Chapter Nine.For the first minutes Claudia could realise nothing but confusion, and a dreadful sense of terror; for the shock to herself had been so great as to set her head whirling, and prevent her instant understanding of what had happened. She slowly gathered herself up, while the driver, who was not quite sober, jumped off, swore loudly, and ran to his horses’ heads. In his excitement he would have jerked them back, so that the wheel would again have passed over Fenwick, if Charlie Carter had not caught his arm.“Stop, you fool!” he said. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”The driver swore another great oath, and rubbed his arm across his wet forehead.“’Twern’t no fault o’ mine,” he protested. “Why didn’t you look ahead?”“Shut up!” said Charlie tersely, “and hold these brutes of yours quiet while I get him out.”Claudia, white as a ghost, came to his side.“I can help,” she said.“Can you?” said the boy, looking distrustfully at her. “You won’t faint, or anything?”“No.”“It’s all got awfully mixed up, you see. However, here goes! we can’t leave him there. I say, I’ll hand all I can out to you first before we move him.”He was under the cart as he spoke, disentangling the wheels very handily, for the smash had been so complete that they were knotted and twisted in an extraordinary manner. Flies were making the horses fidgety, and a great cart-wheel was very close. At last, as part of the machinery was drawn from under Fenwick, there came a groan.“Oh, take care!” cried Claudia.“All right!” said the boy, more cheerily, for all this time he had been working with a deadly fear in his heart. “I think it must be his leg that’s hurt.” He emerged the next moment, and stood looking from Claudia to Fenwick, and back again.“Well?” she said, drawing a long breath. He nodded in the direction of the driver, who stood stupidly staring.“That ass of a fellow could lift him if he had the sense, but if any bones are broken he might make bad worse. I say, do you think you’re strong enough to pull, or could you get under and keep his leg quiet while I draw him out?”“Give me the man’s whip. I know how to make a splint.”She was under the cart the next moment, and between them they managed the business by tearing their handkerchiefs into strips. The next thing was to draw him out as smoothly and easily as they could, but it seemed endless, Fenwick groaning heavily, and when the operation was over, Claudia, who prided herself upon her nerve, was disgusted to find herself shaking in every limb. The cart lumbered off, the man, who was really not to blame, but who was sufficiently muddled to be doubtful on the point, glad to escape, and Claudia and Charlie were left staring at each other.“You can stop here with him, can’t you?” said the boy. “I must go and fetch a doctor or a carriage or something. That fellow would have been all day about it.”“Of course I can stop. You’d better go to the Hall, and send a man for the doctor. Make them be quick.”He flung a doubtful look at her, but there was no help for it, and great need for haste. He got on his bicycle and rode away, and Claudia was left with the unconscious Fenwick, and her own reflections.They were sufficiently miserable. Her foolhardiness, or, at any rate, her attempt to escape from an embarrassing situation, had undoubtedly caused the accident, while, to make matters worse, she, who ought to have been the sufferer, had been saved by Fenwick, perhaps at the expense of his own life or limb, for she could not but see that he was seriously hurt. To Claudia, apt to pride herself upon her independence, and power of going her own way, this alone would have been humiliating enough; add to it that the man loved her, for the ring of the one word “Claudia!” which was still in her ears, told her so much beyond a doubt.And here she was, helpless. Before Charlie Carter had been gone ten minutes, she had jumped up and run a little way along the road, feeling as if hours had passed, and help must be near. Then, blaming herself for leaving Fenwick, who might revive to find himself alone, she hurried back to his side, and tried to smooth the jacket which they had folded under his head, wishing meanwhile that she could have gone for help herself, for she was certain she would have been quicker.As it happened, matters had turned out extraordinarily well, for Charlie, on his way to the Hall, met a young surgeon well known to the Wilmots, who at once drove on to the scene of the accident, while the boy fetched a carriage; so that Claudia had not the length of time to wait that she imagined for herself. Moreover, the young man arrived having been told all particulars, and requiring no such explanations from her as she might have found it difficult to give. Indeed, when he glanced at her he saw that she was in no condition to be asked questions, and applied himself to the patient, who was beginning to recover consciousness. But when he got up he looked serious.“Is he very much hurt?” asked Claudia, trembling.“I hope not. I can hardly tell as yet,” he answered evasively. “His leg is broken, and you have done all that was possible. Now will you allow me to offer you a little advice? You have also had a fall, I understand?”“Oh, not to hurt.” She pulled her hair impatiently over a bruise on her temple.“You can do no more good here,”—Claudia was grateful for the “more”—“and the carriage will very soon arrive from the Hall. If you wouldn’t object to my man driving you and your bicycle back, you can see that all is ready for us there.”“Must I go?” said poor Claudia piteously. But she added at once, “Yes, yes, I see.” The suggestion of overlooking the old housekeeper’s preparations was a pious fraud, for there was nothing to be done except to answer a hundred questions, and to drink a certain decoction on which Mrs Graham prided herself, and which in more self-contained moments she would certainly have rejected. This gone through, walking up and down her own room, where she had been banished, she could no longer defend herself against a returning rush of remorse.“Why, why was I such a fool! As if I could not have let him speak and have done with it, instead of plunging off in that idiotic fashion! And then, if only he had left me alone! I should not in the least have minded a broken leg myself, or even worse.” She dropped her hands, and stood at the window looking gravely out, for Claudia was at the age when living has not become so strong a habit, and death is not so much shrunk from. “But to see him lying there, and to know that it was all one’s own fault—I don’t think there could be a more horrid situation. And then it was very plucky, the most plucky thing he could have done, and just when I had been so nasty to him! Oh, Claudia, Claudia, a fine muddle you have made of it! As if you couldn’t have kept your head, told him quietly you didn’t care for him, and not behaved so altogether idiotically, and landed yourself in such a hateful position! I wish,”—she paused—“yes, I do wish that Anne was here, for there isn’t a soul to whom to turn. Even Harry Hilton. If Harry had done it—he wouldn’t have been quick enough, but if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered half so much, because he would have taken it as a matter of course, and never thought about it afterwards. But now,”—another pause—“I wonder if he does like me very much? Miss Arbuthnot saw, I suppose, when I didn’t, and she implied that he was spoilt—I don’t know, I think she might be jealous, and he must have cared a good deal to dash in like that. Oh, why, why was I such a fool as to put myself under such an obligation to any man! Perhaps it’s not so bad, perhaps— Oh, there are the wheels. Now I shall know something, and anything, anything must be better than this dreadful uncertainty!”But the uncertainty continued. The leg was set, the patient had recovered consciousness, and had immediately asked for Claudia. But the doctor was still in the house, and had sent for a nurse. More, Claudia could not make out. She had come down, looking very white, and was giving Charlie Carter tea, and a great deal of tea-cake, after which he proposed, as he expressed it, to joggle over towards Barton Towers, expecting to meet and explain matters to Lady Wilmot. He had become more confidential towards Claudia, but also more contemptuous.“I say, how could you be such a duffer?” he demanded. “Didn’t you hear me call out to you to look out for that turn?”“No, I didn’t,” she said meekly. “I wasn’t attending.”“Then you ought to attend, or you’ll always be coming to grief. There’s where Carry gets a pull over you.”“Who’s Carry?”“She’s my sister, don’t you know? The eldest of the lot. You and she go along much of a muchness, only she doesn’t lose her head.”“Oh!” murmured Claudia, too conscious that she deserved the reproach to defend herself.“I never saw any one get such a cropper before,” he went on, “and it’s an awful pity about that wheel of his. It’s utterly and entirely done for.”She plucked up spirit.“I wish to goodness he had left me alone!”“Me couldn’t, of course, because you’re a girl. I’m not sure that girls ought to ride at all,” said Charlie, helping himself to more tea-cake. “Otherwise, I bet he’d have got out of the way fast enough. I never knew any one cut in as sharply as he did. I couldn’t have done it myself.”“You! Of course you couldn’t, a boy like you!” She was stung to retort. “I wish you’d finish your tea and go. They’ll all be wondering what has become of us.”“I’ll go. But I never saw such a beastly tea as old Fuller has brought in,” he remarked, mournfully regarding the empty dish.“Charlie!”“Well?”“You go and ask Mrs Graham how Captain Fenwick is going on, and I’ll order in a second tea-cake.”“You won’t dare.”“Won’t I?”“Oh, I shan’t go up again.”“You must. You must take the last, the very last news to Barton Towers. Sometimes five minutes makes a difference.”“What rot! However, all right. I’ll ring for old Fuller, if you’re sure you can tackle him.”Claudia was glad to get rid of the boy who seemed so certain that she and she only was to blame, that he served to accentuate her own self-reproach. Still, for the first time in her life, solitude was insupportable, and her thoughts turned longingly again and again to the kindly cousins at Elmslie. Should she telegraph and go back to them the next day, throwing up her work? The idea came weighted with longing, but she rejected it as cowardly; for in spite of the pain and perplexity of her position, she hated to give up what she had begun, conscience telling her that it was unfair to her employers. She flushed and paled too, as she reflected that it would be heartless to leave Huntingdon while Captain Fenwick lay there in a condition for which she might be held responsible, considering that it had been brought about by her own folly. Hateful reflection, which yet served to keep her mind fixed upon the sufferer. Never in her life had she passed such miserable hours. Never had her career seemed so unsatisfying.Nor was it much better when the others appeared. True it was that no one blurted out Charlie’s exceedingly downright reproaches, but she had an immediate conviction that he had related the story in such a manner that all the blame rested upon her, while she was so handicapped that it was impossible to excuse herself by explaining the circumstances of the case. She held her head high and looked defiant when, after largely commiserating Captain Fenwick, Lady Bodmin, who had always considered Claudia unduly forward, remarked that she had been given to understand that only the most skilful of cyclists should venture into such stony roads. Claudia, who felt herself skilful, could not say so; but Lady Wilmot dashed to her rescue.“It was all the fault of that corner. It is most dreadfully dangerous, and I am always telling Peter that he must make a fuss about it. Think of Marjory,”—Marjory was the baby—“killing herself there some day!”“Happily Miss Hamilton has not killed herself,” said Lady Bodmin sweetly, with a long drag on the last word.Claudia was accustomed to pride herself upon indifference to these pin-pricks, for they had been exercised upon her before. To-day, however, they were stabs, deadly stabs; she shivered as they came, and imagined them even when they did not exist. Her head ached from its severe bruise, and she had sprained her wrist, but not a word of complaint would she utter. Nor could she fail to see that, although both Lady Wilmot, and Sir Peter when he came back, were as kind and comforting as possible, and tried to make light of the disaster, they were uneasily anxious. Some words which she caught made her think that they were discussing sending for Mrs Leslie, Fenwick’s married sister, and although Lady Wilmot evidently opposed the project, whatever it was, Claudia’s heart stood still at what it might not portend. The evening passed in a strange disjointed fashion. Generally they all played billiards, to-night only Sir Peter and Charlie went off. Once Claudia stepped out on the terrace, thankful to find herself alone, with the great night about her. The sweep of the park lying in broad outline under a full moon, took a mysterious beauty which was wanting by day, and was inexpressibly soothing. She stood still for a little while and drank it in, then her eye fell upon a corner of the house from which through the open window a light darted out. As she looked, a dark shadow crossed it, and she remembered that it was the window of Fenwick’s room. All her unrest returned. She walked down until she was underneath it, and stopped, vividly picturing the suffering which he was enduring, and she had caused. As she stood, another window was thrown open, and she heard voices. Evidently the doctor and some one else, the nurse or Lady Wilmot, had gone into the adjoining room, and in the still night the doctor’s low words fell distinctly on her ears.“I must not conceal from you,” he said, “that his condition is very grave.”
For the first minutes Claudia could realise nothing but confusion, and a dreadful sense of terror; for the shock to herself had been so great as to set her head whirling, and prevent her instant understanding of what had happened. She slowly gathered herself up, while the driver, who was not quite sober, jumped off, swore loudly, and ran to his horses’ heads. In his excitement he would have jerked them back, so that the wheel would again have passed over Fenwick, if Charlie Carter had not caught his arm.
“Stop, you fool!” he said. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”
The driver swore another great oath, and rubbed his arm across his wet forehead.
“’Twern’t no fault o’ mine,” he protested. “Why didn’t you look ahead?”
“Shut up!” said Charlie tersely, “and hold these brutes of yours quiet while I get him out.”
Claudia, white as a ghost, came to his side.
“I can help,” she said.
“Can you?” said the boy, looking distrustfully at her. “You won’t faint, or anything?”
“No.”
“It’s all got awfully mixed up, you see. However, here goes! we can’t leave him there. I say, I’ll hand all I can out to you first before we move him.”
He was under the cart as he spoke, disentangling the wheels very handily, for the smash had been so complete that they were knotted and twisted in an extraordinary manner. Flies were making the horses fidgety, and a great cart-wheel was very close. At last, as part of the machinery was drawn from under Fenwick, there came a groan.
“Oh, take care!” cried Claudia.
“All right!” said the boy, more cheerily, for all this time he had been working with a deadly fear in his heart. “I think it must be his leg that’s hurt.” He emerged the next moment, and stood looking from Claudia to Fenwick, and back again.
“Well?” she said, drawing a long breath. He nodded in the direction of the driver, who stood stupidly staring.
“That ass of a fellow could lift him if he had the sense, but if any bones are broken he might make bad worse. I say, do you think you’re strong enough to pull, or could you get under and keep his leg quiet while I draw him out?”
“Give me the man’s whip. I know how to make a splint.”
She was under the cart the next moment, and between them they managed the business by tearing their handkerchiefs into strips. The next thing was to draw him out as smoothly and easily as they could, but it seemed endless, Fenwick groaning heavily, and when the operation was over, Claudia, who prided herself upon her nerve, was disgusted to find herself shaking in every limb. The cart lumbered off, the man, who was really not to blame, but who was sufficiently muddled to be doubtful on the point, glad to escape, and Claudia and Charlie were left staring at each other.
“You can stop here with him, can’t you?” said the boy. “I must go and fetch a doctor or a carriage or something. That fellow would have been all day about it.”
“Of course I can stop. You’d better go to the Hall, and send a man for the doctor. Make them be quick.”
He flung a doubtful look at her, but there was no help for it, and great need for haste. He got on his bicycle and rode away, and Claudia was left with the unconscious Fenwick, and her own reflections.
They were sufficiently miserable. Her foolhardiness, or, at any rate, her attempt to escape from an embarrassing situation, had undoubtedly caused the accident, while, to make matters worse, she, who ought to have been the sufferer, had been saved by Fenwick, perhaps at the expense of his own life or limb, for she could not but see that he was seriously hurt. To Claudia, apt to pride herself upon her independence, and power of going her own way, this alone would have been humiliating enough; add to it that the man loved her, for the ring of the one word “Claudia!” which was still in her ears, told her so much beyond a doubt.
And here she was, helpless. Before Charlie Carter had been gone ten minutes, she had jumped up and run a little way along the road, feeling as if hours had passed, and help must be near. Then, blaming herself for leaving Fenwick, who might revive to find himself alone, she hurried back to his side, and tried to smooth the jacket which they had folded under his head, wishing meanwhile that she could have gone for help herself, for she was certain she would have been quicker.
As it happened, matters had turned out extraordinarily well, for Charlie, on his way to the Hall, met a young surgeon well known to the Wilmots, who at once drove on to the scene of the accident, while the boy fetched a carriage; so that Claudia had not the length of time to wait that she imagined for herself. Moreover, the young man arrived having been told all particulars, and requiring no such explanations from her as she might have found it difficult to give. Indeed, when he glanced at her he saw that she was in no condition to be asked questions, and applied himself to the patient, who was beginning to recover consciousness. But when he got up he looked serious.
“Is he very much hurt?” asked Claudia, trembling.
“I hope not. I can hardly tell as yet,” he answered evasively. “His leg is broken, and you have done all that was possible. Now will you allow me to offer you a little advice? You have also had a fall, I understand?”
“Oh, not to hurt.” She pulled her hair impatiently over a bruise on her temple.
“You can do no more good here,”—Claudia was grateful for the “more”—“and the carriage will very soon arrive from the Hall. If you wouldn’t object to my man driving you and your bicycle back, you can see that all is ready for us there.”
“Must I go?” said poor Claudia piteously. But she added at once, “Yes, yes, I see.” The suggestion of overlooking the old housekeeper’s preparations was a pious fraud, for there was nothing to be done except to answer a hundred questions, and to drink a certain decoction on which Mrs Graham prided herself, and which in more self-contained moments she would certainly have rejected. This gone through, walking up and down her own room, where she had been banished, she could no longer defend herself against a returning rush of remorse.
“Why, why was I such a fool! As if I could not have let him speak and have done with it, instead of plunging off in that idiotic fashion! And then, if only he had left me alone! I should not in the least have minded a broken leg myself, or even worse.” She dropped her hands, and stood at the window looking gravely out, for Claudia was at the age when living has not become so strong a habit, and death is not so much shrunk from. “But to see him lying there, and to know that it was all one’s own fault—I don’t think there could be a more horrid situation. And then it was very plucky, the most plucky thing he could have done, and just when I had been so nasty to him! Oh, Claudia, Claudia, a fine muddle you have made of it! As if you couldn’t have kept your head, told him quietly you didn’t care for him, and not behaved so altogether idiotically, and landed yourself in such a hateful position! I wish,”—she paused—“yes, I do wish that Anne was here, for there isn’t a soul to whom to turn. Even Harry Hilton. If Harry had done it—he wouldn’t have been quick enough, but if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered half so much, because he would have taken it as a matter of course, and never thought about it afterwards. But now,”—another pause—“I wonder if he does like me very much? Miss Arbuthnot saw, I suppose, when I didn’t, and she implied that he was spoilt—I don’t know, I think she might be jealous, and he must have cared a good deal to dash in like that. Oh, why, why was I such a fool as to put myself under such an obligation to any man! Perhaps it’s not so bad, perhaps— Oh, there are the wheels. Now I shall know something, and anything, anything must be better than this dreadful uncertainty!”
But the uncertainty continued. The leg was set, the patient had recovered consciousness, and had immediately asked for Claudia. But the doctor was still in the house, and had sent for a nurse. More, Claudia could not make out. She had come down, looking very white, and was giving Charlie Carter tea, and a great deal of tea-cake, after which he proposed, as he expressed it, to joggle over towards Barton Towers, expecting to meet and explain matters to Lady Wilmot. He had become more confidential towards Claudia, but also more contemptuous.
“I say, how could you be such a duffer?” he demanded. “Didn’t you hear me call out to you to look out for that turn?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said meekly. “I wasn’t attending.”
“Then you ought to attend, or you’ll always be coming to grief. There’s where Carry gets a pull over you.”
“Who’s Carry?”
“She’s my sister, don’t you know? The eldest of the lot. You and she go along much of a muchness, only she doesn’t lose her head.”
“Oh!” murmured Claudia, too conscious that she deserved the reproach to defend herself.
“I never saw any one get such a cropper before,” he went on, “and it’s an awful pity about that wheel of his. It’s utterly and entirely done for.”
She plucked up spirit.
“I wish to goodness he had left me alone!”
“Me couldn’t, of course, because you’re a girl. I’m not sure that girls ought to ride at all,” said Charlie, helping himself to more tea-cake. “Otherwise, I bet he’d have got out of the way fast enough. I never knew any one cut in as sharply as he did. I couldn’t have done it myself.”
“You! Of course you couldn’t, a boy like you!” She was stung to retort. “I wish you’d finish your tea and go. They’ll all be wondering what has become of us.”
“I’ll go. But I never saw such a beastly tea as old Fuller has brought in,” he remarked, mournfully regarding the empty dish.
“Charlie!”
“Well?”
“You go and ask Mrs Graham how Captain Fenwick is going on, and I’ll order in a second tea-cake.”
“You won’t dare.”
“Won’t I?”
“Oh, I shan’t go up again.”
“You must. You must take the last, the very last news to Barton Towers. Sometimes five minutes makes a difference.”
“What rot! However, all right. I’ll ring for old Fuller, if you’re sure you can tackle him.”
Claudia was glad to get rid of the boy who seemed so certain that she and she only was to blame, that he served to accentuate her own self-reproach. Still, for the first time in her life, solitude was insupportable, and her thoughts turned longingly again and again to the kindly cousins at Elmslie. Should she telegraph and go back to them the next day, throwing up her work? The idea came weighted with longing, but she rejected it as cowardly; for in spite of the pain and perplexity of her position, she hated to give up what she had begun, conscience telling her that it was unfair to her employers. She flushed and paled too, as she reflected that it would be heartless to leave Huntingdon while Captain Fenwick lay there in a condition for which she might be held responsible, considering that it had been brought about by her own folly. Hateful reflection, which yet served to keep her mind fixed upon the sufferer. Never in her life had she passed such miserable hours. Never had her career seemed so unsatisfying.
Nor was it much better when the others appeared. True it was that no one blurted out Charlie’s exceedingly downright reproaches, but she had an immediate conviction that he had related the story in such a manner that all the blame rested upon her, while she was so handicapped that it was impossible to excuse herself by explaining the circumstances of the case. She held her head high and looked defiant when, after largely commiserating Captain Fenwick, Lady Bodmin, who had always considered Claudia unduly forward, remarked that she had been given to understand that only the most skilful of cyclists should venture into such stony roads. Claudia, who felt herself skilful, could not say so; but Lady Wilmot dashed to her rescue.
“It was all the fault of that corner. It is most dreadfully dangerous, and I am always telling Peter that he must make a fuss about it. Think of Marjory,”—Marjory was the baby—“killing herself there some day!”
“Happily Miss Hamilton has not killed herself,” said Lady Bodmin sweetly, with a long drag on the last word.
Claudia was accustomed to pride herself upon indifference to these pin-pricks, for they had been exercised upon her before. To-day, however, they were stabs, deadly stabs; she shivered as they came, and imagined them even when they did not exist. Her head ached from its severe bruise, and she had sprained her wrist, but not a word of complaint would she utter. Nor could she fail to see that, although both Lady Wilmot, and Sir Peter when he came back, were as kind and comforting as possible, and tried to make light of the disaster, they were uneasily anxious. Some words which she caught made her think that they were discussing sending for Mrs Leslie, Fenwick’s married sister, and although Lady Wilmot evidently opposed the project, whatever it was, Claudia’s heart stood still at what it might not portend. The evening passed in a strange disjointed fashion. Generally they all played billiards, to-night only Sir Peter and Charlie went off. Once Claudia stepped out on the terrace, thankful to find herself alone, with the great night about her. The sweep of the park lying in broad outline under a full moon, took a mysterious beauty which was wanting by day, and was inexpressibly soothing. She stood still for a little while and drank it in, then her eye fell upon a corner of the house from which through the open window a light darted out. As she looked, a dark shadow crossed it, and she remembered that it was the window of Fenwick’s room. All her unrest returned. She walked down until she was underneath it, and stopped, vividly picturing the suffering which he was enduring, and she had caused. As she stood, another window was thrown open, and she heard voices. Evidently the doctor and some one else, the nurse or Lady Wilmot, had gone into the adjoining room, and in the still night the doctor’s low words fell distinctly on her ears.
“I must not conceal from you,” he said, “that his condition is very grave.”
Chapter Ten.A writer has said, and with truth, that while a woman expects her friends to belong, as it were, to her whole life, and to adapt themselves to its many sides, a man, instead of desiring such universal sympathy, keeps his friends each on his own ground, and would be disgusted if either attempted to poach on the other. He may have thus a club friend, and a sporting friend, an antipodean and a corresponding friend, and such and such only they remain, while the sporting friend has never written him a letter in his life, and the antipodean would scarcely find a word to say if they met in Pall Mall. And this differing view of friendship makes difficulties between man and woman.Harry Hilton and Arthur Fenwick had been school friends, and there had remained, for as men they had little in common, and professed to find as little. Still the tie, such as it was, would last always, and Harry was a good deal shocked to hear of the accident, quite irrespectively of its bearing upon Claudia. He went over to Huntingdon Hall the next day, and Claudia, who forced herself to do her work, but broke off at intervals to hear the last report, met him near the house. She was so glad to see him that she forgot the past, and greeted him with her old ease. But he was shocked at her appearance.“Oh, that’s nothing!” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We are all having a bad time, and as I was the wretched cause, of course, in some ways, mine is the worst. What have you heard?”“Only the fact that Fenwick was thrown under a cart. Why should you take the blame?”“Because it was my folly. I would race down a hill, the cart cut across at the bottom, and I should have been under it if he had not pushed me on one side. He couldn’t get out of the way himself.” She shuddered.“Oh, well,” said Harry, instinctively trying to comfort her, “it was an accident which might have happened to any one. I’m only thankful he did push you.”“I’m not,” she said, frowning with the pain of remembrance.They walked on in silence. “How is he?” said Harry suddenly.Claudia’s hands knotted themselves.“Very ill.”“His leg is broken, isn’t it?”“Yes, but not badly. They fear other injuries. A second doctor comes to-night, and Mrs Leslie—his sister.”Harry’s hopefulness asserted itself against her dreary tone.“It mayn’t be as bad as they think. I know Fenwick better than they, and he’s a tough fellow. He’ll come round, you’ll see!”A smile dawned on her face. “Do you really think so, or are you only—saying it?”“Honour bright, I think so. You see, as I said, I know him, and they don’t.” He added with more effort, “Don’t worry so much over it.”She turned frankly towards him, and drew a deep breath.“Perhaps you’re right. At any rate, I’m very glad you came, for there was no one I could speak to, freely. Sir Peter is in his study, and Lady Wilmot makes too light of it, and as for Lady Bodmin, she’s hateful.”“Yes, then I’m very glad I came,” said Harry manfully.He was not clever, but he had that gift of helpfulness which makes the man or woman who possesses it a tower of strength to their friends. Everything looked brighter to Claudia, and she cast no reflection at what it cost him to walk by her side and feel convinced that all her thoughts were centred upon Fenwick. He owned with a sigh that it could hardly have been otherwise.Lady Wilmot insisted upon his remaining to luncheon, and Sir Peter welcomed him warmly. A more hopeful spirit seemed to have sprung up with his advent, yet the accounts of Fenwick remained alarming enough.“We’ve sent for Gertrude Leslie. Peter would have it, but it’s a great bore,” said Lady Wilmot, making a face. “She has all poor Arthur’s faults and none of his charm. However! She hates nursing, so perhaps she won’t stay.”“Oh, she won’t stay when she sees he’s better,” Harry agreed.“If he does get better,” remarked Lady Bodmin, looking pointedly at Claudia.“Of course he will,” said Harry, with decision. “What I expect is that he’s having a touch of the fever he picked up in India, and that your doctor doesn’t know about it, and is puzzled. How are your improvements getting on here, Miss Hamilton?” he went on cheerily. “My mother insists upon every one going to look at that view of the Marldon hills which you opened out for us, and my father is awfully pleased, because he says his father used to talk about seeing them when he was a boy, and he’d forgotten.”She flung him a grateful look.“We’re going to rival you, but not just yet,” said Sir Peter. “We’ve got to take it on trust for some time. What I admire in Miss Hamilton is the determination she shows.”Claudia was wishing that she had stuck to her work, and taken no holiday, but she owned with relief that Harry had made things brighter, and flung a ray of hope upon the situation. She liked him extremely, and flattered herself that he had forgotten that stupid slip of his which had vexed her so much, and obliged her to speak severely. But the past weeks had sufficiently shaken her sense of security to make her glad that when Sir Peter suggested a walk to the Black Pond, that Harry might see what she proposed doing, he came himself, and brought Charlie Carter.It was the spot she liked best at Huntingdon. The fine firs which, flinging their sullen shadows on the water, had given it its name, now stood out, bold and black, and free from cramping surroundings. Claudia had cleared with an unsparing hand, and with good results. Long grass and rushes fringed the waters edge, the moor-fowl’s haunt, and on a still day the clear reflections doubled each green blade, while the great stems of the firs sprang up clean and straight and strong as columns. A little boathouse stood, picturesquely shadowed, and Charlie had got out the boat before any one saw what he was doing, and insisted on pulling them round the Pond. Harry took the other oar, Sir Peter steered, and Claudia sat looking round her, as the others supposed, with an eye to effects. She did, indeed, honestly try to call them up. But her work had suddenly become, if not distasteful, at least a labour, so that instead of the enthusiasm which used to possess her, as some thought, unduly, it required whip and scourge to hold her to it at all. And as they rowed along, through an opening in the trees, the house stood out distinctly, and, with the house, Fenwick’s open window. Her eye fell upon it, and remained. She recollected how one day when she was planning and arranging, she had seen him coming along, striding through brake fern, and evidently in pursuit of her, and how she had slipped behind a trunk and so baffled his search. It was one of those little remembrances which circumstances may arm with a sting. What would she not have given to have seen him coming now! Tears, remorseful tears, gathered in her eyes, and as she glanced hastily at her companions she was sure that Harry Hilton had surprised them. She, on her part, had surprised the look which she dreaded, and when they parted, her good-bye was wanting in the frank friendliness which had marked her greeting.
A writer has said, and with truth, that while a woman expects her friends to belong, as it were, to her whole life, and to adapt themselves to its many sides, a man, instead of desiring such universal sympathy, keeps his friends each on his own ground, and would be disgusted if either attempted to poach on the other. He may have thus a club friend, and a sporting friend, an antipodean and a corresponding friend, and such and such only they remain, while the sporting friend has never written him a letter in his life, and the antipodean would scarcely find a word to say if they met in Pall Mall. And this differing view of friendship makes difficulties between man and woman.
Harry Hilton and Arthur Fenwick had been school friends, and there had remained, for as men they had little in common, and professed to find as little. Still the tie, such as it was, would last always, and Harry was a good deal shocked to hear of the accident, quite irrespectively of its bearing upon Claudia. He went over to Huntingdon Hall the next day, and Claudia, who forced herself to do her work, but broke off at intervals to hear the last report, met him near the house. She was so glad to see him that she forgot the past, and greeted him with her old ease. But he was shocked at her appearance.
“Oh, that’s nothing!” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We are all having a bad time, and as I was the wretched cause, of course, in some ways, mine is the worst. What have you heard?”
“Only the fact that Fenwick was thrown under a cart. Why should you take the blame?”
“Because it was my folly. I would race down a hill, the cart cut across at the bottom, and I should have been under it if he had not pushed me on one side. He couldn’t get out of the way himself.” She shuddered.
“Oh, well,” said Harry, instinctively trying to comfort her, “it was an accident which might have happened to any one. I’m only thankful he did push you.”
“I’m not,” she said, frowning with the pain of remembrance.
They walked on in silence. “How is he?” said Harry suddenly.
Claudia’s hands knotted themselves.
“Very ill.”
“His leg is broken, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but not badly. They fear other injuries. A second doctor comes to-night, and Mrs Leslie—his sister.”
Harry’s hopefulness asserted itself against her dreary tone.
“It mayn’t be as bad as they think. I know Fenwick better than they, and he’s a tough fellow. He’ll come round, you’ll see!”
A smile dawned on her face. “Do you really think so, or are you only—saying it?”
“Honour bright, I think so. You see, as I said, I know him, and they don’t.” He added with more effort, “Don’t worry so much over it.”
She turned frankly towards him, and drew a deep breath.
“Perhaps you’re right. At any rate, I’m very glad you came, for there was no one I could speak to, freely. Sir Peter is in his study, and Lady Wilmot makes too light of it, and as for Lady Bodmin, she’s hateful.”
“Yes, then I’m very glad I came,” said Harry manfully.
He was not clever, but he had that gift of helpfulness which makes the man or woman who possesses it a tower of strength to their friends. Everything looked brighter to Claudia, and she cast no reflection at what it cost him to walk by her side and feel convinced that all her thoughts were centred upon Fenwick. He owned with a sigh that it could hardly have been otherwise.
Lady Wilmot insisted upon his remaining to luncheon, and Sir Peter welcomed him warmly. A more hopeful spirit seemed to have sprung up with his advent, yet the accounts of Fenwick remained alarming enough.
“We’ve sent for Gertrude Leslie. Peter would have it, but it’s a great bore,” said Lady Wilmot, making a face. “She has all poor Arthur’s faults and none of his charm. However! She hates nursing, so perhaps she won’t stay.”
“Oh, she won’t stay when she sees he’s better,” Harry agreed.
“If he does get better,” remarked Lady Bodmin, looking pointedly at Claudia.
“Of course he will,” said Harry, with decision. “What I expect is that he’s having a touch of the fever he picked up in India, and that your doctor doesn’t know about it, and is puzzled. How are your improvements getting on here, Miss Hamilton?” he went on cheerily. “My mother insists upon every one going to look at that view of the Marldon hills which you opened out for us, and my father is awfully pleased, because he says his father used to talk about seeing them when he was a boy, and he’d forgotten.”
She flung him a grateful look.
“We’re going to rival you, but not just yet,” said Sir Peter. “We’ve got to take it on trust for some time. What I admire in Miss Hamilton is the determination she shows.”
Claudia was wishing that she had stuck to her work, and taken no holiday, but she owned with relief that Harry had made things brighter, and flung a ray of hope upon the situation. She liked him extremely, and flattered herself that he had forgotten that stupid slip of his which had vexed her so much, and obliged her to speak severely. But the past weeks had sufficiently shaken her sense of security to make her glad that when Sir Peter suggested a walk to the Black Pond, that Harry might see what she proposed doing, he came himself, and brought Charlie Carter.
It was the spot she liked best at Huntingdon. The fine firs which, flinging their sullen shadows on the water, had given it its name, now stood out, bold and black, and free from cramping surroundings. Claudia had cleared with an unsparing hand, and with good results. Long grass and rushes fringed the waters edge, the moor-fowl’s haunt, and on a still day the clear reflections doubled each green blade, while the great stems of the firs sprang up clean and straight and strong as columns. A little boathouse stood, picturesquely shadowed, and Charlie had got out the boat before any one saw what he was doing, and insisted on pulling them round the Pond. Harry took the other oar, Sir Peter steered, and Claudia sat looking round her, as the others supposed, with an eye to effects. She did, indeed, honestly try to call them up. But her work had suddenly become, if not distasteful, at least a labour, so that instead of the enthusiasm which used to possess her, as some thought, unduly, it required whip and scourge to hold her to it at all. And as they rowed along, through an opening in the trees, the house stood out distinctly, and, with the house, Fenwick’s open window. Her eye fell upon it, and remained. She recollected how one day when she was planning and arranging, she had seen him coming along, striding through brake fern, and evidently in pursuit of her, and how she had slipped behind a trunk and so baffled his search. It was one of those little remembrances which circumstances may arm with a sting. What would she not have given to have seen him coming now! Tears, remorseful tears, gathered in her eyes, and as she glanced hastily at her companions she was sure that Harry Hilton had surprised them. She, on her part, had surprised the look which she dreaded, and when they parted, her good-bye was wanting in the frank friendliness which had marked her greeting.
Chapter Eleven.The second doctor came, and his opinion was, on the whole, less unsatisfactory. He allowed that there was reason for alarm, and that some of the symptoms were perplexing, but with great care he thought it possible that a day or two might bring improvement. Mrs Leslie also arrived, and took prompt command, although she was careful to let her hosts understand that she had left home at great inconvenience to herself.“Such nonsense!” said Lady Wilmot to Claudia. “The great inconvenience means that she has been obliged to throw up one or two engagements. I’m sure her husband, poor man, must be grateful to us for giving him a little time in which he may call his soul his own.”Claudia looked white and worried. Her fears had returned upon her, and she could not laugh lightly as Lady Wilmot seemed able to laugh, even when things were at their worst. Imagination often paints in stronger colours than reality; she had not seen Fenwick, and pictured him more suffering than was the case. Besides, she had just heard that the doctors could express no decided opinion for two or three days, a time which to her restlessness seemed unendurable. She looked blankly at Lady Wilmot, not at first realising who she was talking about.“Oh, Mrs Leslie,” she said at last, forcing back her attention, “isn’t she like her brother?”“Dreadfully. But what in a man is a nice peremptory manner, is simply odious in a woman. I wondered you didn’t rend her when she talked to you in that way, and asked all those questions. And I wished you hadn’t said that it was your fault.”“It was.”“It wasn’t. It was the County Council’s, or whoever it is who ought to see after our roads. Arthur said so himself, and he wanted of all things to know if you were hurt.”“He is very kind,” said Claudia coldly. She hated herself for minding anything at a time when anxiety held them all, but from behind Lady Wilmot’s good-natured consolations it appeared to her that she detected a smile of triumph peeping out. “See what I told you!” it seemed to say, “see what he has done, and deny now, if you dare, that he cares for you!” With that “Claudia!” ringing in her ears, how could she deny it, even to herself? If no other result came from the whirl of inward questioning, it had no doubt the effect of fixing her thoughts very closely upon Captain Fenwick.Minutes—hours—crawled by. Claudia lived upon the crumbs which were flung to her, not daring to ask for them in larger quantities. Charlie Carter departed, and she missed him because, though casual in his answers, he was sure to know what was going on in the house, and sometimes imparted his knowledge. Then she fell to working feverishly again, keeping out of doors half the day. But wherever she was, she contrived with few and short intervals, to have the house in view, and with the house, Fenwick’s window. Sometimes a white-aproned figure—the nurse—would stand there, looking out, and once when she drew down the blind to shut out the glare, Claudia went through a sudden and agonising dread. She stood staring, deaf to one of the workmen who had advanced to inquire about a particular order, and watching the other windows to see whether the too-significant sign were repeated in them. It was on this day that when she came down to dinner she found that Fenwick had been for some hours making steady improvement, and that all were hopeful.From this time, indeed, he improved steadily, and Lady Wilmot announced with some glee that he was only anxious to get rid of Mrs Leslie.“They’re too much alike. They irritate each other.”“I would back Arthur’s will against most people’s,” said Sir Peter quietly.“Oh yes, and generally she has to knock under, but now, now that he is ill, she gets him at a disadvantage, and it is rather comic. However, she goes to-morrow, and then, as soon as he can be moved into my boudoir, we must all set to work to make it pleasant for him.”And she flung a queer look at Claudia.Claudia herself, in spite of the comparative lifting of the load, was finding the decisions of life not quite so simple a matter as she had imagined. Fenwick was better, no doubt, but there was still talk which made her uneasy. And though she would gladly have gone off, her work was unfinished, and there seemed less excuse for a hurried departure than before. The Wilmots might not unnaturally wonder why she went. What could she say? What excuse could she offer? What excuse, at any rate, which Lady Wilmot’s sharp eyes would not see through? She must wait, hoping earnestly that she might find an opportunity for leaving before she was called upon to take her turn in amusing the invalid’s convalescence.Meanwhile, when she glanced at Fenwick’s window, which was often, she pictured a much more dismal interior than facts warranted. If it had not been that the monotony of illness must be always irksome to an active man, Fenwick would have allowed that he was well off in a pleasant room, with every luxury in papers, books, flowers, and a cheerful selection of visitors to wile away the time.“It’s better, anyway, than grilling in India, with fever on you, the temperature anything you like and a little more, and the punkah gone to sleep,” he admitted one day when Sir Peter had left his wife to the not uncongenial task of raising her cousin’s spirits, which happened to be rather depressed.“Thank you,” she said politely.“Well, isn’t it?” he returned, glancing at her.“I don’t know. But I prefer gratitude not altogether expressed in negatives.”“You know what I mean,” he said rather sulkily. “How much longer am I going to be tied by the leg?”Lady Wilmot was a born matchmaker. Her eyes began to sparkle.“Never mind. I’m certain she’s thinking of you a great deal.”“That’s nothing,” he returned, in the same tone. “It’s her way to take things violently. But if I’m only a weight on her conscience, as soon as I’m all right again, she’ll fling me off.”His cousin buried her head cosily in a soft silk cushion.“I wish you’d tell me seriously, Arthur, whether you really mean it?”“Of course I do.”“You always say of course—each time.”“Well, this time I’ve broken my leg over it. I couldn’t do more, could I?”“No-o-o,” replied Lady Wilmot doubtfully.“I know the symptoms, as you infer, and I assure you I never had them so strongly before.”“You used to tellmethat.”“They weren’t to compare. One lives and learns.”“You looked wretched enough,” said Lady Wilmot, sitting up indignantly. “I’m sure I never saw such a contrast as between you and Peter at the wedding. Every one noticed it.”“It didn’t last. Look at us now. Peter—Peter is getting—well, let us call it broad I say, hands up! Don’t pitch things at a man that’s down.”“I wonder your illness hasn’t made you more truthful! What will you say next about Peter?”“I don’t want to talk of him at all. He doesn’t interest me.”“Shall I call the nurse?” inquired Lady Wilmot, rising with dignity.“No, no; sit down, and tell me more about Claudia. It’s awful to think how much time I’m wasting.”His cousin settled herself once more against the cushion, took up one of the pugs, and smiled in token of forgiveness.“I’m not so sure,” she said doubtfully.“Pity?”“And remorse. You see, Charlie Carter was for ever dinning into her that it was all her fault.”“It wasn’t, really,” said Fenwick, hastily. “I can’t exactly explain.”“Oh, I can! I’ve felt all along that she was trying to avoid a crisis. You’re so dreadfully impetuous.”“I like that! If I had only chosen to be impetuous, as you call it, Peter would have been nowhere.”“Perhaps, if you’re expecting me to help you, you’ll condescend to talk sense.”“Oh, you’ll help; you’re dying to be at it.”She vouchsafed no reply.“I’ll tell you one thing you can do,” he said eagerly. “If you really believe she’s feeling a bit sentimental over my spill—”Lady Wilmot was playing with her pug’s ears. She interrupted sweetly—“I think she feels the injury to your bicycle very much.”“That’s all the same thing. Then, whatever happens, don’t let her go till I’m about again, or stretched on a sofa, or something effective. Let her fuss about with the trees as much as she likes.”“She can fuss, of course. But she has said a few words which make me think she wants to be off, and I’m not sure whether—”“Whether?”“If she sticks on here, whether she mayn’t find her remorse just a little boring?”“No, no, she mustn’t; it will grow for being fed upon. Look here, Flo, don’t make me out too well.”“I don’t think you’re very ill.”“I’m recovering gradually, only gradually. The least disturbance may throw me back.”“Oh!”“And meanwhile I’ll harry Spooner till he lets me be carried into your sanctum. What’s the good of all their carrying dodges if they don’t use them?”Lady Wilmot put down the pug, rose up, and glanced mischievously at her cousin.“Well, I hope you really mean it this time. Remember Helen Arbuthnot.”“If you talk about remembering,” began Fenwick boldly. She was gone.It must have been this conversation which made Lady Wilmot after luncheon walk with Claudia towards the Black Pond, and become enthusiastic in her praises of what had been done.“We are so delighted!” she said. “Of course Peter thinks about the estate and all that kind of thing, but I think of Marjory. It’s such a comfort to feel that by the time she grows up, she’ll have a decent-looking place of her own ready for her, and really my heart sank when I brought her here after poor old Sir Ralph’s death.”Claudia was pleased, but said quickly—“I shall soon have finished.”“Oh no,” said Lady Wilmot. “I know Peter wants your advice about some outlying things. Why should you go? You are your own mistress, aren’t you?”With a pang quite new to her, she owned that she was.“And I heard you say you had no other engagement. Then what stands in your way? Don’t say you find us horrid!” she added, with a gravity which concealed a smile. “Your going would be an awful disappointment to poor Arthur.”“But he is much better?”“Better—yes. But I am afraid it must be a long business, and,”—she hesitated—“don’t you think he deserves a little reward?” The girl winced and grew pale. As Fenwick said, she took things violently, she was at an age when she unconsciously exaggerated her own importance in the world, and it seemed to her as if all manner of tremendous issues hung upon her answer. Besides, up to now, since the accident Lady Wilmot had not dropped such a hint. Her heart beat too fast for her to speak. At last she turned a white face upon her companion.“I don’t know,” she said vaguely.Lady Wilmot drew her face towards her and kissed her.“Stay!” she said lightly.“Very well,” returned Claudia, drawing a deep breath.For in that moment she renounced all—freedom, ambition—something within her whispering persistently that if she stayed it would be to become Arthur Fenwick’s wife. Her thoughts were sufficiently in a whirl for her not to know whether the conviction brought delight or terror, but they had fastened themselves upon him so continuously of late, that quite an unexpected feeling had sprung up in her heart, so that, if she were not in love with himself, she was nearly so with the image she had created. Her very indifference became a wrong when she reflected that it had caused him such suffering.Lady Wilmot’s sympathy was of a light-hearted nature, it was not profound enough to enable her to plunge into depths, but Claudia’s was a sufficiently transparent countenance to betray that it cost her a struggle to utter these two words, and if there was a struggle, it probably had to do with more than the mere fact of going or staying. She therefore hastened to encourage her.“I am more than glad,” she said smiling. “To-morrow that odious Lady Bodmin—as Peter isn’t here I may abuse her—departs, and though the Comyns are due, I am not quite sure that Mr Comyns and Arthur hit it off very well; at any rate, I don’t think Arthur cares much for either of them. So I particularly want him to have something pleasant to look forward to.”Instinctively Claudia turned and faced her. “Will he care?”She spoke the words scarcely above her breath, and was hardly aware that in a sudden craving for sympathy and counsel she had uttered them.“Will he?” Lady Wilmot laughed out. “If you could have heard him to-day when I told him you had talked of going!”Claudia walked on silently. The longing had changed to shrinking, and she wished that Lady Wilmot would leave her, but instead of this she ventured on another step.“I assure you,” she said, “that Arthur is a dear fellow.”“Oh, don’t let us talk about him any more!” cried the girl with sudden passion. She felt tossed, dragged, buffeted, a very shuttlecock of circumstance, impatient of the insistent tones in which that “Claudia!” still rang in her ears. Harry Hilton had also uttered her name, but it had not stirred her in the same imperative way, it had not been emphasised so disastrously, or burnt upon her memory. She trembled as she spoke, and Lady Wilmot looked at her with some bewilderment as to the cause of her emotion. She was not quite sure that it boded well.“No, you are right, we won’t talk about him any more,” she agreed soothingly. “You have promised to stay, and that is all we wanted. I foresee that after all we shall have a good time, and I am so glad, for Arthur has always been my favourite cousin, though he is sometimes tiresome, and I have always tried to help him to what he wanted. It used to be jam out of the housekeeper’s closet,” she added, with a laugh.The girl would not laugh. “She takes it all so seriously!” Lady Wilmot explained afterwards to her husband with light compunction. “Dear me, Peter, if I had thought so tremendously about such episodes, you’d have married a wreck! So far as I can remember, I used rather to enjoy them.”This was not Claudia’s condition. Enjoyment! It was misery; expectant, frightened, yet entrancing misery, such as she had never pictured to herself. It had been altogether different with Harry Hilton; she had scarcely thought of him except as a momentarily disturbing incident, and, quite sure that his healthy young face would never pale a shade, no idea of suffering had so much as crossed her mind. She flung him a restless thought now and then, comparing the two men, and certain that all the intellectual advantages were heaped on Fenwick. His natural gifts were varied, and he knew extraordinarily well how to make them appear at their best, helped to it by a dominating vanity, at once so strong and sensitive, that it never landed him in ridiculous positions, as may easily be the case with a coarser kind. Claudia, for instance, had never guessed its existence. She thought of him as a shrewd keen man, forgave him some shortness of temper, and liked the touch of roughness he occasionally showed. It had struck her that Miss Arbuthnot cared for him, and that he was indifferent, so that his evident attraction for herself flattered her. These were trifles, the real tie lay in his dash to her rescue and consequent suffering. Nothing could have smitten down her spirited independence so completely as the knowledge that he lay helpless owing to what he had done for her; it was the very thing to make her feel that any sacrifice must be made which could compensate.
The second doctor came, and his opinion was, on the whole, less unsatisfactory. He allowed that there was reason for alarm, and that some of the symptoms were perplexing, but with great care he thought it possible that a day or two might bring improvement. Mrs Leslie also arrived, and took prompt command, although she was careful to let her hosts understand that she had left home at great inconvenience to herself.
“Such nonsense!” said Lady Wilmot to Claudia. “The great inconvenience means that she has been obliged to throw up one or two engagements. I’m sure her husband, poor man, must be grateful to us for giving him a little time in which he may call his soul his own.”
Claudia looked white and worried. Her fears had returned upon her, and she could not laugh lightly as Lady Wilmot seemed able to laugh, even when things were at their worst. Imagination often paints in stronger colours than reality; she had not seen Fenwick, and pictured him more suffering than was the case. Besides, she had just heard that the doctors could express no decided opinion for two or three days, a time which to her restlessness seemed unendurable. She looked blankly at Lady Wilmot, not at first realising who she was talking about.
“Oh, Mrs Leslie,” she said at last, forcing back her attention, “isn’t she like her brother?”
“Dreadfully. But what in a man is a nice peremptory manner, is simply odious in a woman. I wondered you didn’t rend her when she talked to you in that way, and asked all those questions. And I wished you hadn’t said that it was your fault.”
“It was.”
“It wasn’t. It was the County Council’s, or whoever it is who ought to see after our roads. Arthur said so himself, and he wanted of all things to know if you were hurt.”
“He is very kind,” said Claudia coldly. She hated herself for minding anything at a time when anxiety held them all, but from behind Lady Wilmot’s good-natured consolations it appeared to her that she detected a smile of triumph peeping out. “See what I told you!” it seemed to say, “see what he has done, and deny now, if you dare, that he cares for you!” With that “Claudia!” ringing in her ears, how could she deny it, even to herself? If no other result came from the whirl of inward questioning, it had no doubt the effect of fixing her thoughts very closely upon Captain Fenwick.
Minutes—hours—crawled by. Claudia lived upon the crumbs which were flung to her, not daring to ask for them in larger quantities. Charlie Carter departed, and she missed him because, though casual in his answers, he was sure to know what was going on in the house, and sometimes imparted his knowledge. Then she fell to working feverishly again, keeping out of doors half the day. But wherever she was, she contrived with few and short intervals, to have the house in view, and with the house, Fenwick’s window. Sometimes a white-aproned figure—the nurse—would stand there, looking out, and once when she drew down the blind to shut out the glare, Claudia went through a sudden and agonising dread. She stood staring, deaf to one of the workmen who had advanced to inquire about a particular order, and watching the other windows to see whether the too-significant sign were repeated in them. It was on this day that when she came down to dinner she found that Fenwick had been for some hours making steady improvement, and that all were hopeful.
From this time, indeed, he improved steadily, and Lady Wilmot announced with some glee that he was only anxious to get rid of Mrs Leslie.
“They’re too much alike. They irritate each other.”
“I would back Arthur’s will against most people’s,” said Sir Peter quietly.
“Oh yes, and generally she has to knock under, but now, now that he is ill, she gets him at a disadvantage, and it is rather comic. However, she goes to-morrow, and then, as soon as he can be moved into my boudoir, we must all set to work to make it pleasant for him.”
And she flung a queer look at Claudia.
Claudia herself, in spite of the comparative lifting of the load, was finding the decisions of life not quite so simple a matter as she had imagined. Fenwick was better, no doubt, but there was still talk which made her uneasy. And though she would gladly have gone off, her work was unfinished, and there seemed less excuse for a hurried departure than before. The Wilmots might not unnaturally wonder why she went. What could she say? What excuse could she offer? What excuse, at any rate, which Lady Wilmot’s sharp eyes would not see through? She must wait, hoping earnestly that she might find an opportunity for leaving before she was called upon to take her turn in amusing the invalid’s convalescence.
Meanwhile, when she glanced at Fenwick’s window, which was often, she pictured a much more dismal interior than facts warranted. If it had not been that the monotony of illness must be always irksome to an active man, Fenwick would have allowed that he was well off in a pleasant room, with every luxury in papers, books, flowers, and a cheerful selection of visitors to wile away the time.
“It’s better, anyway, than grilling in India, with fever on you, the temperature anything you like and a little more, and the punkah gone to sleep,” he admitted one day when Sir Peter had left his wife to the not uncongenial task of raising her cousin’s spirits, which happened to be rather depressed.
“Thank you,” she said politely.
“Well, isn’t it?” he returned, glancing at her.
“I don’t know. But I prefer gratitude not altogether expressed in negatives.”
“You know what I mean,” he said rather sulkily. “How much longer am I going to be tied by the leg?”
Lady Wilmot was a born matchmaker. Her eyes began to sparkle.
“Never mind. I’m certain she’s thinking of you a great deal.”
“That’s nothing,” he returned, in the same tone. “It’s her way to take things violently. But if I’m only a weight on her conscience, as soon as I’m all right again, she’ll fling me off.”
His cousin buried her head cosily in a soft silk cushion.
“I wish you’d tell me seriously, Arthur, whether you really mean it?”
“Of course I do.”
“You always say of course—each time.”
“Well, this time I’ve broken my leg over it. I couldn’t do more, could I?”
“No-o-o,” replied Lady Wilmot doubtfully.
“I know the symptoms, as you infer, and I assure you I never had them so strongly before.”
“You used to tellmethat.”
“They weren’t to compare. One lives and learns.”
“You looked wretched enough,” said Lady Wilmot, sitting up indignantly. “I’m sure I never saw such a contrast as between you and Peter at the wedding. Every one noticed it.”
“It didn’t last. Look at us now. Peter—Peter is getting—well, let us call it broad I say, hands up! Don’t pitch things at a man that’s down.”
“I wonder your illness hasn’t made you more truthful! What will you say next about Peter?”
“I don’t want to talk of him at all. He doesn’t interest me.”
“Shall I call the nurse?” inquired Lady Wilmot, rising with dignity.
“No, no; sit down, and tell me more about Claudia. It’s awful to think how much time I’m wasting.”
His cousin settled herself once more against the cushion, took up one of the pugs, and smiled in token of forgiveness.
“I’m not so sure,” she said doubtfully.
“Pity?”
“And remorse. You see, Charlie Carter was for ever dinning into her that it was all her fault.”
“It wasn’t, really,” said Fenwick, hastily. “I can’t exactly explain.”
“Oh, I can! I’ve felt all along that she was trying to avoid a crisis. You’re so dreadfully impetuous.”
“I like that! If I had only chosen to be impetuous, as you call it, Peter would have been nowhere.”
“Perhaps, if you’re expecting me to help you, you’ll condescend to talk sense.”
“Oh, you’ll help; you’re dying to be at it.”
She vouchsafed no reply.
“I’ll tell you one thing you can do,” he said eagerly. “If you really believe she’s feeling a bit sentimental over my spill—”
Lady Wilmot was playing with her pug’s ears. She interrupted sweetly—
“I think she feels the injury to your bicycle very much.”
“That’s all the same thing. Then, whatever happens, don’t let her go till I’m about again, or stretched on a sofa, or something effective. Let her fuss about with the trees as much as she likes.”
“She can fuss, of course. But she has said a few words which make me think she wants to be off, and I’m not sure whether—”
“Whether?”
“If she sticks on here, whether she mayn’t find her remorse just a little boring?”
“No, no, she mustn’t; it will grow for being fed upon. Look here, Flo, don’t make me out too well.”
“I don’t think you’re very ill.”
“I’m recovering gradually, only gradually. The least disturbance may throw me back.”
“Oh!”
“And meanwhile I’ll harry Spooner till he lets me be carried into your sanctum. What’s the good of all their carrying dodges if they don’t use them?”
Lady Wilmot put down the pug, rose up, and glanced mischievously at her cousin.
“Well, I hope you really mean it this time. Remember Helen Arbuthnot.”
“If you talk about remembering,” began Fenwick boldly. She was gone.
It must have been this conversation which made Lady Wilmot after luncheon walk with Claudia towards the Black Pond, and become enthusiastic in her praises of what had been done.
“We are so delighted!” she said. “Of course Peter thinks about the estate and all that kind of thing, but I think of Marjory. It’s such a comfort to feel that by the time she grows up, she’ll have a decent-looking place of her own ready for her, and really my heart sank when I brought her here after poor old Sir Ralph’s death.”
Claudia was pleased, but said quickly—
“I shall soon have finished.”
“Oh no,” said Lady Wilmot. “I know Peter wants your advice about some outlying things. Why should you go? You are your own mistress, aren’t you?”
With a pang quite new to her, she owned that she was.
“And I heard you say you had no other engagement. Then what stands in your way? Don’t say you find us horrid!” she added, with a gravity which concealed a smile. “Your going would be an awful disappointment to poor Arthur.”
“But he is much better?”
“Better—yes. But I am afraid it must be a long business, and,”—she hesitated—“don’t you think he deserves a little reward?” The girl winced and grew pale. As Fenwick said, she took things violently, she was at an age when she unconsciously exaggerated her own importance in the world, and it seemed to her as if all manner of tremendous issues hung upon her answer. Besides, up to now, since the accident Lady Wilmot had not dropped such a hint. Her heart beat too fast for her to speak. At last she turned a white face upon her companion.
“I don’t know,” she said vaguely.
Lady Wilmot drew her face towards her and kissed her.
“Stay!” she said lightly.
“Very well,” returned Claudia, drawing a deep breath.
For in that moment she renounced all—freedom, ambition—something within her whispering persistently that if she stayed it would be to become Arthur Fenwick’s wife. Her thoughts were sufficiently in a whirl for her not to know whether the conviction brought delight or terror, but they had fastened themselves upon him so continuously of late, that quite an unexpected feeling had sprung up in her heart, so that, if she were not in love with himself, she was nearly so with the image she had created. Her very indifference became a wrong when she reflected that it had caused him such suffering.
Lady Wilmot’s sympathy was of a light-hearted nature, it was not profound enough to enable her to plunge into depths, but Claudia’s was a sufficiently transparent countenance to betray that it cost her a struggle to utter these two words, and if there was a struggle, it probably had to do with more than the mere fact of going or staying. She therefore hastened to encourage her.
“I am more than glad,” she said smiling. “To-morrow that odious Lady Bodmin—as Peter isn’t here I may abuse her—departs, and though the Comyns are due, I am not quite sure that Mr Comyns and Arthur hit it off very well; at any rate, I don’t think Arthur cares much for either of them. So I particularly want him to have something pleasant to look forward to.”
Instinctively Claudia turned and faced her. “Will he care?”
She spoke the words scarcely above her breath, and was hardly aware that in a sudden craving for sympathy and counsel she had uttered them.
“Will he?” Lady Wilmot laughed out. “If you could have heard him to-day when I told him you had talked of going!”
Claudia walked on silently. The longing had changed to shrinking, and she wished that Lady Wilmot would leave her, but instead of this she ventured on another step.
“I assure you,” she said, “that Arthur is a dear fellow.”
“Oh, don’t let us talk about him any more!” cried the girl with sudden passion. She felt tossed, dragged, buffeted, a very shuttlecock of circumstance, impatient of the insistent tones in which that “Claudia!” still rang in her ears. Harry Hilton had also uttered her name, but it had not stirred her in the same imperative way, it had not been emphasised so disastrously, or burnt upon her memory. She trembled as she spoke, and Lady Wilmot looked at her with some bewilderment as to the cause of her emotion. She was not quite sure that it boded well.
“No, you are right, we won’t talk about him any more,” she agreed soothingly. “You have promised to stay, and that is all we wanted. I foresee that after all we shall have a good time, and I am so glad, for Arthur has always been my favourite cousin, though he is sometimes tiresome, and I have always tried to help him to what he wanted. It used to be jam out of the housekeeper’s closet,” she added, with a laugh.
The girl would not laugh. “She takes it all so seriously!” Lady Wilmot explained afterwards to her husband with light compunction. “Dear me, Peter, if I had thought so tremendously about such episodes, you’d have married a wreck! So far as I can remember, I used rather to enjoy them.”
This was not Claudia’s condition. Enjoyment! It was misery; expectant, frightened, yet entrancing misery, such as she had never pictured to herself. It had been altogether different with Harry Hilton; she had scarcely thought of him except as a momentarily disturbing incident, and, quite sure that his healthy young face would never pale a shade, no idea of suffering had so much as crossed her mind. She flung him a restless thought now and then, comparing the two men, and certain that all the intellectual advantages were heaped on Fenwick. His natural gifts were varied, and he knew extraordinarily well how to make them appear at their best, helped to it by a dominating vanity, at once so strong and sensitive, that it never landed him in ridiculous positions, as may easily be the case with a coarser kind. Claudia, for instance, had never guessed its existence. She thought of him as a shrewd keen man, forgave him some shortness of temper, and liked the touch of roughness he occasionally showed. It had struck her that Miss Arbuthnot cared for him, and that he was indifferent, so that his evident attraction for herself flattered her. These were trifles, the real tie lay in his dash to her rescue and consequent suffering. Nothing could have smitten down her spirited independence so completely as the knowledge that he lay helpless owing to what he had done for her; it was the very thing to make her feel that any sacrifice must be made which could compensate.
Chapter Twelve.Helen Arbuthnot was used to come and go as she liked at Thornbury, but it was not very often that she returned within a week of taking leave. She had done so now, making some slight excuse, which for hospitable Mrs Hilton was unnecessary. The talk often fell upon Fenwick’s accident, and she knew that Harry had been to Huntingdon. Ruth Baynes described how an accident, not certainly identical, but still an accident, once befell her eldest nephew. Helen listened in silence until she had Harry alone.“There’s no actual danger, is there?” she asked indifferently.“Sir Peter said there was. At least the doctors were at fault.”She had followed him into the gun-room, where he was rubbing the stock of a gun.“Then I suppose you’ll be going over again?”“Not again. Somebody will write.”She tapped the wooden arms of her chair impatiently.“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re the most lukewarm of lovers! I’ve no patience with you!”“Can’t be helped,” he exclaimed, polishing laboriously.“It can. Don’t you see that it’s nothing short of unfeeling to show no anxiety when—when your Claudia has nearly brought herself and her career to an end?”“She’s all right. Besides, my Claudia, as you call her, isn’t mine at all, and doesn’t mean to have anything to do with me.”“Only because you’re so wrong-headed. Didn’t I advise you to keep quiet?”“Yes.”“And now I advise you to move. And you do just the contrary.”He had his back turned to her.“Didn’t it really ever strike you,” he said, “that Fenwick cared?”After a moment’s hesitation, she answered with a change of manner and a laugh—“Oh, how like a man! When he takes a fancy he thinks every one else must be possessed with it too!”She ceased, however, to urge him, for good-tempered as he was, he could stick to his point, and she saw that he was resolved not to go again to Huntingdon. He had made this determination partly because he could not see Claudia without disturbance, and his healthy nature objected to the stirring up of emotions which could lead to nothing; and partly because in spite of Miss Arbuthnot’s taunt he was persuaded that Fenwick liked Claudia, and a love of fair play inclined him to keep out of the way at a moment when his rival might be supposed to be at a disadvantage. It would not have changed his conduct had he known the truth, that, in his disabled condition, Fenwick, passive, was making such way as he might never have done had he been about as usual.Only Miss Arbuthnot’s pertinacity had led to the conversation. She did not renew it, and he was not the man to care to talk of his own feelings. At the end of a few days better news arrived from Huntingdon, and Helen departed as suddenly as she had come. Then it was that Harry became more restless. Thornbury had too many bitter-sweet recollections, Huntingdon was too easily within reach, at Elmslie he might hear something of Claudia, and at Elmslie he would meet with Anne Cartwright’s tender sympathy, never wanting in tact. At Elmslie, accordingly, he presented himself one day, unannounced, but certain of welcome.It was Philippa’s shrewdness which first discovered that the times were out of joint.“Something has happened,” she said to Anne, “and whatever it may be, take my word that Claudia is at the bottom of it.”“Why?” said Anne, startled. “He hasn’t talked of her at all.”“And that’s why,” retorted Philippa. “When he left he was on the way to talk a great deal.”“Then do you suppose?”“Yes, I suppose she has refused him, and that you will soon hear more about it. He is much too good for her, but I imagine you can’t tell him so?”“Now you are unfair.”Philippa laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and went off, rattling her keys. Anne, after a momentary hesitation, left the house, and strolled down to the river, where she found Harry smoking, with Vic stretched by his side. Looking at him with keener attention, she saw something in his eyes which told her that her quicker sister’s surmise, at least as to his unhappiness, was right. He jumped up, and she put her hand on his arm.“I’m too old for damp grass, but here’s the bench which Claudia hated.” She added, very kindly, “What is it, Harry?”He laughed queerly.“Nothing out of the common. I’ve had a spill, and the world is going round a bit—that’s all. It’ll steady itself by-and-by, no doubt. You can’t do anything, Anne, and I’m sure I don’t know why I tell you.”“Is it Claudia?” asked Anne unheeding.He nodded.“And?” She paused.“She didn’t give me any hope, and I can’t persuade myself that I’ve the ghost of a chance. Still—I suppose I should feel worse if there wasn’t one.” He broke off and laughed again.“She is very young. Oh, I shouldn’t despair yet,” urged Anne, born consoler.“Don’t you think you’ve been hasty?”He pulled Vic’s soft ears.“Perhaps. I couldn’t wait.”“Well, as I say, I wouldn’t despair. Give her time.”“She hasn’t said anything herself?” He was thirsting for a word.“No. Indeed, Philippa and I have been puzzled that we have heard nothing from Claudia since she first went to the Wilmots’. We don’t want her to feel bound to write, but generally she does. I suppose this explains it.”“You know about the accident?”“Accident? No,” said Anne, with alarm. “Oh, she’s all right. But Fenwick, who was with her, got let in rather badly.” And he gave her a brief account of the disaster.“Oh, poor child!” cried Anne. “How terrible for her! That explains, of course, particularly,”—she smiled—“because she knows we are old-fashioned enough to be a little shy of bicycles. Come, Harry, it seems to me that you have despaired too soon. Try again, later. Her head is filled with other ideas now, but give her time and she will come round.”Irony is apt to follow on the heels of good advice.“I don’t know,” said Harry slowly. “I haven’t quite told you all.”She waited.“This other man, who got the chance—”“Captain Fenwick?”“She thinks me a stay-at-home duffer, as I am; while he—he’s a clever chap, and has been about, and can talk of the things she fancies, and—well, it can’t be helped! Look here, Anne, Philippa must really speak to Smith about that hay.”If it had been a relief to him to say so much, he was evidently indisposed to say more, and, Anne not being one to force confidences, they talked of indifferent matters, went to see the rick, strolled round the kitchen garden, ate apricots, and were turning towards the house when a maid came out, bringing a letter.“Oddly enough, this is from Claudia,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.The next moment, as she glanced through it, she repented having spoken.“What’s wrong?” demanded Harry, watching her face. As she hesitated, he added quietly, “You had better tell me.”“It is from Claudia.”“So you said. Well?”There was a new peremptoriness in his tone which she recognised.“She writes about what we talked of,” she said, with difficulty, and keeping her eyes fixed on the letter. “She—she is engaged to this Captain Fenwick. You may read the letter, if you like,” she added more quickly, holding it out to him. He did not take it, and there was a moment’s silence.“Thank you,” he said, and no more. His voice was hoarse, and she longed to comfort him, not knowing how, and casting about for words.“This accident—”He interrupted her.“It’s over and done with—we won’t talk about it. Can I do anything for you in the town?”Anne felt with a pang that it was not as in his old boyish troubles, and that the best she could do was to stand aside, and take no notice. She went off with her letter to Philippa, who was not very sympathetic.“I’m not sorry. Harry will meet with somebody else, somebody, I do hope, without a career. Of course he feels it at first, but he’ll get over it, oh yes, Anne, I’m hardened enough to think so. Give me the letter. What does she say?—um—um—um—‘saved my life at the risk of his own’—that’s strong—‘dreadfully hurt—getting better’—I don’t see what else she could do—‘stay on here for another week or two before going back to Elmslie.’ One thing is certain, Anne, we needn’t have had that new carpet for the bedroom.”“She doesn’t say much,” commented Anne.“No, not much. I wonder—”
Helen Arbuthnot was used to come and go as she liked at Thornbury, but it was not very often that she returned within a week of taking leave. She had done so now, making some slight excuse, which for hospitable Mrs Hilton was unnecessary. The talk often fell upon Fenwick’s accident, and she knew that Harry had been to Huntingdon. Ruth Baynes described how an accident, not certainly identical, but still an accident, once befell her eldest nephew. Helen listened in silence until she had Harry alone.
“There’s no actual danger, is there?” she asked indifferently.
“Sir Peter said there was. At least the doctors were at fault.”
She had followed him into the gun-room, where he was rubbing the stock of a gun.
“Then I suppose you’ll be going over again?”
“Not again. Somebody will write.”
She tapped the wooden arms of her chair impatiently.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re the most lukewarm of lovers! I’ve no patience with you!”
“Can’t be helped,” he exclaimed, polishing laboriously.
“It can. Don’t you see that it’s nothing short of unfeeling to show no anxiety when—when your Claudia has nearly brought herself and her career to an end?”
“She’s all right. Besides, my Claudia, as you call her, isn’t mine at all, and doesn’t mean to have anything to do with me.”
“Only because you’re so wrong-headed. Didn’t I advise you to keep quiet?”
“Yes.”
“And now I advise you to move. And you do just the contrary.”
He had his back turned to her.
“Didn’t it really ever strike you,” he said, “that Fenwick cared?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she answered with a change of manner and a laugh—
“Oh, how like a man! When he takes a fancy he thinks every one else must be possessed with it too!”
She ceased, however, to urge him, for good-tempered as he was, he could stick to his point, and she saw that he was resolved not to go again to Huntingdon. He had made this determination partly because he could not see Claudia without disturbance, and his healthy nature objected to the stirring up of emotions which could lead to nothing; and partly because in spite of Miss Arbuthnot’s taunt he was persuaded that Fenwick liked Claudia, and a love of fair play inclined him to keep out of the way at a moment when his rival might be supposed to be at a disadvantage. It would not have changed his conduct had he known the truth, that, in his disabled condition, Fenwick, passive, was making such way as he might never have done had he been about as usual.
Only Miss Arbuthnot’s pertinacity had led to the conversation. She did not renew it, and he was not the man to care to talk of his own feelings. At the end of a few days better news arrived from Huntingdon, and Helen departed as suddenly as she had come. Then it was that Harry became more restless. Thornbury had too many bitter-sweet recollections, Huntingdon was too easily within reach, at Elmslie he might hear something of Claudia, and at Elmslie he would meet with Anne Cartwright’s tender sympathy, never wanting in tact. At Elmslie, accordingly, he presented himself one day, unannounced, but certain of welcome.
It was Philippa’s shrewdness which first discovered that the times were out of joint.
“Something has happened,” she said to Anne, “and whatever it may be, take my word that Claudia is at the bottom of it.”
“Why?” said Anne, startled. “He hasn’t talked of her at all.”
“And that’s why,” retorted Philippa. “When he left he was on the way to talk a great deal.”
“Then do you suppose?”
“Yes, I suppose she has refused him, and that you will soon hear more about it. He is much too good for her, but I imagine you can’t tell him so?”
“Now you are unfair.”
Philippa laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and went off, rattling her keys. Anne, after a momentary hesitation, left the house, and strolled down to the river, where she found Harry smoking, with Vic stretched by his side. Looking at him with keener attention, she saw something in his eyes which told her that her quicker sister’s surmise, at least as to his unhappiness, was right. He jumped up, and she put her hand on his arm.
“I’m too old for damp grass, but here’s the bench which Claudia hated.” She added, very kindly, “What is it, Harry?”
He laughed queerly.
“Nothing out of the common. I’ve had a spill, and the world is going round a bit—that’s all. It’ll steady itself by-and-by, no doubt. You can’t do anything, Anne, and I’m sure I don’t know why I tell you.”
“Is it Claudia?” asked Anne unheeding.
He nodded.
“And?” She paused.
“She didn’t give me any hope, and I can’t persuade myself that I’ve the ghost of a chance. Still—I suppose I should feel worse if there wasn’t one.” He broke off and laughed again.
“She is very young. Oh, I shouldn’t despair yet,” urged Anne, born consoler.
“Don’t you think you’ve been hasty?”
He pulled Vic’s soft ears.
“Perhaps. I couldn’t wait.”
“Well, as I say, I wouldn’t despair. Give her time.”
“She hasn’t said anything herself?” He was thirsting for a word.
“No. Indeed, Philippa and I have been puzzled that we have heard nothing from Claudia since she first went to the Wilmots’. We don’t want her to feel bound to write, but generally she does. I suppose this explains it.”
“You know about the accident?”
“Accident? No,” said Anne, with alarm. “Oh, she’s all right. But Fenwick, who was with her, got let in rather badly.” And he gave her a brief account of the disaster.
“Oh, poor child!” cried Anne. “How terrible for her! That explains, of course, particularly,”—she smiled—“because she knows we are old-fashioned enough to be a little shy of bicycles. Come, Harry, it seems to me that you have despaired too soon. Try again, later. Her head is filled with other ideas now, but give her time and she will come round.”
Irony is apt to follow on the heels of good advice.
“I don’t know,” said Harry slowly. “I haven’t quite told you all.”
She waited.
“This other man, who got the chance—”
“Captain Fenwick?”
“She thinks me a stay-at-home duffer, as I am; while he—he’s a clever chap, and has been about, and can talk of the things she fancies, and—well, it can’t be helped! Look here, Anne, Philippa must really speak to Smith about that hay.”
If it had been a relief to him to say so much, he was evidently indisposed to say more, and, Anne not being one to force confidences, they talked of indifferent matters, went to see the rick, strolled round the kitchen garden, ate apricots, and were turning towards the house when a maid came out, bringing a letter.
“Oddly enough, this is from Claudia,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.
The next moment, as she glanced through it, she repented having spoken.
“What’s wrong?” demanded Harry, watching her face. As she hesitated, he added quietly, “You had better tell me.”
“It is from Claudia.”
“So you said. Well?”
There was a new peremptoriness in his tone which she recognised.
“She writes about what we talked of,” she said, with difficulty, and keeping her eyes fixed on the letter. “She—she is engaged to this Captain Fenwick. You may read the letter, if you like,” she added more quickly, holding it out to him. He did not take it, and there was a moment’s silence.
“Thank you,” he said, and no more. His voice was hoarse, and she longed to comfort him, not knowing how, and casting about for words.
“This accident—”
He interrupted her.
“It’s over and done with—we won’t talk about it. Can I do anything for you in the town?”
Anne felt with a pang that it was not as in his old boyish troubles, and that the best she could do was to stand aside, and take no notice. She went off with her letter to Philippa, who was not very sympathetic.
“I’m not sorry. Harry will meet with somebody else, somebody, I do hope, without a career. Of course he feels it at first, but he’ll get over it, oh yes, Anne, I’m hardened enough to think so. Give me the letter. What does she say?—um—um—um—‘saved my life at the risk of his own’—that’s strong—‘dreadfully hurt—getting better’—I don’t see what else she could do—‘stay on here for another week or two before going back to Elmslie.’ One thing is certain, Anne, we needn’t have had that new carpet for the bedroom.”
“She doesn’t say much,” commented Anne.
“No, not much. I wonder—”