§ 1
ON the Colchester and Ipswich train it was still possible for her to think. I am not necessarily going to Barhanger. I have a ticket to Holleshont, and there are many places one can get to from Holleshont besides Barhanger. Besides, even if I do get to Barhanger, Barhanger is no doubt an ideal place in which to spend a Bank Holiday week-end. There is no earthly reason why I shouldn’t go to Barhanger. It is close to the sea, and I need a holiday....
And secretly she rejoiced at the ecstasy of the thought: I am going to see him. Whatever he says or does, whatever the issue may be, whatever I suffer then or afterwards, I shall see him.... As the train rolled over the drab eastern suburbs she revelled in the sensation that every throb and pulsation of the wheels narrowed the distance between herself and him.... And withal came another part of her answering her coldly, reprovingly: You are silly to go on this fool’s errand. You are losing the satisfaction and contentment it took you so long to acquire. Where now is your ambition to lead a quiet, sedate and respectable life, without the storm and stress of emotional escapades? Where now in your mind’s perspective are Mr. Hobbs and the Rev. Elkin Broodbank? Oh, you fool! you will suffer, and it will be your own fault. You will have the old slow fight over again, you will have to build up your contentment right from the bottom.... Oh, you fool! ... And still her heart answered: I don’t care. I am going to see him.... I am going to see him....
Between Romford and Chelmsford she remembered the unopened letter that she had in her hand-bag from Mr. Hobbs. She tore it open and read it. It was a strange mixture of hopeless adoration and ruffled dignity.
MY DEAR MISS WESTON,
I am very sorry indeed if my invitation for Saturday offended you. I am glad to think your reason for declining it is that you had another engagement to fulfil. In the circumstances, is it too impertinent of me if I invite you to spend the Bank Holiday on the Surrey Hills? I know the district pretty well, and am sure you will enjoy the fine scenery as well as the invigorating air. There is a motor omnibus service as far as Reigate, and we could get from there to a number of interesting spots. Hoping you will be able to come with me.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
J. A. HOBBS.
She smiled wanly upon the drearily angular handwriting. In rummaging in her hand-bag she had come across the Rev. Elkin Broodbank’s visiting card, left by him that morning, and she caught sight of some writing on the back which she had previously overlooked. “I find you not in,” the Rev. Elkin had written, in his finicky handwriting and pseudo-Carlylean prose style, “so I leave this. Will you have tea with me on Sunday? I have old MSS. church rubric to show you: also good booklet on Oxford movement.—Yrs., E. B.”
Also upon this she smiled wanly....
Chelmsford....
Oh, what have I done with my life? she cried to herself in a moment of sudden horror. What have I to show for all these years of toil and stress? Is there anything of all that I have ever had which has lasted? I am twenty-four years old, and my youth is over. I have had dreams, I have had ambitions, I have had golden opportunities and been near success. But what have I to show? Have I any hold on life which death would not loose? Am I deep set in the heart of any friend, man or woman, in the world? Whatever happens to me, does it matter to anyone save myself? No, no, and therefore I am going to Barhanger. I would go to Barhanger if it cost me pain for the rest of my life....
At the junction station midway between Chelmsford and Colchester she got out. On the opposite platform the train for Holleshont was waiting. Small and feeble it looked beside the great express, but there was an air of sturdy independence about it, and especially about its single track curving away over the hills into the dim distance. Catherine breathed the country air with avidity: she entered a compartment and leaned out of the window as the express rolled slowly out of the other platform. As it vanished into the north-east the station became full of broken silences and staccato sounds. Glorious! she murmured, as the sun warmed her cheeks and the wind wafted to her the scent of pansies growing on the embankment near by. And then suddenly, as if it had a fit of divine inspiration, the train moved off....
Over the dim hills, stopping at tiny halts, with waiting-rooms and booking halls fashioned out of wheelless railway carriages, up steep slopes where the grass grew long between the rails, curving into occasional loops, and pausing sometimes like a hard-worked animal taking breath. And then, from the top of a hill, the miles drooped gently into the bosom of the estuary: the tide was out and the mud shone golden in the sun. Yachts were lying stranded off the fair-way, and threading the broad belt of mud the river ran like a curve of molten gold. There were clusters of houses here and there on either bank, and a church with a candle-snuffer tower, and stretches of brown shingle.... And the train went gathering speed as it broke over the summit....
At Holleshont the estuary was no longer in view, but the sea-smell was fresh in the air. “Barhanger?” she said to a man with a pony and trap who was waiting outside the station. He nodded, and helped her to a seat beside him. He was buxom and red-faced and jolly. If he had been younger, it would have been rather romantic to go driving with him thus along the lonely country lanes. But he was taciturn, and stopped once to pluck from the side of the hedge a long grass to suck. At times he broke into humming, but it was a tune Catherine did not recognize. After half an hour’s riding they came upon a dishevelled country lane, which on turning a corner became immediately the main street of a village. They passed a church and a public-house, a post-office, a pump, and then another public-house. At this last the driver pulled his horse to a standstill and indicated to Catherine that she should descend. “Barhanger,” he muttered explanatorily. Seeing her uncertainty, he questioned her. “Lookin’ f’ranywhere partic’ler, miss?”
She replied with a momentary impulse: “Seahill.”
He pointed in a southerly direction.
And now she was walking straight to “Seahill.” ...
The road narrowed into an ill-defined pathway and climbed abruptly on to the top of the sea-wall. A long arm of the great shining estuary lay stretched at her feet, and dotted about it were scores of mud-banks overgrown with reeds and sea-lavender. The grasses rose high as her knees, and she pushed through them and against the wind till her cheeks were flushed with exertion. At the mouth of the creek the estuary rolled infinitely in either direction, and miles and miles of brown-black mud were hissing in the sunlight. “Glorious!” she cried, and flung back her head proudly to meet the wind that swept the corner of the creek. She turned to the right and walked on swiftly. Behind her, looking quite near, but really a good distance away, the village of Barhanger slept drowsily in the afternoon heat: ahead the sea-wall swelled and rolled into great meaningless curves. Not a human being besides herself occupied the landscape. The mud hissed and cracked, and the grasshoppers chattered and the wind shook the long grasses into waving tumult. And over on the mudbanks the sea-gulls gathered and rose and called shrilly, and swooped down again to rest....
At one point the land rose slightly inland from the sea-wall, and perched on the crest of the low hill there stood an old-fashioned red-bricked house with a litter of sheds and stabling around it. Something told her that this was “Seahill.” A pathway wound upwards through the long meadow-grass: the pale green streak over the darker green told her that this was a method of approach used sometimes, but not frequently. And there were ditches to cross—ditches banked with mud, which at high tide must have been brimming with salt water....