Elsbeth bore the news of Clare's defection with stoicism; but her
motherly soul was disturbed by Alwynne's disappointment, though she
could not stifle her pleasure in its cause. She felt, indeed, somewhat
guilty, and was eager to atone by acquiescing in Alwynne's plan of
visiting Clare while she went to church; and met her more than half way
over the question of an altered tea-hour.
Alwynne, who from the first had been fretted, though but half
consciously, by the faintly repellent manner assumed by each of the two
women at mention of the other, was soothed by Elsbeth's advances.
Elsbeth was a dear, after all: there was no one quite like Elsbeth....
For all her obstinacies and unreasonableness, she never really failed
you.... She could be depended on to love you at your worst; you could
quarrel with her with never a fear of real alienation.... Elsbeth might
not be exciting, but she was as indispensable as food.... She was, after
all, the starting-point and ultimate goal of all one's adventures....
Clare would lose some of her delightfulness, if there were no Elsbeth to
whom to en-sky on her.... Alwynne did not see what she wanted with a
mother, so long as she had Elsbeth.... She had said so once to her aunt
and had never guessed, as she was chidden for sacrilege against the
picture over her bed, at the exquisite pleasure she had given.
After the little coolness of the past few days (her aunt's fault
entirely, Alwynne knew, and so could be unruffled) Elsbeth's renewal of
sympathetic interest was very soothing. Alwynne was glad to foster it by
talking of Clare, and Clare, and nothing but Clare, for the rest of the
week. In church on Christmas morning, poor Elsbeth, settling her
spiritual accounts, begging forgiveness for uncharitable thoughts, and
assuring her Maker that she wished Clare no evil, could yet sigh for the
useful age of miracles, and patron saints, and devils, when a prayer in
the right quarter could transport your enemy to inaccessible islands of
the Antipodes. She would have been magnanimous, have bargained for every
comfort--Eden's climate and hot and cold water laid on--but the island
must be definitely inaccessible and Antipodean.
Clare, too, had spent her morning, if not in prayer, at least in
profound meditation. She felt stranded, and was wishing for Alwynne, and
anathematising the superfluous and intriguing aunt.
Clare made the mistake of all tortuous intelligences in being unable to
credit appearances. She was being, as usual, unjust to Elsbeth, Alwynne,
and the world at large. She could not believe in simplicity combined
with brains: a simple soul was necessarily a simpleton in her eyes.
Because her own words were ever two edged, her meaning flavoured by
reservations and implications, she literally could not accept a speech
as expressing no more and no less than its plain dictionary meaning.
With any one of her own type of mind she was at her ease; her mistake
lay in not recognising how rare that type was; in detecting subtleties
where none existed, and wasting hint, suggestion and innuendo on minds
that drove as heartily through them as an ox walks through a spider
thread stretched from post to gatepost of the meadow he means to enter.
Elsbeth, whom she had considered a negligible fool, had yesterday
startled her into respect--not for the kindly and selfless pleasure in
Alwynne's pleasure, that had, for all her little jealous anxieties,
prompted the invitation to Clare, but for the totally imaginary cunning
with which, in Clare's eyes, it had invested her. Alwynne's repetition
of Elsbeth's remark had enlightened Clare: enlightened her to qualities
in Elsbeth which Elsbeth herself would have been horrified to possess.
Clare saw, in the manner of the invitation, a gauntlet flung down, the
preliminaries to a conflict, with Alwynne herself for the prize; and the
first warning of an antagonist sufficiently like herself to be
considered dangerous, the more dangerous, indeed, for the apparently
uninteresting harmlessness that could mask a mind in reality so scheming
and so complex. She did not realise that if she did finally close with
Elsbeth, with the intention of robbing her of Alwynne, she would have
far more to fear from her simple, affectionate goodness of heart than
from any subtlety of intellect with which Clare was choosing to invest
her.
She wondered, as she frittered away the morning, how she should best
counter Elsbeth's attack. She would call, of course--in state; it would
be due; she would not be judged deficient in courtesies. Alwynne should
be there (she would ensure that), and she, Clare, would be exceedingly
charming, and very delicately emphasise the contrast between Elsbeth and
herself. It would be quite easy, with Alwynne already biassed. Her eyes
sparkled with anticipation. It would be amusing. She should enjoy
routing Elsbeth.
And there was the case of Alwynne to be considered. She had been
excessively nice to Alwynne lately, had, in fact, allowed her, for a
moment, to see how necessary she was becoming to Clare.... That was a
mistake.... One must never let people feel secure of their hold upon
one.... That little speech of Alwynne's last night, mocking and
tender--she had thrilled to it at the time--did it not, ever so faintly,
shadow forth a readjustment of attitudes, sound a note of equality?
That, though it had pleased her at the moment, must not be.... Alwynne
must be checked.... It would not hurt her.... She was subdued as easily
as a child, and as easily revived.... She never bore malice. Clare, who
never forgot or forgave a pinprick, had often marvelled at her, could
even now scarcely believe in the spontaneity of her good temper. But
Alwynne, certainly, had been going too far lately; was absurdly popular
in the school; could, Clare guessed, have annexed more than one of her
own special worshippers, if she had chosen. Louise, she knew, confided
in her: she thought with a double stab of jealousy of the scene she had
witnessed but a few days since; of Louise, fresh from her commendations,
from her kiss even (that rare impulse, regretted as soon as gratified),
at rest in Alwynne's arms. She recalled Louise's startled look and
Alwynne's contrasting serenity. She had not enquired what it all
meant--that was not her way. But she had not forgotten it. Alwynne was
hers. Louise was hers. But they had nothing to seek from one another!
Alwynne, undoubtedly, as the elder, the dearer, required the check; not
little Louise. Louise's letter had genuinely touched her--she thought
she would go and see the child, spend her Christmas Day charitably, in
amusing her. And if (in after-thought) Alwynne came round in the
afternoon, and found her gone--it couldn't be helped! It wouldn't hurt
Alwynne to be disappointed.... It wouldn't hurt Alwynne to spend a day
of undiluted Elsbeth.... And Louise would be amusingly charmed to see
Clare.... It was pleasant to please a child--a clever, appreciative
child.... She would go round directly after lunch.... The maid should go
home for the afternoon.... She laughed mischievously as she imagined the
blankness of Alwynne's face, when she should be confronted by silence
and a closed door. Poor, dear Alwynne! Well, it wouldn't hurt her.
But Alwynne set out gaily on Christmas afternoon, and, first escorting
Elsbeth to the lych-gate of her favourite church, walked on as quickly
as her narrow fur-edged skirt would let her.
The clocks were striking three as she turned into Friar's Lane.
It was a cold, still day, and Alwynne shivered a little, and drew her
furs closely about her, as she stood outside the door of Clare's flat.
She had rung, but the maid was usually slow in answering.
The passage was damply cold. It would be all the jollier to toast
oneself before one of Clare's imperial fires.... She wished the maid
would hurry up. She waited a moment and then rang again.
There was no answer.
It struck her that the maid might have been given the afternoon off; but
it was funny that Clare did not hear.
She rang again. She could hear the bell tinging shrilly within, but
there was no other sound save the tick of the solemn little grandmother
on the inner side of the wall.
Suddenly it occurred to her that Clare might be dozing. Clare never
slept in the afternoons, but she did occasionally doze in her chair for
a few minutes. She denied that she did so as strenuously as people
always and unaccountably do; but Alwynne knew better. It always
delighted her when Clare succumbed to drowsiness; a good sleeper
herself, she had been appalled by Clare's acquiescence in four wakeful
nights out of seven, and after a casual description that Clare had once
given her of the arid miseries of insomnia, ten minutes' unexpected
slumber did not give Clare herself more ease than it gave Alwynne.
The possibility of such an explanation of the silence, therefore, had to
be considered respectfully: if Clare slept, far be it from Alwynne to
wake her! Yet she could not go away.... Clare, after that unlucky clash
of wills, would be doubly hurt if Alwynne left without seeing her
first.... But if Clare were asleep....
Resignedly Alwynne sat herself down on Clare's doorstep to wait until a
movement within should be the signal to ring again.
She was not annoyed; she always had plenty to think about; and it would
be very pleasant, when Clare did at last open the door, to be received
with open arms, and pitied, and scolded, and warmed.... It was certainly
very cold.... All the draughts of the town seemed to have their home on
the staircase, and to come sliding and slithering and undulating past,
like a brood of invisible snakes.
She shifted her position. The doorstep was icy. She got up, and placed
her muff, her chinchilla muff (shades of Elsbeth! her beautiful, new
chinchilla muff) on the whitened doorstep. Then she sat on it.
"Ah! That's better," murmured Alwynne appreciatively. She was grateful
to Elsbeth for reminding her to wear her muff.
But it did not get any warmer, and the daylight was beginning to fade.
She glanced at her watch--twenty minutes past three. Surely Clare was
awake again now. But she would wait another five minutes. She watched
the hands--marvelled at the interminable length of a minute, and was
drifting off on her favourite speculation as to the essential unreality
of time, when simultaneously the grandmother struck the half-hour and
she sneezed. She jumped up horrified. A cold would mean a week's absence
from Clare, and a restatement of Elsbeth's thesis "of the advisability
of wearing flannel petticoats and long-sleeved bodices."
Also, half of her hoarded hour was gone. She rang again impatiently. No
answer. Clare must be out.... Gone to the post? No, Alwynne had been
waiting half-an-hour, she would have returned by now.... Impossible that
Clare should be out on Christmas afternoon, when she had refused an
invitation and was expecting Alwynne herself.... She rang; and waited;
and rang again and again and yet again.
"If Clare has gone out----" cried Alwynne indignantly; and subjected the
handle to a final series of vicious tugs. The bell within pealed and
rocked and jarred, gave a last hysterical gurgle and was dumb. She had
broken the bell. She had broken Clare Hartill's bell!
Alwynne looked round about her guiltily; she felt more like nine than
nineteen. The flight of stairs was still empty and silent. No one had
seen her come; no one would see her go.... If she went quietly away, and
said nothing about it? For Clare would be annoyed.... She always got so
annoyed over little things.... What a pity to have a fuss with Clare
over such a little thing as a broken bell!
She crept on tip-toe down the stairs and out into the road. Then she
paused.
Was she being mean? After all--there was no earthly use in telling
Clare.... Clare would never let her pay for the mending.... Yet
naturally she would be annoyed to come back and find her bell broken....
She would think it was the milkman or the paper-boy.... Alwynne hoped
they would not get into trouble.... Perhaps, after all, she had better
tell Clare. Such an absurd thing to confess to, though--that she had
been in such a temper that she had broken the bell! Clare would be
sarcastic.... Yet it was Clare's fault for being out.... That was
unkind.... She would tell Clare so ... she would write and tell her....
She would write a note now, and tell her about the bell at the same
time.... She retraced her steps, pulled out her note-book and pencil,
and began to scribble--
_Dear Clare--I'm awfully sorry but I'm afraid I've broken the bell.
I couldn't make you hear. I thought you were asleep, but I suppose
you are out. I must have rung too hard, but I didn't think you
would be out._ Heavily underlined. _I'm dreadfully sorry about the
bell._
She hesitated. If Clare would let her pay for a new one, she wouldn't
feel so bad.... Yet how could she suggest it? It would sound so
crude.... If only Clare would not be angry.... Absurd to be feeling
afraid of Clare--but then she had never done anything so stupid
before.... Angry or not, Clare would never let her pay.... Yet should
she suggest it? She bit her pencil in distracted indecision, till the
lead broke off between her teeth.
That settled it. The damp stump was barely capable of scoring an
_Alwynne_.
She pinned the paper to the door with her only hatpin (a present of the
forenoon) and reluctantly departed.
It was a pity that her best hat blew off twice into the mud.
Elsbeth was glad to get Alwynne back so early. Had Alwynne enjoyed
herself?
Alwynne sneezed as she answered.
Before the evening was over Alwynne reeked of eucalyptus.