Dressmakers -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
What she would herself have done Sally had no time to consider; for they
were hurried to their compartment and were locked in by the obliging and
amused guard. They then sat demurely upon opposite sides of the carriage
until the train began to move. Every time anybody peered in at the
window Sally, who had recovered her good spirits, began to laugh; and
Gaga was full of consternation. But at last even that anxiety was
removed, and in the afternoon sunlight the country began to glow under
their eyes and race round in a sweeping circle with an intoxicating
effect not to be appreciated by those who are staled for railway
travelling. Sally allowed Gaga to embrace her; but she kept her face
resolutely turned from him for a long time while she relished her new
joy in rushing thus through the increasingly-beautiful districts which
bordered the track. It was only when Gaga became expostulatory that she
abandoned this pleasure and yielded to his tumultuous affection, with a
listlessness and a sense of criticism which was new to her. Silly fool;
why couldn't he sit still and be quiet! She belonged to herself, not to
him. Almost, she thrust him away from her.
They reached Penterby by four o'clock in the afternoon, and were turned
out upon the platform with their two light bags, like the stranded
wanderers they were. And then they walked out into the roughly paved
road leading through the town to higher land behind, and onward, along a
road to which they turned their backs, and which wavered, past the
railroad station, up an incline in the direction of the distant sea.
Gaga carried both bags, and led the way, and Sally saw for the first
time a wide street, and shops and houses quaintly built, and a church
spire with houses below it, arranged in terraces, all warm in the dying
sun. It was still summer here, she thought, and the atmosphere was
pleasant. The houses were not at all crowded, but stood up at the first
glance as if they were proud of great age and their height above the
road from the station.
"We going up there?" demanded Sally, pointing to the hill, and the
houses erect upon it.
"No, darling.... See ... that ... that ... lamp."
Sally looked up at Gaga's face. Oh, if it had only been Toby! The blood
suddenly rushed to her cheeks. Toby! She wanted Toby! As quickly, she
was chilled by fear. What would Toby do? What would he try to do? Yes,
well Toby didn't know yet that she was married. And she was married to
Gaga, and she had done this thing with her eyes open. There was no going
back. Marriage was a thing you could not repudiate. It was final. The
blood flowed away from Sally's face. She was cool again in an instant.
Her eyes were fixed upon the lamp which Gaga had indicated, and upon the
ivy behind it. Upon a suspended board she read in gold the letters
"RIVER HOTEL", and as she appreciated the meaning of this name Sally
observed that the street went onward past the hotel over an unmistakable
bridge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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