A week before Christmas Alwynne began to wonder how the day itself should be spent, or rather, if her plans for the spending would ever pass Elsbeth's censorship. She was doubtful. For the last two or three years Christmas had been to them a rock of collision.
"The pity of it!" thought Alwynne. Once it had been the event, the crowning glory, the very reason of the ending year. A year, indeed, had always presented itself to her in advance as a wide country through which she must make her way, to reach the hostel, Christmas, hidden in the mists of time, on its further border. She had the whole map of the land in her mind, curiously vivid and distinct. She had never consciously devised the picture; it had, from the first, presented itself complete and unalterable. She stood, on New Year's Day, at the entrance of a country lane which ran between uneven hedges through a varying countryside of fields and woods and heatherland. Each change in the surroundings represented a month, the smaller differences the weeks and days. She went down this winding lane as the days went by, in slow content. January was a silent expanse of high tableland, snow-bound to the horizon. Winding down hill through the sodden grassland of the bare February country, where she lighted on nothing but early parsnip fronds and sleepy celandine buds in the dripping wickery hedges, she passed at last into the wood of March, a wood of pollard hazels and greening oaks and bramble-guarded dingles, where the anemones grew, and the first primroses. She slipped and slithered in and out of mossy leaf-pits, and the briars clawed her hair and pinafore, as she robbed the primrose clumps with wet, reddened fingers.The wind shrieked overhead and wrestled wildly with the bare branches, but beyond there was blue sky and a drift of cloud. But, unawares, she would always head through the wood to where the trees grew thinner and dash out at last, through a mist of pale cuckoo-pint, into the cowslip field that was April.
The path ran on through May and June between fields of ox-eye daisies and garden roses, always down hill, till she tumbled into August, the deep hot valley. There she found the sea.
With September the road lifted steadily, growing stony and ever steeper. It wound on ahead of her like a silver thread through a brocade of red and gold and purple, that was heather and bracken and beech. But the beech blossoms could never be gathered; they fell apart into a shower of dull leaves, and left her with a branch of bare twigs in her hand. The briony berries that she twisted into wreaths stained her straw hat with their black, evil juice; even the manna-like old-man's-beard smelled sour and rotten. The decaying, witchlike beauty of the season tricked and frightened her; autumn was a hard hill to climb.
But far away, on the summit of that difficult hill, stood a house. An old house, gaily bricked, dressed in ivy, with a belfry from which carols rang out unceasingly. It was always night-time where it stood and cheerful lights were set in every window. Alwynne never saw the house till she had turned the bend of the road into November; then it faced her suddenly and she would wave to the distant windows with a thrill of excitement, and quicken her steps, with the goal of the journey in sight at last. There was yet a weary climb before it was reached; every day of December was a boulder, painfully beclambered. But she would come to the gates at last, and tear up the frosty drive, from the shadow of whose shrubberies Jacob Marley peered and clanked at her and ghosts of Christmas turkeys gobbled horribly, to the open holly-hung doorway where Santa Claus, authentic in beard and dressing-gown, welcomed her withElsbeth's voice. Followed stay-at-home days of delirious merry-making, from which she awoke a week later, to find herself, her back to a closed door, a spent cracker in her hand, looking out again, eager and a little wistful, across the white untrodden plain of yet another January.
But ever the next Christmas beckoned her anew.
To Elsbeth, too, Christmas was the day of delights, and Alwynne the queen of it. To Elsbeth, too, the pleasure of it began many weeks earlier in the secret fashioning of quaint gifts and surprises, and the anticipation of the small niece's delight in them. Elsbeth would have cheerfully cut off one of her slim fingers if Alwynne had happened to covet it. The childless woman loved Alwynne—the child in Alwynne she worshipped.
But though the delight of actual motherhood was denied Elsbeth, she was spared none of its chagrins.
Stooping for years to a child's level, she was cruelly shaken when Alwynne, suddenly and inexplicably, as it always seems, grew up. It took Elsbeth almost as many years to straighten herself again. Years when Alwynne, in the arrogance of her enterprising youth, thought that Elsbeth was sometimes awfully childish. She supposed that she was growing old; she used not to be like that....
Thereafter, each Christmas, challenging comparison as it did with the memory-mellowed charm of its forerunners, emphasised the change that had taken place. Yearly the ideal Christmas lured them to the old observances; yearly the reality satisfied them less.
Elsbeth still sat up half the night on Christmas Eve, at work upon the little tree. Alwynne still planned gorgeous and laborious presents for her aunt. Elsbeth still filled a stocking (out-size) with tip-toe secrecy, and Alwynne, at sixteen, still ran across in her dressing-gown, and curled up on Elsbeth's bed to unpack it.
But at sixteen one is too old and too young to be a child any more. The tree was a fir-tree, pure and simple; the fairy lights stank of tallow; and not even for the sake of anew bright sixpence, would Alwynne, in the thick of a vegetarian fad, devour a slice of the evil-coloured Christmas pudding.
Elsbeth, as she saw her old-time jokes and small surprises that could no longer surprise, fall utterly flat, thought that school had altered Alwynne altogether; that she was assuming airs of maturity ridiculous in a child of her age, ("Sixteen? She's a mere baby still," affirmed poor Elsbeth,) that she was growing indifferent, superior, heartless. And Alwynne, trying to appear amused, wondered why Christmas was so different from what it used to be and wished heartily that Elsbeth would not try to be skittish. It didn't suit her—made her seem undignified. Each, longing for the old days, when the other had conjured up so easily the true spirit of the festival, tried her affectionate best to do so still; each, failing inevitably, inevitably blamed the other. Neither realised, that Dan Christmas is the god of very little children, and that where they are not, he, too, does not linger.
But the last restless, unsatisfactory day had settled the matter for them finally. Alwynne had fidgeted through morning service, and pained her aunt, on the walk home, with her sceptical young comments; had omitted to kiss her under the mistletoe; had sat through the ceremonious meal, answering Elsbeth's cheerful pleasantries in monosyllables; and finally, after an unguarded remark, and the inevitable reproving comment, had flung out of the room in a fever of irritation. She came near thinking Elsbeth a foolish and intolerable old maid. And Elsbeth, sitting sadly over the fire all the lonely afternoon, puzzled meekly over Alwynne's hardness of heart, and cried a little, in pure longing, for the baby of a few years back, to whom she had been as God.
They were reconciled, of course, by tea-time. Alwynne, quieted by solitude, was soon bewildered at her own ill-humour, shocked at the sentiments she had been able to entertain, remorseful at hurting Elsbeth's feelings and spoilingher Christmas Day. They were able to send each other to bed happy again.
But they had no more snap-dragons and early stockings. The next Christmas, shorn of its splendours, was a strange day to them both, but, at least, a peaceful one, with Alwynne at her gentlest, and Elsbeth, forgiving her as best she could, for her long skirts and her seventeen years.
With the passing of yet another year, however, Alwynne's last scruple as to the sacrosanct privacy of Christmas celebrations vanished utterly. The ideal day, she saw at last, and clearly, should be neither a children's carnival, nor a symposium of relatives. (Alwynne knew of none but Elsbeth, but she dearly loved a phrase.) Christmas should be a time of social intercourse, of peace and goodwill towards men—the human race—neighbours and friends—not merely relations.... One should not shut oneself up.... It would be a sound idea, for instance, to ask some one to dinner.... A friend of Elsbeth's—or there was Clare! It would be very jolly if Clare could come to dinner.... Clare was delightful when she was in holiday mood; she could keep the table in a roar.... A little fun would do Elsbeth good.... Surely Elsbeth would enjoy having Clare to dinner?
She found herself, however, experiencing considerable difficulty in opening up the project to her aunt. Elsbeth, to whom the possibility of such a request had long ago presented itself, who could have told you by sheer intuition at what exact moment the idea occurred to her niece, gave her no help. Alwynne had contrived to put her in the position of appearing to approve Clare Hartill. Clare, she felt, had had something to do with that. She knew that it would be unwise to lose the advantage of her apparent tolerance; knew that Clare expected her to lose it by some impulsive expression of mistrust or dislike, and intended to utilise the lapse for her own ends. It would be easy for Clare to pose as the generous victim of unreasoning hostility. But Clare should not, she resolved, have the opportunity. She, Elsbeth,would never be so far lacking in cordiality as to give her any sort of handle. But Clare Hartill should not eat her Christmas dinner with them, vowed Elsbeth, for all that.
So for a couple of days, Alwynne, approaching Elsbeth from all possible angles, found no crack in her armour, and somewhat puzzled, but entirely unsuspicious, thought it hard that Elsbeth should be, at times, so curiously unresponsive. She would not have scrupled to ask her aunt outright to invite Clare, but she quite genuinely wished to find out first if Elsbeth would mind, and never guessed that the difficulty she found in opening the matter was the answer to that question.
The arrival of the turkey was her opportunity.
Sailing into the kitchen in search of raisins (the more maturely dignified Alwynne's deportment, the more likely her detection in some absurd child's habit or predilection), she found Elsbeth raging low-voiced, and the small maid gaping admiration over the brobdingnagian proportions of their Christmas dinner.
"Look at it, Alwynne! What am I to do? Twenty pounds! And we shan't get through ten! Really, it's too bad—I wrote so distinctly. It's impossible to return it—to Devonshire! No time. It's the twenty-second already. How shall we ever get through it?"
"We might get some one in to help us," began Alwynne delightedly. But Elsbeth, very busy all of a sudden, with basin and egg-beater, whisked and bustled her out of the kitchen.
Alwynne returned to the matter, however, later in the day.
"Elsbeth, we shall never manage that turkey alone."
"Of course, I must send some over to Mrs. Marpler," began Elsbeth hastily.
Mrs. Marpler was a charwoman. Alwynne contrived to make their succession of little maids adore her, but she and Mrs. Marpler detested one another cordially. Mrs. Marpler'soffences, according to Alwynne, were that she was torpid, inefficient, breathed heavily, smelled of cats, and, by the complicated and judicious recital of the authentic calamities which regularly befell her, lured from Elsbeth more than her share of the broken meats and old clothes of the establishment, perquisites which Alwynne, entirely incredulous, coveted for pet dependents of her own. Alwynne's offences, according to Mrs. Marpler, were, the aforementioned incredulity, her hostile influence on Miss Loveday, a certain crispness of manner and a tendency to open all windows in Mrs. Marpler's neighbourhood. The feud distressed Elsbeth, and Alwynne's diagnosis of Mrs. Marpler's character; for she liked to believe the best of every one. Alwynne forced her to agree, but secretly she sympathised with her feckless char-lady.
"Marpler has been out of work three weeks, and as poor Mrs. Marpler says, where their Christmas dinner is to come from——"
"How much extra did you pay her this week?" demanded Alwynne remorselessly. "And last week—and the week before—and the week before that? Of course he's out of work. Who wouldn't be?"
"My dear Alwynne, if you think they can buy a Christmas dinner on what I gave them—" retorted Elsbeth heatedly. "But it's absurd to argue with you. What do you know of what food costs?"
"Anyhow, Mrs. Baker, with six children——" began Alwynne, who also had been primed by a protégée. But she recollected that she did not wish to annoy Elsbeth at this juncture. Clare must take precedence of Mrs. Baker. "Well, you can send them the legs and the carcase," she conceded; "even then there will be more than we can possibly manage. Couldn't we ask some one to spend the day with us?"
"I hardly think," said Elsbeth, with a touch of severity, "that you would find any one. Most people like to keep Christmas with their Relations."
"Well, I haven't got any. But by all accounts I think I should hate 'em in the plural as much as I love 'em in the singular." She blew Elsbeth a kiss. "But if we could find some one—to help us eat up the turkey—and spend the evening—it would be rather jolly, don't you think? It was dullish last year, wasn't it?"
"Was it?" said Elsbeth, with careful brightness. "I'm sorry. I had thought you enjoyed it."
"Oh, why is she so touchy? I didn't mean anything," cried Alwynne within herself. And aloud—
"Oh, I only meant without a tree or anything specially Christmassy——"
"Alwynne," said Elsbeth, with scrupulous patience, "it was you who suggested not having one."
"I know, I know, I know, I know!" cried Alwynne, in a fever.
Elsbeth sighed.
Alwynne repented.
"Elsbeth darling, I didn't mean to be rude; I'm a beast. And I didn't mean it wasn't nice last year. I only meant—it would be—be a change to have some one—because of the turkey—and I thought, perhaps Clare——"
"Can't you exist for a day without seeing Clare Hartill?" asked Elsbeth, with a wry smile.
Alwynne dimpled.
"Not very well," she said.
Elsbeth stared at her plate. Alwynne edged her chair along the table, till she sat at Elsbeth's elbow. She slid an arm round her neck.
"Elsbeth! Elsbeth, dear! You're not cross, Elsbeth? It's a very big turkey. Do, Elsbeth!"
"Do what?"
"Ask Clare. You like her, don't you?"
No answer.
"Don't you, Elsbeth?" Alwynne's tone was a little anxious.
"Would you care if I didn't?" The pattern of herplate still interested Elsbeth. She was tracing its windings with her fork.
"You silly—it would just spoil everything. That's just it—I would like to get you two fond of each other, only with Clare so busy there's never a chance of your really getting acquainted."
"I knew Clare Hartill long before you did, Alwynne. I knew her as a schoolgirl."
"But not well—not as I know her."
"No, not as you know her."
"There you are," said Alwynne, with satisfaction. "That's why—you don't know her properly. Oh, Elsbeth, you must share all my good things, and Clare's the very best of them. Do let her come."
"She may be engaged; she probably is."
"Oh, no—Clare will be alone—I know, because——" she stopped herself.
Elsbeth questioned her with her eyes.
"Oh, nothing—only I happen to know," said Alwynne.
"Because?"
Alwynne shook her head mischievously.
"Oh, well, if you won't tell me——" began Elsbeth.
"Oh, I will, I will," cried Alwynne hastily.
"My dear, I don't want to know Miss Hartill's secrets, or yours either," said Elsbeth huffily. But to herself, "Why am I losing my temper over these silly trifles?"
"Elsbeth dear, it was nothing. Only Clare did ask me to spend Christmas Day with her."
"Well?" said Elsbeth jealously.
"What?" asked Alwynne's ingenuous eyes.
"Are you going?"
Alwynne nestled up to her, humming with careful flatness the final bars ofHome, sweet home.
"Elsbeth, you old darling—I do believe you're jealous! Are you, Elsbeth? Are you?"
"Are you going?" repeated Elsbeth.
Alwynne was sobered by her tone.
"I'm going to spend my Christmas Day in my own home, with my own Elsbeth," she said, "and I think you needn't have asked me."
Elsbeth melted.
"My dear, I'm a silly old woman——"
"Yes, you tell me that once a week."
"One day you'll believe it.—All right—you can ask your Miss Hartill—or shall I write?"
Alwynne hugged her.
"Elsbeth, you're an angel! I'll go round at once. Oh, it will be jolly."
"If she comes."
Alwynne turned, on the way to her bedroom. Elsbeth's intonation was peculiar.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think she'll come, Alwynne."
"But I know she'll be alone——"
"Well, you go and ask her."
"But why do you say that—in that tone?"
"I may be wrong. But I've known her longer than you have. But run along and ask her."
"But why? Why?"
"Oh, don't bother me, child," cried Elsbeth impatiently. "Run along and ask her."
"I had a letter from Louise yesterday," announced Clare.
She was curled up in a saddle-bag before the roaring golden fire, and was busy with paper and pencil. Alwynne, big with her as yet unissued invitation, sat cross-legged on the white bearskin at her feet. The floor was littered with papers and book-catalogues. At Christmas-time Clare ordered books as a housewife orders groceries, and she and Alwynne had spent a luxurious evening over her lists. The vivid flames lit up Clare's thin, lazy length, and turned the hand she held up against their heat into transparent carnelian. Her face was in shadow, but there were dancing specks of light in her sombre eyes that kept time with the leaping blaze. Clare was a sybarite over her fires. She would not endure coal or gas or stove—wood, and wood only, must be used; and she would pay any price for apple-wood, ostensibly for the quality of its flame, secretly for the mere pleasure of burning fuel with so pleasant a name; for she liked beautiful words as a child likes chocolate—a sober, acquisitive liking. She had, too, though she would not own it, a delight in destruction, costly destruction; she enjoyed the sensation of reckless power that it gave her. The trait might be morbid, but there was not a trace of pose in it; she could have enjoyed a Whittington bonfire, without needing a king to gasp applause. Yet she shivered nightly as she undressed in her cold bedroom, rather than commit the extravagance of an extra fire. She never realised the comicality of her contradictoriness, or even its existence in her character, though it qualified every act and impulse of her daily life. Her soul was, indeed, a hybrid, combining the temper of a Calvinist with the tastes of a Renascence bishop.
At the moment she was in gala mood. The autumn term was but four days dead, she had not had time to tire of holidays, though, within a week, she would be bored again, and restless for the heavy work under which she affected to groan. Her chafing mind seldom allowed her indolent body much of the peace it delighted in—was ever the American in lotus-land. It was fidgeted at the moment by Alwynne's absorption in a lavishly illustrated catalogue.
"Did you hear, Alwynne? A letter from Louise."
Alwynne's "Oh?" was absent. It was in the years of the Rackham craze, and she had just discovered a reproduction of theMidsummerHelen.
"Any message?" Clare knew how to prod Alwynne.
The girl glanced up amused but a little indignant.
"You've answered it already? Well! And the weeks I've had to wait sometimes."
"This was such a charming letter," said Clare smoothly. "It deserved an answer. She really has the quaintest style. And Alwynne—never a blot or a flourish! It's a pleasure to read."
Alwynne laughed ruefully. She would always squirm good-humouredly under Clare's pin-pricks, with such amusement at her own discomfiture that Clare never knew whether to fling away her needle for good, or, for the mere experiment's sake, to stab hard and savagely. At that stage of their intimacy, Alwynne's guilelessness invariably charmed and disarmed her—she knew that it would take a very crude display of cruelty to make Alwynne believe that she was being hurt intentionally. Clare was amused by the novel pedestal upon which she had been placed; she was accustomed to the panoply of Minerva, or the bow of Diana Huntress, but she had never before been hailed as Bona Dea. It tickled her to be endowed with every domestic virtue, to be loved, as Alwynne loved her, with the secure and fearless affection of a daughter for a newly-discovered and adorable young mother. She appreciated Alwynne's determination of their relationship, her nice sense of the differencein age, her modesty in reserving any claim to an equality in their friendship, her frank and affectionate admiration—yet, while it pleased her, it could pique. Calm comradeship or surrendering adoration she could cope with, but the subtle admixture of such alien states of mind was puzzling. She had acquired a lover with a sense of humour and she felt that she had her hands full. Her imperious will would, in time, she knew, eliminate either the lover or the humour—it annoyed her that she was not as yet quite convinced that it would be the humour. She intended to master Alwynne, but she realised that it would be a question of time, that she would give her more trouble than the children to whom she was accustomed. Alwynne's utter unrealisation of the fact that a trial of strength was in progress, was disconcerting: yet Clare, jaded and super-subtle, found her innocence endearing. Without relaxing in her purpose, she yet caught herself wondering if an ally were not better than a slave. But the desire for domination was never entirely shaken off, and Alwynne's free bearing was in itself an ever-present challenge. Clare loved her for it, but her pride was in arms. It was her misfortune not to realise that, for all her Olympian poses, she had come to love Alwynne deeply and enduringly.
Alwynne, meanwhile, laughing and pouting on the hearth, the firelight revealing every change of expression in her piquant face, was declining to be classed with Agatha Middleton; her handwriting may be bad, but it wasn't a beetle-track; anyhow, Queen Elizabeth had a vile fist—Clare admired Queen Elizabeth, didn't she? She had always so much to say to Clare, that if she stopped to bother about handwriting——! Had Clare never got into a row for untidiness in her own young days? Elsbeth had hinted.... But of course she reserved judgment till she had heard Clare's version! She settled to attention and Clare, inveigled into reminiscences, found herself recounting quaint and forgotten incidents to her own credit and discredit, till, before the evening was over, Alwynne knew almost as muchof Clare's schooldays as Clare did herself. She could never resist telling Alwynne stories, Alwynne was always so genuinely breathless with interest.
They returned to Louise at last, and Alwynne read the letter, chuckling over the odd phrases, and dainty marginal drawings. She would have dearly liked to see Clare's answer. She was glad, for all her protests, that Clare had been moved to answer; she knew so well the delight it would give Louise. The child would need cheering up. For, quite resignedly and by the way, Louise had mentioned that the Denny family had developed whooping-cough, and emigrated to Torquay, and she, in quarantine, though it was hoped she had escaped infection, was preparing for a solitary Christmas.
Alwynne looked up at Clare with wrinkled brows.
"Poor child! But what can I do? I haven't had whooping-cough, and Elsbeth is always so afraid of infection; or else she could have come to us. I know Elsbeth wouldn't have minded."
"You are going to leave me to myself then? You've quite made up your mind?"
Alwynne's eyes lighted up.
"Oh, Clare, it's all right. You are coming! At least—I mean—Elsbeth sends her kindest regards, and she would be so pleased if you will come to dinner with us on Christmas Day," she finished politely.
Clare laughed.
"It's very kind of your aunt."
"Yes, isn't it?" said Alwynne, with ingenuous enthusiasm.
"I'm afraid I can't come, Alwynne."
Alwynne's face lengthened.
"Oh, Clare! Why ever not?"
Clare hesitated. She had no valid reason, save that she preferred the comfort of her own fireside and that she had intended Alwynne to come to her. Alwynne's regretful refusal when she first mooted the arrangement, she had notconsidered final, but this invitation upset her plans. Elsbeth's influence was opposing her. She hated opposition. Also she did not care for Elsbeth. It would not be amiss to make Elsbeth (not her dislike of Elsbeth) the reason for her refusal. It would have its effect on Alwynne sooner or later.
She considered Alwynne narrowly, as she answered—
"My dear, I had arranged to be at home, for one thing."
Alwynne looked hurt.
"Of course, if you don't care about it—" she began.
Clare rallied her.
"Be sensible, my child. It is most kind of Miss Loveday; but—wasn't it chiefly your doing, Alwynne? Imagine her dismay if I accepted. A stranger in the gate! On Christmas Day! One must make allowances for little prejudices, you know."
"She'll be awfully disappointed," cried Alwynne, so eager for Clare that she believed it.
"Will she?" Clare laughed pleasantly. "Every one doesn't wear your spectacles. What would she do with me, for a whole day?"
"We shouldn't see her much," began Alwynne. "She spends most of her time in church. I go in the morning—(yes, I'm very good!) but I've drawn the line at turning out after lunch."
"Then why shouldn't you come to me instead? It would be so much better. I shall be alone, you know." Clare's wistful intonation was not entirely artificial.
Alwynne was distressed.
"Oh, Clare, I'd love to—you know I'd love to—but how could I? Elsbeth would be dreadfully hurt. I couldn't leave her alone on Christmas Day."
"But you can me?"
"Clare, don't put it like that. You know I shall want to be with you all the time. But Elsbeth's like my mother. It would be beastly of me. You must put relations first at Christmas-time, even if they're not first really."
She smiled at Clare, but she felt disloyal as she said it, and hated herself. Yet wasn't it true? Clare came first, though Elsbeth must never guess it. Dear old Elsbeth was pretty dense, thank goodness! Where ignorance is bliss, etcetera! Yet she, Alwynne, felt extraordinarily mean....
Clare watched her jealously. She had set her heart on securing Alwynne for Christmas Day, and had thought, ten minutes since, with a secret, confident smile, that there would not be much difficulty. And here was Alwynne holding out—refusing categorically! It was incredible! Yet she could not be angry: Alwynne so obviously was longing to be with her.... Equally obviously prepared to risk her displeasure (a heavy penalty already, Clare guessed, to Alwynne), rather than ignore the older claim. Clare thought that an affection that could be so loyal to a tedious old maid was better worth deflecting than many a more ardent, unscrupulous enthusiasm. Alwynne was showing strength of character.
She persisted nevertheless—
"Well, it's a pity. I must eat my Christmas dinner alone, I suppose."
"Oh, Clare, you might come to us," cried Alwynne. "I can't see why you won't."
Clare shrugged her shoulders.
"If you can't see why, my dear Alwynne, there's no more to be said."
Alwynne most certainly did not see; but Clare's delicately reproachful tone convicted her, and incidentally Elsbeth, of some failure in tact. She supposed she had blundered ... she often did.... But Elsbeth, at least, must be exonerated ... she did so want Clare to think well of Elsbeth....
She perjured herself in hasty propitiation.
"Yes. Yes—I do see. I ought to have known, of course. Elsbeth was quite right. She said you wouldn't, all along."
"Oh?" Clare sat up. "Oh? Your aunt said that, did she?" She spoke with detachment, but inwardly she wasalert, on guard. Elsbeth had suddenly become worth attention.
"Oh, yes." Alwynne's voice was rueful. "She was quite sure of it. She said I might ask you, with pleasure, if I didn't believe her—you see, she'd love you to come—but she didn't think you would."
"I wonder," said Clare, laughing naturally, "what made her say that?"
"She said she knew you better than I did," confided Alwynne, with one of her spurts of indignation. "As if——"
"Yes, it's rather unlikely, isn't it?" said Clare, with an intimate smile. "But you're not going?"
"I must. Look at the time! Elsbeth will be having fits!" Alwynne called from the hall where she was hastily slipping on her coat and hat.
Clare stood a moment—thinking.
So the duel had been with Elsbeth! So that negligible and mouse-like woman had been aware—all along ... had prepared, with a thoroughness worthy of Clare herself, for the inevitable encounter ... had worsted Clare completely.... It was amazing.... Clare was compelled to admiration. It was clear to her now that Elsbeth must have distrusted her from the beginning. It had been Elsbeth's doing, not hers, that their intercourse had been so slight.... Yet she had never restrained Alwynne; she had risked giving her her head.... She was subtle! This affair of the Christmas dinner for instance—Clare appreciated its cleverness. Elsbeth had not wanted her, Clare now saw clearly; had been anxious to avoid the intimacy that such an invitation would imply; equally anxious, surely, that Alwynne should not guess her uneasy jealousy: so she had risked the invitation, counting on her knowledge of Clare's character (Clare stamped with vexation—that the woman should have such a memory!) secure that Clare, unsuspicious of her motives, would, by refusing, do exactly as Elsbeth wished. It had been the neatest of gossamer traps—andClare had walked straight into it.... She was furious. If Alwynne, maddeningly unsuspicious Alwynne, had but enlightened her earlier in the evening! Now she was caught, committed by her own decision of manner to the course of action she most would have wished to avoid.... She could not change her mind now without appearing foolishly vacillating.... It would not do.... She had been bluffed, successfully, gorgeously bluffed.... And Elsbeth was sitting at home enjoying the situation ... too sure of herself and Clare even to be curious as to the outcome of it all. She knew. Clare stamped again. Oh, but she would pay Elsbeth for this.... Thecasus belliwas infinitely trivial, but the campaign should be Homeric.... And this preliminary engagement could not affect the final issues.... She always won in the end.... But, after all, Elsbeth could not be blamed, though she must be crushed; Alwynne was worth fighting for! Elsbeth was a fool.... If she had treated Clare decently, Clare might—possibly—have shared Alwynne with her.... She believed she would have had scruples.... Now they were dispelled.... Alwynne, by fair means or foul, should be detached ... should become Clare's property ... should be given up to no living woman or man.
She followed Alwynne into the hall and lit the staircase candle. She would see Alwynne out. She would have liked to keep Alwynne with her for a month. She was a delightful companion; it was extraordinary how indispensable she made herself. Clare knew that her flat would strike her as a dreary place to return to, when she had shut the door on Alwynne. She would sit and read and feel restless and lonely. Yet she did not allow herself to feel lonely as a rule; she scouted the weakness. But Alwynne wound herself about you, thought Clare, and you never knew, till she had gone, what a difference she made to you.
She wished she could keep Alwynne another couple of hours.... But it was eleven already ... her hold wasnot yet strong enough to warrant innovations to which Elsbeth could object.... Her time would come later.... How much later would depend on whether it were affection that swayed Alwynne, or only a sense of duty.... She believed, because she hoped, that it was duty—a sense of duty was more easily suborned than an affection.... For the present, however, Alwynne must be allowed to do as she thought right. Clare knew when she was beaten, and, with her capacity for wry admiration of virtues that she had not the faintest intention of incorporating in her own character, she was able to applaud Alwynne heartily. Yet she did not intend to make victory easy to her.
They went down the flights of stairs silently, side by side. Alwynne opened the entrance doors and stood a moment, fascinated.
"Look, Clare! What a night!"
The moon was full and flooded earth and sky with bright, cold light. The garden, roadway, roofs, trees and fences glittered like powdered diamonds, white with frost and moonshine. The silence was exquisite.
They stood awhile, enjoying it.
Suddenly Clare shivered. Alwynne became instantly and anxiously practical.
"Clare, what am I thinking of? Go in at once—you'll catch a dreadful cold."
With unusual passivity Clare allowed herself to be hurried in. At the staircase Alwynne said good-bye, handing her her candle, and waiting till she should have passed out of sight. On the fourth step Clare hesitated, and turned—
"Alwynne—come to me for Christmas?"
Alwynne flung out her hands.
"Clare! I mustn't."
"Alwynne—come to me for Christmas?"
"You know I mustn't! You know you'd think me a pig if I did, now wouldn't you?"
"I expect so."
"But I'll come in for a peep at you," cried Alwynne,brightening, "while Elsbeth's at afternoon service. I could do that. And to say Merry Christmas!"
"Come to dinner?"
"I can't."
"Then you needn't come at all." Clare turned away.
Alwynne caught her hand, as it leaned on the balustrade. In the other the candle shook a little.
"Lady Macbeth! Dear Lady Macbeth! Miss Hartill of the Upper Sixth, whom I'm scared to death of, really—you're behaving like a very naughty small child. Now, aren't you? Honestly? Oh, do turn round and crush me with a look for being impudent, and then tell me that I'm only doing what you really approve. I don't want to, Clare, but you know you hate selfishness."
Clare looked down at her.
"All right, Alwynne. You must do as you like."
"Say good-night to me," demanded Alwynne. "Nicely, Clare, very nicely! It's Christmas-time."
Carefully Clare deposited her candlestick on the stair above. Leaning over the banisters, she put her arms round Alwynne and kissed her passionately and repeatedly.
"Good-night, my darling," said Clare.
Then, recoiling, she caught up her candlestick, and without another word or look, hurried up the stairs.
Alwynne walked home on air.
Elsbeth bore the news of Clare's defection with stoicism; but her motherly soul was disturbed by Alwynne's disappointment, though she could not stifle her pleasure in its cause. She felt, indeed, somewhat guilty, and was eager to atone by acquiescing in Alwynne's plan of visiting Clare while she went to church; and met her more than half way over the question of an altered tea-hour.
Alwynne, who from the first had been fretted, though but half consciously, by the faintly repellent manner assumed by each of the two women at mention of the other, was soothed by Elsbeth's advances. Elsbeth was a dear, after all: there was no one quite like Elsbeth.... For all her obstinacies and unreasonableness, she never really failed you.... She could be depended on to love you at your worst; you could quarrel with her with never a fear of real alienation.... Elsbeth might not be exciting, but she was as indispensable as food.... She was, after all, the starting-point and ultimate goal of all one's adventures.... Clare would lose some of her delightfulness, if there were no Elsbeth to whom to en-sky on her.... Alwynne did not see what she wanted with a mother, so long as she had Elsbeth.... She had said so once to her aunt and had never guessed, as she was chidden for sacrilege against the picture over her bed, at the exquisite pleasure she had given.
After the little coolness of the past few days (her aunt's fault entirely, Alwynne knew, and so could be unruffled) Elsbeth's renewal of sympathetic interest was very soothing. Alwynne was glad to foster it by talking of Clare, and Clare, and nothing but Clare, for the rest of the week. In church on Christmas morning, poor Elsbeth, settling her spiritual accounts, begging forgiveness for uncharitablethoughts, and assuring her Maker that she wished Clare no evil, could yet sigh for the useful age of miracles, and patron saints, and devils, when a prayer in the right quarter could transport your enemy to inaccessible islands of the Antipodes. She would have been magnanimous, have bargained for every comfort—Eden's climate and hot and cold water laid on—but the island must be definitely inaccessible and Antipodean.
Clare, too, had spent her morning, if not in prayer, at least in profound meditation. She felt stranded, and was wishing for Alwynne, and anathematising the superfluous and intriguing aunt.
Clare made the mistake of all tortuous intelligences in being unable to credit appearances. She was being, as usual, unjust to Elsbeth, Alwynne, and the world at large. She could not believe in simplicity combined with brains: a simple soul was necessarily a simpleton in her eyes. Because her own words were ever two edged, her meaning flavoured by reservations and implications, she literally could not accept a speech as expressing no more and no less than its plain dictionary meaning. With any one of her own type of mind she was at her ease; her mistake lay in not recognising how rare that type was; in detecting subtleties where none existed, and wasting hint, suggestion and innuendo on minds that drove as heartily through them as an ox walks through a spider thread stretched from post to gatepost of the meadow he means to enter.
Elsbeth, whom she had considered a negligible fool, had yesterday startled her into respect—not for the kindly and selfless pleasure in Alwynne's pleasure, that had, for all her little jealous anxieties, prompted the invitation to Clare, but for the totally imaginary cunning with which, in Clare's eyes, it had invested her. Alwynne's repetition of Elsbeth's remark had enlightened Clare: enlightened her to qualities in Elsbeth which Elsbeth herself would have been horrified to possess.
Clare saw, in the manner of the invitation, a gauntletflung down, the preliminaries to a conflict, with Alwynne herself for the prize; and the first warning of an antagonist sufficiently like herself to be considered dangerous, the more dangerous, indeed, for the apparently uninteresting harmlessness that could mask a mind in reality so scheming and so complex. She did not realise that if she did finally close with Elsbeth, with the intention of robbing her of Alwynne, she would have far more to fear from her simple, affectionate goodness of heart than from any subtlety of intellect with which Clare was choosing to invest her.
She wondered, as she frittered away the morning, how she should best counter Elsbeth's attack. She would call, of course—in state; it would be due; she would not be judged deficient in courtesies. Alwynne should be there (she would ensure that), and she, Clare, would be exceedingly charming, and very delicately emphasise the contrast between Elsbeth and herself. It would be quite easy, with Alwynne already biassed. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. It would be amusing. She should enjoy routing Elsbeth.
And there was the case of Alwynne to be considered. She had been excessively nice to Alwynne lately, had, in fact, allowed her, for a moment, to see how necessary she was becoming to Clare.... That was a mistake.... One must never let people feel secure of their hold upon one.... That little speech of Alwynne's last night, mocking and tender—she had thrilled to it at the time—did it not, ever so faintly, shadow forth a readjustment of attitudes, sound a note of equality? That, though it had pleased her at the moment, must not be.... Alwynne must be checked.... It would not hurt her.... She was subdued as easily as a child, and as easily revived.... She never bore malice. Clare, who never forgot or forgave a pinprick, had often marvelled at her, could even now scarcely believe in the spontaneity of her good temper. But Alwynne, certainly, had been going too far lately; was absurdly popular in the school; could, Clare guessed, have annexed more than oneof her own special worshippers, if she had chosen. Louise, she knew, confided in her: she thought with a double stab of jealousy of the scene she had witnessed but a few days since; of Louise, fresh from her commendations, from her kiss even (that rare impulse, regretted as soon as gratified), at rest in Alwynne's arms. She recalled Louise's startled look and Alwynne's contrasting serenity. She had not enquired what it all meant—that was not her way. But she had not forgotten it. Alwynne was hers. Louise was hers. But they had nothing to seek from one another! Alwynne, undoubtedly, as the elder, the dearer, required the check; not little Louise. Louise's letter had genuinely touched her—she thought she would go and see the child, spend her Christmas Day charitably, in amusing her. And if (in after-thought) Alwynne came round in the afternoon, and found her gone—it couldn't be helped! It wouldn't hurt Alwynne to be disappointed.... It wouldn't hurt Alwynne to spend a day of undiluted Elsbeth.... And Louise would be amusingly charmed to see Clare.... It was pleasant to please a child—a clever, appreciative child.... She would go round directly after lunch.... The maid should go home for the afternoon.... She laughed mischievously as she imagined the blankness of Alwynne's face, when she should be confronted by silence and a closed door. Poor, dear Alwynne! Well, it wouldn't hurt her.
But Alwynne set out gaily on Christmas afternoon, and, first escorting Elsbeth to the lych-gate of her favourite church, walked on as quickly as her narrow fur-edged skirt would let her.
The clocks were striking three as she turned into Friar's Lane.
It was a cold, still day, and Alwynne shivered a little, and drew her furs closely about her, as she stood outside the door of Clare's flat. She had rung, but the maid was usually slow in answering.
The passage was damply cold. It would be all the jollier to toast oneself before one of Clare's imperial fires....She wished the maid would hurry up. She waited a moment and then rang again.
There was no answer.
It struck her that the maid might have been given the afternoon off; but it was funny that Clare did not hear.
She rang again. She could hear the bell tinging shrilly within, but there was no other sound save the tick of the solemn little grandmother on the inner side of the wall.
Suddenly it occurred to her that Clare might be dozing. Clare never slept in the afternoons, but she did occasionally doze in her chair for a few minutes. She denied that she did so as strenuously as people always and unaccountably do; but Alwynne knew better. It always delighted her when Clare succumbed to drowsiness; a good sleeper herself, she had been appalled by Clare's acquiescence in four wakeful nights out of seven, and after a casual description that Clare had once given her of the arid miseries of insomnia, ten minutes' unexpected slumber did not give Clare herself more ease than it gave Alwynne.
The possibility of such an explanation of the silence, therefore, had to be considered respectfully: if Clare slept, far be it from Alwynne to wake her! Yet she could not go away.... Clare, after that unlucky clash of wills, would be doubly hurt if Alwynne left without seeing her first.... But if Clare were asleep....
Resignedly Alwynne sat herself down on Clare's doorstep to wait until a movement within should be the signal to ring again.
She was not annoyed; she always had plenty to think about; and it would be very pleasant, when Clare did at last open the door, to be received with open arms, and pitied, and scolded, and warmed.... It was certainly very cold.... All the draughts of the town seemed to have their home on the staircase, and to come sliding and slithering and undulating past, like a brood of invisible snakes.
She shifted her position. The doorstep was icy. She got up, and placed her muff, her chinchilla muff (shades ofElsbeth! her beautiful, new chinchilla muff) on the whitened doorstep. Then she sat on it.
"Ah! That's better," murmured Alwynne appreciatively. She was grateful to Elsbeth for reminding her to wear her muff.
But it did not get any warmer, and the daylight was beginning to fade. She glanced at her watch—twenty minutes past three. Surely Clare was awake again now. But she would wait another five minutes. She watched the hands—marvelled at the interminable length of a minute, and was drifting off on her favourite speculation as to the essential unreality of time, when simultaneously the grandmother struck the half-hour and she sneezed. She jumped up horrified. A cold would mean a week's absence from Clare, and a restatement of Elsbeth's thesis "of the advisability of wearing flannel petticoats and long-sleeved bodices."
Also, half of her hoarded hour was gone. She rang again impatiently. No answer. Clare must be out.... Gone to the post? No, Alwynne had been waiting half-an-hour, she would have returned by now.... Impossible that Clare should be out on Christmas afternoon, when she had refused an invitation and was expecting Alwynne herself.... She rang; and waited; and rang again and again and yet again.
"If Clare has gone out——" cried Alwynne indignantly; and subjected the handle to a final series of vicious tugs. The bell within pealed and rocked and jarred, gave a last hysterical gurgle and was dumb. She had broken the bell. She had broken Clare Hartill's bell!
Alwynne looked round about her guiltily; she felt more like nine than nineteen. The flight of stairs was still empty and silent. No one had seen her come; no one would see her go.... If she went quietly away, and said nothing about it? For Clare would be annoyed.... She always got so annoyed over little things.... What a pity to have a fuss with Clare over such a little thing as a broken bell!
She crept on tip-toe down the stairs and out into the road. Then she paused.
Was she being mean? After all—there was no earthly use in telling Clare.... Clare would never let her pay for the mending.... Yet naturally she would be annoyed to come back and find her bell broken.... She would think it was the milkman or the paper-boy.... Alwynne hoped they would not get into trouble.... Perhaps, after all, she had better tell Clare. Such an absurd thing to confess to, though—that she had been in such a temper that she had broken the bell! Clare would be sarcastic.... Yet it was Clare's fault for being out.... That was unkind.... She would tell Clare so ... she would write and tell her.... She would write a note now, and tell her about the bell at the same time.... She retraced her steps, pulled out her note-book and pencil, and began to scribble—
Dear Clare—I'm awfully sorry but I'm afraid I've broken the bell. I couldn't make you hear. I thought you were asleep, but I suppose you are out. I must have rung too hard, but I didn't think you would be out.Heavily underlined.I'm dreadfully sorry about the bell.
Dear Clare—I'm awfully sorry but I'm afraid I've broken the bell. I couldn't make you hear. I thought you were asleep, but I suppose you are out. I must have rung too hard, but I didn't think you would be out.Heavily underlined.I'm dreadfully sorry about the bell.
She hesitated. If Clare would let her pay for a new one, she wouldn't feel so bad.... Yet how could she suggest it? It would sound so crude.... If only Clare would not be angry.... Absurd to be feeling afraid of Clare—but then she had never done anything so stupid before.... Angry or not, Clare would never let her pay.... Yet should she suggest it? She bit her pencil in distracted indecision, till the lead broke off between her teeth.
That settled it. The damp stump was barely capable of scoring anAlwynne.
She pinned the paper to the door with her only hatpin (a present of the forenoon) and reluctantly departed.
It was a pity that her best hat blew off twice into the mud.
Elsbeth was glad to get Alwynne back so early. Had Alwynne enjoyed herself?
Alwynne sneezed as she answered.
Before the evening was over Alwynne reeked of eucalyptus.
Louise was at the nursery window, staring out into the brown, bare garden. The sky was smooth and a dark yellow, the naked trees barred it like a tiger's hide. The gathering dusk had swallowed up the wind. Not a twig stirred, not a sparrow's chirp broke the thick stillness. Spellbound, the world awaited the imminent snow.
Louise, sitting motionless in the window-seat, with her little pink nose flattening itself against the panes in dreary expectation of a stray unlikely postman, looked, with her peaked, ivory face and dark, unwinking eyes, her colourless clothes, and the sprig of holly with never a scarlet berry pinned to her flat little chest, like the mood of the December day made flesh.
Clare, at least, thought so. Dispensing with the indifferent maid, she had found her own way to the nursery, and pushing open the unlatched door, stood an instant, appraising the child and her surroundings. She noted with distaste the remains of the barely tasted lunch, still encumbering the table, and impingeing on the little pile of austere Christmas presents, so carefully arranged: the gloves and stockings and the prim Prayer Book a mere background for a dainty calendar that she recognised. She smiled, with a touch of irritation—did Alwynne ever forget any one, she wondered? But it was not suitable for a mistress to send her pupils presents.... She wished she had thought of sending Louise something herself ... something more original than that obviously over-prized calendar.... It was not much of a Christmas table, she thought ... not much of a Christmas Day for a child....
She marvelled that a well-furnished room could look so dreary. Louise's huddled pose, the neglected fire, the bookcrushed face downwards on the floor, combined to touch her. With her incurable feeling for the effective attitude, she remained straight and stiff in the shadows of the doorway, but her gesture was beautiful in its awkward tenderness as she stretched out her hand to the window.
"Merry Christmas, Louise!"
For an instant the child was silent, rigid, incredulous: then came a whirl of petticoats and a flash of black legs. Louise, wild with excitement, dropped to the floor and dashed across the room.
"Oh, Miss Hartill! Oh, Miss Hartill! You?"
"Well, are you pleased to see me?"
"Please, won't you sit down?" Louise, between delight and embarrassment, did curious things with the big arm-chair. "I can't believe it's you. And on Christmas Day! Won't you please sit down? Is the room too warm for you? Will you take off your furs? Would you like some tea? I'll make up the fire—it's cold in here. Will you take this chair? Oh, Miss Hartill! It's like the Queen calling on one. I don't know what to do." She looked up at Clare, blushing. Her pleasure and excitement were pretty enough.
Clare laughed.
"I'll tell you what to do. Run and put on your coat and hat. Would you like to come and spend the rest of the day with me?"
"With you?" Louise's eyes opened. "But it's Christmas Day?"
"Well?"
"I shan't be in the way?"
"I don't think so," said Clare coolly. "I'll send you home if you are."
She twinkled, but Louise was serious.
"You could do that, couldn't you?" she remarked with relief. "Oh, Miss Hartill, you are good! And I was hating my Christmas Day so. Won't you sit down while I get my things on?"
"Hurry up!" said Clare. And Louise fled to her bedroom.
Their walk back to Friar's Lane was a silent one. The snow was at last beginning to fall. Clare, half hypnotised by the steady silent motion, tramped forward, keeping time to some fragment of tune within her head. She was warmed by the pleasant consciousness of a kindly action performed, but its object, trotting beside her, was half forgotten.
Louise, very shy at encountering Miss Hartill unofficially, was far too timid to speak unless she were addressed. But she was perfectly happy; marvelling and rejoicing at her situation (Miss Hartill's guest, bound for her home!), overflowing with dog-like devotion to the Olympian who had actually remembered her existence. She was glad of the silent walk. It gave her time to realise her own happiness; to learn by heart that picture of Clare, against the background of the empty nursery, to get her every sentence by rote, and store all safely in her memory before turning to the contemplation of the incredible adventure upon which she was now embarking.
Clare, preceding Louise up the staircase, found Alwynne's note awaiting her. She frowned as she read it and felt for her latch-key. It was just like Alwynne to leave a note like that for any one to read.... And the hatpin for any one to steal.... She wished it had been stolen before it had scratched her paint.... And the bell! It was really annoying of Alwynne! It would cost her five shillings to put right.... She, Clare, was not mean, but she did begrudge money for that sort of thing.... Really, Alwynne might offer to pay for it.... But that, of course, would never occur to Alwynne.... She was altogether too reckless about other people's belongings.... Her own were her own affair.... But to break Clare's bell.... She must have been quite comprehensively annoyed to have actually broken it.... Clare laughed. She had had a sudden vision of Alwynne's blank face and indignant pealings. Poor oldAlwynne! Well—it wouldn't hurt her.... If she were careful to let Alwynne know to whom she had been sacrificed, Alwynne might not be quite so partisan over Louise next term.... That wouldn't be a bad thing.... She did not approve of intimacies between the girls and the mistresses.... But she, Clare, would make it up to both of them.... She would begin now, with Louise.... She would devote herself to amusing Louise.... She would give Louise the time of her life.... Louise would be sure to tell Alwynne about it afterwards....
"What are you going to do with yourself all the holidays?" asked Clare, with a touch of curiosity. Louise had slipped off her chair on to the soft hearthrug, and sat, hugging her knees and staring up at Clare.
"Read," she said briefly, and gave a little gurgle of anticipation.
"All day long?"
"Oh, yes, Miss Hartill. I never get a chance in term time. There's such heaps to read. I'd like to live in a library."
"Yet a peep at the world outside beats all the books that were ever written."
"I wonder." Louise rubbed her chin meditatively against her knees before she delivered herself. "You know—I think the way things strike people is much more interesting than the things themselves. I like exploring people's minds. Do you know?"
"I know," said Clare. She laughed mischievously. "You mean—that what you think I am, for instance, is much more interesting than what I really am."
Louise protested mutely. Her black eyes glowed.
"I daresay you're right, Louise. You wear pink spectacles, you see. I'm quite sure you would be appalled if any one took them off. I'm a horrid person really."
Louise looked puzzled; then the twinkle in Miss Hartill's eyes enlightened her. Miss Hartill was teasing. She laughed merrily.
Clare shook her head.
"It's quite true. I'm an egoist, Louise!"
"It's not true," said Louise passionately. She was on guard in an instant, ready to justify Miss Hartill to herself and the world.
It amused Clare to excite her.
"My good child—what do you know about it?"
"Lots," said Louise, with a catch in her voice. "You're not! You're not!"
"I am." Clare leaned forward, much tickled. She could afford to attempt to disillusion Louise.... Louise would not believe her, but she could not say later that she had not been warned. But at the same time, Clare warmed her cold and cynical self in the pure flame of affection her self-criticism was fanning. "I am," she repeated. "Why do you think I came round to see you to-day?"
Louise looked up at her shyly, dwelling on her answer as if it gave her exquisite pleasure.
"Because—because you knew I was alone, and you hated me to be miserable on Christmas Day."
"You?" Clare's eyebrows lifted for a second, but a glance into the child's candid eyes dispelled the vague suspicion.... Louise and conceit were incompatible. She listened with a touch of compunction to the innocent answer.
"Not me specially, of course. Any one who was down. Only it happened to be me. I think you can't help being good to people: you're made that way." Her eyes were full of wondering admiration.
Clare was touched. She sighed as she answered—
"I wish I were. You shouldn't believe in people, Louise. I came round because—yes, you were a lonely scrap of a schoolgirl, certainly—but there were lots of other reasons. I wanted a walk and I wanted to be amused, and I wanted—and I wanted——" she moved restlessly in her chair, "All pure egoism, anyhow."
"But you came," said Louise.
"To please you, or to punish some one else? I don't know!"
Louise enjoyed her incomprehensibility. She stored up her remarks to puzzle over later. Yet she would ask questions if Miss Hartill were in a talking mood.
"Do I know them?" (She had an odd habit of using the plural when she wished to be discreet.) She wondered who had been punished, and why, and thrilled deliciously, as she did to a ghost story. She thought that it would be terrible to have offended Miss Hartill: yet immensely exciting.... She wondered if all her courage would go if Miss Hartill were angry? She had always despised poor Jeanne du Barrie: but Miss Hartill raging would be harder to face than a mob....
"What have they done?" asked Louise eagerly.
"They? It's your dear Miss Durand," said Clare, with a grim smile. "I'm very angry with her, Louise. She's been behaving badly."
Louise's eyes widened: she looked alarmed and distressed.
"Oh, but Miss Hartill—she hasn't! She couldn't! What has she done?"
"Shall I tell you?" Clare leaned forward mysteriously.
Louise nodded breathlessly.
"She wouldn't copy me and be an egoist. And I wanted her to, rather badly, Louise. There, that's all! You're none the wiser, are you? Never mind, you will be, some day. Don't look so worried, you funny child."
"Why do you call yourself such names? You're not an egoist? You can't be," cried Louise desperately.
Clare laughed.
"Can't I? Most people are. It's not a synonym for murderess! Stop frowning, child. Why, I don't believe you know what it means even. Do you know what an egoist is, Louise?"
"Sir Willoughby Patterne!" said Louise promptly.
Clare threw up her hands.
"What next? I wish I'd had charge of you earlier. You shouldn't try so hard to say 'Humph,' little pig."
"I don't." Louise was indignant.
"Then what possesses you to steer your cockle-boat on to Meredith? Well—what do you think of him? What have you read?"
"About all. He's queer. He's not Dickens or Scott, of course——" Her tone deprecated.
"Of course not," said Clare, with grave sympathy.
"But I like him. I like Chloe. I like the sisters—you know—'Fine Shades and Nice Feeling'——"
"Why?" Clare shot it at her.
"I don't know. They made me laugh. They're awfully real people. And I liked that book where the two gentlemen drink wine. 'Veuve' something."
"What on earth did you see in that?" Clare was amused.
"I don't know. I just liked them. Of course, I adore Shagpat."
"That I understand. It's a fairy tale to you, isn't it?"
"Not a proper one—only Arabian Nightsy."
"What's a proper one, Louise?"
Louise hesitated.
"Well, heaps that one loves aren't. Grimm's and Hans Andersen's aren't, or evenThe Wondrous Isles. And, of course, none of the Lang books. I hate those. You know, proper fairy stories aren't easy to get. You have to dig. You get bits out of the notes in the Waverley Novels, and there'sKilmeny, andThe Celtic Twilight, andThe Lore of Proserpine, and Lemprière. Do you believe in fairies, Miss Hartill?"
"It depends on the mood I'm in," said Clare seriously, "and the place. Elves and electric railways are incompatible."
Louise flung herself upon the axiom.
"Do you think so? Now I don't, Miss Hartill—I don't. If they are—they can stand railways. But you just believe in them literaturily——"
"Literally," Clare corrected.
"No, no—literaturily—just as a pretty piece of writing. You'll never see them if you think of them like that, Miss Hartill. The Greeks didn't—they just believed in Pan, and the Oreads, and the Dryads, and all those deliciouspeople; and the consequence was that the country was simply crammed with them. You just read Lemprière! I wish I'd lived then. Miss Hartill, did you ever see a Good Person?"
"I'm afraid not, Louise. But I had a nurse who used to tell me about her grand-aunt: she was supposed to be a changeling."
Louise wriggled with delight.
"Oh, tell about her, Miss Hartill. What was she like?"
"Tiny and black, with a very white skin. They were a fair family. Nurse said they all disliked her, though she never did them any harm. She used to be out in the woods all day—and she ate strange food."
"What?"
"Fungi, and nettle-tops, and young bracken, and blackberries, my nurse said."
"Blackberries?"
"She was Irish; the Irish peasants won't touch blackberries, you know. We're just as bad, Louise. Heaps of fungi are delicious—wait till you've been in Germany. They know what's good: but, then, they won't touch rabbits, so there you are! I expect my nurse's aunt thought us an odd lot, us humans."
"Was she really a fairy?" Louise was breathless.
"How do I know? A witch perhaps. I should think a young witch, by all accounts."
"What happened to her?"
"She was 'swept' on her wedding-day."
"Crossing water?"
"No. She was to marry an old farmer. She went into the woods at dawn to wash in dew, and gather bindweed for her wreath——" She paused dramatically, her eyes dancing with fun; but Louise was wholly in earnest.
"Go on! Oh, go on!"
"She was never seen again."
"Oh, how lovely!" Louise shivered ecstatically. "I wish I'd been her. What did her foster people do?"
"What could they? I think they were glad to be rid of her." (Clare suppressed a certain tall young gipsy, who had figured suspiciously in the original narrative.) "Fairy blood is ill to live with, Louise. I don't envy Mrs. Blake, or Mrs. Thomas Rhymer."
"No. But it's so difficult to live in two worlds at once."
"Shouldering the wise man's burden already?"
"You get absent-minded, and forget—ink-stains, you know, and messages."
"I know," said Clare.
"You see, I have such a gorgeous world inside my head, Miss Hartill: I go there when I'm rather down, here. It's a sort of Garden of the Hesperides, and you are there, and Mother, and all my special friends."