Chapter Fifteen.
The march past was one of those brilliant spectacles with which the camp delights its visitors. Royalty was there—indeed, royalties had gathered; the day was perfect, not over-hot, with fleecy clouds flinging soft shadows on the downs. There were the usual manoeuvres on the Foxhills; there was the usual futile thirst for information as to what was going to happen, and the usual ignorance; the usual anxious dread on the part of husbands engaged lest their wives should get in the way, and stop the advance of a regiment; the usual thrills of pointing interest over distant puffs of smoke or gleaming metal; the usual captive balloon, and not quite the usual amount of dust. Claudia, eager and ready, was more like her usual self than she had been since her arrival at Aldershot, keenly interested, and rejoicing quite unduly when she found that Fenwick’s battery was on the conquering side. Then came the stirring march past, artillery waggons lumbering along, cheerful regimental bands, a change, a skirl of pipes, and to the proud defiant tones of “The Campbells are comin’,” the Argyll Highlanders swung by in splendid barbaric dress, like a company of giants. Claudia’s eyes were bright, and she did not so much as hear her companion’s criticisms. Fenwick’s battery passed early, and, leaving it, he came back to where his sister and Claudia stood in the foremost row, for the girl had been far too much carried away to consent to remain in the carriage. He looked approvingly at her sparkling and animated face.
“You should not have been in this place, though,” he said to his sister. “You’d have seen better on the other side of the Duke.”
But Mrs Leslie demurred.
“Colonel Manson advised us to come here, and nothing could have been nicer. There, we should have had horses all round us.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have hurt you. Come along now, and see the end of it.”
“Why should we? Stay here, Claudia. You won’t get such a good view higher up.” The girl thought the same, but went. As soon, however, as Fenwick reached the coveted spot, he began to discover its shortcomings, and to complain of the dust and glare. Claudia laughed.
“Let us go somewhere else,” she said. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, all the best is over, and there’s no fun in sticking through it to the end. I want to speak to Lucas over there about his pony.”
“Is that the polo man?”
“Yes.”
“And are you going in for polo?”
“Not unlikely. If I do, I shall do the thing thoroughly, and his is about the only pony I fancy.”
“I shouldn’t think he’d care to part with it.”
“So they say.”
Something in his tone told her that in the difficulty lay the attraction. They walked across the broken ground to the spot where young Lucas stood, and he laughed the suggestion to scorn.
“Sell Tommy!” he said. “My dear fellow, not if I know it!”
“Well, if you should—”
“But I shan’t. I shall have to be stone broke first.”
Fenwick went on unheeding—“Let me have the refusal.”
“Oh, as to that, all right! If worse comes to the worst and I’ve got to run, I’ll leave word that Tommy is yours. Will that suit you?”
“Down to the ground.”
Both men laughed, and as Claudia and Fenwick walked away, she said—
“I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with another pony.”
“Not I!” he returned. “It’s Tommy or none. But I shall get him.”
She glanced curiously at him.
“Do you always get what you want?”
“Pretty generally. When I set my mind upon it.”
“And,” she went on slowly, “do you always care about it when you have got it?” But she did not wait for an answer. “Look,” she said, “all the carriages are on the move, so it must be over. I’m sorry, for it has been delightful.”
For a minute he made no reply. Then he asked suddenly—
“Who’s that man with the Thorntons?”
“Gertrude fancied it was very likely Mr Pelham.”
“What an ass the fellow looks!”
To this she made no answer. Fenwick was silent and abrupt; he took her to Mrs Leslie, and then left her to ride back to Aldershot.
That evening was the Thorntons’ dinner, and Claudia, who plumed herself upon her own powers of independent decision, found herself swept away by Mrs Leslie.
“What are you going to wear?” she asked. “It had better be the green. I’m sure Arthur would prefer the green.”
And green she wore, although she scourged herself with hard words as she dressed.
“It only remains to stick a white camellia in my hair, and go down, blushing and simpering behind ringlets. Whose business is it what I wear? Why do I give way? Why can’t I hold my own? Oh, Claudia, Claudia, is this the end of all your fine theories?” And then the anguish of a question broke from her, a question which she had been prising down, dreading that if once it took form it might be unanswerable—“Does he care? Does he really care? He did, when I did not, and why was he so cruel as to force me into loving him, if he was not certain of himself? If I were only sure of him, should I mind one bit all his sister’s domineering ways? Not I! I could hold my own against her, wear what I liked, say what I liked, do what I liked, in spite of all the ‘in laws’ in the world. But now she has me at a disadvantage, and knows it. He is behind her, and when she says, ‘Arthur prefers this, Arthur chooses that,’ all the resistance goes out of me and leaves me a limp coward. I fancy that she must know best, and that I had better do what she suggests, and I am not myself one bit. I have never been myself since I came here, I am just somebody else, and worse, for I am just the sort of girl I so despised, the very feeble creature I could not have imagined myself sinking into. How we used to laugh at them at the college! How the girls would laugh if they could see me now! And I am afraid I shouldn’t even mind their laughing. I am fallen too low to have any self-respect left, and I know that if I were only sure in my own heart, I should give up all that I cared for—everything—for him, just as he made me tell him I could; if only, only, I were convinced that he felt the same now that he did. And perhaps he does. Perhaps it is only that I don’t quite understand. Perhaps it is all part of my turning into an idiotic girl. Perhaps all men—nice men—are the same. Certainly, I should hate his taking too much notice, being too effusive, too silly! I dare say it is only a foolish fancy of mine. On with your green frock, stupid Claudia, and for pity’s sake look at things healthily, instead of taking to morbid fancies!”
She sighed as she finished, but no self-harangue could have been wiser, and she resolutely set herself to carry it out; bore without flinching Mrs Leslie’s comments upon her dress, and tried to be quite content with the young subaltern who fell to her lot at dinner, while to Fenwick was given Miss Arbuthnot, and Mr Pelham took in Mrs Thornton and sat by the side of Miss Arbuthnot. Claudia even tried to convince herself that the arrangement was one she would have chosen, because she was thus able to look at the others. She was curious to know whether the story of Helen’s engagement was true.
“She does not say much to him,” she reflected, “but—as Arthur said—he does look rather a non-entity. And then she and Arthur have known each other a long time, and he can be so pleasant, and able to talk of things which I dare say that other man knows nothing about. It is odd, though, that when we were at Thornbury it never struck me that they were particularly friends.” She stifled another sigh. “I suppose I was taken up with other things, and didn’t notice. Well, now I mustn’t stare at them so much, however interesting it is. I must talk to this poor boy next me, who is smiling, and quite pleased all about nothing.”
“Your Claudia looks pretty to-night,” Miss Arbuthnot was remarking. She put up her glasses as she spoke.
“My Claudia—as you call her—has a trick of looking pretty.”
“She has, and I never denied it. But she has upset my theories. I thought she would prove herself indifferent to you all for some time to come. Oh, don’t smile! A man may be vain—he can’t help himself, I suppose, but when his vanity peeps out it is insupportable.”
“Have you impressed that upon the individual to your right?”
“Time enough,” said Miss Arbuthnot coolly. “Besides, you are mistaken. He is not vain.”
“Fortunate man to have secured you as his advocate!”
She was silent.
“What other excellent characteristics does he boast?”
“I did not know we were talking of him.”
“Oh, I must talk. I have been thinking of him ever since yesterday.”
“And why yesterday?”
“Because it was then I heard what the world is saying.”
“I should have thought you of all men would have hesitated to believe what the world says.”
“Is it wrong, then?” asked Fenwick eagerly.
She made a movement as of balancing her hands.
“It may or may not be. You will see.”
“You speak as if it were a matter of indifference,” he said so bitterly that she slowly turned her face towards him, and lifted her eyebrows.
“As it must be—to you,” she replied coldly.
“Forgive me—that is impossible,” he said, dropping his voice, and staring before him. The next moment Miss Arbuthnot was addressing a remark to her other neighbour.
Fenwick marched up to Claudia directly the men reached the drawing-room. The Thorntons lived in the permanent barracks, and the regimental band was playing on the drilling ground.
“How are you getting on? Bored?” he inquired.
She might have said no if she had been an older woman. As it was, she replied truthfully that she had been, and allowed her eyes to express the pleasure she felt.
“Every one was out of place at dinner. Mrs Thornton pitchforks people about.” He spoke almost apologetically, and added quickly, “That’s a pretty frock you’ve got on, Claudia.”
“Is it?” She blest it.
“But,” he went on, giving way to some inward irritation, “I agree with you that it’s an awful bore having to come out in this way among a lot of people who can only talk rot. As for that,”—he indicated Pelham with a movement of his head—“I should be surprised to find that he owned a single idea.”
He spoke with unusual bitterness, and the girl looked at him, surprised. Fenwick not infrequently showed temper, but it required more to excite it than an occasional foolish young man, whom it was quite easy to avoid. Evidently, however, he was put out. He found fault with the band, with the airs they played, with the quarters, and, indeed, impartially, with whatever topic presented itself. Claudia, armed with a new forbearance, exerted herself to charm away the mood, and partly succeeded. She was conscious that, as he had implied, she was looking her best, and that when his eye fell upon her, it softened. Yet, by a curious contradiction, she was also conscious, and it gave her such a sick conviction of impotence as she had never before experienced, that he was not always attending to her, and, even worse than this, that she was beating her brains for some subject with which to divert him. She knew but little of those everyday topics to which most of us fly as to blessed houses of refuge. She had really bound herself, as Philippa quickly discovered, in narrowest fetters, flinging a strong personality into one interest, of which being suddenly deprived, she became like a dislodged hermit crab, unable to find another resting-place. But she knew this much, that two persons in full sympathy with each other, would have no need to seek for common subjects of interest. The love which Fenwick’s vanity had set himself to awake, was indeed alive, stirring feelings partly of passionate joy, and partly sharp anguish; but she was also aware of strange forces which seemed to draw her in directions where she would not go, and of vague disturbances for which she could not account.
It was a curious moment now for a swift flash of such discomfort to dart through her, yet here it was, and for just that moment it blinded her to her surroundings. She looked up with a start to find Fenwick on his feet, and Helen Arbuthnot standing before her. Helen was holding out her hand and smiling.
“As you would not come to me, I have come to you,” she said. “So I hear you are no longer a lady of the woods, but have joined the ordinary ways of us mortals.” Claudia coloured. She was taken by surprise, and thought Miss Arbuthnot showed bad taste in harping upon these topics. Displeasure made her answer as she might not otherwise have done—
“I hope to be in woods again one day.”
“Really?”
Somewhat to her surprise, Fenwick came to her assistance.
“As she has nothing of that sort here on which to expend her energies, she is going to take up the moral improvement of the British soldier instead. I hear her asking very searching questions on the subject.”
His tone was light but not sarcastic, and Claudia turned and smiled at him.
“That’s not fair,” she said. “I only asked questions because I know absolutely nothing.”
“I should ask questions too, if the answers weren’t so unsatisfactory,” said Miss Arbuthnot, taking the chair Fenwick had left. “Don’t you find that people always know either too much or too little? But of course at this point it is for Captain Fenwick to answer any questions you may be pleased to put.”
The girl, who was shy of open allusions to her position, was annoyed by Miss Arbuthnot’s manner. At Thornbury she had almost liked her, and to Thornbury she returned, ignoring the last remark.
“Can you tell me anything about Mr Hilton? I hope he is better?”
“I suppose so, but I don’t know why you should hope it. Life can’t give him much pleasure, and he manages to make it a burden for everybody else, especially for Harry.”
“Oh, Harry! Harry’s a lucky beggar,” said Fenwick. He had not sat down, but stood with his hands behind him, holding the back of the chair against which he leaned.
“You say so? That’s what comes of not grumbling. I should like to see you doing Harry’s work for a day. We should all hear of it,” she added sarcastically.
“Oh, praise him as much as you like,”—was there a slight emphasis on the him?—“you are right, he deserves it. Granting a few limitations, Harry Hilton is a first-rate fellow.”
He looked at Miss Arbuthnot smiling, she, too, smiled back. Claudia, on the contrary, frowned slightly, not from displeasure, but from a feeling of being puzzled.
“Now that they are both engaged they seem on better terms than they were before,” she pondered. “I wonder why it should be, I wonder what has brought them together?”
For she knew they had not met. The next moment she heard Miss Arbuthnot being invited to drive on the Artillery coach.
“Thanks, no,” she said indifferently. “I’ve too much on hand just now.”
“To go about with—him, I suppose,” he said sharply. “But you can bring him—if you must.”
“What a real gush of hospitality!” she returned in a mocking tone. “Alas! even if I must, it is doubtful whether he would.”
“Well—ask him.”
“I think not.” She stood up as she spoke, massive and handsome. “I don’t think it would be any use. But I am going back now to talk to him.”
Claudia watched her cross the room, and caught Mr Pelham’s beaming look.
“Oh, it must be true, he looks so happy!” she cried impulsively. “And, Arthur, I think you are hard on him. He has quite a good face.”
She did not catch Fenwick’s muttered ejaculation—“Confound him!”