§ 3
At the corner of the Bockley High Street her only feeling was one of nervous jubilation. The clock chimed the quarter. She remembered with a little thrill of ecstasy how on all other occasions at night when she had heard the clock chime a quarter past eleven she had been anxiously wondering what sort of a row there would be when she reached home. Now she was free. She was not returning home. She was leaving. She was free to go where she liked and do what she liked....
If it were summer time, she thought, I would walk to the Forest and sleep out under the stars....
But it was November.... She decided to travel up to the City and spend the night in one of the waiting-rooms at the big terminals. The next day she would look out for lodgings.... Money was a difficulty. In her pocket was a purse containing the residue of the week’s house-keeping money. It amounted to five and sevenpence half-penny. There were also a couple of penny stamps....
The ideal time for this enterprise would have been a Monday evening in June or July.
Still, she would have to make the best of it. With light step she passed along the wide expanse of the High Street in the direction of Bockley Station. As she went on little groups of returning revellers passed her by. Most of them had just come in by train from the City after an evening at the theatre. Some of them stared at her curiously as she hurried by. So did the policeman at the corner of the Station Road.
Outside the booking-office she met, of all people in the world, Helen Trant.... Since the episode between herself and George, Catherine had not seen much of Helen.
Catherine nodded casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be catching the 11.37 p.m. to the City.
“Where’re you off to?” said Helen.
“City,” replied Catherine, curtly.
“Whatever for at this time of night?”
“Oh ... business ... that’s all. ... Excuse me, I shall miss my train....”
“No, you won’t. You’ve eleven minutes to wait. Come here.”
There was a queer undefinable something in Helen’s voice that commanded and usually obtained implicit obedience. Catherine came.
“Well? ... What do you want?”
Helen put her arm in Catherine’s.
“It’s not my business,” she said, “but I should like you to tell me what’s been happening to you.”
“Happening? What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean ... Cathie!”
“Yes?”
“Something’s happened. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me.”
Catherine clicked her heels nonchalantly.
“Well, if you’re so keen, I don’t suppose there’s much harm in letting you know. I’ve run away from home.... That’s all....”
“Run away?”
“Yes, run away. Oh, for God’s sake, don’t look so surprised. I suppose it isn’t respectable to run away, is it?”
“Don’t be silly.... What were you going to the City for?”
“To get a shake-down in a railway waiting-room.”
“I see.... Well, you needn’t do that. You can come home with me for to-night.”
“Really, Helen, I can’t. It’s awfully good of you, but——”
“You must.”
“But your mother——”
“Mother and father are away for the week-end.”
“Really, I’d much rather not.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got to. You can easily sleep with me. We’ll talk the whole question over to-night before going to sleep. You can’t do a big thing like this all on your own.”
“That’s just what I can. I’m going to, anyway....”
“Well, you’re coming home with me to-night, anyway....”
“If you insist——”
“I do.”
A man came striding up the stairs three at a time from the platform. It was George Trant.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The luggage-office was shut, and I had to waken somebody up....” Then he saw Catherine. “... Er ... I say ... I didn’t see you, Miss Weston! Or shall I call you Catherine, as I used? And how are you? I haven’t heard of you for ages.”
He held out his hand, but Catherine made no movement.
“I’m quite well,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I can’t stop here talking; I’ve a train to catch. Good-night!”
“Cathie!” cried Helen, but Catherine was too far down the steps to be recalled. Helen followed her on to the platform and overtook her near to the further end.
“You’re coming back, Cathie. Don’t be silly.... You must ...”
Catherine held herself passionately erect. The signal lights winked from red to green.
“It’s no good your trying to persuade me, Helen.... I’m not coming. I wouldn’t enter the same house with that man.... No, no, no, no, I’m not coming.”
The train came in to the platform.
“Cathie!”
“No, no! ... I’m not coming, I tell you....” She opened the door of a third-class compartment and entered.
“You’ll wish you hadn’t done this, Cathie.”
“Never.”
The train slid away into the night and Helen was left standing on the platform. She had a swift impulse to jump into the tail-end of the now quickly-moving train and go with Cathie to the next station. But the train was moving too rapidly for her to attempt this manœuvre in safety. And behind her stood George a little bewildered (he had followed her slowly down the steps).
“What’s all the fuss about?” he queried suspiciously.
“Nothing,” replied Helen. Then, as they walked together along the platform, “You’ll have to tell the man we gave up our tickets before.”
As they hurried along the Bockley High Street the clock on the Carnegie library chimed the three-quarters....
At Liverpool Street, Catherine discovered that the waiting-room did not keep open throughout the night for the benefit of girls who have run away from home. There was a man at the door inspecting tickets. Catherine was struck by a brilliant notion. There is an all-night hourly service of trains from Liverpool Street to Bockley, the same train proceeding backwards and forwards. She went to the booking-office and purchased a return ticket to Bockley (sixpence). She had a good sixpennyworth, for the next five hours she spent in the corner seat of a third-class compartment. About two a.m. she fell asleep, and when she awoke the train was jerking to a standstill at Upton Rising. The clock said twenty minutes past six. Evidently the train had undergone a change while she had slept. All those dark hours it had paraded the inner suburbs, but now it had become a thing of greater consequence: it was the first early morning train to Chingford. At the tiny Forest town Catherine left it, paying excess fare on the journey from Bockley. Dawn came as she was tramping the muddy paths of Epping Forest. She had no idea where she was going. The main thing was to get the time over. About eight o’clock she returned to Chingford, purchased some notepaper and envelopes, and went into the post-office. On the desk provided for composing telegrams she wrote a letter accepting the situation of pianist at the Royal Cinema, Upton Rising. That done, and the letter stamped and posted, she felt calmer than she had been for some time. Then came hunger. She had a glass of milk (threepence) at a dairy and two of yesterday’s buns (a penny each) from a confectioner’s. Out of five and sevenpence half-penny and two penny stamps she had now left four shillings and a half-penny and one penny stamp, plus a third-class return half from Bockley to Liverpool Street.
She persisted in being joyous. This was to be an adventure, and she was to enter into the spirit of it. She took her buns to the top of Yardley Hill in order that she might imagine herself picnicking. She lay down on the damp grass eating, and told herself she was enjoying herself immensely. She admired the loveliness of the view with all the consciousness of a well-trained tourist. She refused to be melancholy. She discovered hundreds of excuses for feeling happy which would never have occurred to her if she had been feeling happy. As she was descending the hill after her meal it commenced to rain. She tried to see beauty in the rain. The grey sky and the sodden leaves, the squelch of her heels in the mud, the bare trees swathed in slanting rain, these, she decided, were infinitely preferable to Kitchener Road.... Nevertheless she would have to find lodgings.
She decided to seek them in Upton Rising.