Hybrid Cloud Backup For Dummies®,

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 Hybrid Cloud
Backup
Veeam Special Edition

by Brett McLaughlin

These materials are © 2022 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
 Hybrid Cloud Backup For Dummies®, Veeam Special Edition

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Knowing the challenges to data that a
hybrid cloud presents

»» Understanding the limits of typical data

resilience

»» Unifying your approaches to data

protection

Chapter 1
Delivering Modern
Data Protection
to a Hybrid Cloud

E
very modern technology-driven organization understands
data is one of its most valuable assets. It’s no surprise, then,
that the protection of that data has become an increasing
concern. This concern is made much more complex, though,
because organizations no longer store all their data in a single
location.

With the advent of modern cloud — virtualized, on-premises,

hybrid, full cloud, across multiple vendors — it’s no longer
enough to say “I back up my local data to keep it protected.” More
sophisticated approaches are required to fit the evolving data and
platform needs of the modern organization.

If you’ve bought into or heard the idea of hybrid cloud merely

being a precursor to a full cloud approach, you can move on from
that thought. Thousands of organizations are using hybrid cloud
as their permanent cloud solution.

CHAPTER 1 Delivering Modern Data Protection to a Hybrid Cloud 1

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 Realizing the Value of Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud has become one of the most popular solutions for
managing highly sensitive data. It provides many of the advan-
tages of the modern cloud — elasticity, managed services, econ-
omies of scale — but allows a local component, which often is
closely related to an organization’s most sensitive data.

However, with hybrid cloud comes multiplicity:

»» Multiplicity of data. Organizations using any type of cloud

tend to have more data. Access and transit logs, application
data, and business data all tend to grow across all the
components of a hybrid cloud.
»» Multiplicity of server types. You also see more servers:
sometimes physical servers and virtual machines hosted
locally, but increasingly virtual machines hosted in the cloud,
as well as Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a
Service (SaaS) workloads.
»» Multiplicity of data patterns. With more data and more
server hosting solutions, it shouldn’t be a surprise that data
begins to move through new pathways, be accessed in
different ways, and, at times, even be stored in new ways.

To gain true value from hybrid cloud, you need to manage this
multiplicity, and be able to scale with it. At some point, if you have
an individualized solution for each server type, or data flow, or
storage approach, you’ll lose the ability to manage just one more
flow or approach, as well as the ease of a unified approach to data
management.

Don’t see this multiplicity as negative. In fact, the ability to sup-

port a truly heterogeneous set of environments is an advantage
of hybrid cloud, not a limitation. Instead, you can view this as a
potential loss of value that you need to solve to ensure you get
maximum value from your cloud.

2 Hybrid Cloud Backup For Dummies, Veeam Special Edition

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 Addressing the Limitations of Cloud
Resilience
Most cloud providers offer a variety of solutions for data resil-
ience. The most common is some form of replication:

»» Replication across data stores. It’s often trivial to turn on

data replication, mirroring your data from one data store
location to another (or several others).
»» Replication across cloud regions. Another common
resilience strategy is to mirror or replicate data to entirely
different geographical regions. This offers greater protection
from a catastrophe at one location wiping out your data
stores.
»» Replication from local to cloud (or vice versa). A slight
twist on regional replication is using a cloud to replicate data
from local stores, or from the cloud to local data stores. This
often gives a feeling of greater protection because critical
data exists in a local organization-owned facility.

However, it often takes more than these resilience approaches to

truly secure your data. Consider that resilience won’t solve any of
these common problems:

»» Data corruption. Corrupted data can replicate just as easily

as non-corrupted data, so you can often find an entire
dataset corrupted and replicated across all your data
sources.
»» Data security. Cybersecurity incidents like ransomware
continue to increase, while also becoming more sophisti-
cated. Successful attacks on production datasets will also be
copied to replicated data.
»» Application reconfiguration. Your applications rarely
automatically switch over to replicated resources. You’ll
more often have to reconfigure them or adjust replication to
take a secondary source and replicate it back to the primary
source.

All this leads to a critical understanding: data resilience isn’t a

complete solution for data retention or backup, and isn’t by itself
sufficient for protecting your data.

CHAPTER 1 Delivering Modern Data Protection to a Hybrid Cloud 3

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 Centralizing Data Backup
and Management
There’s a difference between data backup and data resilience.
Data resilience attempts to make your data — current, as it
stands, right or wrong — less likely to be deleted or vanish. Data
backup approaches the problem of not just preserving your data,
but ensuring that it isn’t corrupt. If you have a database go bad
and get replicated across multiple regions and platforms, it’s your
data backup that enables you to recover what was corrupted.

The best way to manage and protect data across a hybrid cloud is
to select and utilize a singular solution for data backup. Ideally,
that singularity comes in a number of forms:

»» Singularity of product. One product means one vendor,

one set of configuration concerns, one set of training.
»» Singularity of platform. Look for a solution that can work
across multiple platforms — local, cloud, in different
varieties, and so on — but presents to you and your
technology teams as a singular platform with one entry point
common to all your data management services.
»» Singularity of management. You may need different tools
to properly manage data sources across your hybrid cloud,
but you also shouldn’t need different dashboards or
approaches to dealing with disparate data. When you
backup, you should be able to backup all your data without
special steps for each variation in storage.

Centralizing your data backups with a single vendor actually

allows your data to become more complex, and more distributed,
because that complexity and distribution doesn’t get limited by
your backup solution.

Data backup in a hybrid cloud world isn’t easy. It’s no longer

as simple as just copying files to another medium or location.
Because data backup is complex, your selection of a vendor and
disaster and data recovery partner really determines if you can
manage that backup complexity well.

4 Hybrid Cloud Backup For Dummies, Veeam Special Edition

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Avoiding provider-specific data strategies

»» Reducing the cost of operating data

through uniformity

»» Unifying your approaches to data

protection

Chapter 2
Adapting a Multi-Cloud
Data Strategy

Y
our selection and configuration of your hybrid cloud often
has a symbiotic relationship with your selection of data
strategy — and the partner and tools that are attached to
that strategy. In the typical case, the more complex your hybrid
cloud, the more complex your data strategy.

However, you want to create a different kind of relationship:

one in which your data strategy creates room for complexity and
flexibility in your cloud. An effective data strategy must itself
be flexible to support an evolving business, and should open up
options to you, not close them off.

If a complex hybrid cloud sounds like a bad thing, consider

that sometimes complexity comes with using multiple provid-
ers, different approaches to hosting (like virtual instances and
containers), and different data sources and data flows. In these
situations, complexity means “more options” and is something
you want, not something to avoid.

CHAPTER 2 Adapting a Multi-Cloud Data Strategy 5

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 Maintaining Flexibility with Multiple
Cloud Providers
Whether you use one cloud provider or many, you’re going to
quickly see that there are two basic approaches to data protection:

»» Provider-specific options. Often options within the cloud

provider itself, or through tight partner relationships, your
data backup is highly tuned to a specific cloud provider, and
depends on provider-specific features or configuration.
»» Provider-neutral options. Provider-neutral options allow
for an agnostic approach to data protection. These solutions
typically work across a large set of possible cloud providers,
as well as a multitude of on-premises datasets.

Always strive for the second approach — one where the solution
you use is neutral to a specific provider, but still provides the tight
integration across multiple platforms. This neutrality enables you
to add additional providers as needed.

You don’t always need to be cloud-neutral, as you can lose a lot of

the value of a particular cloud provider’s technology. However, in
the case of data backup, cloud neutrality has a lot of value. Appli-
cations can and often should take advantage of specific cloud fea-
tures; data strategies generally should not.

Choose a provider-neutral strategy

from the start
If you build your data strategy from the beginning to account
for multiple cloud providers, you won’t have to adjust it when
you want that flexibility. More specifically, your strategy should
account for data in any number of locations: on-premises, hosted
in this provider, hosted in that provider, hosted in a database or
on an object store.

Maintain provider-neutral data

You also need to ensure your data remains provider-neutral. This
is less about format and more about ensuring your data can easily
move in and out of a particular provider, and then easily move to

6 Hybrid Cloud Backup For Dummies, Veeam Special Edition

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 another provider. Data that starts in AWS should be able to flow
to Microsoft Azure or Google without change, and your backup
solution should be easily adjusting to the data location without
needing to worry about format changes.

Think about your data protection as a platform in and of itself. In

that light, you want that platform to be able to interact with all
other platforms in your hybrid cloud in a singular, unified way.

Building Uniformity of Data Management

It’s a good start to adopt a provider-neutral data strategy and
work hard to maintain data uniformity across your cloud. But
that’s only a first step. You also need to ensure uniformity of the
management of all that data, wherever it is created and stored.

Your data solution, then, is your entry point to all your data, in
any location. It should allow you to answer Yes to the following
questions:

»» Can you manage data stored on-premises as well as data

stored in a cloud through a singular interface?
»» Can you report on and aggregate all your data and treat it as
a whole, not just individual silos in different locations?
»» Can you easily orchestrate data protection across all
platforms at once?

Data management isn’t just about tooling, either. Over 60 percent

of organizations in the 2021 Cloud Protection Trends Report indi-
cated that the same individuals managing on-premises backups
are managing cloud backups. That means that a uniform solution
serves this singular group far better than forcing them to learn
specific options for each cloud provider.

As uniformity of data management increases, you typically see

a decrease in the cost of that data management. Your opera-
tions team will need less training and spend less time context-­
switching, which all means greater efficiency of operation.

CHAPTER 2 Adapting a Multi-Cloud Data Strategy 7

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 Mapping Multiple Backup Data Flows
to Gain Flexibility
There’s another important question you should ask of your data
strategy, and the partners and tools you use:

Can you restore data to the original location as well as alternate

locations, irrespective of whether the location is in the cloud or
on premises?

This is a powerful question because it begins to move beyond a

rigid backup solution. Rigidity in this sense is a solution that takes
data from point A, backs it up to point B, and can then restore that
data to point A — and nothing else. A more flexible solution can
take that same backed up data at point B and restore it to point C,
or D, or anywhere else.

This flexibility in data flow ties directly to your ability to orches-

trate real-time disaster recovery at the application level as well.

Always try and pair advances in your disaster recovery and

backups with advances in how your applications connect to the
protected resources. As recovery becomes more sophisticated,
ensure your applications gain the benefit from this increased
sophistication and uptime.

8 Hybrid Cloud Backup For Dummies, Veeam Special Edition

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Distinguishing between backup data
flows and data workflows

»» Automating repeated processes

»» Orchestrating automations to provide

ultimate flexibility

Chapter 3
Managing Disparate
Data and Workflows

F
lexibility is the key when it comes to a long-lived and
sustainable approach to backups. Flexibility is critical when it
comes to operating in multiple cloud environments, and it’s
equally important when it comes to all the varying approaches to
storing and categorizing data workflows.

It’s easy to confuse the flow of data as it is backed up from one

location to another (discussed in Chapter 2) and the flow of data
within your applications and cloud environments — the focus of
this chapter. You can think about the flow of data from a source
to a backup as a backup data flow and the flow of data within
and through applications as simply data flow or sometimes data
workflow.

Backing Up Heterogeneous Data Models

The reality of a hybrid cloud world, and the modern technol-
ogy organization, is that data is no longer confined to a singular
database in a singular location.

CHAPTER 3 Managing Disparate Data and Workflows 9

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 Recognizing data categories
Consider all the ways in which data is typically categorized:

»» Application data. This is the common case where data

(often in a relational database) serves dynamic applications.
»» Log data. Log data is now a first-class data citizen and is
often required for compliance as well as operations.
»» Internal user data. Documents created and managed by
your internal employees and contractors, from spreadsheets
to presentations, are just as important to consider as
traditional application data.
»» Derived data. With the explosion in importance of AI (artificial
intelligence) and ML (machine learning), there’s now a wealth of
data generated from other data hosted in various locations.

Understanding predominant
data models
In addition to data categories, each of the above categories can be
stored in a variety of data models:

»» Relational data. Again, the most common model remains

data stored in relational, SQL-based databases.
»» Structured, non-relational data. The rise of NoSQL and
technologies like Firebase have made data in key-value pairs
and other non-relational stores extremely common.
»» File-based data. Logs are a great example here, as they’re
often stored in files in a directory-like structure.
»» Object-based data. Most commonly associated with
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), object storage
goes beyond basic file storage and adds organization
without going to a relational model.

The term data model is used a bit loosely here. Rather than the
more formal “data schema” usage, it applies to the different
approaches to organizing and storing data at a high level, each
of which brings different considerations to management and
backup.

Your approach to data backup must account for all these data
flows.

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 Building a Plan for Disparate Data Flows
In many ways, the best plan to handle different categories of
data in different models is to avoid a plan for each of those cat-
egories and models. Put another way, unless you intend to be
a data backup company, you’ll rarely have the time, resources,
and expertise to accommodate each category and each model in a
long-term resilient manner.

Your plan should be less about the mechanics of a particular

model, and more about selecting a provider and set of capabili-
ties that address your current and future data needs. Inherent to
a good selection here is support for disparity. Here are just a few
valuable questions that you’ll want to ask:

»» Are there are data model limitations? You want a “No”

answer here. Assume that the one unsupported data model
will always be the one you’ll need most on your next project.
»» Can heterogeneous data be treated as homogenous in
backup? That’s a mouthful, but it boils down to this: you
want your backup solution to allow you to treat data as data,
not as “structured data” or “relational data” or “object data.”
»» Can data be backed up from anywhere in its flow?
Obviously, you should be able to back up data from where it
ultimately rests (such as a database). But can you also take
snapshot backups from transient data or as data moves
from one instance to another?

Part of the reason you must work to avoid complicated model-

specific strategies is that there’s always another model around
the corner. Imagine having spent hundreds of hours on a via-
ble relational database backup strategy ten years ago to find
that non-relational data is now critical, and little of your work
translates!

Your plan, then, is less about solving for each individual model
and workflow and more about finding a solution that handles het-
erogeneous workflows in general. Good solutions here are data
model agnostic, as well as cloud and infrastructure agnostic. And,
ultimately, the best solutions give you the most powerful tool
you’ll ever have: freedom to make choices that are right for your
organization.

CHAPTER 3 Managing Disparate Data and Workflows 11

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 DATA IS ALWAYS MOVING
If you’re not already convinced that building a robust backup strategy
is complex, consider that most data is never at rest for long. Data in
one model may flow into an application and then be stored in
another model, potentially with a new format or structure. This is just
another reason that a comprehensive strategy that covers all types of
data models is essential.

Automating and Orchestrating

Everything Possible
Flexibility is a key ingredient in a solid backup strategy. But make
no mistake: flexibility without automation is extremely limiting.
Automation here simply means that the processes which pull
together data across your hybrid cloud and manage backups and
restores are basically “button pushes.” You push a button and a
complex process kicks off, manages data, and completes without
intervention.

Once you have automation — long sequences of commands and

actions wrapped into easy-to-use workflows — you can look to
add orchestration through your backup solution. Orchestration
takes all the automated processes, each doing single things (like
backing up a specific relational database or restoring yesterday’s
snapshot to a production workload) and combines and manages
them across a complex organization.

Take this approach with every bit of backup functionality you

need and add to your data strategy: Automate it and then ensure
that it’s folded into your overall data orchestration. You’ll find
your life gets easier and your organization will run smoother than
ever before.

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Ensuring you own and control all your
data

»» Choosing a flexible backup solution

Chapter 4
Five Hybrid Cloud
Backup Challenges

H ere are five challenges you’ll face and overcome to plan

and execute a successful hybrid cloud backup strategy.

Redefining IT in a Cloud World

You can’t simply take your existing IT group, throw a few train-
ing courses on cloud and data at them, and expect great results.
You need to invest in redefining what IT in your organization
means through training, upskilling staff, adding new staff, and
setting new requirements and expectations. IT is no longer about
watching lights and changing out hard drives, and it’s up to you
to effect this change in your own organization.

Avoiding an “Only Local Data is Safe

Data” Mindset
Gone are the days when the cloud was a risky venture, even for
data hosting. While there’s value in having a copy of all or part
of your data in a local facility, that’s not the ultimate goal of a
balanced approach to data backup and integrity. Backup your data

CHAPTER 4 Five Hybrid Cloud Backup Challenges 13

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 well and often, and store data where it makes sense — including
in the cloud as a primary source.

Maintaining Ownership of Data

While you shouldn’t be afraid to store data in the cloud, you
should still be cautious to ensure you own all of your data. That
means you control where it’s stored now and in the future, how
it’s replicated, and where your backup solution stores artifacts. If
you can’t at any point ensure ownership of all of these steps in a
data flow, change the flow (or the backup solution!). Better yet,
make sure that every time your data is moved (even when backed
up), you’re in total control of the locations of that data. Don’t set-
tle for a vendor-controlled offsite backup. Back your data up to
where you want, on your terms.

Balancing Cloud Neutrality with Value

It’s easy to think that the best approach to flexibility in the cloud
is to never use any cloud vendor-specific services. That does make
your code and data more portable, but it drastically reduces the
value of each cloud vendor’s offerings. Seek balance, not absolute
neutrality.

Your backup solution should ideally support common vendor-

specific paradigms, working with the cloud providers’ strengths.
If one cloud provider has a strong replication and mirroring
model, use it — and then ensure your backup solution supports
that functionality. The result is a high-value use of cloud-specific
features and the choice of a flexible backup solution.

Avoiding a Single Backup Model

Always strive for a single backup solution, but that isn’t the same
as a single backup model. As your applications grow more complex,
you’ll typically use data in and from more formats and sources.
Allow the differences in backup model through choosing a highly
flexible backup solution. Ensure your solution can accommodate
a variety of approaches to backup, rather than forcing all your
disparate data into one specific (and therefore inflexible) mold.

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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 CHAPTER III
THE FIRST TRANT EPISODE
§1
JUNE sunlight was scorching the tarred asphalt of the Ridgeway,
and Catherine and Helen were sauntering homewards beneath the
heavy trees. Their conversation savoured of “shop.”
“Two hours the last map took me,” said Catherine, indignantly,
“and we’ve got another in less than a fortnight.... Rivers and
mountains as well.... And it isn’t as if North America was easy, either
... there’s all those lakes....”
“I shan’t put in those islands at the top, anyway,” observed Helen.
“I shall leave mine till to-morrow morning,” continued Catherine.
“That is, if I do it at all.... And I shall do it on typewriting paper so I
can trace it.”
“She won’t take it if you do.”
“She’ll have to....”
At the corner of the Post Office the conversation took a personal
turn.
“We’re having a social at the Baptist Church next Saturday. Will
you come?” asked Helen (Helen attended a rather prosperous
Baptist establishment in Upton Rising).
Catherine walked on for some moments before answering. She
seemed to be weighing things up.
“I might,” she answered. Then, as an after-thought, she added: “I
suppose you’ll all be there?”
 “Oh yes. There’ll be me and father and mother and Millie,
perhaps the Lester girls as well....”
“George?” Catherine’s voice rather overdid itself in the effort to
appear casual. Helen looked at her keenly.
“Possibly,” she replied, in a voice that might have meant
anything. There came a rather curious pause. They had reached the
corner of the High Street before Helen spoke again.
“So that’s it, is it?” she remarked, as they crossed the tramway
junction.
“That’s what?” said Catherine gruffly.
“That’s what’s been making you so ... so different—lately.... I’d
been wondering what it was. I never guessed it was George.”
“How did you find out?”
“I didn’t find out. You just told me.”
Catherine turned down Hanson Street, the road immediately
opposite the Ridgeway.
“Let’s go down here,” she suggested. “It’s quieter. I can see
you’ve a lot to say to me.”
Helen took her arm.
“No, I haven’t.... I don’t know that I can say anything, really....
Only I think you’re silly.”
“Why?” The word rang out like a pistol-shot.
The reply did not come immediately. When it did it sounded limp
and uncertain.
“Because ... because you’ll be disappointed in him.”
“What’s the matter with him, then?”
“Nothing much. He’s all right ... only ... he’ll disappoint you, one
way or another. He’s not as clever as he seems. Besides——”
“Yes?”
 “He doesn’t like you.”
“He doesn’t? Has he told you so?”
“Not in so many words. But I know. He may like you to flirt with,
but he doesn’t like you. My advice is, if you’re getting serious, give
up the flirting. With him, at any rate.... After all, you can always find
plenty of chaps to flirt about with....”
(Her father had said “fellers.” She said “chaps”!)
“But I don’t want them, maybe.”
“Well, go without them, then.” (They were at the corner of
Kitchener Road.) ... “I never thought much of flirting about as a
pastime.”
It was a curiously elliptical conversation throughout, and at the
gate of No. 24 they both seemed eager not to prolong it by standing.
They said good-bye immediately, and both were conscious of
electricity in the atmosphere.
That evening Catherine found herself unable to concentrate on
homework. Mr. Weston was out at night-school, and she was thus
left alone in the house. The nine o’clock rule was now virtually
inoperative, since her father did not return till half-past ten on three
nights out of the week. At about ten past nine Catherine put aside
her books and went out for a walk. She had finished all her work
excepting the map.
Cubitt Lane at this time on a glorious June evening was full of
courting couples. They lurched along in a peculiarly graceless
fashion, each leaning against the other.
“I wouldn’t do that,” thought Catherine, virtuously. “That is silly, if
you like.”
At the bridge over the railway she heard a brisk “good evening”
addressed to herself. She turned and saw it was George Trant....
“Where’re you off to?” he asked good-humouredly.
“Taking a walk.”
 “So’m I.... Let’s go up the road....”
“All right.” ... They climbed the hill past the King’s Arms, and
entered the Forest.

§2
The first leaves of autumn were beginning to fall when Catherine
returned to Bockley after a fortnight at Hastings. Day after day of
glorious September weather had covered her cheeks and arms and
hands with freckles: her hair, too, was fluffed and shining with
continual sea-bathing: her general appearance was rather wild and
undomesticated for such a place as Bockley. She returned on
Saturday night, and Sunday found her waiting outside the Baptist
Church at Upton Rising. Evening service was over at eight o’clock,
and she judged that Helen would be there.
Helen greeted her at the church door.
“Only you?” said Catherine.
Helen nodded. “The others went for a walk.... It’s a fine night—
let’s take a tram to the Forest.”
The trams of the London County Council ran along the end of the
road. They boarded one; it was full, and they had to stand on the top.
“You look well,” remarked Helen.
“Oh, I’m all right,” replied Catherine, and the conversation
languished.
What ensued after that would always in Catherine’s mind be
inextricably bound up with the sway and purr of trams along the high
road.
“George has gone away,” remarked Helen, à propos of nothing.
“Oh?”
“His firm’s given him a job in Manchester. A good opening, it
seems.... I got a letter from him yesterday. He enclosed a note for
you: I suppose he didn’t know your address.... I believe I’ve got it on
me....”
She fished in her hand-bag and extracted an envelope, from
which she took a folded half-sheet of paper and handed the latter to
Catherine.
It was rapidly getting dusk, but the lights in the tram were not yet
lit. On every alternate tramway standard hung an arc lamp, and
these were now fizzing and spluttering into pale brilliance. Catherine
read the note (it was roughly written in copying pencil) in quick
spasms as the car swirled along.
my dear cathie,
As you will perceive, I have got shifted to Manchester, where I
shall no longer have the pleasure of your delightful society, which, as
you will not doubt, is a great loss to me personally. However, I am
likely to enjoy my stay here: there are some splendid girls working in
the same office with me, though none of them has your own
Inimitable red hair. If there is one thing I regret it is that the before-
mentioned red hair has occasionally led me to say things I did not
mean and to do things I did not mean to do. I am sure that you, with
your wonderful capacity for understanding, will grasp what I am
trying to sketch out. We have had some interesting discussions
together during the last few months, and for these at least (not to
mention the spiritual inspiration given me by the passionate flame of
your hair) I am deeply grateful.
I hope you will always believe me to be what I am, viz., your
sincere admirer,
george trant.
P.S.—My lodgings are not permanent, so there would be little
point in enclosing my address.
Catherine was slow to grasp the full meaning of the note. As it
dawned upon her her lips tightened, and she gripped fiercely the rail
against which she was leaning. The tram lurched to a standstill, and
there was the usual scramble to get down the stairs. “High Wood,”
the conductor called out.
 “Come on,” said Helen, and they descended.
In the Forest glades the night air was cool and sweet. For some
distance they walked on in silence. Catherine was the first to speak.
They had reached a clearing, and under the open sky the daylight
still lingered.
“I daresay you’d like to read it,” said Catherine. She held out the
note at arm’s length.
Helen gave a queer ejaculatory laugh.
“I’ve already done so,” she said.
“What?”
“Oh, I know it’s not quite the thing to read other people’s letters....
But I wanted to know what ... what he would say to you, and I
thought perhaps you wouldn’t show me.”
Catherine crumpled up the note and put it in her pocket.
“Well, you know, anyway,” she said gloomily.
They passed again into the cool Forest glades.
“I was right,” said Helen, quietly. “I knew he’d write you something
like that. He’s good at that kind of letter-writing ... sort of cheap
cleverness he excels at I’d half a mind not to let you see it.”
There came a long pause. They had reached the high road to
Chingford before it was broken.
Catherine suddenly took the crumpled letter from her pocket, and
began tearing it up into minute fragments.
“See,” she cried passionately, “you can tell him this is what I did
with his letter I You can tell him there’s better fellows in the world
than he is, and Cathie Weston isn’t going to break her heart over
him! ... Tell him I’m not a soppy little schoolgirl.”
She flung the pieces on the ground, and began stamping on
them.
“You’re being silly,” said Helen, quietly.
 “And tell him,” went on Catherine, “that if he thinks he’s under an
obligation to me, he’s made a mistake. I’m grateful to him—for letting
me see what he really is.”
Her words rattled like the passage of a lorry over granite setts.
“Come on,” said Helen, “we’ll get to Chingford, and take the train
back.”
“You’ll tell him?”
“I don’t promise. I think you’d better forget all about him ... after
all, you can’t do anything....”
“I don’t want to! I merely want him to know that I don’t mind.”
“Well, that’s all right, then. He’ll know that if he hears nothing from
you.”
“He won’t. He’ll think he’s left a broken-hearted girl to cry over
him.”
“I don’t think he will.”
“... because I don’t believe in being broken-hearted. I don’t think
it’s possible to die of a broken heart. I’m certain I shan’t, anyway. I
won’t let any man mess about with my life. It’ll take a pretty big
misfortune to make life not worth living to me. If he’s tired of me I’m
just as tired of him. Tell him that!”
“This way ...” said Helen, guiding her into the Station Road. “We’ll
just be able to catch the 9.45....”

§3
Helen left the train at Upton Rising, but Catherine went on to
Bockley. The Town Hall struck the hour of ten as she was walking up
the station approach. At this time the crowds along the High Street
were beginning to disperse; the trams and buses were full of
returning excursionists. Neglectful of the time and with no very
definite aim in view, Catherine turned into the Ridgeway. It was
directly opposite to the quickest way home, but its shady avenues
and flower-scented front gardens suited her mood better than the
stark frowsiness of Hanson Street. Her mind was in flux. She did not
know whether what had happened was going to be an important
stage in her life or not. She did not know how much of her feeling
was disappointment, and how much was mere wounded dignity. She
could not estimate the depth of the feeling she had had for George
Trant. It seemed inconceivable that she had ever been in love with
him....
She started to administer to herself wholesome correctives. “It’s
no good,” she told herself brutally, “your imagining yourself the
heroine of a tragedy, suffering more poignantly than ninety-nine
people out of every hundred, because it’s not the truth. What you are
feeling now is felt sometime or other by the majority of all people:
there’s nothing a bit singular or exceptional in your case. It’s a
mistake to pride yourself on suffering more exquisitely than other
people.”
Then she poured cold logic over herself.
“He’s only one man among millions, and in no sense is he
markedly superior to the average. A certain spurious cleverness, a
talent for mockery, a deft finesse in expressing cruel things in soft
words ... absurd that he should become so much to you or to any girl
... there’s nothing admirable in him, therefore you are lucky to get rid
of him.”
It sounded convincing enough.
She walked on, scarce heeding whither she was going, and all
the time her mood alternated between stormy resentment and cold
self-reproach. There were moments too of grey hopelessness, and it
was only her constantly recurring indignation that swept her out of
these. Every inch of the roads she traversed was associated with
him: every gate and tree seemed to call out in mocking melancholy
—“This was where ... this was where....” Not a street corner but was
inextricably bound up in her mind with some remark of his and the
exact phase of their relationship when he had uttered it....
 Under heavy trees that split the moonlight into a thousand
fragments she suddenly heard the rich hum of a grand piano. She
stopped. She stood in the shadow of the hedge and listened in
rapture. The house was a large one, with a corner bay-window wide
open, and it was from that room evidently that the music was
proceeding. It was some rapid piece full of rippling streams of notes
with very few chords, octaves in the base clef that thundered like the
oncoming tide, swirling waves of treble triplets that were light as air,
yet beneath all the laughter and freedom, a sense of dim, unuttered
passion, half hopeful, half melancholy. Long afterwards she knew it
was Chopin’s Black Note Study in G flat. But then it had no name to
her. It might have been the latest ragtime craze for all she knew: all
she cared was that it expressed all the feelings in her own heart that
she had thought inexpressible, things that she had often and in vain
tried to wring out of the Collard and Collard at home. At that moment
it is probable that she would have given everything she had in the
world for that piano. It stood to her as the one way to salvation. She
would have bartered her soul for it. As it was, she stood there in the
spattered moonlight and cried for it. At any rate, she cried.... The
piece finished up in a tremendous cascade of double octaves, and
she waited nearly half an hour after that, hoping the playing might
begin again. Then she walked back to Kitchener Road almost in a
state of trance. The Bockley High Street was very white and
deserted, and far into the dim distance stretched the tram-rails, blue
and infinite. It was long past eleven. But Catherine was dreaming—
dreaming of one thing only (though that one thing was strangely
complicated by other things)—dreaming of a grand piano, dreaming
of the ecstasy of playing it as she had heard it played that night. The
vision of her ambition came to her as she turned into Kitchener
Road. She would become a great pianoforte player. Already
discerning critics—adjudicators at musical festivals and such like—
had prophesied a career for her if she would work hard. Hitherto it
had not seemed worth while to work hard. Now it became suddenly
and tremendously worth all the soul and energy she could give to it.
Nothing else mattered. Nothing else could ever matter. Whatever
stuff her soul was made of, music was part of it, and music would
answer everything her soul asked.
 At home her father was waiting up, vaguely remonstrative as
usual.
“Worse and worse it gets, Cathie ...” he began ... “the first night
you’re home after your holiday you land in at twenty to twelve! ... it’s
not good enough ... you’ve had all the morning and afternoon. I can’t
think what makes you want to go walking the streets this time....”
“I’m not having any supper,” she said brusquely. “Good-night....”
“But——”
“Oh, don’t worry ... I’ve had some,” she lied. As she fled upstairs
she heard him murmuring something. A great change had come over
him since his wife died. He had been getting ever slower and feebler.
It was becoming more and more evident that it had been only his
wife’s incessant nagging that had spurred him to the minimum of
activity. Now he pottered aimlessly about the garden. His
attendances at the Duke Street Chapel became more and more
infrequent, and finally ceased altogether. People said (often
facetiously) that he was pining away of grief at his wife’s death. It is
doubtful if this were a complete diagnosis....
Up in the little back bedroom Catherine did a thing which she had
not done for a long time. She prayed. Ch-artinevin was no longer a
choleric old gentleman with white side-whiskers and a devouring
passion for adulatory worship. He had long ago ceased to be that,
and he had not begun to be anything else. Catherine, though she
never altogether recognized her position, had no very definite belief
in either Him or the rest of the accepted doctrines of Christianity. She
prayed, not out of religious fervour, but from a variety of complex
motives, one of which was certainly a desire to straighten out her
own ideas by reducing them to more or less coherent form. Among
other things, she prayed for a grand piano. “Lord, give me a grand
piano,” was her unorthodox variant upon the more usual bedtime
supplications. “Lord, do give me a grand piano,” she pleaded. It is
curious, but she did not in the least expect the Lord to take any
notice. She was even doubtful whether the Lord were listening. Yet
she kept on repeating the demand for a grand piano. Also she
decided how she would catalogue the whole George Trant episode.
It was nothing. It was to be regarded as nothing. Tears broke in upon
her decision to regard it as nothing. The grand piano and all that it
meant to her kept looming on the horizon. Then she felt a little
ashamed of crying. “I never used to cry,” she thought. “Not even after
a sound thrashing.” She tried to calm herself. “I’m getting soppy,” she
reflected. “Crying like a little kid. All because of that piano. That’s
what done it....” It was long past midnight when she fell into troubled
sleep.
 CHAPTER IV
NOCTURNE
§1
ON a certain bitterly cold night in November, Catherine stood on the
doorstep of No. 24, Kitchener Road, with her overcoat and hat in her
hands. Despite the chilliness of the atmosphere her cheeks were hot
and flushed, and her sensations took no notice of the blustering wind
that raged along the road. For several moments she stood still on the
doorstep, with heaving breast and head flung back defiantly. Then,
still carrying her hat and overcoat, she went out into the street,
omitted to shut the gate behind her, and walked at a terrific pace in
the direction of the Bockley High Street.
It was eleven p.m. Her steps rang loudly along the deserted
pavements; occasionally she lurched forward as if desiring to
increase her pace, and this disturbed the rhythmic beat of her steps.
She passed nobody, except at the junction of Hanson Street, where
a couple of belated revellers slunk past with the furtive attitude of
those who know they ought to have been home long since. They
were too intent upon their destination to notice her. Only where there
were large front gardens did her passing excite attention, and here
congregations of cats, gathered for midnight revelry, dispersed with
mournful sound as her footsteps approached.
At the corner of the High Street she stopped. It seemed to occur
to her for the first time that to carry one’s hat and overcoat upon
such a night was in some degree unusual. With careful deliberation
she put them on. Then she laughed softly, and her laugh was a
strange mingling of rapture and defiance. That which she had
thought impossible had come to pass. After years of undeviating
placidity fate had at last done something dramatic with her.
 She had been turned out of the house at No. 24, Kitchener Road.
Her father had done what he had never before been known to do:
he had lost his temper, and lost it thoroughly.
He had said: “My God, Cathie, I won’t stand that! ... Out you go!”
He had pushed her into the lobby, and while she was reaching for
her hat and coat he had struck her on the face with the back of his
hand.
“Out you go!” he repeated, and Catherine saw that his temper
had not yet reached its height. “I’m done with you! ... Are you going?”
He actually picked up an umbrella and began brandishing it with his
hand grasping the ferrule.
Catherine had opened the front door in vague terror of what he
was going to do. The door was banged after her with a vicious kick
from within. Then her cheek where he had struck her began to
hurt....

§2
The cause of the altercation had been Catherine’s determination
to accept a situation which he did not wish her to accept. She had
answered the advertisement, interviewed her prospective employer,
and received word that she had been appointed before even
mentioning the matter to him. Then at teatime on a Friday afternoon
she casually remarked:
“By the way, I’ve decided to get some work.”
He looked up at her as if the word were unfamiliar to him.
“Work?” he said, astounded. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve applied for a job and been offered it.”
He seemed to have difficulty in comprehending what she said.
“A job? What job?”
“They want a pianist at a cinema. Good salary. Only work in the
evenings....”
 “But, my dear girl——”
“Well?”
“Don’t cut me short like that.... I was about to say....”
“Oh, I know what you’re about to say. You’re hopelessly against
it, aren’t you?”
“Well, if I am, you——”
“Why are you?”
“I do wish you’d give me time to speak, Catherine. You spring this
on me so suddenly.... I had no idea you were ever thinking of such a
thing, to begin with. Even now it seems incredible to me. I can’t
understand it.”
“Can’t understand what?”
“Why you want to do it ... it’s ... it’s unnecessary. Haven’t you
enough money?”
“Oh, it’s not a question of money. I want to have some work to do,
something to get interested in.”
“But you have the work of the house to carry on with. Surely
that’s enough.”
“Oh, that’s enough. In fact, that’s a great deal too much. I’m sick
and tired of housework. Some girls may like it, but I don’t. I’d sooner
pay some girl who likes it to do it for me. Besides, I want to be
independent.”
He gave a start of surprise. “What’s that you said?” he asked,
incredulously.
“I said, independent.”
There was a tense pause.
“Somebody’s been putting some silly modern ideas into your
head. All that bosh about independence, I mean. A girl’s place is in
the home, when she’s got one. Until you make a home of your own
your place is here.”
 “I suppose you think I ought to get married.”
“Married? ... Heavens, no! ... You’re only nineteen! Why, I never
even met your mother until I was twenty-four! Don’t you worry your
head about marriage. Let it alone until the right feller comes along. I
expect you’ve been reading too many trashy novels lately, that’s
what it is.”
An angry light leapt into her eyes.
“Well, if you think I’m going to scrub floors and wash dishes until
the right feller comes along, as you call it, you’re jolly well mistaken. I
wouldn’t do it even if I was sure the right feller would come along. I’m
not made that way. I want a bit of liberty. I want to live.”
“My dear Catherine, you have everything you need. I can’t see
what you’re making all this fuss about. Really I can’t.... You’re a good
deal better off than some girls, I can tell you. What about poor Nellie
Selborne and——”
“Oh, what on earth have they got to do with it?”
“Well, if you won’t listen to me, I suppose ...” He waved his hand
deprecatingly. “Suppose we stop arguing. Let’s hold the matter over.
I’m certain that with a few days’ thought you’ll——”
“But I can’t hold the matter over.”
“Why not?”
“Because the situation’s been offered me. I’ve either got to
accept it or reject it on the spot.”
“Well, Catherine, I’m sorry to go against you, but it will have to be
so, in this case. Understand, I mean it. I mean to have my own way
in this matter. I won’t have you strumming away every night in a
third-rate picture house. I’m going to put my foot down firmly in this
matter. You must reject the offer.”
He made a gallant but not entirely successful attempt to appear
dignified by resuming the perusal of his newspaper. Catherine bit her
lip and went a little pale.
“That’s a pity,” she said quietly.
 “Why is it a pity?”
“Because I’ve decided to accept it.” Her lips were tight, and there
was the suggestion of restrained emotion in her voice.
Something happened to his eyes. They opened terrifically wide
and gazed at her expressionlessly for several seconds.
“What’s that?” he said.
His eyes unnerved her somewhat. But she steeled herself to
repeat her ultimatum.
“Because—I’ve—decided to—to accept.”
Pause. “That’s all,” she added, irrelevantly, as if by way of
clinching the matter.
Another pause. The clock tactfully struck in with the
announcement of six o’clock. That seemed to break the spell. He
rose and made for his hat.
“H’m,” he ejaculated, sharply. “I see. That’s what it amounts to, is
it.... Well, you’ll have time to think it over. I’m off to school now.”
He took a sheaf of night-school exercises from his desk and
stuffed them in his pocket. Not another word came from him.
Catherine was almost hypnotized by his quick, startling movements,
so unlike his usual apathy. He strode firmly down the lobby and shut
the door after him more noisily than usual. She could hear his
footsteps along the street, and he was walking at a pace that was for
him unprecedentedly rapid. When he was quite out of hearing she
sank down into the chair he had just vacated. The tension of the
argument had given her a sense of physical exhaustion. Yet
spiritually she was thrilled by a strange feeling of exhilaration: it
seemed to her that after an interval of drudgery she was once again
being drawn into the vortex of momentous happenings. She was
absolutely certain of one thing: she would not give way. If he chose
to make her disobedience a “test-case” of the father’s right to inflict
his will upon the daughter she would await whatever steps he took
with calmness and determination. But she would never give way.
She was nineteen, and to her nineteen seemed old age. Things he
had said in the course of the argument had annoyed her
inexpressibly. They were little things, mostly. Bringing in the case of
Nellie Selborne, for instance, was silly and entirely irrelevant. Nellie
had paralysis down one side, and existed apparently for the purpose
of proving to all other girls how lucky they were. Then again,
Catherine disliked intensely his massive declaration that “a girl’s
place is in the home.” He had talked about “waiting for the right feller
to come along,” and this passive method of getting through life
roused all the scorn and contempt in her nature. Also he had talked
about her “strumming in a third-rate picture house.” It was typical of
him to assume that it was third-rate before he had heard even the
name of it. He had been ridiculously unfair....
She went over to the writing-desk where he marked his school
exercise books. Something within her said: You are angry and
excited now, but you will soon cool down and then probably you will
give in to him.... To this she replied passionately: I won’t give in to
him.... But, continued the part of her which always told the truth, you
will give in to him if you wait till your temper has cooled down....
Better write now accepting the situation, and post it before he comes
back from night-school. Then the matter will be really settled. Then
you can say to him when he comes in: “It’s no use arguing about it
any more. I’ve written to accept the job. The thing’s done now and
can’t be undone.”
She wrote the letter as quickly as she could, for the feeling of
supreme depression, the feeling that she was doing something
regrettable and irretrievably silly, was becoming heavier upon her
every second. She was just addressing the envelope after fastening
it when she heard the key fumbling at the front door. For the moment
a kind of panic fear seized her. He was coming back. He must have
turned back before reaching the school. His footsteps down the
lobby sounded brutal and unnecessarily noisy. She swung round in
her chair and sat awaiting his entrance with the penholder stuck
between her teeth. The half-addressed envelope lay on the desk
invisible behind her back.... He flung down his hat and coat on the
table.
 The moment was so tense that Catherine spoke merely to
interrupt the horrible silence of it.
“Was there no school to-night?” she asked, with an effort to
appear perfectly casual.
“I’m not going,” he snapped curtly, and took down the red-ink
bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece. That meant he was going
to spend the evening marking exercise books.
She was thoroughly frightened. Her mother’s tempers and tirades
had never frightened her, because she was used to them and knew
them intimately, as a doctor knows the illness of a familiar patient.
But her father was normally so quiet and placid and mild-mannered:
she had never seen him in a temper, although when she was a little
girl, boys who were in his class at school had told her that on rare
occasions he got “ratty.” But she had never known him in such a
condition. In this phase he was a complete stranger to her. And she
was apprehensive, as she would have been if a stranger had
entered the house when she was alone.
He came to the desk to get his exercise books. She thought at
first he was going to strike her. But he merely leaned over her and
lifted the lid. As he did so he must have seen the half-addressed
envelope lying on the top. But he did not say a word. His silence was
unnerving.
Always he used the desk for marking exercise books. But this
time he arranged the pile of books and the pen and ink on the dining-
table.
“You can use the desk,” he said curiously, “if you’re wanting to.”
His politeness, his unusual solicitude for her comfort, was horrible!
Normally, if she had been at his desk, he would have said: “Now look
here, Cathie, it’s too bad of you to want to use my desk when I want
it. After all, it’s my desk. You’ve got all the day to use it when I’m out.
Can’t you use the table?”
She would have understood a speech like that. But for him to say
so thoughtfully, so obsequiously, “You can use the desk if you’re
wanting to,” was charged with all the nameless horror of the
unprecedented.
It was half-past six. The clock struck. He was assiduously and
seemingly quite normally putting red-ink ticks and crosses on
algebra sums. Yet she knew that the atmosphere was very far from
being normal. She took a book from the shelf and sat down in the
chair by the fire, but it was difficult to read. She could hear the ticking
of the clock and the steady scratching of his pen, and flipping of
pages. He went on for hours. When he had finished one pile of
books he went to his desk and fetched out another. Then again, if he
had not done so the first time, he must have seen the envelope with
its incomplete address. But he went on with his work at the table.
Supper time came, but he made no sign of clearing away his books.
And then his surliness and sulkiness, whichever it was, ceased to
frighten her, but began to annoy her acutely.... The last post went at
eleven-thirty. Come what might she would post that letter. At five
minutes past eleven she went over to the desk with the intention of
finishing the address. She had got as far as the “p” in “Upton” when
she saw that he was regarding her intently. As soon as he saw that
she had noticed his glance he put down his pen and swung back on
his chair.
“Now then, Cathie,” he began brusquely, “this matter’s got to be
settled.... You understand. No nonsense. What’re you going to do?”
She bit the end of the penholder.
“I’m going to accept the thing,” she said firmly, though she had
difficulty in restraining her apprehension and excitement.
“You’re not!” he cried, advancing menacingly. “Understand, I
forbid it! I’m going to be firm in this business. You’re not to accept
that situation. D’you hear?”
He picked up the envelope she had been engaged upon. She
knew that he had seen it before. But he pretended not to have done.
She despised him for that little perfidy.
“What’s this?” he cried, snatching it up vehemently. Then he
pretended to realize. “You’ve been writing to accept it?”
 “Yes.”
For a moment she thought he was going to do her physical
violence. Then he tore the envelope across and flung the two pieces
into the fire.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she said contemptuously, “that’s merely
childish. I can easily write another.” (In her anger she did not
remember an occasion when she had been smitten with the same
kind of childishness).
It was then that he cried: “My God, Cathie, I won’t stand that! ...
Out you go!”

§3
At the corner of the Bockley High Street her only feeling was one
of nervous jubilation. The clock chimed the quarter. She
remembered with a little thrill of ecstasy how on all other occasions
at night when she had heard the clock chime a quarter past eleven
she had been anxiously wondering what sort of a row there would be
when she reached home. Now she was free. She was not returning
home. She was leaving. She was free to go where she liked and do
what she liked....
If it were summer time, she thought, I would walk to the Forest
and sleep out under the stars....
But it was November.... She decided to travel up to the City and
spend the night in one of the waiting-rooms at the big terminals. The
next day she would look out for lodgings.... Money was a difficulty. In
her pocket was a purse containing the residue of the week’s house-
keeping money. It amounted to five and sevenpence half-penny.
There were also a couple of penny stamps....
The ideal time for this enterprise would have been a Monday
evening in June or July.
Still, she would have to make the best of it. With light step she
passed along the wide expanse of the High Street in the direction of