Caroline by Richmal Crompton

Author:Richmal Crompton [Crompton, Richmal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Chapter Twelve

FAY ran lightly downstairs to the dining-room, where her tea was laid on the big mahogany table. It had been lovely walking home with Philippa and Billy. When she was with them—both of them or either of them—she always felt happy and light-hearted, as if she needn’t worry about the scholarship or how wicked she was, or any of the other things she generally worried about. She felt that she could just enjoy life instead of taking it seriously, as Caroline always wanted her to. But that brought her back to Caroline again, and at the thought of Caroline a heavy weight of guilt seemed to fasten itself upon her spirit. She hadn’t told Caroline about coming home from school with Billy and calling at the Dicksons’. She’d done it every day for the past week, and she’d just let Caroline take for granted that she’d been kept late at school, which, with all her extra scholarship work, seemed natural enough. It was terribly deceitful not to have told Caroline about it. She could almost hear Caroline saying, “It’s not like my Fay.”

But then she wasn’t Caroline’s “my Fay,” and the most dreadful part of it all was that right down at the bottom of her heart she didn’t want to be. She was working hard at her scholarship subjects, but she didn’t really want to win a scholarship or go to college or teach or influence other people for good or do any of the things that Caroline was so anxious for her to do. She wanted to take up music and enjoy life and have friends like Billy and Sybil and Philippa—who seemed so young though she was old—not like Freda Torrent. She’d thought that Caroline’s reference to Doris Pemberton would have spoilt her friendship with Billy, but it hadn’t done. She’d dreaded meeting him after it, but, as soon as she did meet him, everything was simple and natural and jolly again, and she could laugh at her secret fears, as she always could when she was with him. His uncritical friendliness gave her a lovely feeling of carefree happiness—so different was it from Caroline’s anxious brooding affection. But still—her thoughts returned to it guiltily—she ought to have told Caroline about walking home with him and calling at the Dicksons’. She’d have to soon, of course. The weight of it on her conscience would suddenly become more than she could bear, and she’d go to Caroline and confess, and Caroline would be grieved and hurt but very, very sweet and would talk to her about how wrong it was and how she must fight very hard against her evil tendencies, and—she wouldn’t be able to have anything more to do with Sybil or Billy.

One new and mysterious element in the situation was that sometimes now sudden gusts of hatred would come over her, hatred of Caroline whom really she loved so devotedly, so that she could hardly bear to look at her, so that even her touch made her want to scream.

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