The spring term was nearly over, holidays and a trip to Italy
deliciously near; yet Clare Hartill sat at breakfast and frowned over a
neatly-written letter.
Clare Hartill did not encourage the re-entry of old friends into her
life. She did not forget them. She would look back upon the far-off
flaming intimacy with regret, would quote its pleasures to the friend of
the hour with disconcerting enthusiasm; but she was never eager for the
reappearance of any whose ways had once diverged from her own. Pleasant
memories, if you will; but, in the flesh, old friends were tiresome.
They claimed instant intimacy; were free-tongued, fond, familiar; could
not realise that though they might choose to stand still, she, Clare,
had grown out of their knowledge, beyond their fellowship. She, indeed,
would find them terribly unaltered; older, glamourless, yet amazingly,
humiliatingly the same. She would look at them furtively as she
entertained them, and shudder at the lapse from taste that surely must
have explained her former affection. She would be gracious, kind, yet
inimitably distant, and would send them away at last, subdued, vaguely
disquieted, loyal still, yet very sure that they would never trouble her
again. Which was exactly what Clare Hartill intended. Yet she had her
fits of remorse withal, her secret bitter railing at fate and her own
nature, for that she could neither keep a friend nor live without one.
Recovering, she would be complacent at having contrived, without loss of
prestige, to rid herself of bores.
There was one fly in her ointment. Who knows not that fly, earnest and
well-intentioned, which, when it is dug out with a hairpin, cleanses
itself exhaustively and forthwith returns to the vaseline jar? Such a
fly, optimistic and persistent, was the correspondent who invariably
signed herself, "Ever, dear Clare, your affectionate little friend,
Olivia Pring. P.S. Do you remember...?" There would follow a
reminiscence, at least twenty years old, that Clare never did remember.
Olivia Pring was a school-mate. There had been a term together in the
Lower Third. For a few weeks she had been Clare's best friend and she
never let Clare forget it. Clare, with removes and double removes, had
disappeared speedily from Olivia's world, but she never quite shook off
Olivia. Olivia, amiable, admiring, impervious to snubs, refused to be
shaken off. She went her placid way, became a governess, and an expert
in the more complicated forms of crochet. She wrote to Clare about twice
a year--dull, affectionate letters. Clare, that involute character,
amazed herself by invariably answering them. At long intervals Olivia
would be passing through London, and would announce herself, if quite
convenient, as intending to visit her dear Clare that afternoon. She
would describe the lengthy tussle between herself and her employer,
before she had wrested the requisite permission to stay the night--and
did Clare remember the last visit but three, and the amusing evening
they had had? And the letter was invariably delayed in the posting, and
its arrival would precede that of Olivia by a bare half-hour. Olivia,
growing even fatter and more placid, would apologise breathlessly
between broad smiles at the sight of Clare and recollections of the dear
old days. And Clare, as one hypnotised, would go to her linen cupboard
and give out sheets for the spare room. There would follow an evening of
interminable small-talk for Clare, of sheer delight for Olivia Pring,
who, consciously and conscientiously commonplace, enjoyed dear Clare's
daring views as a youthful curate might enjoy, strictly as an onlooker,
what he imagines to be the less respectable aspects of an evening in
Paris.
And Clare would retire to bed at ten-fifteen and sleep as she had not
slept for weeks. Olivia would be regretfully obliged to catch the
eight-eleven, and would depart amid embraces. And Clare would order up a
second breakfast and wonder why she stood it. Yet the pile of unused
doileys in her linen cupboard increased yearly. A doiley was Olivia's
invariable tribute, and arrived, intricate and unlovely, within a week
of her visit.
Clare fingered her letter in quaint helplessness. She had a sleepless
night behind her, and a big morning's work before, and her usual
end-of-term headache. Olivia was arriving--she glanced at the hopelessly
legible sheets--at three-fifty. No chance of mistake there. Clare
decided that it was quite impossible for her to survive a seven hours'
_tête-à-tête_ with her affectionate friend Olivia Pring. If only Alwynne
could help her out. But Alwynne, she knew, was taking the skimmings of
the Sixths and Fifths to a suitable Shakespeare performance. She had
taken the pick of the classes herself the evening before. No chance of
Alwynne, then. And Cynthia! Alack for Cynthia! who could have been
trusted to amuse Olivia Pring as much as Olivia Pring would have amused
her--Cynthia must be aboard ship by now. Clare, in regretful
parenthesis, hoped Cynthia would send a few compatriots to
Utterbridge.... Americans gave a fillip to one's duties.... Anyhow
Alwynne and Cynthia were out of the question.
There was Louise! She brightened. Louise, queer little thing, was always
amusing.... Louise would serve her turn.... Louise would be so charmed
to come.... Clare laughed a little consciously. Perhaps she had
neglected Louise a trifle of late, perhaps it was not altogether fair of
her. A happy thought buffered the prick of her yawning conscience. It
was Alwynne's fault.... Alwynne, with her ridiculous, well-meaning
objections.... She, Clare, had given in to them, for peace and quiet
sake.... And now, most probably, Louise was not too content with
life.... One knew what schoolgirls were.... Never mind! Clare would be
very nice to Louise this evening.... Louise should enjoy herself, and,
incidentally, preserve Clare from expiring of boredom at poor Olivia's
large, flat feet.
The invitation was given during the eleven o'clock break. Clare would
occasionally join the school in Big Hall, and share its milk and
biscuits. Often enough to make it any day's delightful possibility, not
often enough for it to be other than an event. She would sit on the
platform steps, watching the gay promenaders below, informal,
approachable, tossing the ball to the daring few, hedged about, in turn,
by the tentative many. Sometimes she would stroll about the hall with a
girl on either side, or one only. She had a curious little trick of
catching the girl she spoke with by the elbow, and pushing her gently
along as she talked, bending over (she was very tall) and enveloping.
Everybody knew the "Gendarme Stunt" as Cynthia Griffiths irreverently
termed it, and no one would have dreamed of approaching or interrupting
such a _tête-à-tête_.
Nevertheless, Miss Hartill had not exchanged three sentences with Louise
Denny on the morning of Olivia Pring's arrival, before every girl in Big
Hall knew of it, and twice the number of eyes were following them, with
an elaborately accidental gaze, in their progress.
Possibly Clare was a little touched by Louise's delight at the
invitation. At any rate she managed, in spite of her headache, to be a
very charming companion. She confessed to the headache, and asked Louise
for advice. And Louise, deeply concerned, could think of nothing but a
recipe she had found in Clare's own Culpeper, in which rhubarb and
powdered dormice figured largely. She suggested it in a doubtful little
voice. The school would have given a good deal to know what made Miss
Hartill laugh so.
Miss Hartill told Louise all about her visitor, whom, she declared, she
depended on Louise to entertain, and added a couple of comical tales of
their mutual schooldays. Unfortunately Clare's _novelli_ owed their
charm more to her inventive touches and graphic manner than to the
actual underlying fact. Louise was left with the impression of an
Olivia Pring who had been Friar Tuck to Clare's Robin Hood. She
appreciated the honour of being asked to meet her to a degree that would
have tickled Clare, had she guessed it.
"Miss Olivia Pring!" Louise meditated all day over Miss Olivia Pring.
Evidently Miss Hartill's best friend.... She hoped Miss Olivia Pring
would like her.... How dreadful it would be if she didn't ... for what
might she not say of her to Miss Hartill? Louise must be careful, oh, so
careful, of her manners and her speech.... It was rather hard luck that
she would not have Miss Hartill to herself.... It would be dreadfully
uncomfortable--talking before a stranger.... Except for the
delightfulness of being asked by Miss Hartill, she could have wished
that Miss Hartill had not asked her. Rather an ordeal for a
thirteen-year-old--supper with Miss Hartill and Miss Olivia Pring.
Now shyness, like any other painful sensation, is inexplicable to such
as have not experienced it, is at once forgotten by such as outgrow it,
but to those at its mercy, to sheer suffering, paralysing, stultifying,
a spiritual Torture of the Pear.
Clare Hartill should have understood; she had her own furtive childhood
for reference; but Clare Hartill had a headache, and she was very tired
of Olivia Pring. Olivia was so placid, so shapeless, so ridiculous, in
her pink flannel blouse, and the reckless glasses, that were ever on the
point of toppling over the precipice of her abbreviated nose into the
abyss of her half-open mouth. It certainly did not occur to Clare that
Louise could feel the slightest discomfort on account of Olivia Pring.
But Louise was blind to the flannel blouse, and the foolish face, and
the unmanageable glasses. She was wearing glasses of her own,
rose-coloured affairs, through which Miss Pring appeared, not only as a
"grown-up" and a stranger, but as the intimate of Deity in Undress.
Miss Pring did nothing to dispel the illusion--she had conscientiously
flattened the high spirits out of too many little girls to be interested
in a new specimen. She addressed herself chiefly to Clare--recalling
incessantly, and enlarging upon, trifling incidents of their mutual
past, which every fresh sentence of the badgered hostess contrived to
recall to her elastic memory. Louise, always sensitive, her shyness
growing with every word, could but take each unexplained allusion as a
personal snub, and feeling herself entirely superfluous, began to
imagine that Miss Hartill was already regretting the invitation.
Panic-struck she tried to remedy matters by effacing herself as
completely as possible. It was wonderful what a small and insignificant
person Louise could sometimes look, and did look that evening in one of
Clare's big arm-chairs. Her prim little whisper and deprecatory smile
might have struck Clare as pathetic if Clare had not been so very tired
of the affectionate reminiscences of Olivia Pring. As it was, she was
annoyed. She had asked Louise of the bright eyes and quick stammer and
extravagant imagery, to supper with her--the panther-cub, not the
leveret. She had talked of Louise too--had looked forward to putting the
child through its paces, if only for the benefit of Olivia Pring. She
had even surmised that Louise would take Olivia's measure, and at a nod
from Clare would be delicately, deliciously impertinent. Indeed, she had
thought her capable of it. But it was only a schoolgirl after all--a
silly tongue-tied schoolgirl--that she had for an instant compared with
Alwynne: Alwynne, monstrously absent, a match for ten Olivias.
She yawned, shrugged her shoulders, and suggested, in fine ironic fit, a
game of "Old Maid." Olivia was extremely pleased. She so much preferred
Old Maid--or Beggar-my-Neighbour, perhaps?--to Bridge. She did not
approve of Bridge. In her position it did not do. Clare would remember
that she had always said....
Clare fetched the cards.
Louise! Louise! You have done yourself no good to-night. Shy? Nonsense!
What is there to be shy about? A few words from Miss Hartill--a
prompting or two--a leading question--could have broken the ice of your
shyness for you, eh? And Miss Hartill knows it, as well as you, if not
better. That shall not avail you. Who are you, to set Miss Hartill's
conscience itching? Miss Hartill has a headache. Pull up your chair, and
deal your cards, and stop Miss Hartill yawning, if you can. Believe me,
it's your only chance of escape.
Louise was a clumsy dealer. Her careful setting out of cards irritated
Clare to snatching point. Olive triumphed in every game. On principle,
Clare disliked losing, even at Beggar-my-Neighbour. And they played
Beggar-my-Neighbour till ten o'clock.
Louise grew more cheerful as the evening progressed, ventured a few
sentences now and then. Clare was dangerously suave with both her
guests; but Louise, taking all in good faith, hoped after all, that she
had not appeared as stupid as she felt. It had been dreadful at first,
she reflected, as she put on coat and hat. But it had gone better
afterwards.... She didn't believe Miss Hartill was cross with her....
That had been a silly idea of her own.... Miss Hartill was just as
usual.
She made her farewells. Clare came out into the hall and ushered her
forth.
"Good-bye!" Louise smiled up at her. "It was so kind of you to have me.
I have so much enjoyed myself." Then, the formula off her tongue: "Miss
Hartill, I do hope your head's better?"
"Thank you!" said Clare inscrutably. "Good-night!" Then, as the maid
went down the stairs: "Louise!"
"Yes, Miss Hartill?"
Clare was smiling brilliantly.
"Don't come again, Louise, until you can be more amusing. At any rate,
natural. Good-night!"
She shut the door.