“We live in a materialistic age, my dear,” said her husband coolly. “In a few years’ time ideals will be as dead as door-nails. Idealists are usually weak dreamers, who resent the driving force of others, and who try—ineffectually—to dam the current of their progress. I don’t mean that you are to be classed with these ineffectuals, Colin, but you allow yourself to be carried away by their enthusiasms. Enthusiasm is a good servant, but a bad master. To do anything worth doing, you must have a judicial mind, and put nothing of yourself in the scale.”
“All the great reformers of the world have been enthusiasts,” cried Claudia impetuously. “The dry-as-dust,cold-blooded men and women have never achieved anything. I say, thank God for the enthusiasts of the world, who are not dismayed by columns of statistics!”
Her eyes and Colin’s met, and his thanked her silently, but a little shake of the head told her not to trouble to argue, that it was only beating her head against a brick wall.
“My dear Claudia, you are a woman and belong to the emotional, impressionable sex. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t you join any of these crank movements,” he went on impatiently—“for if I am going into Parliament, I don’t want to be saddled with my wife’s partisanships. It’s quite enough to fight the cranks in the House, I don’t want any on my own hearthrug.”
She was tempted to make a hot retort, but Colin’s look checked her. After all, itwasuseless, and she had determined not to quarrel with him.
“I shan’t be able to stick this much longer,” grumbled her husband, getting up and inspecting the leaden skies. “Rotten weather!”
“It’s the first bad day we’ve had, old man,” replied his friend cheerfully.
“And no newspapers yet.... I wasn’t cut out for a life of idleness. I’ll go in and write some letters.”
He got up and left them on the verandah, and Claudia gave up the pretense of reading.
“Colin,” she exclaimed vehemently, “how came you and he to be friends when you are so different? His views are too awful.”
“There are a lot of people who think as he does,” returned Colin thoughtfully. “But it was sweet of you to take up the cudgels on my behalf. Those things are not easy to do in front of—a Gilbert.”
She flushed a little. “I just had to say it. I was so entirely with you. I always am. And yet, he is my husband.”
“Youdon’t think me weak and ineffectual?” He looked out over the rain-bleared golf-course, at the dark row of pines in the distance. “You used to lay so much stress on strength, on achievement. You quite frightened me.”
“Don’t!” she said quickly. “Sometimes one may mistake hardness for strength. Don’t”—pitifully—“don’t rub it in, Colin.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Oh, my dear!”—the caress seemed to slip out involuntarily—“I didn’t mean to do that.... And though I wanted you to say I wasn’t, Iamweak—pitifully weak.... I want a woman’s good opinion, a woman’s approval. I want someone to believe in me, to urge me on ... that’s weak, isn’t it?”
“Only according to Gilbert’s creed,” she said softly. “You and I have a different one.”
He got up and paced the verandah.
“It would be happier for you if you could adopt his creed—and you’re very young. You want happiness?”
“Badly.”
“I wish—I could see you happy. The Bible says, ‘the prayer of the righteous man availeth much,’ but I can’t pray.”
“I don’t believe you are any happier—although you seem so cheerful—than I am.”
“No.”
The rain softly murmured around them. They were the only occupants of the verandah.
“We’re not very lucky, are we?...” She turned abruptly to him, her hands gripping the edge of the verandah, her eyes bright with a curious wildness. “Colin, I’m sometimes so frightened of the future. I’m twenty-four now. Shall I always go on being unhappy and dissatisfied until I become a nasty, bitter, lonely old woman, jealous of every happy couple I meet, envious of everyone else’s happiness? It’s a horrid picture, isn’t it?”
He did not say a word, but he watched her profile as she looked out at the rain.
“Gilbert will grow more and more like his father, and he will become the right honorable member for Langton. He may rise to be Attorney-General. Perhaps he’ll get a seat in the Cabinet. I shall open Primrose League bazaars and be chilly to the wives of Labour members when I meet them. I shall go to innumerable long, stupid dinners and try and remember to be gracious to the right persons. I shall become the possessor of some wonderful china and perhaps flit about with a duster in a silk bag. And my heart—well”—with a sudden gust of passion that left her face deathly white—“I hope it will be atrophied by that time.”
They had neither of them noticed the approach of a motor, so that they were both startled to hear an English shout from the bottom of the steps.
“Hallo! Isn’t the water cold?”
It was Pat, neat and workmanlike in her blue serge, a small hat rammed down over her yellow hair. She grinned up at their surprise.
“Pat! We didn’t expect you until to-morrow.”
“I know, but I suddenly got fed up with London. I hope I haven’t put the town band out by coming so soon, but I just had to come.”
She came striding up the steps and gave Claudia a hug.
“Bless you, my children. Paton, I shall be in tremendous form to-morrow. I feel it coming on. Directly I got on the boat I wanted to drive off from the head of the gangway, only it would be sure to have been a lost ball.... I lost five last week. I think they were winged angels masquerading as golf-balls. How’s Gilbert? Billie sends his forlorn love. He’s as mournful as a Chinese idol. Do you know where I’m supposed to hang myself up?”
Claudia, who had arranged for her room on the morrow,went ahead into the hotel, Colin and Pat following after. She could not help hearing a hasty whisper of, “Paton, I’ve got lots of things to tell you. Justhadto see you. Everything is going to be all right, and I’m so happy.”
So her suspicions were correct. Colin and Pat were in love with one another. Pat “just had to see him.” What was that but love? Only love can drive with such impatience.
“I hope it’s a pretty long bed,” she could hear Pat chattering. “I went to stay at an hotel once, and we took it in turns to rest, my top half and my lower half. I’d like to sleep all at once, if possible.”
Colin laughed. He was always on very cheery terms with Patricia, and she with him. It was she, Claudia remembered, who had once so highly extolled Paton as a possible husband. At that time she had not appeared to have anypenchantfor him. But sometimes the knowledge of her love comes suddenly to a young girl. Perhaps it had come suddenly to Pat. And she would make him a very nice wife. She was loyal to the core, and she would believe in him. She would fight for him, if necessary, through thick and thin, the bigger the fight the more she would like it. She would never quite understand one side of him, perhaps, but maybe her steady cheeriness was what he needed. How often she had heard it said that like should not seek like in marriage. She remembered someone had said, “In love they who resemble, separate.” Pat was lucky, and if she felt a little twinge of jealousy—well, it was the first symptoms of the soured old woman period she had been envisaging. She would presently look on all young couples in the same way.
“So your sister has arrived,” she heard Mr. Littleton say, as she stood musing in the hall. “She hasn’t brought good weather with her.”
“No,” returned Claudia mechanically, “but Pat doesn’t mind the weather.”
“Well, I guess that befits an Amazon. She’s a splendid specimen of English womanhood.”
Her sister nodded. Yes, she was; no wonder Colin admired her.
“A little too splendid for my taste,” smiled Littleton. “Who was it laid down the law that a woman should be just as high as the shoulder of the man she loves?” He looked at the dark, glossy head just on the level of his own shoulder, but she did not notice it. She was trying to adjust her ideas: “I reckon he was a cosy man, who ever he was.”
He wondered what had caused that curiously blank look on her face, a sort of half stunned surprise.
Just then Pat and Colin came laughing into the hall, she having, with her characteristic quickness, found and donned a tweed rain-proof coat.
“Claud, we’re going for a tramp. Come with us? It’s no good minding the wet. You look as if you’ve been in all day.”
Her sister pulled herself together and replied lightly, “I’m sure, from your tone, it’s an unbecoming look, but I refuse to let the rain wash it off. I hate walking in the rain.”
“It’s nearly left off,” said Paton, glancing out of the door, “the clouds are breaking.”
“I tell you I don’t want to go.... Run away, young people!”
Littleton noticed the edge to her tone, noticed it because he loved her and, by now, had grown sensitive to its many inflections. Because he loved her, he tried to understand her, to respond to her moods, to fall in with her humours. He adored her quick changes, sometimes half a dozen in the space of ten minutes; the melodies in her voice, sometimes tender, sometimes firm, occasionallygay and still girlish. He was willing to do anything to make her happy, and he had seen very clearly the rift in the lute, the rift that had been inevitable. Could he hope to win her love? She had given him nothing that could be considered encouragement, although she was always friendly and ready to talk to him. She no longer loved her husband, and it was not possible that such a woman could exist for long without some man in her life. Why not——
Then he saw the expression on her face. She had forgotten he was standing there. She was absorbed in her thoughts, but her eyes were fixed on the couple going down the path. Pat was talking eagerly, and she had just slipped her hand confidentially within Colin’s arm to emphasize some point.
Love gives even the most stupid of men extraordinary powers of intuition where the woman he loves is concerned. In a flash he knew that his own suit was hopeless and the reason.
His fair skin had grown very grey as he spoke to her, and the light in his eyes was suddenly quenched.
“Mrs. Currey, this is my last day here, you know. Too bad it’s wet, isn’t it? We might have gone over the links once again together.”
The words effectually roused her. “Your last day here? I thought you were going to stay on a few more days? Oh, I’m sorry! But we shall meet when I come back to town,n’est-ce pas?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said regretfully. “I—I shall probably be sailing for New York next week. The firm has been calling for me for some time. ‘Home, sweet Home,’ you know, and the American eagle!”
“Why, that’s too bad.” Her tone was unaffectedly regretful and sincere. Perhaps, later on, he would feel it a slight consolation that he had won through to her friendship, but at present it was caustic on the wound.“I shall miss you. I suppose it’s ‘the game’ once more? We women are hopelessly out of it!”
He shook his head. “There is only ‘the game’ left to me, and now—it doesn’t interest me very much. Life has a queer way of giving you backhanders occasionally, hasn’t it? Mrs. Currey, you’ve taught me there are finer things, more worth striving for, than mere commercial gain. Oh, it will fill up the time quite nicely, and I shall still get some thrills out of doing the other fellow.” They had wandered out on the verandah again. “See here, I don’t know how a woman takes these things. I don’t know whether she likes a man to tell her he loves her, or would rather he went away with his tongue held between his teeth. But I feel I should like to tell you that I love you.... I would have done anything to win and keep your love, if there had been any hope for me.... At one time I had a crazy dream you might, perhaps, trust yourself to me and make another start with me on the other side. I know you’re brave enough to make a fight for your happiness, and not begrudge paying a price for it. You’re not the kind of woman to be frightened by a few law-court bogys.... No, you need not look so sorry. It’s my own fault. I walked clean into it. I guess I gave the best years of my life to the rottenest game out. Well, that game’s all that is left me. I’ve got to go on playing, whether I want to or not.”
“But Iamsorry.... I like you so much. I almost wish—— But I think something has happened to my heart.... I can’t feel it. I feel sort of numbed. I don’t even seem to believe in love any longer. I wish I could fall in love. I think it would put some life in me. I used to laugh at a woman who said when she wasn’t in love she was only half alive. But there’s something in it. Degrading admission, isn’t it?”
He looked at her with a curious expression—half wonderment, half tenderness.
“Then you don’t know!” he exclaimed.
“Know what?” The figures of Colin and Pat were rapidly becoming miniatures in the distance.
“Never mind. Only when youdoknow—remember how we stood here—and that I knew.”
The boy threaded his way among the tables, until he came to where the Currey party sat.
“Madame, s’il vous plaît, on vous demande au téléphone de l’Angleterre.”
“Moi?” ejaculated Claudia, in surprise.
“Mais oui, Madame.”
Claudia rose and hurried to the telephone, hardly having time to wonder who it could be. Then she heard Jack’s voice on the other end.
“Claudia, is that you? Oh, for God’s sake, old girl, come back. I have blurted out the truth to Fay. She cornered me, and I confessed to her there wasn’t any chance.... It’s dreadful ... she wants you ... we can’t do anything with her. If you don’t come, I shall blow my brains out. I can’t stand it. Pat’s there, isn’t she? You can come, can’t you?”
Claudia thought rapidly. “Yes, I’ll come, Jack. By to-night’s boat. All right, you meet me at Charing Cross.”
She heard a sort of sob of relief from the other end, and he commenced to blab broken words of gratitude, but she cut him short. “No good talking on the telephone, old boy. It was rather cruel of you ... you shouldn’t have let her corner you. Tell her I’m coming.”
She went back to the luncheon-table, but her appetite for lunch was gone.
She was half afraid Gilbert would make some objection to her going, but except by a shrug of his shoulders and the raising of his thick eyebrows, he put no obstacles in her way.
“Oh! poor little kid!” ejaculated Pat, her high spirits momentarily sobered. “Fancy knowing that there is no hope. Ugh! it must be like those torture-chambers of old, when the victims watched the walls gradually close in on them. I hope I shall die quickly and suddenly when my time comes.”
“And yet there must be thousands at this very minute, as we sit here, who are knowingly being enclosed by those walls. I suppose we humans, on the whole, are a poor lot, and yet sometimes I am struck with amazement at the courage of men and women,” said Colin thoughtfully. “When I pass through the crowded suburbs, I marvel at the amount of quiet, unnoticed heroism those brick walls must contain. But Fay—You have a difficult task before you, Claudia. You can’t travel alone. I will take you back to London.”
Claudia was longing to accept the offer, but she shook her head. “Oh, no! thank you, Colin. You needn’t coddle me. Pat came over alone.”
“Yes; but she came in the day-time, and you are travelling at night. Can’t be done, madam. Pat will look after our patient.”
“I wish you wouldn’t fuss over me,” said Gilbert testily. “Of course I am glad of your company, but I don’t need any kind of looking after. I’m not a hysterical, nervywoman. A man who is taking a rest isn’t a patient of anyone’s.”
“Gilbert, don’t be grumpy,” said Pat, who was never in the least overawed by Gilbert. “All men want looking after. If you are rude, I shall follow you round the links with a tin of Brand’s Essence and a spoon.”
Colin’s presence on the journey was a great comfort, for he was quietly thoughtful without being fussy, and she did not feel under any necessity to talk to him, unless she had something to say. But she was pleasantly conscious of his sympathy with her miserable errand. He took her to the door of the flat and left her.
Claudia was startled when she saw her brother. She had never believed it possible that anyone could go to pieces so badly in such a short time. His young, unlined face was haggard, his eyes were sunken and dull.
“Claudia, if you hadn’t come, I should have put an end to myself. I can’t stand seeing her suffer so. I wish I hadn’t told her, but she’s too cute for me. She always was.”
“How did you come to blurt it out?”
“Why, we were sitting quietly together, and I was teaching her double-dummy, when she said, ‘Jack, isn’t it too bad, I shall never get better?’—quite quietly—just like I say it, and of course I—well, I gave the show away. She’d been suspicious for a long time, it seems. She remembers the case of a man in her profession that got hurt in the same way years ago. She knows how miserably he died a year afterwards.... She’d never said anything about it before. Must have been thinking it out. She raved it all out at me.” He shivered. “I shall never get over this, Claudia.”
She was silent, as she took off her gloves.
“She cries and cries, and then suddenly she screams in abject fright.... I keep on hearing those screams. I can’t sleep for them. Oh, God! it’s too awful.”
The nurse had quietly entered. “I’m so glad you havecome, Mrs. Currey. You always had such an influence over her. Will you come in? She’s been listening for your arrival.”
It was something resembling a very young child that threw itself with cries and sobs into her arms, when she went to the bedside. Claudia knelt down and held her tightly and silently to her breast. What words could she use to the poor, frightened soul, that did not sound puerile and meaningless? Even if she had herself believed in the orthodox Heaven, Fay was too fond of this world to have found any comfort in the visionary prospect. If only the curtain had killed her outright on that fatal night! That moment of surprise would have been her only pang, and now——
“I don’t want to die,” sobbed Fay. “I’m young. I’m only twenty-two. It’s wicked, it’s wicked.... I won’t be resigned. Nurse says I ought to be. But she isn’t going to die.”
“Fay, dear, I know it’s terribly hard.... I shan’t ask you to be resigned. But will you listen to me for a few minutes?”
“Yes, I will—if you don’t want me to be resigned. Young people can’t be resigned, can they?”
“No, but they can fight. Fay, have I ever told you how much I admire you for the way you’ve risen in your profession?” The sobbing grew quieter. “I’ve never had to do anything for my living, and I don’t suppose I can imagine one tenth part of the difficulty with which people do earn their living—the competition, the horrid spectres which people of my class never see, the fear of breaking down, of not having enough at the end of the week to pay the rent, to find food and clothing. You were earning a splendid salary when—the accident happened, but you didn’t always, did you?”
“Not much. The first few years after mother died I had precious little, an engagement here and there, and agood many times I didn’t know where the tin was coming from to pay the landlady.”
“I know. I guessed all that, because very few people ‘arrive’ without making a big fight. I’m sure you made a splendid fight. You hung on to the managers and agents till they gave you engagements, and you set your teeth together and said to yourself, ‘I won’t be done,’ didn’t you?”
“Yes, but how did you know?” She lifted the distorted, tear-stained face wonderingly.
“You were quite a child when you made that fight, at an age when I was still in the schoolroom. And you fought fairly, and made lots of friends. Look at the crowds of letters you get, asking how you are. Fay, go on fighting. Don’t give in now.”
There was complete silence. The dark head was motionless. Claudia knew she was taking in the idea, for whenever Fay wanted to reason with herself, she always thought in silence. She always took a special interval from life to do her thinking.
“But what am I to fight for?” she said at length.
“To keep your own respect and the respect and admiration of all who know you. Poor Jack loves you very much in his way, and he is distracted. Help to steady him, Fay. He is beginning to look at life more seriously. He admires you immensely as an artist, make him admire you as awoman. You told me once that you didn’t want to do him any harm by marrying him. You can do him a great deal of good.”
“Poor old Jumbo! I scared him out of his life.” She gave a ghost of her gay smile. “I knew I’d get it out of him. No one else would tell me.”
“He’s known all the time,” went on Claudia, stroking her hair, as she would have a child’s. “It’s been a terrible burden, Fay. You can see from his face how he has been brooding over it. Jack’s never had to bear anykind of trouble in his life before. The world has been all rose-leaves for him. I think he’s been putting up a bit of a fight, too, because he hates trouble and illness, and all the uncomfortable things of life. He’s come pretty regularly to see you, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he has. I see what you’re driving at. But why should I have to die? I swear to God I never did no one no harm that I know of. There was a chap once I was awful fond of, and him of me. We used to keep on meeting on the Stoll tour. One week his wife came along. She was a silly, soppy piece of goods; he liked a bit of a devil, like me, but she was dead stuck on him, and there was a baby coming. I sent him back to her, straight, I did. I wouldn’t have no truck with him. He sent me an awful nice letter when I got hurt. He’ll be sorry when—when he hears.”
“I’m sure he will.”
Fay was silent again, her blue eyes fixed on an absurd Teddy Bear on the chest of drawers. Then she said with a queer jumble of ideas that left Claudia speechless:
“I shan’t be able to do that American tour next year, and I shall never have a baby. Some people think kids are a nuisance, but I’d like to have had one. Babies are awful cute, aren’t they? Mabel Floyd’s got a kid of four years old, and she does all her mother’s songs. Makes you die with laughing. You should see her do the Bond Street strut, with her mother’s monocle. She’ll make a hit on the halls one of these days. Got it in her, you know, same as I had.” She looked at a framed photograph which hung on one of the walls. “Mother died when she was thirty-two, but that was because she got soaking wet one night, going to the theatre. But she didn’t mind dying much. I remember that. She was dead tired, you know. My father took his hook when I was four years old, and he had knocked all the life out of her. I can remember her saying, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I’d be glad totake a rest, Fay.’ But I don’t feel like that. I never allowed any man to make my life a misery. If there was any misery going about, the men got it. I wasn’t taking any. Take my tip, my dear, don’t you let ’em squeeze everything out of you. Mother taught me that lesson. She had a thin time, poor thing.” Suddenly she commenced to cry again, but gently. “I’ve heard people say that those that are dead can look down on us. Do you think mother can see me now?”
“Perhaps, Fay. We know very little about the spiritual world.”
After a minute Fay took her head off Claudia’s shoulder, and pushed her away a little with one of her small, babyish hands. Her blue eyes, still wet, searched her face with such acuteness that Claudia was glad she had nothing to hide any longer.
“Claudia, did you think all this out—about the fighting—as you came to see me? Did you make it all up?”
Claudia shook her head, and her eyes were dark with her own thoughts as she replied:
“No, Fay. It wasn’t thought out at all. I’ll tell you the truth. I hadn’t the least idea what I could say to you. I kept on asking myself, ‘What shall I say? What shall I say?’ Then suddenly, as I came into your room and saw you crying among the pillows, I knew what life must mean for you, for me, for Jack, for everybody. A sudden light seemed to come to me. An answer came to some questions I have lately been putting to myself. I realized that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, whether you are happy or unhappy, as long as you keep on fighting. I don’t understand life any more than you do, dear. Sometimes it seems a pretty dreary business. I’m hopelessly at sea. But—I see now—one must go on swimming. You mustn’t just let your arms fall to your side and sink. Perhaps, if you keep on swimming, a boat may pick you up, or you may find an unsuspected island,and even if you don’t get rescued, I think one must die—swimming.”
Fay’s eyes opened widely, and her arms stole again round her sister-in-law’s neck.
“How sad your voice sounds,” she whispered. “Are you having a bad time? Aren’t you happy, either?”
Her sister-in-law’s voice was a little unsteady as she said, in a low voice, “Fay, shall I tell you a secret? Can you keep one?”
“Honour bright. May I be——”
“Listen, then.... No, I’m not happy.... I haven’t found anything that I wanted in life. It’s all makeshifts. I’m very restless, very dissatisfied, and just at the moment I don’t find life worth living. Only yesterday I was talking like a beastly coward. I was telling a friend that I was frightened of the future, that I could see only blank, empty, joyless days, and that I was going to develop into a nasty, soured, cold-hearted woman. Now I see how disgusting it was of me to say things like that, especially when I was making him unhappy too. I know I ought to brace up my muscles, and start swimming—like you. I don’t feel like it, any more than you do.... You’ll keep my secret, won’t you, Fay, and when I get tired, I’ll come to you and do a howl, and when you get tired you shall do the howling. And then we’ll make another effort and go on swimming again. We’ll help one another, won’t we? Somehow, I fancy the strong people of this world are not those who always achieve great things, but those who keep on fighting, who will not be downed by circumstances.”
Fay kissed her passionately. “I love you. I’d do anything for you. And if I can help you—I didn’t know you had any troubles—I should be so proud of myself. I’ve always looked upon you as someone who didn’t want any help, who always found it easy to do”—vaguely—“the right thing.”
“No! No!” cried Claudia, thinking of the humiliating scene in the studio, “I don’t find it easy at all. I find everything horribly difficult and confusing.... I haven’t even got any fixed principles now. I hardly know what I believe or disbelieve. Sometimes I think I am only an artist, a pagan, merely craving for the beautiful, the perfect; sometimes I feel there is more in life and love than that ... there must be, there must be ... the whole fabric of life could not have been built upon such an insecure foundation. Passion is a big factor in life, but there must be a bigger.”
She was talking to herself now, talking out her own doubts, but Fay lay perfectly still, listening to the voice that she loved, and comprehending only that this woman she had always thought so favoured, so lucky, so above the storms that beset her own course, was in trouble, and that it eased her mind to talk to her—The Girlie Girl of the music-halls. She, Fay, had been entrusted with her secret, and her heart swelled with a pride that made her for a few minutes forget her own tragedy. “Dead common,” she called herself, she was Claudia’s confidante. If Claudia wanted her to keep on fighting—well, it must be done, somehow or other.
“Life can’t be a joke of the gods,” went on Claudia. “It’s the fashion nowadays to pretend that it is—but it can’t be. One can’t simply give way to every temptation with the excuse that one is unhappy, that life has cheated you. If nobody wants you to be loyal to them, you must be loyal to yourself. Oh! how I wish I understood things better.”
There was a click of the door-handle and the nurse came in.
“Mrs. Currey, the cook has got some soup and cold chicken for you in the dining-room. You must be tired after travelling. Won’t you take a little?”
“Yes,” said Fay, rubbing her fists in her eyes, “shemust. She’s a duck to come so quickly. Nurse, I’m going to be good after this; at least, I’m going to make a try. It isn’t much in my line, but I’m not so old I can’t learn a new song and dance.... Claudia, send old Jumbo to me.”
At that instant “old Jumbo” put his head dubiously round the door. He was the weakest of husbands and men, but helped by Colin’s lecture, he had almost overcome his repugnance to a sick-room. The last two days had frightened him out of his very limited wits. He had not heard Fay sobbing for the last quarter of an hour. Had Claudia got her asleep or——
“Hallo, Jumbo,” called out Fay. “Come over here and give me a kiss.”
His stupid, handsome face brightened, and some of the scared look disappeared from the eyes.
“Cheer oh, Fay, old girl!” he said huskily. “I’m glad you’re better.”
Claudia and the nurse left the strange married couple together.
At that same moment Colin was tearing open a telegram which his man said had arrived a couple of hours previously. It was from Pat at Le Touquet, and Colin quickly mastered the disquieting contents.
“Come back quickly and bring Neeburg if possible. Gilbert has had a seizure. Would play eighteen holes. Tried to stop him. Don’t alarm Claudia. No immediate danger.”
From the day that Gilbert was brought back to England, some weeks later, Claudia’s life became one of deadly rustic monotony. Neeburg had not been surprised at the seizure. Cardiac trouble not infrequently followed on neglected influenza, he said, and combined with his nervous breakdown was, though not actually dangerous to his life, serious enough to make, for a time, a complete invalid of him. He was kept lying in his bed until he was well enough to be moved from Le Touquet, and then, in answer to his mother’s entreaties—she still seemed vaguely to hold Claudia responsible—he went down to his old home at Wynnstay.
It was out of the question for him to continue living in London for some time to come, and Neeburg approved of the air of Wynnstay, which was pure and bracing. It was situated on the Sussex Downs, and from the topmost windows a glittering streak, which was the sea in the distance, could be glimpsed.
Life had not been any too cheery during those last weeks at Le Touquet, but at Wynnstay Claudia felt as though she were in prison.
It washishome, and Claudia was made to feel that though the wife of the sick man, she was an outsider. Gilbert’s moroseness had increased, and rank bitterness was in his heart. Sometimes Claudia fancied that helooked at her with furious envy in his eyes as she came with her springy steps across the lawn to where he was stretched out under a big tree. He did not wish to see any of their friends—was it the same reason, envy of their health?—so that very few people came to the house. Sometimes Lady Currey made it plain that instead of tramping along the country lanes, which was her one solace—there were no golf-links near—Claudia ought to appear in the sedate, sunless drawing-room with its cabinets of valuable china, and make small talk for the wife of the vicar and the sister of the curate, and listen to genteel opinions on a variety of subjects—no one could say even the biggest were shirked—of which the exponents knew less than nothing.
Sometimes Claudia felt she was shriveling into a polite, well-bred mummy. Gilbert expected her to write all his letters for him—he still kept in touch with his office—so that he resented her wishing to go up to town even for the day. She knew it was unreasonable, but after a while she ceased to care very much.
Lady Currey had always disliked Patricia, whom privately she characterized as “a loud, indecently large hoyden,” and she made this so plain that Claudia could not urge Pat to come down to visit her. Indeed, with the Currey family she had no rights at all, either to personal friends or opinions. Any views which she was sometimes exasperated into expressing were generally received in chilly silence.
Sick people are notoriously capricious in their likes and dislikes, and Gilbert seemed to have taken a dislike to Colin. They had been together quite amiably at Le Touquet, but once at Wynnstay, Gilbert never suggested that he should come down, and once, when Colin motored down, received him in such an indifferent manner that no one could have misunderstood. Then, at the beginning of July Colin had gone up to Lancashire to pursuesome investigations on the Child Labour problem for Sir Michael Carton, and since then Claudia had only had letters from him. The letters were always charming, unobtrusively encouraging and subtly sympathetic, telling her something of his work and discussing the books in the Currey library, which helped to while away her time, but she missed him. She wondered why he and Pat did not announce their engagement, and therefore she was not in the least surprised when she got the following letter from Pat one morning in August:
“Imustsee you, old girl, so I’m coming down for the week-end, and, like the improper female your mother-in-law thinks me (Oh! what would she think of a really improper female? But there, I suppose really improper females can’t afford to behave improperly, they have to prune and prism), I have taken rooms at the Three Compasses Inn in the village. They’ve got a ducky room—it looks out on the duck-pond and they will quack me a matutinal lay—which I investigated last time I came down to see you for the day. Socky shall chase the ducks, and I’ll eat any he kills, or send them, with his compliments, to Lady Currey. But I must see you. I’ve been keeping a secret from you for some time, and I’m nearly dead of spontaneous combustion. Perhaps it’s too late and you’ll only find a coat and skirt—the other lingerie oddments would, I’m sure, be combusted, too—when you meet the 1.15 train. It’s agreat, great secret, but everything is settled now. Colin will come down for the day on Sunday and help to eat one of the ducks. Now curiosity shall smoulder in thee!“Have you heard that Frank Hamilton has married a study in yellow?—yellow in her pockets and yellow in her face—called Maria Jacobs, and she has taken a house in Belgrave Square? Rhoda, who knows all things indecent, says he made her settle a large sum of money onhim and then announced his intention of travelling in the East—without her. She herself—Rhoda, I mean—is very annoyed. With great difficulty she got hold of a new man—vastly rich—who met her husband and became interested in his plays. He is putting up the money for a show in the autumn, and Rhoda hasn’t got a look-in. Funny world, isn’t it?“Wave a Union Jack on the platform on Saturday, and I will fall out on top of Socky.“Thine,“Pat.”
“Imustsee you, old girl, so I’m coming down for the week-end, and, like the improper female your mother-in-law thinks me (Oh! what would she think of a really improper female? But there, I suppose really improper females can’t afford to behave improperly, they have to prune and prism), I have taken rooms at the Three Compasses Inn in the village. They’ve got a ducky room—it looks out on the duck-pond and they will quack me a matutinal lay—which I investigated last time I came down to see you for the day. Socky shall chase the ducks, and I’ll eat any he kills, or send them, with his compliments, to Lady Currey. But I must see you. I’ve been keeping a secret from you for some time, and I’m nearly dead of spontaneous combustion. Perhaps it’s too late and you’ll only find a coat and skirt—the other lingerie oddments would, I’m sure, be combusted, too—when you meet the 1.15 train. It’s agreat, great secret, but everything is settled now. Colin will come down for the day on Sunday and help to eat one of the ducks. Now curiosity shall smoulder in thee!
“Have you heard that Frank Hamilton has married a study in yellow?—yellow in her pockets and yellow in her face—called Maria Jacobs, and she has taken a house in Belgrave Square? Rhoda, who knows all things indecent, says he made her settle a large sum of money onhim and then announced his intention of travelling in the East—without her. She herself—Rhoda, I mean—is very annoyed. With great difficulty she got hold of a new man—vastly rich—who met her husband and became interested in his plays. He is putting up the money for a show in the autumn, and Rhoda hasn’t got a look-in. Funny world, isn’t it?
“Wave a Union Jack on the platform on Saturday, and I will fall out on top of Socky.
“Thine,
“Pat.”
Lady Currey did not like letters to be read at breakfast—she insisted that Claudia should have the meal downstairs—so she had had to keep it until she could stroll forth in the garden. Well, Pat’s secret wasn’t such a great secret, after all. Claudia smiled as she wondered why it is that couples in love never imagine that anyone else notices! She wished Pat every happiness, every happiness——
She broke off a fragrant red rose and buried her face in it. It filled her nostrils with the sweetness and fragrance of life. It meant beauty, youth, happiness! Those things were for Pat, not for her. Then the rose recalled her last meeting with Frank and the little dinner-table. He was not finding youth and beauty with Maria Jacobs, he was finding what apparently he had always wanted—money. Well, he had made no wound in her heart, it had been mere physical attraction.
Then she heard Lady Currey speaking. “I think it is very dangerous to inhale the perfume of flowers so near one’s nose. I read in a book once that it may affect one’s brain. Besides, there are often earwigs and things.”
Claudia held out the rich, red bud. “Isn’t it beautiful? Would you like me to fill that empty rose-bowl for you?”
“John does not like the smell of flowers in the house.I always have to see that there are scentless ones on the table, and really”—plaintively—“it is quite difficult.”
Claudia looked at her. She was extraordinarily well preserved, even in the bright morning light. There were no lines to tell her age or mark character. But it was not a face that invited confidence, that would attract a child or make a precious miniature in any man’s heart.
“And, of course, you always consider his wishes in every way, even small ones?”
Lady Currey looked at the red rose laid lovingly—fearless of earwigs—against the soft, creamy cheek. The months spent in the country had, from a physical point of view, been greatly to Claudia’s advantage. Forced to go to bed early and roam the country lanes and fields, she looked the picture of health and strength. The face was now a little sad in repose, too thoughtful for her age, the lips had a faint droop, she did not laugh so readily and so gaily as before she was married; but no one could look at her and not admire her glowing beauty, her lissome, finely-moulded body instinct with vitality and magnetism. As she stood on the lawn in her simple white linen frock with a big black velvet bow at her throat, she made Lady Currey look like an expressionless china doll.
“Women were meant to study their husband’s wishes. I know, of course, that modern women like yourself no longer practise that creed—a creed, I may add, laid down in the Bible. I am told that women make a great point of being independent. But have they gained man’s respect by it? I ask you that. How do men speak of women nowadays? But lightly, I fear.”
“Did men ever respect women very much?” said Claudia gently, tucking the rose into her white leather belt. “If men really respected women, would it be necessary either loudly to demand independence or for them tostudymen’s wishes? Women have been in subjection for ages—not satisfactory; it is now freedom andindependence—not satisfactory. Perhaps the third phase will be happier for both.... Colin Paton is coming down for the day on Sunday. I suppose Gilbert would like to see him?”
Claudia could not help noticing that Lady Currey looked at her rather sharply. “Didyouask him down?”
“No. As a matter of fact my sister is staying in the village for the week-end, and he is coming down—for her.”
Lady Currey’s mouth dropped open a little and she stopped snipping at the roses.
“Oh! is he? Then he doesn’t——? That will make a difference. Gilbert will be certain to want to see him.”
Claudia’s curiosity was aroused. Lady Currey did not often cut her sentences.
“‘That will make a difference’ ... why do you say that? What will make a difference?”
“You mean me to deduce that he is—er—interested in your sister? Yes, quite so. Of course, when people are ill they have curious ideas. I never believed it possible myself. His mother is a good woman, I believe, though she is not High Church, and I have always thought highly of Colin Paton. Of course, as John says, it is a thousand pities that he has got drawn into the net of these mad Socialists, and if I were his mother——”
“What fancy has Gilbert got into his head?” interrupted Claudia, looking over to the other side of the lawn, where her husband was reading the newspaper. He was now much better, and could walk half a mile or so.
“Oh, nothing much, only—he fancied—that you saw too much of Colin Paton. He—he imagined Mr. Paton was in love with you, but I was sure he had too much respect for himself to fall in love with a married woman.”
Claudia stared at the prim little face for a moment, and then she commenced laughing. Gilbert jealous! Why, he had never troubled a scrap about Frank Hamilton,he had never noticed Charles Littleton’s devotion, nor any of the other men who were always making love to her. He had chosen to be jealous of the one man—almost the only one—who had never whispered amorously in her ear. It was too ludicrous! Yes, a sick man’s fancies are odd.
“Poor Gilbert!” sighed Lady Currey. “But he is much better now. Dr. Neeburg—I wish he had been an Englishman—said last week that he was doing splendidly, and it is only a question of time. We shall soon have dear Gilbert restored to health. By the by, what is this rumour I hear that Lynch House at Rockingham has been taken by your brother?”
Rockingham was some four miles away across the downs, and Lynch House was a big, rambling old house, with a huge, neglected garden. It had been empty for some years.
“Yes, it is true. Jack has rented it for a time, and my sister-in-law is being moved down for the rest of the summer.”
Lady Currey looked her strong disapproval. “What can a—a paralysed woman and your brother want with such a big house? Why, it has quantities of bedrooms! Surely, most unsuitable.”
“Fay has a little scheme in her head,” returned Claudia quietly. “She wanted to be near me, that’s why she came to Rockingham, and she wants a big house for her scheme.”
“Is she going to turn it into an hotel?” said her mother-in-law sharply, looking her dislike ofanyscheme The Girlie Girl might have.
“Yes, a first-class hotel, where the guests have no bills to pay. She’s got the idea of having some of her old hard-working friends in the profession down for a good holiday.”
She and Fay corresponded regularly. Sometimes it was rather difficult to make out Fay’s scrawls, with theirextraordinary phonetic spelling and enormous dashes, but they had grown into the habit of talking their thoughts aloud to one another. Claudia was often surprised how much Fay comprehended of what she wrote her. There were things she said and wrote to Fay that she would never have communicated to any other woman, not even Pat, so that a strong link had been forged between them, a curious bond which made life more possible for both of them. Claudia often forced herself to be gay and cheery when she wrote to Fay, and she read between the lines when Fay’s jokes rang a little false. Jack wrote and told her that Fay was too stunning for words—high praise for him—and that she didn’t often cry now, and since she had got the idea of being moved—it was pathetically easy, seeing how small she was—and having some of her pals down for a week or two at a time, to give them a good spree, she chirped away like a sparrow about it all day long.
“H’m.” Lady Currey pursed up her small mouth. “Most unsuitable neighbourhood for such people.”
“It’s a very beautiful, healthy neighbourhood, and I think it’s a splendid notion of Fay’s. I’m proud of her idea.”
Lady Currey was crumpling up her eyebrows when Gilbert called out to Claudia. He wanted a book fetched from the library. Claudia never attempted to be too sympathetic with him, nor did she proffer any, even friendly, caresses. Gilbert had made it so plain that he merely considered her as a useful secretary. His father was getting old and his son was sometimes impatient with his slow brain; his mother was—his mother, but she could never be trusted to find a book or look anything up for him. But Claudia was quick and practical, and he never had to explain anything twice.
After she had fetched the book she lingered irresolutely by his chair. His hair was going very grey, and his body had grown heavy and flabby, but in the face he lookedmuch healthier. His skin was a better colour, and the circles round his eyes less pronounced. His nerves were distinctly less ragged, he was beginning to sleep quite well, and the cardiac symptoms had not shown themselves for some time.
“Gilbert,” she said, “Colin Paton is coming down on Sunday.... Why have you not wanted to see him? He was awfully kind at Le Touquet. Have you ever properly thanked him?”
He did not look up from the book, but she saw that he had been listening.
“Oh! I think I did. Besides, didn’t you thank him? You and he are great friends.”
“Do you complain of that?” How beautiful the leaves of the copper beech were under the sun. The grass at their feet was flecked by little jumping shadows, as the slight wind ruffled the branches.
“No. I have every trust in Colin.”
Claudia gave a sharp exclamation, and threw up her head. “What do you mean by that, Gilbert? Isn’t that an extraordinary statement to make about your friend?”
He still kept the book open. She saw that it was a book on Trades Unions.
“Why do you pretend not to understand me?” he said coldly. “I have told you I do not object to your friendship. Why do you pretend that you do not know Colin is in love with you? I suppose he came to Le Touquet partly to be with you. Wasn’t it he who suggested you should come?”
“No, it was Mr. Littleton.... You are absurdly mistaken. Why is it men will never believe in a man-and-woman friendship? Colin is in love with my sister.”
She expected to see him start, but he did not. He did, however, look at her, with a curious, critical, upward gaze.
“Did he tell you so?”
“No, but—I know.”
“Really!” But the tone lacked conviction. He commenced to turn over the pages of the book.
It was only a sick man’s fancy; it must be. And yet Gilbert had had no other kind of irrational fancies. He had remained his old egotistical self, multiplied by about four. Her voice was a little agitated as she put her next question.
“Gilbert, I wish to know something. It is only fair you should answer it, as you made—a statement. What gave you the idea that—that Colin cared more for me than as a—friend?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I have been trained to observe men and women, and my observations of Colin lately—I had nothing to do at Le Touquet except watch such things, which, as a rule, do not interest me—coupled with one or two facts, such as his going away as soon as our engagement was announced, and that he has not married, have led me to think that, as you put it, he cares more for you than as a friend.”
Claudia drew in her breath jerkily. “But it’s Pat, I tell you—Pat.”
“I am glad to hear it. I certainly thought he was in love with you. But as he can marry Pat and he cannot marry you now, I am glad to hear it.... Claudia, will you go into the room where the periodicals are kept and see if you can find a copy of theFortnightly—some time last year—which has an article entitled ‘Labour Unrest.’ I daresay you’ve heard my father is having some trouble in Langton. The workers in the paper-mills have been threatening to strike for some time, and we want to nip it in the bud. I think the article was late last year, about October or November.”
Claudia moved across the lawn, her brain furiously and chaotically working. She thought it was the heat of the sun that made her feel confused and giddy, yet a moment before she had not felt it.
It was Saturday morning, and a very warm day, when Claudia started out from the house to meet her sister. The station was nearly a mile away through the fields. She had refused the offer of the dog-cart, although after she had been walking a few minutes she rather regretted her decision. The sun at half-past twelve was grilling, and there was hardly any breeze to stir the long grass, rich with big ox-eyed daisies, waving red sorrel, yellow trefoil, and all sorts of field flowers. She kept her sunshade well over her head, but it is really very tiring to walk in the heat on an August day.
She wondered why she felt so listless and depressed. Why did she feel that life was simply a barren desert? Probably it was the result of having to listen to the pompous old vicar the previous night, who had engaged in a deep but narrow discussion with Sir John on the degeneration, ingratitude and irreligion of the working-classes. The talk had been brought about by the dissatisfaction in the mills at Langton, some ten miles off, from which Sir John derived a large part of his very handsome income, and as Claudia had listened, she hadwondered with a mild amusement what Colin would think of the views expressed around the Currey tablecloth.
She ought not to be depressed when Pat—jolly, good natured Pat—was coming down to see her, and she tried to be severe with herself as she swept through the grasses. She must not be gloomy when Pat was coming down to announce her engagement. True, her own experience of married life had not been ideal, but Colin was different, and anyway, one had no right to dash the hopes of the newly-engaged. Some married couples are happy. She must be glad. Shewasglad. If it were not that inflated windbag, the vicar, it must be the remembrance of her own happy anticipations when she had first become engaged to Gilbert that made her feel blue. The sun to-day did not seem brilliant and wonderful, but only tiresomely hot. The long, luscious grass was not an exquisitely soft carpet, but only rather long for walking. The station was not one mile away, but many miles.
At last, however, the little sleepy station was reached, and she sank with a sigh of relief on one of its wooden seats.
Pat and Socky did fall out together, and then Socrates, being a friendly and remembering beast, nearly knocked Claudia down in his demonstration of joy at seeing her and being once more onterra firma.
“Socky, shut up, you beast.... Look out, Claud, he’ll break your string of pearls.... My dear, you are blooming! If I could burst into poetry—Socky, leave my ankles alone—I should say you were like a red, red rose, or an apple-tree, or something equally unlike a woman.... Socky, come away from that pond. Can’t you see Auntie Claudia has got on a nice, white muslin frock? Darling, I’m awfully glad to see you.”
How boyish Pat looked in her grey linen coat and skirt, and neat white silk collar and tie. It seemed almost absurd, the idea of her getting married. One could easierimagine her having a wrestling bout with her lover, as did a certain Cornish heroine of fiction. If she had been espousing some happy-go-lucky, high-spirited youth of her own age it would have seemed more feasible—but Colin Paton!
“Mother has become a Roman Catholic,” chattered Pat, “or she is going to become one when there’s a vacancy, or however they do it. Why? Oh! she’s tired of the professional spooky people, and she now finds that the ‘greatest and only true mysticism’—her words, not mine—is to be found in religion. She’s going into retreat, she says. As a matter of fact, I suspect she is going to have a new skin treatment that Rhoda is raving about, and which takes three weeks, during which time you have to lieperdu. She is going to pray for all of us and repent very picturesquely of her sins in purple and grey, not being able to commit quite so many now. She says that her liking for incense foreshadowed this. I told her she couldn’t become Saint Circe and pose in a stained-glass window, however much she tried; but her new rôle is to be very patient, oh! so sweet and patient.” Pat laughed. “She isn’t a bad sort really—she stumped up for all my bills the other day—only why on earth does she want to pose so much? Ah! the ‘Three Compasses!’ That’s the ducky window—dost see? If there were anyone impressionable about I should do the sentimental act from that window. He would call ‘Let down your hair, let down your hair, Patricia,’ in a sepulchral voice, and I should carefully remove about twenty hairpins, two side-combs and a piece of tape, and then lean out with a fatuous smile.”
“Well, Colin is coming down to-morrow, you tell me. No doubt he will oblige.”
Pat shook her head. “He’s too sensible for those tricks. Besides, he doesn’t admire fair hair. I will not let down my hair to a man who prefers dark hair.”
They entered the inn, and were shown up to a quaint-shaped, homely bedroom.
“Pat, Lady Currey graciously extended an invitation to you for lunch to-day, but I told her a fib. I said I was engaged to you for lunch here.... Now, tell me the—secret.”
“In a minute.... Do you like apples, lots and lots of apples? Would you like to be buried in apples, rosy-cheeked, luscious apples?” Pat grinned at her sister as she threw off her coat and commenced to wash her hands.
“I like them tolerably,” smiled Claudia, watching the noisy ducks waddling in the pond. “But why——?”
“You’ll like them intolerably soon. Wait till they arrive in barrels! But, as the novels say—I anticipate. Over lunch I will to thee impart the great news. Glory! Hallelujah! there’s an imitation of a bathroom. I shall have to bath in instalments, but I had awful visions of an egg-cup in my bedroom. No, wait till we’ve started lunch.”
“I can guess one thing,” said Claudia, with a slight effort. “You are going to leave home. The house of Circe will soon be empty of her children.”
“It will. Where’s that wild beast gone to? He mustn’t killallthe ducks. Oh, here he is! You idiot, that’s a turnip. Turnips don’t need catching. You are discredited as a sportsman. Anyone can catch a turnip.... Well, do you remember the talk we had when I said matrimony was not for me and you pretended not to believe me?”
“And now——”
“Now I’m sure of it. Look at me well, Claudia. I am a woman to be respected. Here at this table behold a farmeress! Salute her with the gravy-spoon!”
“A what!”
“A farmeress—feminine of farmer. I am the legal owner of a fruit-farm in Canada, and another of England’s unemployed will, at the beginning of next month,emigrate and leave the sinking ship. It’s rude to stare, my dear sister. Isn’t it a brilliant idea? Alone I did it. At least, no. I got the idea and Colin Paton helped me to get the farm and see that it was genuine and above-board. Why, Claud, old girl, what’s the matter?”
For suddenly Claudia found herself half laughing, half crying, and nearer hysterics than she had ever been in her life. She had a silly, light-headed sort of feeling that she could not account for. She seemed suddenly freed from a suffocating sensation that had oppressed her lately. She had never before experienced the sensation of wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. Indeed, she had always despised people who got so muddled in their emotions. But though she made an effort to keep on laughing—there was nothing really to cry about—the tears ran down her cheeks.
“It’s all right, Pat.... It’s being shut up with the Curreys and the strike, I think.... Oh! Socky!” For the dog, very perturbed, was standing with his feet on her shoulders, showering moist kisses upon her. “Socky, go away ... give me some water ... all over.”
Pat surveyed her anxiously, and she saw that although her sister’s physical health seemed perfect, her eyes were those of a woman who lies awake at night thinking.
“Claudia, old girl, you want a change. Come to Canada with me next month. Do—it will do you a lot of good.”
Her sister shook her head and absent-mindedly wiped her eyes on the serviette. “Go on, tell me more about it.”
Then Pat, her eyes shining with excitement, told how an article on the future of women as fruit-farmers in Canada had fired her with a desire to do something real, as she expressed it, to get out of the smug, bandboxy life she was living. She had consulted Colin, who encouraged her, and all through the summer they had been investigating various farms that were for sale, and only a few days ago had they finally settled on one in the Winnipegdistrict. “Colin was no end of a help to me,” concluded Pat, “because, of course, I should have been done in the eye like Martin Chuzzlewit was. But this is a good farm and belongs to a woman who wants to give it up, but she has consented to stop with me as long as I want her, so I can learn the whole box of tricks. Claudia, I know I shall love it. That’s what I meant by apples just now. I shall send you barrel-loads, simply barrel-loads.”
Claudia asked if their father and mother had given their consent, though Patricia was of age and had her own income.
“Yes, in a sort of way. They think I’ll come back in a few months, but I shan’t. I told you long ago I was a throw-back. I love the earth and all that pertains to it, and what’s the good of wasting my youth and energies in what the papers call Society? It’s all right for those who like it. I’m not slinging any adjectives at it; but I’m not made that way. I want more scope. But, seriously, will you sail with me next month for a holiday to see me settled?”
“I should love it, but you see—I’ve got a husband.” Then, half-smilingly, yet with a touch of sarcasm, she added, “I’ve become useful to him, Pat. He complimented me the other day on my neatness and method in arranging some documents for him.”
Pat walked to the little window and said something to herself that was very like “Damn!”
“But he’s better, isn’t he?” she said, turning round again. “I shall never forget how scared I was when they got him back to the hotel at Le Touquet. They had to support him on the grass-roller. I was afraid he was dead, he looked so awful. I begged him not to go on playing, but you might as well ask an elephant to tread in a whisper. It was that climb up to the fourteenth that did it. But his heart is all right again now? Doesone quite get over a thing like that? It’s all vague to me. What’s the anatomy of a heart? Does something heal up?”
“He will have to be more careful than formerly not to over-exert himself or get excited. But Neeburg says there are many people with worse trouble who live to be ninety. But let’s come out into the sunshine and sit under a tree!” She went to the door which opened on the small garden. “Oh! isn’t it a glorious day! Come and tell me more about the apples!”
As Claudia went back to Wynnstay that night she wondered what she could tell Gilbert about the mistake she had made. Was it necessary to go up and gratuitously inform him that Colin was not engaged to Pat? She had made a blunder. Ought she to correct a wrong impression? Was it a wrong impression on anyone but herself? Gilbert’s attitude had certainly been one of quiet scepticism.
The sun was setting, and the earth was very peaceful and restful after the hot day, as she walked up the long approach to the house. Now she was alone, she ought to be able to think out why Pat’s unexpected secret had moved her so strangely. But somehow, she had no want to probe into her feelings to-night. She only knew she felt happier than she had done for a long time. But then, Pat was a cheering person, she would have enlivened a graveyard. She hummed a little song as she walked, the drowsy birds twittering a half-hearted accompaniment.
Pat and Colin came to lunch with them next day, for though Pat had made a hideous grimace at the prospect, she had ultimately agreed that she had better pretend to be a well-behaved person. She had urged Claudia to go with her to the station to meet Colin, but her sister had for some reason undefined, even to herself, pleaded the heat and the distance. Besides, was he not really comingdown to see Pat? Not in a lover-like way, but still to see her. Was he? Was he?
She took out his last letter from Manchester. Somehow it seemed to read differently from the day she had received it.