Caroline England

by Noel Streatfeild

Caroline wandered round the two rooms wonderingly. She fingered the pink bows. She opened the books, so long unused that they had a musty laid-away smell. She took down the dolls. Such rows of them. So beautifully dressed. She gaped at the pictures. There was one of a basket full of puppies, one of kittens; a coloured one of a small girl feeding the chickens on a farm, and another of a foal looking over a gate. They seemed to Caroline odd rooms for her mother. If she was so fond of pinks and blues, why had she kept her own bedroom just as Grandmama had it? Why had she not given her children pink bedrooms instead of leaving them just as they were when the aunts had them? Why had she not given her a pretty schoolroom, instead of leaving it just as it was when Aunts Agnes, Rose, Elizabeth, Sylvia and Dymphna did lessons there? It seemed queer to have had so much done for herself, and to do so little for her own children. “I expect it was difficult for her,” Caroline reasoned. “Papa and Grandmama like the Manor just as it is, and I do too; only it must be nice to have rooms trimmed specially just for you. I shall give my children lovely rooms.”

  She was a little shocked at the pictures and dolls. These rooms were just as they were when her mother had left them to get married. Of course, she knew that her mother had been very little older than she was now when she married. But still, it was years since she had played with dolls, and she had never had nursery pictures in her schoolroom. She had seen the pictures of the wedding.

  Her mother looked quite grown-up in them. Yet she must have dressed for the wedding amongst these babyish things. How curious that at one moment you were a child in the schoolroom, and almost directly afterwards you were a proper grown-up lady and married.

  Caroline was the pet of the house. The position enchanted her, it was so new. Her mother had, of course, petted her in a way, and she was friends with her father, but there was a coldness about the Manor that would make the sort of affection she received from the Ellisons out of place. But now she met it she adored it, and expanded as a frost-bitten bud might in the May sun. Old great-uncles vying with each other in complimenting her, arriving with flowers and French bon­bons. Grandpapa Ellison chuckling in his chair with a gay twinkle in his eye, saying what a delight it was to old eyes to have the prettiest girl in the town under his roof. Grandmama’s endless: “And how is my pet? Is my pet happy? You’re not over-tiring yourself, are you dear?” Even the servants seemed to consider that every young girl had a right to love and admiration, especially a young girl as pretty as Miss Caroline. Caroline was startled to find herself exclaiming:

  “Oh, it’s lovely being grown-up. I am glad I’m seventeen.”

  It was after she had been in London a month that the dance was arranged for her. It was planned by Aunt Rose and Uncle Peter.

  “Caroline dear.” Mrs. Ellison looked up smiling from a letter. “I hope you are working hard at your dancing. You are going to put it into practice. Your Aunt Rose is giving a little informal dance for you in your uncle’s studio.”

  “Grandmama!” Caroline threw her arms round her neck. “You arranged it for me.”

  Mrs. Ellison kissed her.

  “Well, I talked it over with your aunt. We are such old people here, we had no facilities for a dance, so it was arranged that they would give it for you. But you must not write about it to your Aunt Agnes, or she’ll scold me. I promised her that you should be kept in the schoolroom.”

  Caroline’s face clouded.

  “I hope she does know and is cross. I hate her!” Mrs. Ellison took her hand and stroked it.

  “Not hate, Caroline dear. That is a sin. I expect it is just that a little girl of your age does not quite understand. I am sure you will love her when you are older.”

  “I won’t—” Caroline broke in.

  “Be quiet dear.” Mrs. Ellison spoke firmly. “We won’t talk about people unless we can talk about them kindly. Now run upstairs and put on your walking things. I am going to take you to my dressmaker’s to get a frock for your dance.”

  Caroline sat in front of the pink-and-white dressing-table. She tried not to be impatient, but Annie was being slow over her hair. It was kind of Grandmama to let Annie dress her, but she did not believe there was any need for hair to take so long to do.

  “There.” Annie stood back to admire her work. “That’s sweetly pretty.”

  Caroline picked up the hand-mirror and twisted round to have a look. Her back hair was fastened over three roll pads. In front, some of her curls were brushed forward to form a fringe. She put down the glass.

  “I look very grand and grown-up, don’t I?”

  “You do that,” Annie agreed. “Now stand up, Miss, and let me lace your corsets.” Caroline sighed. Corsets seemed to her the one flaw in being grown-up. “I dressed your mother for her wedding,” Annie went on. “We didn’t have any of the things then we have now for filling you out. It would have made all the difference to how she looked, if she could have had a bust regulator.” She paused a moment while she tied and buttoned. “A proper bustle was worn then. Made of horse-hair your mother’s was. Three great puffs it had, and steel hoops and all. She did look a beauty in her wedding dress, poor dear, for all she was so slight.”

  “Do I look at all like her, Annie?”

  “You have a look. ’Course she wasn’t so dark as you, and she never looked so determined like. Now stand still. Don’t fidget. I’m going to put your dress on.” She went to the bed and picked up the heap of white gauze, and satin streamers, and lifted it carefully over Caroline’s head. “Hold your breath now, dear, I’m going to fasten you up.” Caroline stood in front of the long glass. She looked at herself with respect. She had never thought much about her face until she came here. Perhaps it was not just Grandmama and Grandpapa Ellison and the great­uncles being nice. Perhaps she really was pretty.

  Annie, looking at her face in the glass, had a sudden lump in her throat.

  “Here’s your mittens and fan,” she said briskly.

  Caroline stood between her uncle and aunt. She shook hands with the guests. It was all more informal than she had expected. There was a lot of laughing and chatter. The pianist hired for the evening, covered the gap while the dance-cards were being filled by wandering through the music of “Dorothy.” Uncle Peter, beside her, joined in and hummed “Queen of My Heart Tonight.” The men gathered round Caroline. “May I have the honour of a dance?” Then, suddenly her card was taken from her.

  “Can I have three dances?”

  Caroline looked up. She had a consciousness of height and fair hair, but it was the blue eyes that held her.

  “Oh!” she said.

  “Well, can I?” Caroline nodded.

  “Yes, I should be pleased.”

  Towards the end of the evening Rose caught her husband by the arm.

  “Peter. Come here a minute. Who is that young man dancing with Caroline?”

  Peter looked across the room.

  “England. John England. He writes. I met him in Smith’s studio the other night.”

  “Who is he?”

  “My dear, I don’t know. Nice young man. Smith says he is brilliant.”

  “But that doesn’t say who he is.” Peter grinned at her.

  “My dear Posy, you are being very Torrys, aren’t you? I hoped I had cured you of that. Whoever he is, one dance with him won’t hurt Caroline.”

  “It isn’t one dance. This is their third. Besides, he hasn’t taken his eyes off her. I shall tell her, after this dance, that three is too many.”

  Peter shrugged his shoulders.

  “Very well, my dear, she is your niece. Don’t spoil the child’s pleasure though. She has not had much of it.”

  Caroline came out of a trance.

  “I beg your pardon. Did you say something?” John started.

  “No. Did you?”

  Caroline fumbled for conversation. “What is this waltz?”

  He l
istened, hearing what was being played for the first time.

  “‘Santiago.’”

  “It’s very pretty.”

  “Yes.” He looked down at her. “I—I am enjoying this dance, Miss Torrys.”

  Caroline gulped.

  “Oh, so am I,” she agreed.

  Caroline lived in a whirl of whispers. Grandmama Ellison whispered to Aunt Rose, and Aunt Rose whispered to Uncle Peter, and Uncle Peter came down to the house and whispered to Grandpapa, and Grandpapa whispered to the great-uncles, and Grandmama whispered to Longy, and Annie whispered, and the maids below stairs whispered. In a dreamy way Caroline knew what they whispered about. “Caroline is falling in love.” Caroline knew that she was far from ‘falling’ in love, she had fallen; deep down to a world where nothing mattered but John. When he was there everything sprang to life. The colours were brighter. Faces prettier. Laughter gayer. When she went away from him the light dimmed as though turned down in a theatre. It was queer to have everybody else so concerned and not to mind. John had said “I love you, Caroline.” He had said it in the park. She had met him there by arrangement. She had made Longy walk in the park. She had not wanted to, but Caroline had threatened to go alone, so she had salved her conscience by sitting on a seat pretending not to see. “I love you,” John had said. In the tiny pause that followed Caroline heard a million sounds. The clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. The distant cry of a newsboy. The crunch of walking feet. A man calling ‘strawberries.’ A child laughing. To Caroline the sounds welded as instruments in an orchestra, and she and John were part of the music. She came out of the daze in which she had moved since the night of the dance, and knew that until this moment she had never really lived.

  “Is it ‘yes,’ Caroline?”

  She raised puzzled eyes. Why did he ask such a foolish question? Did he not feel, as she did, that they were like half people until they had met each other?

  “Of course it’s ‘yes,’ John.”

  The obvious thing for her flustered grandmother to do was to send Caroline home. But what a Caroline! Starry of eye and flushed of cheek. Refusing to consider any future except with John. A Caroline who thought “But we love each other” a more than sufficient reason to receive her father’s blessings.

  Although she never mentioned John, Caroline’s mood got into her letters. There were two. The first was what Agnes described as “a little exaggerated.” The second was hardly coherent: Agnes had not been in the house when her sisters got engaged for nothing. She knew the symptoms. Before he had time to protest, she had James packed and had invited herself and him to stay with her unwilling sister Rose.

  Peter called to take Caroline to see some pictures. He timed his coming’ so that she was out when he arrived. He went at once to look for Letitia. He found her in the schoolroom.

  “You’ve heard I suppose, Miss Long, that we are expecting Mr. and Miss Torrys to-morrow?”

  Letitia had indeed, and was trembling with nerves. “Yes. I feel Caroline has said something foolish in one of her letters. Not, of course, mentioning Mr. England, she promised not to do that.” Peter raised his eyebrows.

  “Did she? But Caroline thinks everyone will be pleased and give their blessings.”

  Letitia laid down her crochet. “Is he an impossible match?” Peter hesitated.

  “Yes. His father kept a shop.”

  “A shop!” Letitia gasped. “Where?”

  “A little place called Butterford. He sold boots.”

  “Boots! She doesn’t know that?”

  “She wouldn’t care if she did. As a matter of fact, nobody knows. I only knew two days ago. I met him through some people called Smith. Tom Smith has been away or I’d have asked before. Anyhow, it’s not my business. Only with her brother coming, my wife thought we ought to know.”

  “Boots!” Letitia felt quite ill. “Of course, Mr. Torrys will never hear of that.”

  “No.” He got up and looked gloomily at the picture of the puppies in the basket. “I’m afraid, Miss Long. That child is so desperately in love. Can you picture what it will be like for her shut up in the Manor”—he turned and looked her straight in the eyes—“with that aunt?”

  Letitia was flustered. Such a way to speak: “with that aunt,” as if she were a witch or something.

  “Well really—” she began.

  “Well picture it.”

  Letitia stared at her knitting and thought gloomily of Agnes.

  “I’m a little to blame. I did not do quite all I might to stop their meeting. He seemed a nice young man.”

  “He is a nice young man.” Letitia sighed.

  “Boots! Besides, there is no money. That makes it worse. Money is very important.” He looked surprised.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Oh, yes.” She spoke earnestly. “It is difficult to be happy without. The anxiety is terrible.”

  He gave her a sympathetic glance.

  “To the Torrys family the lack of secure money is almost as bad as the boots. You know, Miss Long, I should never have been allowed to marry my wife if I had to depend on my painting.”

  “He isn’t quite dependent on his writing. He has, I believe, one hundred and twenty pounds a year. At least, so Caroline says.”

  He laughed.

  “One hundred and twenty pounds a year would not be reckoned by my brother-in-law as an income.” He paused. Then he said lightly, “I have advised young John to run away with the lady.”

  “Run away!” Letitia gasped.

  “Oh, no!” Peter smiled.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Letitia looked as if she had been winded. After a time she said:

  “You speak lightly of their running away. But getting married takes time. Then, Caroline is under age. Besides, she is never allowed out alone.”

  “John has a sister in Paris.” Peter spoke so practically that he made Letitia listen. “I think if he took her to Paris, though you and I might know she was in secure hands, the Torrys family as a whole would be thankful to hear of a wedding. I thought you might have an errand to the station one day soon. It’s easy to lose sight of people at a railway station.” He got up. “I think I hear Caroline. You are to bring her to tea this afternoon. Think it over. Let me know then.”

  Letitia, from her bedroom window, watched Caroline and her uncle drive away in a hansom. Then she sat down. Louisa just twelve, Elizabeth only ten this month, Ellison not yet six. Leaving Ellison out of her reckoning, she might reasonably count on more than seven years’ employment. Perhaps even she might remain with the family for her life; there were governesses who did that, especially where there was no mother. Why should she have a hand in Caroline’s marriage? Why should she care? Why should her uncle force her to connive at it?

  In all her life of subservience in the houses of the rich, Letitia had had no time for love. It was not a governess’s place, especially not a young governess, to talk to any gentlemen that might be about the house. Yet when she had been seventeen there had been the curate. It was true he had never spoken, there was not much time and certainly no money, but she could remember several weeks when she had felt, and probably looked, just as Caroline looked now. It was ridiculous to say you got over things. Of course you forgot. Probably if she met the curate now she would not know him. But that was not to say there had not been countless times in her life when she had wished with a passion that hurt, to have had more than those three weeks. The first sight of that ecstatic look in the eyes and she had been hustled off to a situation. “It could never be, my dear,” her mother said firmly. “He can barely keep himself. He could never afford to support you. You must not be silly dear.” It was ridiculous now that after all these years, because of that same curate, she should ask herself to be brave. Yet she was. She was asking herself to give Caroline her chance to be happy. After all, she told herself firmly, you are over
fifty. Your life is finished. Naturally the family will not keep you after such a breach of trust. Why should they? It is an impossible match. Perhaps you will get something else to do and, if you do not, you are very clever with your fingers.

  She got up restlessly and stared into the square. She spoke out loud.

  “It cannot be right to separate them. I do hope they will be happy. I shall feel so responsible.”

  Agnes stood by the window. Her fingers beat a tattoo on the ledge. James, looking acutely embarrassed, sat in a corner of the sofa. Peter and Rose were side by side on the music-stool. For all it was their own house, they had a guilty look. They might have been two of the public in a law court who felt that at any moment a turn in the evidence might split them in the dock. There was not a sound in the room but the drumming of Agnes’s fingers. James glanced round and cleared his throat.

  “Never been any trade in the family.” Peter looked across at him.

  “Honestly, I don’t think you need be upset. Not much money perhaps, but he’s brilliant. Got a scholarship. Was educated at a good school. Was up at Oxford. I think when they come back you’ll find—”

  Agnes swung round, her face was yellow-white. There was a nervous twitching of her lips. Her eyes were frightening with the anger that was in them.

  “We’ll find nothing. She’s disgraced us. She’s brought our name down to the dirt. I always knew she was unreliable and sly. I’ve never been able to trust her. When I think of her in these last days, sneaking in and out of the house to meet her lover. Looking for corners in which to—”

  Peter got up. “That isn’t true, and you’ve no right to say it.” He dropped his tone to something kinder. “Come on, my dear, Be generous. She’s only a child, you’ve got to make the best of it. They’ll come back soon and you’ll have to see them.”

  “Never!” Agnes quivered all over. “Her father has said she’s never to come inside the Manor again.” She swept round on James. “Didn’t you?”

  “Well,” James fidgeted awkwardly. “I’ve always been fond of the little thing, but—”

  “Didn’t you?” Agnes’s voice had a rising inflection of temper.