Presents! That was another idea. Claire went home mentally reviewing her own treasures with a view to selecting some trifle which Janet in the midst of her plenty might still be glad to receive. She decided on a silver clasp of quaint Breton manufacture, which had the merit that in the whole of London it would be impossible to purchase another to match.
Claire returned to her room in a frame of mind vastly different from that in which she had started forth. Her buoyant spirits soared upwards at the prospect of a Christmas spent in the midst of a happy family party, and all the difficulties of life seemed to dissolve into thin air, since, after the providential meeting just vouchsafed, it seemed faithless to doubt that future difficulties would be solved in the same way.
She intended to devote the afternoon to writing a long letter to her mother, which had been delayed owing to her recent depression of spirits, for it seemed cruel to write in a pessimistic strain to the happy bride, who now, more than ever, saw everything couleur de rose. Mrs Judge’s present had arrived the week before, in the shape of a richly embroidered Indian table-cloth, for which her daughter had as much use as she herself would have found for a fur rug. To use it in the saffron parlour was a sheer impossibility, for every separate article of furniture shrieked at it, and it shrieked at them in return; so Claire folded it away at the bottom of her box, reflecting, between a sigh and a smile, that the choice was “just like mother.” It was not agreeable to the bride to picture her daughter living in an ugly lodging-house parlour, so she had mentally covered the ugliness beneath the gorgeous embroidery of that cloth, and happily dismissed the subject from her mind. At the time of the opening of the parcel, Claire had felt a sense of sharp disappointment, amounting even to irritation, but this morning she could see the humour of the situation, and she chuckled softly to herself as she walked homeward, rehearsing words of thanks that would be at once cordial and truthful. “Just what I wanted,” was plainly out of the question; “So useful” was also ruled out, but she could honestly admire the workmanship of the cloth, and enlarge on the care with which it should be preserved! It was an easy task to satisfy a correspondent who was eager to interpret words into the meaning most agreeable to herself!
Claire entered the house prepared to devote herself to writing letters to absent friends, but the excitements of the day were not yet over, for the little maid met her on the threshold with the exciting intelligence that a gentleman was in the parlour waiting to see her.
The feuilleton made an exciting leap forward, as Lizzie watched the blood rush into the “first floor’s” cheeks, and ebb away suddenly, leaving her white and tense. “Struck all of a heap, like! I shouldn’t have thought meself as she’d look at him! Queer thing, love!” soliloquised Lizzie, as she clumped down the kitchen stairs, and returned to her superintendence of Sunday’s “jint.”
The “first floor” meanwhile stood motionless in the oil-clothed hall, struggling to regain self-possession before turning the handle of the door. A gentleman waiting to see her! Who could the gentleman be? But at the bottom of her heart Claire believed the question to be superfluous, for there was only one “gentleman” who could possibly come. Captain Fanshawe had found out her address, and it was Christmas-time, when a visitor was justified in counting on a hospitable reception. At Christmas-time it would be churlish for a hostess to deny a welcome. Every pulse in Claire’s body was throbbing with anticipation as she flung open that door.
The visitor was standing with his back towards her, bending low to examine a photograph on the mantelpiece. At the sound of her entrance he straightened himself and wheeled round, and at the sight of his face Claire’s heart dropped heavy as lead. They stood for a moment staring in a mutual surprise, the girl’s face blank with disappointment, the man’s brightening with interest.
He was a tall, thickly-set man, trim and smart in his attire, yet with a coarseness of feature which aroused Claire’s instant antagonism. Compared with the face she had expected to see, the florid good looks which confronted her were positively repugnant. Before the obvious admiration of the black eyes she stiffened in displeasure.
“You wished to see me?”
“Miss Gifford, I believe! I called about a little matter of a parcel for Miss Rhodes. To be sent on. I wanted to ask if you—”