn and bolt up the steep path behind it. It did nothing like this. Under the liberal application of the crop it suddenly became cowed, and began sidling away, quietening under the woman's gently hissed commands—“Quiet, Pipeclay.... Quiet, now.... Stand! ... there's a boy! Stand, Pipeclay!”
When the horse was quite still, the woman flung herself from the saddle, and deftly knotted the reins to a silver birch. Then she came squelching across the clearing, with long, lumbering strides.
“I'm obliged to you, whoever you are. They hate one another.... Don't worry about Miriam, she wouldn't harm a fly, so long as Pipeclay keeps his distance....”
She turned to the quivering chestnut. “There, now ... easy, now, easy! What the hell have you done with Mr. Goodchild, Miriam?”
She went on soothing the chestnut, taking a knob of sugar from her pocket, and slipping it into its mouth.
“Do you ride, girl?” she suddenly flung at Judy.
“No, I'm afraid I don't—but did you say they hated one another—the horses?”
“I certainly did! Happens sometimes! Nobody knows why, but it happens! I want my head examining, taking them out together. Always had some crazy notion they'd grow out of it, but they won't. Asking for trouble, I was, especially with that fool of a Goodchild. He's a mile back I wouldn't wonder—two, maybe. But serve him dam'well right. He will sit forward, no matter what I tell him.”
“Do you mean Miriam has thrown him off?” asked Judy.
The woman gave a short laugh. “Thrown him?” She slipped the stirrup-irons up the leathers. “I'll say she threw him ... never saw such a thing in my life. Shot him out like a catapult, flat on his face in the gorse—over there, by the Mill.”
“But—but oughtn't we to find out if he's hurt?” asked Judy.
“No!” said the woman, “let the silly ape look after himself! I've got my hands full, haven't I? Look here, gel, I can't get Miriam back to the stables on the leading rein, there's a stretch of main road, and I tell you they hate the sight of one another! Can't you ride at all?”
“No,” said Judy, very promptly indeed, “I've never yet sat on a horse!”
The riding-mistress sucked her big teeth.
“You could walk her—she's like a lamb with young gels. Don't ask me why, but she is—look at her now.”
As though to confirm the statement the horse stood perfectly still. Judy reached out, took the reins, and walked a few paces across the clearing. The horse followed her, placidly.
“You see?” said the woman. “Look here, I'll go ahead, and you follow me.” Then, as an afterthought, “You're not doing anything special, are you?”
“No,” said Judy ruefully, “nothing really special.”
They moved off down Oaks Road towards the Mill, the woman riding ahead at a prancing walk. They turned off above the mill, and crossed a muddy path of common and several by-roads. After nearly an hour's walk they topped a rise, and Judy saw what appeared to be a small farm in a shallow valley, with a line of one-storey outbuildings adjoining it. She had never been this far afield, and fancied she must be somewhere near Keston.
At the head of a winding cart-track stood a weather-beaten board. It read:
FIRHILL RIDING STABLES—Prop. Maud Somerton
LESSONS GIVEN—LIVERIES RECEIVED
Judy wondered vaguely what a livery was, and how Miss Somerton, who, she gathered, was the woman riding ahead, would receive one if it was offered.
She was soon to find out. Miss Somerton gave both the horses to a man in a sweat-soiled yellow shirt, and on learning that Mr. Goodchild had phoned, and gone home by taxi, she jerked off her bowler, threw down her crop, and clanked into the house, beckoning Judy to follow.
The room they entered was an old farm kitchen, partially converted into a living-room. It had a spartan look. All the furniture was black oak, and the stone floor was covered, here and there, with worn strips of coconut matting. There were no pictures, and no curtains, but a huge root smouldered in the vast fire-place. The place had a warm, cosy smell, suggesting baking bread and chicken mash.
The woman took a purse from behind the mantelshelf clock.
“What shall we say—five shillings?”
“I don't want paying,” said Judy, surprised. “I—I liked leading her, it was fun.”
The woman looked at her for a long moment.
“You'd better have tea, at any rate,” she barked. “Dam' decent of you, to tramp all out here. Kettle's boiling. Wont be a minute.”
Judy watched her make tea from a huge, black kettle, suspended over the smoke on an iron bar. Cups and scones were fetched from a cupboard beside the fireplace, and the woman flung them about carelessly, her spurs ringing on the slabs as she stamped to and fro.
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