Harry departed, and Claudia expressed her compassion to Philippa.
Philippa grew hot in his defence.
"Of course you like him," said the girl. "I think he is a capital
fellow, and that's the pity of it. Yes, yes, I know. He and you are
convinced that he will do very well by-and-by to reign at Thornbury,
where they will touch their hats and curtsy to him, and he will send
down soup when they are ill. That's his line exactly, and it may exist
in England a few years longer, but it's on its last legs."
"Aren't you getting rather mixed?" asked Philippa. "The soup, or the
line, or what?"
Claudia laughed.
"You know what I mean. The old order. It had its good points, I'm
quite ready to admit, but it is over, it must be put away, and a new
situation faced. The People, with a capital letter."
"Aren't we the People, with a capital letter?" murmured Miss Cartwright.
"Yes, if you join the movement. Otherwise you're only--I beg your
pardon, Philippa, but I know you would hate humbug--only a fly on the
wheel. You'd be swept along anyway, but you wouldn't help."
"I'm not sure I shouldn't have the best of it, though, except for the
dust," Philippa said meditatively. "And poor Harry! I think you are
ungrateful to him when he is boldly facing the new situation on your
behalf. Think of his mother's face!"
"Ah!" said Claudia, smiling. "Yes, think!"
"Then won't you admit him as one of the People?"
"When he puts his shoulder to the wheel."
"I believe, if he's wise, he'll come and sit by my side. I'm growing
more and more to prefer the fly."
"It's natural for you," said the girl. "It is we younger ones who are
responsible for the forward movement."
Philippa winced.
"Yes, my dear, I know, and God forbid that I should forget it!" she
said, with a touch of wistfulness in her voice. "Only it may surprise
you by-and-by to find how quickly you grow old in the eyes of the
younger. Sometimes think of that, and don't be in too great a hurry to
push the old workers out of the ranks."
Claudia looked uncomfortable.
"I--I didn't mean anything of that sort."
"And I don't mean to be pushed," said Miss Cartwright, recovering
herself with a laugh. "I flatter myself that we elders have some
staying power. Take Harry, however, by all means, if you can get him to
push. I dare say it will be good for him."
"That," returned the girl, "is what I think. Of course, in a sort of
way, it is easy enough to get workers--men, I mean," she added, with a
fine disdain, "one has but to lift one's little finger. But what is the
use of them? They just take it as a new variety of flirting, and
haven't an idea beyond. It simply means that so long as it amuses them
they will go on, and as soon as they are tired, drop it. Oh, I know!"
"She is weary with the wisdom of the ages," Philippa said afterwards to
Anne. "If you had heard that `Oh, I know!' and the depth of experience
it conveyed! The world is topsy-turvy, frivolity will soon become a
virtue of the aged, all the merrymakings and junketings will be reserved
for the end of life, we shall be the last left to pipe and dance, while
youth regards us scornfully. Claudia depresses me. A hundred wrinkles
have grown in my face during the past week. I am ashamed of my poor
innocent jestings. If I smile, I look furtively at her to see if she
disapproves. What mission has been mine? Have I ever coursed cookery
through lectures, or passed the mildest of exams? I did think I knew
something about housekeeping, but Claudia has proved that I work on a
wrong basis, and even in that I have to write myself a miserable
failure."
"Yet there is a delightful charm about her," her sister said,
disregarding this outbreak. "She is wonderfully attractive and bright."
"Bless her, yes! She'll do well enough; she'll find her limitations
quite honestly, if not at once."
"And will she go to Thornbury?"
"She's in the mood to go anywhere, only desirous of new worlds to
conquer; and she hopes to induce Harry to support the cause, without
being idiotic, like other men. She is quite frank with her
experiences."
Both sisters laughed.
Meanwhile Claudia easily made herself at home, came and went as she
liked, and refused to be bound by the slenderest of social fetters. The
kindly placid circle of a cathedral town, desirous--from respect to the
Miss Cartwrights--to exercise hospitable duties towards a young girl who
had but just fluttered into it, and might be supposed to require
encouragement and support, was absolutely paralysed by the abruptness of
Claudia's renunciation of such benefits. The Dean's wife went so far as
to ask her to dine, which, considering the plethora of young ladies, and
the difficulty of providing each lady with a dignitary, or even a
curate, was an attention scarcely short of the heroic. It was the more
startling when a note arrived, written in an upright manly hand, and
announcing that owing to professional duties, Miss Hamilton would be
unable to accept any invitation.
"Professional!" repeated Mrs Dean, staring at the note.
"Is she a lady doctor?" hazarded her eldest daughter.
"She has not that appearance," said the Dean, with decision.
"But, my dear, she must be something odd. And then to state it in such
a barefaced way! A young creature not older than Rosa! Well, we have
done all that could have been expected, and I can only say I am truly
thankful she is not coming."
For all this, Claudia came and went contentedly, and if she had heard
the speeches would have enjoyed them, as in some degree emphasising her
position. Philippa laughed, and Anne smoothed over where smoothing was
necessary, but Emily was ruffled, because before her young cousin's
appearance she had been considered to lead the van of progress, and she
was afraid that Claudia's Radical theories might be confounded with her
own. Besides, Claudia's scorn of leagues and friendly societies and
blue ribbons was apt to be scathing; she talked socialism, and combined
it with an innocent despotism contradictory enough to belong only to
original woman.
Mrs Hilton's letter of invitation came enclosed in one to Philippa.
"My dear Philippa (it said):--
"Harry tells me you have a young cousin staying with you, who is very
fond of what they call landscape gardening, and he seems to think it
would amuse her to come to Thornbury. I am sure we shall be delighted
to have her here, for it must be dreadfully sad for her to be alone in
the world, poor thing! and if she likes flowers we have plenty, though
there they are, all in their beds, and I don't know what old Thomas will
say if anybody digs them up! However, Harry can always manage. We are
going to have a few friends next week, because it makes it more lively
for Harry. Captain Fenwick on leave, and Ruth Baynes, and perhaps Helen
Arbuthnot will come, so that your little cousin would not find it so
dull."
Philippa read this to Anne with great amusement.
"What would our little cousin say if she saw?"
"Minnie has written."
"Not in these terms. Harry would dictate the letter to his mother."
"Harry may dictate, but he will never get Minnie to understand that
Claudia is to be paid."
"Oh, well, it will be so amusing to see her awake to the fact, that,
upon my word, if it weren't that Emily's feelings would be so dreadfully
hurt if I deserted her meeting, I should be tempted to take Claudia--I
beg her pardon, travel under Claudia's wing--myself."
"That, my dear," said Anne, laughing, "you couldn't do. Claudia will go
on her bicycle, and send her luggage."
Anne was right.
"I don't so much care about bicycling for the pleasure of the thing,"
Claudia remarked. "But I much prefer it to your cross-country journeys.
It is but twenty miles as the crow flies."
"You will lose your way," said Emily.
"With a map and a compass? How could I?"
She made all her arrangements with exactitude, and Emily, who had
prognosticated trouble for Philippa, had to own herself mistaken when
Claudia wrote all the necessary notes and directions, sent off her
luggage in excellent time, and came down in a very neat and well-cut
dress.
"You are a woman of business. You don't leave your friends much to do
for you," said Anne, with her kind smile.
"We have learned that much," returned Claudia, pleased. "What a
nuisance those poor clinging blushing women must have been, fainting
away on a man's shoulder whenever an emergency arrived!"
"Stop, stop!" put in Philippa. "I won't have the heroines of my youth
abused. Each generation offers a spectacle for the next to mock at.
Don't expect to escape yourself, Claudia."
"Well, they shan't accuse us of helplessness," said the girl, serenely.
"Can I do anything for you in the town? No? Then, good-bye."
She settled herself on her bicycle, and rode quietly away. Emily looked
vexed.
"She might have taken the other road. Now she will meet them all coming
out of the Cathedral."
"Which she will enjoy," said Anne, with a smile. "Come, Emily, own that
she looks charming. You are a woman of adventure yourself."
Claudia enjoyed her twenty miles exceedingly. She met and scandalised
the Dean's wife, and made a much more charitable impression upon the
Dean himself, who looked after her with a sigh of envy, and a glance at
his own gaitered legs. She noted both expressions, laughed, and then
her mind flung itself forward with the eagerness with which it always
seized upon the future. She pictured Thornbury, its opportunities, its
deficiencies, and its altered aspect when she, Claudia, once more took
the road back to Elmslie. The people she might meet were not nearly so
interesting. The road, however, was neither good nor level, and often
she was obliged to confine her attention to its roughnesses. Her real
sense of beauty, too, was charmed by the tremulous gladness of the day,
soft sunshine veiled in sudden glooms, which yet never became
threatening; a hedge-growth rich in ever-varying depths of green;
shadows from bordering elms wavering gently on the road, and here and
there a gate, a break in the hedge, a twist in the road, opening out
some blue distance, not mellow, indeed, with the glory of southern
sunshine, but tender as only an English distance can be, and sweet as
its remembrance. Claudia was young, vigorous, exultant. When the road
climbed so steeply that she was obliged to get off and push her bicycle,
it only made a pleasant change for her young strong arms. Every now and
then she consulted her map, or, sitting on a stile, glanced at the
ripening corn, watched the busy rooks, and ate, with an excellent
appetite, the sandwiches supplied by Anne. It was on one of these
halts, on the ridge of a hill steeper and stonier than she had yet
encountered, that another rider passed her, a man who looked at her
keenly. He was thin, sun-browned, and clean-shaven. She criticised his
dress and style of riding, without being able to find faults; she
noticed, too, that his bicycle had the latest improvements, such as she
would hardly have expected to find in these remote regions. Then she
glanced at her map. Thornbury was near--the Thornbury which in the glow
of exercise she had almost forgotten--and she guessed that he was on his
way there. This interested her merely because she looked forward to
asking him some questions about his bicycle, which, she owned with a
sigh, was better than her own.
Harry, with half a dozen dogs, was waiting for her at the lodge.
"I knew it must be you whom Fenwick described," he said joyously.
"Down, Rob! How splendidly you must have come to be here in this time!
I couldn't have done it."
"Of course you couldn't, with that thing of yours," Claudia said
disdainfully. "It's abominably clumsy. Captain Fenwick--if that's his
name--has a beauty."
"He's a clever fellow; he always has the best thing going," Harry
returned with a laugh. "But how jolly it is to have got you here!
How's everybody?"
"I don't believe there's much chance since you were there last week. Is
there ever any change at Elmslie?"
"Oh, isn't there!" he exclaimed, still radiant, and thinking of a change
which had meant a good deal in his life. "But, come along; my mother's
expecting you, and you'll be glad of tea. The cart has brought your
things up from the station all right."
Claudia's welcome was warm. Only Mrs Hilton and Miss Baynes were in
the drawing-room. Mrs Hilton, a large fair woman, whose mouth, habit
and love of her son had kept in a smiling curve, but whose eyes were
faded and weary, showered hospitalities upon the girl.
"My poor husband is a sad invalid, my dear, almost confined to his
chair, and sadly crippled, but I hope that at dinner, perhaps--" She
broke off vaguely, and Claudia was not long in discovering that Mrs
Hilton's sentences generally remained unfinished. So, probably, did her
thoughts, but, as Philippa once said, her kindnesses never. "And how
are our dear cousins? It was so good of them to spare you. I am only
afraid, my dear, of your finding us--Well, at any rate, here is Ruth,
who is always pleasant."
And she smiled at Miss Baynes, who was handing Claudia her tea.
"Thank you very much," said Claudia's young clear voice; "but you must
not think at all of me, because I shall be so busy all the time I am
here with the work you are kind enough to entrust to me. And then I
have my bicycle, which makes me quite independent."
Mrs Hilton gazed at her, struggling with novel ideas.
"The work, my clear?" she said vaguely. "But you mustn't talk of it as
work. Harry said you were so clever in suggesting things, and, I am
sure, if you can amuse yourself with our garden--but--"
Claudia was sitting up, frowning.
"Did not Mr Hilton explain that my profession was landscape gardening?"
she said with dignity.
Harry, who had foreseen the scene, and whose mouth was twitching, broke
in cheerfully--
"Yes, mother, you know all about it. It's a splendid thing for
Thornbury to get Miss Hamilton here. But we mustn't forget that she's
bicycled all the way from Elmslie, and when she has had her tea, I dare
say Ruth would take her to her room."
The mere suspicion of any one being tired brought out all Mrs Hilton's
tenderness.
"Of course, I ought to have remembered," she said, with compunction;
"but I have such a poor head, my dear, that I leave most things to
Harry. Indeed, you must go to your room. But did you really come alone
on a bicycle? And Anne was not afraid to let you! Well, to-morrow you
must tell me all about it."
Ruth Baynes, who carried off Claudia, was tall and slight, with a small
aquiline nose and a good-tempered expression. It did not take lone to
discover that she had two brothers whom she adored, and various nephews
an I nieces, almost equally near her heart. Whatever Claudia said or
did was capped by something they had said or done--generally better.
She left her at last to peace and a bath, and no one could look fresher
or less jaded than Claudia when the dinner-gong sounded.
Mr Hilton took her in to dinner--a thin querulous man, bent with
rheumatism, and walking by the help of a stick. To her surprise, she
found that he was a scholar, deeply read and fastidious, as even she
could see, in his choice of expressions. The only subject, except that
of books, which appeared to interest him, was his health, which excited
a constant irritability. It was impossible for her to touch upon her
own hobby, because he waved it away at once.
"I know nothing about the place, and I care less," he said. "Harry is
sufficiently fond of it to take that trouble off my shoulders, and I
leave it all to him. Virtually he is master. If ever you should have
the misfortune to be racked with rheumatism and lumbago, my dear young
lady, you would find yourself quite unable to take an active part in
life. So I shut myself into my library, and trouble nobody with my
miseries."
Claudia thought of Mrs Hilton's tired eyes, and wondered whether they
did not tell a different tale. She found the conversation languishing,
and was glad when Captain Fenwick came to the rescue, talking of some
classical translation just offered to the world. She glanced at him
inattentively, and looked again. If he were Harry Hilton's friend,
here, she allowed, was a stronger personality, evident at once, for
Harry was fair and sturdy, while this man was wiry, tall, and dark,
carrying in his brown features marks of a more adventurous, perhaps
impetuous, life. As she looked, his eyes fastened themselves upon hers
with a penetration which she, for an instant, resented. The next moment
her indifference returned, and she answered some remark of Miss Baynes',
made across the table, with the eagerness which easily awoke in her
face, and gave it a constantly varying charm.
Harry was not a man of strategy, but he manoeuvred that night to prevent
his mother from having anything but general conversation with her guest.
The evening was rainy. Mr Hilton did not appear after dinner, and
Ruth Baynes told Claudia they often did not see him for days.
"He is only happy in his library," she added, "and sometimes he cannot
even get there. Everything falls on Harry."
"`Everything' can't be very much, I expect," said Claudia. "He must
want occupation."
"Oh, do you think so?" Miss Baynes opened her eyes. "My brother always
says that the county business alone is enough for any man."
"Perhaps, as to quantity." Her emphasis pointed the remark, but her
companion only assented cheerfully, and proceeded to break fresh ground.
"Are you musical?" she asked.
"No. I found there was no time in which to take up music thoroughly, so
I dropped it. What do you do?"
"Play--sing--fiddle. I love it better than anything in the world."
Claudia's face warmed.
"Oh," she said, sitting up and speaking energetically, "then of course
you really go in for it. Do you teach?"
"Teach? No," returned the bewildered Ruth. "Why should I?"
"To be of use--to spread your knowledge, to make it something more than
a mere amusement. Otherwise of what good is it?"
"Good? I don't know. I think people like it," said Ruth, vaguely.
"Oh!"
Claudia's "Oh!" implied a great deal as Mrs Hilton hurried towards
them.
"Dear Ruth, a little music, please." And as Miss Baynes took glad
possession of the piano, Mrs Hilton murmured on to Claudia, "Ruth is so
kind, always ready to play and sing, and Harry likes it so much! Do you
play, my dear?"
"No," Claudia said calmly. "At one time I thought of going in for it,
but I hadn't talent enough to make it anything but a grind, with all
those Dresden courses to pass."
"Must you have gone to Dresden? I don't think that dear Ruth was ever
out of England."
"But I should only have studied it in order to teach."
"My dear!" said kind Mrs Hilton, distressed. "I am sure that is very
sad, at your age and all! Harry did say something, only--I had no idea!
I hope, at any rate, you will take a nice holiday here, and--oh, you
are much too young, dear, dear, dear!"
"Please don't be sorry," said Claudia, touched yet triumphant. "I have
no particular need to work, but we feel that we should cast in our lot
with those who have, and that no one has any right to stand idle. That
is our position, you know."
"And if I had been a returned convict, I should scarcely have frightened
her more," reflected the girl gleefully that night in a last sleepy
retrospect which she cast on the evening. For a moment longer her
thoughts lingered upon Captain Fenwick's dominant look, then she
dismissed him with a yawn.