Two Worlds and Their Ways (36 page)

“I shall break down in the train,” said Gwendolen, “because it is all so sad.”

“Well, it is no good to think that life can always be as we would choose it, Gwendolen.”

“Talking of trains,” said Maria, rising, “I fear the moment has come to consider them. I could not face Miss Firebrace if you missed yours.”

“Does not Aunt Lesbia conduct her own party?” said Oliver.

“I am going later, Oliver,” said Lesbia, holding her eyes from this group.

“I should be reluctant to encounter her myself, Lady Shelley, at the head of a line of bestranded charges,” said Miss Chancellor. “Now we all want to thank you for quite a memorable day.”

“I have liked everything better than anything else,” said Gwendolen. “I have not considered anyone but myself, and I have not eaten a single wholesome thing.”

“Thank you so much for a day of so many pleasures,” said Maud, suggesting that other tastes had been met.

“If school life were often like this,” said Verity, “we should not long for it to be over.”

“One of its advantages is its opportunities for making friends,” said Miss Chancellor. “To-day has been an illustration of it.”

“Why do you not come to the school functions with your mother, Clemence?” said Esther, awkwardly keeping her eyes from Maria. “Then we should see you both.”

“I have a message from Miss, Laurence for you, Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor, slightly lowering her tones. “Quite a deep little message, that I hope you will carry with you into your life. She says she will think of you as rising on stepping-stones, of which one may perhaps be said to be laid by herself. Will you remember that, and let me tell her that you will?”

“Yes,” said Clemence, seeing through Miss Chancellor's
eyes a living thread spring up in the mesh of her future.

“Why, this is not a member of the party, is it?” said Sir Roderick, failing to recognise Miss Tuke in her outdoor clothes. “Why, yes, of course, the matron; that is the most important work of all. Now do not catch cold, Miss Tuke; we want you to take care of yourself as well as other people.” He adjusted Miss Tuke's coat and fastened the collar.

“Good-bye,” said Holland, to the girls.

“Good-bye,” said the latter, smiling at him and then at each other.

“Good-bye,” said the other boys on a compliant note.

Sefton said nothing, feeling that Clemence's brother must say more, if he spoke at all, and the girls kept their eyes from him with something of the same feeling.

Clemence and her parents stood on the steps. Oliver mounted the box of the carriage as escort. The six guests were accommodated inside, by dint of a sacrifice of Miss Tuke, which by her own account she found congenial. As the girls waited on the platform with Oliver, they made some terse remarks in distinct tones, and Miss Chancellor responded in a similar manner. When the train moved out of the station, a different note was struck.

“Which do you like better, Miss Chancellor, Sir Roderick or Lady Shelley?”

“Well, Gwendolen, comparisons are odious, and I think may really be so in the case of two people whom we can like so well. I think I should class Lady Shelley as the higher type; but Sir Roderick has his own charm; and that is a thing that goes far with many people, perhaps further with some than with me. I think we need not decide between them.

“I wondered why I liked him better,” said Gwendolen. “Of course it was because he was a lower type. That would be my reason.”

“What do you think of Sir Roderick's way of calling Lady Shelley ‘my pretty', Miss Chancellor? Do you think it is a fortunate one?”

“Well, Esther, as I have implied, I should not be inclined to criticise people of that quality. I think it suggests his own point of view, and does so with the ease and openness that would be expected of him, and might not be possible in anyone of another calibre. The matter is between themselves, and may be left so.”

“But those are the matters we do not want to leave,” said Gwendolen. “It is easy to know about the others.”

“Do you suppose Lady Shelley minds, Miss Chancellor?”

“No, Verity, I think she is too large a woman to mind any superficial incongruity in a term used as this one is. I am sure we need not trouble about her inconvenience, as she suffers none.”

“Would you like her position, Miss Chancellor? How would you feel about being a second wife?”

“Well, Verity, my own feeling is that I should not like it,” said Miss Chancellor, settling her glasses to look straight at her questioner. “I admit that, if I were to marry, I should look for the experience in its fullest form. But that is my own point of view. There is no reason why Lady Shelley and I should be copies of each other.”

“Anyhow their Maker saw none,” murmured Esther. “And I daresay Lady Shelley feels with him.”

“I daresay she does, Esther,” said Miss Chancellor, in a pleasant tone, as the train slackened and left Esther's voice clear. “Indeed, I hope she does, as she has chosen to fulfil herself so differently. No one hopes more than I do, that her life seems to her as full as it can be. If fuller than mine, then be it so. I am the last person to grudge her the conviction, or indeed the reality. Do you not feel with me, Miss Tuke?”

“Certainly, Miss Chancellor,” said Miss Tuke, not sounding quite sure of her ground.

“The two lives offer and ask such different things,” said Maud. “They do not meet on any point. It is not a very fruitful theme for comparison.”

“It was Lady Shelley's being a second wife that we wanted to talk about,” said Gwendolen. “I think that theme would have been fruitful, full of prying and gossip and a naughty sort of pity.”

“Well, really, Gwendolen, after your pleasant day! I am quite ashamed of you.”

“But you said you would never be a second wife yourself, Miss Chancellor.”

“I am not aware that I said quite that. But as I have no thought at the moment of being a wife at all, the matter may be outside my sphere.”

“Have you had many proposals, Miss Chancellor?”

“Really, Gwendolen, the effect of excitement on you is not very happy.”

“But I did not ask you how many proposals you had had. I asked if you had had many. That is quite different.”

“I see your distinction, Gwendolen. But as at your age you cannot have had any, you need not concern yourself with the subject.”

“Is Miss Chancellor embarrassed by really having had many proposals, or by having had none?” said Esther, again unfortunate in the moment of her speech.

“Esther, I find myself laughing before I know,” said Miss Chancellor, not in time to check a peal, and speaking with a light in her eyes. “You had better talk to each other and not to me, as I seem to set your thoughts running on romantic lines. Holidays in the term are not to be recommended.”

“Oh, please recommend them, Miss Chancellor; please do not say that to Miss Firebrace.”

“Well, do not let us hear your voice so often, Gwendolen. That will be the best way to ensure the result.”

“I will not open my mouth again. Miss Chancellor, do you think Sir Roderick would often think of his first marriage?”

“The elder son must think of it,” said Esther.

“I cannot give an opinion, Gwendolen. I am not such an
authority on romantic matters as you seem to think.”

“Did you notice the view from the dining-room windows, Miss Chancellor?” said Maud, in the tone of a rescuer. “It reminded me of an old picture.”

“A Constable, Maud, though not a very early one. I hoped it would strike you in that way. Did anyone else think of it?”

“I saw it as a view, but not as a Constable,” said Esther. “And, after all, it was not one.”

“It struck me as belonging to his later period,” said Verity.

“Why did you not tell me, Miss Chancellor?” said Gwendolen. “I did not know about a Constable; I believe I thought it was some sort of policeman. And I am willing to learn.”

“Now I am going to forget you all for a time,” said Miss Chancellor, closing her eyes to ensure this prospect, “and lose myself, as the expression goes. And I should advise you all to do the same. I see Miss Tuke has set us the example.”

There was silence until Miss Chancellor had followed it.

“Is pleasure really exhausting?” said Gwendolen.

“I do not know,” said Esther. “I have never had enough of it to judge. Miss Chancellor was quite excited by the idea of having had many proposals. I suppose it shows she has not had one.”

“Well, I think the idea is exciting,” said Gwendolen.

“I think you deduce a good deal from very slight premises, Esther,” said Maud.

“Straws show which way the wind blows,” said Verity.

“I should advise you to modify your voices. People are apt to be awakened suddenly in a train. It is not a homogeneous method of travelling. Indeed, it is a good rule to say behind people's backs what you would say to their faces.”

“We cannot judge of it,” said Verity, “as it is not a rule.”

“It certainly has a good many exceptions.”

“It is no good to think it consists of anything else,” said Esther. “Do you think Clemence is happy in her home? I was not quite sure.”

“I see no reason why she should not be,” said Maud. “She certainly looks better than she did at school, anyhow at the last.”

“She was involved in a good deal of trouble then. I wonder if she ever thinks of it.”

“You saw that she should do so to-day, Esther, the day on which we were accepting her hospitality. I confess I was sorry about it. Was it a gracious way of responding to her kindness, to bring up the one thing known to her disadvantage?”

“Our being there was bound to remind her of it,” said Verity.

“But should not that have been enough? It was a thing to regret, not to bring further home.”

“I hope it will not prevent her asking us again,” said Gwendolen, as the train drew in to the station. “How gloomy it is to get home after a holiday!”

“It is gloomy to get to school,” said Esther.

“It is gloomy to see how spoilt people can be by one day's pleasure,” said Miss Chancellor, rising in the mood of awaking, and ushering the girls to the door. “There are your gloves, Esther. Gwendolen, do you intend to walk to school without a hat? I do not know why Miss Tuke should wait on you all. Thank you, Maud.”

“I wish we could have a cab,” said Gwendolen.

“Miss Tuke cannot wish it,” said Verity. “It would be smaller than the Shelley carriage, and more than one person would have to sit on the top of her.”

“Why on Miss Tuke rather than on anyone else?” said Miss Chancellor. “It does not do to depend on the unselfishness of one person. And, Gwendolen, too much reliance on luxury is not a sign of quality or breeding, and would not be so considered.”

“It is only a sign of weariness, Miss Chancellor. I mean
it is a sign of healthy tiredness. Pleasure does not do me any harm. I shall work all the better tomorrow for it. I always like lessons when we are not supposed to have prepared for them.”

“I hope that forecast will come true, Gwendolen. And I admit that pleasure has its exhausting side, like anything else. I ought to know, as I have enjoyed the day as much as you have. But I am not like you in preferring to come to work without preparation. I look forward to my share of it, as well as to yours, with a certain misgiving.”

“I wish we could live at Clemence's home, while we are not welcome in our own,” said Esther. “I don't mean that she would like to have us, but I believe Lady Shelley would.”

This was hardly a correct estimate of Maria's feeling, as she showed on her return from speeding her daughter's guests.

“How exhausting half-grown creatures are!” she said, smiling at the boys as creatures wholly ungrown. “You do not know whether they are going to talk as women or children; and it is always one or the other, and never the thing they are. But they are all very nice, Clemence, my dear. And how much they seem to like you! You went a long way in the time. People cannot say now that you have no friends. Which of them do you like the best?”

“Well, I was only with them for one term,” said Clemence, while Lesbia smiled to herself over the fleeting experience. “And we were always together, so that it was difficult to know them separately. I think perhaps Gwendolen, though she was not as clever as the others, or was supposed not to be.”

“The happy one who was going to cry in the train?” said Sir Roderick. “I suppose she is up and down.”

“I like the tall one,” said Holland.

“Verity. She is a handsome girl,” said Maria. “But how advanced for her age! She seems to be missing her childhood.”

“The one in the grey dress seemed an interesting type,” said Miss Petticott. “I was struck by her conversation. Maud I think was the name.”

“She was struck by it herself,” said Bacon. “I thought at first she was a mistress.”

“Did you think they were all mistresses?” said Sir Roderick to Sturgeon.

“No. Two of them I knew were not.”

“They did not worry you much,” said Maria. “I suppose they found you too young.”

“They did not find us anything,” said Bacon, grinning. “They took no steps to do so.”

“You did not manage much of an approach yourselves,” said Sir Roderick.

“It was not for us to make the advance,” said Holland.

“Did you admire them?”

“No,” said Bacon.

“I did,” said Holland.

“And so did I,” said his host. “As pretty a group as could be wanted by man or boy. I cannot imagine Lesbia lording it over them. I mean, I cannot picture you ordering them here and there and everywhere, Lesbia.”

“Is that what I did, Clemence?” said Lesbia, hardly moving her head.

“No,” said Clemence, smiling. “You believed in self-government.”