Cecil's observance of her day of licenced grumbling was somewhat
obstructed by the fact that for several weeks after Mrs Willoughby's At
Home, Monday mornings found her in a condition of excitement and gaiety.
It was a restless gaiety, which seemed to spring rather from the head
than the heart, and Claire looking on with puzzled eyes had an instinct
that her companion was assiduously whipping up her own spirits, playing
the part of happiness with all her force, with the object of convincing
the most critical of all audiences--her own heart! Life was a lonely
thing to Claire in these days, for Cecil went out regularly every
Saturday and Sunday, returning so late that the two girls did not meet
from lunch one day until breakfast the next. She vouchsafed no
explanation of her sudden plunge into society, neither beforehand when
she sat stitching at pathetic little pieces of finery, nor afterwards
when letting herself in with her latch-key she crept slowly to bed,
never deigning to enter Claire's room for one of those "tell-all-about-
it" _seances_ dear to a girl's heart.
It was the sight of those pathetic little pieces of finery which first
suggested the idea of a man to Claire's mind. However dear and intimate
a woman friend may be, the prospect of meeting her does not inspire a
fellow-woman with sufficient energy to sit up until after midnight to
cover a shabby lace blouse with ninon, or to put a new silk collar and
cuffs on a half-worn coat. It is only the prospect of meeting the eyes
of some male creature, who in all probability will remain supremely
unconscious of the result, which stimulates such effort, and Claire,
noting Cecil's restless excitement, cast anxious thoughts towards the
particular man in this case.
Was Sophie Blake correct in her deduction as to a previous unhappy
romance? Claire had no tangible grounds to lead her to a conclusion,
but instinct induced her to agree. Something beyond the troubles of her
professional life had gone towards warping a nature that was naturally
generous and warm. In imagination Claire lived over the pitiful
romance. Poor Cecil had been badly treated. Some selfish man had made
love to her, amusing his idle hours with the society of a pretty, clever
woman; he had never seriously intended marriage, but Cecil had believed
in his sincerity, had given him her whole heart, had dreamt dreams which
had turned the grey of life to gold.
And then had come the end. How had the end come? Some day when they
were walking together, had he suddenly announced: "I am sailing to India
next month!" or, "We have been such capital friends, you and I. I
should like you to be the first to hear my news. I am engaged to be
married to the dearest girl in the world!" Then, because convention
decrees that when her heart is wounded a woman may make no moan, had
Cecil twisted her lips into a smile, and cried, "I am so glad to hear
it. I hope you will be very happy," while the solid earth rocked around
her? At such thoughts as these Claire flared with righteous anger. "If
that should ever happen to me, I wouldn't pretend! I wouldn't spare
him. I should look him straight in the face, and say, `And all this
time you have been pretending to love me.--I thank God that it _was_
pretence. I thank God that He has preserved me from being the wife of
man who could act a double part!'"
But perhaps there had been no real ending. Perhaps the man had simply
grown tired, and ceased to call, ceased to write. Oh, surely that would
be the greatest tragedy of all! Claire's quick brain summoned pictures
of Cecil creeping down the oil-clothed stairs in her dressing-gown at
the sound of the postman's earliest knock, and creeping back with no
letter in her hand; of Cecil entering the little parlour on her return
from work with a swift hungry look at the table on which the day's
letters were displayed; seeing no letter lying there; never, never the
letter for which she watched! And the days would pass, and the weeks,
and the months, and the old routine of life would go on just the same.
Whatever might be her private sufferings, the English mistress must be
at her post each morning at nine o'clock; she must wrestle all day with
the minds of dull girls, listless girls, clever girls, girls who were
eager to learn, and girls whose energies seemed condensed in the effort
to avoid learning at all. However sore might be the English mistress's
heart, it was her duty to be bright and alert; however exhausted her own
stock of patience, she must still be a female Job in her treatment of
her many pupils. A school-mistress must banish her individuality as a
woman on the threshold of the form-room; while on duty she must banish
every outside interest from her mind. No lying in bed, with her face to
the pillow; no weeping far into the night. Headache and swollen eyelids
are not for her. If her love-story goes wrong, she must lock her sorrow
in her own heart. What wonder if, as a result, her mind grows bitter
and her tongue grows sharp!
"That's a lesson for me! I must never, never allow myself to fall in
love!" sighed Claire to herself. It was a depressing necessity, but
vaguely she allowed herself to dream of a distant Someday, when the ban
should be removed. Something might happen to set her free. Something
most certainly _would_ happen! Optimistic one-and-twenty is ready
enough to face a short term of renunciation, but it resolutely refuses
to believe in its continuance.
A shadow fell over Claire's happy face as the practical application of
this resolve came into her mind. Erskine Fanshawe! At the moment he
was the one masculine figure on her horizon, but she did not disguise
from herself that of all the men she had met, he attracted her the most.
What a mercy that she had had the resolution to put a stop to a
friendship which might have ended in unfitting her for the work in hand!
It had been hard to refuse the desired information, but the fact that
the second refusal had been twice as hard as the first was in itself a
proof of the wisdom of her decision. And then, in illogical girlish
fashion, Claire fell to wondering if perchance Captain Fanshawe would
discover her address for himself? It would be the easiest of tasks,
since he had nothing to do but to put the question to Mrs Willoughby.
At one moment Claire openly hoped that he would; at the next she
recalled the expression on Janet Willoughby's face as she stood staring
across the supper room, and then she was not so sure. What if the
continuance of the friendship brought trouble on Janet as well as
herself?
Laboriously Claire thrust the thought of Erskine Fanshawe from her mind,
but just because inclination would have led her to so blithely meet him,
she felt a keener sympathy with her companion's preparations for similar
meetings.
The time of examinations had come, and night after night the dining-
table of the little parlour was littered with the sheets of foolscap
which were to test the progress of the pupils throughout the term.
Cecil's older forms had been studying _The Merchant of Venice, Richard
the Second_, and the _Essays of Elia_; the younger forms, _Tanglewood
Tales_ and Kingsley's _Heroes_. She had set the questions not only as a
test of memory, but with a view of drawing out original thought. But,
to judge from her groans and lamentations, the result was poor.
"Of all the dull, stupid, unimaginative--_sheep_! Not an original idea
between them. Every answer exactly like the last--a hash-up of my own
remarks in class. If there's a creature on earth I despise more than
another, it's an English flapper. Silly, vain, egotistical--"
Then the French mistress would scowl across the table, and say, "Now
you've put me out! I was just counting up my marks. Oh, do be quiet!"
"Sorry!" Cecil would say shortly, and taking up her pencil slash
scathing comments at the side of the foolscap sheets. Anon she would
smile, and smile again, and forgetting Claire's request, would interrupt
once more.
"Can you remember the name of Florence Mason?"
"If I strain my intellect to its utmost, I believe I can."
"Well, remember, then! It will be worth while. She'll do something--
that girl. When you are an insignificant old woman, you may be proud to
boast that you used to sit at the very table on which her first English
essays were corrected."
"So they are not all dull, stupid, unimaginative?"
"The exception proves the rule!" cried Cecil, and swept the papers
together with a sigh of relief. "Done at last. Now for my blouse."
Claire cast a glance at the clock.
"Half-past ten. And you are so tired. Surely you won't begin to sew at
this hour?"
"I must. I want it for Saturday. I tried it on last night, and it
wasn't a bit nice at the neck. I've got to alter it somehow."
"I have some trimming upstairs. Just be quiet for five minutes, while I
finish my list, and then I'll bring down my scrap-box, and we'll see
what we can find."
That scrap-box was in constant request during the next weeks. It was
filled with the dainty oddments which a woman of means and taste
collects in the course of years; trimmings and laces, and scraps of fine
brocades; belts and buckles, and buttons of silver and paste; glittering
ends of tinsel, ends of silk and ribbons that were really too pretty to
throw away, and cunning little motifs which had the magic quality of
disguising deficiencies and making both ends meet. Claire gave with a
lavish hand, and Cecil's gratitude was pathetic in its intensity. More
and more as the weeks passed on did she become obsessed with the craze
for decking herself in fine garments; new gloves, shoes, and veils were
purchased to supplement the home-made garments, and one memorable night
there arrived a large dress-box containing an evening dress and cloak.
"I have been out so little these last years. I have no clothes to
wear," Cecil said in explanation. "It's not fair to--er--people, when
they take you about, to look as if you had come out of the Ark... And
these ready-made things are _so_ cheap!"
She spoke with an air of excusing herself, and with a flush of
embarrassment on her cheeks, and Claire hastened to sympathise and
agree. She wondered if the embarrassment arose from the fact that for
the last two weeks Cecil had not paid her share of the joint expenses!
The omission had happened naturally enough, for on each occasion when
the landlady appeared with the bill, Cecil had been absent on one of her
now frequent excursions, when it had seemed the simplest thing to settle
in full, and await repayment next day.
Repayment, however, had not come. Half a dozen times over Cecil had
exclaimed, "Oh, dear, there's that money. I _must_ remember!" but
apparently she never had remembered at a moment when her purse was at
hand.
Claire was honestly indifferent. The hundred pounds which she had
deposited in a bank was considerably diminished, since it had been drawn
on for all her needs, but the term's salary would be paid in a short
time, and the thought of that, added to the remainder, gave her a
pleasant feeling of ease. It was only when for the third Saturday Cecil
hurried off with an air of fluster and embarrassment, that an unpleasant
suspicion arose. The weekly bill was again due, and Cecil had not
forgotten, she was only elaborately pretending to forget! Claire was
not angry, she was perfectly willing to play the part of banker until
the end of the term, but she hated the thought that Cecil was acting a
part, and deliberately trying to deceive. What if she had been
extravagant in her expenditure on clothes and had run herself short for
necessary expenses, there was nothing criminal in that! Foolish it
might be, but a fellow-girl would understand that, after being staid and
sensible for a long, long time, it was a blessed relief to the feminine
mind to have a little spell of recklessness for a change. Cecil had
only to say, "I've run myself horribly short. Can you pay up till I get
my screw?" and the whole matter would have been settled in a trice. But
to pretend to forget was so _mean_!
The next morning after breakfast the vexed question of the Christmas
holidays came up for discussion for the twentieth time. Cecil had
previously stated that she always spent the time with her mother, but it
now appeared that to a certain extent she had changed her plans.
"I shall have to go down over Christmas Day and the New Year, I suppose.
Old people make such a fuss over those stupid anniversaries, but I
shall come up again on the second. I prefer to be in town. We have to
pay for the rooms in any case, so we may as well use them."
Claire's face lengthened.
"_Pay_ for them! Even if we go away?"
"Of course. What did you expect? The landlady isn't let off her own
rent, because we choose to take a holiday. There's no saving except for
the light and coal. By the way, I owe you for a third week now. I
_must_ remember! Have you decided what you are going to do?"
Claire shook her head. It was a forlorn feeling that Christmas was
coming, and she had nowhere to go. Until now she had gone on in faith,
feeling sure that before the time arrived, some one would remember her
loneliness, and invite her if only for the day itself. Possibly Cecil
in virtue of three months' daily companionship would ask her mother's
permission to invite her friend, if only for a couple of days. Or
bright, friendly Sophie Blake, who had sympathised with her loneliness,
might have some proposition to make, or Mrs Willoughby, who was so
interested in girls who were working for themselves, or Miss
Farnborough, who knew that it was the French mistress's first Christmas
without her mother; but no such suggestion had been made. No one seemed
to care.
"I must say it's _strange_ that no one has invited you!" said Cecil
sharply. "I don't think much of your grand friends if they can't look
after you on Christmas Day. What about the people in Brussels? Did no
one send you an invitation? If you lived there for three years, surely
you must know some one intimately enough to offer to go, even if they
don't suggest it."
"It is not necessary, thank you," said Claire with an air. "I have an
open invitation to several houses, but I am saving up Brussels for
Easter, when the weather will be better, and it will be more of a
change. And I have an old grand-aunt in the North, but she is an
invalid, confined to her room. I should be an extra trouble in the
house. I shall manage to amuse myself somehow. It will be an
opportunity for exploring London."
"Oh well," Cecil said vaguely, "when I come back!" but she spoke no word
of Christmas Day.
The next week brought the various festivities with which Saint
Cuthbert's celebrated the end of the Christmas term. There was a school
dance in the big class-room, a Christmas-tree party, given to the
children in an East End parish, and last and most important of all the
breaking-up ceremony in the local Town Hall, when an old girl, now
developed into a celebrated authoress, presented the prizes, and gave an
amusing account of her own schooldays, which evoked storms of applause
from the audience, even Miss Farnborough smiling benignly at the recital
of misdoings which would have evoked her sternest displeasure on the
part of present-day pupils! Then the singing-class girls sang a short
cantata, and the eldest girls gave a scene from Shakespeare, very dull
and exceedingly correct, and the youngest girls acted a little French
play, while the French mistress stood in the wings, ready to prompt, her
face very hot, and her feet very cold, and her heart beating at express
speed.
This moment was a public test of her work during the term, and she had a
horror that the children would forget their parts and disgrace their
leader as well as themselves. She need not have feared, however, for
the publicity which she dreaded was just the stimulus needed to spur the
juvenile actors to do their very best, and they shrugged, they
gesticulated, they rolled their r's, they reproduced Claire's own little
mannerisms with an _aplomb_ which brought down the house. Claire's lack
of teaching experience might make her less sound on rules and routine,
but it was obvious that she had succeeded in one important point; she
had lifted "French" from the level of a task, and converted it into a
living tongue.
Miss Farnborough was very gracious in her parting words to her new
mistress.
"I have not come to my present position without learning to trust my
perceptions," said she. "I recognised at once that you possessed the
true teaching instinct, and to-day you have justified my choice. I have
had many congratulations on your pupils' performance." Then she held
out her hand with a charming smile. "I hope you will have very pleasant
holidays!"
She made no inquiries as to the way in which this young girl was to
spend her leisure. She herself was worn-out with the strain of the long
term, and when the morrow came she intended to pack her bag, and start
off for a sunny Swiss height, where for the next few weeks it would be
her chief aim to forget that she had ever seen a school. But the new
French mistress turned away with a heavy heart. It seemed at that
moment as if nobody cared.
That year Christmas fell on a Monday. On the Saturday morning Cecil
packed up her bag, and departed, grumbling, for her week at home.
Before she left, Claire presented her with a Christmas gift in the shape
of a charming embroidered scarf, and Cecil kissed her, and flushed, and
looked at the same time pleased and oppressed, and hastily pulling out
her purse extracted two sovereigns and laid them down on the table.
"I keep forgetting that money! Three weeks, wasn't it? There's two
pounds; let me know the rest when I come back and I'll settle up.
Christmas is an awful time. The money simply melts."
Claire had an uncomfortable and wholly unreasonable feeling of being
paid for her present as she put the two sovereigns in her purse. Cecil
had given her no gift, and the lack of the kindly attention increased
the feeling of desolation with which she returned to her empty room.
Even the tiniest offering to show that she had been thought of, would
have been a comfort!
The landlady came into the room to remove the luncheon tray, her lips
pursed into an expression which her lodger recognised as the preliminary
to "a bit of my mind." When the outlying cruets and dishes had been
crowded together in a perilous pile, the bit of her mind came out.
"I was going to say, miss, that of course you will arrange to dine out
on Christmas Day. I never take ladies as a rule, but Miss Rhodes, she
said, being teachers, you would be away all holiday time. I never had a
lodger before who stayed in the house over Christmas, and of course you
must understand that we go over to Highgate to my mother's for the day
and the girl goes out, and I couldn't possibly think of cooking--"
"Don't be afraid, Mrs Mason. I am going out for the day."
Mrs Mason lifted the tray and carried it out of the room, shutting the
door behind her by the skilful insertion of a large foot encased in a
cashmere boot, and Claire stood staring at her, wondering if it were
really her own voice which had spoken those last words, and from what
source had sprung the confidence which had suddenly flooded her heart.
At this last blow of all, when even the little saffron-coloured parlour
closed the door against her, the logical course would have been to
collapse into utter despair, instead of which the moment had brought the
first gleam of hope.
"Now," said the voice in her heart, "everyone has failed me. I am
helpless, I am alone. This is God's moment. I will worry no more, but
leave it to Him. Something will open for me when the time arrives!"
She went upstairs, put on her hat, and sallied out into the busy
streets. All the world was abroad, men and women and small eager
children all bent on the same task, thronging the shops to the doors,
waiting in rows for the favour of being served, emerging triumphant with
arms laden with spoils. On every side fragments of the same
conversation floated to the ears. "What can I get for Kate?"
"I can't think what in the world to buy for John."
"Do try to give me an idea what Rose would like!..."
Claire mingled with the throng, pushed her way towards the crowded
counters, waited a preposterous time for her change, and then hurried
off to another department to go through the same struggle once more.
Deliberately she threw herself into the Christmas feeling, turning her
thoughts from herself, considering only how she could add to the general
happiness. She bought presents for everybody, for the cross landlady,
for the untidy servant girl, for Sophie Blake, and Flora Ross, for the
maid at Saint Cuthbert's who waited upon the Staff-Room, with a
selection of dainty oddments for girl friends at Brussels, and when the
presents themselves had been secured she bought prettily tinted paper,
and fancy ribbons, and decorated name cards for the adornment of the
parcels.
The saffron parlour looked quite Christmas-like that evening, and Claire
knew a happy hour as she made up her gifts in their dainty wrappings.
They looked so gay and seasonable that she decided to defer putting them
into the sober outer covering of brown paper as long as possible. They
were all the Christmas decoration she would have!
On Sunday morning the feeling of loneliness took an acute turn. Claire
longed for a church which long association had made into a home; for a
clergyman who was also a friend; for a congregation of people who knew
her, and cared for her well-being, instead of the long rows of strange
faces. She remembered how Cecil had declared that in London a girl
might attend the same church for years on end, and never hear a word of
welcome, and hope died low in her breast. The moment of exaltation had
passed, and she told herself drearily that on Christmas afternoon she
must take a book and sit by the fire in the waiting-room of some great
station, dine at a restaurant, and perhaps go to a concert at night.
For weeks past Claire had been intending to go to a West End church to
hear one of the finest of modern preachers. She decided to go this
morning, since the length of journey now seemed rather an advantage than
a drawback, as helping to fill up another of the long, dragging hours.
She dressed herself with the care and nicety which was the result of her
French training, and which had of late become almost a religious duty,
for the study of the fifteen women who daily assembled round the table
in the Staff-Room was as a danger signal to warn new-comers of the
perils ahead. With the one exception of Sophie Blake, not one of the
number seemed to make any effort to preserve their feminine charm. They
dressed their hair in the quickest and easiest fashion without
considering the question of appearance; they wore dun-coloured garments
with collars of the same material; though severely neat, all their
skirts seemed to suffer from the same depressing tendency to drop at the
back; their bony wrists emerged from tightly-buttoned sleeves. The
point of view adopted was that appearance did not matter, that it was
waste of time to consider the adornment of the outer woman. Brain was
the all-important factor; every possible moment must be devoted to the
cultivation of brain; but an outsider could not fail to note that, with
this destroying of a natural instinct, something which went deeper than
the surface was also lost; with the grace of the body certain feminine
graces of soul died also, and the world was poorer for their loss.
The untidy servant maid peered out of the window to watch Claire as she
left the house that morning, and evolved a whole feuilleton to account
for the inconsistency of her appearance with her position as a first
floor front. "You'd take her for a lady to look at her! P'raps she
_is_ a lady in disguise!" and from, this point the making of the
feuilleton began.
The service that morning was food to Claire's hungering soul, for the
words of the preacher might have been designed to meet her own need. As
she listened she realised that the bitterness of loneliness was
impossible to one who believed and trusted in the great, all-compassing
love. Sad one might still be, so long as the human heart demanded a
human companionship, but the sting of feeling uncared for, could never
touch a child of God. She took the comfort home to her heart, and
stored it there to help her through the difficult time ahead, and on her
knees at the end of the service she sent up her own little petition for
help.
"There are so many homes in this great city! Is there no home for me on
Christmas Day?" With the words the tears sprang, and Claire mopped her
eyes with her handkerchief, thankful that she was surrounded by
strangers by whom her reddened eyes would pass unnoticed. Then rising
to her feet, she turned to lift the furs which hung on the back of the
pew, and met the brown eyes of a girl who had been sitting behind her
the whole of the service.
The girl was Janet Willoughby.