Caroline

by Richmal Crompton

  Philippa’s eyes, grave and penetrating, went from one to the other. She’s jealous, she was thinking, jealous of the little home and of Susan’s husband. She can’t bear the child to be happy without her, so she’s trying to spoil them both for her. Susan’s rather weak and has been dominated by her all her life.

  Caroline rose from her chair and began to collect the cups and saucers onto the tray.

  “You don’t mind if we clear away now, do you, Philippa?” she said.

  “Can’t I help?”

  “No, it won’t take us a minute.”

  She carried the tray into the kitchen, followed by Susan. In the kitchen she closed the door behind them.

  “We needn’t have brought the things out,” said Susan. “I could easily have done it when you’d gone.”

  “I know. I wanted to speak to you, Susan.”

  Susan looked rather nervous.

  “Ken’s frightfully sorry about the way he spoke to you the other day, Caroline. He simply didn’t realise what he was saying. He wants to apologise to you.”

  “That’s quite all right,” said Caroline. “I never thought of it again. I certainly don’t want an apology from him. I was sorry about it for your sake, not my own.”

  “Caroline, you don’t understand. He——”

  “Darling, I don’t want to discuss him. What I wanted to ask you was, have you thought seriously about what I suggested last week?”

  “What was that?”

  “About your taking up your teaching again.”

  “Oh . . . I did mention it, Caroline, but Ken simply hates the idea of it.”

  “I think that’s rather natural. I mean, all men wouldn’t feel like that, but Kenneth would. He resents anything in you that makes you superior to himself. He resents your education and the fact that you are as capable as he—more capable than he, I should say—of earning your living. I think that’s why he likes to see you degraded to the station of a charwoman.”

  Susan looked away, her lips tight, her eyes suddenly full of tears.

  “Caroline, you’re horrid about Ken. You don’t understand. . . .”

  Caroline slipped an arm about her.

  “Darling, I’m sorry,” she said tenderly. “I don’t want to be horrid. It’s only that—you mean so much to me. . . . You know that, don’t you? . . . Listen, darling. Did you talk it over with Kenneth?”

  “Yes. He said he wouldn’t allow it for a moment.”

  Caroline’s face hardened.

  “Allow? It’s hardly a question of his ‘allowing’ it. . . . Just think, dear, how much nicer you could have things here if you had your salary as well as what Kenneth earns. There would be no more worry about money at all. You could have a trained maid and run the house really well. It would be much better for Kenneth, too. He’d be freed from this incessant worry. He could go ahead with his own business with a clear mind. You’d both be so much happier. It isn’t as if it would mean your leaving home. You’d be back every afternoon before his business hours are over. He’d come home to find you here as usual and a well-cooked meal. You could ‘feed the brute’ so much better if you had more money, couldn’t you, darling?”

  Susan’s brown eyes were still unhappy.

  “But—Caroline, it isn’t worth quarrelling with him over it.”

  Caroline smiled tenderly.

  “Susan, darling, when you really love anyone you have to try to do the things that are for their good ultimately rather than the things that will please them at the time. You don’t want to drag Kenneth down, do you?”

  “Oh, Caroline!”

  “It’s all right, darling. I only meant that now you’re just an added expense to him, whereas, if you took a post and earned a salary, you’d be a real help. And—Susan——”

  “Yes?”

  “You do want to have children, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you waiting till Kenneth’s better off?”

  “No . . . Kenneth doesn’t want to wait. He says that people who wait get into a sort of childless rut and end by not wanting them at all.”

  Caroline smiled.

  “My dear, isn’t it your obvious duty, then? If you just take a post for a few months, think how much easier you’ll make it both for Kenneth and yourself. You’ll have a little nest-egg to start on. You won’t be a drain on Kenneth. . . . Darling, it’s selfish of you to refuse.”

  Susan turned away. She looked like a downcast child.

  “Caroline, I can’t start it again. I mean, with Kenneth. He was so hurt when I spoke about it.”

  “That was just his vanity, sweetheart. His vanity wants you to be the helpless, dependent, clinging sort of woman. But he’ll respect you far more if you make a stand. He’ll be grateful to you later, when he sees what a difference it’s made to your lives.”

  Susan was silent. It was so dreadful to be torn like this between Kenneth and Caroline. She loved them both so terribly. . . . And she owed everything to Caroline. . . . Ever since she was a child and had first realised what sacrifices Caroline had made for her, she had felt this burning sense of gratitude, this passionate determination not to fail or disappoint her.

  “There’s no need to say anything more about it to Kenneth,” Caroline was saying. “And I don’t want you to do anything about it yourself. Only promise me that if I hear of an opening for you you’ll consider it very seriously. As a matter of fact, I think that, if Kenneth were confronted with it as an accomplished fact, he wouldn’t mind at all. He’d probably be rather glad. If it comes to that, you could take a post for weeks without his knowing anything about it. You’d be at home when he went to work after breakfast and when he came home at night.” She smiled. “I’m not suggesting that you should do that, of course. I’m merely pointing out how little it would really affect Kenneth. Now don’t worry about it, sweetheart. You know that all I want in the world is your happiness, don’t you?”

  “You’re sweet to me, Caroline. You always are.”

  Caroline rose.

  “Well, we mustn’t neglect our guest any longer, must we?”

  “She’s nice, isn’t she, Caroline?”

  “Who?”

  “Philippa.”

  “I really feel I hardly know her. She only arrived yesterday.”

  “I thought she was rather sweet about the little house. So terribly interested in it all.”

  “Did you?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “She was just a little bit—patronising, don’t you think? Rather like the grand lady district-visiting.”

  Susan flushed.

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that. . . .”

  “She’s very well off, you know. I believe they had quite a palatial villa at Cannes. I thought she seemed rather offensively amused by all your little arrangements. . . . Perhaps I’m wrong, darling. You know what I am. Up in arms in your defence before you’re even attacked.”

  “Oh, Caroline! You are a darling.”

  “Come along.”

  They returned to the lounge where Philippa sat looking out at the road.

  “I’m so sorry we’ve left you so long,” apologised Susan. “It was terribly rude of us.”

  “It wasn’t, at all,” smiled Philippa. “You can’t please me more than by treating me as if I belonged to the family. . . . Besides, I’ve loved sitting here watching everything. I’ve seen the baker and the butcher and the chimney-sweep and the most fascinating baby and a little boy in a new coat—I could tell it was new by the way he kept looking down at it—and even a real, old-fashioned muffin man.”

  Caroline smiled.

  “Oh yes, anyone who doesn’t actually have to live here can get quite a lot of fun out of it. . . . What was your villa at Cannes like, Philippa? How many rooms were there?”

  Susan listened in silence while Caroline drew from a somewhat reluctant Philippa a minute description of her villa at Cannes. As she listened a feeling of depression and discontent surged over he
r. She began to feel ashamed of the little house with its makeshifts and shoddiness. It wasn’t fair that she should spend her life scrubbing and cooking and cleaning in a jerry-built place like this, while other people lived in magnificent villas in the South of France with gardens that stretched down to the sea. Perhaps Caroline was right. Perhaps it would be better to take up her work again. It was, as Caroline said, rather strange that Kenneth couldn’t make a decent living out of the shop, though it had done so well in his father’s time. Was her marriage, after all, a terrible mistake? No, it wasn’t. She loved Ken, loved him as much as she had ever done. It was just that she felt tired and depressed.

  She said goodbye somewhat distantly to Philippa when she and Caroline took their leave. She’d liked her at first, before she’d begun to suspect that her pleasantness was merely patronage. It was really the limit to come here to tea and sit talking about her own villa at Cannes all the time. Caroline was always right about people. She was never deceived by superficial charm.

  “What’s her husband like?” said Philippa as they walked away.

  At the mention of Kenneth, Caroline’s face hardened. Kenneth . . . the casual happy-go-lucky youth who had appeared suddenly from nowhere and taken Susan from her—Susan, for whom she’d worked and schemed and denied herself; Susan, who belonged to her. He’d taken her without compunction or apology, as though Caroline’s claims did not exist, as though the long years of her servitude and sacrifice counted as nothing against the short month or so of his acquaintance, for, despite the fact that both Kenneth and Susan had lived in Bartenham all their lives, they had met for the first time a few months before their marriage. And then—he had dared to make a slave and a drudge of her. Well—she set her lips—Susan would soon be freed from him. She’d see to that.

  “Kenneth?” she said in her quiet voice. “He’s a very ordinary boy. I’m afraid that, on Susan’s part, it was just a case of infatuation. There’s really nothing about him that could possibly hold a girl like Susan. He can’t even keep her properly.”

  “Is he very poor?”

  “He shouldn’t be. His father was quite well off. I suppose he isn’t a good business man. Susan has all the work of the house to do, and it’s too much for her.”

  “She doesn’t look delicate.”

  “She’s not been brought up to housework. She has her own career. If he can’t keep her she can keep herself. There’s no need at all for her to put up with it. I’ve been telling her so.”

  Philippa glanced at Caroline. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a hard light in her blue eyes. She seemed to be talking more to herself than to Philippa.

  “I’m worried about her,” she went on with a smile, “but I don’t see why I should burden you with my worries. . . . Here we are at Robert’s. There’s nothing at Robert’s to worry one, thank goodness.”

  Chapter Ten

  EVELYN was coming downstairs as they entered the hall. Philippa looked at her in surprise. The term “mother’s help” had suggested someone drab and harassed and downtrodden, not this handsome assured woman. Caroline introduced them, and Evelyn greeted the newcomer in a guarded, non-committal manner, then turned to Caroline and kissed her affectionately.

  “Darling, how nice to see you! Effie will be down in a minute. We’ve just put the babies to bed, and she’s not quite finished changing. Robert should be here any time now, too. Will you come up and take your things off?”

  “No, thank you, dear,” said Caroline. “We’ll just leave them in the hall. We’ve come straight from Susan’s, so you mustn’t mind our being grubby and unchanged.”

  Evelyn helped her off with her coat, arranging the collar of her dress with little caressing touches.

  “You look lovely, Caroline, but then you always do. You can wear any colour you like and always look lovely. I do envy you.”

  Philippa glanced at Caroline, expecting to see some signs of irritation at this flattery, but Caroline had flushed with pleasure.

  “Nonsense!” she smiled. “I never think about clothes. I spend the minimum of time and money on them. You know I do.”

  “And the result’s perfect,” said Evelyn, throwing open the drawing-room door, “isn’t it, Mrs. Meredith? Do come in and sit down. . . . People with real taste don’t need to think about their clothes. I’ve always said that. They know just what suits them by a sort of instinct. And that’s Caroline. Everything she does and says and wears is perfect.”

  “Oh, Evelyn!” laughed Caroline deprecatingly. “What on earth will Philippa think of the nonsense you talk?”

  “She’ll agree with me, of course. . . . You know how splendid Caroline’s been, don’t you, Mrs. Meredith?”

  “Yes,” said Philippa, deciding quite finally that she disliked Evelyn.

  “The children owe everything to her,” went on Evelyn. “You should hear Robert on the subject. Effie and Kenneth know they’ve got to take second place, and they don’t mind because they adore Caroline, like everyone else. They’re all terribly jealous of each other, of course. That goes without saying. Fay’s the worst of the lot, the little monkey!”

  “What nonsense!” smiled Caroline.

  “It isn’t nonsense,” said Evelyn. “Darling, don’t sit on that uncomfortable chair. Come over to the sofa. I’m sure you’re tired. You work for other people all day long and never think of yourself. Doesn’t she, Mrs. Meredith?”

  Caroline allowed herself to be drawn over to the sofa and to be settled down upon it with much patting of cushions and affectionate little touches. Philippa watched them thoughtfully. Evelyn’s position in the family, of course, depended on Caroline, and she obviously spared no pains to safeguard it. It was rather clever of her to have discovered that Caroline, so shrewd and self-contained on the surface, had that particular weak spot in her armour.

  “What do you think of Bartenham, Mrs. Meredith?” she asked. Her tone was still carefully noncommittal, as though she were waiting to take her cue from Caroline, to be cold or effusive according as Caroline gave the lead. She went on talking to Caroline without waiting for Philippa’s answer. “Don’t the curtains look nice, Caroline? I’m so grateful to you for choosing that colour.”

  Caroline was lying back on the sofa, looking almost sleek as she basked in the sunshine of Evelyn’s flattery.

  “Everything looks so nice now,” she said. “When one thinks of the old days——”

  Evelyn laughed.

  “Oh, the old days!” She turned to Philippa. “Effie used to let the children rampage over the whole house. There was hardly a decent bit of furniture left. As soon as I came, I made a rule that——”

  There came the sound of light footsteps on the stairs, and Effie entered. She looked pale and sulky, as usual, and, though she had just washed and changed, vaguely untidy. Her dress of grey lace, too matronly for her slight girlish figure, was put on anyhow. Her hair was brushed straight off her brow and done into a careless knot at the nape of her neck, from which several loose ends protruded.

  She’s pretty, thought Philippa, but she’s forgotten how pretty she is, and she doesn’t care about it any more. . . .

  The other two greeted her affectionately. “Don’t you love her in that dress, Caroline?” said Evelyn. “She let her old Evelyn help her choose it. We thought we’d get a real grown-up dress this time, not one of the little-girl frocks that she buys when her stupid old Evelyn isn’t with her. . . . This is Mrs. Meredith, darling—Caroline’s mother.”

  Effie threw Philippa a faintly hostile glance, then sat down in an armchair by the fireplace. Her pale sulky face wore an expression of brooding resentment—a passive resentment that had ceased trying to make itself felt. It was as if the magnetic personalities of the two other women had sapped her vitality, and she had given up the struggle to assert herself against them.

  Suddenly there came the sound of the front door opening, and a stir seemed to pass through the room. Though Caroline and Evelyn went on talking and Effie continued to gaze lis
tlessly in front of her, Philippa could tell that the three of them were on the alert for Robert’s entrance. Philippa, on her side, felt intensely curious to see Gordon’s son. She turned her head sharply as the door opened. Yes, there was something of Gordon in him, as there was in Susan. He was short and thick-set where Gordon had been tall and thin, but, like Susan, he had Gordon’s warm colouring—dark hair, brown eyes, ruddy complexion. Like Susan, too, he lacked any suggestion of the repressive severity that had been Gordon’s most marked characteristic. He smiled pleasantly and naturally at Philippa as he greeted her, then sank down into his chair with a faint sigh of weariness.

  “How have the children gone on?” he said, turning to his wife.

  Before she could answer, Evelyn began an amusing description of the children’s day, making him laugh by repeating several of Carrie’s quaint sayings. Effie relapsed into silence, but her eyes kept returning to Robert, and there was a faint flush on her cheeks. Philippa thought: She’s in love with him. It would be so much simpler, of course, if she weren’t.

  “I’ve nearly finished the crossword puzzle, Robert,” Evelyn was saying. “Caroline helped me, of course.”

  “Not much, darling,” murmured Caroline.

  “The only one we haven’t done is 17 down.”

  He read out the clue, and Effie, with an air of mingled timidity and defiance, made an obviously impossible suggestion. There was a constrained silence, then Robert said kindly, “I don’t think so, dear.”

  “Did you see an evening paper, Robert?” said Evelyn. “I’m longing to know who got in at Freshport.”

  “The Conservative,” said Robert. “I was rather surprised.”