The tone in which Harry cried "Claudia!" pierced through even her
unconsciousness. She looked at him, startled. He was breathing
heavily, altogether unlike himself.
"I must speak," he said. "Haven't you guessed how I love you?"
"You?" she exclaimed in unmistakable amazement. "What can you be
thinking of?" and something in her manner brought back his self-control.
"There's nothing so wonderful about it, is there?" he said slowly. "I
suppose it began from the first moment I saw you, and it has gone on.
Can't you give me a little hope? I know you're a lot too good for me--"
"Oh, don't say any more, don't!"
She tried to rise, but he laid his hand on her arm.
"I want you to listen--this once. I suppose I've taken you by surprise.
I didn't mean to do that. I thought you must have seen all along."
"I never saw!" interrupted Claudia indignantly. "I'm very angry with
you."
"If you don't care for me now," he went on, unheeding, "don't you think
you might some day? You like the old place--"
"The place!" She pushed away his hand, and her eyes were flaming. "Did
you suppose I should want to marry a place? Oh, what nonsense this all
is! If I could make you understand how much I dislike anything of the
sort!"
He laughed ruefully.
"I think I understand. I was a fool--as usual."
"Don't say `as usual'!" exclaimed the girl, still frowning. "I hate to
hear you always running yourself down, and I hate to hear you trying to
talk sentiment. We are excellent friends. Do be satisfied with that,
and be nice, as you were before."
She waited, but he was silent.
"Well, then, if you won't," she said, lifting her eyebrows, "I'd better
go back to the cousins."
"No," he said hurriedly, "don't go. I shan't torment you."
Claudia glanced doubtfully at him. In spite of her displeasure, the
situation struck her as more comical than serious, and though she wished
he had not been silly, she did not for a moment realise that she was
causing him more than a passing disappointment. Besides, the view which
remained to be opened, the improvements which had so entirely filled her
imagination, and fired her ambition, were really of far more importance
than this ridiculous situation, and if she were to go away before she
could carry them out--what a collapse, what a feminine collapse! People
would guess, she supposed, because people were so foolish, and so
determined to make out that a girl's head could contain no ideas beyond
those idiotic ones which she had just been invited to share; and they
would all triumph, and say of course that was always the aim and end of
a woman's efforts. Yet something within her persistently urged her to
go, so that she felt cross, and naturally vented the crossness upon
Harry.
"I do so wish you would not have talked nonsense!" she exclaimed at
last. "I did want to stay until I had finished what I have thought out,
and it would have been the most wonderful improvement to the place! If
I could just arrange it, and show you where to plant a few copper
beeches--"
Harry's laughter came readily, and it came now.
"You mustn't think of leaving. If any one has to go, it will be I."
"And if you go," said Claudia discontentedly, "no one else knows a thing
about the trees. Well, I will stay on till Wednesday, if you promise to
talk sense, and forget these absurd ideas of yours. They come because
you have so little to do. Why on earth don't you get away, and find
some real manly occupation?"
He hesitated.
"My father's very infirm. I left the army because he wanted me."
"I should think you might do something." She had gathered her things
together, and was walking towards the house. There may have been an
unacknowledged effort to keep the conversation at arm's length from
herself, or it may have been vexation with her companion which raised a
keen desire to rebuke him for his shortcomings. Curtain it is that her
tone was scornful.
"Perhaps," he answered.
"For a man or woman to be without occupation is so uninteresting, to say
the least of it," continued his mentor, "that I would rather break
stones on the road."
He was silent, hardly hearing. He was looking at the round softness of
her cheek, and wondering whether many men felt as miserable as he.
Swiftly before his eyes rose a vision of Claudia wandering about the
park at Huntingdon with Captain Fenwick by her side, and he straightened
himself with something so like a groan that he glanced hurriedly at the
girl, fearing to have annoyed her. But she was looking straight before
her, relieved to see Helen Arbuthnot strolling towards them from the
grass ride.
"At least ten people are crying out for you," was her greeting to Harry.
"Your mother, and your mother's maid, and the mother of the footman,
and a sick bailiff. These are the most importunate, but there are five
others dancing round. He must go," she went on to Claudia, "but if you
really have an idle moment to spare, you might bestow it on me. I
collect other people's."
Claudia did not much care for Miss Arbuthnot, whom, with some reason,
she suspected of ridiculing her, but at this minute she would have
joyfully jumped at any means of escape.
"Was that why you came to Thornbury?" she asked bluntly.
"Was it? I don't know; and I never answer questions, because they
recall acrostics. Come back to the grass ride." The grass ride
remained unchanged. A broad strip of turf, and on either side tall
slender trees springing from a wavy undergrowth of bracken; a ride shady
through the hottest summer, yet with the sun filtering down sufficiently
to fling broken lights on the close cool grass. Miss Arbuthnot stood
still as they reached it, and looked in either direction. "It is an
enchanting spot," she said.
"Ye-e-s," agreed Claudia doubtfully.
"But it might be tremendously improved."
"I dare say. I hate improvements, whether in people or places. They
destroy sentiment."
Up jumped Claudia on her stilts. "I can't understand any one not
wishing for the best."
"No? That's your youth. It's the same sort of rage which sets people
scraping ruins, when such charming weeds vanish! Half the attraction of
everything consists in its little defects."
Miss Arbuthnot spoke with extreme laziness, quite indifferent to the
impression she produced; and the girl, who hated to be reminded of her
youth, and felt as if her own efforts were belittled, was provoked.
"If the world thought as you do," she said gravely, "there would be no
advancement, no gain."
"And how enjoyable!" sighed Miss Arbuthnot. "Are you going to cut down
many more of poor Harry's favourite trees?"
Claudia coloured.
"I have only cut what was necessary," she said with still greater
dignity.
"From your point of view--yes. But from his?"
"Does he object?"
"He? Oh no, he knows better."
"I don't think you understand," said Claudia impatiently. "I came here
to try to make the place more beautiful--"
"It does well enough," murmured Miss Arbuthnot, with a glance at the
deep fern beside them.
"You don't suppose I had the trees cut down except where it would be an
improvement? And of course Mr Hilton is glad to--have those
improvements." She felt her speech feeble, and it made her angry.
"Of course. I am afraid what is good for one is often disagreeable,
but, as you say, a supporting sense of virtue remains. Harry is such a
capital fellow that he deserves all he can get."
It should be noted that Miss Arbuthnot, accustomed to be regarded, had
no idea that Harry had broken loose, and run his stubborn head against a
wall, or she would not have chosen such a moment for sinking; his
praises. Claudia was too young, or too ignorant of love, to feel kindly
towards a man for falling in love with her, and was only annoyed at what
she considered a commonplace episode in what she intended to be anything
but a commonplace career. As yet she had no conception of the true
proportion of things, and dismissing love and such trifles as mere
hindrances, her companion's words irritated her the more against Harry.
"Oh, he will get all he deserves, no doubt," she observed airily. "That
kind of character doesn't want much." Then she had the grace to blush,
and to go on hurriedly, "He will be always quite contented to vegetate
at Thornbury, stroll about with his gun, and make an ideal magistrate--
or what people consider ideal, which does just as well."
Miss Arbuthnot stopped to whisk away a wasp.
"Do you find fault with your picture?"
"Well, it doesn't seem very interesting, that's all."
"I like discussing other people's characters," said Miss Arbuthnot
lazily; "I find it much simpler than meditating upon one's own. So you
think Harry commonplace? Why?"
"Why? How can it be otherwise? He has no ambition, no aims beyond
Thornbury, no work. A man who doesn't work is a wretched being."
"Has he told you he doesn't work?"
"One can see for one's self, I suppose?" Claudia said, with a fine
scorn; and Helen shot a glance at her as if she had wakened up.
"Oh no, you can't. When you are older you will learn that you can never
trust your eyes. Go and ask the bailiff, and the keeper, and the
gardeners."
"_That_ kind of work!"
"Well, we can't all be landscape gardeners. If we were, I suppose the
estate would have to be kept going, or there wouldn't be much good in
beautifying it?"
"Agents," retorted Claudia.
"Perhaps. But some people have an old-fashioned prejudice that when a
father and mother are old and infirm, there are things which even an
agent can't do. Harry _is_ old-fashioned. I have often told him he
ought to be more up-to-date."
There was a silence. Then Claudia remarked in a slightly altered
voice--
"He has never said anything to make one suppose living here was any
sacrifice."
"Or that he felt the loss of his trees. Yet, I assure you, he has more
than once ridden miles to avoid the crash of doom." Another pause.
"I had really better go away at once," Claudia exclaimed impatiently.
"Why did they ask me to come? It was his suggestion--not mine. And it
is ridiculous. The place is ever so much improved by a little
thinning."
"Oh, I dare say. I'm not defending Harry, only when people can never be
induced to blow their own trumpets, I feel irresistibly impelled to
produce a blast. Let us talk about some one else. Captain Fenwick, for
instance. Neither of us need blow for him."
"He's amusing," remarked Claudia indifferently.
"There's a tribute!" said Miss Arbuthnot, looking at her between
half-closed eyelids.
"And he rides a bicycle better than any one I know."
"So that you are less hard on him than on poor idle Harry?"
"Hard? I don't know. He idles too, but--"
"More impressively."
"He has been useful in getting me a commission to work at Huntingdon.
He says it's in dreadful order, for Sir Peter has only just succeeded,
and of course the worse it is, the better for me."
This time the silence lasted longer. Then Miss Arbuthnot spoke without
turning her head--
"He goes there too, I suppose?"
"Oh yes! He thought,"--she laughed--"that I might feel lost among
strangers. One has to get over that sort of thing when one takes up a
profession. But he meant it very well, and perhaps if he is there, they
will be less shy of me. That's what generally happens, because people
can't forget their old tradition that a woman mustn't be professional.
With a man it's taken as a matter of course."
"And a man takes it as a matter of course," put in Helen. She was tired
of her companion's girlish egotism, and administered her thrust sharply.
"But she won't see," she reflected.
Claudia did see, and coloured.
"I dare say I am tiresome," she said frankly. "At the college they
declared that no one rode their hobbies to death as I did. Only,"--she
drew a deep breath--"these are wonderful times, aren't they? And how
can one take one's part in the movement without enthusiasm?"
"And pray, where are you moving?" asked Miss Arbuthnot. Then she
changed her tone. "Was there ever such a heavenly day? I'm glad you've
spared the grass ride. There's nothing like it at Huntingdon, whatever
Captain Fenwick may say. When do you go?"
"On Wednesday."
"Does he take you?"
"I suppose we shall bicycle there together. I shan't object, because he
is a very clever rider, and can show one all sorts of useful dodges."
"Oh, he is very clever!" agreed Miss Arbuthnot. She added quickly, with
a touch of scorn--"and insatiable."
Claudia did not catch the oddly chosen word, and certainly would not
have understood it.
"Well, here he is rather refreshing," she allowed, "because he has been
about the world, and can talk; but, after all, men always strike me as
uninteresting. Don't you think one more often meets with original
women?"
"At the college, of course."
"Oh, at the college they were delightful."
"If," Miss Arbuthnot said idly, "you want a definition of advancing
years, I should say it was made up of modifications. I've had my
theories too, though you mightn't believe it, but I find the hard edges
almost gone, and my opinions grown hazy. One still, however, remains--
that the inevitable will be down on you. Who is the man in the
distance?"
"How tiresome!" Claudia exclaimed. "It is Captain Fenwick, and we
shall not be able to talk any more. Perhaps he has not seen us, and we
can escape."
"Oh, he has seen us. Bring your philosophy to bear, for, after all, you
find him more endurable than the others--him or his bicycle, which is
it?" As Captain Fenwick came swiftly up, and swung himself off, she
added, "That is one point I particularly dislike in the thing. It is
always taking you unawares. There is no time to prepare, or to call up
one's blandest expression. However, here is Miss Hamilton who has just
been singing its praises--yours, I mean."
"It's very good," said Claudia, eyeing it critically, "I wish I hadn't
been in a hurry for mine."
"Yours is well enough. You can have one or two things altered. Look
here--" he was beginning, when Miss Arbuthnot broke in.
"For pity's sake, spare me a digression on wheels and pistons, or
whatever they may be. You can discuss them at your ease on your way to
Huntingdon."
He glanced at Claudia. Miss Arbuthnot glanced too.
"So we can," said the girl cheerfully. "I expect you can put me up to
all sorts of things."
"Dear me," murmured Miss Arbuthnot, "the world has changed indeed since
my day!"
"Your day?"
"It must have been a hundred years ago, for it would have held up many
hands in horror at a young man and a young woman arriving by themselves
at a country house."
"Yes, it is improving," said Claudia, with scorn, "it doesn't think
silly things as it did." The day before this would have been very well,
but to-day conscience gave a little tweak at her elbow, recalling her
scene with Harry, and she became suddenly silent. Helen noticed the
change, and Claudia saw that she noticed. Something made her turn
quickly to Fenwick.
"I must go," she said. "If you're meaning to stay here, I wish you'd
let me take your bicycle to the house. I want to look it over." Miss
Arbuthnot stood watching her from under the green boughs. Then she
glanced at Fenwick. "She's not going to fall in love with you," she
remarked.
"Aren't you a little--in advance of the situation?"
"Not in advance of your thoughts. What attracts you? But I know."
"You're bewildering," he observed rather savagely. "Not content with
furnishing me with imaginary fancies, you provide an explanation of
them."
She went on as if he had not spoken.
"She thinks no more of you than of a dozen others she has met in her
small life."
"You're encouraging."
"Oh," said Helen sleepily, "do you want encouragement?"
He saw his slip, and looked more angry, but suddenly laughed.
"She's naive enough to be amusing in these days. Enthusiastic, and all
that, and believing so intolerably in her career. No woman has a right
to a career."
"Beyond that of losing her heart to Arthur Fenwick."
"--Until she's over thirty, at all events. It's got to be pointed out
to her."
"And you are engaged in the object-lesson? One after your own mind,
isn't it?" She spoke in a bitter tone as they strolled along the soft
turf. A startled young partridge fluttered across the ride in front of
them. Fenwick seemed to have quite recovered his temper, for he laughed
lightly.
"What makes you so awfully down on me to-day?"
"I suppose," she said, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, "that I was
remembering."
"If you remember fairly--"
She interrupted him. "What woman does? Don't let us talk of what is
over. Forget, forget, forget--that is the real lesson of life, and one
which you, at any rate, learn easily."
He had crown irritable again.
"It depends upon what you choose to call forgetting," he said sharply.
"Forgetting is like everything else, each person looks at it from his
own standpoint."
"And makes it a horrid nuisance for others. Come, wasn't that in your
mind?" She laughed again.
"You credit--discredit--me with thoughts I don't own to," he retorted.
"Why am I to be held responsible for the past? If we felt we had made a
mistake, was it only I who found it out?"
"On the contrary, it was I."
"Then why blame me?"
"Because I am a woman, I suppose," she said, and a close listener might
have detected that her voice trembled. "But I can assure you, I never
really blame you. As you say, it was I, and--I was wise."
"Oh, of course!" he said, with a touch of pique.
"Still," she persisted, "mistakes some times cost more than they are
worth, and it is not safe to repeat them."
To this he made no answer.
"So that you might, at any rate, leave that child alone."