Claudia was ungratefully anxious to leave Thornbury. She had been happy
there, but the young expect to be happy, and the last days had made her
uncomfortable. Harry said no word, and tried hard to be as he had been
when hope still lived in his heart, but Claudia was annoyed when she saw
him looking grave, or when his mother remarked she did not know what
could be the matter with Harry.
"Perhaps he has toothache," said Ruth Baynes, lifting her eyebrows
sympathetically. "My brother Walter gets dreadfully low when he has
toothache. And it was much worse when he had mumps."
"Mumps! Oh, my dear, I hope poor Harry has not caught anything of that
sort! They are in the village, and the gardener's little girl certainly
had a swollen face. Still--Harry has not complained, has he?"
"Not to me," said Claudia, with a laugh.
Perhaps in spite of the longing to keep her near him, Harry himself was
not sorry when the last day came. The old kindly companionship, even if
disdainful on her part, had been sweet, and now that, too, was gone.
Claudia scolded him no more, laughed at him no more, and he felt as if
she had stepped far away. He blamed himself for the change, but it took
the heart out of him. And the gallant effort he made to prevent those
who loved him from knowing that he suffered, seemed at times more than
he could successfully keep up.
Still, when the last moment came, and they all stood at the door to see
Claudia and Captain Fenwick ride away together out of his life, Harry
went through the worst sensation he had ever experienced. He did his
best to hide it, laughed at his mothers misgivings, assuring her that
nowadays it was the most common proceeding in the world, and that he
meant to take Helen Arbuthnot home in the same fashion; and, instead of
retiring to solitude, went straight off to the stable to doctor a lame
horse. There were plenty of prosaic and unromantic details to be
attended to, of which he shirked not one; the buying pigs, and deciding
what should be done with an unprofitable cow, had to be talked over and
arranged without impatience. After this he walked off to see the
keeper's old mother, who was very irritable with constant pain, and
dearly loved to grumble against all her family to Master Harry. And no
one knew how big an ache he carried in his kindly heart.
But meanwhile?
Well, meanwhile it was summer-time, and under a blue sky veiled here and
there with white clouds, through lanes in which honeysuckle still ran
riot, Claudia and her companion raced swiftly along, or dawdled up the
many hills. He was a little surprised at her vigorous enjoyment of all
about them, and, so contagious is happiness, found himself, too, making
merry over the veriest trifles. Wonder broke out at last.
"You have turned me into a boy again. What magic do you use?"
"It is not I," said Claudia merrily. "It is the air and the sky and the
trees and the great simple things which we think nothing about. Why
must you be a boy to feel the enchantment of them all?"
"Do you advise me, then, to go and live in a hut?"
"Oh, I don't advise. There's a splendid butterfly."
She named it correctly.
"One of the girls at the college collected butterflies. I don't do it
myself because I like them too much. Look! here is a splendid bit of
road for a spin. Let us race to that gate, though I shan't have a
chance."
She dashed off, and contrived so cleverly to prevent his passing, that
only at the last minute could Fenwick succeed in slipping round her.
"Only just!" she cried, waving her hand. "Oh, that was glorious! I
wish we had timed ourselves."
They raced again, teased each other, laughed, and behaved like two
children on a holiday. As they went down the Huntingdon drive, Claudia
gave a sigh of satisfaction.
"I've enjoyed it so much, every bit of it, haven't you?"
At another time he might have answered with some compliment, but the
frank appeal confused him. He was unprepared for such simple delight,
in which he could not but feel he had no more special share than twenty
other things about them. Claudia had looked upon him as a playfellow--
nothing else.
Nor could his vanity flatter him that she leaned upon him in this entry
into a world of strangers. Quite unabashed, thoroughly direct, and
changed and professional to her fingers' ends, Fenwick, with annoyance
for which he could scarcely account, saw amusement growing in his cousin
Lady Wilmot's dancing eyes. When they were left alone, it broke out.
"Oh, Arthur, Arthur, now I understand!"
"You understand nothing at all," he said roughly. There was an
occasional roughness in his manner, which cynics said was what women
liked. Lady Wilmot only smiled.
"Do tell her not to be quite so solemn about it all," she said. "She is
so exceedingly determined we shan't for one moment forget what she is
here for, that she is for ever flaunting her calling in one's face. But
she's quite a nice little thing."
"Yes," he repeated in the same tone, "quite a nice little things--
whatever that may mean."
"Don't be rude. You might allow for my surprise, when I had made up my
mind to a middle-aged being with spectacles and an umbrella, at being
confronted with this young little person. I'm very glad--at least I
shall be if you can persuade her to unbend, and if Peter doesn't make
love to her."
"As if Peter had ever eyes for any one but yourself!"
But if Lady Wilmot was astonished, Fenwick himself had odd sensations.
Beginning his acquaintance with the girl with a certain amount of pique
at an indifference to which he was unaccustomed, and a determination to
drag her out of it, he had taken a great deal more trouble than was
usual with him, and yet had failed. He knew women well enough to own
that he had failed utterly, and as his vanity could never endure defeat,
the consciousness made him more keen to carry out his purpose. Then
came this summer afternoon in which he had seen Claudia in a new light,
when something of harmony in the girl's nature with the fresh cool
simplicity of a country world, touched him as nothing had touched him
for years, and carried him back to his boyish days. For the first time
he felt a sharp stab of annoyance when he found that she was up again on
her heroic hobby-horse, and that Lady Wilmot's eyes were brimming over
with amusement.
"Good heavens!" he said to himself savagely, "I must speak to her,
prevent her from making such a fool of herself. When she's out of this
preposterous nonsense she's charming, but where are her eyes, where's
her sense of the ridiculous?"
Nor did he ask himself why Claudia's folly should disturb him.
He stopped her the next morning in a corridor which served for a
picture-gallery. She had on a white dress, and, with her hands clasped
behind her, was standing looking at the portrait of a young girl.
"Who is it by?" she asked. "I don't know about pictures, but this
strikes me as very good."
"Romney, I believe," he said; and then abruptly, "Look here, you and I
are old friends."
"Old friends!" Claudia repeated, opening her eyes.
"Older than anybody here, at any rate. And I suppose you'll own that
I've knocked about the world more than you? What on earth makes you
cram all these people about your business here?"
"I think you are rather rude," she said, flushing. "If you were in my
position, you would understand."
"Your position! We're most of us in some sort of position, but we don't
go talking about it all day long. It's just as if you were ashamed of
it."
"Now I am sure you are rude," Claudia cried, still redder. "Ashamed,
indeed! But I don't choose to appear as if I were merely a guest. That
is not fair upon my employers. I am a professional, a working woman; I
am not going to be paid for just driving about and amusing myself like
other girls, and unless I make it quite clear, they will insist upon
thinking that is what I expect."
"Of course," he said, still roughly, "I know well enough what you have
in your head, but you needn't be always cramming it down people's
throats. State the fact, if you insist upon it, and then leave it
alone."