Miss Carthew remained ill for two or three days; so Michael and Alan were able to display themselves and their sweethearts all the length of the promenade. They took to noticing the cut of a coat as it went by and envied the pockets of the youths they met; they envied, too, the collars that surrounded the adolescent neck, and wished the time had come for them to wear “chokers.” Sometimes, before they undressed, they would try to pin round their necks stiff sheets of notepaper in order to gauge, however slightly, the effect of high collars on their appearance.
The weather was now steadily fine and hot, and Michael begged Miss Carthew to let him and Alan buy two blazers and cricket belts. Somewhat to his surprise, she made no objection, and presently Michael and Alan appeared upon the front in white trousers, blue and yellow blazers and cherry-coloured silk belts fastened in front by a convenient metal snake. Dora thought they looked “all right,” and, as Miss Carthew had succumbed again to her headache, Michael and Alan were free to swagger up and down on the melting asphalt of the promenade. Miss Carthew grew no better, and one day she told the boys that Nancy was coming down to look after them. Michael did not know whether he were really glad or not, because, fond as he was of Nancy, he was deeply in love with Dora and he had a feeling that Nancy would interfere with the intrigues. In the end, as it happened, Nancy arrived by some mistake on the day before she was expected and, setting forth to look for the boys, she walked straight into them arm in arm with Dora and Winnie. Michael was very much upset, and told the girls to scoot, a command which they obeyed by rushing across the road, giggling loudly, standing on the opposite curb and continuing to giggle.
“Hullo!” said Nancy, “who are your young friends in blue cashmere?”
Michael blushed and said quickly they were friends of Alan, but Alan would not accept the responsibility.
“Well, I don’t admire your taste,” said Nancy contemptuously. “No, and I don’t admire your getup,” she went on. “Did you pick those canes up on the beach, what?”
“We bought them,” said Michael, rather affronted.
“My goodness,” said Nancy. “What dreadful-looking things. I say, Michael, you’re in a fair way towards looking like a thorough young bounder. Don’t you come to Cobble Place with that button on your hat. Well, don’t let me disturb you. Cut off to the Camera Obscura with Gertie and Evangeline. I don’t expect I’m smart enough for you two.”
“We don’t particularly want to go with those girls,” said Michael, looking down at his boots, very red and biting his underlip. Alan was blushing too and greatly abashed.
“Well,” said the relentless Nancy, “it’s a pity you don’t black your faces, for I never saw two people look more like nigger minstrels. Where did you get that tie? No wonder my sister feels bad. That belt of yours, Michael, would give a South Sea Islander a headache. Go on, hurry off like good little boys,” she jeered. “Flossie and Cissie are waiting for you.”
Michael could not help admitting, as he suffered this persiflage from Nancy, that Dora and Winnie did look rather common, and he wished they would not stand, almost within earshot, giggling and prodding each other. Then suddenly Michael began to hate Dora and the quadruple intrigue was broken up.
“I say, Alan,” he said, looking up again, “let’s bung these sticks into the sea. They’re rotten sticks.”
Alan at once threw his as far as it would go and betted Michael he would not beat the distance. So Michael’s stick followed its companion into oblivion. Nancy was great sport, after all, as both boys admitted, and when Michael grazed his finger very slightly on a barnacled rock, he bandaged it up with his silk tie. Very soon he discovered the cut was not at all serious, but he announced the tie was spoilt and dipped it casually into a rock pool, where it floated blatantly among the anemones and rose-plumed seaweed. Alan’s tie vanished less obtrusively: no one noticed when or where. As for the buttons inscribed with mottoes they became insignificant units in the millions of pebbles on the beach.
Nancy was great sport and ready to do whatever the boys suggested in the way of rock-climbing and walking, provided they would give her due notice, so that she could get into a hockey skirt and thick shoes. They had fine blowy days with Nancy up on Beachy Head above the sparkling blue water. They caught many blue butterflies, but never the famous Mazarin blue which legend in the butterfly-book said had once been taken near Eastbourne.
Michael and Alan, even in the dark privacy of their room, did not speak again of Dora and Winnie. Michael had an idea that Alan had always been ashamed of the business, and felt mean when he thought how he had openly told Nancy that they were his friends. Once or twice, when Michael was lying on his back, staring up at the sky over Beachy Head, the wind lisping round him sadly made him feel sentimental, but sentimental in a dominion where Dora and Winnie were unknown, where they would have been regarded as unpleasant intruders. Up here in the daisy’s eye, the two little girls in blue seemed tawdry and took their place in the atmosphere of Michael’s earlier childhood with Mrs. Frith’s tales and Annie’s love-letters. For Michael the whole affair now seemed like the half-remembered dreams which, however pleasant at the time, repelled him in the recollection of them. Moreover, he had experienced a sense of inequality in his passion for Dora. He gave all: she returned nothing. Looking back at her now under the sailing clouds, he thought her
