The Independence of Claire Part 37

She broke off abruptly, and Claire burst into helpless tears.

"Oh, Cecil, Cecil ... don't hate me--don't blame me too much! It's been hard on me, too. Do you think I _liked_ breaking such news? Of course I will take fresh rooms. I can understand that you'd rather have some one else, but let us still be friends! Don't turn against me altogether. I'm lonely, too... I've got my own trouble!"

"Poor little Claire!" Cecil melted at once, with the quick response which always rewarded an appeal to her better feelings. "Poor little Claire. You're a good child; you've done your best. It isn't _your_ fault." She lifted her bag from the table, and took a step towards the door, then resolutely turned back, and held out her hand. "Good-bye.

Don't cry. What's the good of crying? Good luck to you, my dear, and-- take warning by me. I don't know what your trouble is, but as it isn't money, it's probably love.--If it is, don't play the fool. If the chance of happiness comes along, don't throw it away out of pride, or obstinacy, or foolish prejudice. You won't always be young. When you get past thirty, it's ... it's hard ... when there's nothing--"

She broke off again, and walked swiftly from the room.

The next moment the front door banged loudly. Cecil had gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

A SUDDEN RESOLVE.

The next morning brought a letter from the farm bidding Claire welcome as soon as she chose to arrive, but there was no second letter on the table. Claire had not realised how confidently she had expected its presence, until her heart sank with a sick, heavy faintness as she lifted the one envelope, and looked in vain for a second.

Erskine had not written. Did that mean that he had taken her hasty answer as final, and would make no further appeal? She had read of men who had boasted haughtily that no girl should have an opportunity of refusing them _twice_; that the woman who did not know her own mind was no wife for them, but like every other lover she felt her own case to be unique. Driven to answer in a moment of intolerable irritation, what else could she have said?

But he had not written! What did that mean? At the moment of discovering her departure, Erskine had been consumed with anger, but afterwards, had his mother's counsels prevailed? Had he repented himself of his hasty impulse? Would the days pa.s.s on, and the months, and the years, and leave her like Cecil, solitary, apart?

Claire made a pretence at eating her breakfast, and then, too restless to stay indoors, put on her hat, and went out to roam the streets until it should be time to visit Sophie in her hospital.

Two hours later she returned and packed up not only her entire wardrobe, but the whole of her personal possessions. In the course of her walk there had come to her one of those curious contradictory impulses which are so characteristic of a woman's nature. Having poured out her heart in grief because Erskine had neither written nor followed her to town, she was now restlessly impatient to make communication impossible, and to bury herself where she could not be found. Before leaving the house she made Lizzie happy by a present of money, accompanied by quite a goodly bundle of clothing, after which she interviewed the landlady, gave notice that she no longer needed the rooms, and wrote out a cheque in payment of all claims. Then a taxi was summoned, the various boxes piled on top, and another chapter of life had come to an end.

Claire drove to the station, whence she proposed to take a late afternoon train to the farm, deposited her boxes in the left luggage office, and strolled listlessly towards the great bookstall under the clock. Another hour remained to be whiled away before she could start for the hospital; she would buy a book, sit in the waiting-room, and try to bury herself in its pages. She strolled slowly down the length of the stall, her eyes pa.s.sing listlessly from one pile of books to another, finding little interest in them, and even less in the men and women who stood by her side. As Mrs Fanshawe would have said, "No one was in town"; even school-mistresses had flown from the region of bricks and mortar. If she had thought about it at all, Claire would have said that there was no one she _could_ meet, but suddenly a hand grasped her arm, and brought her to a halt. She started violently, and for an instant her heart leapt with a wild glad hope. It was not Erskine Fanshawe who confronted her, however, but a girl clad in a tweed costume with a cloth cap to match, on the side of which a sprig of heather was fastened by a gold brooch fas.h.i.+oned in the shape of a thistle. In bewildered surprise Claire recognised the brown eyes and round freckled face of Janet Willoughby, whom she had believed to be hundreds of miles away, in the highlands of Scotland.

"Just come back," Janet explained. "The weather was impossible.

Nothing but sheets of rain. I got tired, and came back to pay some visits in the south." She hesitated, then asked a sudden question.

"Are you busy? Going anywhere at once? Could you spare half an hour?

We might have lunch together in the refreshment room!"

"Yes. No. I'd like to. I've had no lunch." Claire faltered nervously, whereupon Janet turned to her maid, who was standing near, dressing-bag in hand, and gave a few quick instructions.

"Get a taxi, Ross, and take all the things home. The car can wait for me. I'll follow later."

The maid disappeared, and the two girls made their way across the open s.p.a.ce. Both looked nervous and ill at ease, both dreaded the coming _tete-a-tete_, yet felt that it was a thing to be faced. Janet led the way to a table in the farthest corner of the room, and they talked trivialities until the ordered dishes were set on the table, and the waiter had taken his departure. Claire had ordered coffee, and drank eagerly, hoping that the physical refreshment would help to steady her nerves. Janet played with her knife and fork, and said, without looking up--

"You have left the Fanshawes, then! I heard that you were staying on."

"Yes. Yesterday I--came back."

The very lameness of the answer made it significant. Janet's freckled face turned noticeably pale.

"Erskine went straight home after he left Scotland?"

"Yes."

"And before he arrived, you had promised to stay on?"

"Mrs Fanshawe asked me, before he came, if I could stay for another week, and I was very glad to accept. I had no other engagement."

"And then?"

"Oh, then things were different. She didn't need company, and--and-- things happened. My friend, Miss Rhodes--"

Janet waved aside "my friend, Miss Rhodes," with an impatient hand.

"And Erskine? What did _he_ say to your leaving?"

The colour flamed in Claire's cheek; she stammered in hopeless confusion, and, in the midst of her stammering, Janet laid both hands on the table, and, leaning forward so that the two faces were only a few inches apart, spoke a few startling words--

"Has he--_proposed_ to you? I must know! You must tell me!"

It was a command, rather than an appeal, and Claire automatically replied--

"He--he did! Yes, but--"

"And you?"

"I--couldn't. I said no!"

"You said no! Erskine asked you to be his wife, and you _refused_?"

Janet stared in incredulous bewilderment. A spark of indignation shone in her brown eyes. "But why? You care for him. Any girl might be proud to marry Erskine Fanshawe. _Why_?"

"I can't tell you. It's so difficult. His mother--she didn't want me.

She would have hated it. She almost turned me out."

"His _mother_! Mrs Fanshawe!" Janet's voice was full of an ineffable surprise. "You refused Erskine because of _her_ prejudice? But she is always changing; she is the most undependable woman on the face of the earth! She is charming, and I'm fond of her, but I should not take her advice about a pair of gloves. Nothing that she could say would possibly have the slightest influence on my life. She's irresponsible; she sees entirely from her own standpoint. And Erskine--Erskine is a rock!" She paused, pressing her lips together to still their trembling, and Claire answered with a note of apology in her voice.

"Janet, I _know_! Don't think I don't appreciate him. Wait till you hear how it happened... He followed me to the station; it was the very last moment, just as the train was starting. There was time for only one word, and--I was sore and angry!"

Janet looked at her, a long, searching look.

"It's curious, but I always knew this would come. When I saw you sitting together at supper that first night, I knew then. All the time I knew it in my heart, but on the surface it seemed ridiculous, for you never met!"

"Never that you did not know, except one time in the park. There was nothing to tell you, Janet; nothing to hide."

"No. So he said. We talked of you in Scotland, you know, and it was just as I thought--a case of recognising each other at first sight. He said the moment he saw you you seemed different from everyone else, and he hoped and believed that you felt the same. That is how people ought to love; the right way, when both are attached, both feel the same...

And it is so rare. Yet you _refused_!"

"Would you marry a man if his family disapproved?"

"Oh, yes! I should not be marrying the family. I'd be sorry, of course, but I'd make up my mind that in time I'd make them fall in love with me, too. What are you going to do now?"

"Going away. Into the country. I want to be quiet, and think."

Janet did not ask the address. She sat silent, staring into s.p.a.ce, then asked a sudden irrelevant question: