Flaming June

Flaming June
By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
CHAPTER ONE.
Somewhere on the West coast of England, about a hundred miles from
the metropolis, there stands a sleepy little town, which possesses no
special activity nor beauty to justify its existence. People live in it for
reasons of their own. The people who do not live in it wonder for what
reasons, but attain no better solution of the mystery than the statement
that the air is very fine. "We have such bracing air!" says the resident,
as proudly as if that said air were his special invention and property.
Certain West-country doctors affect Norton-on-Sea for patients in need
of restful change, and their melancholy advent justifies the existence of
the great hotel on the esplanade, and the row of bath-chairs at the
corner. There are ten bath-chairs in all, and on sunny days ten
crumpled-looking old ladies can generally be seen sitting inside their
canopies, trundling slowly along the esplanade, accompanied by a paid
companion, dressed in black and looking sorry for herself. Occasionally
on Saturdays and Sundays a pretty daughter, or a tall son takes the
companion's place, but as sure as Monday arrives they disappear into
space. One can imagine that one hears them bidding their
farewells--"So glad to see you getting on so well, mother dear! I
positively must rush back to town to attend to a hundred duties. It's a
comfort to feel that you are so well placed. Miss Biggs is a treasure,
and this air is so bracing!..."
The esplanade consists of four rows of lodging-houses and two hotels,
in front of which is a strip of grass, on which a band plays twice a week
during the summer months, and the school-children twice a day all the
year long. The invalids in the hotel object to the children and make
unsuccessful attempts to banish them from their pitch, and the children

in their turn regard the invalids with frank disdain, and make audible
and uncomplimentary surmises as to the nature of their complaints as
the procession of chairs trundles by.
In front of the green, and separating it from the steep, pebbly shore, are
a number of fishermen's shanties, bathing machines, and hulks of old
vessels stretched in a long, straggling row, while one larger shed stands
back from the rest, labelled "Lifeboat" in large white letters.
Parallel with the esplanade runs the High Street, a narrow thoroughfare
showing shops crowded with the useless little articles which are
supposed to prove irresistibly attractive to visitors to the seaside. At the
bazaar a big white label proclaims that everything in the window is to
be sold at the astounding price of "eleven-three," and the purchaser is
free to make his choice from such treasures as work-boxes lined in
crimson plush, and covered with a massed pattern in shells; desks fitted
with all the implements for writing, scent bottles tied with blue ribbons;
packets of stationery with local views, photograph frames in plush and
gelatine, or to select more perishable trophies in glass and china, all
solemnly guaranteed to be worth double the price.
At the photographer's, a few yards farther along, a visitor can have his
portrait taken a yard square, the size of a postage stamp, or on a
postcard to send to his friends. Ingenious backgrounds are on hand,
representing appropriate seaside scenes in which the sitter has nothing
to do but to press his face against a hole on the canvas, and these are
extensively patronised, for what can be more convenient than to stand
on solid earth, attired in sober, everyday clothing, yet be portrayed
splashing in the waves in the spandiest of French bathing costumes,
riding a donkey along the sands, or manfully hauling down the sails of
a yacht!
Mr Photographer Sykes is a man of resource, and deserves the
prosperity which is the envy of his neighbours. Mrs Sykes wears silk
linings to her skirts on Sundays, and rustles like the highest in the land.
She had three new hats in one summer, and the fishmonger's wife
knows for a fact that not one of the number costs less than
"twenty-five-six."

The High Street and the esplanade constitute the new Norton-on-Sea
which has sprung into being within the last ten years, but the real,
original, aristocratic Norton lies a couple of miles inland, and consists
of a wide, sloping street, lined with alternate shops and houses,
branching off from which are a number of sleepy roads, in which
detached and semi- detached villas hide themselves behind trees and
hedges, and barricade their windows with stiff, white curtains. The one
great longing actuating the Norton householder seems to be to see
nothing, and to be seen by none. "Is the house overlooked?" they ask
the agent anxiously on the