§ 1
JUNE sunlight was scorching the tarred asphalt of the Ridgeway, and Catherine and Helen were sauntering homewards beneath the heavy trees. Their conversation savoured of “shop.”
“Two hours the last map took me,” said Catherine, indignantly, “and we’ve got another in less than a fortnight.... Rivers and mountains as well.... And it isn’t as if North America was easy, either ... there’s all those lakes....”
“I shan’t put in those islands at the top, anyway,” observed Helen.
“I shall leave mine till to-morrow morning,” continued Catherine. “That is, if I do it at all.... And I shall do it on typewriting paper so I can trace it.”
“She won’t take it if you do.”
“She’ll have to....”
At the corner of the Post Office the conversation took a personal turn.
“We’re having a social at the Baptist Church next Saturday. Will you come?” asked Helen (Helen attended a rather prosperous Baptist establishment in Upton Rising).
Catherine walked on for some moments before answering. She seemed to be weighing things up.
“I might,” she answered. Then, as an after-thought, she added: “I suppose you’ll all be there?”
“Oh yes. There’ll be me and father and mother and Millie, perhaps the Lester girls as well....”
“George?” Catherine’s voice rather overdid itself in the effort to appear casual. Helen looked at her keenly.
“Possibly,” she replied, in a voice that might have meant anything. There came a rather curious pause. They had reached the corner of the High Street before Helen spoke again.
“So that’s it, is it?” she remarked, as they crossed the tramway junction.
“That’s what?” said Catherine gruffly.
“That’s what’s been making you so ... so different—lately.... I’d been wondering what it was. I never guessed it was George.”
“How did you find out?”
“I didn’t find out. You just told me.”
Catherine turned down Hanson Street, the road immediately opposite the Ridgeway.
“Let’s go down here,” she suggested. “It’s quieter. I can see you’ve a lot to say to me.”
Helen took her arm.
“No, I haven’t.... I don’t know that I can say anything, really.... Only I think you’re silly.”
“Why?” The word rang out like a pistol-shot.
The reply did not come immediately. When it did it sounded limp and uncertain.
“Because ... because you’ll be disappointed in him.”
“What’s the matter with him, then?”
“Nothing much. He’s all right ... only ... he’ll disappoint you, one way or another. He’s not as clever as he seems. Besides——”
“Yes?”
“He doesn’t like you.”
“He doesn’t? Has he told you so?”
“Not in so many words. But I know. He may like you to flirt with, but he doesn’t like you. My advice is, if you’re getting serious, give up the flirting. With him, at any rate.... After all, you can always find plenty of chaps to flirt about with....”
(Her father had said “fellers.” She said “chaps”!)
“But I don’t want them, maybe.”
“Well, go without them, then.” (They were at the corner of Kitchener Road.) ... “I never thought much of flirting about as a pastime.”
It was a curiously elliptical conversation throughout, and at the gate of No. 24 they both seemed eager not to prolong it by standing. They said good-bye immediately, and both were conscious of electricity in the atmosphere.
That evening Catherine found herself unable to concentrate on homework. Mr. Weston was out at night-school, and she was thus left alone in the house. The nine o’clock rule was now virtually inoperative, since her father did not return till half-past ten on three nights out of the week. At about ten past nine Catherine put aside her books and went out for a walk. She had finished all her work excepting the map.
Cubitt Lane at this time on a glorious June evening was full of courting couples. They lurched along in a peculiarly graceless fashion, each leaning against the other.
“I wouldn’t do that,” thought Catherine, virtuously. “That is silly, if you like.”
At the bridge over the railway she heard a brisk “good evening” addressed to herself. She turned and saw it was George Trant....
“Where’re you off to?” he asked good-humouredly.
“Taking a walk.”
“So’m I.... Let’s go up the road....”
“All right.” ... They climbed the hill past the King’s Arms, and entered the Forest.