“He is very kind,” said Claudia coldly. She hated herself for minding anything at a time when anxiety held them all, but from behind Lady Wilmot’s good-natured consolations it appeared to her that she detected a smile of triumph peeping out. “See what I told you!” it seemed to say, “see what he has done, and deny now, if you dare, that he cares for you!” With that “Claudia!” ringing in her ears, how could she deny it, even to herself? If no other result came from the whirl of inward questioning, it had no doubt the effect of fixing her thoughts very closely upon Captain Fenwick.
Minutes—hours—crawled by. Claudia lived upon the crumbs which were flung to her, not daring to ask for them in larger quantities. Charlie Carter departed, and she missed him because, though casual in his answers, he was sure to know what was going on in the house, and sometimes imparted his knowledge. Then she fell to working feverishly again, keeping out of doors half the day. But wherever she was, she contrived with few and short intervals, to have the house in view, and with the house, Fenwick’s window. Sometimes a white-aproned figure—the nurse—would stand there, looking out, and once when she drew down the blind to shut out the glare, Claudia went through a sudden and agonising dread. She stood staring, deaf to one of the workmen who had advanced to inquire about a particular order, and watching the other windows to see whether the too-significant sign were repeated in them. It was on this day that when she came down to dinner she found that Fenwick had been for some hours making steady improvement, and that all were hopeful.
From this time, indeed, he improved steadily, and Lady Wilmot announced with some glee that he was only anxious to get rid of Mrs Leslie.
“They’re too much alike. They irritate each other.”
“I would back Arthur’s will against most people’s,” said Sir Peter quietly.
“Oh yes, and generally she has to knock under, but now, now that he is ill, she gets him at a disadvantage, and it is rather comic. However, she goes to-morrow, and then, as soon as he can be moved into my boudoir, we must all set to work to make it pleasant for him.”
And she flung a queer look at Claudia.
Claudia herself, in spite of the comparative lifting of the load, was finding the decisions of life not quite so simple a matter as she had imagined. Fenwick was better, no doubt, but there was still talk which made her uneasy. And though she would gladly have gone off, her work was unfinished, and there seemed less excuse for a hurried departure than before. The Wilmots might not unnaturally wonder why she went. What could she say? What excuse could she offer? What excuse, at any rate, which Lady Wilmot’s sharp eyes would not see through? She must wait, hoping earnestly that she might find an opportunity for leaving before she was called upon to take her turn in amusing the invalid’s convalescence.
Meanwhile, when she glanced at Fenwick’s window, which was often, she pictured a much more dismal interior than facts warranted. If it had not been that the monotony of illness must be always irksome to an active man, Fenwick would have allowed that he was well off in a pleasant room, with every luxury in papers, books, flowers, and a cheerful selection of visitors to wile away the time.
“It’s better, anyway, than grilling in India, with fever on you, the temperature anything you like and a little more, and the punkah gone to sleep,” he admitted one day when Sir Peter had left his wife to the not uncongenial task of raising her cousin’s spirits, which happened to be rather depressed.