The Forgotten Story (19 page)

Patricia had promised to meet Ned Pawlyn after the case and spend the rest of the day with him. But when it was at last over she would gladly have made some excuse and gone straight home. Always, it seemed to her, when she became involved in the law her testimony had to be damaging to the people whose interests were closest to her own.

But Ned Pawlyn, whatever his private feelings, was waiting for her when they came out of the court-room, and in a few moments he had led her past the staring bystanders to where a closed landau was waiting.

They got in and drove off.

A long silence fell between them. The day was unusually warm and sunny for the time of year, with the temperature in the sixties. The month might have been August were it not for the angle of the sunshine slanting through the trees and casting the long shadows of houses across the dusty road.

At last Ned could contain himself no longer.

‘Bound over to keep the peace for twelve months,' he said explosively. ‘That's what comes of being tried local. And the law looks after them that's in the law. If it had been me that had been in the dock I should never have got off with less than twenty-eight days.'

Patricia leant back and looked out at the slow panorama of lane and tree and river.

‘It was my fault,' she said.

‘I don't care about myself,' he said; ‘but it seems to me it was a pity you had to come in as you did. I wondered why you went out of court with that Mr May. I don't know enough about those things to say whether they would have twisted things round to suit him in any case, or whether what you told made all the difference; but you know what they'll say about you now …'

‘No.'

‘About us, then. They'll say that you and me –'

‘I know, I know, I know! What does it matter?' she said suddenly, angrily. ‘ What does it matter what narrow-minded people say?' She was taut beside him. ‘I couldn't help it. I'm not good at conspiracies, especially if I benefit. I didn't want to get him off; but it wasn't fair for him to be judged on only one side of the story just because you're all too delicate to let me be involved. Don't you see?
I couldn't let that happen.
I'd have been under an obligation all my life. And an obligation to him. What happened was as much your fault as his – and – and quite as much mine as either. I'd got to tell the truth. Now it's all out and he's free and it's all over. Let‘s not talk about it. Forget it. Forget it.'

He saw that she was near tears.

‘Sorry, Pat,' he said. ‘It was what we were both thinking about, wasn't it?'

‘I'm sorry too,' she said, suddenly quiet again. ‘I'm sorry to have – to have turned on you in court. I always seem to be – up against my friends. I don't want to be. And you're always so very patient and kind …'

Silence fell again; but this time it was one from which the electric charge had been dispersed.

‘Where are you taking me?' she asked, after they had passed through Penryn.

‘Anywhere you like. I thought the drive would do you good. I thought while you were giving evidence, I thought: what she could do with after this is a drive, just sitting back and nothing to do. And I thought I might get you away without meeting
him.
I slipped out before you and got this cab. I thought we could go as far as the Norway Inn and have tea there. I know the man who keeps it.'

They were beginning to climb the overgrown winding hill out of the town. The horse had fallen to a walk.

‘You're very kind, Ned,' she said, touched by his solicitude. ‘ I don't deserve it. I wish I …'

‘What?'

‘Oh, nothing.'

Only scraps of conversation passed between them for the rest of the drive, down the other side of the sharp hill, through the valley where the sunlight lay in wasp bars across the road and the trees were showing their first tinges of autumnal yellow. In places the rank vegetation of the hedgerows had grown lushly out to flop across the road and catch at the carriage as it passed. This was the old coaching road, but since the railway came it had fallen into disuse. Ridges of grass grew between the dusty and uneven ruts.

They drew up at the inn, and Ned told the driver to wait and they went inside and ordered tea, which was served in a low, shadowy little private parlour.

Patricia lay back in her chair and drank tea and ate a split with jam and butter on it to please Ned. She was more than grateful to him for his tact and consideration. So pleasant and restful was it to lie back here and say little and feel that for a time you were away from prying eyes. She knew well that Ned was right in his appraisal of the situation, that she would only get notoriety and ill fame for the part she had played this afternoon. She knew that tomorrow
The Falmouth Packet
would be out, and the fullest possible report would be given of the events of today. The paper would probably sell out in no time, for everyone would be anxious to read for himself the exact account of Tom Harris's trial and what Patricia Harris –
née
Veal – had actually got up in the court-room and said about herself and Ned Pawlyn.

Her position in Falmouth had been a little difficult ever since she left Tom. There were some who said she deserved a good whipping for turning her back on a well-to-do young gentleman who had done her the honour of marrying her. This view was strong among those who would have liked to marry him themselves or had eligible daughters. Marriage vows were not to be treated like waste paper; what would the world be coming to if everyone acted in such a fashion? Besides, it was a wicked bad example for all the young folks growing up. Pat Veal, they said, had shown her upbringing and her parentage: the Veals were a queer lot nowadays – all except Miss Veal of Arwenack Street. Young Mrs Harris must be carefully and systematically cut.

Then after the contents of the Will became known she noticed the onset of another change. Young women who had come in for a good deal of ready money, considerable property and a complete shipping line were somehow more entided to their impulses and foibles. But young women who had been practically disowned and left penniless would be well advised to eat humble pie and go on eating it. If they did not do so, then so much the worse for them.

Now, after this afternoon, the town would be well confirmed in its worst views.

Not that it mattered, she told herself. What did anything matter any more? They would go their way and she would go hers. She did not yet depend on their patronage.

‘You know we're leaving by the morning tide, don't you?' said Ned.

She nodded, but the information chilled her afresh. Ned was a good friend who had stood by her in everything. His friendship did not waver with changed circumstances. He was one of the few who were worth knowing.

They were quite alone in the little parlour, and the last sun had left the room. It was dark and quiet and smelt of damp earth from some ferns in the window.

‘Why don't you come away with me?' said Ned.

She looked at him startled.

‘How do you mean?'

He grunted. ‘I don't mean in
The Grey Cat
, of course. I could cut that and stay behind. What I mean is … Well, I can't ask you to marry me, because you're already married. But why not come away with me somewhere? Later on Harris will get tired of hanging on and will divorce you. Then we can do things legally. But … that may be a year or two. Come away; let's leave the country altogether. You can't stay in Falmouth. Everybody'll talk and talk. You can't live on what you've got. Well, I've not much, but I can earn. I can earn enough for two. We can go to Australia, start a new life. Nobody'll know us there. It'll be dropping all this and starting all over again. What d'you say?'

It is doubtful if Ned Pawlyn had ever before said quite so much without a break. Patricia stared somewhat startled at the sudden vista which opened before her. She had never contemplated such a thing; but she suddenly found the prospect not without its attraction. Two months ago she would have dismissed the idea with scarcely a thought. Then life in Falmouth, for all the break-up of her marriage, was good. She enjoyed the life of the restaurant; besides, she was so young that she looked into the future eagerly and without fear. But now … the restaurant was closed and Aunt Madge was making as yet no effort to open it. Even if she did, she, Pat, would not feel the same proprietorial interest in its success. And she had lost her father and the respect of most of her neighbours. If Uncle Perry eventually found somewhere to retire, as he still talked of doing, the household might boil down to no more than herself and Madge; and although she had no special complaints to lodge against Madge as a stepmother, there was no pleasure in looking forward to having her as a sole companion. (Besides, Madge had made no secret of her view that Pat's proper place was in her husband's house; when Pat first returned she had always been going on at her about the sanctity of marriage vows: on and on in her best water-weareth-away-stone manner. Though in fairness, Pat had to admit that she had never suggested it since Joe died.) But what alternative was there now except either to return to Tom or to live with Madge? With only a few hundred pounds she could not set up in a little cottage of her own.

Here was an alternative suddenly before her eyes … Australia was a new conception: a big hot land of rolling sheep farms and miles of ripening wheat. Life there with Ned might be adventurous and new. Men had made big fortunes out there in the last few years; why not Ned? She pictured herself as his partner and companion all through life, living in a wooden shack, then later in a big ranch house, sitting on a veranda with a warm, sweet wind blowing in from the miles of grass land, and perhaps two or three children tumbling about at her feet.

‘What d'you say, Pat?' Ned repeated.

Slowly her eyes came back to the drab little room and to the dark-browed eager young man opposite. With Ned. That was the point. With Ned. Slowly the vision faded.

‘It's sweet of you to ask me,' she began.

In a moment he was kneeling beside her, one arm resting upon her knees.

‘I needn't go tomorrow,' he said. ‘Stevens can get someone else. There's a ship leaving for Brisbane one day next week. We can make a long honeymoon of it.'

She felt that she wanted to refuse him, but she did not seem to have the strength left. And, although the vision had faded, there remained a thread of self-knowledge in her mind which told her that this was what she was really cut out for: not to be a lawyer's wife, not to live as a grass widow in a narrow circle of relatives and friends, not to live in a provincial, respectable, genteel comfort, but to launch out with the man she loved, risking hardship and overcoming difficulties, finding adventure and frustration and fulfilment.

‘I'll think it over,' she said. ‘ I'll think about it, Ned, truly I will. If –'

But he knew that such a favourable moment was unlikely to return. Tomorrow things might look different to her. But he knew that if he could coax a promise out of her tonight she would stick to it tomorrow and the next day.

And, if nothing happened, he was due to sail on the morning tide. In a few hours he would be gone.

He bent towards her and found her face closer to his than it had ever been before. It delighted him and he kissed her gently on the mouth.

Her lips were yielding; they did not respond but they were not unfriendly. He kissed her again, and the success went to his head. He puy his arms about her and drew her towards him and tried to kiss her again.

And then suddenly he found that she was resisting him, unmistakably resisting him. They strained for a moment or two and then he let her free. She rose to her feet quickly and went to the window. He could see her breath coming quickly, misting the pane.

He went and stood beside her, put a hand upon her arm.

She turned. ‘Please, Ned,' she said quiedy, and her face was white. ‘Please, Ned; take me home.'

Amid the opal clouds of dawn
The Grey Cat
slipped out quietly into the bay. Anthony was awake and craned his neck from his window to watch her shake out her sails one by one like a white flower unfolding its petals at the touch of the sun. He was sorry to see her go, for he liked the burly mate with his long legs and his quiet, slouching walk and felt sympathy with him in his obvious devotion to Pat. Since his pact with Tom, however, he had experienced a sense of constraint in Ned's presence and had tended to avoid him. He felt as if he were accredited to an unfriendly power and did not want to abuse his diplomatic privileges.

It was a beautiful morning with the early autumn sun dispersing a scarf of mist which clung to the low hills on the other side of the harbour. Anthony was the first stirring in a house which had curiously cut adrift from its old routine since Joe died. In the old days Perry had been the only member of the household to stay late in bed, but with the incentive of business removed Aunt Madge was now not rising until about half-past nine, and little Fanny, a reluctant waker at the best of times, usually succeeded in putting in an appearance a bare ten minutes ahead of her, like a saucy frigate in front of a ship of the line.

Patricia was usually the first about, with Anthony close behind her, but this morning he was down much earlier. When he happened to go outside and saw what someone had written in white on the pavement outside the shop and on the shop window, he felt there was a reasonable hope, if he was very quick, of being able to remove the writing before Patricia came down.

Although he had not been at the police court, Aunt Madge and Uncle Perry had discussed it in front of him later in the evening, and he realised that the inscriptions had some reference to what had passed there. The writing on the window said: ‘SAILORS ONLY.' That on the pavement was more explicit, and ran: ‘CALL IN ANY TIME YOU ARE IN PORT.'

There was another reason for haste, for it was now full daylight. The street was at present deserted, but people would soon be passing this way.