Caroline

by Richmal Crompton

  Fay opened her lips to explain to Caroline that Sybil didn’t understand, that people just did what they liked in her house, and no one minded what anyone else did. Then she shut them again. It wasn’t any use trying to fight against Caroline. She was too strong.

  “And, darling,” went on Caroline, “what was it she said about her brother’s having been at the hockey match?”

  Fay’s slender form went rigid.

  “Oh yes. . . . He did. . . . It was last Saturday.”

  “You didn’t mention it to me.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “No. . . . What exactly happened?”

  “Nothing. He just came to watch the match, and talked to us in the interval.”

  “Talked to whom?”

  “Sybil and me.”

  “Did he stay to the end?”

  “Yes. . . . We all went home together. As far as Sybil’s, I mean.”

  “I see. . . . He didn’t walk home with you, did he?”

  “No—but,”—Fay hesitated for a moment, then went on jerkily—“Caroline . . . would it have mattered much if he had?”

  Caroline laughed.

  “Of course not, darling, but it would have been a little suggestive of Doris Pemberton, wouldn’t it?”

  Fay drew a deep breath. It was spoilt now. Spoilt for ever. Doris Pemberton, who paraded the streets of Bartenham with an innumerable succession of “boys”—flashily dressed, giggling, ogling every man she met . . . Doris, who had been the joke and scandal of the school till the head mistress had asked her parents to remove her last year on the grounds that she was doing so little work that it was useless for her to remain there . . . Doris, who stood for all that was cheap and tawdry and second-rate. She’d never be able to go anywhere with Billy now without thinking of that. . . . Oh well, it would have been spoilt anyway, so it didn’t really matter. She rose wearily.

  “I’d better do my home-work now, hadn’t I?”

  She fetched her case from the hall and, sitting down at Caroline’s desk, where she generally worked after tea, began the piece of French translation that had been set for tomorrow. But she couldn’t concentrate, could hardly see the words even. If only she could have played herself back to peace, as she used to when things went wrong before she gave up music. Tears welled suddenly into her eyes. She rose abruptly and, controlling herself sufficiently to say, “I’ve left a book upstairs, Caroline,” went quickly from the room.

  Upstairs she locked her bedroom door and flung herself on her bed. It was a physical relief to give way to the oppression that choked her, to sob in a luxurious abandonment of grief. She didn’t know why she was crying. It would be terrible if Caroline came up and found her . . . asked what was the matter . . . tried to comfort her. She couldn’t bear that. With a great effort she checked her sobs, rose from the bed, and examined her reflection carefully in the glass. No, Caroline wouldn’t notice anything. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but they were often inflamed in the evening. If Caroline mentioned it, she’d say that they were smarting again, and Caroline would make some more boracic lotion for her.

  Downstairs Caroline still sat back in her chair, gazing into the fire. She felt very tired and was surrendering to an unwonted access of self-pity. If only they didn’t all seem to need her every minute of every day! It drained her vitality till she felt utterly exhausted. She was fairly happy about Robert’s household now, but there was Susan entangled in a marriage that seemed to hold no possibility of happiness, and there was Fay, who required such constant help and guidance. Fay was weak, and her weakness laid her open to unworthy friendships, unworthy interests. She would never knowingly do wrong, but she lacked judgement, and was too easily influenced. Quite obviously these Dicksons weren’t good for her. That danger, however, was over. Fay was really very sensible, quick always to perceive and acknowledge when she had been at fault. But—she felt so tired with the strain of it all, the heavy unremitting burden of responsibility. And—there would soon be another claim on her care and protection. Perhaps, after all, she’d been unwise in asking her mother to come here without first finding out more about her. . . . Then she braced herself to the task she had undertaken. She’d never shirked her duty yet, and she wasn’t going to start now. . . . She’d carried so much on her shoulders all these years that a little more would make no difference. Robert . . . Susan . . . Fay. . . . Beneath the weariness and depression stirred the almost sensual thrill of gratification that the thought of their dependence on her always brought with it.

  Chapter Seven

  MAGGIE stood in the hall, fidgeting nervously, while Nana arranged her scarves and necklaces. She’d put on far too many scarves and necklaces, as she always did when she was frightened or flustered. It consoled her and gave her a feeling of protection, as though she were a knight going into battle, and the festoons of beads and silk her armour. Usually Nana was ruthless in removing the superfluous ones, but today, sensing something of her mistress’s agitation, she left them all on, merely arranging them so that as many as possible should be concealed beneath her coat. Charles stood at the front door, looking up at the sky and wondering whether to take an umbrella. It looked fussy and elderly to carry an umbrella when it wasn’t raining. On the other hand he had a new suit on and didn’t want to get it wet. Perhaps it would be best to suggest Maggie’s taking one, then if it rained he could hold it over her and keep the rain off himself at the same time. He hummed softly under his breath. He was feeling quite excited at the thought of meeting Philippa again. She’d been, he remembered, rather an exciting sort of person. She’d have lost her looks, of course. The kind of life she’d presumably led was generally considered ageing. Splendid of Caroline to give her a home. That girl was a brick.

  “Have you got your handkerchief, Miss Maggie?” Nana was saying, and Maggie at once began a feverish search through all her pockets, sending the scarves and necklaces that Nana had so carefully arranged flying in all directions.

  Perhaps it would be a graceful gesture to take her some flowers, thought Charles. He could easily buy some on the way. Charles always enjoyed making little presentations of flowers. He’d taken some chrysanthemums to Mrs. Lawrence this morning because he’d found out quite by chance that it was her birthday, and he’d given Mrs. Ludlow a buttonhole of violets when he had coffee with her in the town yesterday. Both had been prettily grateful—Mrs. Ludlow especially—and it had made him feel delightfully young and debonair. Everything had been going well with him lately. His morning’s measurement had shown nearly a quarter of an inch decrease in his waist compared with the same day last year (he kept records carefully in a little note-book), and Mrs. Lawrence had giggled and said, “Don’t talk such nonsense,” when he referred to himself as an “old man.”

  “There! You’re quite tidy now,” Nana was saying soothingly. She had discovered the handkerchief in Maggie’s handbag and had tucked the superfluous scarves and necklaces neatly away again.

  “Hadn’t you better take an umbrella, dear?” said Charles solicitously. “It looks as if it might rain.”

  “Do you think so?” said Maggie, all her agitation returning at the thought that it might rain.

  “I’m certain to leave it somewhere. I always do. What do you think, Nana?”

  “Better take one, Miss Maggie,” said Nana, “then it will do for both of you if it comes on to rain.”

  She glanced at Charles as she spoke, and he tried not to look like a small boy detected in an act of deceit.

  “And come back by six,” went on Nana firmly. “You know you’ll be overtired if you don’t.”

  They set off together down the road.

  “How long is it since she went away, Charles?”

  “Who, dear?” said Charles, rousing himself from vague daydreams of waist measurements and flower presentations.

  “You know . . .” said Maggie nervously.

  “Oh yes. . . . Thirty years,” said Charles and felt somewhat depressed at the thought because it made him seem so
old.

  “I’m very worried about it, Charles,” went on Maggie tremulously.

  “Why?” said Charles.

  “It doesn’t seem right by Gordon. I’m sure he wouldn’t have allowed it if he’d been alive, and I’m sure it would have made Father very angry indeed.”

  “Y-yes,” agreed Charles, “but, after all, it’s a long time ago, you know. Half the people in Bartenham weren’t here when she ran away. And, anyway, people soon forget.”

  “It wasn’t her running away, Charles,” protested Maggie. “I often used to want to run away myself, but I daren’t, because I knew that wherever I went Father would find me and bring me back and be terribly angry. . . . It was running away with a man.”

  Miss Maguire, the Vicar’s daughter, was passing them. Charles took off his hat and gave her a pleasant but strictly impersonal smile. He was rather scared of unmarried women, especially those who were “getting on” and might be supposed to have matrimonial designs on him for want of anyone younger. He’d once been asked his intentions by a Victorian parent, and he’d never quite got over the shock.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it, Maggie, if I were you,” he said gently. “After all, it’s Caroline’s business, and if she feels it’s the right thing to do . . .”

  “Oh, of course,” said Maggie hastily. “Please don’t think I’m criticising Caroline, Charles.” She looked quite terrified at the idea that anyone might think she was criticising Caroline. “I wouldn’t do that for a moment. Not for a moment. Caroline knows best, of course.”

  He glanced down at her and wished that he knew how to put her tidy with a few deft touches as Nana did. She had looked quite tidy when they set out, but now the necklaces had all escaped their moorings, her hair was coming down, and her hat was on one side. He was afraid that the very sight of her would irritate Caroline, who was always so scrupulously neat. And probably she’d ask her about the piano again, and that would irritate Caroline, too. She never irritated him, however stupid she was or however often she asked the same question. He saw her, not as an exasperating old woman, but as a frightened little girl in a holland pinafore with very thin legs and black woollen stockings that were always coming down and at which she kept making nervous little dabs to pull them up. No one else, of course, could be expected to see her like that.

  He stood for a moment at the front door and drew himself up to his full height before ringing the bell. He had reluctantly decided against the flowers. It would be a little difficult, he thought, to take flowers to Philippa and not to Caroline, who was his hostess. And two bunches of flowers would look silly.

  The maid showed them into the drawing-room, where Richard Oakley stood by the fireplace.

  He turned round as they entered.

  “Oh, there you are!” he said. “Caroline asked me to make her apologies. She’ll be down in a moment. She’s just gone up to Mrs. Meredith.”

  “When did she arrive?” said Charles rather nervously.

  “Not till this afternoon. Caroline was expecting her last night.”

  “I know.”

  “There was some sort of a breakdown on the Paris line, it appears. Caroline persuaded her to go upstairs and rest till tea-time.”

  “You’ve not seen her, then?” said Charles, studying himself furtively in the mirror and pulling down his waistcoat.

  “No. . . .” Richard was moving restlessly about the room, obviously ill-at-ease and worried. “I only hope this isn’t going to be too much for Caroline.”

  “I can’t feel it’s right,” put in Maggie tearfully. “Gordon was always so particular. Nearly as particular as Father. But, of course,” she added hastily, “Caroline knows best.”

  “Here they are,” whispered Richard.

  The door opened and Philippa entered, followed by Caroline. Charles looked at her. He’d forgotten how tall she was and how well she carried herself. He’d forgotten, too, how lovely she was. Her age, which she made no attempt to hide, detracted nothing from her loveliness. Her hair, though now silver, had the soft natural wave of her girlhood. The crow’s-feet round her deep-set eyes seemed only to emphasise their beauty. The lines from nose to mouth couldn’t hide the perfect curves of the lips. Her pale skin was smooth and unwrinkled. Her beauty, he remembered, had always consisted less in actual features than in the moulding of her face. The outline of cheek and jaw was still exquisite.

  She came across the room to Charles and Maggie with outstretched arms.

  “How nice to see you again!” she said.

  She kissed Maggie tenderly, reassuringly. Charles remembered that she had always understood about the frightened little girl in the holland pinafore with the untidy stockings, though, of course, she’d never seen her.

  Maggie heaved a long quivering sigh. Quite suddenly it was all right. One needn’t worry any more about Gordon and Father and Philippa running away. It was all right. She didn’t know why, but she knew it was all right. Philippa was shaking hands with Charles now.

  “Why, Charles, you’ve hardly changed at all,” she was saying.

  Charles blushed with pleasure.

  “I’ve put on a bit of weight, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “Oh, we’ve all done that,” laughed Philippa, “and secretly we think it rather becoming.”

  “This is Mr. Oakley,” said Caroline. “I don’t think you’ve met him before. He wasn’t in Bartenham when you lived here.”

  Philippa greeted Richard with her pleasant unaffected smile. Charles watched her covertly. Beautiful. A finished woman of the world. And you felt that for all her charm and beauty she was capable and courageous. She’d be the mistress of any situation in which she found herself. She made Caroline seem suddenly rather immature—immature, angular, and a little spinsterish. Poor Caroline! She’d struggled along so wonderfully, looking after the whole family. It would be nice for her to be looked after in her turn. And Philippa, he was sure, would look after her. He had doubted the wisdom of this invitation of Caroline’s, but now one glance at Philippa told him that it would be magnificently justified. Maggie was sitting next to her, listening to her, quite happy and at her ease, not frightened at all. It was a great relief to him that Maggie wasn’t frightened.

  “Is Bartenham just the same?” Philippa was saying. “Do tell me all about it. Is the funny little High Street modernised and widened? I hope it isn’t.”

  Caroline watched her gravely. So often in her dream she had welcomed home the broken-down wreck of womanhood or the flashy hardened demimondaine, that she could have played her part with either automatically. But the reality—this poised and charming woman of the world—disconcerted her. Somehow she’d never even considered the possibility of her being still beautiful. And her clothes! Caroline’s lips hardened into a tight line as she looked at them. They must have cost a small fortune. While she’d been straining every nerve, working day and night to bring up the children, this woman must have been living in luxury, spending probably as much on a single dress as would have kept them all for weeks. But, of course, Caroline had to admit to herself, she couldn’t have known that they were in need. No one had written to her. Her father had been well off when she left him. She translated the obscure resentment that this woman’s appearance roused in her into terms of righteous disapproval. Personal extravagance was unpardonable at a time when there was so much real want in the world. Then—she had expected her to show a little embarrassment, a little contrition, at their meeting, but she hadn’t done. She had been completely assured.

  “Caroline, it’s sweet of you to ask me here,” she had said, but not brokenly, ashamedly, as Caroline had always pictured her saying it. It was Caroline who, illogically, had felt embarrassed, Caroline, with all her loving forgiveness left, as it were on her hands. She watched her now with narrowed blue eyes. There was something brazen in the way she was asking questions about Bartenham. One would have imagined that the very thought of her old associations with the town would have filled her with shame. But, of cours
e, a woman who had led the life she had led would naturally be hardened. She must be patient, very very patient. She had undertaken the task, and she mustn’t flinch from it just because it was turning out to be more distasteful than she had realised it would be.

  They were all laughing at something Philippa had just said, and again a wave of anger surged over Caroline. She had meant this little gathering to be a solemn pledge of family forgiveness. She hadn’t meant it to form a sort of court round Philippa, laughing at her jokes, encouraging her frivolous reminiscences. And they seemed to have forgotten her, Caroline, completely. Even Richard seemed to have forgotten her.

  “He used to wear a straw hat all the year, winter and summer,” Philippa was saying, “and an enormous muffler that went about three times round his neck and hung down to his ankles.”

  “Yes, I remember, Philippa,” said Maggie eagerly. “His aunt had made it for Christmas. She’d ordered too much wool by mistake, and she said it was a pity to waste it, because it wouldn’t really have come in for anything else.”

  “And is Mr. Cookson still at the Parish Church?” said Philippa.

  “Rather!” smiled Richard.

  “He used to be so, terribly absent-minded. I remember his mother once telling me that in the night he’d strike a match to look at his watch, then throw his watch into the fireplace and put the match under his pillow.”

  Caroline’s cool grave voice cut across their laughter.

  “He’s a very hard-working man and does a lot of good in the town.”

  There was a sudden silence, and the frightened look came back into Maggie’s eyes.

  “Yes, of course, Caroline,” she said nervously.

  “We’ll have tea now, shall we?” said Caroline. “Will you ring the bell, please, Richard?

  “What’s happened about that business of Boughton’s, Richard?” she went on, referring to a local lawsuit of which Philippa could know nothing. “Is it going to be settled soon?”