Chapter Nine.The supper.Claire stepped down from the platform to be surrounded by a throng of guests all eager to express their admiration of her interesting performance, to marvel how she could “do it,” and to congratulate her upon so unusual an accomplishment; and she smiled and bowed, declared that it was quite easy, and perjured herself by maintaining that anyone could do as well, acutely conscious all the time that Captain Fanshawe was drawing nearer with determined steps, edging his way towards the front of the crowd. The next moment her hand was in his, and he was greeting her with the assurance of a lifelong friend.“Good evening, Miss Gifford. Hadn’t we better make straight for supper now? I am sure you must need it.”It was practically the ordinary invitation. There was nothing to find fault with in the words themselves, yet the impression of a previous arrangement was obviously left with the hearers, who fell back, giving way as to a superior right. As for Claire, she laid her hand on the extended arm, with all the good will in the world, and made a triumphant passage through the crowd, which smiled upon her as though agreeing that it was now her turn to be amused.“This table, I think!” Captain Fanshawe said, leading the way to the furthest corner of the dining-room, and Claire found herself sipping a hot cup of soup, and realising that the world was an agreeable place, and that it was folly ever to allow oneself to be downhearted, since such delightful surprises awaited round corners ready to transform the grey into gold!Captain Fanshawe looked exactly as memory had pictured him—plain of feature, distinguished in bearing, grave, self-contained, yet with that lurking light in his eyes which showed that humour lay beneath. Claire smiled at him across the table, and asked an obvious question—“Rather a different meeting-place from our last! Did you know me at once?”“I did,” he said, and added deliberately, “Just as you knew me.”“Oh, well!” Claire tried to look unconcerned. “Men are always pretty much the same. Evening dress does not make the same difference to them.”She knew a momentary fear lest he should believe she was fishing for a compliment, and give the ordinary banal reply; but he looked at her with a grave scrutiny, and asked quietly—“Was that one of the frocks which went astray?”“Yes! All of it. It wasn’t even divided in half.”“It was a good thing the box turned up!” he said; and there, after all, was the compliment, but so delicately inferred that the most fastidious taste could not object.With the finishing of the soup came the first reference to Claire’s work, for the Captain’s casual “Do you care for anything solid, or would you prefer a sweet?” evoked a round-eyed stare of dismay.“Oh,please!” cried Claire deeply. “I want to go straight through. I’ve been living on mutton and cabbage for over two months, and cooking suppers on a chafing-dish. I looked forward to supper as part of the treat!”The plain face lightened into a delightful smile.“That’s all right!” he cried. “Now we know where we are. I hadn’t much dinner myself, so I’m quite game. Let us study the book of the words.”Aménulay on the table, a square white card emblazoned with many golden words. Captain Fanshawe drew his chair nearer, and ran his finger down the list, while Claire bent forward to signify a yea or nay. Every delicacy in season and out of season seemed to find its place on that list, which certainly justified Master Reginald’s eulogy of his mother’s “good feeds.” Claire found it quite a serious matter to decide between so many good things, and even with various curtailments, made rather out of pride than inclination, the meal threatened to last some considerable time.Well! there was obvious satisfaction in the manner in which Captain Fanshawe delivered his orders, and for herself, she had been dignified and self-denying; she had resolutely shut the door between this man and herself, and devoted herself to work, and now, since fate had thrown him in her way for a chance hour, she could enjoy herself with a light mind. It was good to talk to a man again, to hear a deep masculine voice, to look at a broad strong frame. Putting aside all question of love and marriage, the convent life is no more satisfying than the monastic. Each sex was designed by God to be the complement of the other. Each must suffer from lack of the other’s companionship.“I arrived just as you began your performance,” Captain Fanshawe informed her. “It was a great ‘draw.’ Everybody had crowded forward to listen. It was only towards the end of your second—er—how exactly should one express it?—morceau, that I managed to get into seeing line. It was a surprise! Have you known the Willoughbys long?”Claire looked at him blankly.“I never saw them before to-night. Your mother wrote to ask them if they would send me a card.”“Oh!” Captain Fanshawe was certainly surprised, and Claire mentally snubbed herself because at the bottom of her heart there had lain a suspicion that perhaps—just perhaps—he had come to-night in the hope of meeting his acquaintance of the railway station. This was not the case; no thought of her had been in his mind. Probably until the moment of meeting he had forgotten her existence. Never mind! Theyhadmet, and he was agreeable and friendly. Now for a delightful half-hour...“That was a good thought of themater’s. You will like them. They are delightful people. Just the people you ought to know as a stranger in town. How goes the school teaching, by the way? As well as you expected?”Claire deliberated, with pursed lips.“No. I expected so much; I always do. But much better than other people expected for me. Theoretically it’s a fine life. There are times when it seems that nothing could be finer. But—”“But what?”“I don’t think it’s quite satisfying, as awholelife!”“Does anyone suppose it is?”“They try to. They have to. For most teachers there is so little else.”The waiter handed plates of lobster mayonnaise, and Captain Fanshawe said quietly—“Tell me about the times when the work seems fine.”“Ah—many times! It depends on one’s own mood and health, because, of course, the circumstances are always the same. There are mornings when one looks round a big class-room and sees all the girls’ faces looking upwards, and it gives one quite a thrilling sense of power and opportunity. That is what the heaven-born teacher must feel every time.—‘Here is the fresh virgin soil, and mine is the joy of planting the right seed! Here are the women of the future, the mothers of the race. For this hour they are mine. What I say, they must hear. They will listen with an attention which even their parents cannot gain. The words which I speak this morning may bear fruit in many lives.’ That’s the ideal attitude, but the ordinary human woman has other mornings when all she feels is—‘Oh, dear me, six hours of this! And what’s the use? Everything I batter in to-day will be forgotten by to-morrow. What’s the ideal anyway in teaching French verbs? I want to go to bed.’”They laughed together, but Captain Fanshawe sobered quickly, and his brow showed furrows of distress. Claire looked at him and said quickly—“Do you mind if we don’t talk school? I am Cinderella to-night, wearing fine clothes and supping in state. I’d so much rather talk Cinderella to match.”“Certainly, certainly. Just as you wish.” Lolling back in his chair, Captain Fanshawe adopted an air ofblaséindifference, and drawled slowly, “Quite a good winter, isn’t it? Lots going on. Have you been to the Opera lately?”“Oh dear!” thought Claire with a gush, “how refreshing to meet a grown-up man who can pretend like a child!” She simpered, and replied artificially, “Oh, yes—quite often. The dear Duchess issokind; her box is open to me whenever I choose to go. Wonderful scene, isn’t it? All those tiers rising one above another. Do you ever look up at the galleries? Such funny people sit there—men in tweed suits; girls in white blouses. Whoarethey, should you think? Clerks and typists and school-mistresses, and people of that persuasion?”“Possibly, I dare say. One never knows. They look quite respectable and quiet, don’t you know!”The twinkle was alight in Captain Fanshawe’s eyes. It shone more brightly still as he added, “Everybody turns up sooner or later in the Duchess’s box. Have you happened to meet—the Prince!”For a moment Claire groped for the connection, then dimpled merrily.“Not yet. No! but I am hoping—”The waiter approached with plates of chicken in aspic, and more rolls of crisp browned bread. Claire sent a thought to Cecil finishing a box of sardines, with her book propped up against the cocoa jug. The Cinderellarôlewas forgotten while her eyes roved around, studying the silver dishes on the various tables.“When you were a small boy, Captain Fanshawe, did you go out to parties?”Captain Fanshawe knitted his brows. This charming girl was a little difficult to follow conversationally; she leapt from one subject to another with disconcerting agility.“Er—pardon me! Is that question put to me in my—er—private, or imaginary capacity?”“Private, of course. But naturally you did. Did you have pockets?”“To the best of my remembrance I was disguised as a midshipmite, with white duck trousers of a prodigious width. They used to crackle, I remember. There was room for a dozen pockets.”Claire laid her arms on the table, so that her face drew nearer his own. Her voice fell to a stage whisper—“Did you—ever—take—something—home?”The Captain threw back his head with a peal of laughter.“Miss Gifford, what a question! I was an ordinary human boy.Of courseI did. And sat on my spoils in the carriage going back, and was scolded for spoiling my clothes. I had a small brother at home.”“Well—I have a small friend! She has letters after her name, and is very learned and clever, but she has averysweet tooth. Do you think, perhaps—in this bag—”“Leave it to me!” he said firmly, and when the waiter next appeared, he received an order to bring more bon-bons—plenty of bon-bons—a selection of all the small dainties in silver dishes.“He thinks Iamhaving a feast!” Claire said demurely, as she watched the progress of selection; then she met Erskine Fanshawe’s eyes, and nodded in response to an unspoken question, “And Iam! I’m having a lovely time!”“I wish it were possible that you could oftener—”“Well, who knows? A week ago I had made up my mind that nothing exciting would ever happen again, and then this invitation arrived. What a perfect dear Miss Willoughby seems to be!”“Janet? Sheis!” he said warmly. “She is a girl who has had everything the world can give her, and yet has come through unspoiled. It’s not often one can say that. Many society girls are selfish and vain, but Janet never seems to think of herself. You’d find her an ideal friend.”Claire’s brain leapt swiftly to several conclusions. Janet Willoughby was devoted to Mrs Fanshawe; Mrs Fanshawe returned her devotion. Janet Willoughby was rich, and of good birth. Mrs Fanshawe had mentally adopted her as a daughter-in-law. Given the non-appearance of a rival on the scene, her desire would probably be fulfilled, since such sincere liking could easily ripen into love. Just for a moment Claire felt a stab of that lone and lorn feeling which comes to solitary females at the realisation of another’s happiness; then she rallied herself and said regretfully—“I’m afraid I shan’t have the chance! Our lives lie too far apart, and my time is not my own. It is only an occasional Saturday-night that I can play Cinderella.”“What do you do on Sundays?”“Go to church in the morning, and sleep in the afternoon. Sounds elderly, doesn’t it? But I do enjoy that sleep. The hour after lunch is the most trying of the school day. It’s all I can do sometimes to smother my yawns, and not upset the whole class. It’s part of the Sunday rest to be able to let go, lie down hugging a hot bottle, and sleep steadily till it’s time for tea.”“Where do you go to church?”“Oh!” Claire waved an airy hand, “it depends! I’ve not settled down. I am still trying which I like best.”Across the table the two pairs of eyes met. The man’s questioning, protesting, the girl’s steadily defiant. “Why won’t you tell me?” came the unspoken question. “Why won’t you give me a chance?”“I am too proud,” came the unspoken answer. “Your mother did not think me good enough. I will accept no acquaintance by stealth.”Interruption came in the shape of the waiter bearing a tray of little silver dishes filled with dainties, which he proceeded to arrange in rows on the table. Claire relapsed into giggles at the sight, and Captain Fanshawe took refuge, man-like, in preternatural solemnity; but he made no comment, and the moment that the man had disappeared, both heads craned eagerly to examine the spoils.“Chocolates,marrons glacis, crystallised peaches, French bon-bons, plums. I don’t recognise them by head mark. These are too sticky... These look uncommonly good!” The big fingers hovered over each dish in turn, lifting sample specimens, and placing them on Claire’s plate, whence they were swiftly conveyed to her bag. Not a single sweetmeat touched her own lips. The unconventionality of the action seemed to receive some justification from the fact that she was confiscating only her own share. When the waiter returned with ices, the little bag bulged suspiciously, and the silver dishes were no longer required. The waiter was ordered to carry them away, and plainly considered that some people did not know what they wanted.“The only thing lacking is a cracker. I invariably purloined a cracker, and doubled up the ends. I suppose we are hardly near enough to Christmas. By the by, what are you doing for Christmas? You will have holidays, of course,” Captain Fanshawe said, with an elaborate unconsciousness, and Claire kept her eyes on her plate.“I may go to Belgium. I haven’t decided.”“There seem to be a good many things you cannot—decide. Miss Gifford, you haven’t forgotten what I asked you?”“What did you ask?”“That if ever I could help—if you ever needed help—”“I shall want help badly during the next few weeks, when the examinations come on, and I have all the papers to set and correct.”Captain Fanshawe refused to smile.“The kind of help that a man can give—”“Yes, I remember. You were very kind, and I am still so much under the influence of the old life that I do feel you might be a comfort; but no doubt, after some more months of school-mistressing, I shall resent the idea that a man could do any more than I could myself. So it’s a case of soon or never. You will hardly be cruel enough to wish to hasten my extremity!”“I’m not so sure about that, if I could have the satisfaction of putting things to rights!”It was while she was smiling her acknowledgment of this pretty speech that Claire became conscious of Janet Willoughby’s eyes bent searchingly upon her. She had entered the room on the arm of her supper partner, and came to a pause not a yard away from the table where a very animated, apparently very intimate conversation was taking place between the son of her old friend and the girl to whom she had believed him to be unknown. As she met Claire’s glance, Janet smiled automatically, but the friendliness was gone from her glance. The next moment Captain Fanshawe, had turned, seen her, and sprung to his feet.“Janet! Are you waiting for a table? We have nearly finished. Won’t you sit down and talk to Miss Gifford?”“Oh, please don’t hurry... We’ll find another place. You have met before, then? I didn’t know.”“I saw Miss Gifford when she was befriending my mother at Liverpool Street Station, and recognised her upstairs just now. Do sit down, Janet. You look tired.”Janet Willoughby took the offered chair and exchanged a few words with Claire as she gathered together her possessions, but the subtle change persisted. Claire felt vaguely disturbed, but the next half-hour passed so pleasantly that she had no time to puzzle over the explanation. Captain Fanshawe never left her side; they sat together on the same sofa which Great-aunt Jane had monopolised for the earlier part of the evening, and talked of many things, and discussed many problems, and sometimes agreed, and oftener disagreed, and when they disagreed most widely, looked into each other’s eyes and smiled, as who should say, “What do words matter? We understand!”At one o’clock Claire rose to depart, and said her adieu to her hostess and her daughter, who were standing side by side.“My dear, it is too bad. I have hadnotime with you, and I am so grateful for the charming way in which you came to the rescue! We shall hope to see you often again. Shan’t we, Janet? You girls must arrange a day which suits you both.”“Oh, yes, we must!” Janet said, as she shook hands, but she made no attempt to make the arrangement there and then, as her mother obviously expected, and Claire realised, with a sinking of the heart, that a promised friendship had received a check.When she descended to the hall wrapped in her filmy cloak it was to find Captain Fanshawe waiting at the foot of the stairs. He looked worried and grave, and the front door was reached before he made the first remark. Then, lingering tentatively on the threshold, he looked down at her with a searching glance.“Is—er—is your address still the Grand Hotel?”Claire’s face set into firm lines.“Still the Grand Hotel!”For a moment he looked her steadily in the eyes, then said quietly—“And my address is still the Carlton Club!” He bowed, and turned into the house.The footman banged the door of the taxi, and stood awaiting instructions.“T–wenty-two, Laburnum Crescent,” said Claire weakly. Halfway through the words a sudden obstacle arose in her throat. It was all she could do to struggle through. She hoped to goodness the footman did not notice.“There now! what did I tell you? You look fagged to death, and as cross as two sticks. Five shillings wasted on taxis, and nothing for it but getting thoroughly upset. Next time I hope you will take my advice!” said Cecil, and took up her candle to grope her way up the dark stairway to bed.
Claire stepped down from the platform to be surrounded by a throng of guests all eager to express their admiration of her interesting performance, to marvel how she could “do it,” and to congratulate her upon so unusual an accomplishment; and she smiled and bowed, declared that it was quite easy, and perjured herself by maintaining that anyone could do as well, acutely conscious all the time that Captain Fanshawe was drawing nearer with determined steps, edging his way towards the front of the crowd. The next moment her hand was in his, and he was greeting her with the assurance of a lifelong friend.
“Good evening, Miss Gifford. Hadn’t we better make straight for supper now? I am sure you must need it.”
It was practically the ordinary invitation. There was nothing to find fault with in the words themselves, yet the impression of a previous arrangement was obviously left with the hearers, who fell back, giving way as to a superior right. As for Claire, she laid her hand on the extended arm, with all the good will in the world, and made a triumphant passage through the crowd, which smiled upon her as though agreeing that it was now her turn to be amused.
“This table, I think!” Captain Fanshawe said, leading the way to the furthest corner of the dining-room, and Claire found herself sipping a hot cup of soup, and realising that the world was an agreeable place, and that it was folly ever to allow oneself to be downhearted, since such delightful surprises awaited round corners ready to transform the grey into gold!
Captain Fanshawe looked exactly as memory had pictured him—plain of feature, distinguished in bearing, grave, self-contained, yet with that lurking light in his eyes which showed that humour lay beneath. Claire smiled at him across the table, and asked an obvious question—
“Rather a different meeting-place from our last! Did you know me at once?”
“I did,” he said, and added deliberately, “Just as you knew me.”
“Oh, well!” Claire tried to look unconcerned. “Men are always pretty much the same. Evening dress does not make the same difference to them.”
She knew a momentary fear lest he should believe she was fishing for a compliment, and give the ordinary banal reply; but he looked at her with a grave scrutiny, and asked quietly—
“Was that one of the frocks which went astray?”
“Yes! All of it. It wasn’t even divided in half.”
“It was a good thing the box turned up!” he said; and there, after all, was the compliment, but so delicately inferred that the most fastidious taste could not object.
With the finishing of the soup came the first reference to Claire’s work, for the Captain’s casual “Do you care for anything solid, or would you prefer a sweet?” evoked a round-eyed stare of dismay.
“Oh,please!” cried Claire deeply. “I want to go straight through. I’ve been living on mutton and cabbage for over two months, and cooking suppers on a chafing-dish. I looked forward to supper as part of the treat!”
The plain face lightened into a delightful smile.
“That’s all right!” he cried. “Now we know where we are. I hadn’t much dinner myself, so I’m quite game. Let us study the book of the words.”
Aménulay on the table, a square white card emblazoned with many golden words. Captain Fanshawe drew his chair nearer, and ran his finger down the list, while Claire bent forward to signify a yea or nay. Every delicacy in season and out of season seemed to find its place on that list, which certainly justified Master Reginald’s eulogy of his mother’s “good feeds.” Claire found it quite a serious matter to decide between so many good things, and even with various curtailments, made rather out of pride than inclination, the meal threatened to last some considerable time.
Well! there was obvious satisfaction in the manner in which Captain Fanshawe delivered his orders, and for herself, she had been dignified and self-denying; she had resolutely shut the door between this man and herself, and devoted herself to work, and now, since fate had thrown him in her way for a chance hour, she could enjoy herself with a light mind. It was good to talk to a man again, to hear a deep masculine voice, to look at a broad strong frame. Putting aside all question of love and marriage, the convent life is no more satisfying than the monastic. Each sex was designed by God to be the complement of the other. Each must suffer from lack of the other’s companionship.
“I arrived just as you began your performance,” Captain Fanshawe informed her. “It was a great ‘draw.’ Everybody had crowded forward to listen. It was only towards the end of your second—er—how exactly should one express it?—morceau, that I managed to get into seeing line. It was a surprise! Have you known the Willoughbys long?”
Claire looked at him blankly.
“I never saw them before to-night. Your mother wrote to ask them if they would send me a card.”
“Oh!” Captain Fanshawe was certainly surprised, and Claire mentally snubbed herself because at the bottom of her heart there had lain a suspicion that perhaps—just perhaps—he had come to-night in the hope of meeting his acquaintance of the railway station. This was not the case; no thought of her had been in his mind. Probably until the moment of meeting he had forgotten her existence. Never mind! Theyhadmet, and he was agreeable and friendly. Now for a delightful half-hour...
“That was a good thought of themater’s. You will like them. They are delightful people. Just the people you ought to know as a stranger in town. How goes the school teaching, by the way? As well as you expected?”
Claire deliberated, with pursed lips.
“No. I expected so much; I always do. But much better than other people expected for me. Theoretically it’s a fine life. There are times when it seems that nothing could be finer. But—”
“But what?”
“I don’t think it’s quite satisfying, as awholelife!”
“Does anyone suppose it is?”
“They try to. They have to. For most teachers there is so little else.”
The waiter handed plates of lobster mayonnaise, and Captain Fanshawe said quietly—
“Tell me about the times when the work seems fine.”
“Ah—many times! It depends on one’s own mood and health, because, of course, the circumstances are always the same. There are mornings when one looks round a big class-room and sees all the girls’ faces looking upwards, and it gives one quite a thrilling sense of power and opportunity. That is what the heaven-born teacher must feel every time.—‘Here is the fresh virgin soil, and mine is the joy of planting the right seed! Here are the women of the future, the mothers of the race. For this hour they are mine. What I say, they must hear. They will listen with an attention which even their parents cannot gain. The words which I speak this morning may bear fruit in many lives.’ That’s the ideal attitude, but the ordinary human woman has other mornings when all she feels is—‘Oh, dear me, six hours of this! And what’s the use? Everything I batter in to-day will be forgotten by to-morrow. What’s the ideal anyway in teaching French verbs? I want to go to bed.’”
They laughed together, but Captain Fanshawe sobered quickly, and his brow showed furrows of distress. Claire looked at him and said quickly—
“Do you mind if we don’t talk school? I am Cinderella to-night, wearing fine clothes and supping in state. I’d so much rather talk Cinderella to match.”
“Certainly, certainly. Just as you wish.” Lolling back in his chair, Captain Fanshawe adopted an air ofblaséindifference, and drawled slowly, “Quite a good winter, isn’t it? Lots going on. Have you been to the Opera lately?”
“Oh dear!” thought Claire with a gush, “how refreshing to meet a grown-up man who can pretend like a child!” She simpered, and replied artificially, “Oh, yes—quite often. The dear Duchess issokind; her box is open to me whenever I choose to go. Wonderful scene, isn’t it? All those tiers rising one above another. Do you ever look up at the galleries? Such funny people sit there—men in tweed suits; girls in white blouses. Whoarethey, should you think? Clerks and typists and school-mistresses, and people of that persuasion?”
“Possibly, I dare say. One never knows. They look quite respectable and quiet, don’t you know!”
The twinkle was alight in Captain Fanshawe’s eyes. It shone more brightly still as he added, “Everybody turns up sooner or later in the Duchess’s box. Have you happened to meet—the Prince!”
For a moment Claire groped for the connection, then dimpled merrily.
“Not yet. No! but I am hoping—”
The waiter approached with plates of chicken in aspic, and more rolls of crisp browned bread. Claire sent a thought to Cecil finishing a box of sardines, with her book propped up against the cocoa jug. The Cinderellarôlewas forgotten while her eyes roved around, studying the silver dishes on the various tables.
“When you were a small boy, Captain Fanshawe, did you go out to parties?”
Captain Fanshawe knitted his brows. This charming girl was a little difficult to follow conversationally; she leapt from one subject to another with disconcerting agility.
“Er—pardon me! Is that question put to me in my—er—private, or imaginary capacity?”
“Private, of course. But naturally you did. Did you have pockets?”
“To the best of my remembrance I was disguised as a midshipmite, with white duck trousers of a prodigious width. They used to crackle, I remember. There was room for a dozen pockets.”
Claire laid her arms on the table, so that her face drew nearer his own. Her voice fell to a stage whisper—
“Did you—ever—take—something—home?”
The Captain threw back his head with a peal of laughter.
“Miss Gifford, what a question! I was an ordinary human boy.Of courseI did. And sat on my spoils in the carriage going back, and was scolded for spoiling my clothes. I had a small brother at home.”
“Well—I have a small friend! She has letters after her name, and is very learned and clever, but she has averysweet tooth. Do you think, perhaps—in this bag—”
“Leave it to me!” he said firmly, and when the waiter next appeared, he received an order to bring more bon-bons—plenty of bon-bons—a selection of all the small dainties in silver dishes.
“He thinks Iamhaving a feast!” Claire said demurely, as she watched the progress of selection; then she met Erskine Fanshawe’s eyes, and nodded in response to an unspoken question, “And Iam! I’m having a lovely time!”
“I wish it were possible that you could oftener—”
“Well, who knows? A week ago I had made up my mind that nothing exciting would ever happen again, and then this invitation arrived. What a perfect dear Miss Willoughby seems to be!”
“Janet? Sheis!” he said warmly. “She is a girl who has had everything the world can give her, and yet has come through unspoiled. It’s not often one can say that. Many society girls are selfish and vain, but Janet never seems to think of herself. You’d find her an ideal friend.”
Claire’s brain leapt swiftly to several conclusions. Janet Willoughby was devoted to Mrs Fanshawe; Mrs Fanshawe returned her devotion. Janet Willoughby was rich, and of good birth. Mrs Fanshawe had mentally adopted her as a daughter-in-law. Given the non-appearance of a rival on the scene, her desire would probably be fulfilled, since such sincere liking could easily ripen into love. Just for a moment Claire felt a stab of that lone and lorn feeling which comes to solitary females at the realisation of another’s happiness; then she rallied herself and said regretfully—
“I’m afraid I shan’t have the chance! Our lives lie too far apart, and my time is not my own. It is only an occasional Saturday-night that I can play Cinderella.”
“What do you do on Sundays?”
“Go to church in the morning, and sleep in the afternoon. Sounds elderly, doesn’t it? But I do enjoy that sleep. The hour after lunch is the most trying of the school day. It’s all I can do sometimes to smother my yawns, and not upset the whole class. It’s part of the Sunday rest to be able to let go, lie down hugging a hot bottle, and sleep steadily till it’s time for tea.”
“Where do you go to church?”
“Oh!” Claire waved an airy hand, “it depends! I’ve not settled down. I am still trying which I like best.”
Across the table the two pairs of eyes met. The man’s questioning, protesting, the girl’s steadily defiant. “Why won’t you tell me?” came the unspoken question. “Why won’t you give me a chance?”
“I am too proud,” came the unspoken answer. “Your mother did not think me good enough. I will accept no acquaintance by stealth.”
Interruption came in the shape of the waiter bearing a tray of little silver dishes filled with dainties, which he proceeded to arrange in rows on the table. Claire relapsed into giggles at the sight, and Captain Fanshawe took refuge, man-like, in preternatural solemnity; but he made no comment, and the moment that the man had disappeared, both heads craned eagerly to examine the spoils.
“Chocolates,marrons glacis, crystallised peaches, French bon-bons, plums. I don’t recognise them by head mark. These are too sticky... These look uncommonly good!” The big fingers hovered over each dish in turn, lifting sample specimens, and placing them on Claire’s plate, whence they were swiftly conveyed to her bag. Not a single sweetmeat touched her own lips. The unconventionality of the action seemed to receive some justification from the fact that she was confiscating only her own share. When the waiter returned with ices, the little bag bulged suspiciously, and the silver dishes were no longer required. The waiter was ordered to carry them away, and plainly considered that some people did not know what they wanted.
“The only thing lacking is a cracker. I invariably purloined a cracker, and doubled up the ends. I suppose we are hardly near enough to Christmas. By the by, what are you doing for Christmas? You will have holidays, of course,” Captain Fanshawe said, with an elaborate unconsciousness, and Claire kept her eyes on her plate.
“I may go to Belgium. I haven’t decided.”
“There seem to be a good many things you cannot—decide. Miss Gifford, you haven’t forgotten what I asked you?”
“What did you ask?”
“That if ever I could help—if you ever needed help—”
“I shall want help badly during the next few weeks, when the examinations come on, and I have all the papers to set and correct.”
Captain Fanshawe refused to smile.
“The kind of help that a man can give—”
“Yes, I remember. You were very kind, and I am still so much under the influence of the old life that I do feel you might be a comfort; but no doubt, after some more months of school-mistressing, I shall resent the idea that a man could do any more than I could myself. So it’s a case of soon or never. You will hardly be cruel enough to wish to hasten my extremity!”
“I’m not so sure about that, if I could have the satisfaction of putting things to rights!”
It was while she was smiling her acknowledgment of this pretty speech that Claire became conscious of Janet Willoughby’s eyes bent searchingly upon her. She had entered the room on the arm of her supper partner, and came to a pause not a yard away from the table where a very animated, apparently very intimate conversation was taking place between the son of her old friend and the girl to whom she had believed him to be unknown. As she met Claire’s glance, Janet smiled automatically, but the friendliness was gone from her glance. The next moment Captain Fanshawe, had turned, seen her, and sprung to his feet.
“Janet! Are you waiting for a table? We have nearly finished. Won’t you sit down and talk to Miss Gifford?”
“Oh, please don’t hurry... We’ll find another place. You have met before, then? I didn’t know.”
“I saw Miss Gifford when she was befriending my mother at Liverpool Street Station, and recognised her upstairs just now. Do sit down, Janet. You look tired.”
Janet Willoughby took the offered chair and exchanged a few words with Claire as she gathered together her possessions, but the subtle change persisted. Claire felt vaguely disturbed, but the next half-hour passed so pleasantly that she had no time to puzzle over the explanation. Captain Fanshawe never left her side; they sat together on the same sofa which Great-aunt Jane had monopolised for the earlier part of the evening, and talked of many things, and discussed many problems, and sometimes agreed, and oftener disagreed, and when they disagreed most widely, looked into each other’s eyes and smiled, as who should say, “What do words matter? We understand!”
At one o’clock Claire rose to depart, and said her adieu to her hostess and her daughter, who were standing side by side.
“My dear, it is too bad. I have hadnotime with you, and I am so grateful for the charming way in which you came to the rescue! We shall hope to see you often again. Shan’t we, Janet? You girls must arrange a day which suits you both.”
“Oh, yes, we must!” Janet said, as she shook hands, but she made no attempt to make the arrangement there and then, as her mother obviously expected, and Claire realised, with a sinking of the heart, that a promised friendship had received a check.
When she descended to the hall wrapped in her filmy cloak it was to find Captain Fanshawe waiting at the foot of the stairs. He looked worried and grave, and the front door was reached before he made the first remark. Then, lingering tentatively on the threshold, he looked down at her with a searching glance.
“Is—er—is your address still the Grand Hotel?”
Claire’s face set into firm lines.
“Still the Grand Hotel!”
For a moment he looked her steadily in the eyes, then said quietly—
“And my address is still the Carlton Club!” He bowed, and turned into the house.
The footman banged the door of the taxi, and stood awaiting instructions.
“T–wenty-two, Laburnum Crescent,” said Claire weakly. Halfway through the words a sudden obstacle arose in her throat. It was all she could do to struggle through. She hoped to goodness the footman did not notice.
“There now! what did I tell you? You look fagged to death, and as cross as two sticks. Five shillings wasted on taxis, and nothing for it but getting thoroughly upset. Next time I hope you will take my advice!” said Cecil, and took up her candle to grope her way up the dark stairway to bed.
Chapter Ten.Nowhere to go.Cecil’s observance of her day of licenced grumbling was somewhat obstructed by the fact that for several weeks after Mrs Willoughby’s At Home, Monday mornings found her in a condition of excitement and gaiety. It was a restless gaiety, which seemed to spring rather from the head than the heart, and Claire looking on with puzzled eyes had an instinct that her companion was assiduously whipping up her own spirits, playing the part of happiness with all her force, with the object of convincing the most critical of all audiences—her own heart! Life was a lonely thing to Claire in these days, for Cecil went out regularly every Saturday and Sunday, returning so late that the two girls did not meet from lunch one day until breakfast the next. She vouchsafed no explanation of her sudden plunge into society, neither beforehand when she sat stitching at pathetic little pieces of finery, nor afterwards when letting herself in with her latch-key she crept slowly to bed, never deigning to enter Claire’s room for one of those “tell-all-about-it”séancesdear to a girl’s heart.It was the sight of those pathetic little pieces of finery which first suggested the idea of a man to Claire’s mind. However dear and intimate a woman friend may be, the prospect of meeting her does not inspire a fellow-woman with sufficient energy to sit up until after midnight to cover a shabby lace blouse with ninon, or to put a new silk collar and cuffs on a half-worn coat. It is only the prospect of meeting the eyes of some male creature, who in all probability will remain supremely unconscious of the result, which stimulates such effort, and Claire, noting Cecil’s restless excitement, cast anxious thoughts towards the particular man in this case.Was Sophie Blake correct in her deduction as to a previous unhappy romance? Claire had no tangible grounds to lead her to a conclusion, but instinct induced her to agree. Something beyond the troubles of her professional life had gone towards warping a nature that was naturally generous and warm. In imagination Claire lived over the pitiful romance. Poor Cecil had been badly treated. Some selfish man had made love to her, amusing his idle hours with the society of a pretty, clever woman; he had never seriously intended marriage, but Cecil had believed in his sincerity, had given him her whole heart, had dreamt dreams which had turned the grey of life to gold.And then had come the end. How had the end come? Some day when they were walking together, had he suddenly announced: “I am sailing to India next month!” or, “We have been such capital friends, you and I. I should like you to be the first to hear my news. I am engaged to be married to the dearest girl in the world!” Then, because convention decrees that when her heart is wounded a woman may make no moan, had Cecil twisted her lips into a smile, and cried, “I am so glad to hear it. I hope you will be very happy,” while the solid earth rocked around her? At such thoughts as these Claire flared with righteous anger. “If that should ever happen to me, I wouldn’t pretend! I wouldn’t spare him. I should look him straight in the face, and say, ‘And all this time you have been pretending to love me.—I thank God that itwaspretence. I thank God that He has preserved me from being the wife of man who could act a double part!’”But perhaps there had been no real ending. Perhaps the man had simply grown tired, and ceased to call, ceased to write. Oh, surely that would be the greatest tragedy of all! Claire’s quick brain summoned pictures of Cecil creeping down the oil-clothed stairs in her dressing-gown at the sound of the postman’s earliest knock, and creeping back with no letter in her hand; of Cecil entering the little parlour on her return from work with a swift hungry look at the table on which the day’s letters were displayed; seeing no letter lying there; never, never the letter for which she watched! And the days would pass, and the weeks, and the months, and the old routine of life would go on just the same. Whatever might be her private sufferings, the English mistress must be at her post each morning at nine o’clock; she must wrestle all day with the minds of dull girls, listless girls, clever girls, girls who were eager to learn, and girls whose energies seemed condensed in the effort to avoid learning at all. However sore might be the English mistress’s heart, it was her duty to be bright and alert; however exhausted her own stock of patience, she must still be a female Job in her treatment of her many pupils. A school-mistress must banish her individuality as a woman on the threshold of the form-room; while on duty she must banish every outside interest from her mind. No lying in bed, with her face to the pillow; no weeping far into the night. Headache and swollen eyelids are not for her. If her love-story goes wrong, she must lock her sorrow in her own heart. What wonder if, as a result, her mind grows bitter and her tongue grows sharp!“That’s a lesson for me! I must never, never allow myself to fall in love!” sighed Claire to herself. It was a depressing necessity, but vaguely she allowed herself to dream of a distant Someday, when the ban should be removed. Something might happen to set her free. Something most certainlywouldhappen! Optimistic one-and-twenty is ready enough to face a short term of renunciation, but it resolutely refuses to believe in its continuance.A shadow fell over Claire’s happy face as the practical application of this resolve came into her mind. Erskine Fanshawe! At the moment he was the one masculine figure on her horizon, but she did not disguise from herself that of all the men she had met, he attracted her the most. What a mercy that she had had the resolution to put a stop to a friendship which might have ended in unfitting her for the work in hand! It had been hard to refuse the desired information, but the fact that the second refusal had been twice as hard as the first was in itself a proof of the wisdom of her decision. And then, in illogical girlish fashion, Claire fell to wondering if perchance Captain Fanshawe would discover her address for himself? It would be the easiest of tasks, since he had nothing to do but to put the question to Mrs Willoughby. At one moment Claire openly hoped that he would; at the next she recalled the expression on Janet Willoughby’s face as she stood staring across the supper room, and then she was not so sure. What if the continuance of the friendship brought trouble on Janet as well as herself?Laboriously Claire thrust the thought of Erskine Fanshawe from her mind, but just because inclination would have led her to so blithely meet him, she felt a keener sympathy with her companion’s preparations for similar meetings.The time of examinations had come, and night after night the dining-table of the little parlour was littered with the sheets of foolscap which were to test the progress of the pupils throughout the term. Cecil’s older forms had been studyingThe Merchant of Venice, Richard the Second, and theEssays of Elia; the younger forms,Tanglewood Talesand Kingsley’sHeroes. She had set the questions not only as a test of memory, but with a view of drawing out original thought. But, to judge from her groans and lamentations, the result was poor.“Of all the dull, stupid, unimaginative—sheep! Not an original idea between them. Every answer exactly like the last—a hash-up of my own remarks in class. If there’s a creature on earth I despise more than another, it’s an English flapper. Silly, vain, egotistical—”Then the French mistress would scowl across the table, and say, “Now you’ve put me out! I was just counting up my marks. Oh, do be quiet!”“Sorry!” Cecil would say shortly, and taking up her pencil slash scathing comments at the side of the foolscap sheets. Anon she would smile, and smile again, and forgetting Claire’s request, would interrupt once more.“Can you remember the name of Florence Mason?”“If I strain my intellect to its utmost, I believe I can.”“Well, remember, then! It will be worth while. She’ll do something—that girl. When you are an insignificant old woman, you may be proud to boast that you used to sit at the very table on which her first English essays were corrected.”“So they are not all dull, stupid, unimaginative?”“The exception proves the rule!” cried Cecil, and swept the papers together with a sigh of relief. “Done at last. Now for my blouse.”Claire cast a glance at the clock.“Half-past ten. And you are so tired. Surely you won’t begin to sew at this hour?”“I must. I want it for Saturday. I tried it on last night, and it wasn’t a bit nice at the neck. I’ve got to alter it somehow.”“I have some trimming upstairs. Just be quiet for five minutes, while I finish my list, and then I’ll bring down my scrap-box, and we’ll see what we can find.”That scrap-box was in constant request during the next weeks. It was filled with the dainty oddments which a woman of means and taste collects in the course of years; trimmings and laces, and scraps of fine brocades; belts and buckles, and buttons of silver and paste; glittering ends of tinsel, ends of silk and ribbons that were really too pretty to throw away, and cunning little motifs which had the magic quality of disguising deficiencies and making both ends meet. Claire gave with a lavish hand, and Cecil’s gratitude was pathetic in its intensity. More and more as the weeks passed on did she become obsessed with the craze for decking herself in fine garments; new gloves, shoes, and veils were purchased to supplement the home-made garments, and one memorable night there arrived a large dress-box containing an evening dress and cloak.“I have been out so little these last years. I have no clothes to wear,” Cecil said in explanation. “It’s not fair to—er—people, when they take you about, to look as if you had come out of the Ark... And these ready-made things aresocheap!”She spoke with an air of excusing herself, and with a flush of embarrassment on her cheeks, and Claire hastened to sympathise and agree. She wondered if the embarrassment arose from the fact that for the last two weeks Cecil had not paid her share of the joint expenses! The omission had happened naturally enough, for on each occasion when the landlady appeared with the bill, Cecil had been absent on one of her now frequent excursions, when it had seemed the simplest thing to settle in full, and await repayment next day.Repayment, however, had not come. Half a dozen times over Cecil had exclaimed, “Oh, dear, there’s that money. Imustremember!” but apparently she never had remembered at a moment when her purse was at hand.Claire was honestly indifferent. The hundred pounds which she had deposited in a bank was considerably diminished, since it had been drawn on for all her needs, but the term’s salary would be paid in a short time, and the thought of that, added to the remainder, gave her a pleasant feeling of ease. It was only when for the third Saturday Cecil hurried off with an air of fluster and embarrassment, that an unpleasant suspicion arose. The weekly bill was again due, and Cecil had not forgotten, she was only elaborately pretending to forget! Claire was not angry, she was perfectly willing to play the part of banker until the end of the term, but she hated the thought that Cecil was acting a part, and deliberately trying to deceive. What if she had been extravagant in her expenditure on clothes and had run herself short for necessary expenses, there was nothing criminal in that! Foolish it might be, but a fellow-girl would understand that, after being staid and sensible for a long, long time, it was a blessed relief to the feminine mind to have a little spell of recklessness for a change. Cecil had only to say, “I’ve run myself horribly short. Can you pay up till I get my screw?” and the whole matter would have been settled in a trice. But to pretend to forget was somean!The next morning after breakfast the vexed question of the Christmas holidays came up for discussion for the twentieth time. Cecil had previously stated that she always spent the time with her mother, but it now appeared that to a certain extent she had changed her plans.“I shall have to go down over Christmas Day and the New Year, I suppose. Old people make such a fuss over those stupid anniversaries, but I shall come up again on the second. I prefer to be in town. We have to pay for the rooms in any case, so we may as well use them.”Claire’s face lengthened.“Payfor them! Even if we go away?”“Of course. What did you expect? The landlady isn’t let off her own rent, because we choose to take a holiday. There’s no saving except for the light and coal. By the way, I owe you for a third week now. Imustremember! Have you decided what you are going to do?”Claire shook her head. It was a forlorn feeling that Christmas was coming, and she had nowhere to go. Until now she had gone on in faith, feeling sure that before the time arrived, some one would remember her loneliness, and invite her if only for the day itself. Possibly Cecil in virtue of three months’ daily companionship would ask her mother’s permission to invite her friend, if only for a couple of days. Or bright, friendly Sophie Blake, who had sympathised with her loneliness, might have some proposition to make, or Mrs Willoughby, who was so interested in girls who were working for themselves, or Miss Farnborough, who knew that it was the French mistress’s first Christmas without her mother; but no such suggestion had been made. No one seemed to care.“I must say it’sstrangethat no one has invited you!” said Cecil sharply. “I don’t think much of your grand friends if they can’t look after you on Christmas Day. What about the people in Brussels? Did no one send you an invitation? If you lived there for three years, surely you must know some one intimately enough to offer to go, even if they don’t suggest it.”“It is not necessary, thank you,” said Claire with an air. “I have an open invitation to several houses, but I am saving up Brussels for Easter, when the weather will be better, and it will be more of a change. And I have an old grand-aunt in the North, but she is an invalid, confined to her room. I should be an extra trouble in the house. I shall manage to amuse myself somehow. It will be an opportunity for exploring London.”“Oh well,” Cecil said vaguely, “when I come back!” but she spoke no word of Christmas Day.The next week brought the various festivities with which Saint Cuthbert’s celebrated the end of the Christmas term. There was a school dance in the big class-room, a Christmas-tree party, given to the children in an East End parish, and last and most important of all the breaking-up ceremony in the local Town Hall, when an old girl, now developed into a celebrated authoress, presented the prizes, and gave an amusing account of her own schooldays, which evoked storms of applause from the audience, even Miss Farnborough smiling benignly at the recital of misdoings which would have evoked her sternest displeasure on the part of present-day pupils! Then the singing-class girls sang a short cantata, and the eldest girls gave a scene from Shakespeare, very dull and exceedingly correct, and the youngest girls acted a little French play, while the French mistress stood in the wings, ready to prompt, her face very hot, and her feet very cold, and her heart beating at express speed.This moment was a public test of her work during the term, and she had a horror that the children would forget their parts and disgrace their leader as well as themselves. She need not have feared, however, for the publicity which she dreaded was just the stimulus needed to spur the juvenile actors to do their very best, and they shrugged, they gesticulated, they rolled their r’s, they reproduced Claire’s own little mannerisms with anaplombwhich brought down the house. Claire’s lack of teaching experience might make her less sound on rules and routine, but it was obvious that she had succeeded in one important point; she had lifted “French” from the level of a task, and converted it into a living tongue.Miss Farnborough was very gracious in her parting words to her new mistress.“I have not come to my present position without learning to trust my perceptions,” said she. “I recognised at once that you possessed the true teaching instinct, and to-day you have justified my choice. I have had many congratulations on your pupils’ performance.” Then she held out her hand with a charming smile. “I hope you will have very pleasant holidays!”She made no inquiries as to the way in which this young girl was to spend her leisure. She herself was worn-out with the strain of the long term, and when the morrow came she intended to pack her bag, and start off for a sunny Swiss height, where for the next few weeks it would be her chief aim to forget that she had ever seen a school. But the new French mistress turned away with a heavy heart. It seemed at that moment as if nobody cared.That year Christmas fell on a Monday. On the Saturday morning Cecil packed up her bag, and departed, grumbling, for her week at home. Before she left, Claire presented her with a Christmas gift in the shape of a charming embroidered scarf, and Cecil kissed her, and flushed, and looked at the same time pleased and oppressed, and hastily pulling out her purse extracted two sovereigns and laid them down on the table.“I keep forgetting that money! Three weeks, wasn’t it? There’s two pounds; let me know the rest when I come back and I’ll settle up. Christmas is an awful time. The money simply melts.”Claire had an uncomfortable and wholly unreasonable feeling of being paid for her present as she put the two sovereigns in her purse. Cecil had given her no gift, and the lack of the kindly attention increased the feeling of desolation with which she returned to her empty room. Even the tiniest offering to show that she had been thought of, would have been a comfort!The landlady came into the room to remove the luncheon tray, her lips pursed into an expression which her lodger recognised as the preliminary to “a bit of my mind.” When the outlying cruets and dishes had been crowded together in a perilous pile, the bit of her mind came out.“I was going to say, miss, that of course you will arrange to dine out on Christmas Day. I never take ladies as a rule, but Miss Rhodes, she said, being teachers, you would be away all holiday time. I never had a lodger before who stayed in the house over Christmas, and of course you must understand that we go over to Highgate to my mother’s for the day and the girl goes out, and I couldn’t possibly think of cooking—”“Don’t be afraid, Mrs Mason. I am going out for the day.”Mrs Mason lifted the tray and carried it out of the room, shutting the door behind her by the skilful insertion of a large foot encased in a cashmere boot, and Claire stood staring at her, wondering if it were really her own voice which had spoken those last words, and from what source had sprung the confidence which had suddenly flooded her heart. At this last blow of all, when even the little saffron-coloured parlour closed the door against her, the logical course would have been to collapse into utter despair, instead of which the moment had brought the first gleam of hope.“Now,” said the voice in her heart, “everyone has failed me. I am helpless, I am alone. This is God’s moment. I will worry no more, but leave it to Him. Something will open for me when the time arrives!”She went upstairs, put on her hat, and sallied out into the busy streets. All the world was abroad, men and women and small eager children all bent on the same task, thronging the shops to the doors, waiting in rows for the favour of being served, emerging triumphant with arms laden with spoils. On every side fragments of the same conversation floated to the ears. “What can I get for Kate?”“I can’t think what in the world to buy for John.”“Do try to give me an idea what Rose would like!...”Claire mingled with the throng, pushed her way towards the crowded counters, waited a preposterous time for her change, and then hurried off to another department to go through the same struggle once more. Deliberately she threw herself into the Christmas feeling, turning her thoughts from herself, considering only how she could add to the general happiness. She bought presents for everybody, for the cross landlady, for the untidy servant girl, for Sophie Blake, and Flora Ross, for the maid at Saint Cuthbert’s who waited upon the Staff-Room, with a selection of dainty oddments for girl friends at Brussels, and when the presents themselves had been secured she bought prettily tinted paper, and fancy ribbons, and decorated name cards for the adornment of the parcels.The saffron parlour looked quite Christmas-like that evening, and Claire knew a happy hour as she made up her gifts in their dainty wrappings. They looked so gay and seasonable that she decided to defer putting them into the sober outer covering of brown paper as long as possible. They were all the Christmas decoration she would have!On Sunday morning the feeling of loneliness took an acute turn. Claire longed for a church which long association had made into a home; for a clergyman who was also a friend; for a congregation of people who knew her, and cared for her well-being, instead of the long rows of strange faces. She remembered how Cecil had declared that in London a girl might attend the same church for years on end, and never hear a word of welcome, and hope died low in her breast. The moment of exaltation had passed, and she told herself drearily that on Christmas afternoon she must take a book and sit by the fire in the waiting-room of some great station, dine at a restaurant, and perhaps go to a concert at night.For weeks past Claire had been intending to go to a West End church to hear one of the finest of modern preachers. She decided to go this morning, since the length of journey now seemed rather an advantage than a drawback, as helping to fill up another of the long, dragging hours.She dressed herself with the care and nicety which was the result of her French training, and which had of late become almost a religious duty, for the study of the fifteen women who daily assembled round the table in the Staff-Room was as a danger signal to warn new-comers of the perils ahead. With the one exception of Sophie Blake, not one of the number seemed to make any effort to preserve their feminine charm. They dressed their hair in the quickest and easiest fashion without considering the question of appearance; they wore dun-coloured garments with collars of the same material; though severely neat, all their skirts seemed to suffer from the same depressing tendency to drop at the back; their bony wrists emerged from tightly-buttoned sleeves. The point of view adopted was that appearance did not matter, that it was waste of time to consider the adornment of the outer woman. Brain was the all-important factor; every possible moment must be devoted to the cultivation of brain; but an outsider could not fail to note that, with this destroying of a natural instinct, something which went deeper than the surface was also lost; with the grace of the body certain feminine graces of soul died also, and the world was poorer for their loss.The untidy servant maid peered out of the window to watch Claire as she left the house that morning, and evolved a whole feuilleton to account for the inconsistency of her appearance with her position as a first floor front. “You’d take her for a lady to look at her! P’raps sheisa lady in disguise!” and from, this point the making of the feuilleton began.The service that morning was food to Claire’s hungering soul, for the words of the preacher might have been designed to meet her own need. As she listened she realised that the bitterness of loneliness was impossible to one who believed and trusted in the great, all-compassing love. Sad one might still be, so long as the human heart demanded a human companionship, but the sting of feeling uncared for, could never touch a child of God. She took the comfort home to her heart, and stored it there to help her through the difficult time ahead, and on her knees at the end of the service she sent up her own little petition for help.“There are so many homes in this great city! Is there no home for me on Christmas Day?” With the words the tears sprang, and Claire mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, thankful that she was surrounded by strangers by whom her reddened eyes would pass unnoticed. Then rising to her feet, she turned to lift the furs which hung on the back of the pew, and met the brown eyes of a girl who had been sitting behind her the whole of the service.The girl was Janet Willoughby.
Cecil’s observance of her day of licenced grumbling was somewhat obstructed by the fact that for several weeks after Mrs Willoughby’s At Home, Monday mornings found her in a condition of excitement and gaiety. It was a restless gaiety, which seemed to spring rather from the head than the heart, and Claire looking on with puzzled eyes had an instinct that her companion was assiduously whipping up her own spirits, playing the part of happiness with all her force, with the object of convincing the most critical of all audiences—her own heart! Life was a lonely thing to Claire in these days, for Cecil went out regularly every Saturday and Sunday, returning so late that the two girls did not meet from lunch one day until breakfast the next. She vouchsafed no explanation of her sudden plunge into society, neither beforehand when she sat stitching at pathetic little pieces of finery, nor afterwards when letting herself in with her latch-key she crept slowly to bed, never deigning to enter Claire’s room for one of those “tell-all-about-it”séancesdear to a girl’s heart.
It was the sight of those pathetic little pieces of finery which first suggested the idea of a man to Claire’s mind. However dear and intimate a woman friend may be, the prospect of meeting her does not inspire a fellow-woman with sufficient energy to sit up until after midnight to cover a shabby lace blouse with ninon, or to put a new silk collar and cuffs on a half-worn coat. It is only the prospect of meeting the eyes of some male creature, who in all probability will remain supremely unconscious of the result, which stimulates such effort, and Claire, noting Cecil’s restless excitement, cast anxious thoughts towards the particular man in this case.
Was Sophie Blake correct in her deduction as to a previous unhappy romance? Claire had no tangible grounds to lead her to a conclusion, but instinct induced her to agree. Something beyond the troubles of her professional life had gone towards warping a nature that was naturally generous and warm. In imagination Claire lived over the pitiful romance. Poor Cecil had been badly treated. Some selfish man had made love to her, amusing his idle hours with the society of a pretty, clever woman; he had never seriously intended marriage, but Cecil had believed in his sincerity, had given him her whole heart, had dreamt dreams which had turned the grey of life to gold.
And then had come the end. How had the end come? Some day when they were walking together, had he suddenly announced: “I am sailing to India next month!” or, “We have been such capital friends, you and I. I should like you to be the first to hear my news. I am engaged to be married to the dearest girl in the world!” Then, because convention decrees that when her heart is wounded a woman may make no moan, had Cecil twisted her lips into a smile, and cried, “I am so glad to hear it. I hope you will be very happy,” while the solid earth rocked around her? At such thoughts as these Claire flared with righteous anger. “If that should ever happen to me, I wouldn’t pretend! I wouldn’t spare him. I should look him straight in the face, and say, ‘And all this time you have been pretending to love me.—I thank God that itwaspretence. I thank God that He has preserved me from being the wife of man who could act a double part!’”
But perhaps there had been no real ending. Perhaps the man had simply grown tired, and ceased to call, ceased to write. Oh, surely that would be the greatest tragedy of all! Claire’s quick brain summoned pictures of Cecil creeping down the oil-clothed stairs in her dressing-gown at the sound of the postman’s earliest knock, and creeping back with no letter in her hand; of Cecil entering the little parlour on her return from work with a swift hungry look at the table on which the day’s letters were displayed; seeing no letter lying there; never, never the letter for which she watched! And the days would pass, and the weeks, and the months, and the old routine of life would go on just the same. Whatever might be her private sufferings, the English mistress must be at her post each morning at nine o’clock; she must wrestle all day with the minds of dull girls, listless girls, clever girls, girls who were eager to learn, and girls whose energies seemed condensed in the effort to avoid learning at all. However sore might be the English mistress’s heart, it was her duty to be bright and alert; however exhausted her own stock of patience, she must still be a female Job in her treatment of her many pupils. A school-mistress must banish her individuality as a woman on the threshold of the form-room; while on duty she must banish every outside interest from her mind. No lying in bed, with her face to the pillow; no weeping far into the night. Headache and swollen eyelids are not for her. If her love-story goes wrong, she must lock her sorrow in her own heart. What wonder if, as a result, her mind grows bitter and her tongue grows sharp!
“That’s a lesson for me! I must never, never allow myself to fall in love!” sighed Claire to herself. It was a depressing necessity, but vaguely she allowed herself to dream of a distant Someday, when the ban should be removed. Something might happen to set her free. Something most certainlywouldhappen! Optimistic one-and-twenty is ready enough to face a short term of renunciation, but it resolutely refuses to believe in its continuance.
A shadow fell over Claire’s happy face as the practical application of this resolve came into her mind. Erskine Fanshawe! At the moment he was the one masculine figure on her horizon, but she did not disguise from herself that of all the men she had met, he attracted her the most. What a mercy that she had had the resolution to put a stop to a friendship which might have ended in unfitting her for the work in hand! It had been hard to refuse the desired information, but the fact that the second refusal had been twice as hard as the first was in itself a proof of the wisdom of her decision. And then, in illogical girlish fashion, Claire fell to wondering if perchance Captain Fanshawe would discover her address for himself? It would be the easiest of tasks, since he had nothing to do but to put the question to Mrs Willoughby. At one moment Claire openly hoped that he would; at the next she recalled the expression on Janet Willoughby’s face as she stood staring across the supper room, and then she was not so sure. What if the continuance of the friendship brought trouble on Janet as well as herself?
Laboriously Claire thrust the thought of Erskine Fanshawe from her mind, but just because inclination would have led her to so blithely meet him, she felt a keener sympathy with her companion’s preparations for similar meetings.
The time of examinations had come, and night after night the dining-table of the little parlour was littered with the sheets of foolscap which were to test the progress of the pupils throughout the term. Cecil’s older forms had been studyingThe Merchant of Venice, Richard the Second, and theEssays of Elia; the younger forms,Tanglewood Talesand Kingsley’sHeroes. She had set the questions not only as a test of memory, but with a view of drawing out original thought. But, to judge from her groans and lamentations, the result was poor.
“Of all the dull, stupid, unimaginative—sheep! Not an original idea between them. Every answer exactly like the last—a hash-up of my own remarks in class. If there’s a creature on earth I despise more than another, it’s an English flapper. Silly, vain, egotistical—”
Then the French mistress would scowl across the table, and say, “Now you’ve put me out! I was just counting up my marks. Oh, do be quiet!”
“Sorry!” Cecil would say shortly, and taking up her pencil slash scathing comments at the side of the foolscap sheets. Anon she would smile, and smile again, and forgetting Claire’s request, would interrupt once more.
“Can you remember the name of Florence Mason?”
“If I strain my intellect to its utmost, I believe I can.”
“Well, remember, then! It will be worth while. She’ll do something—that girl. When you are an insignificant old woman, you may be proud to boast that you used to sit at the very table on which her first English essays were corrected.”
“So they are not all dull, stupid, unimaginative?”
“The exception proves the rule!” cried Cecil, and swept the papers together with a sigh of relief. “Done at last. Now for my blouse.”
Claire cast a glance at the clock.
“Half-past ten. And you are so tired. Surely you won’t begin to sew at this hour?”
“I must. I want it for Saturday. I tried it on last night, and it wasn’t a bit nice at the neck. I’ve got to alter it somehow.”
“I have some trimming upstairs. Just be quiet for five minutes, while I finish my list, and then I’ll bring down my scrap-box, and we’ll see what we can find.”
That scrap-box was in constant request during the next weeks. It was filled with the dainty oddments which a woman of means and taste collects in the course of years; trimmings and laces, and scraps of fine brocades; belts and buckles, and buttons of silver and paste; glittering ends of tinsel, ends of silk and ribbons that were really too pretty to throw away, and cunning little motifs which had the magic quality of disguising deficiencies and making both ends meet. Claire gave with a lavish hand, and Cecil’s gratitude was pathetic in its intensity. More and more as the weeks passed on did she become obsessed with the craze for decking herself in fine garments; new gloves, shoes, and veils were purchased to supplement the home-made garments, and one memorable night there arrived a large dress-box containing an evening dress and cloak.
“I have been out so little these last years. I have no clothes to wear,” Cecil said in explanation. “It’s not fair to—er—people, when they take you about, to look as if you had come out of the Ark... And these ready-made things aresocheap!”
She spoke with an air of excusing herself, and with a flush of embarrassment on her cheeks, and Claire hastened to sympathise and agree. She wondered if the embarrassment arose from the fact that for the last two weeks Cecil had not paid her share of the joint expenses! The omission had happened naturally enough, for on each occasion when the landlady appeared with the bill, Cecil had been absent on one of her now frequent excursions, when it had seemed the simplest thing to settle in full, and await repayment next day.
Repayment, however, had not come. Half a dozen times over Cecil had exclaimed, “Oh, dear, there’s that money. Imustremember!” but apparently she never had remembered at a moment when her purse was at hand.
Claire was honestly indifferent. The hundred pounds which she had deposited in a bank was considerably diminished, since it had been drawn on for all her needs, but the term’s salary would be paid in a short time, and the thought of that, added to the remainder, gave her a pleasant feeling of ease. It was only when for the third Saturday Cecil hurried off with an air of fluster and embarrassment, that an unpleasant suspicion arose. The weekly bill was again due, and Cecil had not forgotten, she was only elaborately pretending to forget! Claire was not angry, she was perfectly willing to play the part of banker until the end of the term, but she hated the thought that Cecil was acting a part, and deliberately trying to deceive. What if she had been extravagant in her expenditure on clothes and had run herself short for necessary expenses, there was nothing criminal in that! Foolish it might be, but a fellow-girl would understand that, after being staid and sensible for a long, long time, it was a blessed relief to the feminine mind to have a little spell of recklessness for a change. Cecil had only to say, “I’ve run myself horribly short. Can you pay up till I get my screw?” and the whole matter would have been settled in a trice. But to pretend to forget was somean!
The next morning after breakfast the vexed question of the Christmas holidays came up for discussion for the twentieth time. Cecil had previously stated that she always spent the time with her mother, but it now appeared that to a certain extent she had changed her plans.
“I shall have to go down over Christmas Day and the New Year, I suppose. Old people make such a fuss over those stupid anniversaries, but I shall come up again on the second. I prefer to be in town. We have to pay for the rooms in any case, so we may as well use them.”
Claire’s face lengthened.
“Payfor them! Even if we go away?”
“Of course. What did you expect? The landlady isn’t let off her own rent, because we choose to take a holiday. There’s no saving except for the light and coal. By the way, I owe you for a third week now. Imustremember! Have you decided what you are going to do?”
Claire shook her head. It was a forlorn feeling that Christmas was coming, and she had nowhere to go. Until now she had gone on in faith, feeling sure that before the time arrived, some one would remember her loneliness, and invite her if only for the day itself. Possibly Cecil in virtue of three months’ daily companionship would ask her mother’s permission to invite her friend, if only for a couple of days. Or bright, friendly Sophie Blake, who had sympathised with her loneliness, might have some proposition to make, or Mrs Willoughby, who was so interested in girls who were working for themselves, or Miss Farnborough, who knew that it was the French mistress’s first Christmas without her mother; but no such suggestion had been made. No one seemed to care.
“I must say it’sstrangethat no one has invited you!” said Cecil sharply. “I don’t think much of your grand friends if they can’t look after you on Christmas Day. What about the people in Brussels? Did no one send you an invitation? If you lived there for three years, surely you must know some one intimately enough to offer to go, even if they don’t suggest it.”
“It is not necessary, thank you,” said Claire with an air. “I have an open invitation to several houses, but I am saving up Brussels for Easter, when the weather will be better, and it will be more of a change. And I have an old grand-aunt in the North, but she is an invalid, confined to her room. I should be an extra trouble in the house. I shall manage to amuse myself somehow. It will be an opportunity for exploring London.”
“Oh well,” Cecil said vaguely, “when I come back!” but she spoke no word of Christmas Day.
The next week brought the various festivities with which Saint Cuthbert’s celebrated the end of the Christmas term. There was a school dance in the big class-room, a Christmas-tree party, given to the children in an East End parish, and last and most important of all the breaking-up ceremony in the local Town Hall, when an old girl, now developed into a celebrated authoress, presented the prizes, and gave an amusing account of her own schooldays, which evoked storms of applause from the audience, even Miss Farnborough smiling benignly at the recital of misdoings which would have evoked her sternest displeasure on the part of present-day pupils! Then the singing-class girls sang a short cantata, and the eldest girls gave a scene from Shakespeare, very dull and exceedingly correct, and the youngest girls acted a little French play, while the French mistress stood in the wings, ready to prompt, her face very hot, and her feet very cold, and her heart beating at express speed.
This moment was a public test of her work during the term, and she had a horror that the children would forget their parts and disgrace their leader as well as themselves. She need not have feared, however, for the publicity which she dreaded was just the stimulus needed to spur the juvenile actors to do their very best, and they shrugged, they gesticulated, they rolled their r’s, they reproduced Claire’s own little mannerisms with anaplombwhich brought down the house. Claire’s lack of teaching experience might make her less sound on rules and routine, but it was obvious that she had succeeded in one important point; she had lifted “French” from the level of a task, and converted it into a living tongue.
Miss Farnborough was very gracious in her parting words to her new mistress.
“I have not come to my present position without learning to trust my perceptions,” said she. “I recognised at once that you possessed the true teaching instinct, and to-day you have justified my choice. I have had many congratulations on your pupils’ performance.” Then she held out her hand with a charming smile. “I hope you will have very pleasant holidays!”
She made no inquiries as to the way in which this young girl was to spend her leisure. She herself was worn-out with the strain of the long term, and when the morrow came she intended to pack her bag, and start off for a sunny Swiss height, where for the next few weeks it would be her chief aim to forget that she had ever seen a school. But the new French mistress turned away with a heavy heart. It seemed at that moment as if nobody cared.
That year Christmas fell on a Monday. On the Saturday morning Cecil packed up her bag, and departed, grumbling, for her week at home. Before she left, Claire presented her with a Christmas gift in the shape of a charming embroidered scarf, and Cecil kissed her, and flushed, and looked at the same time pleased and oppressed, and hastily pulling out her purse extracted two sovereigns and laid them down on the table.
“I keep forgetting that money! Three weeks, wasn’t it? There’s two pounds; let me know the rest when I come back and I’ll settle up. Christmas is an awful time. The money simply melts.”
Claire had an uncomfortable and wholly unreasonable feeling of being paid for her present as she put the two sovereigns in her purse. Cecil had given her no gift, and the lack of the kindly attention increased the feeling of desolation with which she returned to her empty room. Even the tiniest offering to show that she had been thought of, would have been a comfort!
The landlady came into the room to remove the luncheon tray, her lips pursed into an expression which her lodger recognised as the preliminary to “a bit of my mind.” When the outlying cruets and dishes had been crowded together in a perilous pile, the bit of her mind came out.
“I was going to say, miss, that of course you will arrange to dine out on Christmas Day. I never take ladies as a rule, but Miss Rhodes, she said, being teachers, you would be away all holiday time. I never had a lodger before who stayed in the house over Christmas, and of course you must understand that we go over to Highgate to my mother’s for the day and the girl goes out, and I couldn’t possibly think of cooking—”
“Don’t be afraid, Mrs Mason. I am going out for the day.”
Mrs Mason lifted the tray and carried it out of the room, shutting the door behind her by the skilful insertion of a large foot encased in a cashmere boot, and Claire stood staring at her, wondering if it were really her own voice which had spoken those last words, and from what source had sprung the confidence which had suddenly flooded her heart. At this last blow of all, when even the little saffron-coloured parlour closed the door against her, the logical course would have been to collapse into utter despair, instead of which the moment had brought the first gleam of hope.
“Now,” said the voice in her heart, “everyone has failed me. I am helpless, I am alone. This is God’s moment. I will worry no more, but leave it to Him. Something will open for me when the time arrives!”
She went upstairs, put on her hat, and sallied out into the busy streets. All the world was abroad, men and women and small eager children all bent on the same task, thronging the shops to the doors, waiting in rows for the favour of being served, emerging triumphant with arms laden with spoils. On every side fragments of the same conversation floated to the ears. “What can I get for Kate?”
“I can’t think what in the world to buy for John.”
“Do try to give me an idea what Rose would like!...”
Claire mingled with the throng, pushed her way towards the crowded counters, waited a preposterous time for her change, and then hurried off to another department to go through the same struggle once more. Deliberately she threw herself into the Christmas feeling, turning her thoughts from herself, considering only how she could add to the general happiness. She bought presents for everybody, for the cross landlady, for the untidy servant girl, for Sophie Blake, and Flora Ross, for the maid at Saint Cuthbert’s who waited upon the Staff-Room, with a selection of dainty oddments for girl friends at Brussels, and when the presents themselves had been secured she bought prettily tinted paper, and fancy ribbons, and decorated name cards for the adornment of the parcels.
The saffron parlour looked quite Christmas-like that evening, and Claire knew a happy hour as she made up her gifts in their dainty wrappings. They looked so gay and seasonable that she decided to defer putting them into the sober outer covering of brown paper as long as possible. They were all the Christmas decoration she would have!
On Sunday morning the feeling of loneliness took an acute turn. Claire longed for a church which long association had made into a home; for a clergyman who was also a friend; for a congregation of people who knew her, and cared for her well-being, instead of the long rows of strange faces. She remembered how Cecil had declared that in London a girl might attend the same church for years on end, and never hear a word of welcome, and hope died low in her breast. The moment of exaltation had passed, and she told herself drearily that on Christmas afternoon she must take a book and sit by the fire in the waiting-room of some great station, dine at a restaurant, and perhaps go to a concert at night.
For weeks past Claire had been intending to go to a West End church to hear one of the finest of modern preachers. She decided to go this morning, since the length of journey now seemed rather an advantage than a drawback, as helping to fill up another of the long, dragging hours.
She dressed herself with the care and nicety which was the result of her French training, and which had of late become almost a religious duty, for the study of the fifteen women who daily assembled round the table in the Staff-Room was as a danger signal to warn new-comers of the perils ahead. With the one exception of Sophie Blake, not one of the number seemed to make any effort to preserve their feminine charm. They dressed their hair in the quickest and easiest fashion without considering the question of appearance; they wore dun-coloured garments with collars of the same material; though severely neat, all their skirts seemed to suffer from the same depressing tendency to drop at the back; their bony wrists emerged from tightly-buttoned sleeves. The point of view adopted was that appearance did not matter, that it was waste of time to consider the adornment of the outer woman. Brain was the all-important factor; every possible moment must be devoted to the cultivation of brain; but an outsider could not fail to note that, with this destroying of a natural instinct, something which went deeper than the surface was also lost; with the grace of the body certain feminine graces of soul died also, and the world was poorer for their loss.
The untidy servant maid peered out of the window to watch Claire as she left the house that morning, and evolved a whole feuilleton to account for the inconsistency of her appearance with her position as a first floor front. “You’d take her for a lady to look at her! P’raps sheisa lady in disguise!” and from, this point the making of the feuilleton began.
The service that morning was food to Claire’s hungering soul, for the words of the preacher might have been designed to meet her own need. As she listened she realised that the bitterness of loneliness was impossible to one who believed and trusted in the great, all-compassing love. Sad one might still be, so long as the human heart demanded a human companionship, but the sting of feeling uncared for, could never touch a child of God. She took the comfort home to her heart, and stored it there to help her through the difficult time ahead, and on her knees at the end of the service she sent up her own little petition for help.
“There are so many homes in this great city! Is there no home for me on Christmas Day?” With the words the tears sprang, and Claire mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, thankful that she was surrounded by strangers by whom her reddened eyes would pass unnoticed. Then rising to her feet, she turned to lift the furs which hung on the back of the pew, and met the brown eyes of a girl who had been sitting behind her the whole of the service.
The girl was Janet Willoughby.