Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.A fellow traveller introduces herself.The next afternoon Claire started on her journey to London. She had spent the night with friends, and been seen off at the station by quite a crowd of well-wishers. Little souvenirs had been showered upon her all the morning, and everyone had a kindly word, and a hopeful prophecy of the future. There were invitations also, and promises to look her up in her London home, and a perfect shower of violets thrown into the carriage as the train steamed out of the station, and Claire laughed and waved her hand, and looked so complacent and beaming that no one looking on could have guessed the real nature of her journey. She was not pretending to be cheerful, shewascheerful, for, the dreaded parting once over, her optimistic nature had asserted itself, and painted the life ahead in its old rosy colours. Mother was happy and secured from want; she herself was about to enjoy a longed-for taste for independence; then why grumble? asked Claire sensibly of herself, and anything less grumbling than her appearance at that moment it would be hard to imagine.She was beautifully dressed, in the simplest but most becoming of travelling costumes, she was agreeably conscious that the onlookers to her send-off had been unanimously admiring in their regard, and, as she stood arranging her bags on the rack overhead, she saw her own face in the strip of mirror and whole-heartedly agreed in their verdict.“I’m glad I’m pretty! It’s a comfort to be pretty. I should grow so tired of being with myself if I were plain!” she reflected complacently as she settled herself in her corner, and flicked a few grains of dust from the front of her skirt.She had taken a through first-class ticket from sheer force of habit, for Mrs Gifford had always travelled first, and the ways of economy take some time to acquire. In the opposite corner of the carriage sat an elderly woman, obviously English, obviously also of thegrande damespecies, with aquiline features, white hair dressed pompadour fashion, and an expression compounded of indifference and quizzical good humour. The good humour was in the ascendant as she watched the kindly Belgians crowd round her fellow-passenger, envelop her in their arms, murmur tearful farewells, and kiss her soundly on either cheek. The finely marked eyebrows lifted themselves as if in commiseration for the victim, and as the door closed on the last farewell she heaved an involuntary sigh of relief. It was evident that the scene appealed to her entirely from the one standpoint; she saw nothing touching about it, nothing pathetic; she was simply amused, and carelessly scornful of eccentricities in manner or appearance.On the seat beside this imposing personage sat a young woman in black, bearing the hall mark of lady’s maid written all over her in capital letters. She sat stiffly in her seat, one gloved hand on her knee, the other clasped tightly round the handle of a crocodile dressing-bag.Claire felt a passing interest in the pair; reflected that if it were her lot in life to be a maid, she would choose to live on the Continent, where an affectionate intimacy takes the place of this frigid separation, and then, being young and self-engrossed, promptly forgot all about them, and fell to building castles in the air, in which she herself lived in every circumstance of affluence and plenty, beloved and admired of all. There was naturally a prince in the story, a veritable Prince Charming, who was all that the most exacting mind could desire, but the image was vague. Claire’s heart had not yet been touched. She was still in ignorance as to what manner of man she desired.Engaged in these pleasant day-dreams Antwerp was reached before Claire realised that half the distance was covered. On the quay the wind blew chill; on the boat itself it blew chillier still. Claire became aware that she was in for a stormy crossing, but was little perturbed by the fact, since she knew herself to be an unusually good sailor. She tipped the stewardess to fill a hot bottle, put on a cosy dressing-jacket, and lay down in her berth, quite ready for sleep after the fatigue and excitement of the past week.In five minutes the ship and all that was in it was lost in dreams, and, so far as Claire was concerned, it might have been but another five minutes before the stewardess aroused her to announce the arrival at Parkeston Pier. The first glance around proved, however, that the other passengers had found the time all too long. The signs of a bad crossing were written large on the faces of her companions, and there was a trace of resentment in the manner in which they surveyed her active movements. An old lady in a bunk immediately opposite her own seemed especially injured, and did not hesitate to put her feelings into words, “Youhave had a good enough night! I believe you slept right through... Are you aware that the rest of us have been more ill than we’ve ever been in our lives?” she asked in accusing tones. And Claire laughed her happy, gurgling little laugh, and said—“I’msosorry, but it’s all over, isn’t it? And people always say that they feel better afterwards!”The old lady grunted. She certainly looked thoroughly ill and wretched at the moment, her face drawn and yellow beneath her scanty locks, and her whole appearance expressive of an extremity of fatigue. It seemed to her that it was years since she had left the quay at Antwerp, and here was this young thing as blooming as though she had spent the night in her own bed! She hitched a shawl more closely over her shoulders, and called aloud in a high imperious tone—“Mason! Mason! You must really rouse yourself and attend to me. We shall have to land in a few minutes. Get up at once and bring me my things!”The covering of another bunk stirred feebly, and two feet encased in black merino stockings descended slowly to the floor. A moment later a ghastly figure was tottering across the floor, lifting from a box a beautifully waved white wig, and dropping it carefully over the head of the aggrieved old lady of the straggly locks.It was all that Claire could do to keep from exclaiming aloud, as it burst upon her astonished senses that this poor, huddled creature was none other than thegrande dameof the railway carriage, the haughtily indifferent, cynically amused personage who had seemed so supremely superior to the agitations of the common ruck! Strange what changes a few hours’ conflict with the forces of Nature could bring about!Ill as the mistress was, the maid was even worse, and it was pitiful to see the poor creature’s efforts to obey the exigent demands of her employer. In the end faintness overcame her, and if Claire had not rushed to the rescue, she would have fallen on the floor.“It’s no use struggling against it! You must keep still until the boat stops. You’ll feel better at once when we land, and you get into the air.” Claire laid the poor soul in her bunk, and turned back to the old lady who was momentarily growing younger and more formidable, as she continued the stages of her toilette.“Can I help you?” she asked smilingly, and the offer was accepted with gracious composure.“Please do. I should be grateful. Thank you. That hook fastens over here, and the band crosses to this side. The brooch is in my bag—a gold band with some diamonds—and the hat-pins, and a clean handkerchief. Can you manage? ... The clasp slides back.”Claire opened the bag and gazed with admiration at a brownmoiréantique lining, and fittings of tortoiseshell, bearing raised monograms in gold. “I shall have one exactly to match, when I marry my duke!” was the mental reflection, as she selected the articles mentioned and put the final touches to the good lady’s costume.Later on there was Mason to be dressed; later on still, Claire found herself carrying the precious dressing-bag in one hand, and supporting one invalid with the other, while Mason tottered in the wake, unable for the moment to support any other burden than that of her own body.Mrs Fanshawe—Claire had discovered the name on a printed card let into the lining of the bag—had no sympathy to spare for poor Mason. She plainly considered it the height of bad manners for a maid to dare to be sea-sick; but being unused to do anything for herself, gratefully allowed Claire to lead the way, reply to the queries of custom-house officials, secure a corner of a first-class compartment of the waiting train, and bid an attendant bring a cup of tea before the ordinary breakfast began.Mason refused any refreshment, but Mrs Fanshawe momentarily regained her vigour, and was all that was gracious in her acknowledgment of Claire’s help. The quizzical eyes roved over the girl’s face and figure, and evidently approved what they saw, and Claire, smiling back, was conscious of an answering attraction. Thoughtless and domineering as was her behaviour to her inferior, there was yet something in the old lady’s personality which struck an answering chord in the girl’s heart. She was enough of a physiognomist to divine the presence of humour and generosity, combined with a persistent cheerfulness of outlook. The signs of physical age were unmistakable, but the spirit within was young, young as her own!The mutual scrutiny ended in a mutual laugh, which was the last breaking of the ice.“My dear,” cried Mrs Fanshawe, “you must excuse my bad manners! You are so refreshing to look at after all those horrors on the boat that I can’t help staring. And you’ve been so kind! Positively I don’t know how I should have survived without you. Will you tell me your name? I should like to know to whom I am indebted for so much help.”“My name is Claire Gifford.”“Er—yes?” Plainly Mrs Fanshawe felt the information insufficient. “Gifford! I knew some Giffords. Do you belong to the Worcestershire branch?”Claire hitched her shoulders in the true French shrug.“Sais pas! I have no English relations nearer than second cousins, and we have lived abroad so much that we are practically strangers. My father died when I was a child. I went to school in Paris, and for the last few years my mother and I have made our headquarters in Brussels. She married again, only yesterday, and is going to live in Bombay.”Mrs Fanshawe arched surprised brows.“And you are staying behind?”“Yes. They asked me to go. Mr Judge is very kind. He is my—er—stepfather!” Claire shrugged again at the strangeness of that word. “He gave me the warmest of invitations, but I refused. I preferred to be left.”Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself into her corner, planted her feet more firmly on the provisionary footstool, and folded her hands on her knee. She had the air of a person settling down to the enjoyment of a favourite amusement, and indeed her curiosity was a quality well-known to all her acquaintances.“Why?” she asked boldly, and such was the force of her personality that Claire never dreamt for a moment of refusing to reply.“Because I want to be independent.”Mrs Fanshawe rolled her eyes to the hat-rail.“My dear, nonsense! You’re far too pretty. Leave that to the poor creatures who have no chance of finding other people to work for them. You should change your mind, you know, you really should. India’s quite an agreeable place to put in a few years. The English girl is a trifle overdone, but with your complexion you would be bound to have a success. Think it over! Don’t be in a hurry to let the chance slip!”“Ithasslipped. They sail from Marseilles a week from to-day, and besides I don’t want to change. I like the prospect of independence better even than being admired.”“Though you like that, too?”“Of course. Who doesn’t? I’m hoping—with good luck—to be admired in England instead!”“Then you mustn’t be independent!” Mrs Fanshawe said, laughing. “It was the rage a year or two ago; girls had a craze for joining Settlements, and running about in the slums, but it’s quite out of date. Hobble skirts killed it. It’s impossible to be utilitarian in a hobble skirt... And how do you propose to show your independence, may I ask?”“I am going to be French mistress in a High School,” Claire said sturdily, and hated herself because she winced before the eloquent change of expression which passed over her companion’s face.Mrs Fanshawe said, “Oh, really! Howveryinteresting!” and looked about as uninterested the while as a human creature could be. In the pause which followed it was obvious that she was readjusting the first impression of a young gentlewoman belonging to her own leisured class, and preparing herself to cross-question an entirely different person—an ordinary teacher in a High School! There was a touch of patronage in her manner, but it was still quite agreeable Mrs Fanshawe was always agreeable for choice: she found it the best policy, and her indolent nature shrank from disagreeables of every kind. This pretty girl had made herself quite useful, and a chat with her would enliven a dull hour in the train. Curiosity shifted its point, but remained actively in force.“Tell me all about it!” she said suavely. “I know nothing about teachers. Shocking, isn’t it? They alarm me too much. I have a horror of clever women. You don’t look at all clever. I mean that as a compliment—far too pretty and smart, but I suppose you are dreadfully learned, all the same. What are you going to teach?”“French. I am almost as good as a Frenchwoman, for I’ve talked little else for sixteen years. Mother and I spoke English together, or I should have forgotten my own language. It seems, from a scholastic point of view, that it’s a useful blend to possess—perfect French and an English temperament. ‘Mademoiselle’ is not always a model of patience!”“And you think you will be? I prophesy differently. You’ll throw the whole thing up in six months, and fly off to mamma in India. You haven’t the least idea what you are in for, but you’ll find out, you’ll find out! Where is this precious school? In town, did you say? Shall you live in the house or with friends?”“I have no friends in London except Miss Farnborough, the head mistress, but there are fifteen other mistresses besides myself. That will be fifteen friends ready-made. I am going to share lodgings with one of them, and be a bachelor girl on my own account. I’m so excited about it. After living in countries where a girl can’t go to the pillar-box alone, it will be thrilling to be free to do just as I like. Please don’t pity me! I’m going to have great fun.”Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself still further into her corner and smiled a lazy, quizzical smile.“Oh, I don’t pity you—not one bit! All young people nowadays think they are so much wiser than their parents; it’s a wholesome lesson to learn their mistake. You’re a silly, blind, ridiculous little girl, and if I’d been your mother, I should have insisted upon taking you with me, whether you liked it or not. I always wanted a daughter like you—sons are so dull; but perhaps it’s just as well that she never appeared. She might have wanted to be independent, too, in which case we should have quarrelled.—So those fifteen school-mistresses make up your whole social circle, do they? I wouldn’t mind prophesying that you’ll never want to speak a word to them out of school hours! I have a friend living in town, quite a nice woman, with a daughter about your age. Shall I ask her to send you a card? It would be somewhere for you to go on free afternoons, and she entertains a good deal, and has a craze for the feminist movement, and for girls who work for themselves. You might come in for some fun.”Claire’s flush of gratification made her look prettier than ever, and Mrs Fanshawe felt an agreeable glow of self-satisfaction. Nothing she liked better than to play the part of Lady Bountiful, especially when any effort involved was shifted onto the shoulders of another, and in her careless fashion she was really anxious to do this nice girl a good turn. She made a note of Claire’s address in a dainty gold-edged pocket-book, expressed pleasure in the belief that through her friend she would hear reports of the girl’s progress, and presently shut her eyes, and dozed peacefully for the rest of the ride.Round London a fine rain was falling, and the terminus looked bleak and cheerless as the train slowed down the long platform. Mason, still haggard, roused herself to step to the platform and look around as if expecting to see a familiar face, and in the midst of collecting her own impedimenta Claire was conscious that Mrs Fanshawe was distinctly ruffled, when the familiar figure failed to appear. Once more she found herself coming to the rescue, marshalling the combined baggage to the screened portion of the platform where the custom-house officials went through the formalities incidental to the occasion, while the tired passengers stood shiveringly on guard, looking bleached and grey after their night’s journey. The bright-haired, bright-faced girl stood out in pleasant contrast to the rest, trim and smart and dainty as though such a thing as fatigue did not exist. Mrs Fanshawe, looking at her, stopped short in the middle of a mental grumble, and turned it round, so that it ended in being a thanksgiving instead.“Most neglectful of Erskine to fail me after promising he would come... Perhaps, after all, it’s just as well he did not.”And at that moment, with the usual contrariety of fate, Erskine appeared! He came striding along the platform, a big, loosely-built man, with a clean-shaven face, glancing to right and left over the upstanding collar of a tweed coat. He looked at once plain and distinguished, and in the quizzical eyes and beetling eyebrows there was an unmistakable likeness to thegrande damestanding by Claire’s side. Just for a moment he paused, as he came in sight of the group of passengers, and Claire, meeting his glance, knew who he was, even before he came forward and made his greeting.“Holla, Mater! Sorry to be late. Not my fault this time. I was ready all right, but the car did not come round. Had a good crossing?”“My dear, appalling! Don’t talk of it. I was prostrate all night, and Mason too ill to do anything but moan. She’s been no use.”“Poor beggar! She looks pretty green. But— er—” The plain face lighted with an expectant smile as he turned towards the girl who stood by his mother’s side, still holding the precious bag. “You seem to have met a friend...”“Oh—er—yes!” With a gesture of regal graciousness Mrs Fanshawe turned towards the girl, and held out her gloved hand. “Thank yousomuch, Miss Gifford! You’ve been quite too kind. I’m really horribly in your debt. I hope you will find everything as you like, and have a very good time. Thank you again.Good-bye. I’m really dropping with fatigue. What a relief it will be to get to bed!” She turned aside, and laid her hand on her son’s arm. “Erskine, whereisthe car?”Mother and son turned away, and made their way down the platform, leaving Claire with crimson cheeks and fast-beating heart. The little scene which had just happened had been all too easy to understand. The nice son had wished for an introduction to the nice girl who a moment before had seemed on such intimate terms with his mother: the mother had been quite determined that such an introduction should not take place. Claire knew enough of the world to realise how different would have been the proceedings if she had announced herself as a member of the “idle rich,” bound for a course of visits to well-known houses in the country. “May I introduce my son, Miss Gifford? Miss Gifford has been an angel of goodness to me, Erskine. Positively I don’t know what I should have done without her! Do look after her now, and see her into a taxi. Such a mercy to have a man to help!” That was what would have happened to the Claire Gifford of a week before, but now for the first time Claire experienced a taste of the disagreeables attendant on her changed circumstances, and it was bitter to her mouth. All very well to remind herself that work was honourable, that anyone who looked down on her for choosing to be independent was not worth a moment’s thought, the fact remained that for the first, the very first time in her life she had been made to feel that there was a barrier between herself and a member of her own class, and that, however willing Mrs Fanshawe might be to introduce her to a casual friend, she was unwilling to make her known to her own son!Claire stood stiff and poker-like at her post, determined to make no movement until Mrs Fanshawe and her attendants had taken their departure. The storm of indignation and wounded pride which was surging through her veins distracted her mind from her surroundings; she was dimly conscious that one after another, her fellow-passengers had taken their departure, preceded by a porter trundling a truck of luggage; conscious that where there had been a crowd, there was now a space, until eventually with a shock of surprise she discovered that she was standing alone, by her own little pile of boxes. At that she shook herself impatiently, beckoned to a porter and was about to walk ahead, when an uneasy suspicion made itself felt. The luggage! Something was wrong. The pile looked smaller than it had done ten minutes before. She made a rapid circuit, and made a horrible discovery. A box was missing! The dress-box containing the skirts of all her best frocks, spread at full length and carefully padded with tissue paper. It had been there ten minutes ago; the custom-house officer had given it a special rap. She distinctly remembered noticing a new scratch on the leather. Where in the name of everything that was inexplicable could it have disappeared? Appealed to for information the porter was not illuminating. “If it had been there before, why wasn’t it there now? Was the ladysureshe had seen it? Might have been left behind at Antwerp or Parkeston. Better telegraph and see! If it had been there before, why wasn’t it there now? Mistakes did happen. Boxes were much alike. P’raps it was left in the van. If it was there ten minutes before, why wasn’t it—”Claire stopped him with an imperious hand.“That’s enough! Itwasthere: I saw it. I counted the pieces before the custom-house officer came along. I noticed it especially. Someone must have taken it by mistake.”The porter shook his head darkly.“On purpose, more like! Funny people crosses by this route. Funny thing that you didn’t notice—”Claire found nothing funny in the reflection. She was furious with herself for her carelessness, and still more furious with Mrs Fanshawe as the cause thereof. Down the platform she stalked, a picture of vivid impetuous youth, head thrown back, cheeks aflame, grey eyes sending out flashes of indignation. Every porter who came in her way was stopped and imperiously questioned as to his late load, every porter was in his turn waved impatiently away. Claire was growing seriously alarmed. Suppose the box was lost! It would be as bad as losingtwoboxes, for of what use were bodices minus skirts to match? Never again would she be guilty of the folly of packing bits of the same costumes in different boxes. How awful—how awful beyond words to arrive in London without a decent dress to wear!Whirling suddenly round to pursue yet another porter, Claire became aware of a figure in a long tweed coat standing on the space beside the taxi-stand, intently watching her movements. She recognised him in a moment as none other than “Erskine” himself, who, having seen his mother into her car, was presumably bound for another destination. But why was he standing there? Why had he been so long in moving away? Claire hastily averted her eyes, but as she cross-questioned porter number four, she was aware that the tall figure was drawing nearer, and presently he was standing by her side, taking off his hat, and saying in the most courteous and deferential of tones—“Excuse me—I’m afraid something is wrong! Can I be of any assistance?”Claire’s glance was frigid in its coldness; but it was difficult to remain frigid in face of the man’s obvious sincerity and kindliness.“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Please don’t trouble. I can manage quite well. It’s only a trunk...”“Is it lost? I say—what a fag! Do let me help. I know this station by heart! If it is to be found, I am sure I can get it for you.”This time there was a distinct air of appeal in his deep voice. Claire divined that the nice man was anxious to atone for his mother’s cavalier behaviour, and her heart softened towards him. After all, why should she punish herself by refusing? Five minutes more or less on the station platform could make no difference one way or another, for at the end they would wish each other a polite adieu, and part never to meet again. And shedidwant that box!She smiled, and sighed, and looked delightfully pretty and appealing, as she said frankly—“Thank you, Ishouldbe grateful for suggestions. It’s the most extraordinary and provoking thing—”They walked slowly down the platform while she explained the situation, and reiterated the fact that she had seen the box ten minutes before. Erskine Fanshawe did not dispute the statement as each porter had done before him; he contented himself with asking if there was any distinctive feature in the appearance of the box itself.Claire shook her head.“The ordinary brown leather, with strappings and C.G. on one side. Just like a thousand other boxes, but it had a label, beside the initials. I don’t see how anyone can have taken it by mistake.” She set her teeth, and her head took a defiant tilt. “There’s one comfort; if itisstolen, whoever has taken it will not get much for her pains! There’s nothing in it but skirts. Skirts won’t be much good without the bodices to match!”The man looked down at her, his expression comically compounded of sympathy and humour. At that moment, despite the irregularity of his features, he looked wonderfully like his handsome mother.“Er—just so! Unfortunately, however, from the opposite point of view, you find yourself in the same position! Bodices, I presume, without skirts—”Claire groaned, and held up a protesting hand.“Don’t! I can’t bear it. It’s really devastating. My whole outfit—at one fell sweep!”“Isn’t it—excuse my suggesting it—rather a mistake to—er—divide pieces of the same garment,sothat if one trunk should be lost, the loss practically extends to two?”“No, it isn’t. It’s the only sensible thing to do,” Claire said obstinately. “Skirts must be packed at full length, and a dress-box is made for that very purpose. All the same, I shall never do it again. It’s no use being sensible if you have to contend with—thieves!”“I don’t think we need leap to that conclusion just yet. You have only spoken to two or three porters. We’d better wait about a few minutes longer until the other men come back. Very likely the box was put on a truck by accident, and if the mistake was discovered before it was put on the taxi, it would be sent back to see if its owner were waiting here. If it doesn’t turn up at once, you mustn’t be discouraged. The odds are ten to one that it’s only a mistake, and in that case when the taxi is unloaded, the box will be sent back to the lost luggage office, or forwarded to your address. Was the full address on the box, by the way?”Claire nodded assent.“Oh, yes; I have that poor satisfaction at least. I was most methodical and prudent, but I don’t know that that’s going to be much consolation if I lose my nice frocks, and am too poor to buy any more.”The last phrase was prompted by a proud determination to sail under no false colours in the eyes of Mrs Fanshawe’s son; but the picture evoked thereby was sufficiently tragic to bring a cloud over her face. The memory of each separate gown rose before her, looking distractingly dainty and becoming; she saw a vision of herself as she might have been, and faced a future bounded by eternal blue serge. All the tragedy of the thought was in her air, and her companion cried quickly—“You won’t need to buy them! They’ll turn up all right, I am quite sure of that. The worst that can happen is a day or two’s delay. After all, you know, there are thousands of honest folk to a single thief, and even a thief would probably prefer a small money reward to useless halves of dresses! If you hear nothing by to-morrow, you might offer a reward.”“Oh, I will!” Claire said gratefully. “Thank you for thinking of it.”No more porters having for the moment appeared in sight, they now turned, and slowly retraced their steps. Claire, covertly regarding her companion, wondered why she felt convinced that he was a soldier; Erskine Fanshawe in his turn covertly regarded Claire, and wondered why it was that she seemed different from any girl he had seen before. Then tentatively he put a personal question.“Do you know London well, Miss Gifford? My mother told me you were—er—coming to settle—”“Not at all well, as a whole. I know the little bit around Regent Street, and the Park, and the places one sees in a week’s visit, but that’s all. We never stayed long in town when we came to England. I shall enjoy exploring on half holidays when I am free from work. I am a school-mistress!” said Claire with an air, and gathered from her companion’s face that he knew as much already, and considered it a subject for commiseration. He looked at her with sympathetic eyes, and asked deeply—“Hate it very much?”“Not at all. Quite the contrary. I adore it. At least, that’s to say, I haven’t begun yet, but I feel sure Ishall!” Claire cried ardently; and at that they both laughed with a delightful sense of understanding andcamaraderie. At that moment Claire felt a distinct pang at the thought that never again would she have the opportunity of speaking and laughing with this attractive, eminently companionable man; then her attention was distracted by the appearance of two more porters, who had each to be interviewed in his turn.They had no good news to give, however, so the searchers left the platform in disgust, and repaired to the office for lost luggage, where the story of the missing box was recounted to an unsympathetic clerk. When a man spends his whole life listening to complaints of missing property, he can hardly be expected to show a vehement distress at the loss of yet another passenger, but to Claire at this moment there was something quite brutal in his callous indifference. The one suggestion which he had to make was that she could leave her name, and the manner in which it was given was a death-blow to hope.At this very moment, however, just as Claire was bending forward to dictate the desired information she felt a touch on her arm, and looking in the direction of Mr Fanshawe’s outstretched hand, beheld a porter approaching the office, trundling before him a truck on which reposed in solitary splendour, a long brown dress-box, and oh, joy of joys! even at the present distance the white letters C.G. could be plainly distinguished on the nearer side! Claire’s dignity went to the winds at that sight, and she dashed forward to meet her property with the joyous impetuosity of a child.The explanation was simple to a degree, and precisely agreed with Mr Fanshawe’s surmise as to what had really happened. During Claire’s trance of forgetfulness, the box had been wheeled away, with a large consignment of luggage, and the mistake discovered only when the various items were in process of being packed into a company’s omnibus, when, there being no one at hand to claim it, it had been conveyed—by very leisurely stages—to the lost luggage office.All’s well that ends well! Claire gleefully collected her possessions, feeling a glow of delight in the safety which an hour before she would have taken as a matter of course, and stood at attention while each separate item was placed on the roof of the taxi. The little addresses of which she had boasted were duly inserted in leather framings on each box, the delicate writing too small to be deciphered, except near at hand. Claire saw her companion’s eyes contract in an evident effort to distinguish the words, and immediately moved her position so as to frustrate his purpose. She did not intend Mr Fanshawe to know her address! When she was seated in the taxi, however, there came an awkward moment, for her companion waved the chauffeur to his seat, and stood by the window looking in at her, with a face which seemed unduly serious and earnest, considering the extremely slight nature of their acquaintance.“Well! I am thankful the box turned up. I shall think of you enjoying your re-united frocks... Sure you’ve got everything all right? Where shall I tell the man to drive?”For the fraction of a second Claire’s eyes flickered, then she spoke in decided tones.“‘The Grand Hotel.’”Mr Fanshawe’s eyes flickered too, and turned involuntarily towards the boxes on the roof. What exactly were the words on the labels he could not see, but at least it was certain that they were not “The Grand Hotel!” He turned from the inspection to confront a flushed, obstinate face.“Do you wish me to give the man that address?”“I do.”Very deliberately and quietly Mr Fanshawe stepped back a pace, opened his long coat, and fumbled in an inner pocket for a leather pocket-book; very quietly and deliberately he drew from one bulging division a visiting card, and held it towards her. Claire caught the word “Captain” and saw that an address was printed in the corner, but she covered it hastily with her hand, refusing a second glance. Captain Fanshawe leant his arm on the window sash and said hesitatingly—“Will you allow me to give you my card! As you are a stranger in town and your people away, there may possibly be—er—occasions, when it would be convenient to know some man whom you could make of use. Please remember me if they do come along! It would be a privilege to repay your kindness to my mother... Send me a wire at any time, and I am at your service. I hope youwillsend. Good morning!”“Good-bye!” said Claire. Red as a rose was she at that moment, but very dignified and stately, bending towards him in a sweeping bow, as the taxi rolled away. The last glimpse of Captain Fanshawe showed him standing with uplifted hat, the keen eyes staring after her, with not a glint of humour in their grey depths. Quite evidently he meant what he said. Quite evidently he was as keen to pursue her acquaintance as his mother had been to drop it.Claire Gifford sat bolt upright on her seat, the slip of cardboard clasped within her palms, and as she sat she thought many thoughts. A physiognomist would have been interested to trace the progress of those thoughts on the eloquent young face. There was surprise written there, and obvious gratification, and a demure, very feminine content; later on came pride, and a general stiffening of determination. The spoiled child of liberty and the High School-Mistress of the future had fought a heated battle, and the High School-Mistress had won.Deliberately turning aside her eyes, so that no word of that printed address should obtrude itself on her notice, Claire tore the card sharply across and across, and threw the fragments out of the window.A moment later she whistled through the tube, and instructed the chauffeur as to her change of address.Adieu to the Fanshawes, and all such luxuries of the past. Heigh-ho for hard work, and lodgings at fifteen shillings a week!

The next afternoon Claire started on her journey to London. She had spent the night with friends, and been seen off at the station by quite a crowd of well-wishers. Little souvenirs had been showered upon her all the morning, and everyone had a kindly word, and a hopeful prophecy of the future. There were invitations also, and promises to look her up in her London home, and a perfect shower of violets thrown into the carriage as the train steamed out of the station, and Claire laughed and waved her hand, and looked so complacent and beaming that no one looking on could have guessed the real nature of her journey. She was not pretending to be cheerful, shewascheerful, for, the dreaded parting once over, her optimistic nature had asserted itself, and painted the life ahead in its old rosy colours. Mother was happy and secured from want; she herself was about to enjoy a longed-for taste for independence; then why grumble? asked Claire sensibly of herself, and anything less grumbling than her appearance at that moment it would be hard to imagine.

She was beautifully dressed, in the simplest but most becoming of travelling costumes, she was agreeably conscious that the onlookers to her send-off had been unanimously admiring in their regard, and, as she stood arranging her bags on the rack overhead, she saw her own face in the strip of mirror and whole-heartedly agreed in their verdict.

“I’m glad I’m pretty! It’s a comfort to be pretty. I should grow so tired of being with myself if I were plain!” she reflected complacently as she settled herself in her corner, and flicked a few grains of dust from the front of her skirt.

She had taken a through first-class ticket from sheer force of habit, for Mrs Gifford had always travelled first, and the ways of economy take some time to acquire. In the opposite corner of the carriage sat an elderly woman, obviously English, obviously also of thegrande damespecies, with aquiline features, white hair dressed pompadour fashion, and an expression compounded of indifference and quizzical good humour. The good humour was in the ascendant as she watched the kindly Belgians crowd round her fellow-passenger, envelop her in their arms, murmur tearful farewells, and kiss her soundly on either cheek. The finely marked eyebrows lifted themselves as if in commiseration for the victim, and as the door closed on the last farewell she heaved an involuntary sigh of relief. It was evident that the scene appealed to her entirely from the one standpoint; she saw nothing touching about it, nothing pathetic; she was simply amused, and carelessly scornful of eccentricities in manner or appearance.

On the seat beside this imposing personage sat a young woman in black, bearing the hall mark of lady’s maid written all over her in capital letters. She sat stiffly in her seat, one gloved hand on her knee, the other clasped tightly round the handle of a crocodile dressing-bag.

Claire felt a passing interest in the pair; reflected that if it were her lot in life to be a maid, she would choose to live on the Continent, where an affectionate intimacy takes the place of this frigid separation, and then, being young and self-engrossed, promptly forgot all about them, and fell to building castles in the air, in which she herself lived in every circumstance of affluence and plenty, beloved and admired of all. There was naturally a prince in the story, a veritable Prince Charming, who was all that the most exacting mind could desire, but the image was vague. Claire’s heart had not yet been touched. She was still in ignorance as to what manner of man she desired.

Engaged in these pleasant day-dreams Antwerp was reached before Claire realised that half the distance was covered. On the quay the wind blew chill; on the boat itself it blew chillier still. Claire became aware that she was in for a stormy crossing, but was little perturbed by the fact, since she knew herself to be an unusually good sailor. She tipped the stewardess to fill a hot bottle, put on a cosy dressing-jacket, and lay down in her berth, quite ready for sleep after the fatigue and excitement of the past week.

In five minutes the ship and all that was in it was lost in dreams, and, so far as Claire was concerned, it might have been but another five minutes before the stewardess aroused her to announce the arrival at Parkeston Pier. The first glance around proved, however, that the other passengers had found the time all too long. The signs of a bad crossing were written large on the faces of her companions, and there was a trace of resentment in the manner in which they surveyed her active movements. An old lady in a bunk immediately opposite her own seemed especially injured, and did not hesitate to put her feelings into words, “Youhave had a good enough night! I believe you slept right through... Are you aware that the rest of us have been more ill than we’ve ever been in our lives?” she asked in accusing tones. And Claire laughed her happy, gurgling little laugh, and said—

“I’msosorry, but it’s all over, isn’t it? And people always say that they feel better afterwards!”

The old lady grunted. She certainly looked thoroughly ill and wretched at the moment, her face drawn and yellow beneath her scanty locks, and her whole appearance expressive of an extremity of fatigue. It seemed to her that it was years since she had left the quay at Antwerp, and here was this young thing as blooming as though she had spent the night in her own bed! She hitched a shawl more closely over her shoulders, and called aloud in a high imperious tone—

“Mason! Mason! You must really rouse yourself and attend to me. We shall have to land in a few minutes. Get up at once and bring me my things!”

The covering of another bunk stirred feebly, and two feet encased in black merino stockings descended slowly to the floor. A moment later a ghastly figure was tottering across the floor, lifting from a box a beautifully waved white wig, and dropping it carefully over the head of the aggrieved old lady of the straggly locks.

It was all that Claire could do to keep from exclaiming aloud, as it burst upon her astonished senses that this poor, huddled creature was none other than thegrande dameof the railway carriage, the haughtily indifferent, cynically amused personage who had seemed so supremely superior to the agitations of the common ruck! Strange what changes a few hours’ conflict with the forces of Nature could bring about!

Ill as the mistress was, the maid was even worse, and it was pitiful to see the poor creature’s efforts to obey the exigent demands of her employer. In the end faintness overcame her, and if Claire had not rushed to the rescue, she would have fallen on the floor.

“It’s no use struggling against it! You must keep still until the boat stops. You’ll feel better at once when we land, and you get into the air.” Claire laid the poor soul in her bunk, and turned back to the old lady who was momentarily growing younger and more formidable, as she continued the stages of her toilette.

“Can I help you?” she asked smilingly, and the offer was accepted with gracious composure.

“Please do. I should be grateful. Thank you. That hook fastens over here, and the band crosses to this side. The brooch is in my bag—a gold band with some diamonds—and the hat-pins, and a clean handkerchief. Can you manage? ... The clasp slides back.”

Claire opened the bag and gazed with admiration at a brownmoiréantique lining, and fittings of tortoiseshell, bearing raised monograms in gold. “I shall have one exactly to match, when I marry my duke!” was the mental reflection, as she selected the articles mentioned and put the final touches to the good lady’s costume.

Later on there was Mason to be dressed; later on still, Claire found herself carrying the precious dressing-bag in one hand, and supporting one invalid with the other, while Mason tottered in the wake, unable for the moment to support any other burden than that of her own body.

Mrs Fanshawe—Claire had discovered the name on a printed card let into the lining of the bag—had no sympathy to spare for poor Mason. She plainly considered it the height of bad manners for a maid to dare to be sea-sick; but being unused to do anything for herself, gratefully allowed Claire to lead the way, reply to the queries of custom-house officials, secure a corner of a first-class compartment of the waiting train, and bid an attendant bring a cup of tea before the ordinary breakfast began.

Mason refused any refreshment, but Mrs Fanshawe momentarily regained her vigour, and was all that was gracious in her acknowledgment of Claire’s help. The quizzical eyes roved over the girl’s face and figure, and evidently approved what they saw, and Claire, smiling back, was conscious of an answering attraction. Thoughtless and domineering as was her behaviour to her inferior, there was yet something in the old lady’s personality which struck an answering chord in the girl’s heart. She was enough of a physiognomist to divine the presence of humour and generosity, combined with a persistent cheerfulness of outlook. The signs of physical age were unmistakable, but the spirit within was young, young as her own!

The mutual scrutiny ended in a mutual laugh, which was the last breaking of the ice.

“My dear,” cried Mrs Fanshawe, “you must excuse my bad manners! You are so refreshing to look at after all those horrors on the boat that I can’t help staring. And you’ve been so kind! Positively I don’t know how I should have survived without you. Will you tell me your name? I should like to know to whom I am indebted for so much help.”

“My name is Claire Gifford.”

“Er—yes?” Plainly Mrs Fanshawe felt the information insufficient. “Gifford! I knew some Giffords. Do you belong to the Worcestershire branch?”

Claire hitched her shoulders in the true French shrug.

“Sais pas! I have no English relations nearer than second cousins, and we have lived abroad so much that we are practically strangers. My father died when I was a child. I went to school in Paris, and for the last few years my mother and I have made our headquarters in Brussels. She married again, only yesterday, and is going to live in Bombay.”

Mrs Fanshawe arched surprised brows.

“And you are staying behind?”

“Yes. They asked me to go. Mr Judge is very kind. He is my—er—stepfather!” Claire shrugged again at the strangeness of that word. “He gave me the warmest of invitations, but I refused. I preferred to be left.”

Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself into her corner, planted her feet more firmly on the provisionary footstool, and folded her hands on her knee. She had the air of a person settling down to the enjoyment of a favourite amusement, and indeed her curiosity was a quality well-known to all her acquaintances.

“Why?” she asked boldly, and such was the force of her personality that Claire never dreamt for a moment of refusing to reply.

“Because I want to be independent.”

Mrs Fanshawe rolled her eyes to the hat-rail.

“My dear, nonsense! You’re far too pretty. Leave that to the poor creatures who have no chance of finding other people to work for them. You should change your mind, you know, you really should. India’s quite an agreeable place to put in a few years. The English girl is a trifle overdone, but with your complexion you would be bound to have a success. Think it over! Don’t be in a hurry to let the chance slip!”

“Ithasslipped. They sail from Marseilles a week from to-day, and besides I don’t want to change. I like the prospect of independence better even than being admired.”

“Though you like that, too?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t? I’m hoping—with good luck—to be admired in England instead!”

“Then you mustn’t be independent!” Mrs Fanshawe said, laughing. “It was the rage a year or two ago; girls had a craze for joining Settlements, and running about in the slums, but it’s quite out of date. Hobble skirts killed it. It’s impossible to be utilitarian in a hobble skirt... And how do you propose to show your independence, may I ask?”

“I am going to be French mistress in a High School,” Claire said sturdily, and hated herself because she winced before the eloquent change of expression which passed over her companion’s face.

Mrs Fanshawe said, “Oh, really! Howveryinteresting!” and looked about as uninterested the while as a human creature could be. In the pause which followed it was obvious that she was readjusting the first impression of a young gentlewoman belonging to her own leisured class, and preparing herself to cross-question an entirely different person—an ordinary teacher in a High School! There was a touch of patronage in her manner, but it was still quite agreeable Mrs Fanshawe was always agreeable for choice: she found it the best policy, and her indolent nature shrank from disagreeables of every kind. This pretty girl had made herself quite useful, and a chat with her would enliven a dull hour in the train. Curiosity shifted its point, but remained actively in force.

“Tell me all about it!” she said suavely. “I know nothing about teachers. Shocking, isn’t it? They alarm me too much. I have a horror of clever women. You don’t look at all clever. I mean that as a compliment—far too pretty and smart, but I suppose you are dreadfully learned, all the same. What are you going to teach?”

“French. I am almost as good as a Frenchwoman, for I’ve talked little else for sixteen years. Mother and I spoke English together, or I should have forgotten my own language. It seems, from a scholastic point of view, that it’s a useful blend to possess—perfect French and an English temperament. ‘Mademoiselle’ is not always a model of patience!”

“And you think you will be? I prophesy differently. You’ll throw the whole thing up in six months, and fly off to mamma in India. You haven’t the least idea what you are in for, but you’ll find out, you’ll find out! Where is this precious school? In town, did you say? Shall you live in the house or with friends?”

“I have no friends in London except Miss Farnborough, the head mistress, but there are fifteen other mistresses besides myself. That will be fifteen friends ready-made. I am going to share lodgings with one of them, and be a bachelor girl on my own account. I’m so excited about it. After living in countries where a girl can’t go to the pillar-box alone, it will be thrilling to be free to do just as I like. Please don’t pity me! I’m going to have great fun.”

Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself still further into her corner and smiled a lazy, quizzical smile.

“Oh, I don’t pity you—not one bit! All young people nowadays think they are so much wiser than their parents; it’s a wholesome lesson to learn their mistake. You’re a silly, blind, ridiculous little girl, and if I’d been your mother, I should have insisted upon taking you with me, whether you liked it or not. I always wanted a daughter like you—sons are so dull; but perhaps it’s just as well that she never appeared. She might have wanted to be independent, too, in which case we should have quarrelled.—So those fifteen school-mistresses make up your whole social circle, do they? I wouldn’t mind prophesying that you’ll never want to speak a word to them out of school hours! I have a friend living in town, quite a nice woman, with a daughter about your age. Shall I ask her to send you a card? It would be somewhere for you to go on free afternoons, and she entertains a good deal, and has a craze for the feminist movement, and for girls who work for themselves. You might come in for some fun.”

Claire’s flush of gratification made her look prettier than ever, and Mrs Fanshawe felt an agreeable glow of self-satisfaction. Nothing she liked better than to play the part of Lady Bountiful, especially when any effort involved was shifted onto the shoulders of another, and in her careless fashion she was really anxious to do this nice girl a good turn. She made a note of Claire’s address in a dainty gold-edged pocket-book, expressed pleasure in the belief that through her friend she would hear reports of the girl’s progress, and presently shut her eyes, and dozed peacefully for the rest of the ride.

Round London a fine rain was falling, and the terminus looked bleak and cheerless as the train slowed down the long platform. Mason, still haggard, roused herself to step to the platform and look around as if expecting to see a familiar face, and in the midst of collecting her own impedimenta Claire was conscious that Mrs Fanshawe was distinctly ruffled, when the familiar figure failed to appear. Once more she found herself coming to the rescue, marshalling the combined baggage to the screened portion of the platform where the custom-house officials went through the formalities incidental to the occasion, while the tired passengers stood shiveringly on guard, looking bleached and grey after their night’s journey. The bright-haired, bright-faced girl stood out in pleasant contrast to the rest, trim and smart and dainty as though such a thing as fatigue did not exist. Mrs Fanshawe, looking at her, stopped short in the middle of a mental grumble, and turned it round, so that it ended in being a thanksgiving instead.

“Most neglectful of Erskine to fail me after promising he would come... Perhaps, after all, it’s just as well he did not.”

And at that moment, with the usual contrariety of fate, Erskine appeared! He came striding along the platform, a big, loosely-built man, with a clean-shaven face, glancing to right and left over the upstanding collar of a tweed coat. He looked at once plain and distinguished, and in the quizzical eyes and beetling eyebrows there was an unmistakable likeness to thegrande damestanding by Claire’s side. Just for a moment he paused, as he came in sight of the group of passengers, and Claire, meeting his glance, knew who he was, even before he came forward and made his greeting.

“Holla, Mater! Sorry to be late. Not my fault this time. I was ready all right, but the car did not come round. Had a good crossing?”

“My dear, appalling! Don’t talk of it. I was prostrate all night, and Mason too ill to do anything but moan. She’s been no use.”

“Poor beggar! She looks pretty green. But— er—” The plain face lighted with an expectant smile as he turned towards the girl who stood by his mother’s side, still holding the precious bag. “You seem to have met a friend...”

“Oh—er—yes!” With a gesture of regal graciousness Mrs Fanshawe turned towards the girl, and held out her gloved hand. “Thank yousomuch, Miss Gifford! You’ve been quite too kind. I’m really horribly in your debt. I hope you will find everything as you like, and have a very good time. Thank you again.Good-bye. I’m really dropping with fatigue. What a relief it will be to get to bed!” She turned aside, and laid her hand on her son’s arm. “Erskine, whereisthe car?”

Mother and son turned away, and made their way down the platform, leaving Claire with crimson cheeks and fast-beating heart. The little scene which had just happened had been all too easy to understand. The nice son had wished for an introduction to the nice girl who a moment before had seemed on such intimate terms with his mother: the mother had been quite determined that such an introduction should not take place. Claire knew enough of the world to realise how different would have been the proceedings if she had announced herself as a member of the “idle rich,” bound for a course of visits to well-known houses in the country. “May I introduce my son, Miss Gifford? Miss Gifford has been an angel of goodness to me, Erskine. Positively I don’t know what I should have done without her! Do look after her now, and see her into a taxi. Such a mercy to have a man to help!” That was what would have happened to the Claire Gifford of a week before, but now for the first time Claire experienced a taste of the disagreeables attendant on her changed circumstances, and it was bitter to her mouth. All very well to remind herself that work was honourable, that anyone who looked down on her for choosing to be independent was not worth a moment’s thought, the fact remained that for the first, the very first time in her life she had been made to feel that there was a barrier between herself and a member of her own class, and that, however willing Mrs Fanshawe might be to introduce her to a casual friend, she was unwilling to make her known to her own son!

Claire stood stiff and poker-like at her post, determined to make no movement until Mrs Fanshawe and her attendants had taken their departure. The storm of indignation and wounded pride which was surging through her veins distracted her mind from her surroundings; she was dimly conscious that one after another, her fellow-passengers had taken their departure, preceded by a porter trundling a truck of luggage; conscious that where there had been a crowd, there was now a space, until eventually with a shock of surprise she discovered that she was standing alone, by her own little pile of boxes. At that she shook herself impatiently, beckoned to a porter and was about to walk ahead, when an uneasy suspicion made itself felt. The luggage! Something was wrong. The pile looked smaller than it had done ten minutes before. She made a rapid circuit, and made a horrible discovery. A box was missing! The dress-box containing the skirts of all her best frocks, spread at full length and carefully padded with tissue paper. It had been there ten minutes ago; the custom-house officer had given it a special rap. She distinctly remembered noticing a new scratch on the leather. Where in the name of everything that was inexplicable could it have disappeared? Appealed to for information the porter was not illuminating. “If it had been there before, why wasn’t it there now? Was the ladysureshe had seen it? Might have been left behind at Antwerp or Parkeston. Better telegraph and see! If it had been there before, why wasn’t it there now? Mistakes did happen. Boxes were much alike. P’raps it was left in the van. If it was there ten minutes before, why wasn’t it—”

Claire stopped him with an imperious hand.

“That’s enough! Itwasthere: I saw it. I counted the pieces before the custom-house officer came along. I noticed it especially. Someone must have taken it by mistake.”

The porter shook his head darkly.

“On purpose, more like! Funny people crosses by this route. Funny thing that you didn’t notice—”

Claire found nothing funny in the reflection. She was furious with herself for her carelessness, and still more furious with Mrs Fanshawe as the cause thereof. Down the platform she stalked, a picture of vivid impetuous youth, head thrown back, cheeks aflame, grey eyes sending out flashes of indignation. Every porter who came in her way was stopped and imperiously questioned as to his late load, every porter was in his turn waved impatiently away. Claire was growing seriously alarmed. Suppose the box was lost! It would be as bad as losingtwoboxes, for of what use were bodices minus skirts to match? Never again would she be guilty of the folly of packing bits of the same costumes in different boxes. How awful—how awful beyond words to arrive in London without a decent dress to wear!

Whirling suddenly round to pursue yet another porter, Claire became aware of a figure in a long tweed coat standing on the space beside the taxi-stand, intently watching her movements. She recognised him in a moment as none other than “Erskine” himself, who, having seen his mother into her car, was presumably bound for another destination. But why was he standing there? Why had he been so long in moving away? Claire hastily averted her eyes, but as she cross-questioned porter number four, she was aware that the tall figure was drawing nearer, and presently he was standing by her side, taking off his hat, and saying in the most courteous and deferential of tones—

“Excuse me—I’m afraid something is wrong! Can I be of any assistance?”

Claire’s glance was frigid in its coldness; but it was difficult to remain frigid in face of the man’s obvious sincerity and kindliness.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Please don’t trouble. I can manage quite well. It’s only a trunk...”

“Is it lost? I say—what a fag! Do let me help. I know this station by heart! If it is to be found, I am sure I can get it for you.”

This time there was a distinct air of appeal in his deep voice. Claire divined that the nice man was anxious to atone for his mother’s cavalier behaviour, and her heart softened towards him. After all, why should she punish herself by refusing? Five minutes more or less on the station platform could make no difference one way or another, for at the end they would wish each other a polite adieu, and part never to meet again. And shedidwant that box!

She smiled, and sighed, and looked delightfully pretty and appealing, as she said frankly—

“Thank you, Ishouldbe grateful for suggestions. It’s the most extraordinary and provoking thing—”

They walked slowly down the platform while she explained the situation, and reiterated the fact that she had seen the box ten minutes before. Erskine Fanshawe did not dispute the statement as each porter had done before him; he contented himself with asking if there was any distinctive feature in the appearance of the box itself.

Claire shook her head.

“The ordinary brown leather, with strappings and C.G. on one side. Just like a thousand other boxes, but it had a label, beside the initials. I don’t see how anyone can have taken it by mistake.” She set her teeth, and her head took a defiant tilt. “There’s one comfort; if itisstolen, whoever has taken it will not get much for her pains! There’s nothing in it but skirts. Skirts won’t be much good without the bodices to match!”

The man looked down at her, his expression comically compounded of sympathy and humour. At that moment, despite the irregularity of his features, he looked wonderfully like his handsome mother.

“Er—just so! Unfortunately, however, from the opposite point of view, you find yourself in the same position! Bodices, I presume, without skirts—”

Claire groaned, and held up a protesting hand.

“Don’t! I can’t bear it. It’s really devastating. My whole outfit—at one fell sweep!”

“Isn’t it—excuse my suggesting it—rather a mistake to—er—divide pieces of the same garment,sothat if one trunk should be lost, the loss practically extends to two?”

“No, it isn’t. It’s the only sensible thing to do,” Claire said obstinately. “Skirts must be packed at full length, and a dress-box is made for that very purpose. All the same, I shall never do it again. It’s no use being sensible if you have to contend with—thieves!”

“I don’t think we need leap to that conclusion just yet. You have only spoken to two or three porters. We’d better wait about a few minutes longer until the other men come back. Very likely the box was put on a truck by accident, and if the mistake was discovered before it was put on the taxi, it would be sent back to see if its owner were waiting here. If it doesn’t turn up at once, you mustn’t be discouraged. The odds are ten to one that it’s only a mistake, and in that case when the taxi is unloaded, the box will be sent back to the lost luggage office, or forwarded to your address. Was the full address on the box, by the way?”

Claire nodded assent.

“Oh, yes; I have that poor satisfaction at least. I was most methodical and prudent, but I don’t know that that’s going to be much consolation if I lose my nice frocks, and am too poor to buy any more.”

The last phrase was prompted by a proud determination to sail under no false colours in the eyes of Mrs Fanshawe’s son; but the picture evoked thereby was sufficiently tragic to bring a cloud over her face. The memory of each separate gown rose before her, looking distractingly dainty and becoming; she saw a vision of herself as she might have been, and faced a future bounded by eternal blue serge. All the tragedy of the thought was in her air, and her companion cried quickly—

“You won’t need to buy them! They’ll turn up all right, I am quite sure of that. The worst that can happen is a day or two’s delay. After all, you know, there are thousands of honest folk to a single thief, and even a thief would probably prefer a small money reward to useless halves of dresses! If you hear nothing by to-morrow, you might offer a reward.”

“Oh, I will!” Claire said gratefully. “Thank you for thinking of it.”

No more porters having for the moment appeared in sight, they now turned, and slowly retraced their steps. Claire, covertly regarding her companion, wondered why she felt convinced that he was a soldier; Erskine Fanshawe in his turn covertly regarded Claire, and wondered why it was that she seemed different from any girl he had seen before. Then tentatively he put a personal question.

“Do you know London well, Miss Gifford? My mother told me you were—er—coming to settle—”

“Not at all well, as a whole. I know the little bit around Regent Street, and the Park, and the places one sees in a week’s visit, but that’s all. We never stayed long in town when we came to England. I shall enjoy exploring on half holidays when I am free from work. I am a school-mistress!” said Claire with an air, and gathered from her companion’s face that he knew as much already, and considered it a subject for commiseration. He looked at her with sympathetic eyes, and asked deeply—

“Hate it very much?”

“Not at all. Quite the contrary. I adore it. At least, that’s to say, I haven’t begun yet, but I feel sure Ishall!” Claire cried ardently; and at that they both laughed with a delightful sense of understanding andcamaraderie. At that moment Claire felt a distinct pang at the thought that never again would she have the opportunity of speaking and laughing with this attractive, eminently companionable man; then her attention was distracted by the appearance of two more porters, who had each to be interviewed in his turn.

They had no good news to give, however, so the searchers left the platform in disgust, and repaired to the office for lost luggage, where the story of the missing box was recounted to an unsympathetic clerk. When a man spends his whole life listening to complaints of missing property, he can hardly be expected to show a vehement distress at the loss of yet another passenger, but to Claire at this moment there was something quite brutal in his callous indifference. The one suggestion which he had to make was that she could leave her name, and the manner in which it was given was a death-blow to hope.

At this very moment, however, just as Claire was bending forward to dictate the desired information she felt a touch on her arm, and looking in the direction of Mr Fanshawe’s outstretched hand, beheld a porter approaching the office, trundling before him a truck on which reposed in solitary splendour, a long brown dress-box, and oh, joy of joys! even at the present distance the white letters C.G. could be plainly distinguished on the nearer side! Claire’s dignity went to the winds at that sight, and she dashed forward to meet her property with the joyous impetuosity of a child.

The explanation was simple to a degree, and precisely agreed with Mr Fanshawe’s surmise as to what had really happened. During Claire’s trance of forgetfulness, the box had been wheeled away, with a large consignment of luggage, and the mistake discovered only when the various items were in process of being packed into a company’s omnibus, when, there being no one at hand to claim it, it had been conveyed—by very leisurely stages—to the lost luggage office.

All’s well that ends well! Claire gleefully collected her possessions, feeling a glow of delight in the safety which an hour before she would have taken as a matter of course, and stood at attention while each separate item was placed on the roof of the taxi. The little addresses of which she had boasted were duly inserted in leather framings on each box, the delicate writing too small to be deciphered, except near at hand. Claire saw her companion’s eyes contract in an evident effort to distinguish the words, and immediately moved her position so as to frustrate his purpose. She did not intend Mr Fanshawe to know her address! When she was seated in the taxi, however, there came an awkward moment, for her companion waved the chauffeur to his seat, and stood by the window looking in at her, with a face which seemed unduly serious and earnest, considering the extremely slight nature of their acquaintance.

“Well! I am thankful the box turned up. I shall think of you enjoying your re-united frocks... Sure you’ve got everything all right? Where shall I tell the man to drive?”

For the fraction of a second Claire’s eyes flickered, then she spoke in decided tones.

“‘The Grand Hotel.’”

Mr Fanshawe’s eyes flickered too, and turned involuntarily towards the boxes on the roof. What exactly were the words on the labels he could not see, but at least it was certain that they were not “The Grand Hotel!” He turned from the inspection to confront a flushed, obstinate face.

“Do you wish me to give the man that address?”

“I do.”

Very deliberately and quietly Mr Fanshawe stepped back a pace, opened his long coat, and fumbled in an inner pocket for a leather pocket-book; very quietly and deliberately he drew from one bulging division a visiting card, and held it towards her. Claire caught the word “Captain” and saw that an address was printed in the corner, but she covered it hastily with her hand, refusing a second glance. Captain Fanshawe leant his arm on the window sash and said hesitatingly—

“Will you allow me to give you my card! As you are a stranger in town and your people away, there may possibly be—er—occasions, when it would be convenient to know some man whom you could make of use. Please remember me if they do come along! It would be a privilege to repay your kindness to my mother... Send me a wire at any time, and I am at your service. I hope youwillsend. Good morning!”

“Good-bye!” said Claire. Red as a rose was she at that moment, but very dignified and stately, bending towards him in a sweeping bow, as the taxi rolled away. The last glimpse of Captain Fanshawe showed him standing with uplifted hat, the keen eyes staring after her, with not a glint of humour in their grey depths. Quite evidently he meant what he said. Quite evidently he was as keen to pursue her acquaintance as his mother had been to drop it.

Claire Gifford sat bolt upright on her seat, the slip of cardboard clasped within her palms, and as she sat she thought many thoughts. A physiognomist would have been interested to trace the progress of those thoughts on the eloquent young face. There was surprise written there, and obvious gratification, and a demure, very feminine content; later on came pride, and a general stiffening of determination. The spoiled child of liberty and the High School-Mistress of the future had fought a heated battle, and the High School-Mistress had won.

Deliberately turning aside her eyes, so that no word of that printed address should obtrude itself on her notice, Claire tore the card sharply across and across, and threw the fragments out of the window.

A moment later she whistled through the tube, and instructed the chauffeur as to her change of address.

Adieu to the Fanshawes, and all such luxuries of the past. Heigh-ho for hard work, and lodgings at fifteen shillings a week!

Chapter Five.Miss Rhodes, Poisoner.It is a somewhat dreary feeling to arrive even at a friend’s house before seven o’clock in the morning, and be received by sleepy-looking people who have obviously been torn unwillingly from their beds in deference to the precepts of hospitality, but it is infinitely worse to arrive at a lodging-house at the same hour, ring several times at the bell before a dingy servant can be induced to appear, and to realise a moment later that in a tireless parlour you perceive your journey’s goal!Claire Gifford felt a creep of the blood at the sight of that parlour, though if her first introduction had been at night, when the curtains were drawn and the lamps lit, she would have found it cosy enough. There was no sign of her room-mate; perhaps it was too much to expect her to get up at so early an hour to welcome a stranger, but Clairehadexpected it, felt perfectly sure that—had positions been reversed—she herself would have taken pains to deck both herself and her room in honour of the occasion, and so felt correspondingly downcast.Presently she found herself following the dingy maid up three separate nights of stairs, and arriving at a tiny box of a bedroom on the top floor. There was a bed, a washstand, a chest of drawers doing service as a dressing-table, two chairs and a sloping roof. Claire would have been quite disappointed if that last item had been missing, for whoever heard of a girl who set out to make her own living who had not slept in a room with a sloping roof? On the whole, despite its tiny proportions, the little room made a pleasant impression. It was clean, it was bright, walls and furniture were alike of a plain unrelieved white, and through the open casement window could be seen a distant slope of green overtopping the intervening chimney tops. Claire’s eyes roved here and there with the instinct of a born home-maker, saw what was lacking here, what was superfluous there, grasped neglected possibilities, and mentally re-arranged and decorated the premises before a slower person would have crossed the floor.Then she took up her stand before the small mirror, and devoted a whole minute to studying her own reflection from the point of view of Captain Erskine Fanshawe of unknown address. By her own deliberate choice she had cut herself off from future chance of meeting this acquaintance of an hour; nevertheless it was distinctly reviving to discern that her hat was set at precisely the right angle, and that for an all-night voyager her whole appearance was remarkably fresh and dainty.Claire first smiled, and then sighed, and pulled out the hat-pins with impatient tugs. To be prudent and self-denying is not always an exhilarating process for sweet and twenty.Presently the maid came staggering upstairs with the smaller boxes, and Claire busied herself in her room until the clock had struck eight, when she again descended to the joint sitting-room. This time the fire was lighted, and the table laid for breakfast, and behind the tea-tray sat Miss Rhodes, the English mistress, already halfway through her meal. She rose, half smiling, half frowning, and held out a thin hand in welcome.“Morning. Hope you’ve had a good crossing. Didn’t know when you’d be down. Do you take coffee?”“Please!” Claire felt that a cup of coffee would be just what she needed, but missed the familiar fragrant scent. She seated herself at the table, and while Miss Rhodes went on with her preparation, studied her with curious eyes.She saw a woman of thirty-two or three, with well-cut features, dark eyes, and abundant dark hair—a woman who ought to have been distinctly good-looking but who succeeded in being plain and commonplace. She was badly-dressed, in a utility blouse of grey flannel, her expression was tired and listless, and her hair, though neat, showed obvious lack of care, having none of the silky sheen which rewards regular systematic brushing. So far bad, but, in spite of all drawbacks, it was an interesting face, and Claire felt attracted, despite the preliminary disappointment.“There’s some bacon in that dish. It will be cold, I’m afraid. You can ring, if you like, and ask them to warm it up, but they’ll keep you waiting a quarter of an hour out of spite. I’ve given it up myself.”“Oh, I’m accustomed to French breakfasts. I really want nothing but some bread and coffee.” Claire sipped at her cup as she finished speaking, and the sudden grimace of astonishment which followed roused her companion to laughter.“You don’t like it? It isn’t equal to your French coffee.”“It isn’t coffee at all. It’s undrinkable!” Claire pushed away her cup in disgust. “Is it always as bad as that?”“Worse!” said Miss Rhodes composedly. “They put in more this morning because of you. Sometimes it’s barely coloured, and it’s always chicory.” She shrugged resignedly. “No English landlady can make coffee. It’s no use worrying. Have to make the best of what comes.”“Indeed I shan’t. Why should I? I shan’t try. There’s no virtue in drinking such stuff. We provide the coffee—what’s to hinder us making it for ourselves?”“No fire, as a rule. Can’t afford one when you are going out immediately after breakfast.”Claire stared in dismay. It had never occurred to her that she might have to be economical to this extent.“But when it’s very cold? What do you do then?”“Put on a jersey, and nurse the hot-water jug!”Claire grimaced, then nodded with an air of determination.“I’ll buy a machine! There can be no objection to that. You would prefer good coffee, wouldn’t you, if you could get it without any more trouble?”“Oh, certainly. I’ll enjoy it—while it lasts!”“Why shouldn’t it last?”Miss Rhodes stared across at the eager young face. She looked tired, and a trifle impatient.“Oh, my dear girl, you’reNew. We are all the same at first—bubbling over with energy, and determined to arrange everything exactly as we like. It’s a phase which we all live through. Afterwards you don’t care. You are too tired to worry. All your energy goes on your day’s work, and you are too thankful for peace and quietness to bother about details. You take what comes, and are thankful it’s not worse.”Claire’s smile showed an elaborate forbearance.“Rather a poor-spirited attitude, don’t you think?”“Wait and see!” said the English mistress.She rose and threw herself in a chair by the window, and Claire left the despised coffee and followed her example. Through the half-opened panes she looked out on a row of brick houses depressingly dingy, depressingly alike. About every second house showed a small black card on which the word “Apartments” was printed in gilt letters. Down the middle of the street came a fruiterer’s cart, piled high with wicker baskets. The cry of “Bananas, cheap bananas,” floated raucously on the air. Claire swiftly averted her eyes and turned back to her companion.“It is very good of you to let me share yourappartement. Miss Farnborough said she had arranged it with you, but it must be horrid taking in a stranger. I will try not to be too great a bore!”But Miss Rhodes refused to be thanked.“I’m bound to have somebody,” said she ungraciously. “Couldn’t afford them alone. You know the terms? Thirty-five shillings a week for the three rooms. That’s cheap in this neighbourhood. We only get them at that price because we are out all day, and need so little catering.” She looked round the room with her tired, mocking smile. “Hope you admire the scheme of decoration! I’ve been in dozens of lodgings, but I don’t think I’ve ever struck an uglier room; but the people are clean and honest, and one has to put that before beauty, in our circumstances.”“There’s a greatdealof pattern about. It hasn’t what one could call a restful effect!” said Claire, looking across at an ochre wall bespattered with golden scrawls, a red satin mantel-border painted with lustre roses, a suite of furniture covered in green stamped plush, a collection of inartistic pictures, and unornamental ornaments. Even her spirit quailed before the hopelessness of beautifying a room in which all the essentials were so hopelessly wrong. She gave it up in despair, and returned to the question of finance.“Then my share will be seventeen and six! That seems very cheap. I am to begin at a hundred and ten pounds. How much extra must I allow for food?”“That depends upon your requirements. We have dinner at school; quite a good meal for ninepence, including a penny for coffee afterwards.”“The same sort of coffee we have had this morning?”“Practically. A trifle better perhaps. Not much.”“Hurrah!” cried Claire gaily. “That’s a penny to the good! Eightpence for me—a clear saving of fivepence a week!”Miss Rhodes resolutely refused to smile. She had the air of thinking it ribald to be cheerful on the serious question of pounds, shillings and pence.“Even so, it’s three-and-four, and you can’t do breakfast and supper and full board on Saturday and Sunday under seven shillings. It’s tight enough to manage on that. Altogether it often mounts up to twelve.”“Seventeen and twelve.” Claire pondered deeply before she arrived at a solution. “Twenty-nine. Call it thirty, to make it even, and I am to begin at a hundred and ten. Over two pounds a week. I ought to do it comfortably, and have quite a lot over.”Miss Rhodes laughed darkly.“What about extras?” she demanded. “What about laundry, and fires, and stationery and stamps? What about boot-mending, and Tubes on wet days, and soap and candles, and dentist and medicines, and subs, at school, and collections in church, and travelling expenses on Saturdays and Sundays, when you invariably want to go to the very other side of the city? London is not like a provincial town. You can’t stir out of the house under fourpence or sixpence at the very least. What about illness, and amusement, and holidays? What about—”Claire thrust her fingers in her ears with an air of desperation.“Stop! Stop! For pity’s sake don’t swamp me any more. I feel in the bankruptcy court already, and I had imagined that I was rich! A hundred and ten pounds seemed quite a big salary. Everybody was surprised at my getting so much, and I suppose you have even more?”“A hundred and fifty. Yes! You must remember that we don’t belong to the ordinary rut of worker—we are experts. Our education has been a long costly business. No untrained worker could take our place; we are entitled to expert’s pay. Oh, yes, they are quite good salaries if you happen to have a home behind you, and people who are ready to help over rough times, instead of needing to be helped themselves. The pity of it is that most High School-mistresses come from families who arenotrich. The parents have made a big effort to pay for the girls’ education, and when they are fairly launched, they expect to be helped in return. Some girls have been educated by relations, or have practically paid for themselves by scholarships. Three out of four of us have people who are more in need of help than able to give it. I give my own mother thirty pounds a year, so we are practically on the same salary. Haveyoua home where you can spend your holiday? Holidays run away terribly with your money. They come to nearly four months in the year.”For the first time those prolonged holidays appeared to Claire as a privilege which had its reverse side. Friends in Brussels might possibly house her for two or three weeks; she could not expect, she would not wish them to do more; and at the end there would still remain over three months! It was a new and disagreeable experience to look forward to holidays withdread! For a whole two minutes she looked thoroughly depressed, then her invincible optimism came to the top, and she cried triumphantly—“I’ll take a holiday engagement!”The English mistress shook her head.“That’s fatal! I tried it myself one summer. Went with a family to the seaside, and was expected to play games with the children all day long, and coach them in the evening. I began the term tired out, and nearly collapsed before the end. Teaching is nerve-racking work, and if you don’t get a good spell off, it’s as bad for the pupils as yourself. You snap their heads off for the smallest trifle. Besides, it’s folly to wear oneself out any sooner than one need. It’s bad enough to think of the time when one has to retire. That’s the nightmare which haunts us more and more every year.”“Don’t you think when the time comes you will begladto rest?” asked innocent Claire, whereupon Miss Rhodes glared at her with indignant eyes.“We should be glad to rest, no doubt, but we don’t exactly appreciate the prospect of resting in the workhouse, and it’s difficult to see where else some of us are to go! There is no pension for High School-mistresses, and we are bound to retire at fifty-five—if we can manage to stick it out so long. Fifty-five seems a long way off to you—not quite so long to me; when you reach forty it becomes to feel quite near. Women are horribly long-lived, so the probability is that we’ll live on to eighty or more. Twenty-five years after leaving off work, and—where is the money to come from to keep us? That’s the question which haunts us all when we look into our bank-books and find that, with all our pains, we have only been able to save at the utmost two or three hundred pounds.”Claire looked scared, but she recovered her composure with a swiftness which her companion had no difficulty in understanding. She pounced upon her with lightning swiftness.“Ah, you think you’ll get married, and escape that way! We all do when we’re new, and pretty, and ignorant of the life. But it’s fifty to one, my dear, that youwon’t? You won’t meet many men, for one thing; and if you do, they don’t like school-mistresses.”“Doesn’t that depend a good deal on the kind of school-mistress?”“Absolutely; but after a few years we are all more or less alike. We don’tbeginby being dowdy and angular, and dogmatic and prudish; we begin by being pretty and cheerful like you. I used to change my blouse every evening, and put on silk stockings.”“Don’t you now?”“I donot! Why should I, to sit over a lodging-house table correcting exercises till ten o’clock? It’s not worth the trouble. Besides, I’m too tired, and it wears out another blouse.”Claire’s attention was diverted from clothes by the shock of the reference to evening work. She had looked forward to coming home to read an interesting book, or be lazy in whatever fashion appealed to her most, and the corrections of exercises seemed of all things the most dull.“Shall I have evening work, too?” she inquired blankly, and Miss Rhodes laughed with brutal enjoyment.“Rather! French compositions on the attributes of a true woman, or, ‘How did you spend your summer holiday?’ with all the tenses wrong, and the idioms translated word for word. And every essay a practical repetition of the one before. It’s not once in a blue moon that one comes across a girl with any originality of thought. Oh, yes! that’s the way we shall spend five evenings a week. You will sit at that side of the table, I will sit at this, and we’ll correct and yawn, and yawn and correct, and drink a cup of cocoa and go to bed at ten. Lively, isn’t it?”“Awful! I never thought of homework. But if Saturday is a whole holiday there will still be one night off. I shall make a point of doing something exciting every Saturday evening.”“Exciting things cost money, and, as a rule, when you have paid up the various extras, there’s no money to spare. I stay in bed till ten o’clock on Saturday, and then get up and wash blouses, and do my mending, and have a nap after lunch, and if it’s summer, go and sit on a penny chair in the park, or take a walk over Hampstead Heath. In the evening I read a novel and have a hot bath. Once in a blue moon I have an extravagant bout, and lunch in a restaurant, and go to an entertainment—but I’m sorry afterwards when I count the cost. On Sunday I go to church, and wish some one would ask me to tea. They don’t, you know. They may do once or twice, when you first come up, but you can never ask them back, and your clothes get shabby, and you know nothing about their interests, so they think you a bore, and quietly let you drop.”A smothered exclamation burst from Claire’s lips; with a sudden, swirling movement she leapt up, and fell on her knees before Miss Rhodes’s chair, her hands clasping its arms, her flushed face upturned with a desperate eagerness.“Miss Rhodes! we are going to live together here, we are going to share the same room, and the same meals. Would you—if any one offered you a million pounds, would you agree to poison me slowly, day by day, dropping little drops of poison into everything I ate and everything I drank, while you sat by and watched me grow weaker and weaker till Idied?”“Good heavens, girl—are you mad! What in the world are you raving about?”Miss Rhodes had grown quite red. She was indignant; she was also more than a little scared. The girl’s sudden change of mood was startling in itself, and she looked so tense, so overwhelmingly in earnest. What could she mean? Was it possible that she was a little—touched?“I suppose you don’t realise it, but it’s insulting even to put such a question.”“But youaredoing it! It’s just exactly what you are beginning already. Ever since I arrived you’ve been poisoning me drop by drop. Poisoning mymind! I am at the beginning of my work, and you’ve been discouraging me, frightening me, painting it all black. Every word that you’ve said has been a drop of poison to kill hope and courage and confidence—and oh, don’t do it! don’t go on! I may be young and foolish, and full of ridiculous ideas, but let me keep them as long as I can! If all that you say is true, they will be knocked out of me soon enough, and I—I’ve never had to work before, or been alone, and—and it’s only two days since my mother left me to go to India—all that long way—and left me behind! It’s hard enough to go on being alone, and believing it’s all going to becouleur de rose, but it will be fifty times harder if I don’t. Please—please don’t make it any worse!”With the last words tears came with a rush, the tears that had been resolutely restrained throughout the strain of the last week. Claire dropped her head on the nearest resting-place she could find, which happened to be Miss Rhodes’s blue serge lap, and felt the quick pressure of a hand over the glossy coils.“Poor little girl!” said the English mistress softly. “Poor little girl! I’m sorry! I’m a beast! Take no notice of me. I’m a sour, disagreeable old thing. It was more than half jealousy, dear, because you looked so pretty and spry, so like what I used to look myself. The life’s all right, if you keep well, and don’t worry too much ahead. There, don’t cry! I loathe tears! You will yourself, when you have to deal with silly, hysterical girls. Come, I’ll promise I won’t poison you any more—at least, I’ll do my best; but I’ve a grumbling nature, and you’d better realise it, once for all, and take no notice. We’ll get on all right. I like you. I’m glad you came. My good girl, if you don’t stop, I’ll shake you till you do!”Claire sat back on her heels, mopped her eyes, and gave a strangled laugh.“I hate crying myself, but I’ll begin again on the faintest provocation. It’s always like that with me. I hardly ever cry, but when I once begin—”Miss Rhodes rose with an air of determination.“We’d better go out. I am free till lunch-time. I’ll take you round and show you the neighbourhood, and the usual places of call. It will save time another day. Anything you want to buy?”Claire mopped away another tear.“C–certainly,” she said feebly. “A c–offee machine.”

It is a somewhat dreary feeling to arrive even at a friend’s house before seven o’clock in the morning, and be received by sleepy-looking people who have obviously been torn unwillingly from their beds in deference to the precepts of hospitality, but it is infinitely worse to arrive at a lodging-house at the same hour, ring several times at the bell before a dingy servant can be induced to appear, and to realise a moment later that in a tireless parlour you perceive your journey’s goal!

Claire Gifford felt a creep of the blood at the sight of that parlour, though if her first introduction had been at night, when the curtains were drawn and the lamps lit, she would have found it cosy enough. There was no sign of her room-mate; perhaps it was too much to expect her to get up at so early an hour to welcome a stranger, but Clairehadexpected it, felt perfectly sure that—had positions been reversed—she herself would have taken pains to deck both herself and her room in honour of the occasion, and so felt correspondingly downcast.

Presently she found herself following the dingy maid up three separate nights of stairs, and arriving at a tiny box of a bedroom on the top floor. There was a bed, a washstand, a chest of drawers doing service as a dressing-table, two chairs and a sloping roof. Claire would have been quite disappointed if that last item had been missing, for whoever heard of a girl who set out to make her own living who had not slept in a room with a sloping roof? On the whole, despite its tiny proportions, the little room made a pleasant impression. It was clean, it was bright, walls and furniture were alike of a plain unrelieved white, and through the open casement window could be seen a distant slope of green overtopping the intervening chimney tops. Claire’s eyes roved here and there with the instinct of a born home-maker, saw what was lacking here, what was superfluous there, grasped neglected possibilities, and mentally re-arranged and decorated the premises before a slower person would have crossed the floor.

Then she took up her stand before the small mirror, and devoted a whole minute to studying her own reflection from the point of view of Captain Erskine Fanshawe of unknown address. By her own deliberate choice she had cut herself off from future chance of meeting this acquaintance of an hour; nevertheless it was distinctly reviving to discern that her hat was set at precisely the right angle, and that for an all-night voyager her whole appearance was remarkably fresh and dainty.

Claire first smiled, and then sighed, and pulled out the hat-pins with impatient tugs. To be prudent and self-denying is not always an exhilarating process for sweet and twenty.

Presently the maid came staggering upstairs with the smaller boxes, and Claire busied herself in her room until the clock had struck eight, when she again descended to the joint sitting-room. This time the fire was lighted, and the table laid for breakfast, and behind the tea-tray sat Miss Rhodes, the English mistress, already halfway through her meal. She rose, half smiling, half frowning, and held out a thin hand in welcome.

“Morning. Hope you’ve had a good crossing. Didn’t know when you’d be down. Do you take coffee?”

“Please!” Claire felt that a cup of coffee would be just what she needed, but missed the familiar fragrant scent. She seated herself at the table, and while Miss Rhodes went on with her preparation, studied her with curious eyes.

She saw a woman of thirty-two or three, with well-cut features, dark eyes, and abundant dark hair—a woman who ought to have been distinctly good-looking but who succeeded in being plain and commonplace. She was badly-dressed, in a utility blouse of grey flannel, her expression was tired and listless, and her hair, though neat, showed obvious lack of care, having none of the silky sheen which rewards regular systematic brushing. So far bad, but, in spite of all drawbacks, it was an interesting face, and Claire felt attracted, despite the preliminary disappointment.

“There’s some bacon in that dish. It will be cold, I’m afraid. You can ring, if you like, and ask them to warm it up, but they’ll keep you waiting a quarter of an hour out of spite. I’ve given it up myself.”

“Oh, I’m accustomed to French breakfasts. I really want nothing but some bread and coffee.” Claire sipped at her cup as she finished speaking, and the sudden grimace of astonishment which followed roused her companion to laughter.

“You don’t like it? It isn’t equal to your French coffee.”

“It isn’t coffee at all. It’s undrinkable!” Claire pushed away her cup in disgust. “Is it always as bad as that?”

“Worse!” said Miss Rhodes composedly. “They put in more this morning because of you. Sometimes it’s barely coloured, and it’s always chicory.” She shrugged resignedly. “No English landlady can make coffee. It’s no use worrying. Have to make the best of what comes.”

“Indeed I shan’t. Why should I? I shan’t try. There’s no virtue in drinking such stuff. We provide the coffee—what’s to hinder us making it for ourselves?”

“No fire, as a rule. Can’t afford one when you are going out immediately after breakfast.”

Claire stared in dismay. It had never occurred to her that she might have to be economical to this extent.

“But when it’s very cold? What do you do then?”

“Put on a jersey, and nurse the hot-water jug!”

Claire grimaced, then nodded with an air of determination.

“I’ll buy a machine! There can be no objection to that. You would prefer good coffee, wouldn’t you, if you could get it without any more trouble?”

“Oh, certainly. I’ll enjoy it—while it lasts!”

“Why shouldn’t it last?”

Miss Rhodes stared across at the eager young face. She looked tired, and a trifle impatient.

“Oh, my dear girl, you’reNew. We are all the same at first—bubbling over with energy, and determined to arrange everything exactly as we like. It’s a phase which we all live through. Afterwards you don’t care. You are too tired to worry. All your energy goes on your day’s work, and you are too thankful for peace and quietness to bother about details. You take what comes, and are thankful it’s not worse.”

Claire’s smile showed an elaborate forbearance.

“Rather a poor-spirited attitude, don’t you think?”

“Wait and see!” said the English mistress.

She rose and threw herself in a chair by the window, and Claire left the despised coffee and followed her example. Through the half-opened panes she looked out on a row of brick houses depressingly dingy, depressingly alike. About every second house showed a small black card on which the word “Apartments” was printed in gilt letters. Down the middle of the street came a fruiterer’s cart, piled high with wicker baskets. The cry of “Bananas, cheap bananas,” floated raucously on the air. Claire swiftly averted her eyes and turned back to her companion.

“It is very good of you to let me share yourappartement. Miss Farnborough said she had arranged it with you, but it must be horrid taking in a stranger. I will try not to be too great a bore!”

But Miss Rhodes refused to be thanked.

“I’m bound to have somebody,” said she ungraciously. “Couldn’t afford them alone. You know the terms? Thirty-five shillings a week for the three rooms. That’s cheap in this neighbourhood. We only get them at that price because we are out all day, and need so little catering.” She looked round the room with her tired, mocking smile. “Hope you admire the scheme of decoration! I’ve been in dozens of lodgings, but I don’t think I’ve ever struck an uglier room; but the people are clean and honest, and one has to put that before beauty, in our circumstances.”

“There’s a greatdealof pattern about. It hasn’t what one could call a restful effect!” said Claire, looking across at an ochre wall bespattered with golden scrawls, a red satin mantel-border painted with lustre roses, a suite of furniture covered in green stamped plush, a collection of inartistic pictures, and unornamental ornaments. Even her spirit quailed before the hopelessness of beautifying a room in which all the essentials were so hopelessly wrong. She gave it up in despair, and returned to the question of finance.

“Then my share will be seventeen and six! That seems very cheap. I am to begin at a hundred and ten pounds. How much extra must I allow for food?”

“That depends upon your requirements. We have dinner at school; quite a good meal for ninepence, including a penny for coffee afterwards.”

“The same sort of coffee we have had this morning?”

“Practically. A trifle better perhaps. Not much.”

“Hurrah!” cried Claire gaily. “That’s a penny to the good! Eightpence for me—a clear saving of fivepence a week!”

Miss Rhodes resolutely refused to smile. She had the air of thinking it ribald to be cheerful on the serious question of pounds, shillings and pence.

“Even so, it’s three-and-four, and you can’t do breakfast and supper and full board on Saturday and Sunday under seven shillings. It’s tight enough to manage on that. Altogether it often mounts up to twelve.”

“Seventeen and twelve.” Claire pondered deeply before she arrived at a solution. “Twenty-nine. Call it thirty, to make it even, and I am to begin at a hundred and ten. Over two pounds a week. I ought to do it comfortably, and have quite a lot over.”

Miss Rhodes laughed darkly.

“What about extras?” she demanded. “What about laundry, and fires, and stationery and stamps? What about boot-mending, and Tubes on wet days, and soap and candles, and dentist and medicines, and subs, at school, and collections in church, and travelling expenses on Saturdays and Sundays, when you invariably want to go to the very other side of the city? London is not like a provincial town. You can’t stir out of the house under fourpence or sixpence at the very least. What about illness, and amusement, and holidays? What about—”

Claire thrust her fingers in her ears with an air of desperation.

“Stop! Stop! For pity’s sake don’t swamp me any more. I feel in the bankruptcy court already, and I had imagined that I was rich! A hundred and ten pounds seemed quite a big salary. Everybody was surprised at my getting so much, and I suppose you have even more?”

“A hundred and fifty. Yes! You must remember that we don’t belong to the ordinary rut of worker—we are experts. Our education has been a long costly business. No untrained worker could take our place; we are entitled to expert’s pay. Oh, yes, they are quite good salaries if you happen to have a home behind you, and people who are ready to help over rough times, instead of needing to be helped themselves. The pity of it is that most High School-mistresses come from families who arenotrich. The parents have made a big effort to pay for the girls’ education, and when they are fairly launched, they expect to be helped in return. Some girls have been educated by relations, or have practically paid for themselves by scholarships. Three out of four of us have people who are more in need of help than able to give it. I give my own mother thirty pounds a year, so we are practically on the same salary. Haveyoua home where you can spend your holiday? Holidays run away terribly with your money. They come to nearly four months in the year.”

For the first time those prolonged holidays appeared to Claire as a privilege which had its reverse side. Friends in Brussels might possibly house her for two or three weeks; she could not expect, she would not wish them to do more; and at the end there would still remain over three months! It was a new and disagreeable experience to look forward to holidays withdread! For a whole two minutes she looked thoroughly depressed, then her invincible optimism came to the top, and she cried triumphantly—

“I’ll take a holiday engagement!”

The English mistress shook her head.

“That’s fatal! I tried it myself one summer. Went with a family to the seaside, and was expected to play games with the children all day long, and coach them in the evening. I began the term tired out, and nearly collapsed before the end. Teaching is nerve-racking work, and if you don’t get a good spell off, it’s as bad for the pupils as yourself. You snap their heads off for the smallest trifle. Besides, it’s folly to wear oneself out any sooner than one need. It’s bad enough to think of the time when one has to retire. That’s the nightmare which haunts us more and more every year.”

“Don’t you think when the time comes you will begladto rest?” asked innocent Claire, whereupon Miss Rhodes glared at her with indignant eyes.

“We should be glad to rest, no doubt, but we don’t exactly appreciate the prospect of resting in the workhouse, and it’s difficult to see where else some of us are to go! There is no pension for High School-mistresses, and we are bound to retire at fifty-five—if we can manage to stick it out so long. Fifty-five seems a long way off to you—not quite so long to me; when you reach forty it becomes to feel quite near. Women are horribly long-lived, so the probability is that we’ll live on to eighty or more. Twenty-five years after leaving off work, and—where is the money to come from to keep us? That’s the question which haunts us all when we look into our bank-books and find that, with all our pains, we have only been able to save at the utmost two or three hundred pounds.”

Claire looked scared, but she recovered her composure with a swiftness which her companion had no difficulty in understanding. She pounced upon her with lightning swiftness.

“Ah, you think you’ll get married, and escape that way! We all do when we’re new, and pretty, and ignorant of the life. But it’s fifty to one, my dear, that youwon’t? You won’t meet many men, for one thing; and if you do, they don’t like school-mistresses.”

“Doesn’t that depend a good deal on the kind of school-mistress?”

“Absolutely; but after a few years we are all more or less alike. We don’tbeginby being dowdy and angular, and dogmatic and prudish; we begin by being pretty and cheerful like you. I used to change my blouse every evening, and put on silk stockings.”

“Don’t you now?”

“I donot! Why should I, to sit over a lodging-house table correcting exercises till ten o’clock? It’s not worth the trouble. Besides, I’m too tired, and it wears out another blouse.”

Claire’s attention was diverted from clothes by the shock of the reference to evening work. She had looked forward to coming home to read an interesting book, or be lazy in whatever fashion appealed to her most, and the corrections of exercises seemed of all things the most dull.

“Shall I have evening work, too?” she inquired blankly, and Miss Rhodes laughed with brutal enjoyment.

“Rather! French compositions on the attributes of a true woman, or, ‘How did you spend your summer holiday?’ with all the tenses wrong, and the idioms translated word for word. And every essay a practical repetition of the one before. It’s not once in a blue moon that one comes across a girl with any originality of thought. Oh, yes! that’s the way we shall spend five evenings a week. You will sit at that side of the table, I will sit at this, and we’ll correct and yawn, and yawn and correct, and drink a cup of cocoa and go to bed at ten. Lively, isn’t it?”

“Awful! I never thought of homework. But if Saturday is a whole holiday there will still be one night off. I shall make a point of doing something exciting every Saturday evening.”

“Exciting things cost money, and, as a rule, when you have paid up the various extras, there’s no money to spare. I stay in bed till ten o’clock on Saturday, and then get up and wash blouses, and do my mending, and have a nap after lunch, and if it’s summer, go and sit on a penny chair in the park, or take a walk over Hampstead Heath. In the evening I read a novel and have a hot bath. Once in a blue moon I have an extravagant bout, and lunch in a restaurant, and go to an entertainment—but I’m sorry afterwards when I count the cost. On Sunday I go to church, and wish some one would ask me to tea. They don’t, you know. They may do once or twice, when you first come up, but you can never ask them back, and your clothes get shabby, and you know nothing about their interests, so they think you a bore, and quietly let you drop.”

A smothered exclamation burst from Claire’s lips; with a sudden, swirling movement she leapt up, and fell on her knees before Miss Rhodes’s chair, her hands clasping its arms, her flushed face upturned with a desperate eagerness.

“Miss Rhodes! we are going to live together here, we are going to share the same room, and the same meals. Would you—if any one offered you a million pounds, would you agree to poison me slowly, day by day, dropping little drops of poison into everything I ate and everything I drank, while you sat by and watched me grow weaker and weaker till Idied?”

“Good heavens, girl—are you mad! What in the world are you raving about?”

Miss Rhodes had grown quite red. She was indignant; she was also more than a little scared. The girl’s sudden change of mood was startling in itself, and she looked so tense, so overwhelmingly in earnest. What could she mean? Was it possible that she was a little—touched?

“I suppose you don’t realise it, but it’s insulting even to put such a question.”

“But youaredoing it! It’s just exactly what you are beginning already. Ever since I arrived you’ve been poisoning me drop by drop. Poisoning mymind! I am at the beginning of my work, and you’ve been discouraging me, frightening me, painting it all black. Every word that you’ve said has been a drop of poison to kill hope and courage and confidence—and oh, don’t do it! don’t go on! I may be young and foolish, and full of ridiculous ideas, but let me keep them as long as I can! If all that you say is true, they will be knocked out of me soon enough, and I—I’ve never had to work before, or been alone, and—and it’s only two days since my mother left me to go to India—all that long way—and left me behind! It’s hard enough to go on being alone, and believing it’s all going to becouleur de rose, but it will be fifty times harder if I don’t. Please—please don’t make it any worse!”

With the last words tears came with a rush, the tears that had been resolutely restrained throughout the strain of the last week. Claire dropped her head on the nearest resting-place she could find, which happened to be Miss Rhodes’s blue serge lap, and felt the quick pressure of a hand over the glossy coils.

“Poor little girl!” said the English mistress softly. “Poor little girl! I’m sorry! I’m a beast! Take no notice of me. I’m a sour, disagreeable old thing. It was more than half jealousy, dear, because you looked so pretty and spry, so like what I used to look myself. The life’s all right, if you keep well, and don’t worry too much ahead. There, don’t cry! I loathe tears! You will yourself, when you have to deal with silly, hysterical girls. Come, I’ll promise I won’t poison you any more—at least, I’ll do my best; but I’ve a grumbling nature, and you’d better realise it, once for all, and take no notice. We’ll get on all right. I like you. I’m glad you came. My good girl, if you don’t stop, I’ll shake you till you do!”

Claire sat back on her heels, mopped her eyes, and gave a strangled laugh.

“I hate crying myself, but I’ll begin again on the faintest provocation. It’s always like that with me. I hardly ever cry, but when I once begin—”

Miss Rhodes rose with an air of determination.

“We’d better go out. I am free till lunch-time. I’ll take you round and show you the neighbourhood, and the usual places of call. It will save time another day. Anything you want to buy?”

Claire mopped away another tear.

“C–certainly,” she said feebly. “A c–offee machine.”

Back to IndexNext