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THE FIRST NOVEL LIBRARY X

Chapter I

OFTEN the road to heaven on earth—which some call happiness, and some mirage—is a tangled pathway, broadening slowly as it winds along, till at last the haven is in sight. But now and again, there is no road at all. One step out of the thicket, and there are the white walls and golden turrets, so near that they dazzle you.

So it was for Sally Wraith. She came out that June morning on to the Salter’s Ridge golf-course, expecting simply to give a message to a friend of Miss Landison’s. And that morning she first met Averil.

The girl was sitting cross-legged on the turf with ther back to a late flowering gorse bush, looking out over the green and gold ravine scored slopes of the most beautiful course in England. Approaching her from the side, Sally noticed how still she sat, the stillness of strength in repose, not of lassitude. Her head was tilted slightly backwards to meet the wind, so that a pennant of thick, dark bobbed hair swung out from it. Then she turned, and her eyes were green and grey and violet, like patches of deep, cloud mirroring sea, with a little light shining from far down.

“ Remarkable eyes,’ Miss Landison had said, describing her. To Sally the most remarkable thing ce) SURPLUS about them was that you saw at once they would never flinch, never betray you, even if you betrayed them.

The owner of the eyes acknowledged that she was Miss Kennion, with a smile so swift that it was gone before you could see whether they danced with it or not. Her square-tipped, deeply browned fingers had a grip that was startling in its strength.

‘“T’m to tell you, from Miss Landison, that she’s expecting you and your uncle to lunch any time,” said Sally. ‘‘ He’s not to hurry through his round.”

“ Right,” said the girl. She had a soft, lowpitched Irish voice like the ringing of a muffled bell, but did not seem anxious to use it. She just stood there, looking up at Sally, while a bumble-bee explored the gorse behind her, and a gate clanged from the club-house down below.

“As you're not playing yourself, d’you mind if I wait with you? It seems a shame to go back indoors, on a day like this.”

It was the best excuse that Sally could think of, and it drew another fleeting smile from Miss Kennion.

“I do play,” she volunteered, ‘“‘ whenever I can get over. But uncle’s got a match on this morning.”

She was obviously as happy sitting there alone, listening to a bumble-bee, as she would have been playing golf, or nursing a sick child, or leading a forlorn hope on the field of battle. And in all those things she would find an interest, a fascination, that nobody else could find.

“ You live out at Hinstead, don’t you? It must be pretty dull out there.”

The conversation might as well have been about the weather and the crops, thought Sally. But it was impossible to say to a perfect stranger, without any notice, ‘‘I believe you’re the person I’ve been looking for all these long, dreary years, till I’d given up hope—only I find you're a girl, instead of a man.”

The girl was saying :

“It’s not at all bad. I’m only just beginning to get used to it, though, after the war.”

“Miss Landison told me you were a M.T. driver, that’s why she thought we’d like to meet each other. I was one, too,” said Sally. ;

“Were you? How splendid! What were you— cyclist or cars? Oh, both, so was I. It’s ages since I met one of the old crowd.”

The brown face, with its slightly broad cheek bones and brows that very nearly met, was alight with interest now.

“Where were you stationed—Longthorpe? I was at the Central Flying School. No wonder we never came across each other. Those days seem a long time ago, don’t they ?”’

“T wish—just from my own particular point of view, I wish they were back again.”

Having said it, Sally held her breath. Would this dream girl protest, like everybody else, ‘‘ How can you! Abominably selfish—think of the suffering——”’

But she only nodded.

“One had one’s definite job to do then, and one went ahead and did it. Now—it’s not so easy to break free again.”

“ Break free ’’—it was the cry of Sally’s heart. And on that June morning, at the disgraceful age of twenty-six and a bit, her career was still a thing of the future,

There was very little excuse. Her education had been well started—that was before her mother, so indifferent about most things but so determined on this one point, had decided that the battle of life was not worth fighting any longer, and surrendered to an ordinary chill. It had been finished at Sally’s own discretion, and that was just too early.

Those had been the days when teaching and clerking had been still the only professions, barring domestic ones, that suggested themselves for women. And Sally did not want to teach. She saw that teachers were what she called narrow—they played about in a little world of their own, with its small triumphs, excitements, jealousies, while Sally wanted nothing less than the whole big world to play about in. She was quite ready to admit that they were doing a great work for the coming generations, but unfortunately she could not summon up much interest in coming generations. She was perfectly ready to oblige them by discovering a new continent or a star, painting a masterpiece, occupying the throne of a savage kingdom—anything spectacular, and preferably out of doors. But when it came to sitting cramped over a desk, day in and day out, delving a living out of little musty manuals or ledgers, the prospect was too much for Sally.

Her father, wrapped up in the school progress of her only brother Ronald, and in the lowering of his own handicap at golf, had been content to leave it at that.

“ She'll always be able to make a living somehow, if she doesn’t marry,” he argued. ‘“‘ She’s got more sense than one would think under that dreamy manner of hers. Bit queer tempered, like her poor mother, of course. The only thing to do with women like that is to leave ’em alone.”

This course, therefore, he pursued. And Sally left school, just before taking her degree—because it seemed to lead nowhere, except to teaching—and tried Society, of which there was a good deal in Leamingham, of the anxiously non-surburban, Anglo- Indian type. And here, also, she just missed being a success,

Women mostly liked her, because she listened with an obviously genuine interest to their love affairs and sentimental adventures. They would have been surprised to learn that her interest sprang chiefly from a desire to find out why it was that the men they thrilled over seemed to her so extraordinarily commonplace, so unworthy of the girls. Then, when she knew the girls a little better— this was after she had been chief confidante of several in succession—she marvelled that there could be a thrill on either side. Sally acquired a reputation for fickleness, about that period, which did nothing to enhance her popularity.

Sally could not help seeing the flaws in other people of both sexes, and her manner, despite her best endeavours, showed plainly that she saw them. She might try to cover her real opinions with a smiling mask, but the scorn would still be there in the curl of her lips, or the hurt and disappointment in the droop of them—the anger in her hard, unsmiling eyes would still look out from the holes in the mask. She had, as a photographer once told her, a “‘terribly changeable face.” He might have added that it was a dastardly betrayer:

It followed that her experiences with young men were equally unsatisfactory. They were scarce and precious articles in pre-war Leamingham, and she realised at once that success at any social function depended on the acquisition of a faithful escort— exchangeable, of course, but not too frequently— with whom to pair off. Sally therefore did her best to attract one to herself, selecting the best dancer or the best tennis player or the owner of the fastest car she could find, who seemed at the moment to be unappropriated. To this end she endeavoured to suit her step to theirs, to improve her tennis up to their standard, and generally to show how much she appreciated their action whenever they asked her for a dance or a game.

And the males reacted to this expression of her preference, each according to his nature, but not one of them suspected that it might be simply what it seemed—a desire to dance, and to be seen dancing, with the best dancer in the room. Instead, the ones who admired her style—the slim figure, and the wistful appeal in the eyes—went straight ahead with the affair according to custom. And these, finding she had a perverse and ridiculous objection to being kissed, insisted on talking ‘‘shop’’ instead of sweetnesses, and—worst sin of all—gave them whichever dance they asked for, instead of searching through an overcrowded programme to see if she could manage to spare one, soon deserted her for more elusive and provocative partners.

While the cautious ones, who took themselves seriously, believed she was out to chase them into the matrimonial corral, and withdrew with all speed from the neighbourhood of danger.

To the latter class there were a few exceptions. _ Two of them, both ineligible at the time, but with the hope of having only a year or two to wait, to offer _her—actually got so far as to propose to her. This was after she had found out that it was essential to allow one’s partner-in-chief other liberties, besides the privilege of one’s society, if one wanted to keep him long enough to be any good. Had discovered, on trying it, that a kiss or two was a mighty pleasant adjunct to an evening’s entertainment, and had omitted to pretend otherwise. Which development merely resulted in a fresh access of panic, among the frivolously inclined and the serious minded alike. She was the sort of girl, one of them remarked, that you couldn’t play about with—if you didn’t want to get engaged to her, you’d do better to leave her alone. (Poor Sally—who, even when she wanted to be a flirt, was not allowed to be !)

And the two who really wanted to marry her were saddened and annoyed beyond measure, when she explained that she had never had the least intention of going beyond the kissing stage. It may be gathered that Sally’s methods of refusing an offer were only moderately successful, like the rest of her Society campaign,

As a matter of fact, marriage was not outside her scheme of desirable possibilities at that period, but it depended on the apparition in the flesh of a vague being at the back of her mind, a kind of story-tale fairy prince, not in the least like any of the men she knew.

The war came just as she had discovered that life at home, waiting for this mythical gentleman to materialise, was the littlest and dullest thing imaginable. The war—was not that hydra-headed monster kind to the women whose hearts it did not devour, a foster-mother to ambitions, a nurse of dreams ?

Sally turned straight to the open air, and became a M.T. driver. Life became full of swift motion, discomfort and glory—she was wanted, then, by everybody. The very shop assistants served her first, at sight of her uniform. That is, until they got used to it.

There was no going alone among strangers, either, because another Leamingham girl went through it all with her. Not a great friend—Sally had none— but someone to pair off with, as the others did. Because this Cecily Winter did not want to go out to France, Sally did not apply to be sent there. There were times when she regretted it—it was the top, the apotheosis of service—but she preferred to stay among the rank and file in England, if by so doing she could be certain of always finding a familiar face in the drivers’ quarters.

When peace came Cecily, wise in her generation, married a youth she would have scorned in the old society days, a temporary captain. Sally, then twenty-five, had decided—with a loophole, still, for miracles—that she was not a marrying woman. Apparently affection of any sort was to be rather a minus quantity in her life, for she had given up pretending that there was, or ever could be, anything but a state of irritated tolerance between her family and herself. Which state of affairs left an aching void that could only be filled by work and independence.

But she quickly discovered that it was one thing to spell these desirable conditions with a capital letter, and another thing to attain them. For the world oyster had closed itself again to such as her. Nobody wanted the girl of all round intelligence, unless she was specially trained—preferably as teacher or domestic worker. It seemed the posts open to women were the same, after all, as when she had left school, except that the applicants had to have all sorts of degrees and qualifications. Those who escaped from the rut were the shining exceptions. Indeed the old order had merely turned over in its sleep and was the same fat beast seen from another angle.

So Sally tried in vain to get employment as a chauffeuse—she might as well have tried to gain the throne of a cannibal island. And her father, taking fright at a greatly diminished income, with a son who was still an expensive item, bethought himself that she had all the qualifications for a lady’s companion. He even found a suitable elderly dame who would take her.

And Sally refused, saying that he had forgotten one qualification, essential for companioning, that she did not possess—a cheerful, even temper. The while she inwardly cursed herself for a good-tor-nothing failure. Had she not already failed, by a neck, to put the crown of a degree on her scholastic achievements, failed to find a husband, failed to do anything special in the Great War? And now she was failing to find work, and no excuses could take away the bitterness from that.

Not being a thought reader, Colonel Wraith complained that his daughter’s education had been wasted, that she was a fraud, refusing posts for inadequate reasons, because she did not really want one at all. And the more hotly Sally repudiated that suggestion, the more she suspected that there was an uncomfortable amount of truth in it. Each advertisement answered in vain gave her a guilty moment of relief.

She was mentally alone in her father’s house, but at least he was used to her. Strangers, especially strange employers, had to be placated, superficially deferred to, while one’s real self hid behind an indifferent, defensive mask. And that Sally had never yet been able to achieve. It may have been a contradiction in terms, but it was a fact that she wanted desperately to be independent, yet feared to do it alone.

Matters were thus when the invitation had arrived from Miss Landison, who had been a girlhood friend of Sally’s mother.

“Years ago your mother wanted me to ask you, but I’ve waited, knowing how boring an invalid is for the very young. I warn you I don't go out at all, and know no one. But the house is full of books ; if you’re like her at all, that will encourage you.”

So Sally had arrived at the round “ Turret House,” clinging to the edge of the forest behind a flaky, grey stone wall. And here, on the very first day, was this Averil, who knew how hard it was to break away. But did she also know what it was to be afraid of doing it alone?

“ Are you trying for a job, too ? ” Sally asked her.

“T’ve got one. At least, I’m a miniature painter of sorts, and I’ve started a correspondence course in poster designing. But it’s difficult to work properly at home. Mother can’t help interrupting, and if there’s a tea fight within miles, she drags me to it.”

Averil said it with a smile, but Sally cried,

“So you hate that sort of thing, too!’”’ And she went on, before she could stop herself, ‘‘ You’ll think I’m mad, seeing we’ve only just met, but is there any chance you’d come away with me, if I can get any kind of work, and let’s share rooms ? ”

Then she remembered, and apologised for forgetting, that this girl must have any amount of friends with whom she could have gone off long ago, if she wanted to. But fate was kind, and the dream girl shook her head. All her old friends were married or abroad, she said. But—her mother didn’t like being left, with her father out in Siam, where she wouldn’t join him because she hated the climate.

“ But you must be about as old as I am—it isn’t fair! Can’t you just insist, run away?”

“Tm afraid not,” she said. ‘“ But I could think itOver.”

Sally could see it was no use pressing her further just then, but there was hope enough to set her heart singing. It was some good having impossible ideals, then, waiting for dreams to come true and refusing substitutes !

Chapter II

Six weeks later, they were settled in two rooms in Farthing Lane, which maintained an attitude of aloofness (being a no-thoroughfare) in the blustering region, between Euston and St. Pancras. And this result was owing almost entirely to the efforts of Miss Landison.

A singular woman, this Miss Landison. Sally could not quite decide whether she liked her or not, and had no time to give the question the consideration it seemed to need. Her age might have been anything from forty to fifty-five, but was probably somewhere near the latter figure. Her hair looked as if the dark grey streaks had always been there. She did it in a plain knot, which accentuated the classical lines of her nose and her high cheekbones. Not an ascetic’s face, though—rather the face of a child of the soil, with wind roughened complexion, a little sallow now from enforced indoor life. Her eyes were her most striking and incongruous feature, and they were brilliantly dark, far seeing, untroubled eyes—those of a sybil, who has no part or lot in the lives of common mortals, yet can be sorry for them, and laugh at them, and love them a little.

Apparently she had been an invalid ever since her coming, ten years ago, to Salter’s Ridge.

It was no more than the truth that she had few acquaintances in the place. Originally, she had brought no introductions, and it was hardly to be expected that the residents should be in a hurry to call upon her. Moreover, she could not for obvious reasons play golf or hunt, and she did not play bridge—which was sheer obstinacy on her part, as the few whose kind hearts and curiosity had led them to her door agreed. She refused, also, to talk about her symptoms. Said she had come to Salter’s Ridge ‘“‘ for the air ’’—no word as to why she had come alone, mark you !—and appeared quite satisfied with an existence that was bounded by books and a couple of Airedales.

The Salter’s Ridge ladies had every sympathy for her canine tastes, but none for her literary ones. As one cannot sustain intercourse upon the vagaries of dogs and the weather alone, and as none of the callers were pressed to call again, the mistress of “Turrets ’’ was soon left entirely to her own devices.

These included the holding of weekly “ book teas” for the people who merely lived in Salter’s Ridge, and were not numbered among the residents. The girls from the little shops in the High Street, the butcher’s boy and the carpenter’s young man— these, with the servants from the big houses, were welcomed every Saturday afternoon at the “ Turrets.” Miss Landison let them choose their own books from her collection, and each person present had to take their turn in reading aloud. She gave them a plain tea, but her advice, which was given only to those who sought it, was found to be worth more than many sugared cakes.

Later, when war had brought the inevitable shifting of population, she became more of a recluse than ever. The post-war residents had become birds of passage; in the summers they let their houses to wealthy business folk who could afford to pay for their entry into such an exclusive little sporting fraternity as Salter’s Ridge. Meanwhile, the members of this fraternity had themselves migrated to inexpensive rooms in Eastbourne or a pension in Dieppe, leaving the golf club to the visitors. A state of affairs which was reponsible for not a few heart burnings, in spite of the fact that the prize list for the monthly competitions now included diamond necklaces, where formerly it had not risen above a paltry silver spoon or two.

At the time of Sally’s visit, Miss Landison spent most of the long days in her garden, with its high grey wall on the road side, and on the other a sloping lawn, merging by imperceptible degrees into the forest. Once there had been a hedge to mark the boundary, but she had pulled it down. She said she did not mind the forest coming into her garden, and she supposed that its absentee owner would not object to her garden encroaching on the forest in return. So a few bold daffodils had pushed over the line, and the forest had sent an advance guard of larch saplings. There was a carpet of pine needles all across the lower half of the lawn, that summer, sending up a wave of bitter sweetness into the still, dry air.

Here, on the evening after the Kennions’ departure, Sally sat by the invalid’s couch and talked about Averil. And Miss Landison listened, her eyes searching the other’s eager face. Then she said, “ An attractive girl, very. Her uncle mentioned to-day that she used to be a regular breaker of hearts, before they moved to Hinstead. He said he couldn’t think why she hadn’t married yet.”

“Oh, men—” repeated Sally slowly.

Somehow, she had not once thought of “that sort of thing” in connection with the dream girl. Remembering those steadfast eyes, the wiry brown hands, the diffident brevity of her speech, it was impossible to picture her a deliberate scalp hunter, luring men on, playing hot and cold, all the bag of super-feminine tricks. As impossible as it was to imagine her being catty to another woman. One saw that she had other and more important aims than the subjugation of the male.

“T don’t think there’s any sentimental stuff about pr,” declared Sally. ‘‘ It’s her career she’s keen on.”

Miss Landison did not say ‘“‘ You seem to know a lot about her, considering you’ve only seen her once,”’ which was the kind of fatuity any ordinary person would have achieved. Instead, “ You may be right. Ill do anything I can to help you both. It is the kind of thing I should have liked to do myself, if I’d been fit.” :

Sally would have liked to ask how it came about that Miss Landison was not fit—nobody had told her—and to say how sorry she was. But the invalid’s expression did not invite sympathy ; she seemed to want nothing from other people. All one could do was to take gratefully what she gave, as Sally now took her playing of the part of audience.

It proved impossible to hurry Averil, though the sole obstacle to her immediate departure from home appeared to be her mother. Though the elder woman apparently did her best, by adopting a helpless pose, to thwart and hamper her daughter’s career, there was between them the tie of a strong family affection that was incomprehensible, as such, to Sally. She could understand loving a mother because she was a lovable human being—because she was herself. But when it came to loving her simply because she was your mother—really caring, not only in public—the thing was a mystery to Sally.

“ She'll feel it much more now,” said Averil,

“than she would have directly after the war, when she’d got used to my being away. It’s the idea of my going that she hates.”

There was, it appeared, an aunt who would gladly live with her if it were simply a question of loneliness. But the aunt insisted on late dinners, and Mrs. Kennion liked them in the middle of the day.

“ Absurd!” thought Sally.

But she exulted that Averil had a tender heart under that cold manner of hers; though outsiders wouldn’t know it, which made the discovery correspondingly valuable. Also that Averil, as she had already found out, could beat her at every kind of game and was a perfect motor driver. Surely it could not be possible that such a wonder would ever throw in her lot with a semi-failure? Yet all the time she felt that it was pre-ordained.

“You must come,” she said. ‘‘ We haven’t met like this, by accident, for nothing. We want exactly the same kind of life—success, and a home of our own. I’ve got fifty pounds that mother left me, we can live on that till I find work.”

“T’ve a small allowance from father, as far as that goes,” said Averil. “‘ But—there’s mother to be thought of.” ;

But Miss Landison had said she would help, and one scorching July day a letter came from London. The writer, to whom she had appealed, breaking the silence of years, knew of a small motor firm not long started, where a salesman-demonstrator was wanted. He had persuaded the proprietor to give Miss Wraith a trial, if she were willing to accept a sa salary, and a miscroscopic commission on sales.

“ Exactly what I wanted! ” cried Sally, who had never thought of such a thing before. ‘‘ Now, if only Averil will make up her mind—”

That day, Averil said she would go.

Back in Leamingham, the family took it just as Sally had expected. Colonel Wraith said :

“Good idea, so long as you take care of yourself,’ which was his formula for all occasions of departure.

Ronald, on vacation, remarked :

“Catch you sticking to this job, Sara! You'll never be on the spot in time—or else you'll crash their best Rolls. And anyway you'll fight with this Miss Kennion, girls always do.”

But nothing marred the perfection of the first day in town together. Hot grey streets took on another colour and scent when Averil was in them. London, instead of an inferno full of hurrying strangers with indifferent or hostile faces, became thronged with tube conductors who were only anxious to be helpful, with police who thought nothing of going a block out of their way to direct her, with men and women whose eyes met hers from the tops of ’buses, from pavements, from the reflections in shop windows—all with a friendly look in them, that said, ‘‘ You’re happy about something. We're glad you’re happy!”

In the matter of lodgings, Sally insisted obstinately on quiet situation and comfortable beds; she was a pernickety sleeper. It amazed, and then delighted © her to find that these details were a matter of perfect indifference to Averil.

“ As long as | can get a good light to paint in—” said Averil.

And Sally thought, remembering Miss Landison’s remarks, ‘‘ That shows how fearfully keen she is, Marriage, indeed !”

When finally they came to No. 17, Farthing Lane, there were only two available rooms, clean, but with windows looking over the street.

‘Look here, Sally, I’m tired of wandering about,” said Averil. ‘‘ You take the top room—that’ll be quiet—and I'll have a camp bed in the studio. I can sleep through any noise.”’

Mrs. Dunn, the landlady, began to talk, throwing out her sentences in great jets, like the tap from a full charged main. She explained that there never was no noise in that street, only milk carts in the mornings, and. the Tube underneath that you got so used to you missed it on Sundays, and sometimes the shunting over to St. Pancras—she had a cousin George who owned his own fish shop near St. Pancras, and you wouldn’t believe what a bad summer he’d had, he thought it was on account of ice being the price it was—

But Sally was thinking that Averil was unselfish, as well. Slowly, bit by bit, she was revealing herself, and so far she was up to the standard of the fairy prince in every way. If she had not looked so much alive, one would have expected her to vanish suddenly.

That evening Sally told a little of the truth, with Averil sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her, as if she belonged there and had never sat anywhere else. She could see the line where the cropped hair curled inwards on the nape of the brown neck.

“I don’t know what would have happened to me, if I hadn’t met you. Father and I had given up speaking to each other.”

“Why didn’t you go off on your own, and hunt for something ? ”