Huntingdon Hall was a comfortable house, with rooms which Lady Wilmot
had already transformed. The grounds, however, were not to compare with
those of Thornbury, for they had passed through a long season of
neglect, and the trees were tall and lank, requiring both thinning and
autumn planting. Claudia's labours would not bear fruit for years. She
said this to Sir Peter one day when she had sent to ask him to come and
decide for himself whether a certain important change should be carried
out. She liked Sir Peter. He was a big clumsy man, rather shy, with
twinkling eyes which, when he smiled, screwed themselves into
innumerable wrinkles, and a slight hesitation--not amounting to a
stammer--in his speech. He invariably gave his decisions clearly.
"We are very much obliged to you, Miss Hamilton," he said finally; "but
my wife told me to tell you that you must take an off-day now and then,
and she wants you to go to Barton Towers to-day." As Claudia hesitated
he went on, "I warn you she will accept no denial, and really it is a
place which you ought to see."
A week ago she would have taken refuge behind her occupation, and
afterwards she wished she had done so, at whatever cost; but her new
dread of making it and herself ridiculous stopped the words which rose
to her lips, and she was just agreeing when Lady Wilmot with her two
pugs rustled round the corner.
"Ah! here you are, Peter," she called out. "I wish you wouldn't let
that boy, Charlie Carter, have your gun. Do go and take it away from
him before he kills anybody." He went obediently, and she turned
smilingly to Claudia. "Miss Hamilton, has Peter told you? I am not
going to have any more unsociable excuses."
"I should like to come, please," said Claudia at once.
"I knew I should get you!" Lady Wilmot exclaimed triumphantly. "Come
with me to the hothouses, and let the men go to their dinner. Do you
mind going to Barton on your bicycle? I'd give anything to ride mine,
but Peter says I can't because of old Lady Bodmin. It's such a nuisance
having to sit up in the victoria with her." And then Lady Wilmot, who
was noted for making imprudent speeches, made a very imprudent one
indeed. "I'm so glad you will come. We see nothing of you, and I am
tired of trying to console Arthur Fenwick."
"Captain Fenwick? I don't understand," said Claudia coldly.
Lady Wilmot laughed. "Don't you?" she said gaily. "Well, I can't help
being amused, because generally it's the other way, and now any one can
see that he's devoted, and you treat the poor fellow quite cruelly."
"Oh, you are very much mistaken!" cried the girl, frowning. "You ought
not--I beg your pardon, but really people ought not to imagine such
foolish things. Captain Fenwick is absolutely nothing to me, nor I to
him."
"Now you are certainly blind. And do you mean to say you haven't
thought of him--seriously, I mean?"
"I? Never!" returned Claudia proudly. "Nor he of me."
"Oh, there you are wrong," said Lady Wilmot, with amusement. She was
going on, when Claudia interrupted her with a ring of indignation in her
tone which took the other woman by surprise.
"Please don't say any more; I hate it! I should hate it if it were
true, and it isn't. I can't tell you how much I dislike such things
being said!"
She stopped. Lady Wilmot looked at her with interest. All emotion is
impressive, and Claudia was very much moved in quite an unexpected way.
She stood facing her hostess, her girlish features stirred and changed
by an expression which had never before touched them.
"I beg your pardon," said Lady Wilmot quickly. "I spoke carelessly, as
one does sometimes--much too often, if I'm to believe Peter. Don't
think of it again. It was only nonsense."
"Yes," said Claudia, drawing a deep breath, "it was nonsense. Of course
I shan't think of it again."
Lady Wilmot hurried after her husband, and caught him in the library.
"Peter, Peter," she said in an injured tone, "I thought new women didn't
mind what was said to them, and I thought Miss Hamilton was a new woman,
and I said the least little bit in the world to her about Arthur, and
found myself in quite the wrong box. She fired up, and told me to hold
my tongue, or as good as told me. Imagine a girl who is so exceedingly
independent, and bent upon taking care of herself, minding a little
chaff! I supposed she would mind nothing."
"Did Arthur ask you to say anything?"
"Don't be annoying. It was a small voyage of discovery on my own
account, because I really think he likes her--seriously, I mean, and I
wanted to find out." She went on impressively, "I don't think she cares
herself one little bit."
"Then there's an end of it."
"How tiresome you are, Peter!" she said petulantly. "I'll never believe
she can stand up against him if he takes the trouble to make love to
her. Anyway, I think it very hard she should fly out at me when my
intentions were so good."
"Well, I hope your good intentions won't do any harm."
"How can they? She'd never thought of him. You're rather priggish this
morning, Peter, but I may as well tell you that I mean some of them to
go on their bicycles--Arthur, and Charlie Carter at all events. I shall
give her the chance. If she likes it better, she can drive."
The same question was in Claudia's mind. She felt hunted, disdainful,
indignant, all at once. First Harry and then Captain Fenwick thrust
down her unwilling throat. It was persecution! She, who would have
none of them, who was thinking of much more important business, who had
meant to live her own life, and, so far as in her lay, to be mistress of
her fate, bitterly resented an interruption which seemed to place her at
once on a level with all the other pleasure-loving idle girls of the
day, whose heads were full of offers and settlements. She! Claudia
raised her chin, and looked like an angry nymph. If Fenwick had passed
that way he would have met with scant civility. She thought Lady Wilmot
impertinent, she wished she had not come to the place, and then
suddenly, to her added annoyance, found her eyes brimming with hot
tears, which put the final touch to her humiliation. She dashed them
away with scornful fierceness. "So,"--she rated herself--"so it has
come to this, that if a stupid thing happens, you cry about it! Oh, do
pluck up a little spirit and resolve not to think twice about such
folly! Most likely it is all her invention, or else he has just been
amusing himself in the way men do, and pretending--pretending!--to her
that he cares. You should expect to meet such men, Claudia. And what
ought you to do? Certainly not trouble yourself about them. Turn
yourself into a stone wall. I suppose you have sense enough left to go
on just as usual? But I wish, I do wish she hadn't said it! It makes
everything disagreeable and stupid. It shan't, though! What's the use
of having a will of one's own if one can't use it? If he wants to
speak, let him, and there's an end of it; and if he has the better sense
to hold his tongue, I shall know she was wrong. And if, as I suppose,
we are to go on our bicycles to this tiresome place to-day, I'm not
going to blush prettily and draw back; I shall do exactly as I should
have done if she hadn't come out and spoilt my morning. The most
annoying part of it all is that I have quite forgotten what I meant to
do with those hollies. I know that I had some capital notion, and it
has gone. Oh, _how_ tiresome men are!"
Claudia sat wrathfully down, pulled out her pocket-book, rested her chin
on her hands, and forced her mind to stern consideration of her plans.
In some degree this brought back her calm, so that when she appeared at
luncheon, and ways and means for reaching Barton Towers were discussed,
she did not allow a shadow of hesitation to appear in her manner. Lady
Bodmin clung to the victoria, and Lady Wilmot made a little face of
dismay. Claudia said calmly that of course she could bicycle, and
inwardly hoped that Captain Fenwick would not be of the party. But this
was far from his intention.
"I thought you hated calls?" said Lady Wilmot mischievously.
"One has to suffer sometimes."
Lady Wilmot laid down her fork.
"You might stay at home."
"I should never hear the last of it."
"Well, then," she said, looking meditatively at Claudia, "you three are
provided for."
"Three?" said Fenwick quickly.
"Yes, Charlie--Charlie Carter. You always try to forget him."
"He ought to be forgotten. He's not in the least wanted. Good heavens!
a boy who plays practical jokes!"
"That is why I want you to look after him," said Lady Wilmot in a firm
voice. "Besides, he must go. Lady Bodmin agrees with me."
Fenwick flung an aggrieved glance at Claudia, but she was gazing out of
the window. In her heart she was saying joyfully--
"He may play practical jokes as much as he likes, and I shall take care
he is not forgotten. If worse comes to worst I'll fetch him myself."
But this sense of relief was so derogatory to the standard of the
professional young woman which she had set up, that she was torn by
different feelings, extremely pleased when Charlie Carter arrived,
dripping, from a practical investigation of the Black Pond, yet so
ashamed of clinging to such a fossilised an institution as a chaperon,
that she took herself to task for not agreeing to Captain Fenwick's
strongly expressed desire to start and leave the boy to follow. When
she refused he hinted at a chancre in herself.
"When we came here, you didn't mind trusting yourself to me."
"Mind!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Do you suppose I mind, when if you
weren't going I should go by myself?"
He bit his lip, but pressed his point.
"Then come along," he said, "and leave that wretched boy to follow. He
has to get food and dry clothes, and will be an hour at least."
"There's no hurry," said Claudia coolly. "If you want to overtake the
others--go. We'll come after."
"You are cruel," he said in a low voice. To this she made no reply,
determined to ignore such speeches, but she could not help perceiving
that her insistence annoyed him very much, or that he had scarcely
recovered himself when they set off. The day was full of the rich
strong beauty of late summer, freshened by recent rain which had washed
the dusty hedges green again; the clouds were no longer grey and
uniform, but broken into great precipitous masses, dazzlingly white in
part, and here and there fading softly into blue. Their way at first
ran along a road high on a hill, and commanding exquisite views of the
country round. But Claudia, in spite of self-scolding, could not call
back the fresh and delightful enjoyment of that other day when they had
come to Huntingdon. She was on the watch, at times on the defensive,
despising herself that it should be so, but heartily wishing that the
ride was over. Nor could she utilise Charlie Carter as much as she
would have liked, for he was one of a large family, with a profound
contempt for all girls except his own sisters, and a yet more profound
admiration for Captain Fenwick. He was therefore gruff, and
disregardful of Claudia, sidling out of her way, and ready to please his
hero by acting as scout and rushing along side lanes in search of short
cuts. At such times Claudia made desperate attempts to push on, but
there is a limit to this means of escape even on a bicycle, and when
hills came, she was obliged to walk up them. Perhaps Fenwick noted the
disturbance, and perhaps he preferred it to her former indifference, for
now and then a smile crossed his face which it would have enraged her to
see. He asked her suddenly whether she liked Huntingdon better than
Thornbury. This was safe ground, and she breathed freely.
"I have a bigger opening there," she said. "Thornbury was already
beautiful, and Huntingdon has to be made so. It's very interesting."
"You have said so little about it lately that I had fears."
"Women go into extremes, you know," returned Claudia, dimpling, and
quoting his own words.
"Yes, but you are not like other women. You have independence and
originality." As Claudia struggled breathlessly against the hill, he
added in a vexed tone, "Why on earth must you be in such a hurry?"
"You were in a hurry yourself just now." But she was obliged to get
off, and all she could do was to walk with the bicycle between them.
"That was to start, not to arrive. Did you really suppose I cared to
find myself at Barton Towers?"
"I don't know. I know I do. I expect to pick up a great many hints,
after what Sir Peter said about the place."
"All in good time," he said crossly. "What I want to say, if you will
only give me the chance to speak--Good gracious! what is it now?"
"Isn't there something wrong with the wheel?"
"Nothing at all. What do you suppose I'm going to say, that you won't
listen?"
Claudia called all her dignity to her aid, and turned an offended face
upon him.
"Pray go on. I am quite ready to listen."
"Well, it's only this. I think it hard that you should shut me out of
your hopes and ambitions so determinedly as you have been doing lately.
I had flattered myself that you, above all women, were fair enough not
to visit on an unfortunate man's head his awkward carrying out of a good
intention."
"Oh," she cried rashly, "did you suppose--"
And then she yet more rashly stopped, for it was a hundred times worse
to let him guess at the real reason for her coldness.
"If not?" he said, perceiving his advantage, and pushing it.
Claudia took refuge in petulancy.
"Why on earth must one explain why one does this, or doesn't do that?
What do you complain of? That I haven't talked over my ideas with you?
Very well, I will talk now. I suppose you have happened to notice a big
group of firs, the only fine thing about the place?" And she flourished
the note-book Miss Arbuthnot found so obnoxious. "There! As no one can
see them unless they go to look, I suggest making a clean sweep of those
worthless trees in front, then--"
He put up his hand.
"Spare me; I don't want detail."
"Very well," said Claudia triumphantly. "Then you mustn't complain."
"You have run off the track. All that has nothing to do with my
complaint. I am anxious, very anxious, to be told what--if you were
really not offended at my plain speaking--has altered you towards me."
His voice changed, there crept into it a thrill which made Claudia
miserably conscious of what might be at hand. She frowned and stared
straight before her. "You don't know," he was saying, "how I have
looked forward to a chance like this, when I might have you to myself,
and now I can hardly get a glance. And yet you are not offended? Then
why are you so different from what you were ten days ago?"
"How can one always be exactly the same?" she asked coldly. "Besides,
you are exaggerating; I don't feel any change."
"Oh yes, you do. Something has brought it about. Some confounded
tongues have been tattling."
"Tattling!" repeated Claudia, frowning harder.
"Yes, old cats like Lady Bodmin, who can't see a man and woman
talking--"
"I know! Isn't it idiotic?" said the girl frankly, turning a relieved
face upon him.
If she had not looked, perhaps he would not have spoken. In spite of
his manoeuvring for a quiet and uninterrupted time with Claudia, he had
no intention of saying anything serious--at least so soon. But, like
many another man, he lost his balance when he least expected it, and,
curiously enough, as with Harry Hilton, it was her name which broke from
his lips.
"Claudia!"
To her unutterable relief, Charlie Carter shot out of a lane, not ten
feet ahead of them.
"I say, that ways no good," he shouted. "I've been ever so far. You've
got to go down this hill, and you'd better look out, for there's a nasty
sharp turn at the bottom." Claudia neither heard him nor would she have
heeded. Anything at such a moment would have seemed better to her than
being forced to listen to the words she felt were imminent. She got
quickly on her bicycle, and called out joyfully--
"Oh, I am so tired of pushing! Who will race me down the hill?"
"Stop!" cried Fenwick peremptorily.
But nothing would have stopped her then. Escape, escape from what she
most dreaded to hear lay before her. She was confident in her own
powers, and, with a gay wave of the hand, down the steep rough road she
went flying at a speed which she found dangerously intoxicating.
Charlie Carter, giving an answering whoop of wild delight, rushed after,
and Fenwick, inwardly anathematising the folly of his companions, spun
past the boy, and closely followed Claudia's track, shouting to her to
be careful, and each moment expecting to see her overturned by some of
the many stones or ruts. In spite, however, of her excitement, she
guided herself cleverly, and only called laughingly back without
checking her pace. All might have gone well had it not been for the
sharp turn at the foot of the hill. What made this perilous, and what
neither Fenwick nor Claudia knew, was that another lane emerged at the
same point. The old high-road which the three had taken was but little
used for carriages, or such a danger would never have been tolerated.
Fenwick realised it before the others, owing to his catching sight over
the hedge of the top of a carter's hat. But the cart was jogging down
its own hill into the road, and though he pressed his bell, and shouted
at the top of his voice, the man did not hear, nor, indeed, so close was
Claudia, did it seem possible to avert a collision. By a really
prodigious effort, Fenwick shot in between them, pushing her bicycle so
violently that it fell on one side, although clear of the cart. He
himself was not so fortunate, for the near horse knocked him over, and
before the startled driver could pull up, one of the heavy wheels had
gone over him.