The Independence of Claire Part 22

"That was the man I told you about at Christmas. He was one of the party at Saint Moritz. What did you think of him?"

"I liked him immensely. He looks all that you said he was. He has a fine face."

"He wants to marry me."

Claire laughed softly.

"That's obvious! I never saw a man give himself away so openly."

"Do you think I ought to accept him?"

"Oh, how can I say? It's not for me to advise. I hope, whoever you marry, you'll be very, very happy!"

Suddenly Janet came forward and laid her hands on Claire's arm.

"Oh, Claire, I do like you! I do want to be friends, but sometimes I have the strangest thoughts." Before Claire had time to answer, she had drawn back again, and was saying with a little apologetic laugh, "I am silly! Take no notice of what I say. Here's your fur; here's your m.u.f.f. Are you quite sure you have all your possessions?"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A QUESTION OF MONEY.

The next week was memorable to Claire as marking the beginning of serious anxiety with regard to Sophie. She had looked ill since the beginning of the term, and the bottle of aspirin tabloids had become quite an accustomed feature on the luncheon table; but when questioned she had always a smile and an easy excuse.

"What can you expect in this weather? No one but a fish could help aching in these floods. I'm perfectly all right!"

But one morning this week, meeting her on an upper landing, Claire discovered Sophie apparently dragging herself along with her hands, and punctuating each step with a gasp of pain. She stood still and stared, whereupon Sophie instantly straightened herself, and ascended the remaining steps in a normal manner.

"Sophie," cried Claire sternly, "don't pretend! I heard you; I saw you!

My dear girl, is the rheumatism so bad?"

Sophie twisted her head this way and that, her lips pursed in warning.

"S-sh! Be careful! You never know who is about. I _am_ rather stiff to-day. This raw fog has been the last straw. I shall be all right when we get through this month. I hate March! It finds out all the weak spots. Please, Claire, don't take any notice. A Gym. mistress has no business to have rheumatism. It's really very good for me to be obliged to keep going. It is always worse at the beginning of the day."

Claire went away with a pain in her heart, and the pain grew steadily as she watched Sophie throughout the week. The pretty face was often drawn with pain, she rose and sat down with an obvious effort; and still the rain poured, and the dark fog enveloped the city, and Sophie struggled to and from her work in a thin blue serge suit which had already seen three winters' wear.

One day the subject came up for discussion in the staff-room, and Claire was shocked and surprised at the att.i.tude of the other teachers. They were sorry for Sophie, they sympathised, to a certain extent they were even anxious on her account, but the prevailing sentiment seemed to be that the kindest thing was to take no notice of her sufferings. No use pitying her; that would only make her more sorry for herself. No use suggesting cures; cures take time, not to speak of money. The Easter holidays would soon be here; perhaps she might try something then. In the meantime--_tant pis_! she must get along as best she could. There was simply no time to be ill.

"I've a churchyard cough myself," declared the Arts mistress. "I stayed in bed all Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, and it was really a little better, but it was as bad as ever after a day in this big draughty hole."

"And I am racked with neuralgia," chimed in Miss Bates. The subject of Sophie was lost in a general lamentation.

Friday evening came, and after the girls had departed Claire went in search of Sophie, hoping tactfully to be able to suggest remedial methods over the week-end. She peeped into several rooms before at last, in one of the smallest and most out-of-the-way, she caught sight of a figure crouched with buried head at the far end of the table. It was Sophie, and she was crying, and catching her breath in a weak exhausted fashion, pitiful to hear. Claire shut the door tightly, and put her arms round the shaking form.

"Miss Blake--Sophie! You poor, dear girl! You are tired out. You have been struggling all the week, but it's Friday night, dear, remember that! You can go home and just tumble into bed. Don't give way when you've been so brave."

But for the moment Sophie's bravery had deserted her.

"It's raining! It's raining! It _always_ rains. I can't face it. The pain's all over me, and the omnibuses _won't_ stop! They expect you to jump in, and I can't jump! I don't know how to get home."

"Well, I do!" Claire cried briskly. "There's no difficulty about that.

I'm sick of wet walks myself. I'll whistle for a taxi, and we'll drive home in state. I'll take you home first, and then go on myself; or, if you like, I'll come in with you and help you to bed."

"P-please. Oh, yes, please, do come! I don't want to be alone,"

faltered Sophie weakly; but she wiped her eyes, and in characteristic fashion began to cheer up at the thought of the drive home.

There was a cheerful fire burning in Sophie's sitting-room, and the table was laid for tea in quite an appetising fashion. The landlady came in at the sound of footsteps, and showed a sympathetic interest at the sight of Sophie's tear-stained face.

"I _told_ you you weren't fit to go out!" she said sagely. "Now just sit yourself down before the fire, and I'll take your things upstairs and bring you down a warm shawl. Then you shall have your teas. I'll bring in a little table, so you can have it where you are." She left the room, and Sophie looked after her with grateful eyes.

"That's what I pay for!" she said eloquently. "She's so kind! I love that woman for all her niceness to me. I told you I had no right to pay so much rent. I came in just for a few weeks until I could find something else, and I haven't had the _heart_ to _move_. I've been in such holes, and had such awful landladies. They seem divided into two big cla.s.ses, kind and dirty, or clean and _mad_! When you get one who is kind _and_ clean, you feel so grateful that you'd pay your last penny rather than move away. Oh, how lovely! how lovely! how lovely! It's Friday night, and I can be ill comfortably all the time till Monday morning! Aren't we jolly well-off to have our Sat.u.r.days to ourselves?

How thankful the poor clerks and typists would be to be in our place!"

She was smiling again, enjoying the warmth of the fire, the ease of the cushioned chair. When Mrs Rogers entered she snoodled into the folds of a knitted shawl, and lay back placidly while the kind creature took off her wet shoes and stockings and replaced them by a long pair of fleecy woollen bed-socks, reaching knee high. The landlady knelt to her task, and Sophie laid a hand on the top of starched lace and magenta velvet, and cried, "Rise, Lady Susan Rogers! One of the truest ladies that ever breathed..."

"How you do talk!" said the landlady, but her eyes shone. As she expounded to her husband in the kitchen, "Miss Blake had such a way with her. When ladies were like that you didn't care what you did, but there was them as treated you like Kaffirs."

Tea was quite a cheerful and sociable little meal, during which no reference was made to Sophie's ailments, but when the cups had been replaced on the central table, Claire seated herself and said with an air of decision--

"Now we're going to have a disagreeable conversation! I don't approve of the way you have been going on this last month, and it's time it came to an end. You are ill, and it's your business to take steps to get better!"

"Oh!"

"Yes; and you are going to take them, too!"

"What am I going to do?"

"You are going to see a specialist next week."

"You surprise me!" Sophie smiled with exaggerated lightness. "What funny things one does hear!"

"Why shouldn't you see a specialist? I defy you to give me one sensible reason?"

"I'll do better than that. I'll give you two."

"So do, then! What are they?"

"Guineas!" said Sophie.

For a moment Claire stared blankly, then she laughed.

"Oh, I see! Yes. It is rather a haul. But it's better to harden your heart once for all, and pay it down."

"The two guineas is only the beginning."

"The beginning of what?"