Colonel Beaton, remembering the pale harassed Caroline that he had seen in town that autumn, was amazed and delighted at the change which a few days at Beechwood had made in her. Her face which had been so haggard and drawn after the lecture tea-party was quite vulgarly cheerful and carefree. She walked with the assurance of a creature that takes strength from the earth with each fresh step. For an hour, they never slackened their pace till they stood on an old earthwork overlooking a gap in the hills through which a river flowed southward to the sea. Here by silent consent, they stopped. The sun was not far from setting. From the villages in the plain below rose thin curls of smoke, scattered noises of road and farmyard.
“I suppose Francis and Anna are miles behind,” said Caroline. “We shall meet them on the way back. Oh, this heavenly, heavenly walk.”
“I didn’t think you were in such form,” said Colonel Beaton. “We were doing four miles an hour easily. You couldn’t have done that a month ago, Caroline.”
“No, I couldn’t. Oh, but you mustn’t judge me by the days you were in town for your lecture. And at any rate one can’t help being well here. Always when I am among the hills I can do anything. I feel I don’t really know any friend with whom I haven’t walked. Unfortunately one can’t live on the top of a hill forever.”
“You might want to come down if you did.”
“Oh, no, I think not,” said Caroline, as if a hilltop where no one could reach one might be the happiest place in the world. “It would be nice to be where no one could ever get at one. Then one wouldn’t be frightened.”
“But what would you be frightened of?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Remembering things, seeing people, having demands made on one.”
“You wouldn’t like it. You would really be wretched if demands weren’t made on you. In fact you would be a good deal happier now if more demands were made on you. You need to give and you are having to take. It’s all wrong.”
Colonel Beaton then looked at the dusky valley, at the red westering sun, at the path by which they came, and Caroline said nothing. Finally, looking at the turf, he said:
“I haven’t ever presumed to talk to you about your marriage, Caroline. I needn’t say that Anna has told me about it, and Mr. and Mrs. Danvers have spoken of it sometimes. I have admired what I have heard of you, and I admire exceedingly what I know of you. Courage among other things. But don’t let that courage wear itself thin and fade, Caroline. One has to shut oneself away sometimes after a great grief, but there does come a time when it is cowardice not to take one’s place in the world again. Am I offending you?” he asked, raising his eyes and looking at her.
Caroline’s face was all in flame, whether from her thoughts or from the low winter sun, he was not sure. She gave him one of her long steady looks and answered:
“No, not offending. Being kind on the whole. Colonel Beaton, I’m only too ready to think myself a coward, and it may be good for me to be told I really am one. Then out of spite perhaps I’ll think I’m not.”
“A muddled kind of truthfulness appears to be another of your virtues, though I’m not sure if you don’t enjoy running yourself down. And by the way, is Colonel Beaton necessary? I would like to think that you and Anna didn’t look upon me as the kind of person you have to be respectful to.”
“William is rather an awkward name,” said Caroline cautiously.
“I’m sorry,” said Colonel Beaton seriously. “But I have never been Willy or Bill, so William it has to be. To go back to what I was saying—”
“Must you?” cried Caroline, anxious-eyed.
“Yes, I think so. I wouldn’t have the impertinence to talk to you about your attitude to life, only I know a bit about it. When my wife died I thought my private world had come to an end. I only wanted to get away alone into myself. But I had two things to help me that you haven’t got, so I didn’t have so much excuse for avoiding life.”
Caroline looked a question.
“My work in the army and Julia. Something to do and something to love. Also, which is not unimportant, I am pretty well off and that necessarily makes an enormous difference in one’s attitude to life.”
The low sun threw such a glow on Caroline’s face that she looked younger than Colonel Beaton had ever seen her.
“I have nothing to do,” she said in half humorous self-depreciation. “I can’t very well do the housekeeping when it isn’t my house, and I hate the poor, and I haven’t any gifts. I was rather good at having a husband and a home, but I’m out of work now.”
“But you have people to love.”
This time, there was no mistaking the flame that sprang to Caroline’s face, nor the appeal of her eyes.
“I mean all your in-laws, and I hope Julia, and your cousins,” said Colonel Beaton, making matters worse.
“Has Anna told you then?” asked Caroline in a breathless voice, protecting herself by a backward step.
“No, no. Anna had told me nothing,” said Colonel Beaton, quite at a loss and annoyed with himself for having, he didn’t know how, embarrassed Caroline. “I’m a bungling meddler, and that I’m well-meaning perhaps only makes things worse. Let’s start back and we will pick up the others on the way.”
Accordingly, they set off at their usual speed and said nothing till Caroline, given courage by their rapid motion and the growing dusk of the evening said:
“You were quite right about loving people. But please don’t think about it, or even guess.”
“Of course I won’t, my dear. And I may say that I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Caroline, with what seemed to him disproportionate rapture. It did occur to him that she might be caring for some man, and high time too, he thought, that she found someone to be fond of after the hideous uprooting of her affections. But he knew none of her friends except their own Beechwood circle, so it was no use guessing.
*
While Anna and Francis walked at their less headstrong pace, Anna had the pleasure of watching Francis bury his head in the sand and walk around and around himself. Caroline was quite obviously the center of his thoughts, and he was obviously wanting to talk about her. So he did, and though again and again he sheered away from the subject, it was only to return fascinated. Anna, who was still able to be amused by what she knew would fill her with sadness later on, realized what he wanted to talk about, realized that he thought he was cleverly concealing his own wishes, and unkindly didn’t give him any help. Therefore Francis floundered about, now talking of Caroline’s health, now her money affairs, now of her plans for the rest of the winter till Anna, rather fatigued by so much sympathetic listening, stopped beside a half-used haystack just under the ridge of the downs.
“Let’s get out of the wind here,” she said, leaning up against the sheltered side. “I haven’t enough breath to walk and listen, Francis. Listening uses up nearly as much breath as talking.”
“I have never seen anyone respond to the hills as Caroline does,” said Francis, leaning against the hay beside her. “You don’t look half as well as she does, Anna. You thrive better in London, don’t you?”
Anna was wondering how much more she could stand. It appalled her to think that Francis could be so utterly unmoved by her proximity as he obviously was, and even worse, to think that this might go on forever and ever. Also her feeling for him was at the moment so mixed with exasperation that she felt she might burst. Having paid this debt to politeness, if politeness it could be called, Francis went on with extremely wearisome stumblings and haltings to explain to Anna what she already knew, and to ask her if she thought she could put in a kind word for him with Caroline.
“That, Francis, is about the silliest thing you have said yet. How on earth could I attempt to persuade her? No one who had any sense would press her on the subject of marriage,” said Anna coldly. “You can’t expect her to be in a hurry to marry again after James, can you?”
Francis’ silence confi
rmed his unwilling conviction of this.
“I can always wait,” he said at last. “And you will always be there, Anna.”
“Oh, shall I?” snapped Anna. “I might get married myself.”
“Yes, I beg your pardon, you might. But I could count on you as a kind of link between me and Caroline, couldn’t I? I daren’t say anything to her now. I can’t forget how frightened she looked. Anna, you don’t know what it is to care for anyone as much as I do for Caroline and have so little hope.”
Anna knew quite well. She could have hit Francis with all her strength, or she could have said: “Caroline loves Hugh. Take me for next best.” But these were not things to say or do. There was silence for a time as they both took the path again.
“It will be a most enormous relief to have you to talk to,” said Francis with fine self-absorption. “And perhaps Caroline may sometimes talk about me to you. If she does—”
But now Anna was tried beyond endurance. Suddenly her loyalty to Caroline, the loving loyalty which made her keep silence and never raise a finger to beckon Francis lest she might be spoiling some ultimate happiness for her sister-in-law, was submerged. All the jealousy she might have felt but couldn’t feel rose up in an intense shrewish anger against the man she loved who could so brutally wound her. Yielding to a savage desire to hurt and destroy she said coolly:
“But Caroline wouldn’t talk about you. If she talked of anyone it certainly wouldn’t be of you. There are other people in the world.”
The meaning in her voice so startled Francis that he stopped. They were now on the top of the hill, following the path by which their companions had preceded them. Francis turned and faced Anna, his form black against the winter sunset at his back.
“Do you mean other people that she cares for?”
“Why not?”
“Any person specially?”
“Why not?”
“Who?”
Anna now began to feel repentant and afraid. Mischief she had undoubtedly done, but more she would not do. It would do Francis no harm to be unhappy, she angrily told herself, but Caroline was not to be harmed. She alone knew what Caroline felt for Hugh and secret it should remain. Her father she could trust.
“My dear Francis, you can’t expect me to tell you that,” she said.
Francis stood irresolute, his whole figure suddenly looking as if life had been withdrawn from it. Anna wanted to hold him, to give him strength again, even if it was only to feel justified in bludgeoning him yet further, but these also are things one cannot do. As they stood, they heard the steps of the returning walkers and Colonel Beaton and Caroline swung down upon them, almost charging into them in the half-light.
“Such a walk,” called Caroline, checking her pace. “William and I have tired the sun with walking and sent him down the sky. What were you two doing?”
“Walking and talking,” said Anna. “When did this William-ness happen? Am I allowed to say it too?”
“Of course,” said Colonel Beaton. “I hate being on these formal terms with either of you. Caroline has taken to it nicely and you must too.”
“William is a highly agreeable name,” cried Caroline, drunken with the hills and the thin clear evening air. “We must make Hugh come up here, Anna, mustn’t we? I have been thinking about him so much. He would adore it.”
Without waiting for an answer, she raced on again, half running down the hollow lane, followed by Colonel Beaton calling warnings against stumbling in the dark.
As the others also passed down into the gloom, Francis said to Anna, “You needn’t tell me who it is, Anna. I see there isn’t much chance for me. I didn’t believe it till just now.”
Caroline’s gaiety so unexpectedly returned, her new and friendly use of Beaton’s name, her evident joy in his company, these told him all he cared to know, and he set himself to wishing her all the happiness from Beaton that she would not take from him. What better fate could Caroline have than a man of his age and experience, a soldier, a gentleman, with brains and money and a certain position in the learned world. All the Beechwood circle would approve and he must approve too. God knew he wanted Caroline more than anything else in the world, but now he must want her happiness instead. He sighed in the darkness.
So Francis had guessed, was Anna’s silent thought. Caroline, in spite of her newly restored lightheartedness could not keep her voice from softening on Hugh’s name. For the cousins to be rivals would be so terrible that Anna felt the only safety was never to speak of it again till matters were more settled and could be openly discussed. Her heart, sore for herself, ached again for Francis when he saw his cousin Hugh where he would so willingly have been. Under pretext of a rough path in the gloom, she slipped her arm through Francis’. They were near Whitelands now. The lighted windows could be seen through the trees, but the path was still deep in the shadow of the high banks.
“Francis, if I can help you at all, ever,” she said diffidently, “I’m always here. I didn’t mean to be cross just now. I’d do anything for you. I am so very fond of you.”
“Bless you, my dear,” he said, grateful to her for trying to comfort him by an affection, which she couldn’t really feel. “But there isn’t any help for me. It is simply Caroline for now and always. I’ve given my heart and there it is. I won’t bother you again with my troubles.”
The light from the front door now shone on their faces. Anna released Francis’ arm with a lingering touch and went before him into the house. Here they found Julia entertaining Hugh, Wilfred and George.
“Come in,” cried Julia. “Come in, Father, and everyone. Thousands of crumpets by the fire.”
“And what have you done?” asked her father.
“I was going to play golf with Wilfred, but George had the clubs, so he came too, and then Hugh said he would come too, so that was a foursome. George and I won. Wilfred was quite off his game and Hugh was too.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking about,” said Hugh. “I was chiefly looking at Julia’s very peculiar game and it made me laugh so that I couldn’t hit the ball.”
“I don’t see anything funny about Julia’s game,” said Wilfred belligerently. “She plays all right when we play together. I expect George put her off her stroke. It’s enough to put anyone off their game to come out for a quiet round and find it’s a foursome.”
“Well, I apologize,” said Hugh. “Come and dance a tango, Julia.”
“No, let’s do a golf pas de deux,” said George, quickly putting on a dance record, after which he and Julia improvised what can only be called a golf cancan so funnily and gracefully that their audience laughed to crying point. All except Wilfred, who sat gloomily apart, being misunderstood. It was sickening enough, he reflected, to have one’s afternoon with Julia spoilt without having young George make an ass of himself. Resentment and envy mingled in his breast as he watched his brother dancing with entire abandon, partnering Julia to perfection with a gauche elegance very attractive to a stranger’s eye, revolting to a brother’s. Finally, it became more than he could bear. He stood up and surveyed the room with Satanic scorn, but as no one was looking at him he went home, wondering whether Julia would mind if she heard that he had gone to Kenya overnight.
When Julia had collapsed, breathless and laughing, on to the sofa by Caroline, George and Hugh took it upon them to perform a rumba so foolishly that Caroline longed for death to stop her laughter.
“But Hugh, you are divine,” cried Julia, springing up. “I never knew you could be so silly, at least not quite so silly. You must dance the rumba every night with George. George is divine too. Can we dance a rumba on Christmas Day, Father, or would the servants mind?”
“I’m afraid our servants would mind dreadfully,” said Anna, “so for goodness’ sake don’t dance a rumba when you come to Christmas dinner tomorrow. I hardly think the parents would appreciate it either. Come along, Caroline, we really must go back.”
Wilfred’s absence was then noticed for the first
time, but it roused neither interest nor anxiety. When the Beechwood party got home, Caroline went to the library to look for a book. Turning on a light, she threw off her coat and was beginning to hunt in the shelves when a hollow groan made her jump. The groan proceeded from Wilfred, who was sitting Byronically in the most comfortable armchair with his hair a good deal ruffled.
“Good gracious, Wilfred, how you startled me,” said Caroline. “Have you been asleep?”
“Asleep!” said Wilfred, repeating his groan.
“Or ill?” asked Caroline. “Is it influenza? There’s lots about. Shall I ring up Dr. Herbert?”
“Nevermind me,” said Wilfred.
“I don’t. But it is so very frightening for people if you sit in the dark and roar at them.”
“I could talk to you, Caroline,” said Wilfred. “You know what life is and the damned rotten deal it gives one.”
Caroline looked at the clock, saw that she needn’t think of dressing for a quarter of an hour, and sat down near Wilfred, expressing her willingness to be talked to as much as he liked.
“I suppose you have noticed that Julia is very attractive,” he began.
“I have.”
“What about the old colonel? You get on with him all right. Would he put a spoke in one’s wheel, do you think?”
Caroline said she didn’t know, and with great truth, for what spoke he would be likely to put into what wheel of Wilfred’s she couldn’t conceive.
“Well, I know he’s frightfully rich and all that,” continued Wilfred, “but, hang it all, that’s not everything. In Germany marriage is encouraged, however poor you are. Why should I have to wait for years because of a rotten, capitalist system that only allows eldest sons to marry? Oh, I say, I’m sorry, Caroline.”
O, These Men, These Men! Page 9
