Claudia's young and vigorous interests were attracted by all that was
connected with the camp, too much so, indeed, to please Fenwick. She
ran out whenever a regiment passed, or when she heard distant sounds of
drill.
"You don't want to be shown the stables, do you?"
"Oh, I do, particularly."
He gave way, but with a discontent which took the pleasure out of it.
Another time he remarked to his sister--
"Can't you give Claudia a hint not to be so tremendously excited about
the band in church? She talked of it to Dawson till he must suppose she
comes from the wilds."
Something in his tone made Mrs Leslie look at him in dismay.
"Arthur," she said impressively, "you are not getting tired of her, are
you?"
He turned angrily upon her.
"Tired! Rubbish!"
She went on, disregarding.
"It would be simply disgraceful. I should be ashamed to look any one in
the face. First Helen Arbuthnot, and then this poor girl."
"Have you done?" he said savagely. "No. I mean to speak. I must. I
have thought at times, I own, that in spite of the break off between you
and Helen, you had a sneaking kindness for each other, but now you have
both split away in different directions, so that is quite at an end."
"She's not married yet, and I don't believe she can like that idiot,"
growled Fenwick.
"Arthur!"
"Well?"
"You're not--"
He interrupted her.
"What have I said? Nothing about marrying her myself, have I? Take my
advice, Gertrude, and don't meddle. I've never stood meddling yet, and
I'm not going to now. Mind you, this doesn't matter to you or to any
one else."
"It does matter," she persisted. "With the girl in my house, I am
certainly responsible."
"I deny it. If she's satisfied, what have you to say?"
"Oh," she said impatiently, "of course she's satisfied! You know how to
talk, and it is easy enough to please a girl of that age."
"Very well, then. By your own showing, you've nothing to say. I'm
going to marry her, and that's the end of it."
Fenwick was not a pleasant person to have an argument with; almost
invariably it brought out in him a certain hard tenacity, which made
other men angry. Perhaps Mrs Leslie was less sensitive to it than was
the rest of the world, but even she shrank from the shock of clashing
wills, which more than once had led to a bitter dispute between brother
and sister. The conversation, however, had left her distinctly
uncomfortable, and she reflected long whether she should give Claudia a
hint. Yet it was difficult to know how much or how little she should
say, and it seemed better that if nothing were really amiss, the girl
should not have her suspicions raised. Only--for she was really a
conscientious woman, and Claudia was a fatherless girl--she resolved
that if things became worse, she would take her part determinedly
against Arthur or any one else. And this not so much from liking as
from an innate feeling for justice.
Unfortunately, her hidden fear did not act very wisely. It made her
watchful and almost irritable with Claudia. She could not say in so
many words, "Don't do this, don't say that, your fate is trembling in
the balance," but she contrived to convey it in her actions, growing so
evidently anxious over the most trifling movements or expressions, that
the girl, in spite of indignant self-protests, became nervously
inflicted by her companion's distrust, and developed a new
self-consciousness. She grew restless too.
"I do wish you would not give yourself so much trouble over my
amusement," she said one day to Mrs Leslie. "For instance, please
don't imagine that it is necessary for me to go to the club-house every
afternoon."
"One must go somewhere," said her hostess vaguely. She could not
explain that she had offered the pony-cart to Fenwick for him to drive
Claudia into the country, and he had refused it.
"I don't see that," said the girl, with a laugh. She added after a
pause, "What I really should like would be to bicycle over some of the
country round. But Arthur won't hear of it."
"Don't tease him about it, pray don't," said Mrs Leslie, with over--
expressed anxiety.
Claudia looked at her.
"Why?" she asked, and such interrogations were becoming more and more
difficult to answer. Mrs Leslie was hesitating over it when the young
subaltern, Claudia's neighbour at the Thorntons' dinner-party, looked
in.
"You'll forgive my coming at this unearthly hour, won't you?" he said.
"Fact is, Major Leslie asked me to tell you that you and Miss Hamilton
had better come out. Orders are given that the Scots Greys are not to
be allowed to get back to barracks, and he thinks you might like to see
the fun. Can you get along by yourselves? I must be off."
Mrs Leslie jumped up with a sense of relief, but she was an imprudent
woman, and her imprudence broke out.
"Why couldn't Arthur have let us know?" she said in a vexed voice.
"There, I have let the children go off, and Frank will be so
disappointed!"
"Perhaps Arthur didn't know himself."
"He must have found out by this time. However, be quick, Claudia. We
can't wait for the cart; we'll walk."
Claudia did what she was often doing at this time, hastily packed
misgivings out of sight, and they started. Rain had fallen in the
night; great pools of water stood waiting to be sucked up by the yellow
soil, and massive banks of clouds moved sullenly to the east. Out from
behind them the sun had flashed, and was shining steadily, transforming
all he touched, and bringing, as he does in our northern lands, no
languor, but an added energy. Now and then a body of troops marched
briskly along up the road, passed the cavalry barracks, and turned to
their right.
"Where are the Greys, I wonder?" said Mrs Leslie impatiently. "I hate
to be left in this way, knowing nothing of what is doing."
Claudia had no answer ready, and they went on. Presently her companion
broke out again--
"I always vow I will not come and see these things from the outside."
"How can one see them otherwise?" asked Claudia, in good faith.
"Oh, you must know what I mean. I call it outside when you toil along
roads as we are toiling, and have no one to tell you where to go."
"As to that, I suppose they're all trying to cut off the Greys."
"Ah, you're not married," said Mrs Leslie gloomily. Presently she
stopped. "I don't see the good of going on."
"Oh yes!"
"Most likely we are all wrong."
"One can't tell--nobody here ever knows what's going to happen next.
Suppose we walk across to that clump?"
"Well--" began her companion, turning reluctantly. The next moment she
exclaimed, "Here comes the Thorntons' carriage; we can ask them."
Instinctively Claudia longed to break away, but, instead of doing so,
stood still and tried to look indifferent. Mrs Thornton was driving
Miss Arbuthnot, and, before there was time for inquiry, called out--
"You're going the wrong way. You should make for that mound." She
flourished her whip.
"Who told you so?"
"Captain Fenwick. He looked in to say that would be the best place."
"Really?"
"_So_ sorry we can't give you a lift!"
"Oh," said Mrs Leslie mendaciously, "we prefer walking. So I do," she
added as the carriage rolled away--"so I do, to going with her. She
irritates me. She's always in the right. But I think it was simply
abominable of Arthur."
"What does it matter?" said Claudia, with a fine display of
indifference.
"It matters a great deal, because, of course, if I had known it was
going to be so far, I should have brought the carriage."
"Well, don't let us toil to that mound. Let us go to the place we
intended before. It is such a pretty day!"
"I dare say it is, but we didn't come out to see the country."
To her surprise, however, by dint of a little more pressure, Claudia
carried her point, with the result that they saw nothing. But this she
did not seem to mind, for she talked and laughed vigorously, in spite of
many "I told you so's" from Mrs Leslie.
"You are the oddest girl!" exclaimed that lady at last.
"Why?"
"Because you don't appear to care to stand on your rights. Now, I think
that Arthur has behaved shamefully."
It is certain that she would not have spoken so imprudently if she had
conceived it possible that a young girl of Claudia's inexperience could
seriously resent her lover's conduct; she only considered it desirable
to point out to her that she might be too easy with him, and that it
would be better for her were she to assert herself. And the girl's own
anxiety to hide her wounds added to Mrs Leslie's failure to understand
her. She showed no disturbance.
"Aren't you hard on him? He may have been close to their quarters," she
suggested, "and just turned in."
"I dare say! He would not have found it so convenient if Helen
Arbuthnot hadn't been then." Mrs Leslie liked to justify her
statements.
"No?" said Claudia indifferently. It would have taken a close observer
to note a certain slight rigidity in the way she carried her head.
"No. My dear Claudia, it's all very well to be magnanimous, but if you
expect peace in your married life, you had better make up your mind to
the fact that Arthur--though a good fellow in the main--is a bit of a
flirt."
Claudia did not turn her head.
"I dare say," she said coolly, so coolly that Mrs Leslie prepared to
strengthen her warning.
"And I advise you to show him you don't like it--beforehand."
"Thank you."
Mrs Leslie could not have quite explained the character of this "thank
you," but she preferred to consider that it breathed gratitude; and the
morning having in other ways proved such a dismal failure, accepted this
as partial compensation, feeling that now she had done her best to open
Claudia's eyes, and that, whatever happened, she could not be blamed for
having uttered no warning.
She had been altogether tired and annoyed by her long vain tramp, and
was not in the mood to spare her brother. Claudia, too, had been so
provokingly quiescent that it was only to be supposed she did not see,
and Arthur's wife would require to have all her senses about her.
She therefore carried home both a grievance and a sense of fulfilled
duty; which, together, make a person pretty nearly intolerable.
But, though Claudia kept her proud silence, and could even say "thank
you" to her counsellor, it must not be supposed that she was patient at
heart. It was not this or that trifling circumstance; they were not the
events of the morning, taken by themselves, which affected her; it was
that, gradually, little by little, the conviction forced itself upon her
that Fenwick no longer loved her, nay, possibly, that he was loving
another woman. Why it should be so, she struggled to fathom, and
failed. Why, when both were free, he should have preferred her to Helen
Arbuthnot, who could tell? Only that it was so, she could now scarcely
doubt. And with a yearning which seized and shook her with the violence
of its desire, the motherless girl longed unutterably for some one to
whom she could turn, some one who could give her the aid for which she
was groping. What ought she to do? How do it? How, given if her love
were smitten, maimed, down-trodden, should her womanly pride keep its
dignity, and shield her from the pitying scorn with which she knew the
world regarded a jilted woman? One day, although it was understood that
she did not go out by herself, she slipped away, and, finding a church
open, went in, and in its quiet silence, poured forth a torrent of tears
and prayers, which brought relief.
Her fears, like much else characteristic of Claudia in those days, were
young, crude, and ill-balanced. Later on, she would have known that the
world casts a few sentences, a few jibes, and has forgotten, before the
sufferer has time to realise that the thing is known. Everything whirls
past; we and our petty concerns, whisked to the surface one moment, are
swept under the next. But, as with other things, it takes years to
teach our inexperience the lesson.
There was another difficulty. Think as she might, plan as she might,
Claudia could not see before her the words or the moment she wanted for
letting Fenwick know that he was free. There were times when she
thought of rushing back to Elmslie, but to do this until the explanation
had been made, was, she fancied, impossible. She had come for a three
weeks' stay, and of this only a fortnight--was it credible? only a
fortnight!--had passed. Then the college--for a moment she reflected
hopefully on the college, and some proffered engagement. But, alas!
again. Engagements did not pour in every day, and she flushed furiously
as she realised that her own, which she had proudly regarded as an
offering on the shrine of emancipated woman, were more probably due only
to the efforts of two men who liked her. Humiliating conviction!
Besides, at Fenwick's instigation, she had obediently written a request
to the principal to withdraw her name from the lists of those seeking
employment.
Look as she would, she could not clearly see the road by which she might
escape; yet each day seemed to make her position more unbearable.
And Mrs Leslie, Mrs Leslie added tenfold to her difficulties, and this
with the best intentions in the world. Claudia's wounded love flung
itself for support on her woman's pride; like her race she could endure
magnificently, if only she were allowed, unquestioned, to hide the
anguish of the wound. But Mrs Leslie saw too much, pointed out what
the girl would fain have passed over in silence, grumbled, protested,
excused. She was personally affronted with her brother, and used
Claudia as a weapon of retaliation. She did not approve of Helen
Arbuthnot, she considered that Arthur was behaving scandalously, and she
felt a large degree of responsibility for the girl under her care; so
that it was constantly--"Well, certainly, Arthur, you have been most
attentive to Claudia to-day!" or, "If I were Claudia, I should not thank
you much for looking in upon me at the end of the afternoon;" or,
"Claudia and I seem left very much to our own devices!" And these
reproaches, uttered before Claudia herself, had the effect of paralysing
the girl, and of taking from her what seemed her own just cause of
complaint.
There were dangerous moments, too, when Fenwick, smitten with remorse or
swayed by caprice--who can say?--regained his old ascendancy; when she
could almost believe that all was as it had been, moments when he was
charming, tender; moments, alas! too fleeting, but sweet enough to make
her own with a pang that if only they lasted, she must still be his.
For the sake of their delicious glamour, a weaker nature might have
readily consented to keep its eyes blinded, and to believe that all
would yet be well. But Claudia was not weak. Her training, whatever
else it had done or left undone, had exercised her intellect, and given
her powers of self-control which came to her rescue now. She saw
clearly that when Fenwick was charming, it was because he had made up
his mind to charm; that it was not due to spontaneous love, but to
intentional love-making, and that such intervals were succeeded by
evident indifference.