I
That autumn the Crossbys went up to Scotland, and Stephen went to Cornwall with her mother. Anna was not well, she needed a change, and the doctor had told them of Watergate Bay, that was why they had gone to Cornwall. To Stephen it mattered very little where she went, since she was not allowed to join Angela in Scotland. Angela had put her foot down quite firmly: “No, my dear, it wouldn’t do. I know Ralph would make hell. I can’t let you follow us up to Scotland.” So that there, perforce, the matter had ended.
And now Stephen could sit and gloom over her trouble while Anna read placidly, asking no questions. She seldom worried her daughter with questions, seldom even evinced any interest in her letters.
From time to time Puddle would write from Morton, and then Anna would say, recognizing the writing: “Is everything all right?”
And Stephen would answer: “Yes, Mother, Puddle says everything’s all right.” As indeed it was—at Morton.
But from Scotland news seemed to come very slowly. Stephen’s letters would quite often go unanswered; and what answers she received were unsatisfactory, for Angela’s caution was a very strict censor. Stephen herself must write with great care, she discovered, in order to pacify that censor.
Twice daily she visited the hotel porter, a kind, red-faced man with a sympathy for lovers.
“Any letters for me?” she would ask, trying hard to appear rather bored at the mere thought of letters.
“No, miss.”
“There’s another post in at seven?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Well—thank you.”
She would wander away, leaving the porter to think to himself: “She don’t look like a girl as would have a young man, but you never can tell. Anyhow she seems anxious—I do hope it’s all right for the poor young lady.” He grew to take a real interest in Stephen, and would sometimes talk to his wife about her: “Have you noticed her, Alice? A queer-looking girl, very tall, wears a collar and tie—you know, mannish. And she seems just to change her suit of an evening—puts on a dark one—never wears evening dress. The mother’s still a beautiful woman; but the girl—I dunno, there’s something about her—anyhow I’m surprised she’s got a young man; though she must have, the way she watches the posts, I sometimes feel sorry for her.”
But her calls at his office were not always fruitless: “Any letters for me?”
“Yes, miss, there’s just one.”
He would look at her with a paternal expression, glad enough to think that her young man had written; and Stephen, divining his thoughts from his face, would feel embarrassed and angry. Snatching her letter she would hurry to the beach, where the rocks provided a merciful shelter, and where no one seemed likely to look paternal, unless it should be an occasional seagull.
But as she read, her heart would feel empty; something sharp like a physical pain would go through her: “Dear Stephen. I’m sorry I’ve not written before, but Ralph and I have been fearfully busy. We’re having a positive social orgy up here, I’m so glad he took this large shoot. …” That was the sort of thing Angela wrote these days—perhaps because of her caution.
However, one morning an unusually long letter arrived, telling all about Angela’s doings: “By the way, we’ve met the Antrim boy, Roger. He’s been staying with some people that Ralph knows quite well, the Peacocks, they’ve got a wonderful old castle; I think I must have told you about them.” Here followed an elaborate description of the castle, together with the ancestral tree of the Peacocks. Then: “Roger has talked quite a lot about you; he says he used to tease you when you were children. He says that you wanted to fight him one day—that made me laugh awfully, it’s so like you, Stephen! He’s a good-looking person and rather a nice one. He tells me that his regiment’s stationed at Worcester, so I’ve asked him to come over to The Grange when he likes. It must be pretty dreary, I imagine, in Worcester. …”
Stephen finished the letter and sat staring at the sea for a moment, after which she got up abruptly. Slipping the letter into her pocket she buttoned her jacket; she was feeling cold. What she needed was a walk, a really long walk. She set out briskly in the direction of Newquay.