Chapter Three.
Harry departed, and Claudia expressed her compassion to Philippa. Philippa grew hot in his defence.
“Of course you like him,” said the girl. “I think he is a capital fellow, and that’s the pity of it. Yes, yes, I know. He and you are convinced that he will do very well by-and-by to reign at Thornbury, where they will touch their hats and curtsy to him, and he will send down soup when they are ill. That’s his line exactly, and it may exist in England a few years longer, but it’s on its last legs.”
“Aren’t you getting rather mixed?” asked Philippa. “The soup, or the line, or what?”
Claudia laughed.
“You know what I mean. The old order. It had its good points, I’m quite ready to admit, but it is over, it must be put away, and a new situation faced. The People, with a capital letter.”
“Aren’t we the People, with a capital letter?” murmured Miss Cartwright.
“Yes, if you join the movement. Otherwise you’re only—I beg your pardon, Philippa, but I know you would hate humbug—only a fly on the wheel. You’d be swept along anyway, but you wouldn’t help.”
“I’m not sure I shouldn’t have the best of it, though, except for the dust,” Philippa said meditatively. “And poor Harry! I think you are ungrateful to him when he is boldly facing the new situation on your behalf. Think of his mother’s face!”
“Ah!” said Claudia, smiling. “Yes, think!”
“Then won’t you admit him as one of the People?”
“When he puts his shoulder to the wheel.”
“I believe, if he’s wise, he’ll come and sit by my side. I’m growing more and more to prefer the fly.”
“It’s natural for you,” said the girl. “It is we younger ones who are responsible for the forward movement.”
Philippa winced.
“Yes, my dear, I know, and God forbid that I should forget it!” she said, with a touch of wistfulness in her voice. “Only it may surprise you by-and-by to find how quickly you grow old in the eyes of the younger. Sometimes think of that, and don’t be in too great a hurry to push the old workers out of the ranks.”
Claudia looked uncomfortable.
“I—I didn’t mean anything of that sort.”
“And I don’t mean to be pushed,” said Miss Cartwright, recovering herself with a laugh. “I flatter myself that we elders have some staying power. Take Harry, however, by all means, if you can get him to push. I dare say it will be good for him.”
“That,” returned the girl, “is what I think. Of course, in a sort of way, it is easy enough to get workers—men, I mean,” she added, with a fine disdain, “one has but to lift one’s little finger. But what is the use of them? They just take it as a new variety of flirting, and haven’t an idea beyond. It simply means that so long as it amuses them they will go on, and as soon as they are tired, drop it. Oh, I know!”
“She is weary with the wisdom of the ages,” Philippa said afterwards to Anne. “If you had heard that ‘Oh, I know!’ and the depth of experience it conveyed! The world is topsy-turvy, frivolity will soon become a virtue of the aged, all the merrymakings and junketings will be reserved for the end of life, we shall be the last left to pipe and dance, while youth regards us scornfully. Claudia depresses me. A hundred wrinkles have grown in my face during the past week. I am ashamed of my poor innocent jestings. If I smile, I look furtively at her to see if she disapproves. What mission has been mine? Have I ever coursed cookery through lectures, or passed the mildest of exams? I did think I knew something about housekeeping, but Claudia has proved that I work on a wrong basis, and even in that I have to write myself a miserable failure.”
“Yet there is a delightful charm about her,” her sister said, disregarding this outbreak. “She is wonderfully attractive and bright.”
“Bless her, yes! She’ll do well enough; she’ll find her limitations quite honestly, if not at once.”
“And will she go to Thornbury?”
“She’s in the mood to go anywhere, only desirous of new worlds to conquer; and she hopes to induce Harry to support the cause, without being idiotic, like other men. She is quite frank with her experiences.”
Both sisters laughed.
Meanwhile Claudia easily made herself at home, came and went as she liked, and refused to be bound by the slenderest of social fetters. The kindly placid circle of a cathedral town, desirous—from respect to the Miss Cartwrights—to exercise hospitable duties towards a young girl who had but just fluttered into it, and might be supposed to require encouragement and support, was absolutely paralysed by the abruptness of Claudia’s renunciation of such benefits. The Dean’s wife went so far as to ask her to dine, which, considering the plethora of young ladies, and the difficulty of providing each lady with a dignitary, or even a curate, was an attention scarcely short of the heroic. It was the more startling when a note arrived, written in an upright manly hand, and announcing that owing to professional duties, Miss Hamilton would be unable to accept any invitation.
“Professional!” repeated Mrs Dean, staring at the note.
“Is she a lady doctor?” hazarded her eldest daughter.
“She has not that appearance,” said the Dean, with decision.
“But, my dear, she must be something odd. And then to state it in such a barefaced way! A young creature not older than Rosa! Well, we have done all that could have been expected, and I can only say I am truly thankful she is not coming.”
For all this, Claudia came and went contentedly, and if she had heard the speeches would have enjoyed them, as in some degree emphasising her position. Philippa laughed, and Anne smoothed over where smoothing was necessary, but Emily was ruffled, because before her young cousin’s appearance she had been considered to lead the van of progress, and she was afraid that Claudia’s Radical theories might be confounded with her own. Besides, Claudia’s scorn of leagues and friendly societies and blue ribbons was apt to be scathing; she talked socialism, and combined it with an innocent despotism contradictory enough to belong only to original woman.
Mrs Hilton’s letter of invitation came enclosed in one to Philippa.
“My dear Philippa (it said):—
“Harry tells me you have a young cousin staying with you, who is very fond of what they call landscape gardening, and he seems to think it would amuse her to come to Thornbury. I am sure we shall be delighted to have her here, for it must be dreadfully sad for her to be alone in the world, poor thing! and if she likes flowers we have plenty, though there they are, all in their beds, and I don’t know what old Thomas will say if anybody digs them up! However, Harry can always manage. We are going to have a few friends next week, because it makes it more lively for Harry. Captain Fenwick on leave, and Ruth Baynes, and perhaps Helen Arbuthnot will come, so that your little cousin would not find it so dull.”
Philippa read this to Anne with great amusement.
“What would our little cousin say if she saw?”
“Minnie has written.”
“Not in these terms. Harry would dictate the letter to his mother.”
“Harry may dictate, but he will never get Minnie to understand that Claudia is to be paid.”
“Oh, well, it will be so amusing to see her awake to the fact, that, upon my word, if it weren’t that Emily’s feelings would be so dreadfully hurt if I deserted her meeting, I should be tempted to take Claudia—I beg her pardon, travel under Claudia’s wing—myself.”
“That, my dear,” said Anne, laughing, “you couldn’t do. Claudia will go on her bicycle, and send her luggage.”
Anne was right.
“I don’t so much care about bicycling for the pleasure of the thing,” Claudia remarked. “But I much prefer it to your cross-country journeys. It is but twenty miles as the crow flies.”
“You will lose your way,” said Emily.
“With a map and a compass? How could I?”
She made all her arrangements with exactitude, and Emily, who had prognosticated trouble for Philippa, had to own herself mistaken when Claudia wrote all the necessary notes and directions, sent off her luggage in excellent time, and came down in a very neat and well-cut dress.
“You are a woman of business. You don’t leave your friends much to do for you,” said Anne, with her kind smile.
“We have learned that much,” returned Claudia, pleased. “What a nuisance those poor clinging blushing women must have been, fainting away on a man’s shoulder whenever an emergency arrived!”
“Stop, stop!” put in Philippa. “I won’t have the heroines of my youth abused. Each generation offers a spectacle for the next to mock at. Don’t expect to escape yourself, Claudia.”
“Well, they shan’t accuse us of helplessness,” said the girl, serenely. “Can I do anything for you in the town? No? Then, good-bye.”
She settled herself on her bicycle, and rode quietly away. Emily looked vexed.
“She might have taken the other road. Now she will meet them all coming out of the Cathedral.”
“Which she will enjoy,” said Anne, with a smile. “Come, Emily, own that she looks charming. You are a woman of adventure yourself.”
Claudia enjoyed her twenty miles exceedingly. She met and scandalised the Dean’s wife, and made a much more charitable impression upon the Dean himself, who looked after her with a sigh of envy, and a glance at his own gaitered legs. She noted both expressions, laughed, and then her mind flung itself forward with the eagerness with which it always seized upon the future. She pictured Thornbury, its opportunities, its deficiencies, and its altered aspect when she, Claudia, once more took the road back to Elmslie. The people she might meet were not nearly so interesting. The road, however, was neither good nor level, and often she was obliged to confine her attention to its roughnesses. Her real sense of beauty, too, was charmed by the tremulous gladness of the day, soft sunshine veiled in sudden glooms, which yet never became threatening; a hedge-growth rich in ever-varying depths of green; shadows from bordering elms wavering gently on the road, and here and there a gate, a break in the hedge, a twist in the road, opening out some blue distance, not mellow, indeed, with the glory of southern sunshine, but tender as only an English distance can be, and sweet as its remembrance. Claudia was young, vigorous, exultant. When the road climbed so steeply that she was obliged to get off and push her bicycle, it only made a pleasant change for her young strong arms. Every now and then she consulted her map, or, sitting on a stile, glanced at the ripening corn, watched the busy rooks, and ate, with an excellent appetite, the sandwiches supplied by Anne. It was on one of these halts, on the ridge of a hill steeper and stonier than she had yet encountered, that another rider passed her, a man who looked at her keenly. He was thin, sun-browned, and clean-shaven. She criticised his dress and style of riding, without being able to find faults; she noticed, too, that his bicycle had the latest improvements, such as she would hardly have expected to find in these remote regions. Then she glanced at her map. Thornbury was near—the Thornbury which in the glow of exercise she had almost forgotten—and she guessed that he was on his way there. This interested her merely because she looked forward to asking him some questions about his bicycle, which, she owned with a sigh, was better than her own.
Harry, with half a dozen dogs, was waiting for her at the lodge.
“I knew it must be you whom Fenwick described,” he said joyously. “Down, Rob! How splendidly you must have come to be here in this time! I couldn’t have done it.”
“Of course you couldn’t, with that thing of yours,” Claudia said disdainfully. “It’s abominably clumsy. Captain Fenwick—if that’s his name—has a beauty.”
“He’s a clever fellow; he always has the best thing going,” Harry returned with a laugh. “But how jolly it is to have got you here! How’s everybody?”
“I don’t believe there’s much chance since you were there last week. Is there ever any change at Elmslie?”
“Oh, isn’t there!” he exclaimed, still radiant, and thinking of a change which had meant a good deal in his life. “But, come along; my mother’s expecting you, and you’ll be glad of tea. The cart has brought your things up from the station all right.”
Claudia’s welcome was warm. Only Mrs Hilton and Miss Baynes were in the drawing-room. Mrs Hilton, a large fair woman, whose mouth, habit and love of her son had kept in a smiling curve, but whose eyes were faded and weary, showered hospitalities upon the girl.
“My poor husband is a sad invalid, my dear, almost confined to his chair, and sadly crippled, but I hope that at dinner, perhaps—” She broke off vaguely, and Claudia was not long in discovering that Mrs Hilton’s sentences generally remained unfinished. So, probably, did her thoughts, but, as Philippa once said, her kindnesses never. “And how are our dear cousins? It was so good of them to spare you. I am only afraid, my dear, of your finding us— Well, at any rate, here is Ruth, who is always pleasant.”
And she smiled at Miss Baynes, who was handing Claudia her tea.
“Thank you very much,” said Claudia’s young clear voice; “but you must not think at all of me, because I shall be so busy all the time I am here with the work you are kind enough to entrust to me. And then I have my bicycle, which makes me quite independent.”
Mrs Hilton gazed at her, struggling with novel ideas.
“The work, my clear?” she said vaguely. “But you mustn’t talk of it as work. Harry said you were so clever in suggesting things, and, I am sure, if you can amuse yourself with our garden—but—”
Claudia was sitting up, frowning.
“Did not Mr Hilton explain that my profession was landscape gardening?” she said with dignity.
Harry, who had foreseen the scene, and whose mouth was twitching, broke in cheerfully—
“Yes, mother, you know all about it. It’s a splendid thing for Thornbury to get Miss Hamilton here. But we mustn’t forget that she’s bicycled all the way from Elmslie, and when she has had her tea, I dare say Ruth would take her to her room.”
The mere suspicion of any one being tired brought out all Mrs Hilton’s tenderness.
“Of course, I ought to have remembered,” she said, with compunction; “but I have such a poor head, my dear, that I leave most things to Harry. Indeed, you must go to your room. But did you really come alone on a bicycle? And Anne was not afraid to let you! Well, to-morrow you must tell me all about it.”
Ruth Baynes, who carried off Claudia, was tall and slight, with a small aquiline nose and a good-tempered expression. It did not take lone to discover that she had two brothers whom she adored, and various nephews an I nieces, almost equally near her heart. Whatever Claudia said or did was capped by something they had said or done—generally better. She left her at last to peace and a bath, and no one could look fresher or less jaded than Claudia when the dinner-gong sounded.
Mr Hilton took her in to dinner—a thin querulous man, bent with rheumatism, and walking by the help of a stick. To her surprise, she found that he was a scholar, deeply read and fastidious, as even she could see, in his choice of expressions. The only subject, except that of books, which appeared to interest him, was his health, which excited a constant irritability. It was impossible for her to touch upon her own hobby, because he waved it away at once.
“I know nothing about the place, and I care less,” he said. “Harry is sufficiently fond of it to take that trouble off my shoulders, and I leave it all to him. Virtually he is master. If ever you should have the misfortune to be racked with rheumatism and lumbago, my dear young lady, you would find yourself quite unable to take an active part in life. So I shut myself into my library, and trouble nobody with my miseries.”
Claudia thought of Mrs Hilton’s tired eyes, and wondered whether they did not tell a different tale. She found the conversation languishing, and was glad when Captain Fenwick came to the rescue, talking of some classical translation just offered to the world. She glanced at him inattentively, and looked again. If he were Harry Hilton’s friend, here, she allowed, was a stronger personality, evident at once, for Harry was fair and sturdy, while this man was wiry, tall, and dark, carrying in his brown features marks of a more adventurous, perhaps impetuous, life. As she looked, his eyes fastened themselves upon hers with a penetration which she, for an instant, resented. The next moment her indifference returned, and she answered some remark of Miss Baynes’, made across the table, with the eagerness which easily awoke in her face, and gave it a constantly varying charm.
Harry was not a man of strategy, but he manoeuvred that night to prevent his mother from having anything but general conversation with her guest. The evening was rainy. Mr Hilton did not appear after dinner, and Ruth Baynes told Claudia they often did not see him for days.
“He is only happy in his library,” she added, “and sometimes he cannot even get there. Everything falls on Harry.”
”‘Everything’ can’t be very much, I expect,” said Claudia. “He must want occupation.”
“Oh, do you think so?” Miss Baynes opened her eyes. “My brother always says that the county business alone is enough for any man.”
“Perhaps, as to quantity.” Her emphasis pointed the remark, but her companion only assented cheerfully, and proceeded to break fresh ground.
“Are you musical?” she asked.
“No. I found there was no time in which to take up music thoroughly, so I dropped it. What do you do?”
“Play—sing—fiddle. I love it better than anything in the world.”
Claudia’s face warmed.
“Oh,” she said, sitting up and speaking energetically, “then of course you really go in for it. Do you teach?”
“Teach? No,” returned the bewildered Ruth. “Why should I?”
“To be of use—to spread your knowledge, to make it something more than a mere amusement. Otherwise of what good is it?”
“Good? I don’t know. I think people like it,” said Ruth, vaguely.
“Oh!”
Claudia’s “Oh!” implied a great deal as Mrs Hilton hurried towards them.
“Dear Ruth, a little music, please.” And as Miss Baynes took glad possession of the piano, Mrs Hilton murmured on to Claudia, “Ruth is so kind, always ready to play and sing, and Harry likes it so much! Do you play, my dear?”
“No,” Claudia said calmly. “At one time I thought of going in for it, but I hadn’t talent enough to make it anything but a grind, with all those Dresden courses to pass.”
“Must you have gone to Dresden? I don’t think that dear Ruth was ever out of England.”
“But I should only have studied it in order to teach.”
“My dear!” said kind Mrs Hilton, distressed. “I am sure that is very sad, at your age and all! Harry did say something, only—I had no idea! I hope, at any rate, you will take a nice holiday here, and—oh, you are much too young, dear, dear, dear!”
“Please don’t be sorry,” said Claudia, touched yet triumphant. “I have no particular need to work, but we feel that we should cast in our lot with those who have, and that no one has any right to stand idle. That is our position, you know.”
“And if I had been a returned convict, I should scarcely have frightened her more,” reflected the girl gleefully that night in a last sleepy retrospect which she cast on the evening. For a moment longer her thoughts lingered upon Captain Fenwick’s dominant look, then she dismissed him with a yawn.