Harriet sat up and began dusting the sand from her coat--Lovat did
likewise. Then they rose to be going back to the tram-car. There was a
motor-car standing on the sand of the road near the gate of the end
house. The end house was called St Columb, and Somers’ heart flew to
Cornwall. It was quite a nice little place, standing on a bluff of sand
sideways above the lagoon.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” said Harriet, looking up at St Columb.
But Somers did not answer. He was shut against any of these humiliating
little bungalows. “Love’s Harbour” he was just passing by, and it was “4
Sale.” It would be. He ploughed grimly through the sand.
“Arcady”--“Stella Maris”--“Racketty-Coo.”
“I say!” called a voice from behind.
It was Mrs Callcott running unevenly over the sand after them, the
colour high in her cheeks. She wore a pale grey crêpe de chine dress and
grey suède shoes. Some distance behind her Jack Callcott was following,
in his shirt-sleeves.
“Fancy you being here!” gasped Mrs Callcott, and Harriet was so
flustered she could only cry:
“Oh, how do you do!”--and effusively shake hands, as if she were meeting
some former acquaintance on Piccadilly. The shaking hands quite put Mrs
Callcott off her track. She felt it almost an affront, and went red. Her
husband sauntered up and put his hands in his pockets, to avoid
mistakes.
“Ha, what are _you_ doing here,” he said to the Somers pair. “Wouldn’t
you like a cup of tea?”
Harriet glanced at Richard Lovat. He was smiling faintly.
“Oh, we should _love_ it,” she replied to Mr Callcott. “But where?--have
you got a house here?”
“My sister has the end house,” said he.
“Oh, but--will she want us?” cried Harriet, backing out.
The Callcotts stood for a moment silent.
“Yes, if you like to come,” said Jack. And it was evident he was aware
of Somers’ desire to avoid contact.
“Well, I should be awfully grateful,” said Harriet. “Wouldn’ you,
Lovat?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling to himself, feeling Jack’s manly touch of
contempt for all this hedging.
So off they went to “St Columb.” The sister was a brown-eyed Australian
with a decided manner, kindly, but a little suspicious of the two
newcomers. Her husband was a young Cornishman, rather stout and short
and silent. He had his hair cut round at the back, in a slightly rounded
line above a smooth, sunburnt, reddened nape of the neck. Somers found
out later that this young Cornishman--his name was Trewhella--had
married his brother’s widow. Mrs Callcott supplied Harriet later on with
all the information concerning her sister-in-law. The first Trewhella,
Alfred John, had died two years ago, leaving his wife with a neat sum of
money and this house, “St Columb,” and also with a little girl named
Gladys, who came running in shaking her long brown hair just after the
Somers appeared. So the present Trewhellas were a newly-married couple.
The present husband, William James, went round in a strange, silent
fashion helping his wife Rose to prepare tea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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