III
The boy and girl shared everything in those two weeks—pain and bliss, the joy of early morning, the wistfulness of twilight and the first white star. Their money was in one purse; they spent it together, choosing things to eat and drink, or little gifts that would remind them when their hour was come. Over their young heads hung the shadow; they had the courage to outface it; to-morrow was yet distant, and when it dawned they would praise God for what had been, and could never be removed.... They knew all there was to know; and a strange pride thrilled them, a tenderness that neither had foreseen. Love was even greater than their dreams of it and their foreknowledge. The sea’s strength and the land’s strength had tested soul and body, had blessed these two with infinite renewals, an unassailable virginity.
From Rye and Winchelsea they had wandered to Hythe along that coastline, avoiding Dungeness, and pausing at Lydd, New Romney, and Dymchurch with its sands. Each morning they had bathed, and often at sunset; these old places fascinated them, and especially Mamie, who came from Lansing, in the State of Michigan.
“What a lot you know!” he said one day, amazed at her book learning.
“I’m going to be a school teacher,” she laughed back, “and besides, I like it. No, it’s not the history—the dates and things—that fascinates me; but I seem to have been here before,” she explained, adding: “Lots of us Americans feel that way about it—as though—as though——”
“You’d come from here?” he helped her.
“That’s right—as though we’d come from here. And perhaps we have,” she added gaily, finishing with “Our name’s Berridge, so we must have done.”
“I never look upon you as a foreigner,” said he; “at least, I haven’t since——” and he hesitated.
“Since?” she inquired.
“Since I first wanted to kiss you.”
“Do it again!”
Jimmy was quite prepared to take up the challenge, but she had fled. He caught her behind the plump Martello Tower where she was hiding, and did it again. After that they returned to firmer ground, sitting on the beach and looking out over the Channel.
“You must leave that old bank,” began Mamie; “it’s served its purpose.”
“It brought us together.”
“Yes, that’s just it. And now it’s brought us together——”
“We can drop it?” He had seen her point.
“I don’t want you to go on working for them,” she pursued; “I want you to work for us—for me.”
Jimmy nodded. “I’ve thought of that as well,” he answered.
“They give you a wretched salary, and when you’re an old Gazook and nobody wants you, they say, ‘Perhaps it’s time he got married,’ and put you in charge of a little office like that at Seacombe.”
“That’s it,” said Jimmy.
“Banking’s no good in this old country unless you’re somebody’s son, or rich on your own account. But I know what,” she added, brightening.
Jimmy sat up.
“You must get into some regular article like woollens or cottons or manufactured things—a good salesman’s always got a chance.”
“D’you know, I’ve thought of that as well?” cried young Baker. “My brother Tom travels with wholesale groceries, and he’s doing well.”
“If you haven’t got money, you’ve got to make business, and then the firm’s bound to pay you—it can’t help itself. My old uncle was always saying that.”
And so it was resolved that, when Mamie went back to America, Jim should quit the bank and get hold of a “regular article.” Only that way could they two come together again, unless they wished to wait till he had become the “old Gazook” of Mamie’s prophecy.
“Through narrow lanes they strolled, and thence upward to purple heather and the misty hills” (page 142).