pupils from Newlyn, or they might be models, or both. But some of them looked
too sharp to be painters and the others looked too horsy to be models. The first clear words Laura heard spoken among the
excitable babble was a high-pitched urging:
‘Oh, go on, Alfred, do, please!’
‘Yes, Alfred, come on!’
‘We want to know!’
This was followed by more cheering and clapping. They were all clearly agreed on what it was they wanted Alfred to do.
Harold Knight, silent and absorbed, forged ahead, but as Laura made to follow her husband up the lane, the stranger looked
at her right over the heads of all the girls, and looked at her with a shrewd scan, a look used to judging distances and assessing
dangers. More than that, there was a laughing note in his glance.
Laura did not imagine this, she made none of this up. She had a penetrating eye herself and she saw what she saw and she missed
nothing. As if to prove this, he half waved at her, almost as if he knew her and knew what she had been up to on the rocks
and knew exactly where she was going – back home with her taciturn partner. This sense that the stranger already knew her
shocked her. Were her senses that afternoon particularly heightened? She asked herself this because she could, at ten paces,
clearly smell the face-cream on the silly girls and clearly see the make-up on their lips and eyelashes.
Thirty yards or so up the road Laura stopped to rest her tired legs. Some wild roses stirred the hedgerows and thelate afternoon sun felt hotter than ever on the back of her neck. Sweating, she looked down at her arms, her forearms, and
her fingers. It was as if she had never looked at them before. They weren’t her arms. They were someone else’s arms, they
were the arms of a washerwoman. They were blistered red, badly blistered, and as for her face, she did not have to look at
her face: that, she knew only too well, would be as red as a beetroot. Even after the shortest of walks her skin took on a
strawberry hue, and the day with Dolly on the rocks, with the reflection from the ocean, had been one of unrelieved sunshine.
But why all this worry?
For years she had not given a thought to her colouring. Thank goodness she was past all that young misery, that self-consciousness,
such as the terrible anxiety she felt before they were married that, on one of his visits, Harold would suddenly bend down
on his knees and see the chamberpot in her bedroom. A visible chamberpot was bad enough but hers was delicately painted with
crimson roses and green leaves, surrounded by the immortal words ‘For a kiss you may use this’. That chamberpot, she was convinced,
would put the kibosh on her chances of marrying Harold.
Oh, the agonies she had been through! She first met Harold when she was a very young fourteen; he was a very old seventeen
and so pale and so elegant and so distinguished, and she used to suck her red cheeks in to try to look like Harold, that is,
pale and elegant and distinguished. Then her sister asked, ‘What are you pulling those faces for?’ so Laura reluctantly settled
for the round-faced girl she then was and still was now. After all, she might be raggle-taggle, might be red in the face,
might have crinkly hair, but she had talent as well.
She knew she had talent.
Then, as she stood in the Lamorna lane, she suddenly looked down at her shoes – at her boots, rather. Ah, that was it, that
was what the stranger was laughing at: her hobnailed boots.
When Laura got back to her low cottage her husband was already shut away up in his studio. To cool down she flopped into the
deep basket chair by the open door, her feet bare on the flagstones. Once cooled down, but still thinking of that cocky, tanned
face and the mocking smile, she put the kettle on the hob.
The only reference Harold made to the incident in the lane came two weeks later. He spoke without looking up from his book.
‘I’ve found out who the
too sharp to be painters and the others looked too horsy to be models. The first clear words Laura heard spoken among the
excitable babble was a high-pitched urging:
‘Oh, go on, Alfred, do, please!’
‘Yes, Alfred, come on!’
‘We want to know!’
This was followed by more cheering and clapping. They were all clearly agreed on what it was they wanted Alfred to do.
Harold Knight, silent and absorbed, forged ahead, but as Laura made to follow her husband up the lane, the stranger looked
at her right over the heads of all the girls, and looked at her with a shrewd scan, a look used to judging distances and assessing
dangers. More than that, there was a laughing note in his glance.
Laura did not imagine this, she made none of this up. She had a penetrating eye herself and she saw what she saw and she missed
nothing. As if to prove this, he half waved at her, almost as if he knew her and knew what she had been up to on the rocks
and knew exactly where she was going – back home with her taciturn partner. This sense that the stranger already knew her
shocked her. Were her senses that afternoon particularly heightened? She asked herself this because she could, at ten paces,
clearly smell the face-cream on the silly girls and clearly see the make-up on their lips and eyelashes.
Thirty yards or so up the road Laura stopped to rest her tired legs. Some wild roses stirred the hedgerows and thelate afternoon sun felt hotter than ever on the back of her neck. Sweating, she looked down at her arms, her forearms, and
her fingers. It was as if she had never looked at them before. They weren’t her arms. They were someone else’s arms, they
were the arms of a washerwoman. They were blistered red, badly blistered, and as for her face, she did not have to look at
her face: that, she knew only too well, would be as red as a beetroot. Even after the shortest of walks her skin took on a
strawberry hue, and the day with Dolly on the rocks, with the reflection from the ocean, had been one of unrelieved sunshine.
But why all this worry?
For years she had not given a thought to her colouring. Thank goodness she was past all that young misery, that self-consciousness,
such as the terrible anxiety she felt before they were married that, on one of his visits, Harold would suddenly bend down
on his knees and see the chamberpot in her bedroom. A visible chamberpot was bad enough but hers was delicately painted with
crimson roses and green leaves, surrounded by the immortal words ‘For a kiss you may use this’. That chamberpot, she was convinced,
would put the kibosh on her chances of marrying Harold.
Oh, the agonies she had been through! She first met Harold when she was a very young fourteen; he was a very old seventeen
and so pale and so elegant and so distinguished, and she used to suck her red cheeks in to try to look like Harold, that is,
pale and elegant and distinguished. Then her sister asked, ‘What are you pulling those faces for?’ so Laura reluctantly settled
for the round-faced girl she then was and still was now. After all, she might be raggle-taggle, might be red in the face,
might have crinkly hair, but she had talent as well.
She knew she had talent.
Then, as she stood in the Lamorna lane, she suddenly looked down at her shoes – at her boots, rather. Ah, that was it, that
was what the stranger was laughing at: her hobnailed boots.
When Laura got back to her low cottage her husband was already shut away up in his studio. To cool down she flopped into the
deep basket chair by the open door, her feet bare on the flagstones. Once cooled down, but still thinking of that cocky, tanned
face and the mocking smile, she put the kettle on the hob.
The only reference Harold made to the incident in the lane came two weeks later. He spoke without looking up from his book.
‘I’ve found out who the
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