Lady Connie Part 49

"Oh no--not in a month. Prepare me a hundred lines of the 'Odyssey,'

Book VI.! Next week I shall have some time. This first week is always a drive. Miss Nora says she'll go on again."

"Does she? She seems so--so busy."

"Ah, yes--she's got some work for the University Press. Plucky little thing! But she mustn't overdo it."

Connie dropped the subject. These conferences in the study, which had gone on all day, had nothing to do with Nora's work for the Press--that she was certain of. But she only said--holding out her hands, with the free gesture that was natural to her--

"I wish some one would give me the chance of 'overdoing it'! Do set me to work--hard work! The sun never shines here."

Her eyes wandered petulantly to the rainy sky outside, and the high-walled college opposite.

"Southerner! Wait till you see it shining on the Virginia creeper in our garden quad. Oxford is a dream in October!--just for a week or two, till the leaves fall. November is dreary, I admit. All the same--try and be happy!"

He looked at her gravely and tenderly. She coloured a little as she withdrew her hands.

"Happy? That doesn't matter--does it? But perhaps for a change--one might try--"

"Try what?"

"Well!"--she laughed, but he thought there were tears in her eyes--"to do something--for somebody--occasionally."

"Ask Mrs. Mulholland! She has a genius for that kind of thing. Teach some of her orphans!"

"I couldn't! They'd find me out."

Sorell, rather puzzled, suggested that she might become a Home Student like Nora, and go in for a Literature or Modern History Certificate.

Connie, who was now sitting moodily over a grate with no fire in it, with her chin in her hands, only shook her head.

"I don't know anything--I never learnt anything. And everybody here's so appallingly clever!"

Then she declared that she would go and have tea with the Master of Beaumont, and ask his advice. "He told me to learn something"--the tone was one of depression, pa.s.sing into rebellion--"but I don't want to learn anything!--I want to do something!"

Sorell laughed at her.

"Learning is doing!"

"That's what Oxford people think," she said defiantly. "I don't agree with them."

"What do you mean by 'doing'?"

Connie poked an imaginary fire.

"Making myself happy"--she said slowly, "and--and a few other people!"

Sorell laughed again. Then rising to take his leave, he stooped over her.

"Make me happy by undoing that stroke of yours at Boar's Hill!"

Connie raised herself, and looked at him steadily.

Then gravely and decisively she shook her head.

"Not at all! I shall keep an eye on it!--so must you!"

Then, suddenly, she smiled--the softest, most radiant smile, as though some hope within, far within, looked out. It was gone in a moment, and Sorell went his way; but as one who had been the spectator of an event.

After his departure Connie sat on in the cold room, thinking about Sorell. She was devoted to him--he was the n.o.blest, dearest person. She wished dreadfully to please him. But she wasn't going to let him--well, what?--to let him interfere with that pa.s.sionate purpose which seemed to be beating in her, and through her, like a living thing, though as yet she had but vaguely defined it even to herself.

After tea, which Mrs. Hooper dispensed with red eyes, and at which neither Nora nor Dr. Hooper appeared, Constance found a novel, and established herself in the deserted schoolroom. She couldn't go out. She was on the watch for a letter that might arrive. The two banks were only a stone's throw apart. The local post should deliver that letter about six.

Once Nora looked in to find a doc.u.ment, and was astonished to see Connie there. But she was evidently too hara.s.sed and miserable to talk. Connie listened uneasily to the opening and shutting of a drawer, with which she was already acquainted. Then Nora disappeared again. What were they trying to do, poor dears!--Nora, and Uncle Ewen? What could they do?

The autumn evening darkened slowly. At last!--a ring and a double knock.

The study door opened, and Connie heard Nora's step, and the click of the letter-box. The study door closed again.

Connie put down her novel and listened. Her hands trembled. She was full indeed of qualms and compunctions. Would they be angry with her? She had meant it well.

Footsteps approaching--not Nora's.

Uncle Ewen stood in the doorway--looking very pale and strained.

"Connie, would you mind coming into my study? Something rather strange has happened."

Connie got up and slowly followed him across the hall. As she entered the study, she saw Nora, with blazing eyes and cheeks, standing by her father's writing-table, aglow with anger or excitement--or both. She looked at Connie as at an enemy, and Connie flushed a bright pink.

Uncle Ewen shut the door, and addressed his niece. "My dear Connie, I want you, if you can--to throw some light on a letter I have just received. Both Nora and I suspect your hand in it. If so, you have done something I--I can't permit."

He held out a letter, which Connie took like a culprit. It was a communication from his Oxford bankers to Professor Hooper, to the effect that, a sum of 1100 having been paid in to his credit by a person who desired to remain unknown, his debt to them was covered, and his account showed a balance of about six hundred pounds.

"My dear!"--his voice and hand shook--"is that your doing?"

"Of course it is!" interrupted Nora pa.s.sionately. "Look at her, father!

How dared you, Connie, do such a thing without a word to father! It's a shame--a disgrace! We could have found a way out--we could!"

And the poor child, worn out with anxiety and lack of sleep, and in her sensitive pride and misery ready to turn on Connie and rend her for having dared thus to play Lady Bountiful without warning or permission, sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and burst out sobbing.

Connie handed back the letter, and hung her head. "Won't you--won't you let the person--who--sent the money remain unknown, Uncle Ewen?--as they wished to be?"

Uncle Ewen sat down before his writing-table, and he also buried his face in his hands. Connie stood between them--as it were a prisoner at the bar--looking now very white and childish.

"Dear Uncle Ewen--"

"How did you guess?" said Nora vehemently, uncovering her face--"I never said a word to you!"