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Updated: June 3, 2025
She had not very much money actually upon her, and the remainder of her precious three hundred was locked up in a bank in Skeaton, but it was a bank that had, she knew, branches in London. She looked in her purse and found that she had three pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence.
"How do you like Skeaton?" asked Miss Toms, speaking more graciously than she had done. "Oh I shall like it, I expect," said Maggie. "At least I shall like the people. I don't think I shall ever like the place the sand blows about, and I don't like the woods." "Yes, they're greasy, aren't they?" said Mr. Toms, "and full of little flies. And the trees are dark and never cool "
After that she knew no more save that the sea seemed to rush in a great flood, with a sudden vindictive roar, into the room. Nothing so horrible had ever happened to Paul before, nothing ... He felt as though he had committed a murder; it was as though he expected arrest and started at every knock on the door. Nothing so horrible ... It was, of course, in all the Skeaton papers.
He saw then, plastered at intervals on the hoardings, strange phenomena. It was the colour that first attracted him a bright indecent pink with huge black lettering. Because it was the offseason in Skeaton other announcements were few. Paul stared at this placard with horror and disgust in his soul. For the moment Maggie and Grace and all the scandal connected with them was forgotten.
She had never seen a clergyman so healthy, so happy so clean and so kind. She smiled across the table at him. "Do you know Skeaton?" he asked her. Skeaton! Where had she heard of the place? Why, of course, it was Caroline! "Only yesterday I heard of it for the first time," she said. "A friend of mine knows some one there." "Beastly place," said Mr. Mark. "Sand always blowing into your eyes."
Aunt Anne was dead too. Martin had written to her, and then, because she had not answered, had abandoned her. Paul and Grace were to be driven out of Skeaton because of her. Grace hated her; Paul would never love her unless she in return would love him and that she would never do because she loved Martin. She was alone then.
Thurston had worked hard during these last years, he had immensely improved his accent, and his h's were all in their right places. He read very dramatically, dropping his voice to a whisper, then pausing and staring in front of him as though he saw God only a few yards away. The people of Skeaton had had few opportunities of any first-class dramatic entertainment.
She had made every one unhappy Aunt Anne, Uncle Mathew, Paul, Grace; the best thing that she could do now was to go away and hide herself somewhere. That, at least, she saw very clearly and she clung to it. If she went away Paul and Grace need not leave Skeaton; soon they would forget her and be happy once more as they had been before she came. But where should she go?
She had grown fond of Skeaton; she was a woman who would inevitably care for anything when she had become thoroughly accustomed to its ways and was assured that it would do her no harm. She liked the shops and the woods, the sand and the sea. Above all, she adored the Church.
"What a place!" said Maggie; nevertheless it was rather agreeable after the sand of Skeaton. During the first three days they preserved their attitude of friendly distance. On the fourth evening Maggie desperately flung down her challenge. They were sitting, after supper, in the wild deserted garden. It was a wonderful evening, faintly blue and dim crocus with flickering silver stars.
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