Quicksands

One sultry September afternoon, some years ago, my brother Ronald and I, being tired and dusty, found a temporary resting-place on the parapet of a little old bridge that spanned a sleepy stream. Through a thin silk blouse a comforting sun beat upon my back, and I was serenely conscious of an unusual sense of happiness and well-being--though I owed little to my surroundings. In all England it would have been difficult to find a more featureless and monotonous outlook than the prospect that lay stretched before us. A series of flat, marshy fields, exhibiting here a space of willowy green, and there a patch of black soil, enclosed by ragged hedges or deep, dark dykes. Occasionally a few lonely and distorted trees, or a humped-up cluster of red roofs, varied the scene, which gradually faded until sky and horizon seemed to melt away into one pale blur.

“What a region!” exclaimed Ronnie, as he tossed away the stump of a cigarette. “The back of beyond, the Land of Never Never! Never again, so far as I am concerned! Who discovered it?”

“It was discovered by the Danes, I believe,” I answered; “they say it was once under the sea.”

“A pity it did not stay there!”

“It’s rather cheerful now, and the air is splendid; but you should see it in winter, when it has a grey, weird, starving sort of look, and the face of the country is like a dead thing.”

“Well, thank goodness, I am spared that,” rejoined Ronnie. “I shall be out in the nice sultry East, sunning myself among the big red boulders that are scattered round Secunderabad.”

“And you start on Friday? Oh, Ronnie, I believe you are glad to go back!”

“Yes; I am jolly glad, only for leaving you, old girl--and in such a hole as Beke. My leave has gone like a flash; just a month at home. I must say it is a beastly shame they did not ask you to Torrington when I was there.”

“Aunt Mina sees as little of me as possible--she does not like me, and is at no pains to conceal the fact. The girls and I have never what you call ‘got on’; we have nothing in common. You see I am much younger than they are.”

“And so much better looking,” supplemented my brother.

Waving aside his compliment, I continued:

“You know, when I first went to Torrington I was a small child, and by all accounts dreadfully spoiled; later on, in the holidays, I was too young to appear in company, and was generally hustled out of sight. My goodness, but it was dull, all alone, in the old nursery! Coming down to lunch as a treat, cross-examined and snubbed by the girls, and overawed by Aunt Mina--she had a way of looking at me that made me feel as if I had no clothes on!”

“My dear Eva, don’t be improper!”

“You see,” I resumed--now comfortably embarked on a flowing tide of talk, and eager to impart my confidence to a sympathetic ear--“I can realise what a nuisance I was in those days. The house was full of grown-ups and smart people, and I was just a lanky girl who slunk in to lunch or was met roaming about the grounds! Then twice I brought home infection, and gave most of the establishment mumps and chicken-pox--so you can’t wonder that I was not popular! After all, I am only Aunt Mina’s niece by marriage; Uncle is nice to me in his cheery, vague, irresponsible way, but he has no say. Living in the nursery, I naturally heard a good deal of backstairs talk, and gathered that Aunt manages everything--even to evicting tenants and arranging the shoots.”

“Oh, come! I don’t think it is as bad as all that,” protested Ronnie; “though of course a man who marries half a million must pay some sort of interest. The family were in very deep water, when potted meat came along and hauled them out. When were you last at Torrington?”

“Two years ago this Christmas.”

Ronnie was about to exclaim, but I put my hand over his mouth.