The Independence of Claire Part 18

"Well--I suppose we are. Between ourselves. It's not public yet, but I think it soon will be. Half a dozen years ago I should have been sure, but I know better now. You can never be sure! Men are such brutes.

They think of nothing but themselves, and their own amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Some men!"

"Most men! Of course, every girl who falls in love thinks her own particular man is the exception, and believes in him blindly until she gets her heart broken for her pains. I believed in a man, too, years ago, when I was not much older than you are now."

She paused, as though waiting for comment, but Claire sat silent, listening with grave, tender eyes.

Cecil sent her a flickering smile.

"You are a nice child, Claire; you have some sense! I'll tell you, because you never pried or asked questions. You would never have got anything out of me that way, but sometimes I feel as if it would be a relief to talk. I was twenty-three, and very pretty; not as pretty as you are, perhaps, but very nearly, and he was twenty-eight, a lawyer-- brother of one of the girls. He came to one of the prize-givings, and we were introduced. After that he made his people invite me once or twice, and he found out where I was going in the summer holidays, and came down to the same inn. He stayed a fortnight." Cecil sighed, and stared dreamily at her cup. "Even now, Claire, after all that has happened, I can never quite make up my mind to be sorry that he came.

It made things harder when the parting came, but I _had had it_. For two whole weeks I had been as perfectly, blissfully happy as a human creature can be! I had wakened every morning to feel that life was too good to be true, I had gone to bed every night grudging the time for sleep. A fortnight is not very long, but it's not every woman who gets even as much as that. I shall never feel that happiness again, but I'm glad that I know what it is like."

"But, Cecil dear, if--if Major Carew--"

Cecil shook her head.

"No! Never again. One may be happy enough, but it's never the same. I can't feel now as I did then. The power has gone. I cared so much, you see; I would have given my life for him a dozen times over. I thought of him night and day for over a year; I lived for the times when we could meet. It wasn't very often, for his people had taken fright, and would not ask me to the house. They were rich people, and didn't want him to marry a poor girl who was working for herself. It's a great mistake, Claire, to be friends with a man when his relations ignore you.

If I'd had any pride I would have realised that, but I hadn't, and I didn't care; I didn't care for anything but just to see him, and do what he wished. And then, my dear, after a year he began to change. He didn't write to me for weeks, and I had to go to school every day, and try to think of the work, and be patient with the girls, and seem bright and interested, as if I had nothing on my mind. It was near Christmas- time, and we were rehearsing a play. I used to feel as if I should go mad, staying behind after four o'clock to go over those wretched scenes, when I was panting to run home to see if a letter had come! But each time that we met again I forgot everything; I was so happy that I had no time to grumble. That surprises you, doesn't it? You can hardly believe that of me, but I was different then. I was quite nice. You would have liked me, if you had known me then!"

"Dear old Cecil! I like you now. You know I do!"

"Oh, you put up with me! We get along well enough, but we are not _friends_. If we had not been thrown together, you would never have singled me out. Don't apologise, my dear; there's no need. I'm a grumbling old thing, and you've been very patient. Well, that's how it happened. I went out to meet him one night, and he told me quite calmly that he was going to be married. She was the sweetest girl in the world, and he was the happiest of men. Wanted me to know, because we had been such _good_ friends, and he was sure I should be pleased!"

Claire drew her breath with a sharp, sibilant sound.

"And _you_? Oh, Cecil! What did you say?"

Mary Rhodes compressed her lips; the set look was in her face.

"I said what I thought! Quite plainly, and simply, and very much to the point. I suppose it would have been dignified to congratulate him, and pretend to be delighted; but I couldn't do it. He had broken my heart for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, and he knew it as well as I did, so why should I pretend? Something inside me seemed to go snap at that moment, and I've been sour and bitter ever since; but I've learnt _one_ lesson, and that is, that it is folly to go on waiting for perfection in this world.

Much better take what comes along, and make the best of it!"

Claire was silent, applauding the sentiment in the abstract, but shrinking from its application to the swarthy Major Carew. She stretched her hand across the table, and laid it caressingly on Cecil's arm.

"_Pauvre_! Dear old girl! It's no use saying he wasn't worth having-- that's no comfort. When you have loved a man, it must be the worst blow of all to be obliged to despise him; but men are not all like that, Cecil; you mustn't condemn them all because of one bad specimen. I've a great admiration for men. As a whole they are _bigger_ than women--I mean mentally bigger--freer from mean little faults. As a rule they have a stricter sense of honour. That's an old-fashioned att.i.tude, I suppose, but I don't care; it's been my experience, and I can only speak what I know. The average man _is_ honourable, _is_ faithful!"

"Ah, you are speaking of your experience as a leisured girl--a girl living at home with her mother behind her. It's a different story when you are on your own. A man finds it pleasant enough to be friends with a bachelor girl, to take her about, give her little presents, and play the fairy prince generally. The dear little soul is so grateful"-- Cecil's voice took a bitter note--"so appreciative of his condescension!

He can enjoy her society without being bothered with chaperons and conventions. It is really an uncommonly jolly way of pa.s.sing the time.

But, when it comes to _marrying_, does he want to _marry_ the bachelor girl?"

Claire pushed her chair from the table, her face looked suddenly white and tired, there was a suspicious quiver in her voice.

"Oh, Cecil, don't, don't! You are poisoning me again. Leave me _some_ faith! If I can't believe in my fellow-creatures, I'd rather die at once, and be done with it. It stifles me to breathe the atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. And it isn't true. There _are_ good men, who would be all the more chivalrous because a girl was alone. I know it!

I'm sure of it! I refuse to believe that every man is a blackguard because you have had an unfortunate experience."

Mary Rhodes stared, abashed. Since the night when Claire had implored her not to poison her mind, she had never seen her merry, easy-going companion so aroused; but for the moment regret was swamped in curiosity. Ostensibly Claire was arguing in the plural, but in reality she was defending a definite man; Cecil was sure of it; saw her suspicion confirmed in the paling cheeks and distended eyes; heard it confirmed in the shaking voice. But who could the man be? Claire was the most candid, the most open of colleagues; she loved to talk and describe any experiences which came her way; every time she returned from an afternoon in town she had a dozen amusing incidents to recount, which in themselves const.i.tuted a guide to her doings. Cecil felt satisfied that Claire had had no masculine escort on any of these occasions, and with the one exception of Mrs Willoughby's "At Home" she had paid no social visits. Yet there did exist a man on whose honour she was prepared to pin her faith; of that Cecil was convinced.

Probably it was someone in Brussels whom she was still hoping to meet again!

"Well, don't get excited," she said coolly. "If you choose to look upon life as a fairy tale, it's not my business to wake you up. The Sleeping Beauty position is very soothing while it lasts. Don't say I didn't warn you, that's all! I don't call it exactly 'poisonous' to try to prevent another girl from suffering as badly as one has suffered oneself."

"Perhaps not--certainly not, but it was the way you did it. Sorry, Cecil, if I was cross! I hope _this_ time, dear, all will go well, and that you'll be very, very happy. Do tell me anything you can. I won't ask questions, but I'd love to hear."

Cecil's laugh had rather a hard intonation.

"Oh, well! once bitten, twice shy. I'm older this time, and it's a different thing. Perhaps I shall be all the happier because I don't expect too much. He's very devoted, and he'll be rich some day, but his father gives him no allowance, which makes things tight just now. He is an erratic old man, almost a miser, but there are pots of money in the family. Frank showed me the name in _Landed Gentry_; there's quite a paragraph about them, and I've seen a picture of the house, too. A beautiful place; and he's the eldest son. It's in Surrey--quite near town."

"He hasn't taken you down to see it?"

"Not yet. No. It's a private engagement. His father doesn't know. He is waiting for a chance to tell him."

"Wouldn't the father be glad for his heir to marry?"

"He wouldn't be glad for him to marry _me_! But the estate is entailed, so Frank can do as he likes. But the old man is ill, always having asthma and heart attacks, so it wouldn't do to upset him, and of course till he knows, Frank can't tell any other members of the family."

Claire, standing by the fireplace, gave a vague a.s.sent, and was glad that her face was hidden from view. For Cecil's sake she intensely wanted to believe in Major Carew and his account of his own position, but instinctively she doubted, instinctively she feared. She remembered the look of the man's face as he had stood facing her across the little room, and her distrust deepened. He did not look straight; he did not look true. Probably the old father had a good reason for keeping him short of money. If he were really in love with Cecil, and determined to marry her, that was so much to his credit; but Claire hated the idea of that secrecy, marvelled that Cecil could submit a second time to so humiliating a position. Poor Cecil! how _awful_ it would be if she were again deceived! A protective impulse stirred in Claire's heart. "She shan't be, if I can help it!" cried the inner voice. At that moment she vowed herself to the service of Mary Rhodes.

"A big country house in Surrey! That's the ideal residence of the heroine of fiction. It does sound romantic, Cecil! I should love to think of you as the mistress of a house like that. Come and sit by the fire, and let us talk. It's so exciting to talk of love affairs instead of exercises and exams... Let's pretend we are just two happy, ordinary girls, with no form-rooms looming ahead, and that one of us is just engaged, and telling the other 'all about it.' Now begin! Begin at the beginning. How did you meet him first?"

But there a difficulty arose, for Cecil grew suddenly red, and stumbled over her words.

"Oh--well--I-- We _met_! It was an accident--quite an accident--rather a romantic accident. I was coming home one Sunday evening a year ago.

I had been to church in my best clothes, and when I was halfway here the skies opened, and the rain _descended_. Such rain! A deluge! Dancing up from the pavement, streaming along the gutters. I hadn't an umbrella, of course--just my luck!--and I'd had my hat done up that very week. I tore it off, and wrapped it in the tails of my coat, and just as that critical moment Frank pa.s.sed, saw me doing it, and stopped.

Then he asked if I would allow him to shelter me home beneath his umbrella. Well! I'm _not_ the girl to allow men to speak to me in the street, but at that moment, in that deluge, when he'd just seen me take off my hat, _could_ a gentleman do less than offer to shelter me? Would it have been sane to refuse?"

"No; I don't think it would. I should certainly have said yes, too.

That's the sort of thing that would have been called chivalry in olden times. It's chivalry _now_. He was quite right to offer. It would have been horrible if he had pa.s.sed by and left you to be drenched."

Cecil brightened with relief.

"That's what _I_ thought! So I said 'Yes'; and, of course, while we walked we talked, and the wind blew my hair into loose ends, and the damp made them curl, and the excitement gave me a colour; and it was so nice to talk to a man again, Claire, after everlasting women! I _did_ look pretty when I saw myself in the gla.s.s when I came in, almost as I used to look years before. And he looked handsome, too, big and strong, and so delightfully like a man, and unlike a member of staff! We liked each other very much, and when we got to this door--"

Silence. Mary Rhodes waited wistfully for a helping word. Claire stared into the fire, her brows knitted in suspense.

"Well, naturally, we were sorry to part! He asked if I usually went to Saint C--- for the evening service. I didn't, but I said 'Yes.' I knew he meant to meet me again, and I _wanted_ to be met."

Claire sent her thoughts back and recalled a certain Sunday evening when she had offered to accompany Cecil to church, and had been bluntly informed that her company was not desired. She had taken the hint, and had not offered it again. She was silent, waiting for the revelations which were still to come.

"So after that it became a regular thing. He met me outside the church door, and saw me home. He often asked me to go out with him during the week, but I always refused, until suddenly this term I was so tired, so hungry for a change that I gave in, and promised that I would. I suppose that shocks you into fits!"

"It does rather. You see," explained Claire laboriously, "I've been brought up on the Continent, where such a thing would be impossible. It would be an insult to suggest it. Even here in England it doesn't seem right. Do you think a really nice man who was attracted by a girl wouldn't find some other way--get an introduction _somehow_?"

"How? It's easy to talk, but _how_ is he to do it? We live in different worlds. I am a High School teacher, living in rooms in London, without a relation or a house open to me where I am intimate enough to take a friend. He is an officer in a crack regiment, visiting at fashionable houses. Can't you imagine how his hostesses would stare if he asked them to call upon me here, in this poky room! And if he loves me, if I interest him more than the b.u.t.terflies of Society, if he wants to know me better, what is he to do? Tell me that, my dear, before you blame me for taking a little bit of fun when I get the chance!"

But Claire had no suggestion to make. She herself had been strong enough to refuse a friendship on similar lines, but she had been living a working life for a bare four months, while Cecil had been teaching for twelve years. Twelve years of a second-hand life, living in other women's houses, teaching other women's children, obeying other women's rules; with the one keen personal experience of a slighted love!

The tale of close on four thousand nights represented a dreary parlour and a pile of exercise books. For twelve long years this woman had worked away, losing her youth, losing her bloom, cut off from all that nature intended her to enjoy; and then at the end behold a change in the monotony, the sudden appearance of a man who sought her, admired her, craved her society as a boon!

The tears came to Claire's eyes as she put herself in such a woman's place, and realised all that this happening would mean. Renewal of youth, renewal of hope, renewal of interest and zest...