Chapter Eleven.
The second doctor came, and his opinion was, on the whole, less unsatisfactory. He allowed that there was reason for alarm, and that some of the symptoms were perplexing, but with great care he thought it possible that a day or two might bring improvement. Mrs Leslie also arrived, and took prompt command, although she was careful to let her hosts understand that she had left home at great inconvenience to herself.
“Such nonsense!” said Lady Wilmot to Claudia. “The great inconvenience means that she has been obliged to throw up one or two engagements. I’m sure her husband, poor man, must be grateful to us for giving him a little time in which he may call his soul his own.”
Claudia looked white and worried. Her fears had returned upon her, and she could not laugh lightly as Lady Wilmot seemed able to laugh, even when things were at their worst. Imagination often paints in stronger colours than reality; she had not seen Fenwick, and pictured him more suffering than was the case. Besides, she had just heard that the doctors could express no decided opinion for two or three days, a time which to her restlessness seemed unendurable. She looked blankly at Lady Wilmot, not at first realising who she was talking about.
“Oh, Mrs Leslie,” she said at last, forcing back her attention, “isn’t she like her brother?”
“Dreadfully. But what in a man is a nice peremptory manner, is simply odious in a woman. I wondered you didn’t rend her when she talked to you in that way, and asked all those questions. And I wished you hadn’t said that it was your fault.”
“It was.”
“It wasn’t. It was the County Council’s, or whoever it is who ought to see after our roads. Arthur said so himself, and he wanted of all things to know if you were hurt.”
“He is very kind,” said Claudia coldly. She hated herself for minding anything at a time when anxiety held them all, but from behind Lady Wilmot’s good-natured consolations it appeared to her that she detected a smile of triumph peeping out. “See what I told you!” it seemed to say, “see what he has done, and deny now, if you dare, that he cares for you!” With that “Claudia!” ringing in her ears, how could she deny it, even to herself? If no other result came from the whirl of inward questioning, it had no doubt the effect of fixing her thoughts very closely upon Captain Fenwick.
Minutes—hours—crawled by. Claudia lived upon the crumbs which were flung to her, not daring to ask for them in larger quantities. Charlie Carter departed, and she missed him because, though casual in his answers, he was sure to know what was going on in the house, and sometimes imparted his knowledge. Then she fell to working feverishly again, keeping out of doors half the day. But wherever she was, she contrived with few and short intervals, to have the house in view, and with the house, Fenwick’s window. Sometimes a white-aproned figure—the nurse—would stand there, looking out, and once when she drew down the blind to shut out the glare, Claudia went through a sudden and agonising dread. She stood staring, deaf to one of the workmen who had advanced to inquire about a particular order, and watching the other windows to see whether the too-significant sign were repeated in them. It was on this day that when she came down to dinner she found that Fenwick had been for some hours making steady improvement, and that all were hopeful.
From this time, indeed, he improved steadily, and Lady Wilmot announced with some glee that he was only anxious to get rid of Mrs Leslie.
“They’re too much alike. They irritate each other.”
“I would back Arthur’s will against most people’s,” said Sir Peter quietly.
“Oh yes, and generally she has to knock under, but now, now that he is ill, she gets him at a disadvantage, and it is rather comic. However, she goes to-morrow, and then, as soon as he can be moved into my boudoir, we must all set to work to make it pleasant for him.”
And she flung a queer look at Claudia.
Claudia herself, in spite of the comparative lifting of the load, was finding the decisions of life not quite so simple a matter as she had imagined. Fenwick was better, no doubt, but there was still talk which made her uneasy. And though she would gladly have gone off, her work was unfinished, and there seemed less excuse for a hurried departure than before. The Wilmots might not unnaturally wonder why she went. What could she say? What excuse could she offer? What excuse, at any rate, which Lady Wilmot’s sharp eyes would not see through? She must wait, hoping earnestly that she might find an opportunity for leaving before she was called upon to take her turn in amusing the invalid’s convalescence.
Meanwhile, when she glanced at Fenwick’s window, which was often, she pictured a much more dismal interior than facts warranted. If it had not been that the monotony of illness must be always irksome to an active man, Fenwick would have allowed that he was well off in a pleasant room, with every luxury in papers, books, flowers, and a cheerful selection of visitors to wile away the time.
“It’s better, anyway, than grilling in India, with fever on you, the temperature anything you like and a little more, and the punkah gone to sleep,” he admitted one day when Sir Peter had left his wife to the not uncongenial task of raising her cousin’s spirits, which happened to be rather depressed.
“Thank you,” she said politely.
“Well, isn’t it?” he returned, glancing at her.
“I don’t know. But I prefer gratitude not altogether expressed in negatives.”
“You know what I mean,” he said rather sulkily. “How much longer am I going to be tied by the leg?”
Lady Wilmot was a born matchmaker. Her eyes began to sparkle.
“Never mind. I’m certain she’s thinking of you a great deal.”
“That’s nothing,” he returned, in the same tone. “It’s her way to take things violently. But if I’m only a weight on her conscience, as soon as I’m all right again, she’ll fling me off.”
His cousin buried her head cosily in a soft silk cushion.
“I wish you’d tell me seriously, Arthur, whether you really mean it?”
“Of course I do.”
“You always say of course—each time.”
“Well, this time I’ve broken my leg over it. I couldn’t do more, could I?”
“No-o-o,” replied Lady Wilmot doubtfully.
“I know the symptoms, as you infer, and I assure you I never had them so strongly before.”
“You used to tell me that.”
“They weren’t to compare. One lives and learns.”
“You looked wretched enough,” said Lady Wilmot, sitting up indignantly. “I’m sure I never saw such a contrast as between you and Peter at the wedding. Every one noticed it.”
“It didn’t last. Look at us now. Peter—Peter is getting—well, let us call it broad I say, hands up! Don’t pitch things at a man that’s down.”
“I wonder your illness hasn’t made you more truthful! What will you say next about Peter?”
“I don’t want to talk of him at all. He doesn’t interest me.”
“Shall I call the nurse?” inquired Lady Wilmot, rising with dignity.
“No, no; sit down, and tell me more about Claudia. It’s awful to think how much time I’m wasting.”
His cousin settled herself once more against the cushion, took up one of the pugs, and smiled in token of forgiveness.
“I’m not so sure,” she said doubtfully.
“Pity?”
“And remorse. You see, Charlie Carter was for ever dinning into her that it was all her fault.”
“It wasn’t, really,” said Fenwick, hastily. “I can’t exactly explain.”
“Oh, I can! I’ve felt all along that she was trying to avoid a crisis. You’re so dreadfully impetuous.”
“I like that! If I had only chosen to be impetuous, as you call it, Peter would have been nowhere.”
“Perhaps, if you’re expecting me to help you, you’ll condescend to talk sense.”
“Oh, you’ll help; you’re dying to be at it.”
She vouchsafed no reply.
“I’ll tell you one thing you can do,” he said eagerly. “If you really believe she’s feeling a bit sentimental over my spill—”
Lady Wilmot was playing with her pug’s ears. She interrupted sweetly—
“I think she feels the injury to your bicycle very much.”
“That’s all the same thing. Then, whatever happens, don’t let her go till I’m about again, or stretched on a sofa, or something effective. Let her fuss about with the trees as much as she likes.”
“She can fuss, of course. But she has said a few words which make me think she wants to be off, and I’m not sure whether—”
“Whether?”
“If she sticks on here, whether she mayn’t find her remorse just a little boring?”
“No, no, she mustn’t; it will grow for being fed upon. Look here, Flo, don’t make me out too well.”
“I don’t think you’re very ill.”
“I’m recovering gradually, only gradually. The least disturbance may throw me back.”
“Oh!”
“And meanwhile I’ll harry Spooner till he lets me be carried into your sanctum. What’s the good of all their carrying dodges if they don’t use them?”
Lady Wilmot put down the pug, rose up, and glanced mischievously at her cousin.
“Well, I hope you really mean it this time. Remember Helen Arbuthnot.”
“If you talk about remembering,” began Fenwick boldly. She was gone.
It must have been this conversation which made Lady Wilmot after luncheon walk with Claudia towards the Black Pond, and become enthusiastic in her praises of what had been done.
“We are so delighted!” she said. “Of course Peter thinks about the estate and all that kind of thing, but I think of Marjory. It’s such a comfort to feel that by the time she grows up, she’ll have a decent-looking place of her own ready for her, and really my heart sank when I brought her here after poor old Sir Ralph’s death.”
Claudia was pleased, but said quickly—
“I shall soon have finished.”
“Oh no,” said Lady Wilmot. “I know Peter wants your advice about some outlying things. Why should you go? You are your own mistress, aren’t you?”
With a pang quite new to her, she owned that she was.
“And I heard you say you had no other engagement. Then what stands in your way? Don’t say you find us horrid!” she added, with a gravity which concealed a smile. “Your going would be an awful disappointment to poor Arthur.”
“But he is much better?”
“Better—yes. But I am afraid it must be a long business, and,”—she hesitated—“don’t you think he deserves a little reward?” The girl winced and grew pale. As Fenwick said, she took things violently, she was at an age when she unconsciously exaggerated her own importance in the world, and it seemed to her as if all manner of tremendous issues hung upon her answer. Besides, up to now, since the accident Lady Wilmot had not dropped such a hint. Her heart beat too fast for her to speak. At last she turned a white face upon her companion.
“I don’t know,” she said vaguely.
Lady Wilmot drew her face towards her and kissed her.
“Stay!” she said lightly.
“Very well,” returned Claudia, drawing a deep breath.
For in that moment she renounced all—freedom, ambition—something within her whispering persistently that if she stayed it would be to become Arthur Fenwick’s wife. Her thoughts were sufficiently in a whirl for her not to know whether the conviction brought delight or terror, but they had fastened themselves upon him so continuously of late, that quite an unexpected feeling had sprung up in her heart, so that, if she were not in love with himself, she was nearly so with the image she had created. Her very indifference became a wrong when she reflected that it had caused him such suffering.
Lady Wilmot’s sympathy was of a light-hearted nature, it was not profound enough to enable her to plunge into depths, but Claudia’s was a sufficiently transparent countenance to betray that it cost her a struggle to utter these two words, and if there was a struggle, it probably had to do with more than the mere fact of going or staying. She therefore hastened to encourage her.
“I am more than glad,” she said smiling. “To-morrow that odious Lady Bodmin—as Peter isn’t here I may abuse her—departs, and though the Comyns are due, I am not quite sure that Mr Comyns and Arthur hit it off very well; at any rate, I don’t think Arthur cares much for either of them. So I particularly want him to have something pleasant to look forward to.”
Instinctively Claudia turned and faced her. “Will he care?”
She spoke the words scarcely above her breath, and was hardly aware that in a sudden craving for sympathy and counsel she had uttered them.
“Will he?” Lady Wilmot laughed out. “If you could have heard him to-day when I told him you had talked of going!”
Claudia walked on silently. The longing had changed to shrinking, and she wished that Lady Wilmot would leave her, but instead of this she ventured on another step.
“I assure you,” she said, “that Arthur is a dear fellow.”
“Oh, don’t let us talk about him any more!” cried the girl with sudden passion. She felt tossed, dragged, buffeted, a very shuttlecock of circumstance, impatient of the insistent tones in which that “Claudia!” still rang in her ears. Harry Hilton had also uttered her name, but it had not stirred her in the same imperative way, it had not been emphasised so disastrously, or burnt upon her memory. She trembled as she spoke, and Lady Wilmot looked at her with some bewilderment as to the cause of her emotion. She was not quite sure that it boded well.
“No, you are right, we won’t talk about him any more,” she agreed soothingly. “You have promised to stay, and that is all we wanted. I foresee that after all we shall have a good time, and I am so glad, for Arthur has always been my favourite cousin, though he is sometimes tiresome, and I have always tried to help him to what he wanted. It used to be jam out of the housekeeper’s closet,” she added, with a laugh.
The girl would not laugh. “She takes it all so seriously!” Lady Wilmot explained afterwards to her husband with light compunction. “Dear me, Peter, if I had thought so tremendously about such episodes, you’d have married a wreck! So far as I can remember, I used rather to enjoy them.”
This was not Claudia’s condition. Enjoyment! It was misery; expectant, frightened, yet entrancing misery, such as she had never pictured to herself. It had been altogether different with Harry Hilton; she had scarcely thought of him except as a momentarily disturbing incident, and, quite sure that his healthy young face would never pale a shade, no idea of suffering had so much as crossed her mind. She flung him a restless thought now and then, comparing the two men, and certain that all the intellectual advantages were heaped on Fenwick. His natural gifts were varied, and he knew extraordinarily well how to make them appear at their best, helped to it by a dominating vanity, at once so strong and sensitive, that it never landed him in ridiculous positions, as may easily be the case with a coarser kind. Claudia, for instance, had never guessed its existence. She thought of him as a shrewd keen man, forgave him some shortness of temper, and liked the touch of roughness he occasionally showed. It had struck her that Miss Arbuthnot cared for him, and that he was indifferent, so that his evident attraction for herself flattered her. These were trifles, the real tie lay in his dash to her rescue and consequent suffering. Nothing could have smitten down her spirited independence so completely as the knowledge that he lay helpless owing to what he had done for her; it was the very thing to make her feel that any sacrifice must be made which could compensate.