CHAPTER II.
o you like this part of London?” asked Horace, by-and-by.
Embrance had taken off her bonnet and ulster, and was sitting by the side of the fire. It was one of her characteristics, owing, perhaps, to the need of rest after long hours’ work, that she could remain perfectly still for a considerable length of time. She had no desire to busy herself with fancy work or to twirl her watch-chain; she did not throw herself into picturesque attitudes, but sat with clasped hands, listening to her visitor’s easy flow of conversation. A curl of her dark hair had escaped from the stiff plait, and her lips were parted with a smile.
“Not half so alarming as I imagined she would be,” was Horace Meade’s thought, as he pursued his inquiries as to her liking for Bloomsbury, “but why, in the name of all that’s wonderful, does she wear such a frightful garment? It requires beauty to carry off a Cinderella garb of that kind.”
“I find it convenient to live here,” explained Embrance, while her visitor’s fancy had soared far away, and was drawing her hair high on the top of her head, putting pearls in her ears, and a mass of crimson roses in the lace round her throat. “She would make a good study for the ‘ugly princess,’” he thought.
“I know that you are one of the busy folk,” he said, “Joan has told me about you and your hard work. I only hope—” with a certain kindliness that went straight to her heart—“that you are not overdoing it. Joan ought to look after you.”
Just for a second, Embrance’s dark eyes looked up at him with a flash of inquiry: could it be that this polite, soft-voiced man was making fun of Joan and of her? As if ashamed of her suspicion, she replied gently—
“It is a great pleasure to me to have Joan’s company; we have been friends for a great many years, ever since we were little schoolgirls.”
“And you helped her with her sums after hours,” said Horace, twisting the end of his moustache. “I have heard a great deal about you and your doings, Miss Clemon, but seriously, I should be glad to talk to you about my cousin, if you will let me.”
“Please do; she has been so looking forward to your coming; will you be able to suggest any line for her to take up? She doesn’t much like teaching; she was not very happy at home, and (with a slight hesitation) her grandfather makes her no allowance while she is here.”
“Poor girl!” exclaimed Mr. Meade, “I expected how it would be; he is a regular old miser. As for Joan, with all her talent, she’s had no proper teaching herself, and hasn’t an idea what real work means. What has she been doing lately?”
Embrance, conscious that Joan had been spending the last fortnight in making herself a charming terra-cotta walking dress, looked towards the window, and said that there had been so many fogs, it was bad weather for artists. Mr. Meade nodded, then marched up to the easel, and examined the drawing—a study of roses, white and pink—that Joan had begun a month ago; but even before the roses (which had cost as much as a week’s rent) withered, she had got tired of the drawing, and had put it on one side for a copy of a landscape, intended for the good of her pupil, and also left unfinished.
For some minutes he stood there in silence, took the drawings nearer to the light, and carefully replaced them on the easel.
“Well?” asked Embrance, anxiously.
“What do you think of them?”
“I am not a judge; I know so little about it.”
“Very likely, but look here” (she came closer to the easel), “you are accustomed to observe. Do you see the grouping of the roses is pretty enough, but there, look, that is quite out of drawing, and the stalk is an absurdity.”
Embrance could not stay there any longer in mute acquiescence: “But she is so quick,” she remonstrated, “and has a real love”—for painting, she was about to say, but her sense of truth turned the sentence into: “for anything that is beautiful!”
He turned away from the window with a sigh. “As an amateur, it is all very well, but otherwise, I don’t see what is to be done. Poor little Joan! It’s a bad business; how is she looking, Miss Clemon?”
“Prettier than ever, I think.”
“I am glad to hear it. She is a charming companion, and I am very glad that you like her. It is a comfort to know that she has got such a good friend in you.”
Embrance blushed, feeling very uncomfortable, and half inclined to resent his remarks. It was rather late in the day for a complete stranger to interfere in such an old friendship as hers and Joan’s. “However,” she reflected, “I am sure he is very fond of her; I wish she would come in.”
“Perhaps,” continued Horace Meade, “you think that I have no business to say this; but the fact is, that I had expected to find, at least I had not expected to find—that is to say——”
He stopped abruptly, and Embrance could not refrain from laughing: “You had imagined that Joan had set up housekeeping with a strong-minded woman of the most extreme type, who didn’t care what became of her.”
“No, no, indeed!” began Horace, but she would go on.
“Please let me explain to you that I would do anything, anything in the world to make Joan happy. I have been looking forward to your visit; I hoped that between us we could find some way of helping her.”
It occurred to Horace that this would be an advantageous moment to say something complimentary, and get himself out of an awkward predicament, but he did not avail himself of the opportunity. He was a person who believed in his own insight of character, and Miss Clemon (who was so widely different from his preconceived notion of Joan’s learned friend) interested him very much; he was quite sure that she was open and honest as the day. Better be straightforward, too.
“Thank you very much,” he said, almost as if she had conferred a favour on him personally, “I will think over what you have said; we will try and help her; and may I come again soon?”
Embrance answered that she would be very glad to see him, and when, after a little more chat, he took his leave, she went singing into the next room, feeling lighter of heart than she had done for days. She liked Horace Meade very much, and how pleased Joan would be to hear of his arrival!
Joan was, indeed, delighted to welcome her cousin; Mrs. Rakely invited him to the hotel, and there were many happy days spent in his society. His own rooms and studio were in a distant suburb, but he found time to make himself very agreeable to the ladies, and to show them the sights of London. Joan was in her element, but too soon there came a period of reaction. Mrs. Rakely went back to the country, and Horace began to work regularly; he was slowly making his way as a portrait painter. Joan fell into low spirits again, she wrote a great many letters, and received bulky communications from Mrs. Rakely, about which she maintained a silence, strangely unlike her usual talkativeness. Now and then she would turn wistful glances on Embrance, as if longing for sympathy, but she made no confidences. And Embrance treated her with great tenderness, believing that some slight squabble with Horace was the cause of her despondency. “Better not to worry her with too many questions,” she thought, “she will tell me in her own good time.”
Horace came to the little second floor parlour, generally timing his visits so as to arrive about seven o’clock. He had dined at his club. If he might be allowed, it suited him best to drop in at this time. He hoped he wasn’t in the way. Embrance bade him heartily welcome, while Joan would forget her melancholy, and brighten into fresh beauty under the influence of her cousin’s pleasant talk. More than once Embrance, busy as she was, had attempted to leave the cousins to themselves, while she laboured at a side table; but Horace had a knack of coaxing her back to the fireside, asking her opinion on some interesting topic, or referring to her laughingly as a competent authority. And she had been enticed away to listen to his account of his travels, or description of his housekeeping failures in his own rooms. He set Joan hard at work painting menu cards and photograph frames, saying that he knew a man who would dispose of them at a fair price, and now and then he brought a drawing for her to copy, but he showed no sign of being impressed with the progress that she made.
“Do you expect your cousin this evening?” asked Embrance, one afternoon, about a month after Christmas; “he has not been to see you for some time.”
“No,” said Joan, wearily. She was lying full length on the hearthrug, with her head on a pillow, while Embrance arranged the ornaments on the mantelpiece to her better satisfaction; “but I have heard from him.”
“What did he say?” asked Embrance, fancying that in Joan’s manner she could trace a desire to be further questioned; “is it a secret, Joan, or may I know all about it?”
Joan fixed her great eyes upon Embrance, and raised herself from the ground with one arm: “I have got a secret, but I am not to tell you. Did you guess that I had?”
Embrance nodded. She had finished putting the ornaments to rights, and now came and sat on a low chair by the fire. “You would rather not tell me about it just yet, Joan?”
“Not yet,” said Joan, excitedly. “You will know soon. Mrs. Rakely knows. But, but”—she hesitated, “I don’t know when Horace will come here again; he is very inconsiderate sometimes. What do you think he proposed I should do? I met him one day and asked his advice—you are so busy, Embrance, there seems to be no time to talk to you. He says that I had better go back to Doveton!”
“He wants to take her away from me,” thought Embrance, with a pang; “perhaps he is right, and I ought never to have kept her.” She took Joan’s hand and patted it softly. “There is no occasion to fret about it,” she said. “Would you like to go back, Joan?”
“I don’t know,” said Joan, half crying. “I’m sorry I quarrelled with Horace. I was very disagreeable to him. He doesn’t think I ought to stay with you much longer.”
“I am sorry,” began Embrance, humbly; but Joan was too much taken up with her own grievance to listen. She went on: “He offered to speak to the head of a firm he knows where they make furniture and employ people (artists, Horace calls them) to decorate rooms and paint panels. He said I should have to be taught to do it; and, oh! Embrance, I should hate to be shut up all day; I should feel as if I were in a prison; so I said I wouldn’t go and see his friend—that I would rather go on the stage. And then he advised me to go back to Doveton.” Joan was sitting bolt upright now, and her eyes were sparkling. “Do you think I behaved badly?”
“It was very hard for you, my poor dear; but I dare say you were not so disagreeable as you imagine. He would make allowance for your not being accustomed to keep such regular hours.”
“It’s you who make allowance,” cried Joan. “You are very good, Embrance; and I am keeping so much back from you. But don’t think hardly of me; promise me you won’t. Have patience with me, whatever I do.”
A sharp east wind was blowing across the park; the chestnut-trees stretched their bare branches grimly towards the sky. Embrance Clemon was walking home after her day’s work; the dead leaves swept rustling and dancing towards her. A party of noisy children were racing after their hoops a few yards in front of her. She had just been told by the mother of a pupil, with many expressions of regret, that her services would not be required any more after Easter. Her head was full of plans, by which she could contrive to manage her slender resources, so that Joan should not be made to feel that she was in any way increasing the household difficulties. In truth, she could ill afford to lose a lesson just now. She had heard no more of Joan’s quarrel with Horace Meade; she imagined that that was made up long ago; the two had met more than once, she knew, at a friend’s house, but he had left off coming to call. Embrance missed his visits; it was clear to her now, looking back to the last few months, that Horace Meade had brought a great deal of happiness into their quiet lives—hers as well as Joan’s. And yet, try as she would, she could not but feel hurt that he should be so anxious to remove Joan from her influence. “It doesn’t matter, after all,” she reflected, walking faster and faster in the grey twilight, “what he thinks of me.” Nevertheless, it mattered so much, that Embrance grew sad at heart; there came over her a great longing to throw up the present occupation and go away, anywhere, and begin again; to shut up her past life tight and firm and to start afresh. And Joan? She almost smiled at her own folly, as she recollected how impossible it would be to leave Joan in such an unceremonious fashion.
(To be continued.)
