The sun shone through the apple trees, making the small half-ripe apples look as though they were coated with enamel.
It was quite clear that if they did go away together, the four of them, she, Eve, Gerald and Harriett to Brighton or somewhere, they would be able to forget. You could tell that from the strange quiet easy tone of Harriett’s and Gerald’s voices. There would be the aquarium. She supposed they would go to the aquarium with its strange underground smell of stagnant sea air and stare into the depths of those strange green tanks and watch the fish flashing about like shadows or skimming by near the front of the tank with the light full on their softly tinted scales. Harriett sat steadily at her side on the overturned seed-box, middle-aged and responsible, quietly discussing the details of the plan with Gerald, cross-legged at their feet on the grass plot. They had not said anything about the reasons for going; but of course Gerald must know all that. He knew everything now, all about the money troubles, all the awful things, and it seemed to make no difference to him. He made light of it. It was humiliating to think that he had come just as things had reached their worst, the house going to be sold, Pater and mother and Sarah going into lodgings in September, and the maddening helpless worry about mother and all the money for that. And yet it was a good thing he had known them all in the old house and seen them there, even pretending to be prosperous. And yet the house and garden was nothing to him. Just a house and garden. Harriett’s house and garden, and he was going to take Harriett away. The house and garden did not matter.
She glanced at the sunlit fruit trees, the thickets of the familiar kitchen garden, the rising grass bank at the near end of the distant lawn, the eloquent back of the large red house. He could not see all the things there were there, all the long years, or know what it was to have that cut away and nothing ahead but Brighton aquarium with Harriett and Eve, and then the school again, and disgraceful lodgings in some strange place, no friends and everybody looking down on them. She met his eyes and they both smiled.
“Keep her perfectly quiet for the next few weeks, that’s the idea, and when it’s all over she’ll be better than she’s ever been in her life.”
“D’you think so?”
“I don’t think, I know she will; people always are. I’ve known scores of people have operations. It’s nothing nowadays. Ask Bennett.”
“Does he think she’ll be better?”
“Of course.”
“Did he say so?”
“Of course he did.”
“Well, I s’pose we’d really better go.”
“Of course, we’re going.”
“I’m going to look for a place in a family after next term. I shall give notice when I get back. You get more money in a family Eve says, and home life, and if you haven’t a home they’re only too glad to have you there in the holidays too.”
“You take my advice, my dear girl. Don’t go into a family. Eve’ll find it out before she’s much older.”
“I must have more money.”
“Mirry’s so silly. She insists on paying her share of Brighton. Isn’t she an owl?”
“Oh well, of course, if she’s going to make a point of spending her cash when she needn’t she’d better find a more paying job. That’s certain sure.”
VIII
“You know I’m funny. I never talk to young ladies.”
Miriam looked leisurely at the man walking at her side along the grass-covered cliff; his well-knit frame, his well-cut blue serge, the trimness of collar and tie, his faintly blunted regular features, clean ruddy skin and clear expressionless German blue eyes. Altogether he was rather like a German, with his red and white and gold and blue colouring and his small military moustache. She could imagine him snapping abruptly in a booming chest voice, “Mit Frauen spreche ich überhaupt nicht.” But he spoke slowly and languidly, he was an Englishman and somehow looked like a man who was accustomed to refined society. It was true he never spoke at the boardinghouse meals, excepting an occasional word with his friend, and he had been obliged to join their Sunday walk because his friend was so determined to come. Still he was not awkward or clumsy either at table or now. Only absolutely quiet, and then saying such a startling rather rude thing quite suddenly. One could stare at him to discover the reason of his funny speech, because evidently he was quite common, not a bounder but quite a common young man, speaking of women as “young ladies.” Then how on earth did he manage to look distinguished. Oppressed and ill at ease she turned away to the far-reaching green levels and listened to the sea tumbling heavily far below against the cliffs. Away ahead Eve and her little companion walking jauntily along, his tight dust-coloured curls exposed to the full sunlight, his cane swinging round as he talked and laughed, seemed to be turning inland towards the downs. They had seen Ovingdean in the distance, stupid Ovingdean that everybody had talked about at breakfast, and were finding the way. How utterly silly. They did not see how utterly silly it was to make up your mind to “go to Ovingdean” and then go to Ovingdean. How utterly silly everybody and everything was.
Eve looked very straight and slim and was walking happily, bending her head a little as she always
