Lady Campion's drawing-room continued to fill--to fill and to empty--for
as some went out, others came in. And everywhere and at all moments,
Hertha Norreys was surrounded and eagerly greeted.
"It is wonderful how much she is made of," thought Winifred from her
corner. "Not, of course, that she does not deserve it, but I have so
often been told that the best people are not the most appreciated by the
common herd."
The expression would scarcely have been deemed appropriate. If there
was one thing Lady Campion prided herself on, it was that her "habitues"
formed a very _un_common herd indeed. _Her_ lions and lionesses must be
well dressed and charming--perfectly well-bred and unexceptionable. And
as Winifred heard the names--now and then mentioned to her in passing by
her good-natured hostess, or by some of the friends she introduced the
girl to, with the excuse that she was "a perfect stranger, never been in
London before"--of men and women she had hitherto reverenced from afar,
she began to allow to herself that if she had known it was to be so much
of a party, she would have dressed better. "Though I never imagined
people like `so-and-so' cared about dressing at all," she added to
herself.
The rooms were thinning--indeed they had never been what to more
experienced eyes would have seemed very full, when Mrs Balderson--
followed by Celia, Eric bringing up the rear--came in.
"What a lovely girl!" said a voice beside Winifred; and turning with
quick pleasure, she saw that the speaker was Miss Norreys's Mr
Montague. And close beside him, though Winifred had not been aware of
her proximity, stood Hertha herself.
"Yes, indeed," she replied, warmly. "She is like a beautiful lily."
Celia was better--at least more becomingly--dressed than her sister, and
her taller, more graceful figure showed whatever she wore to advantage.
Mrs Balderson had reviewed her before they went out, and Winifred had
taken her usual interest in Celia's appearance, attiring herself, later
in the afternoon, with her customary indifference to everything but
neatness.
A flush of gratification rose to her face at the words she overheard,
and moving forward so as to approach Hertha a little more nearly, she
said in a low voice:
"I am so glad you admire her: she is my sister, my younger sister."
Miss Norreys turned. For a moment she half doubted if she herself was
addressed. In the interest of meetings and talk she had almost
forgotten Winifred's existence. But now the face, looking up at her so
brightly and eagerly, attracted her much more than before.
"Your sister, Miss Maryon!" she said, with a sunny smile on her face;
"well, I need not repeat what I said, as you heard it. But it is
certainly true."
And she felt drawn to the girl as she had not hitherto done.
"May I, oh, may I introduce her to you?" Winifred went on, and
encouraged by Miss Norreys' "By all means, if you like."
"Celia, Celia!" she said anxiously--for Celia at that moment was being
monopolised by some friends of Mrs Balderson's--"Celia," when the girl
at last heard her, "do come here. I want to introduce you to Miss
Norreys."
Celia was feeling profoundly shy, and her shyness, as usual, veiled
itself by excessive stiffness. The impression she made upon Hertha was
not of the most favourable.
"She is very pretty, _very_ pretty," thought Miss Norreys, "but
evidently nothing more, and very spoilt. This poor dear elder sister
denies herself, no doubt, to do all she can for her. Their very dress
shows it. I must not be prejudiced. I daresay this girl is a noble
character. I must be kind to her."
And it was with increased cordiality she bade Winifred good-bye, having
already got her address and promised to write to her.
"Is she not _too_ delightful?" said Winifred, ecstatically, to her
sister.
"She has evidently taken a great fancy to _you_," replied Celia,
evasively. "And that is _the_ thing." In her heart she felt a touch of
disappointment. "Why did Miss Norreys look at me with a kind of
disapproval?" she asked herself. "She surely can't be stuck-up or
capricious--she has such a _good_ face."
"Do you think she will really be able to help us--you?" she went on.
"I am sure of it. I had not time to tell her about _you_, Celia, but
you see once _I_ get an independent footing it will be all right for
you. I managed to tell her a good deal. I am certain she sympathises
with the position, the longing for emancipation--oh, yes, I feel that I
have got my foot on the first rung of the ladder," she concluded,
enthusiastically.
Some days passed, nevertheless, without any more of the ladder appearing
through the haze. Miss Norreys made no sign. The days passed
pleasantly, however, so pleasantly that Winifred sometimes felt half
guilty for enjoying them and making no further effort towards the
realisation of those schemes for the future which had been the
underlying "_but_" of her own and, indeed, of Celia's visit to London.
It was difficult to do anything, or to know what to do. Mrs Balderson,
in her innocence of these girls having any thoughts or aspirations other
than those she remembered in her own girlhood, exhausted herself in the
endeavour to make them enjoy themselves, to "have a good time," and she
succeeded. They had never had a better--never, indeed, half so good!
They were scarcely free, however, to do anything but what was planned
for them. Morning, noon, and night for the first two weeks of their
stay, engagements of all kinds were the order of the day. Shoppings,
exhibitions, concerts, plays, afternoon teas, occasional dinner-parties
at home, or, more rarely, an invitation for one girl to accompany her
host and hostess to dine elsewhere, one or two very mild winter dances
even--what, in the old and less sophisticated days, would have been
called "carpet-dances"--all these things followed each other in such
quick rotation as to make life in London, even in November, seem to
these country girls a sort of kaleidoscope.
"I suppose we are learning a good deal, even unconsciously. I suppose
it is all a sort of experience it is well to go through," said Winifred,
dubiously. "But it is not what I expected. I see what it is, Celia; I
shall have to come up again on my own account, really, to go into things
and arrange something. Father and mother cannot object now that I have
got friends here, and some one to advise me."
"Do you mean Miss Norreys?" said Celia.
"Yes--and--I should not be very surprised if Lady Campion asked me to
stay with her, do you know? She was quite interested the other day when
I said a little to her--just a very little--of my wish to _do
something_. She seemed quite struck by it, and said she would like to
talk more about it."
"Are you sure she understood what you mean? She may have thought you
would like to help in her Decoration Guilds, or Shakespeare Recitals, or
some of those things she has so many of," said Celia. "There are heaps
of those half-play, half-work things for girls who don't need to work
really, you know."
Celia had guessed rightly. Lady Campion, though she had inadvertently
conveyed to Miss Norreys a wrong impression of Miss Maryon's position,
had no thought of suggesting to the girl any work of the kind Winifred
had set before herself.
Her face clouded over a little at Celia's words.
"But I don't want to be thought that sort of girl," she said. "I don't
want to be thought rich, and I am _not_ rich. I am dependent on papa.
Besides, if I were--if I had been a son, I should not have been debarred
from a profession because I was the heir to `White Turrets' and
Busheyreeds, and all the property. Why should a woman be treated
differently in such a case? Why should _her_ wings be clipped and she
be restricted to a narrow, monotonous life any more than a man?"
Celia scented danger. She saw that Winifred was lashing herself up to
one of her "revolts," as she called them herself sometimes, and she knew
that any, even the slightest suspicion of less full sympathy than she
had hitherto been able to give would be sharply resented. Yet she was
too honest to evade the possible discordance, painful though the
smallest disagreement with her sister would be to her. For a moment or
two she sat silent. Then she said boldly:
"I am not sure of that ground, Winifred. I have been seeing things a
little differently lately. If you had been a son--placed as you are--I
doubt if it would have been thought right for you to have a profession--
outside work, so to say--when there is so much to do at home."
"What nonsense!" said Winifred. "Do you mean to say that because a man
had property to look after he would be debarred from cultivating his
special gifts? Why, some, perhaps not many, but some of our greatest
men--artists as well as statesmen and writers--have been rich men, men
of property. No, it is only _women_ who are always hedged-in with one
excuse or another."
"But you haven't any special gifts," said Celia, "at least you always
say so. Your wish is to be of use, and--to be independent;" and in her
heart she felt the latter should have been placed first. "You can't be
a statesman, and I don't think even you would regret that for a woman.
But you can be of any amount of _use_ at home. And you could study all
sorts of things about the management of property that would help you to
be still more so."
She felt half-frightened at her own daring, and her fears were not
without foundation. Winifred stared at her, not quite sure if she were
going to let herself get angry or not.
"What has come over you, Celia?" she said at last. "You are worse than
Louise. Who has been talking to you and putting all these ideas into
your head? Do you apply them to yourself too? What about your longing
to paint--to have really good instruction?"
"I still long for it," said Celia, "and I _think_ I still believe it
would be right for me to have it. I think I should test myself so as to
find out if, I have a gift, a decided gift. For if so, I should
cultivate it. In my case no definite responsibilities are before me in
life, as is the case with you, yet--"
"Rubbish!" said Winifred, crossly. "There are just as many before you
and Louise as before me. I shall never marry, and you and she will be
just as much concerned in the management of things some day as I."
"Perhaps," said Celia, "but not just yet, in any case. And yet--as I
was going to say--I don't quite see at present what is right for me to
do. If there are many difficulties in the way, if it would cause
unhappiness at home, perhaps it would be my duty to wait--to wait even
for the testing myself," and she sighed. "I don't want to leave home
for the sake of leaving home, but I do want to know if I am deceiving
myself in thinking I _have_ a gift. And father and mother are so kind
and reasonable. I don't think I need give up the idea."
"You are very selfish, dreadfully selfish, though perhaps you don't know
it," said Winifred. "You would make out that what _you_ want is right
just because you want it. But I, many years older than you, who have
thought over these questions for the last ten years--"
"You are not many years older than I, and ten years ago you were _ever_
so much younger than I am now. You were a child," interrupted Celia.
"--Who have thought about these questions ever since I could think at
all," Winifred resumed calmly--for, to do her justice, she was by no
means bad-tempered, and seldom lost her self-control--"am to give up my
deepest and most cherished hopes, because--no, I really can't say why!
Because I want to leave the beaten track, I suppose."
"You won't see things any other way," said Celia, "so it's no use
talking about it. Perhaps it may be best for you to try the experiment,
though in a different way from me. Anyway, don't let us quarrel about
it, whatever we do, dearest Winifred. Of course your coming to live in
London would make it all infinitely nicer for me, if," and a troubled
expression crossed her face, "if it is really right for us both to leave
home."
"There is Louise at home. She asks nothing better than to jog-trot
along for ever in the same monotonous way. She is an anachronism. She
would have been perfectly happy a hundred years ago, or even longer ago
than that, when it never occurred to any one that a woman _could_ want
anything more exciting than her spinning-wheel and her tapestry-frame."
"Or her napery press and pot-pourri jars," added Celia, with a smile.
"Well, after all, there is to me a wonderful charm about those days;
there must have been a great deal of tenderness and delicacy about a
lady's life, which get rubbed off nowadays. And there is a good deal of
sense in what Louise says. Monotony is not the worst evil. Why, lots
of married women have monotonous lives."
"If they have, it has been of their own choice," said Winifred. "What I
complain of is the being condemned to narrowness and dullness if you
don't marry. Short of marriage, a girl is allowed no other possibility
of outlet."
"But," protested Celia, "though that may be the case for some, or many
even, when there _are_ duties that you are born into, surely it is
different? And even beyond that--is it not possible that what you call
dull, narrow lives, filled with stupid little odds and ends of
usefulness, that don't seem usefulness at all, may be the very
discipline needed by some--may be _meant_ for them?"
"Oh," said Winifred impatiently, "if you are going off to the very
highest grounds of all, I suppose the being an old maid in an attic may
be the best discipline for old maids in attics, but it is the _system_
of narrowing down women's lives that is wrong. And if in their girlhood
some of the old maids had rebelled, and insisted on taking their stand
as men do, things would have been better by now. There must be
individual resistance. Think what Hertha Norreys's life would have been
if she had simply accepted things!"
"Ah, but it was different for her. She had a great talent, and she
needed to work," said Celia. "In a case like hers there could be no
doubt. I really don't pity girls who _need_ to work so much as others
in some ways. Not the rich--they can always, if they wish, find ways of
being useful: the very conditions of their lives bring opportunities.
But girls whose lives are very uninteresting, and yet not poor exactly,
I pity _them_--girls who even can scarcely afford to get books to read."
"They should throw nonsensical dignity to the winds, and work," said
Winifred.
"Yes, I think so too," said Celia.
She had been thinking a great deal lately--more really and thoroughly
and dispassionately than ever before in her life. She was coming to
realise that, even to questions of apparently purely personal interest,
there may be--there is--more than one side. And the starting-point of
all these meditations had been the half-unconscious remarks of Eric
Balderson the day he sat beside her at dinner and endeavoured to make
amends for Mr Fancourt's neglect.
The mention of Miss Norreys made Winifred determine to remain inactive
no longer.
"I must write to her," she decided. "I must beg her to let me see her
once before I leave. We shall certainly not stay more than a week
longer,"--their original three weeks had already expired--"and I must
have some plan for the future before I go home, otherwise I shall really
feel that the golden opportunity of this visit has been wasted. I must
arrange something about where to stay when I come up again, to go into
things more definitely. There is no chance now of Lady Campion's asking
me, unluckily."
For Sir Hugh Campion had had a return of bronchitis, and was ordered
abroad for the winter, his wife, of course, accompanying him. This had
happened so suddenly that Lady Campion and Hertha had not met since the
afternoon of Winifred's introduction to the latter. No opportunity,
therefore, had arisen of rectifying the mistaken impression Lady Campion
had unintentionally conveyed to her friend of Miss Maryon's position and
circumstances.
And all these days the remembrance of the eager, bright-eyed girl, who
had so abruptly appealed to her for advice and assistance, had clung to
Hertha with almost annoying pertinacity. Winifred--though she did not
think of her by that name, never having heard it--would be expecting to
hear from her, she felt sure. Yet what could she say? She herself had
heard nothing more from Mr Montague; there was no use in making
appointments, or inviting the girl to come to see her, when she had
absolutely nothing to tell her. And an appointment, or a "told-off"
afternoon, in Hertha's busy life, meant a great deal more than some
people would find it easy to believe.
But, as often happens, the very first post after Winifred had despatched
her own note to Miss Norreys, brought a letter to herself from Hertha--a
letter that filled her with excitement and sanguine anticipations. It
ran:
"Dear Miss Maryon--I have not forgotten your wish and my promise that
we should meet again. But I have waited a few days in hopes of having
something to tell you of which might make it more worth your while to
come to see me. And to my great pleasure these hopes are to some
extent fulfilled. By a lucky chance, just after you had spoken to me,
I came across the very person the most able to help in such a case.
Through his kindness, I have a proposal to make to you. I will tell
you all particulars if you will call here to-morrow, Friday, at
half-past four in the afternoon, when I shall be disengaged for a
short time. The whole thing seems really a piece of good luck, for,
as I told you, I have neither experience of, nor influence in, any
line of life but my own.--Yours very truly,--
"Hertha Benedict Norreys."
Winifred's eyes gleamed. But she kept her delight to herself, merely
dashing off a word of rapturous gratitude to her new friend, and eager
acceptance of her invitation. She said nothing to either her sister or
Mrs Balderson beyond announcing the fact that "to-morrow afternoon" she
had an engagement which would prevent her going out with them.
Mrs Balderson was annoyed. She felt, with justice, that, having given
herself so much trouble for her young guests, and to a great extent
disorganised her usual arrangements in their behalf, she should at least
have been consulted as to any independent engagements they wished to
make.
"I do not understand Winifred," she said to her son. "Her manners, at
least her ways, are certainly rather like those of an advanced or
`emancipated' young woman of the day. Yet surely it is impossible that
she can have got hold of any of those ideas in that quiet, sheltered,
almost old-fashioned country life of theirs. And her mother is such a
perfect model of good breeding."
Eric shrugged his shoulders.
"_Quien sabe_," he said. "Ideas are in the air, I suppose. You never
can tell where they will crop up. Why, even Celia has her theories--
only she is very different from her sister, both in character and
temperament. But I wouldn't worry about Winifred, my dear mother. You
have been more than good to them both, and they know it--at any rate,
Celia does--and they will be leaving very soon."
"Yes, I shall be sorry for Celia to go. She is very sweet. But I could
not take the responsibility of Winifred for long. As I said, I do not
understand her. Don't be afraid, however, of my making any fuss. I
would not on any account spoil the last few days of their visit by
beginning to find fault."
So Winifred set off, uninterfered with, to call on Miss Norreys, while
Celia accompanied Mrs Balderson to the large annual meeting of a
charitable society, in which the kind-hearted and liberal woman was much
interested.
Celia was interested too. She had the happy power of throwing herself
very thoroughly into the surroundings of the moment, and her mind in the
last two or three weeks had begun to open in several new directions.
But all through the speeches and reports which followed each other in
rapid succession, and which she would have liked to listen to with an
un-preoccupied mind, there kept rising the half-uneasy thought: "I
wonder where Winifred has gone, and why she did not tell me all about
it. Can it be on account of what I said the other day? I hope she
won't do anything rash."
For some things, Celia felt she would not be sorry to be home
again--"with mother and Louise"--yet the sense of disappointment that
she had made no way towards the realisation of her own ardent wish was
keen to her. And Winifred did not seem to sympathise in this as she
used to do.
"She called me selfish," thought Celia, "because I said that perhaps--
perhaps it might be different for her and me. I wonder why we don't
seem quite as much at one as when we were at home."