Chapter Nineteen.
Anne was in the drawing-room when Claudia reached Elmslie, Anne unquestioning and kindly. Claudia felt herself made welcome, and was conscious of a quiet atmosphere, grateful after the jar and turmoil of the past days. She was glad to rest in an easy-chair, to drink tea from the little old silver teapot which was the pride of Anne’s heart, and to hear that Philippa and Emily had gone off to a garden-party.
“Harry Hilton has been here,” said Anne, occupying herself with cutting cake, “but he has gone.”
Claudia breathed relief. She had dreaded to find Harry established. The telegram announcing her unexpected return must have given an inkling of what had happened, and she could not have endured the sight of his face, with possibly a reawakened hope beaming in it. Now she could more freely tell her story.
“Anne,” she said, in a voice not quite steady, “I want to explain why I have come back.”
“If you like,” Anne replied gently. “But you know this is to be home, without any need for explanations.”
“I know. And I don’t think explain was quite the word to use, for I can’t explain yet, even to myself. Only it is all over between Captain Fenwick and me.” As Anne did not speak, she went on hurriedly, “You don’t mind my not saying more, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind,” said Anne, with that warm inflexion of the voice which is like a caress. “I am only wondering whether it is quite right to leave you to fight your own battles single-handed. Can nothing be done?”
Claudia sprang up and went to the window.
“Please,” she said, with her back to her cousin, “I don’t want sympathy.”
“Or help?”
“Or help.”
“Then you shall go your own way in peace,” Anne said, smiling.
“And one thing more.” Claudia came back to the table. “Whatever it is, you must understand that it is my own, absolutely my own doing.”
“I understand. For,” said Anne afterwards to Philippa, “when people are miserable, the best one can do for them is to let them be miserable in their own fashion.”
“Is she miserable, or only sore?”
“Only sore!” repeated Anne. “As if to be sore and shamed were not misery enough for a nature like Claudia’s! But I believe she really loved the man, and has been hard hit, poor child!”
“Well, it will do her no harm,” Philippa announced. “What a pity it is that nothing of the sort ever happened to Emily!”
“Philippa!”
“To be sure Emily has never taken her independence fiercely, has never, indeed, taken it at all, but she has always sighed for it. If once the thing had advanced towards her, Emily would have screamed and run away, while Claudia has been so entranced with its charms that she has been ready to take shadow for substance. Harry, now, Harry’s good stout sense would have allowed her a long tether, but no doubt Captain Fenwick jerked the rope too sharply.”
Claudia’s departure made no stir at Aldershot, because it was supposed that her visit had come naturally to an end; and if there were any who had gleams of suspicion as to the real cause, Fenwick was not a man to offer himself readily for questioning, and Mrs Leslie took the opportunity of going away for a week or two.
“Of course he and Helen Arbuthnot will make it up again, and then there will be a pretty talk!” she said irritably to her husband. “Well, I am sick of Arthur’s love affairs. I wash my hands of them for the future.”
“Helen Arbuthnot? But isn’t she engaged to young Pelham?”
“Oh, what of that!” cried Mrs Leslie, with a fine scorn.
Two or three days passed, however, and nothing had occurred to justify her words. On the fourth, Fenwick and Miss Arbuthnot met at a dinner given at a commanding officer’s quarters. They did not exchange a word until the end of the evening, when the guests strolled out into the garden.
Pelham was not there, and if Fenwick had watched for an opportunity, he took it, as usual, boldly. He walked straight to Miss Arbuthnot.
“I must speak to you,” he said. “Alone.” She shrugged her shoulders, but made no objection. The night was hot, she wore a white dress, and round her throat had wrapped a scarf of a soft gauze, with silver threads running through it. In the moonlight these shimmered and flashed, and set off the rich brown of her hair. The regimental band was playing, otherwise it was strangely quiet for the neighbourhood of a camp. Presently they reached the limit of the turf, and Helen stopped.
“Well,” she asked abruptly, “what have you to say?”
“How can I say anything when you speak in such a tone?” he demanded. “There is a seat under that tree beyond.”
She walked on.
“Are you aware that we are affording much food for remarks?” she said presently. He took no notice of her question.
“I had to speak to you,” he began; “I want to be the first to tell you what has happened.”
“It was scarcely necessary,” she returned coldly. “After hearing that Miss Hamilton had departed, I could draw in the details myself. For that matter, I could have drawn them beforehand.”
“No doubt you could, considering how much you had to do with them,” he said, with a laugh so self-assured that Miss Arbuthnot bit her lip.
“I?”
“Yes. She was jealous of you, and I can hardly blame her.”
“Oh, I don’t blame her at all.”
“Blame? No. Why, I bless her. She opened my eyes. A little longer, and it might have been too late.”
“Oh no. That misfortune,” said Miss Arbuthnot scornfully, “could never happen to you. A means of deliverance always offers itself in good time. And did she—Claudia, I mean—enjoy her mission?”
She had stung him at last, for he moved fretfully.
“You might understand that—that it was all painful, and I don’t want to talk about it. The point is—” he used Claudia’s words—“that it is over and done with.”
“Well, go on,” she said, opening and shutting her fan. “I understand that I am to keep my intelligence fixed on the fact that it is over and done with, and that Claudia’s feelings belong to a side issue with which one has nothing to do. Go on.”
This time he turned angrily upon her. “You speak as if I had done the girl an injury. Granted that I was a fool—a double-distilled fool—would it have been for her happiness to have persisted in the folly?”
“No,” said Miss Arbuthnot, in a low voice; “it would not.”
“Then you own I was right?”
“Oh, don’t make me your judge!” she cried impatiently. “Right? I see no right from beginning to end. But what of that? What have I to do with it?”
He answered coolly, “Everything.”
She hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she was calling back her self-possession, which had been startled. At any rate, when she spoke again, it was more quietly.
“This is interesting. May I hear more?”
“I mean you to. I said that Claudia was jealous of you. That was because she discovered my secret. Helen, it has been madness, from beginning to end—our break-off, our fancying we had ceased to care, our taking up with others. Don’t let us play any longer. My step is taken, take yours, and let us be married next month.”
“You mean,” she said slowly, “I am to throw over—”
“Oh, that fellow!” he exclaimed. “You’re not engaged to him, you know very well, not seriously, and if you were, you care for me fifty times as well. Deny it if you can!”
“Oh!” she said, with a gasp, “you think so?”
“Think? I’m as certain as that I’m here.”
His sense of mastery made him almost indifferent to pleading. Each sentence breathed triumph. Miss Arbuthnot caught her breath, and turned her face towards him.
He went on—
“People may—will—talk. Let them. Their hateful chatter will not affect us. Helen—dearest—”
She broke in, and put up her hand.
“No, no, stop, please! We have not got so far as ‘dearest.’ Suppose we see where we are. Up to this point you have only assured me of my own feelings. What of your own?”
“You know them, you must know them.”
“Excuse me, no. When last we discussed them I gathered that they were somewhat topsy-turvy, and you agreed with me that there had been a mistake. Now it seems there has been another, and you must own that it becomes perplexing.”
He made an impatient gesture.
“Don’t play with me, Helen, for I can’t bear it. You’re the only woman I ever cared for. There! Isn’t that enough?”
With a movement so sudden as to startle him, she sprang to her feet, standing with her head thrown back, and the moonlight whitening her face.
“No,” she exclaimed passionately, “it is not! Do you know that all your life, and all your love—such as it is!—has hinged only upon what you feel, what you want? You have measured everything, balanced everything, chosen everything by that and that alone. But what of us? I sometimes wonder whether you ever cast one thought at the poor puppets you set up, and whose hearts you demand. You want the flattery of their love; you have it and tire of it. Enough! Toss it on one side, it is over and done with—”
He interrupted her with real amazement. “You can say this—Helen, you? Over! Why am I here to-night?”
“Oh,” she said with scorn, “because I have slipped out of your hold, and have suddenly become valuable. While you believed you had only to raise your finger to bring me back—at Thornbury, for instance—I was nothing, nothing! But now, now that unexpectedly the power seemed slipping from you, you could not endure the loss. It was the same with that girl. Your vanity, your worst self, was piqued by her indifference, her reluctance; you set yourself to win her, and when you had succeeded, she began to weary you. That was why I warned her. You believe, and she believes, that it was jealousy, but you are wrong—both of you. It was pity, profoundest pity, and a wish to spare her something of—what I had felt myself.”
Against her will her voice trembled over these last words, and Fenwick caught the change.
“Say what hard things you like,” he cried triumphantly, “you love me still!”
Her voice, still not quite under control, sounded curiously dull.
“No,” she said. “You are mistaken. I do not.”
“Deny it,” he broke in, with a short laugh, “deny it as you please, it is true. Come, Helen, you have had your say; I don’t know why you have turned yourself into her advocate, but I’m ready to admit I haven’t treated Claudia well. In spite of your hard hitting, can’t you see that it was you who drove me to distraction? Suppose it had been too late.”
“It is,” she said quietly.
“You’re not engaged!”
“I have been engaged a week.”
“To that man?”
“To Mr Pelham.”
He was silent, and she heard his hard breathing. When he spoke his voice was hoarse.
“Well, you can’t marry him.”
“Why not?”
“Why?” He laughed gratingly. “Women are inexplicable, but isn’t there still some sort of necessity to pretend that a little more than money is wanted for a husband?”
“You are right,” said Miss Arbuthnot slowly. “Fortunately for me I need not pretend. I am going to marry Mr Pelham because—I love him.”
There was a silence which lasted for what seemed to her an interminable time. Fenwick broke it with an effort.
“We had better go back,” he said. They walked across the moonlit grass, white flowers stood out starlike in the beds, and the band was playing very softly an air out of Hansel and Grethel. Suddenly he exclaimed, “You might have spared me this!”
“How?”
“You might have let me know I had no chance.”
“Why did you take it for granted that you had?” Miss Arbuthnot retorted coldly.
“Oh, why?” He flung the question back at her, and strode moodily on. But at the door he turned once more. “Do you really intend to marry him?”
“The wedding-day is fixed.”
“Absurd!” he cried roughly.