CHAPTER I.
hot August day, hot with the heat cherished through a sunny fortnight of rainless days; in which the earth radiated back to the atmosphere the warmth bestowed upon her by the cloudless skies, so that a light haze overhung the broad plains, and lay like a belt around the dark-foliaged trees and whitewashed villages of the surrounding country.
It was a monotonous and little-varied scene, yet the girl who was watching it from a railway compartment, as the train sped past it, found it full of interest and delight. It was all so distinctly un-English, and poorly as it might compare with the woody slopes and fruitful orchards of the land she had left behind her, these severe, hedgeless fields and austere lines of tall poplars had to her a special beauty of their own. She took little heed of her travelling companions, so absorbed was she in the novelty of her surroundings. And she was conscious, too, that this was only the beginning, that better things were in store for her. One short night and day, and then—the snowy mountains, hitherto visible only in dreams, the green pastures and tinkling cattle-bells, the climbing woods and glowing flowers. Truly, for the realisation of such a vision all past toil and patient expectation were well worth endurance.
If she had been less occupied with her observations, she might have noticed that one of her fellow travellers was keenly interested in her, and that the comic papers that were littered on the seat beside him received very little of his attention. A slight service rendered at Dover apparently gave him, at least in his own opinion, some sort of proprietary interest in this young woman, whose solitary journey seemed to him a challenge to his attention. Nevertheless, since they had entered the compartment, he had not been able to obtain so much as a glance from her. This, to one who was accustomed to think himself irresistible, was not a little irritating; a brilliant idea struck him, and he now held out to her one of the gaily-coloured periodicals. The familiarity of his tone, coupled with the fact that she had been accustomed to view such productions with disgust, impelled her to decline it; but remembering the relief she had felt at his help on the way, she accepted with a shy hesitation. The leaves fluttered in her hands, but the pictures that caught her eye, as she turned the paper over, distressed and annoyed her. In another moment she summoned up courage to hand it back to the owner.
“What—don’t you like ’em?” he asked in surprised accents. “Come, this is good, don’t you think so?”
He spoke with the assurance of an old friend, and the girl, who had entered the carriage with him, was seized with a sudden horror lest the other occupants of the compartment should identify her with this stranger.
“Thank you, my eyes ache when I read in the train,” answered she, searching about for some plausible excuse.
“Ah, that’s a pity, they’re much too pretty for that,” responded he with intended gallantry.
Her eyes swam in a mist of tears. A less diffident girl would have instinctively known how to rebuke the offender, but she was accustomed to think humbly of herself, and at once concluded that something in her own conduct had led the man to think that he might take liberties with her. Suddenly, to her intense vexation, a large tear splashed on her lap; but at the critical moment, a voice said to her—
“Pardon me, but I believe you would like a window seat. It is so much more comfortable. See, let me move your things.”
In another moment, the speaker, who had been sitting beside her, and next to the window, had changed places with her, and had moved her bag and rugs so as to make a comfortable barrier round her. She tried to thank him, and met the eyes of a young lady to whom he had been talking and who, she supposed, must be his wife.
“You are very tired, I am sure,” said the latter. “Granville, pass me my bag. Now, do have a little milk, it will be so good for you.”
“Thank you so much, but I really do not need it,” protested the girl.
“Oh, nonsense, you don’t know what is good for you! Come, I insist on it!”
So she swallowed the milk mechanically, and then went on looking out of the window, inwardly struggling between gratitude to the unknown lady and embarrassment at having her confusion noticed. She was angry with herself too. She had felt so perfectly competent to undertake this expedition—a High School mistress, living in rooms, she was accustomed to look after herself—and here was she, Catherine West, who had taken a high class at Cambridge, actually crying because an under-bred man had annoyed her! But the truth was that she knew very little of the world. She had gone straight from school to college, straight from college to the post that she now held. She had thought little of men or of their relations to her, for women, whose youth is absorbed in intellectual interests, are later in development on the emotional side than others, yet, when the awakening comes, are apt, perhaps because of the severity of their early training, to feel more strongly and to suffer more deeply.
The journey passed without further incident. One by one, as evening came on, the passengers settled themselves, comfortably or uncomfortably, against air-cushions or feather pillows, and fell asleep. But sleep was a long time coming to Catherine; she closed her eyes, but her excitement kept her awake, and when at last she fell into an uneasy doze, it was only to rouse at every station, where the train drew up with a jerk and scream, and to stare bewildered at the red lights that flashed across the darkness.
Morning at last, and the frontier reached! Catherine thought that she would never forget the breath of cool clear air that swept through the close compartment like a cleansing touch. The occupants, dishevelled and unwashed, rushed out for coffee and rolls, then back again, and the train went steaming on through the early coolness of the Swiss dawn, while Catherine watched the east growing rosy behind the pines that fringed the hills, and then, in one rapturous moment, caught sight of the first snowy peak, all hushed and stainless in the silence of the morning.
Suddenly her glance met that of the lady opposite.
“How beautiful!” they both exclaimed in one breath.
From that moment the compact of friendship was sealed between the two women; they began to talk to one another, and found that they had many interests in common. So the time passed pleasantly, till, arrived at length at their destination, they found that they were going to the same hotel.
“Give my brother”—Catherine started at this revelation—“the ticket for your luggage, and he will see after it for you,” said her friend. “You and I will go on to the hotel. Oh, the delight of a wash! And then——”
“Then something to eat would be advisable,” said her brother, who, having despatched the luggage in the hotel omnibus, now caught them up.
His words came as a shock to Catherine. “Fancy thinking of that when he has the mountains to look at!” Her opinion of masculine nature, which was chiefly based on an intimate acquaintance with the poetry of Shelley, went down a hundred degrees.
In a few minutes more she found herself in the little bare room allotted to her, where the furniture was of the simplest and the cleanliness complete. She felt herself, in her dusty dress, a stain on its exquisite purity. She rushed to her portmanteau and opened it.
“It is extravagant, I know, but I can’t help it!” And she shook out of its folds a white muslin dress that had hitherto been sacred to “functions” and festivals. And as she arrayed herself in it before the glass the conviction came to her that she really looked very nice. Was she growing vain, she wondered, or why was it that she felt such a sudden interest in her appearance?
She left her room and came timidly down the corridor. Now that she was alone in this big hotel, a certain fear came over her. She had boasted to herself that she was able to take care of herself; she had had no compunctions in coming alone on this expedition; of course she would have preferred to have a companion, but since all her efforts to obtain one had been unavailing, she had determined not to be disappointed of the anticipated pleasure, and had, therefore, come alone. But now she felt almost sorry that she had done so; however innocent her intention, she felt that she had laid herself open to misconstruction; her experience on the journey had told her that.
“My sister has sent me to see if I could find you,” said a voice beside her. “The dining-room is this way. She has kept a seat for you—unless, of course, you prefer to sit somewhere else.” The tone was rather constrained, as if the speaker had been party to an arrangement of which he did not altogether approve. Inwardly he was thinking, “She seems a nice girl enough, and is certainly very pretty, but I wish Margaret would not rush into these impulsive friendships.”
Catherine felt the coldness, and was glad to sink into the chair that he placed for her. His sister sat between them, and bravely tried to keep up a conversation. But Catherine was subdued and nervous, and her brother was silent and restrained.
Nobody was sorry when dinner was over, and Margaret and Catherine strolled into the verandah. The days were already drawing in, and it was nearly dark, but a slender moon hung between the two snowy peaks that guarded the valley, and in their ears was the murmur of a torrent, that, slipping from the icy embrace of the mountains, rushed impetuously from the glacier that was wedged between them.
MENDING THE QUILT.
“And now let us produce our credentials,” said her new friend. “I am Margaret Gray. I live by my wits, namely journalism; that is, I write ‘Answers to Correspondents’ for half-a-dozen ladies’ papers. My brother is also engaged in the pursuit of letters. He is, in fact, Lord Mayne’s private secretary. He is very clever, as all brothers ought to be, and took a First in Greats. He is to marry, of course, an heiress, and go into Parliament, and make a name for himself and the family, the family being at present comprehended by himself and me. Finally, we are too poor at present to think of heiresses or even to approach the only available one, having piles of other people’s debts to pay off. Now for yours.”
Catherine told her simply and frankly all her short history. How, left an orphan, with just sufficient money to pay for her education, she had been brought up at an endowed school, and had then won a scholarship to Cambridge, and how, on leaving college, she had found a post in a High School in a large manufacturing town, where she lived by herself in rooms. She had only been there a short time, and did not know many people; there were so few people that she could know, except the other mistresses, living for the most part alone or sharing rooms together. It was less by what she was told than by her quick imagination, aided by her knowledge of other professional women, that Margaret was able to conjure up to herself the long harassing days, the physical fatigue that could seldom find relief, and then the solitary evenings in a dreary lodging-house. She contrasted it with her own life spent in London, among interesting people, and full of change and movement. Certainly she worked hard, but the possession of some private means and the knowledge that her future was comfortably provided for took away the anxiety that haunts the working days of so many women. Her heart went out in sympathy to this girl, who hardly realised as yet the whole significance of her position.
“Isn’t it dreadfully monotonous sometimes? Don’t you long to get away?”
“Sometimes I feel as if I could endure it no longer, especially in the evening, when I have finished my corrections and am too tired even to read. But then there are the children, and children are so delightful; though at the end of the term I do feel as if I never wanted to see another child all my life. But that feeling soon wears off; they are so innocent and fascinating, and never mind showing what they think. Oh, yes; of course it is only the children who make things bearable.”
“Now I can understand the apparent absurdity of a girl like you rushing off on a Swiss tour by yourself. Even I, who am several years older, and have much more knowledge of the world, and no pretension to beauty, should hesitate about such a thing. Did it never strike you that people might misunderstand you, that you were laying yourself out to be misunderstood?”
“Never! Why should it? I did not think the world so cruel. Must we wait till we are too old to enjoy things, from fear of what people will say? In twenty years I shall be too old to climb mountains and travel cheaply. Then it will be quite proper, I suppose, but quite impossible.”
There was a touch of bitterness in her tone that threw a new light on her character to Margaret.
“The world is hard on us women,” she answered gently. “We are in a transition state at present. Only the most enlightened and sympathetic men understand the independent woman. The very fact of her independence makes her a prey to men like that cad in the railway carriage, or quite incomprehensible to chivalrous men like my brother. You understand; he would do anything to help you out of a difficulty, but would not understand your preference for all the perils of a solitary tour over the security and boredom of those dreadful lodgings. Most men still prefer the clinging trustful girl who claims their protection at every other step. She makes them so conscious of their own superior power. But the woman who strikes out for herself and asserts her own individuality is a challenge to the cad and an unknown quantity to most men of honour.”
“I suppose that we can only suffer and wait for better things.”
“Yes. Sometimes I think we are suffering vicariously for the good of generations of unborn women. If we maintain the right of women to live independently and to think for themselves, a future age will concede it as a matter of course. And yet one must be very sure of oneself to take up that independent stand. Are you sure?”
“I don’t quite understand,” answered Catherine.
“Only this, dear”—there was a lingering, protective stress on the last word that appealed to the lonely girl—“you seem to me one of those women who are independent by circumstance rather than by choice. One of those who proclaim aloud their independence at twenty and at thirty wail privately for the dependence they appear to scorn. One of those, in fact, who would seem more in her place with her foot on a cradle rocker than rushing over Europe accompanied only by a travelling trunk and a green ticket case.”
“Oh, you are mistaken, quite mistaken,” cried Catherine—“quite mistaken. I am not that kind of woman at all. And besides, if I were, what would be the good? Surely I am happier struggling by myself than making myself miserable over some man; for I can never marry, you know.”
“Never marry? But why?”
“I am so poor, and the only kind of man that I could think of would never look at an insignificant person like me. No, I shall never marry; and that being so, I would rather school myself to independence.”
“You goose! How little you know of men. But I can assure you that till you have made yourself miserable—or otherwise—over some man, you will be an incomplete and, so far, an ineffective character.”
Catherine was unconscious of what Margaret’s intuition led her to suspect, namely, that her conviction of insignificance and renewed enthusiasm for independence were due to Mr. Gray’s polite indifference at dinner. He now joined them, and Catherine immediately said “Good night” and disappeared. She did not know that his eyes were following her slim white figure as it disappeared between the festoons of Virginia creeper that draped the verandah.
“Don’t lecture me!” cried Margaret when she had gone. “I know what you are going to say.”
“Well?” asked her brother, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, that I am too impulsive and all that, and that I shall get into trouble some day by making friends of unknown strangers, who may turn out after all to be disreputable actresses or anarchists in disguise.”
“Nonsense! But really, Margaret, you can never tell; all sorts of people come to these hotels.”
“Just as if I didn’t know that! Ah, my dear Granville, you may be very clever; your head is full of classics and politics, and things I don’t know anything about, but you’ve ‘no art to find the mind’s construction in the face,’ and that is just what I have. Now, can you say you have ever known me wrong in my estimate of people?”
“Not so far, certainly. But doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that so young a girl should be running about the country by herself?”
“Not at all,” and Margaret poured out Catherine’s story. “Poor little thing! She is terribly lonely. You and I must do our best to look after her, and give her a good time while we are here.”
Now this was a very heroic and unselfish resolution on Margaret’s part, for she did not often get her brother to herself, and this holiday had been anticipated with all the more pleasure on that account.
“As you will,” he said. “I will do my best to please you. I only hope that your charity may not be blinding your judgment. You are the only woman I know who is absurdly susceptible to beauty in her own sex.”
“Susceptible to beauty!” cried Margaret, with laughing eyes. “Just as if I should have noticed her at all if you had not made her change places with you. After all, Granville, you see it was you who began the acquaintance.”
“How absurd! Any fellow would have done that. Didn’t you see that she was on the point of tears?”
Margaret smiled wisely.
“Oh, you noticed that, too? And yet you suspect her genuineness. Now, do you think that any girl who wasn’t nice would let an incident like that trouble her?”
“Oh, well, I give it up. I daresay you are right. At any rate I will do my best for your protégée!”
“Mine? Remember your responsibilities,” she answered, and so they parted for the night.
(To be continued.)