"Oh, you'll be converted. You've come to the right house."
"I don't think I ever converted any one in my life except old Pentecost,
who you all vow is half-witted," said Philippa, shaking her head. "In
these days no one is converted. He or she grows up with an idea, and
takes in the newspaper which supports it. But I am rather glad about
Claudia, and I think she shall make a speech after all."
"Just as you like," said Claudia, easily.
"Do you speak yourself?"
"Oh no; I have never been young enough."
"Debating clubs do that for one, at any rate," went on the girl,
unheeding. "They take away all fear of one's own voice. But I haven't
gone in for them much, because, of course, that sort of thing is not
required in my profession."
This time she was more successful in moving her audience. Emily said
eagerly--"Your profession? Oh, Claudia, this is very interesting! What
is it?"
"I am a landscape gardener. Didn't you know that I had been studying at
the college?"
"Yes, but we thought--well, we did not realise that you were actually
working there." She assured them that this had been the case, keenly
enjoying their surprise. Philippa, however, asked at once--
"Well, but the result, the outcome? Shall you practice?"
"Certainly."
"And take pay?"
"If I did not, I should have no right to enter the market at all. I go
into the ranks, to be treated exactly like the others."
"Only what is play to you is living to them," remarked Philippa. "You
can never place yourself on the same footing. However, as Emily says,
this is interesting. Had you a particular fondness for gardening?"
Claudia could not say that she had. "But one had to choose something.
I could not have been idle. I did think of shop-dressing."
"Shop-dressing?"
"Yes; a girl I know has taken to that. She starts very early every
morning in order to arrange the things in certain shop-windows. It is
pleasant work enough, and she gets three hundred a year. But it is
rather a bore having to go out at such an unearthly hour, and on the
whole I thought landscape gardening preferable."
"But what is it? How do you do it?" asked Anne, leaning forward and
smiling. She was the softest of the sisters, large and fair.
"I lay out gardens for people," said Claudia. She scented ridicule, and
was determined to speak simply.
"Gardens? Gardens on a great scale, I suppose?" put in Philippa. "A
landscape means something vast."
"Oh, not necessarily. Of course one might have to rearrange a park; but
your garden, for instance, is a delightful size. And now you know why
your river enchanted me. I always wanted to try my hand upon a river."
"Did I not tell you she was a Radical?" asked Philippa, addressing the
others. "Imagine our good, respectable, steady-going river turned out
of his centuries-old groove! No, Claudia, we are not going to deliver
him up to your tender mercies, and could not if we would. A river--a
real river--is a more important personage than you conceive; not to be
trifled with even so much as the government of a country."
"That is what I say," returned Claudia, smiling. "England is so full of
absurd restrictions that, do what you will, you run your head against
them."
"You will have to try the colonies," said Anne.
"Or a thousand miles or so of prairies."
Claudia coloured. She had an uncomfortable conviction that her cousin
Philippa was mocking.
"It is opportunity I want--not size," she said with dignity, and as she
spoke she looked at Harry, who had been listening to the conversation in
amazement--mute, except for an occasional muttered "By Jove!" But to
her look he answered at once.
"Of course," he said boldly. "There must be dozens of people who want
their places set to rights. Would Thornbury do to begin with? If you
would come to Thornbury, you could have a free hand, and lots of flowers
to do anything with."
Claudia turned her face towards him with a sigh.
"I am not a florist, and I know nothing whatever about flowers, because
they don't in the least enter into my scheme. But as to grouping and
re-arranging trees, if I can be of any use I shall be happy to do all I
can."
"The Thornbury trees!" murmured Philippa.
"And transplanting is so easily managed now," the girl went on, "that
really I can't conceive why people are not more enterprising in trying
new effects. If you think of it, how should the planting at haphazard
which went on everywhere, produce the best combinations? Whereas, bring
art to bear, and the whole falls into a beautiful unity."
He agreed enthusiastically.
"Exactly. I never thought of it before, but now you speak of it, it
does seem extraordinary that we should leave so much to chance, I
believe ours may be very much improved."
Philippa, with an amused twinkle in her eyes, inquired whether Claudia
had found an opportunity of trying her powers.
"At the college, of course. But I am hoping for larger work," said
Claudia, eagerly. "It is like everything else, one has to begin in a
small way, and get known by degrees."
And, as she spoke, vague shadows floated before Harry Hilton's eyes. He
saw a girl's light figure flitting along the grassy rides at Thornbury,
transformations, golden sunshine everywhere. The evening was touched to
him with a strange strong delight which marked it out from all the other
evenings he had ever known.
Claudia herself awoke to enthusiasm and plans. From her window she saw
food for both in a stretch of fair wooded country lying in a morning
haze, with the silver arrow of the river flashing through the green.
Her thoughts immediately busied themselves with planting, thinning, and
grouping, and Harry Hilton's cheerful whistle to his dog under her
window only suggested a hope that he would carry out his proposal of
getting her a free hand at Thornbury. She resolved to talk to her
cousins that day, and explain fully how she was desirous of making their
house her head-quarters, holding herself absolutely at liberty to go and
come as her calling required. She expected argument and disapproval,
since it was unlikely that three sisters living on the outskirts of a
provincial town, should have sufficiently caught the spirit of the age,
and the new development of woman, not to detect strong objections in any
career which offered independence to a girl of her age. But against
argument she felt herself duly fortified, even thirsted for it as a
young soldier might thirst for the first brush of battle. She was the
least little bit in the world therefore disappointed that her
announcement of the evening before had not shocked them into stiffer
protest, but she told herself that they had not been alone, and that the
struggle would be in private.
"You see, Philippa," she found herself saying with eagerness, when after
several vain attempts to capture her cousin, she had run her to the
earth in the small morning-room which was called the den, "I should be
simply wretched if I had nothing to do, and in these days everything is
over-stocked. I dare say you feel that it would be more useful to
undertake something in the philanthropic line, but I haven't the least
inclination for that sort of thing--I should hate to go about collecting
rents from poor creatures who can't pay, and oughtn't to be made to; or
dragging girls into clubs. I couldn't, indeed!"
"My dear," said Philippa, "please don't set me up as an imaginary
nine-pin in order to knock me down flat. I assure you you will discover
I haven't nearly so many opinions as you have, for as I grow older, I
find a privilege of age consists in putting away pre-conceived notions,
and possessing one's self of a receptive mind."
Claudia glanced quickly at her.
"Most people," murmured the girl, "rather object."
"We shan't try you in that way. So long as we ourselves are not
improved upon by force, nobody here will interfere with your improving
other people. And really I thought Harry's a handsome offer last
night."
"Oh," said Claudia, carelessly, "it didn't come from conviction. He
thought I was a girl and not bad-looking, and that I didn't mean actual
business."
Miss Cartwright smiled behind a newspaper; but Claudia's tone was quite
frank and free from self-consciousness.
"He's not very brilliant, is he?" she went on. "You like him, I can
see, and I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but of course his must be a
terribly deteriorating sort of life. Imagine a man caring to knock
about with no particular object! I don't myself understand how any man
could stand such an existence, or woman either. Of course that is now
getting to be recognised, only we unfortunate women, having been in the
groove for centuries, find it hard to emancipate ourselves; while men
have had all the advantages of action and movement, so that, luckily for
them, a dilly-dallying life strikes lookers-on as a failure, and public
opinion forces them into some sort of exertion. That's the secret of
their success, and it is horribly unfair upon women, but it's going to
be different now!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm.
Philippa groaned.
"If that means we are to have more than ever to do, what will become of
us?"
"Oh, this will be work worth the doing!" cried Claudia.
"I see. Well, my dear, do it. As I said before, no one here will say
you nay, provided their own liberties are guaranteed to them. Do you
begin at once, or is this to be an off day?"
"I am going on the bicycle to try a new brake, and then I may draw out
some plans in the garden."
"You will find a comfortable seat under the great beech."
And there, some hour later, Philippa, having finished her accounts and
written letters, beheld Claudia established, surrounded by fluttering
papers and pencil sketches, which Harry Hilton carefully guarded from
the wind. Miss Cartwright, to tell the truth, was not best pleased at
the sight. She bit her lip, and rubbed her left ear.
"Now, is she good enough for him, or is she going to make ducks and
drakes of the honestest heart in the county? Which, I wonder? And what
an old fool I am to suppose that anything I can do will affect either of
them! No, my dear Harry, you must manage for yourself, and if Miss
Claudia despises you, you will have to put up with it. She is a great
deal too narrow-minded at present to fall in love, and, bless her, with
all that fine sweeping scorn of grooves, how little she understands what
a broad outlook means! Well, well, it's natural enough, and I am sure
the rising generation is delightfully in earnest in views and reforms;
only, when it sets to work to reform one's self, human nature is
disposed to be nasty. You will be a wiser woman, Philippa Cartwright,
if you step on one side, and accept the position. Is that you, Anne?
You have come just in time to assist in an act of abdication."
"Who is ironic to abdicate?"
"I. From to-day I take a back seat."
"Claudia again, I suppose?" said her sister, with a laugh. "My dear
Philippa, you will not stay there long. Now, _I_ am deeply interested
in Claudia."
"Oh, so am I, and so is Harry. Look under the big beech and see for
yourself." Anne looked, and was silent.
"Well?"
"Well,"--slowly--"I suppose the old story is too strong for the new
woman."
"Of course it is--mercifully," retorted Philippa with impatience, "and,
if it comes to that, I say nothing; but my impression is that the new
woman by no means shuts out love of admiration, though she calls it by
another name, and I don't want Harry to be its victim."
"Oh, she will get over that sort of thing. She is very young."
"There is just one tiresome point in your character, Anne. You can
never hear a person found fault with but you must stand up for him or
her. Consequence. Sinners like myself can't rest till we have proved
our case. Claudia has come here with the intention of setting us all to
rights, and educating us up to her standard; and if you don't call that
conceited--I do."
"I dare say we were all conceited at her age."
"No, I wasn't; nor were you. We should have been put into our proper
places quickly enough. However, you have sent my good resolutions to
flight with your exasperating charity, for when you arrived I was
thinking most piously about our cousin, and had made my mind up to see
Harry make a fool of himself, yet say nothing. Now I am all prickles
again."
Anne laughed and said no more.