The Crowded Street

by Winifred Holtby

"Oh, it's damned funny, isn't it? I wonder that I don't laugh myself. You never thought at Marshington that your respected sister was anyone's mistress, did you? Only once, I tell you. I thought that he would marry me. I'd heard they would. I was fed up, and at least it was worth trying. It was that little fiend Alice who ruined me. Of course she liked him, but she kidded us that it was Ben she cared about. Ben. Ben! Come to think about it, we might ha' known that she was fooling us. Who'd care for Ben, with his great gawky body, Ben the big soft idiot! I ask you! That's my husband, Muriel. Good joke, isn't it? I swore to love, honour and obey that thing, because Alice told me Eric had married Cissie Bradfield and showed me a newspaper cutting, and I was green enough to believe her. Oh, she was clever. My God, she was clever. I'd just been home on leave, you know, that time we met Delia on Kingsport Station. I was happy then. I thought he cared. Then I came back here and Alice told me—showed me the cutting. He was just going to Mespot too. I wrote. He never answered." She stopped, choking.

"Never mind that now, Connie, dear," Muriel said timidly. "Come back with me. You'll get so wet."

Connie shook off her hand and went on speaking. It was as though, having decided to tell the truth at last, she could not stop.

"If I'd been cheap with one, I'd be cheap with all. There'd be no end to my cheapness. If Eric had had me and didn't want me, then Ben, who wanted me, should have me. Oh, I was wild, I didn't care. I didn't care what happened. Muriel, you don't know. You'd never been like that, stuck there in Marshington, longing to get away, every one round you getting married. It wasn't as if I hadn't tried other things. I wanted to chicken farm; I wanted to go away and do just anything. But Mother wouldn't let me. It was just men, men, men, and make a good match."

She shivered violently. The rain was now sweeping in great gusts along the valley. It splashed from the bare branches on to their heads. Slowly they began to walk along the path.

"Well—I didn't make a good match. Look at Godfrey Neale. When I was a kid I used to think him wonderful. Then Hugh McKissack. Mother made me think I liked him and that he would marry me. Look how he fooled us both. Then Eric came——"

Connie's voice mingled with the rushing of the river and the rustling rain among the trees. She lifted her head and spoke into the darkness, taking no heed of Muriel.

"He wasn't much of a fellow perhaps, in lots of ways, but he was a jolly sight better than lots of the men we used to meet. And I wanted so much to be married. He said his father wouldn't let him marry till he'd become a proper chartered accountant. He was still articled or something when I met him that night at the Kingsport dance. Hugh McKissack had just turned me down. Oh, I was desperate. I flirted with him. He said I was a sport. We—we got on. Oh, you won't understand. When I went to stay with Betty Taylor at York, I met him again. I went there so that I could meet him. Chase him? Who'd taught me to chase men? Of course I did. Don't all women? Hadn't mother? Then he said I didn't care for him. I wasn't going to show him at first, so he said 'Prove it.' I—you don't know. I thought he'd slip away just like the rest of them. I said I'd prove it. We went away to Scarshaven together for three days, before I went to Buxton to the Marshalls. You thought I was there, and nobody found out. I thought he'd marry me. If anything went wrong, he said he'd see me through. There was a time, just once, on Scarshaven station when he came to meet me, I thought I couldn't do it. Then he smiled. Oh, you—you—you don't know what it's like to love a man! I couldn't turn him down."

She stopped and clung to Muriel, who could only hold her tightly, murmuring silly words of comfort, neither shocked nor grieved, but gently pitiful. "Poor Connie. Oh, poor Connie!"

"Then the war came. He was sent up to Follerwick. I stuck it at home for a bit. I tried once to get through to see him, but I couldn't arrange it easily. I saw that if I stayed at home I never should get away without being found out. Then he told me about Thraile. The Todds were advertising for land-girls. I'd always liked outdoor things, and I was mad to come. You know the row we had at home. Then Mother heard that the Setons were doing land-work. How I blessed those girls. So she gave me her blessing too and off I went. Oh, but I was happy. You don't know. I'd never been happy like that before. He was at Follerwick and I at Thraile. We used to go for concerts and things, and I'd meet him and go off for long walks on the moors. We didn't do anything that you'd call bad. Somehow when it was so easy, we did not want to in the same way. We were like kids. We'd race up and down hill hand in hand. He'd come and sit sometimes on the old sheep trough when I was cleaning turnips and we'd talk. It was all as easy as the beasts and flowers and things. I dun'no. We were just great pals. We didn't talk of marriage or anything. That didn't matter. Then I came on leave." Her voice hardened. "When I got back that Alice told me he'd had to go off suddenly to Aldershot. He didn't write—or, if he did, she got hold of the letters. Possibly he didn't write. He wasn't the pen-scratching kind. Then the news of his wedding came, and the newspaper cutting.