Cecil’s observance of her day of licenced grumbling was somewhat obstructed by the fact that for several weeks after Mrs Willoughby’s At Home, Monday mornings found her in a condition of excitement and gaiety. It was a restless gaiety, which seemed to spring rather from the head than the heart, and Claire looking on with puzzled eyes had an instinct that her companion was assiduously whipping up her own spirits, playing the part of happiness with all her force, with the object of convincing the most critical of all audiences—her own heart! Life was a lonely thing to Claire in these days, for Cecil went out regularly every Saturday and Sunday, returning so late that the two girls did not meet from lunch one day until breakfast the next. She vouchsafed no explanation of her sudden plunge into society, neither beforehand when she sat stitching at pathetic little pieces of finery, nor afterwards when letting herself in with her latch-key she crept slowly to bed, never deigning to enter Claire’s room for one of those “tell-all-about-it” séances dear to a girl’s heart.
It was the sight of those pathetic little pieces of finery which first suggested the idea of a man to Claire’s mind. However dear and intimate a woman friend may be, the prospect of meeting her does not inspire a fellow-woman with sufficient energy to sit up until after midnight to cover a shabby lace blouse with ninon, or to put a new silk collar and cuffs on a half-worn coat. It is only the prospect of meeting the eyes of some male creature, who in all probability will remain supremely unconscious of the result, which stimulates such effort, and Claire, noting Cecil’s restless excitement, cast anxious thoughts towards the particular man in this case.
Was Sophie Blake correct in her deduction as to a previous unhappy romance? Claire had no tangible grounds to lead her to a conclusion, but instinct induced her to agree. Something beyond the troubles of her professional life had gone towards warping a nature that was naturally generous and warm. In imagination Claire lived over the pitiful romance. Poor Cecil had been badly treated. Some selfish man had made love to her, amusing his idle hours with the society of a pretty, clever woman; he had never seriously intended marriage, but Cecil had believed in his sincerity, had given him her whole heart, had dreamt dreams which had turned the grey of life to gold.
And then had come the end. How had the end come? Some day when they were walking together, had he suddenly announced: “I am sailing to India next month!” or, “We have been such capital friends, you and I. I should like you to be the first to hear my news. I am engaged to be married to the dearest girl in the world!” Then, because convention decrees that when her heart is wounded a woman may make no moan, had Cecil twisted her lips into a smile, and cried, “I am so glad to hear it. I hope you will be very happy,” while the solid earth rocked around her? At such thoughts as these Claire flared with righteous anger. “If that should ever happen to me, I wouldn’t pretend! I wouldn’t spare him. I should look him straight in the face, and say, ‘And all this time you have been pretending to love me.—I thank God that it was pretence. I thank God that He has preserved me from being the wife of man who could act a double part!’”
But perhaps there had been no real ending. Perhaps the man had simply grown tired, and ceased to call, ceased to write. Oh, surely that would be the greatest tragedy of all! Claire’s quick brain summoned pictures of Cecil creeping down the oil-clothed stairs in her dressing-gown at the sound of the postman’s earliest knock, and creeping back with no letter in her hand; of Cecil entering the little parlour on her return from work with a swift hungry look at the table on which the day’s letters were displayed; seeing no letter lying there; never, never the letter for which she watched! And the days would pass, and the weeks, and the months, and the old routine of life would go on just the same. Whatever might be her private sufferings, the English mistress must be at her post each morning at nine o’clock; she must wrestle all day with the minds of dull girls, listless girls, clever girls, girls who were eager to learn, and girls whose energies seemed condensed in the effort to avoid learning at all. However sore might be the English mistress’s heart, it was her duty to be bright and alert; however exhausted her own stock of patience, she must still be a female Job in her treatment of her many pupils. A school-mistress must banish her individuality as a woman on the threshold of the form-room; while on duty she must banish every outside interest from her mind. No lying in bed, with her face to the pillow; no weeping far into the night. Headache and swollen eyelids are not for her. If her love-story goes wrong, she must lock her sorrow in her own heart. What wonder if, as a result, her mind grows bitter and her tongue grows sharp!
“That’s a lesson for me! I must never, never allow myself to fall in love!” sighed Claire to herself. It was a depressing necessity, but vaguely she allowed herself to dream of a distant Someday, when the ban should be removed. Something might happen to set her free. Something most certainly would happen! Optimistic one-and-twenty is ready enough to face a short term of renunciation, but it resolutely refuses to believe in its continuance.
A shadow fell over Claire’s happy face as the practical application of this resolve came into her mind. Erskine Fanshawe! At the moment he was the one masculine figure on her horizon, but she did not disguise from herself that of all the men she had met, he attracted her the most. What a mercy that she had had the resolution to put a stop to a friendship which might have ended in unfitting her for the work in hand! It had been hard to refuse the desired information, but the fact that the second refusal had been twice as hard as the first was in itself a proof of the wisdom of her decision. And then, in illogical girlish fashion, Claire fell to wondering if perchance Captain Fanshawe would discover her address for himself? It would be the easiest of tasks, since he had nothing to do but to put the question to Mrs Willoughby. At one moment Claire openly hoped that he would; at the next she recalled the expression on Janet Willoughby’s face as she stood staring across the supper room, and then she was not so sure. What if the continuance of the friendship brought trouble on Janet as well as herself?
Laboriously Claire thrust the thought of Erskine Fanshawe from her mind, but just because inclination would have led her to so blithely meet him, she felt a keener sympathy with her companion’s preparations for similar meetings.
The time of examinations had come, and night after night the dining-table of the little parlour was littered with the sheets of foolscap which were to test the progress of the pupils throughout the term. Cecil’s older forms had been studying The Merchant of Venice, Richard the Second, and the Essays of Elia; the younger forms, Tanglewood Tales and Kingsley’s Heroes. She had set the questions not only as a test of memory, but with a view of drawing out original thought. But, to judge from her groans and lamentations, the result was poor.
“Of all the dull, stupid, unimaginative—sheep! Not an original idea between them. Every answer exactly like the last—a hash-up of my own remarks in class. If there’s a creature on earth I despise more than another, it’s an English flapper. Silly, vain, egotistical—”