Chapter Twelve.
Helen Arbuthnot was used to come and go as she liked at Thornbury, but it was not very often that she returned within a week of taking leave. She had done so now, making some slight excuse, which for hospitable Mrs Hilton was unnecessary. The talk often fell upon Fenwick’s accident, and she knew that Harry had been to Huntingdon. Ruth Baynes described how an accident, not certainly identical, but still an accident, once befell her eldest nephew. Helen listened in silence until she had Harry alone.
“There’s no actual danger, is there?” she asked indifferently.
“Sir Peter said there was. At least the doctors were at fault.”
She had followed him into the gun-room, where he was rubbing the stock of a gun.
“Then I suppose you’ll be going over again?”
“Not again. Somebody will write.”
She tapped the wooden arms of her chair impatiently.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re the most lukewarm of lovers! I’ve no patience with you!”
“Can’t be helped,” he exclaimed, polishing laboriously.
“It can. Don’t you see that it’s nothing short of unfeeling to show no anxiety when—when your Claudia has nearly brought herself and her career to an end?”
“She’s all right. Besides, my Claudia, as you call her, isn’t mine at all, and doesn’t mean to have anything to do with me.”
“Only because you’re so wrong-headed. Didn’t I advise you to keep quiet?”
“Yes.”
“And now I advise you to move. And you do just the contrary.”
He had his back turned to her.
“Didn’t it really ever strike you,” he said, “that Fenwick cared?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she answered with a change of manner and a laugh—
“Oh, how like a man! When he takes a fancy he thinks every one else must be possessed with it too!”
She ceased, however, to urge him, for good-tempered as he was, he could stick to his point, and she saw that he was resolved not to go again to Huntingdon. He had made this determination partly because he could not see Claudia without disturbance, and his healthy nature objected to the stirring up of emotions which could lead to nothing; and partly because in spite of Miss Arbuthnot’s taunt he was persuaded that Fenwick liked Claudia, and a love of fair play inclined him to keep out of the way at a moment when his rival might be supposed to be at a disadvantage. It would not have changed his conduct had he known the truth, that, in his disabled condition, Fenwick, passive, was making such way as he might never have done had he been about as usual.
Only Miss Arbuthnot’s pertinacity had led to the conversation. She did not renew it, and he was not the man to care to talk of his own feelings. At the end of a few days better news arrived from Huntingdon, and Helen departed as suddenly as she had come. Then it was that Harry became more restless. Thornbury had too many bitter-sweet recollections, Huntingdon was too easily within reach, at Elmslie he might hear something of Claudia, and at Elmslie he would meet with Anne Cartwright’s tender sympathy, never wanting in tact. At Elmslie, accordingly, he presented himself one day, unannounced, but certain of welcome.
It was Philippa’s shrewdness which first discovered that the times were out of joint.
“Something has happened,” she said to Anne, “and whatever it may be, take my word that Claudia is at the bottom of it.”
“Why?” said Anne, startled. “He hasn’t talked of her at all.”
“And that’s why,” retorted Philippa. “When he left he was on the way to talk a great deal.”
“Then do you suppose?”
“Yes, I suppose she has refused him, and that you will soon hear more about it. He is much too good for her, but I imagine you can’t tell him so?”
“Now you are unfair.”
Philippa laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and went off, rattling her keys. Anne, after a momentary hesitation, left the house, and strolled down to the river, where she found Harry smoking, with Vic stretched by his side. Looking at him with keener attention, she saw something in his eyes which told her that her quicker sister’s surmise, at least as to his unhappiness, was right. He jumped up, and she put her hand on his arm.
“I’m too old for damp grass, but here’s the bench which Claudia hated.” She added, very kindly, “What is it, Harry?”
He laughed queerly.
“Nothing out of the common. I’ve had a spill, and the world is going round a bit—that’s all. It’ll steady itself by-and-by, no doubt. You can’t do anything, Anne, and I’m sure I don’t know why I tell you.”
“Is it Claudia?” asked Anne unheeding.
He nodded.
“And?” She paused.
“She didn’t give me any hope, and I can’t persuade myself that I’ve the ghost of a chance. Still—I suppose I should feel worse if there wasn’t one.” He broke off and laughed again.
“She is very young. Oh, I shouldn’t despair yet,” urged Anne, born consoler.
“Don’t you think you’ve been hasty?”
He pulled Vic’s soft ears.
“Perhaps. I couldn’t wait.”
“Well, as I say, I wouldn’t despair. Give her time.”
“She hasn’t said anything herself?” He was thirsting for a word.
“No. Indeed, Philippa and I have been puzzled that we have heard nothing from Claudia since she first went to the Wilmots’. We don’t want her to feel bound to write, but generally she does. I suppose this explains it.”
“You know about the accident?”
“Accident? No,” said Anne, with alarm. “Oh, she’s all right. But Fenwick, who was with her, got let in rather badly.” And he gave her a brief account of the disaster.
“Oh, poor child!” cried Anne. “How terrible for her! That explains, of course, particularly,”—she smiled—“because she knows we are old-fashioned enough to be a little shy of bicycles. Come, Harry, it seems to me that you have despaired too soon. Try again, later. Her head is filled with other ideas now, but give her time and she will come round.”
Irony is apt to follow on the heels of good advice.
“I don’t know,” said Harry slowly. “I haven’t quite told you all.”
She waited.
“This other man, who got the chance—”
“Captain Fenwick?”
“She thinks me a stay-at-home duffer, as I am; while he—he’s a clever chap, and has been about, and can talk of the things she fancies, and—well, it can’t be helped! Look here, Anne, Philippa must really speak to Smith about that hay.”
If it had been a relief to him to say so much, he was evidently indisposed to say more, and, Anne not being one to force confidences, they talked of indifferent matters, went to see the rick, strolled round the kitchen garden, ate apricots, and were turning towards the house when a maid came out, bringing a letter.
“Oddly enough, this is from Claudia,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.
The next moment, as she glanced through it, she repented having spoken.
“What’s wrong?” demanded Harry, watching her face. As she hesitated, he added quietly, “You had better tell me.”
“It is from Claudia.”
“So you said. Well?”
There was a new peremptoriness in his tone which she recognised.
“She writes about what we talked of,” she said, with difficulty, and keeping her eyes fixed on the letter. “She—she is engaged to this Captain Fenwick. You may read the letter, if you like,” she added more quickly, holding it out to him. He did not take it, and there was a moment’s silence.
“Thank you,” he said, and no more. His voice was hoarse, and she longed to comfort him, not knowing how, and casting about for words.
“This accident—”
He interrupted her.
“It’s over and done with—we won’t talk about it. Can I do anything for you in the town?”
Anne felt with a pang that it was not as in his old boyish troubles, and that the best she could do was to stand aside, and take no notice. She went off with her letter to Philippa, who was not very sympathetic.
“I’m not sorry. Harry will meet with somebody else, somebody, I do hope, without a career. Of course he feels it at first, but he’ll get over it, oh yes, Anne, I’m hardened enough to think so. Give me the letter. What does she say?—um—um—um—‘saved my life at the risk of his own’—that’s strong—‘dreadfully hurt—getting better’—I don’t see what else she could do—‘stay on here for another week or two before going back to Elmslie.’ One thing is certain, Anne, we needn’t have had that new carpet for the bedroom.”
“She doesn’t say much,” commented Anne.
“No, not much. I wonder—”