Chapter III: Book I: Clare (2)

"My dear child, you were never thinking of going to the Club with _that_ terrible handkerchief? You must have a linen one. Scent? No, I think not for a young girl. It seems a little fast, I think, Beatrice, don't you? And whatever happens, a girl in her first season must not give people the impression that she is fast."

People. People. Until she had grown up, Muriel had been woefully ignorant of how important People were. At Heathcroft, if you were naughty, you offended God. At Marshington, if you were "queer" you offended People. Perhaps the lesser offence was noticed by the lesser deity, and yet the eye of the All-Seeing could hardly have been more observant than the eye of People, who measured worth by the difference between a cotton and a linen handkerchief.

Muriel was going for the first time to the Recreation Club since she had left school. Connie, who, being still a schoolgirl, cared for none of these things, walked beside her in sulky silence. She disliked the Club, because, as a junior member, she could only sit on the Pavilion steps to watch the sedate activities of her elders.

The Club being on the north-west side of Marshington, the Hammonds had about half a mile to walk from Miller's Rise, a half-mile which Mrs. Hammond improved by final injunctions to her daughter.

"The first time is so important, dear," she said.

By the time that they had reached the wire-topped gate, Muriel was in a state of frigid and self-conscious terror. In a dream she followed her mother's lilac-coloured linen across the wide grass path to the Pavilion, wondering whether she ought to smile at Mrs. Lane, and whether her hat was straight, and whether that terrible pin was showing yet above her skirt. But at last she was seated safely on the steps with Connie, while Mrs. Hammond was swept away by Mrs. Cartwright for a game of croquet. She sat quite still, waiting for the familiarity of the things she saw to remove the strangeness of her new attitude towards them. At least she could play her old game of Watching People, a game made doubly thrilling by the realization that now she, too, was one of the grown-ups. That thought amused her a little as she listened to Mrs. Marshall Gurney's rich, authoritative voice in conversation with Colonel Cartwright. Absurd that Muriel should now be grown up-like Colonel Cartwright! He was not a real colonel, Mrs. Hammond had once said. He had made lots of money by manufacturing soap. (Was soap more vulgar than sacks? Father made sacks.) But he had taken advantage of the Volunteer Movement to win a bloodless victory over the more exclusive circles of Marshington. Even Mrs. Marshall Gurney, who would hardly otherwise have known the creator of the Cartwright Complexion, loved to punctuate her comments upon life by "Ah, Colonel," and "Oh, Colonel."

She was saying it now.

"Ah, Colonel, if it were merely a question of leaving the Parish."

"Deuced fine girl, though, Mrs. Marshall Gurney, deuced fine girl." The colonel gallantly hid the traces of a Yorkshire accent behind a barrage of military phrases. "We shall miss her at the Club. I must say that I like to see her playing with young Neale. They make a damned fine couple."

"Oh, there's nothing in that, I do assure you, Colonel. Take it from me. He really takes no more notice of Delia than of any of the other girls about here. Except, of course, that she has had rather more practice at tennis than most of the others, and he likes a good game, being such a splendid player. He plays for his college at Oxford, you know. The other day, he told Phyllis----"

"Of course"--Mrs. Parker's gruff masculine voice cut across her pleasant amble--"Godfrey Neale knew the Vaughans long before Mrs. Neale condescended to associate with any of us."

Mrs. Marshall Gurney bridled. Muriel could hear offended dignity in every creak of her basket chair.

"I hardly think so, Mrs. Parker," she said with majesty. "I used to dine at the Weare Grange when Godfrey was quite a little boy. After her trouble Alice Neale turned to me a great deal. Why, Godfrey and Phyllis . . ."

"Godfrey Neale never _looks_ at Phyllis M.G.," whispered Connie with scorn. "Old Mrs. M.G. always makes out that they are bosom friends. Doesn't he play beautifully, though?"

On the court to the right of the Pavilion, a vigorous set was in progress. That tall splendid young man in the perfect flannels, with his shirt just open enough to show his fine brown throat, and the conquering air of the accomplished player in his sure, swift movements, that was Godfrey Neale, really and in the flesh Godfrey Neale, no longer a mythical but heroic figure, whose exploits, riches and tastes were whispered breathlessly at Marshington tea-tables, or described by the more imaginative with the assurance of intimacy. That was Godfrey Neale. And Muriel had actually spoken to him. Once at a dance, years and years ago, a party memorable for bitter shame, Muriel had not only spoken but danced with Godfrey. He had been a witness of her dire calamity. Did he remember?

"Well, I think it distinctly lacking in a sense of duty, that Delia should go gallivanting off to college just now when her father's getting old," the denunciation from the veranda continued.

"Old?" snapped Mrs. Parker, who was only forty-five herself. "I was not thinking of his age, but that we should have to get a curate, and I don't know who's going to pay for him. All that I do hope is that, after all this, Delia will learn a little common politeness. I have rarely met a more disagreeable young woman than she is now."

"Well, I can't see why we should have to pay for a curate in order that the vicar's daughter might learn to be a lady," said Mrs. Marshall Gurney, quite tartly for her. Usually her consciousness of her own superiority helped her to regard with tolerance the failures of other people. But Delia Vaughan, as the one person in Marshington who refused to recognize that superiority, had committed the unpardonable sin. She had done more than that. Mrs. Marshall Gurney looked across the courts to where Phyllis, charming in her blue dress, was playing languidly in a ladies' double while Delia flaunted her intimacy with Godfrey Neale. Her heavy face hardened. "I can't think where she gets it from. Her mother was a delightful woman, one of the Meadows of Keswick, you know, and the dear vicar, even if he is a little unpractical, is a scholar and a gentleman. I hear that his last book has been a great success."

Mr. Vaughan wrote books. That was magic in itself for Muriel. _A Critical Survey of the Relation between Scutage and the Subsidy_, his latest triumph, did not sound frightfully thrilling, but it was a manifestation of profound scholarship which left Marshington mystified but complacent. Marshington liked to feel that its vicar's academic distinction was in some way a tribute to its own intelligence.

"Jolly good shot!" cried Connie, as a cannon-ball service from Godfrey Neale ricochetted along the grass and struck the step of the Pavilion with a resounding thump. "Muriel, isn't his service _wonderful_?"

"Splendid," murmured Muriel absently, straining to catch further scraps of gossip from the group behind her. She settled down again just in time to hear Mrs. Parker remark acidly:

"Delia Vaughan is one of those girls who pride themselves that, however objectionable they may be to your face, they are even more offensive behind your back. _She_ may call it being outspoken. I call it sheer ill-breeding."

The set was over. Bobby Mason collected the balls, and Daisy Parker fluttered round him apologetically. "I'm so sorry that I played so badly."

It always seemed curious to Muriel that Mrs. Parker should have such a fluffy daughter. She supposed that Daisy must have inherited her femininity from her father. Mrs. Parker, with her caustic tongue and masculine garments, looked more like the mother of Delia Vaughan. Muriel shivered with delightful apprehension as the victors strolled towards the steps. Life could never be dull while it contained beings so romantically distinguished as Delia and Godfrey Neale.

She heard Godfrey say, with his charming little stammer, "Thanks awfully, p--partner. That was a splendid game."

Marshington gloried in Godfrey's stammer. In him it appeared as a gracious concession to human weakness, a sign that in spite of Winchester, Oxford, and the Weare Grange, Godfrey was a man of like infirmities to other men.

But not even the stammer impressed Delia Vaughan. That disagreeable young woman dropped idly on to the Pavilion steps quite close to Muriel and sat leaning forward, her racket against her knees.

"Godfrey, is there any tea?" she suggested. "And you need not think that the splendid game was due to _your_ good play, my friend. Your first two services were abominable."

Fancy anyone daring to talk to Godfrey Neale like that!

Godfrey handed a tea-cup to Delia.

"Would you like some bread and butter, or shall I g--get you some of those little round buns?"

"Have they sugar on top?" asked Delia.

"Sugar? No, currants, not sugar. There is only one bun with sugar on it, and I want it for myself."

"Then you can't have it. How like a man to think that he has an indisputable right to the best bun. Bring me the sugar one, and--Godfrey, Miss Hammond hasn't had any tea yet. Have you, Miss Hammond?"

"Oh, s--sorry," said Godfrey Neale, and handed to Muriel his other cup.

Never before had Delia appeared to notice the existence of Muriel. Godfrey had never spoken to her since the Party. And here was Delia attending to her desire for tea, and Godfrey handing her his own cup! The traitor blushes glowed in Muriel's face, and chased themselves across her neck like the shadows of cloud across the tennis courts.

"Oh, I'm all right," she gasped. "Please keep that. It's your cup, isn't it?" She could not bear this unendurable honour.

"You must have that. Godfrey can fetch another. He is growing fat and lazy."

"Connie," desperately blundered Muriel, seeking as usual to cast the responsibility of life's gifts on to someone else, "don't you want this?"

"Godfrey, get two more cups," said Delia.

But Connie unexpectedly replied:

"No thank you, Miss Vaughan, Freddy Mason promised to bring me some."

"Did he?" whispered Muriel, under the sheltering stir of Godfrey's departure back to the Pavilion.

"No, of course he didn't. But do you think I was going to have that Vaughan girl showing off in front of me? You've got no pride, Muriel."

So after Godfrey Neale returned, Muriel, being without pride, drank gratefully the cup of shame, while Connie thirsted proudly by her side.

At that moment, Mrs. Hammond, returning from her croquet, appeared round the corner of the Pavilion with Mrs. Cartwright. She saw Muriel on the steps. She saw Godfrey Neale bending over her with a plate of little cakes. Muriel, looking up, saw the sudden gleam that crossed her face, like winter sunlight on a melting pool.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Neale. Home from Oxford, I suppose? Have you had some good tennis?"

"I thought s--so, Mrs. Hammond, but my partner tells me that I have been playing abominably," smiled Godfrey.

"Muriel, I hope that you haven't been scolding Mr. Neale," Muriel's mother began.

Mrs. Cartwright's eye flashed balefully upon her. Between them, Muriel was in despair. To say nothing was to act a lie, to let her mother go on thinking that she had been honoured by Godfrey's partnership. He would think that she was showing off. It was an unendurable position.

Muriel blushed; Godfrey Neale hesitated smilingly; Mrs. Cartwright awaited in triumph the revelation of Mrs. Hammond's error. Delia's clear voice cut the tension of the listeners:

"As a matter of fact, it was I who scolded Godfrey. He and Miss Hammond are just about to take their revenge on me."

"Well, I hope that they are not _too_ hard on you," smiled Mrs. Hammond, and passed on to her triumph, while Muriel sat speechless at the unexpected turn of events.

"Look here, Delia, is that a challenge?" asked Godfrey, too polite to show surprise.

"Of course. Directly I have finished my tea. Go and find Dennis Smallwood and tell him that he can play with me. He's asked me about six times to-day, because he wants to practise for the tournament. Of course this is if Miss Hammond has no objection," she added, inclining her head towards the miserable Muriel who sat crumbling her bread and butter, and wishing that she might plunge into her tea-cup and remain engulfed there for ever.

The proximity of the gods is exhilarating, but when they descend from their machines they are apt to be a little overwhelming.

"I--I'm so bad," stammered Muriel. "I've hardly played this year. I shall spoil your game."

"If I had thought that you played well," remarked Delia imperturbably, "do you think that I should have chosen you as a handicap for Godfrey?"

After that, there could be no escape. Godfrey returned, followed by the obliging Dennis. Delia stood up and flung off her jacket.

Muriel felt a little sick. These things simply did not happen. If only she could be a success. If only she could by some miracle play brilliantly. She tried to picture the delight on her mother's face. In a dream she rose, nervously fingering her racket.

"Muriel!" came Connie's hoarse whisper. "Your safety-pin's showing at the back!"

She clutched at her belt. "Excuse me," she murmured.

"Toss for courts, please," commanded Delia, ignoring her.

"Excuse me," she repeated, measuring the distance between the steps and the cloak-room door.

"The sun ought to be fairly well behind the roof," said Delia. "Rough."

"Smooth it is. You'll have to face the sun," cried Godfrey.

"Come along, Miss Hammond."

"But----" protested Muriel weakly, but too late. Dennis gathered up the balls and sauntered leisurely with Delia across the court. Muriel was left, her back and the terrible, indecent safety-pin exposed to the full gaze of Social Marshington in the Pavilion. Once, she had a nightmare that while shopping in Middle Street all her clothes fell off. Even that had not been as embarrassing as this.

Godfrey was measuring the net.

"Bit higher, Smallwood. G--good thing that we won the toss, Miss Hammond. The sun's awful."

A good thing that they won the toss! Muriel, hearing a burst of laughter from the Pavilion, felt sure that somebody had seen the pin. She gave a sickly smile.

The other courts were deserted. The whole of Marshington was there on the veranda. The whole of Marshington, finishing its tea, had nothing better to do than to watch the set. Muriel felt fifty eyes boring holes into her humiliated back.

Her mother would see. Her mother would see the pin. And the first time was so important.

She made a despairing effort to recapture her self-possession. At Heathcroft she had been counted as quite a steady player. Well, now she would show Marshington. She would show them that, in spite of the safety-pin, she could at least play tennis. If Godfrey Neale liked girls because they played well, then he should have no cause to dislike her.

"Service!" called Delia.

Muriel steeled herself for effort.

The first ball came driving, clean and straight, across the court. Muriel, dazed but optimistic, put out her racket. The ball sped on unchecked and bounded against the Pavilion steps.

"Fifteen love!" called Dennis.

"Hard luck," consoled Godfrey.

"I'm _so_ sorry," murmured Muriel.

Godfrey returned the second serve to Delia. She flashed it back to him. Really, it wasn't _nice_ for a girl to drive so straight and so efficiently. Delia's tall, white figure became to Muriel something malevolent and ruthless.

Godfrey returned the ball again, but Dennis at the net put out his long arm and sent the ball crashing down at Muriel's feet, to rise and soar far above her head, beyond her reach, beyond hope.

"Thirty love," called Dennis.

"My fault. I didn't place it well," said Godfrey.

"I am _so_ sorry," pleaded Muriel.

Her time of trial came again. She stood up brave and stiff.

"Play!" called the vicar's daughter.

Muriel played.

She played with such goodwill that the ball rose into the cloud-flecked sky.

"Forty love," called Dennis, polite but obdurate.

Godfrey Neale, infected perhaps by his partner's impotence, lost the next point.

"Game," announced Dennis. "Neale, look to your laurels."

"Your service, partner." Godfrey smiled his charming smile. "I messed up that last game fearfully."

Had he not seen that it was her fault? She could have kissed his hand for his forbearance. Negotiating carefully, so as not to expose to him at least the shameful pin, Muriel picked up the balls.

She could not decide whether to hold two or three. Which had she generally done at Heathcroft? She could remember nothing. They seemed suddenly to have grown large and slippery, heavier than cannon-balls. Surely it must be bowls that she was playing, and not tennis?

She was losing her nerve. She felt it going, and she could not stop it.

She would not lose her nerve.

She stepped back carefully, three paces from the line.

"Service," she called, in a voice that would not have roused a rabbit.

That, as it happened, was unimportant, for her first ball hit the net, and her second, slow and careful to avoid mistakes, sailed gently into the wrong court.

"Love fifteen," said Godfrey. "Bad luck, partner."

"_So_ sorry," repeated Muriel mechanically.

She _would_ serve the next one well.

"Play!" she shouted, and with all her strength she smote.

"Oh! Oh, Mr. Neale, I _am_ so sorry!" For Muriel's ball, driven at last fair across the court, had hit the unfortunate partner right between his shoulders.

"My fault," he said gallantly. "I got in the way. I stopped a s--splendid service too."

Entirely unnerved, she sent a ball so cautiously that it dropped before it reached the net. Godfrey picked it up and brought it to her.

Crimson-faced now, she was forcing back her tears. He looked down at her, kindly, carelessly, not even noticing her discomfort.

"I say," he said, "I'm awfully glad that you hit me just now. It's a favourite trick of Delia's, but if she sees other people doing it she'll stop, just from perversity. She's a bit like a cyclone when she gets going, isn't she?"

The humorous twist of his smile, the appeal to her criticism of his friend, the flattery of his attention, soothed Muriel's injured vanity. She giggled. Then with a sudden burst of confidence, she whispered:

"She's like the Day of Judgment, I think. I always remember all my misdoings in her sight. I--I'm terrified of her."

He laughed. "So am I, to tell the honest truth. But she's a ripping sport really, so for goodness' sake don't tell a soul."

They laughed, sharing a secret together, Muriel and Godfrey Neale. With one sentence he had drawn her in to the magic circle of his intimacy. She forgot her double faults and the safety-pin. She began to play to redeem his game against the girl who terrified him.

Her next serve went straight and hard. In her amazement, Delia failed to return it.

"Fifteen thirty," cried Godfrey. "Well done, partner. Do it again."

She did it again, not once nor twice. For the rest of the set, she played with serious care, keeping out of the way for Godfrey's smashing volleys. The air shimmered with dancing gold. Never before shone grass so green. Never were balls so white. Never was the joy of swift movement so exhilarating.

They won the next game and the next. Delia, half amused at the little Hammond child's spirit, was playing badly.

From the Pavilion, Muriel heard Mrs. Waring's voice:

"Your little daughter plays a good game, Mrs. Hammond. You must be pleased to have her at home now."

"Yes, it is delightful. Naturally I missed her dreadfully," answered Muriel's mother.

Someone beyond the net was asking, "Shall we play it out or have sudden death?"

"Sudden death," declared Delia, in the voice of a judge; but Muriel did not care. Neither death, pestilence, nor famine could affright her now.

"Game--and set," said Godfrey Neale. "By Jove, Miss Hammond, we must have some more like that!"

Sunning herself in his smile, she walked back to the Pavilion. Congratulatory smiles met her. For some reason, utterly unguessed by her, she had become a heroine. That Delia's defeat could be sweeter than honey to Marshington never occurred to her. She accepted the glory of the moment as it came.

"I say, Mu"--she had forgotten Connie. She turned upon her now with sudden irritation. But Connie had had no triumph. She was thirsty. She was bored. She thought that Muriel had had enough success--"do you know that your safety-pin's come undone, and you've got your blouse all out behind?"

Muriel fled to the cloak-room.

VII

The excitement of Muriel's _début_ at the Club was not repeated. She certainly went often enough, and once or twice Godfrey Neale spoke to her. She did not, however, play with him again, but sat for most afternoons on the steps of the Pavilion until asked to join a Ladies' Double with Nancy Cartwright and Sybil Mason and poor Rosie Harpur, who had also just left school, and who could play tennis no better than she danced. Then the tennis season closed, and Connie returned to school, and Muriel learnt how to order joints from the butcher's and stores from the grocer's, and passed cakes at her mother's tea-parties, and helped her with the accounts for the Mother's Union and the G.F.S., and wondered when her real Life was going to begin.

Then came November and the Lord Mayor's dance, and Muriel woke up next morning to remember that she had come out.

It would all have been wonderful, if only her hair had kept tidy. Next morning she sat before her looking-glass and wrestled with aching arms to cure her hair of its irresistible tendency to fall in heavy locks upon her shoulders. It had spoilt everything, the band, the supper, the confused medley of names upon her programme. From her first ball, Muriel brought home only the memory of a scrambling rush to the cloak-room, and of her mother's worried face bending above hers in the long mirror.

She rested her chin on her hands and gazed at her thin, solemn face in the glass, wondering whether she was really very plain, or whether she would improve with time, as Mrs. Cartwright said that Adelaide had done.

She was so much absorbed by these reflections that she did not at first hear Annie, the housemaid, who knocked and came straight in with the ostentatious familiarity of the old servant.

"Miss Muriel, a telegram for you."

"For me?" People were not in the habit of sending telegrams to Muriel. She was not that kind of person.

"It's addressed to Muriel Hammond," remarked Annie stolidly. She, too, found something unbecoming in the sending of telegrams to Miss Muriel.

Muriel took the envelope and fingered it. "Where's Mother?" she asked slowly.

"Mrs. Hammond's in the kitchen."

"Oh."

For a moment, Muriel's training fought with her curiosity. Then her training conquered. She seized her rope of hair, twisted it lightly round her head, and fled downstairs with the unopened envelope.

Mrs. Hammond was alone in the kitchen writing up the menu for the day. She raised her eyebrows at Muriel's flying entrance.

"Well, dear? Oh, Muriel, what have you been doing to your hair?"

"Doing it. Oh, Mother, there's a telegram."

"For me, dear?"

"No. It's for me." She hesitated, still afraid lest her mother should consider the receipt of telegrams by her improper.

To her surprise, Mrs. Hammond took it quite calmly.

"Well, Muriel, who is it from?"

Muriel opened the envelope and read: "Can you have me week or longer harribels have measles Felix not due England till 24th no money to go Italy Duquesne."

She read it to herself. She read it aloud to her mother. She could not believe her eyes.

"What does it mean?" asked Mrs. Hammond.

Muriel explained. "It's Clare, Clare Duquesne. You remember, my great friend at Heathcroft, at least she wasn't exactly my friend, but I always wanted her to be. She went to Germany to learn singing."

"Yes, but I don't understand. Does she want to come here?"

"Well--I--she--I think. It looks as though she had been going to stay with the Harribels, and they had measles."

"But, who is Félix?"

"Félix is her father, Félix Duquesne, you know, the writer; he writes in French, and it's Clare's mother who insists that he shall be called Félix because 'Mother' and 'Father' make her feel so old and when you are on the stage you have to keep young because of the dear public," Muriel explained, feeling that somehow she was not being as clear as she might have wished.

"But, my dear child, you can't expect her to come here on her own invitation like this at a moment's notice. I never heard of such a thing. And uninvited. Really, I don't know what girls are coming to."

"But I did say--I mean I didn't ever think that she'd come, only I did say that I knew we should be pleased to see her. You see----"

Mrs. Hammond frowned. "Now Muriel, this is really too bad of you. Can't you see what a position you put me into? You know how much I want you to have the things that you like, and I should have been glad enough to let you have a school friend to stay at some proper time, but you know that Father doesn't like just anyone, and just now----"

"Well, mother, of course if we can't have her--I mean if it's inconvenient----"

Hope died from Muriel's grey eyes. Four months at home had taught her that argument, when not wicked, was futile. It meant not just difference of opinion, but a way of making things difficult for Mrs. Hammond, who had to see that the house ran smoothly.

"Well, dear, of course you must see how impossible it all is. I don't know anything about this girl. I'm very busy just now, and surely she must have other friends in England? It's a queer name. Is she French or something?"

"Half French, half Irish, I think. I don't think that she has any relatives in England. The nearest that I know of are the Powells at Eppleford in Donegal." Muriel's voice was sullen with resignation. She had turned from her mother and stood, smoothing out the creases from the telegram, while an enchanting vision of Clare faded into the limbo of impossibilities.

"Powells, at Eppleford? Surely, where have I heard that? Why, is this the girl of whom Mrs. Hancock spoke, Lord Powell's niece?"

"Yes. Did she tell you about her?" sighed Muriel, still without hope and rather wishing that her mother would close a painful conversation. She had been good. She had not pressed Clare's claims. For her mother's sake, no one should ever know how bitter a disappointment she had swallowed down, there by the kitchen table.

"But, dear, you never told me that she was a particular friend of yours. I thought that that Janet somebody or other----"

"Oh, Clare wasn't exactly my friend." These things could not be explained even to somebody as sweet and beautiful as Muriel's mother. "She was so lovely and so popular. She knew all the--all the people I didn't know."

In spite of her resolute stoicism, Muriel gulped. Her mother looked sharply at her averted face.

"You really want her so much, then?"

"Oh, mother!"

"Well, I must talk to your father. It just might be arranged. But I do wish that you had told me about this before, dear. You make things so difficult for me. Why didn't you tell me, dear?"

"There didn't seem to be anything to tell until now," said Muriel. "I thought that she had quite forgotten me. She never answered my letters; I thought that she hadn't liked me much."

"Dear, you mustn't be so--so backward. People will take you at your own valuation, you know, and there is nothing more objectionable than the pride that apes humility. Now run away. Have you done the flowers yet? I thought not. And for goodness' sake tidy your hair, and tell me when your father comes in."

"Then--then, will you ask him?"

"Yes, yes, I'll ask him, though I can't say what---- Why, my dear child! What? Now don't crush my dress!"

For Muriel had flung her arms round her mother's waist in an ecstasy of gratitude for her sympathetic understanding.

VIII

Because he wanted to drive the new chestnut mare, Mr. Hammond chose to go to the station to meet Clare. Muriel could come too if she liked, but the real reason was the mare. If there was one thing that Mr. Hammond prided himself upon more than another, it was his knowledge of horseflesh. The new mare was delicately perfect, from aristocratic shoulder to quivering nostril. A network of soft veins trembled beneath the shining velvet of her neck.

Muriel, terrified lest they should arrive too late, and always nervous in the high dog-cart, watched her father draw the lash of the whip lightly across the mare's back, playing it subtly as an angler plays a fly. He flirted with the mare as another man might have flirted with a pretty girl, chuckling because she was so daintily feminine and capricious. He had forgotten Muriel and Clare.

"Father," she spoke softly, being more than a little afraid of him, "we'll never be there in time." She watched for the curling smoke between the chimneys.

"By Jove, what time did you say that your friend's train arrived?"

"3.45."

"Well, now, if I hadn't had to stop to tell Tom Bannister about that order, we might just have done it. Maybe train'll be late."

But the train was not late, as trains never are except when you need them to be punctual. A little stream of Marshington residents had trickled out of the wicket-gate and separated up and down the straggling length of Middle Street before Muriel and her father drew up in the station yard. A shudder of apprehension stirred Muriel, who for one awful moment feared lest Clare should never have arrived, or lest, having arrived, she should have been offended that nobody was there to meet her. How like Father not to bother just because he thought Clare a child!

But when they appeared in the station, there at the end of the platform, surrounded by three suit-cases, a roll of rugs, a side-saddle, a hat box, a long, thin dachshund on a lead, and all the porters, stood Clare. She turned and saw them. She came to meet them. More beautiful and radiant than ever, in a grey travelling cloak, and a little grey toque with a scarlet quill, she hurried forward with outstretched hands to greet them, the dimples flickering in her cheek.

"You are Mr. Hammond, I am sure? But how good of you to come yourself to meet me!" Her small _suède_ glove slipped into his capacious paw and rested there a moment longer than was necessary, while she smiled up at him, fearless, friendly, the least little bit in the world amused. He was such an enormous father for funny little Muriel Hammond! Muriel saw her father's big red face, first grave, then surprised, then broadening out into a delighted smile. His blue eyes twinkled.

"Well, now, Miss Duquesne, a nice sort o' welcome we gave you leaving you like this all alone on the platform." He winked gaily at the surrounding porters.

Muriel shrank back, a little hurt. They had greeted one another like old friends, as though she did not count.

Then Clare saw her. "Muriel, my dear! How perfectly ripping to see you again! My dear, it is good of you to have me. Behold me, a lone creature lost in London, and the Harribels, with whom I was to stay, all over measles and things."

"Very glad to have you, Miss Duquesne." Mr. Hammond rubbed a stiff hand across his chin, a sure sign, as Muriel knew, that he was pleased. "Now then, what about all this luggage, eh?"

Clare explained volubly. "Oh, I'm frightfully sorry, but, you see, I had to bring all my things from Germany because I don't know when I'm going back, and the side-saddle is because Jimmie Powell promised me a mount when I go to Ireland. And Fritz was a most embarrassing gift from a student. I was in such a hurry that I couldn't make up my mind what to do with him, so I brought him all the way through the customs and everything rolled up in the rugs, with my umbrellas. He hated it, and I don't really care for him, and if there's a lost dogs' home here, for goodness' sake let me dispose of him painlessly. Down, my friend, down!"

"Oh, he's not a bad little tyke," commented Mr. Hammond with the eye of a connoisseur. "But it's all this other stuff I'm thinking about. Look here, Miss Duquesne, can you manage to-night with one of these bag things and have the rest of the caboodle sent up to-morrow? My man's sick or I'd have him come down for 'em now."

"Of course I'll manage. Only, wait a minute." Clare stood meditating while the youngest porter wrestled valiantly with the dachshund, and the others gazed with tolerant amusement at the eccentricities of this young lady, who at least seemed to be worth a good tip. "Now the point is," continued Clare, looking as though for enlightenment at the youngest porter, "my night things are in that bag, but my yellow dress, which I must wear this evening, is in this trunk."

Muriel was about to say, "Oh, don't trouble about that, because we don't change at night," when she remembered that while Lord Powell's niece was staying at Miller's Rise they were to have late dinner.

"I know," cried Clare. "A sudden inspiration. Can you wait just two minutes? I'll take the dress from the trunk and put it into the case, and then we'll be all right. Yes, go on holding the dog, please. Muriel, _chérie_, take my gloves. Mr. Hammond, will you be an angel and undo these straps for me?"

Muriel gasped horror-stricken. Even Clare could surely not take these liberties with impunity. But Mr. Hammond seemed to have forgotten the new mare and to be reconciled to his novel rôle of angel. He knelt upon the platform, breathing heavily as he tugged at straps, unfastened locks, and chuckled to himself while Clare dived into a foam of tissue paper, billowing chiffon and frothing lace.

"There, just hold that a minute." Clare thrust a tray full of gossamer _lingerie_ into the arms of the eldest porter, while she herself shook out the cloudy folds of primrose chiffon.

It must have been this that proved too much for the patience of Fritz. A fur-lined slipper fell from the tray, its fluffiness doubtless reminiscent of happy days of rabbiting. With a bound he broke from the hold of the youngest porter. A streak of yellow shot along the platform. The fur-lined slipper vanished, Mr. Hammond dropped the lid of the case, and the dachshund, free at last, forgot the tedium of his late experience.

Clare, regardless of her laden arms, started in pursuit. Muriel followed. Fritz, evading the ticket collector, dived under the bookstall, then out again towards the wicket-gate just as a tall, tweed-clad figure strolled leisurely on to the platform.

"Fritz!" cried Clare. "Catch him, catch him!"

A long arm shot down. A sudden squawk announced the breaking of Teutonic dreams of liberty, and Clare stood, her arms full of tissue paper, a filmy nightdress, a single bedroom slipper, face to face with Godfrey Neale.

Solemnly he held out to her a mangled slipper and an armful of protesting, elongated dachshund.

"I think that these are yours," he said.

For a moment Muriel saw them stand in silence. Then, simultaneously, they broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

IX

"Of course, if it had been your dog, Mu, it would have run into the curate," Connie observed cuttingly.

"But I haven't got a dog," sighed Muriel.

Connie looked at her with pity. Really there were times when she wondered whether Muriel was quite all there.

Mumps at Heathcroft had conspired with measles in London to throw Connie once again into Clare's company. School had broken up early, and Connie arrived at Miller's Rise two days after Clare's spectacular descent upon her family. She failed to appreciate the honour.

"Never in my life did I see any one make so much fuss of a girl. You're all daft. Mother's as set up as a pouter pigeon because she's got Lord Powell's niece staying here, and Mrs. Neale brings Godfrey at last to call--if you can say that it was a call. I wouldn't stand this eleventh hour patronage from a duchess, let alone just Mrs. Neale, and every one knows that she's crazy anyway. And look at Father! The way he goes on as though he'd never seen a girl before."

"Connie, don't be horrid."

"Horrid yourself. You see if I'm not right. And Mother can't stand her really, only she won't say anything before she's had a chance to show her off to the rest of Marshington."

"That isn't true. You're being simply horrid because you think it's clever, and you're jealous of Clare because Father takes a lot of notice of her. It's only because she's a visitor. You're always so unreasonable."

"Wait till she's been in the house a bit longer, and you'll see who's unreasonable."

Muriel turned away and left Connie to her dark prophecies. There were times when her younger sister exasperated her by a shrewd interpretation of their parents' motives which Muriel rejected as both unpleasant and untrue. Connie had no business to go about saying nasty things about people, just to pretend that she knew more about Life than Muriel who was grown up.

That conversation took place the day before Mrs. Hammond opened her campaign. She was sitting before the dressing-table in her room, finishing her morning toilet. She knew that in her dressing-jacket, with her plump arms bare from the elbow, she looked girlish and very charming. The silver in her hair gleamed like moonlight rather than Time's theft of colour. She rather liked to see it spread softly about her shoulders before she coiled it high upon her head.

From the dressing-room she could hear her husband whistling through his teeth, as a stable boy whistles when he grooms a horse. Through the open door she could see him standing before his shaving-glass, brushing vigorously his wiry thatch of hair.

Mrs. Hammond set down her own brush and called softly:

"Arthur!"

The whistling stopped. Mr. Hammond put down his brushes and began to flex and unflex his arms, then ran his hands down the firm line from his arm-pits to his thighs.

"Hardly an ounce of spare flesh, by gosh," he remarked irrelevantly. "Few chaps o' my age could say the same thing. Have you seen Ted Hobson? great coarse-looking, over-fed fellow, he's grown. Lifts his elbow a bit too often they say. Nothing like that for----"

"Arthur, you know I think that while Clare is here we ought to give a dinner-party."

"Of course I don't object to a moderate tipple myself----"

A little pucker of thought appeared on Mrs. Hammond's forehead. "I was thinking of just a few people, the Marshall Gurneys perhaps, and Colonel Cartwright, and Mr. Vaughan now that Delia's away. Arthur! Are you listening?"

"Yes, yes, my dear. Let 'em all come. Have a dozen dinner-parties for all I care."

"And the Neales, Arthur. I returned her call yesterday, but she was out with those everlasting dogs."

"Knows a good dog, the old lady. Yes, go ahead. Ask the Neales. Ask the Prince of Wales. Ask the whole blooming royal family."

"Arthur, I do wish that you would take this seriously. You know perfectly well that it's as much your duty as mine to do what you can for the girls."

"Oho! It's the girls, is it? And what do you expect to get for them out of all this fussification, eh?" He stood in the doorway now between the two rooms, smiling down at her, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Are you going to marry Connie off to the vicar?"

"You needn't pretend to be stupid when you aren't," snapped Mrs. Hammond. When she saw him in a good temper she could sometimes take a holiday from her habitual patience.

She began to gather up her rings, and slip them one after the other on to her white fingers. Here was the diamond half-hoop, her engagement ring. Arthur had been generous but unoriginal. Here was the emerald that he had bought during their honeymoon. Here, the ruby set between two splendid pearls that he had bought her after that affair. She twisted it round on her finger reflectively. Her gentle face hardened. From the dressing-room she could hear her husband jingling pencils, pennies and his watch, as he transferred them from the chest to his pockets. "Does he still keep her photograph in his watch case?" she wondered. That would be like Arthur, to repent extravagantly, and then to keep one little trace of his misdeed to sigh over.

Mrs. Hammond was not a sentimentalist. She clapped the ruby ring down on top of the emerald and diamond, and smiled faintly without too much bitterness as she heard the faint whirring sound of Arthur winding up his watch. It was his inevitable prelude to descent for breakfast.

"You'll order some more Burgundy, Arthur, won't you?"

"Better have a few bottles of fizz up while we're about it, hadn't we?" Mr. Hammond was dressed and disposed to take the world and the dinner-party more seriously. Like many middle-aged men he laid aside maturity with his clothes, and looked like a schoolboy in pyjamas, feeling like one too.

"Not champagne, I think, Arthur. We don't want to be thought ostentatious. Things must be right."

Reluctantly he agreed. Though his taste in parties differed from hers, he had to admit that in these things she was right. Although he chaffed her, he paid this tribute of acknowledgment to the long years of patient sowing of the social ground in Marshington until now at last the Neales were ripe for harvest.

Half amused at the object of her ambition, pleased to allow her to please herself if that did not interfere with his comfort, proud that she was successful in the quest that she had undertaken, Arthur Hammond went downstairs to order some more of the best Burgundy.

X

Dinner was over. It had succeeded so far beyond Mrs. Hammond's wildest dreams. Mrs. Neale had talked dogs and horses with Mr. Hammond, and Clare had been effectively subdued between Colonel Cartwright and the curate. The colonel himself had lent a distinguished air of political interest to the party, proving that these "confounded Radicals will be the death of the country, Mrs. Hammond. All this talk of Home Rule and Insurance and whatnot. What I say is that the people were happy enough before Lloyd George began to give 'em eightpennyworth of conceit of themselves." Mrs. Marshall Gurney, whose efforts to disengage Godfrey Neale's attention from Muriel had been unavailing, had been forced to console herself with the admirable saddle of mutton and the carnations from Kingsport, ninepence each. And the _soufflé_ had been a dream, and Connie looked quite nice in her blue dress, and, best of all, something had happened to Muriel to startle her out of her usual dumb nervousness. Godfrey Neale really seemed to be quite taken by her. Why not? Mrs. Hammond looking down the charmingly appointed table smiled to herself. Why not, indeed, why not?

Afterwards, when the men reappeared from their cigars and excellent port, there was music in the drawing-room. As he entered, Godfrey Neale looked hurriedly round the room for Clare Duquesne. He was uneasy and puzzled. All through the interminable dinner he had searched across the barrier of flowers for Clare's charming face, but the ninepenny carnations had blocked his view. Once he heard her laugh, full-throated and merry. And all the time Muriel's prim little voice had told him tale after tale of Clare at school, Clare on the Continent, Clare galloping wildly along the sands at Hardrascliffe on a rough hackney, after a mad Saturday outing with a school friend's brother. Godfrey felt somehow that he would not have liked that brother, but he listened to the tales, greedy for more. Muriel, delighted to find in a man such unexpected interest and sympathy, unlocked to him the doors of her mind, and poured forth all the wistful hero-worship hitherto suppressed for fear of ridicule. Godfrey, completely oblivious of her, sunned himself in the wonder of Clare's swift vitality. Only when Muriel had left the past for the future did he check her with abrupt, almost discourteous questioning, afflicted suddenly again with his worst kind of stammering. She had faltered then, played with her fork, and looked up at him with wide, wondering eyes. So, for a moment, he had seen, not Clare, but Muriel, facing her as for the first time and noticing her solemn childish face, her mobile mouth, and the questioning trustfulness of her slow, quiet glance.

In a moment she had answered his question, and each lost the sense of the other in the concentration of their thoughts on Clare.

At first, on looking round the drawing-room, he did not see her; then she became clear to him, withdrawn from the circle round the fireplace, sitting with head erect against a heavy background of dark curtains. The gloom of the unlit window-bay had quenched the glowing crimson of her dress, but its folds of still brocade flowed round her like the drapery in a Pre-Renaissance drawing. The dress covered her arms, but left her shoulders bare, so that her clasped hands lay together on her lap like a pale flower, and the faint glimmer of her perfect shoulders moved him to sudden anger against the shadow that robbed him of the purity of their line.

Why did she wear that queer outrageous dress? Why had she never spoken to him before dinner, but only smiled demurely as she bowed? What right had she to come straight from Ostend and Naples to Marshington, where the girls were all dull and stiff? Besides, she was fast. That ridiculous exhibition at the station. That was just the sort of thing that Godfrey hated. And his mother disliked her, though as usual she said nothing, and--well, altogether Godfrey felt that he had good reason to be angry with Clare Duquesne.

He pushed his way through the chairs to the window seat, disregarding Mrs. Hammond's gentle invitation and Phyllis Marshall Gurney's pallid smile. He sat down on the narrow window seat beside her, making himself as uncomfortable as possible out of spite against her. There was a wretched draught.

"Are you going to sing, Miss Duquesne?" he asked.

His usually friendly voice bristled with his grievance.

Clare looked up at him in surprise. "Who told you that I sang?"

"Miss Hammond told me during dinner that you are going to be a professional singer. Are you?"

Clare laughed, still sitting upright with her hands lying on her wine-red dress. He could only see the profile of her face.

"That is as may be. It is not so easy as I had thought to become a great prima donna. They want me to work. I detest working." She shrugged her bare, smooth shoulders. "Life is too short for spending its best years in stuffy German parlours singing scales that no one but an old professor wants to hear." Suddenly she turned upon him her full loveliness. "Why do you ask?"

"I--I----" Godfrey Neale himself was at a loss for words, feeling gauche as any country bumpkin.

"Do you disapprove?" Clare continued cheerfully.

"Yes," he said, unreasoningly rude. "I do. Decidedly. You, singing for the public, for just any ass----"

She opened her dark eyes very wide. "But why not? Not all the public are asses. Besides, my mother does it. She acts."

"Oh, I did--didn't mean that. I mean, it seems somehow such a waste."

"Waste? _Comme vous êtes drôle! Ils sont tous fous, les anglais_." She laughed again, teasing him, knowing how much he hated for her to speak French, partly because it was a foreign language, partly because he dreaded more than anything in the world that she should make a fool of him. "Why a waste? Is it not better to sing for the many than for the few?"

"No, no. It is not." He fumbled indignantly with his ideas, only knowing that he could not bear the thought of her, standing on show for any fool to gape at, any ill-bred, foreign fool, greasy Germans, nincompoop Frenchmen, Italians--ugh!

"How very English you are, Mr. Neale. That proprietary instinct. You want everything for yourself, land, ladies, music. You would like to put up a notice on me like you put up on your woods. 'Trespassers will be prosecuted.'"

"When did you see my woods?"

"Hush, I want to hear Mr. Smallwood sing."

Godfrey could not sing. He disliked fellows who chirruped inanely in drawing-rooms; but he had to sit there, consoling himself by watching Clare's intent, uplifted face.

"O flower of all the world, O flower of all,
I see thee in my garden and I dare
To love thee, and though my deserts be small,
Thou art the only flower I would wear."

"O flower of all the world," thought Godfrey, seeing only Clare's glowing dress, her hands, her perfect arms.

"I dare to love thee," triumphed Dennis Smallwood's pleasant baritone voice.

Clare Duquesne was going back to Germany, to flirt with dapper little German officers. A good thing that she was going. Godfrey knew her type.

"A rotten song, that, isn't it?" he growled. "Smallwood plays a decent game of tennis. I wish that he'd stick to it."

"He sings rather well. Ah! _Mon Dieu!_"

"What is it?" Godfrey was all solicitude.

"Nothing. Except that our friend Connie is going to sing, and I--I have heard her before."

Her whisper soothed the young man's ruffled feelings. He did what all the evening he had been intending not to do. This connection with the Hammond _ménage_ had gone far enough. He said:

"Look here, do you ever care to ride, Miss Duquesne?"

"When I have a mount," she answered.

"When the birds go north again!" shrilled Connie.

"I wondered if perhaps, I've got rather a jolly little mare, a perfect lady's hack. My mother was going to ride her, but she hasn't been awfully fit, and hasn't been riding much. It would be a perfect charity if you would be good enough to exercise her. If you could come up one afternoon."

Clare smiled demurely. "Well, if Mrs. Hammond does not object, we might all come up one afternoon."

"All?"

"Well, you can hardly expect me to go alone, surely?"

He saw that it was not possible, but a new scheme was at work in his mind.

"Look here, I'll get the mater to ask up the Hammond girls one afternoon next week, if you'll sing to us to-night."

Clare frowned. "You see," she confided, "I've received not exactly orders but intimations that I am to keep in the background to-night. I'll sing when I go to tea with your mother."

"You'll sing to-night," said Godfrey. He was determined now that she should do so, not so much because he wanted to hear her, as because he wanted her to do something just because he willed it. "Just wait until Connie has sent those birds north again, and then you shall sing."

She shook her head, but as Connie left the piano, Godfrey rose.

"Mrs. Hammond," he said, "we have had a great stroke of luck. I have persuaded Miss Duquesne to sing."

So Mrs. Hammond had to be delighted, and Clare followed Muriel to the piano, and whispered to her. Muriel nodded once or twice, a frown of responsibility upon her face. She was a good accompanist, and had played for Clare many times at Heathcroft.

Mr. Hammond, leaning back in his chair, winked at Colonel Cartwright. "Now we shall have a treat," he said.

Muriel began to play. Her soft dress faded into the white walls of the room. Her hair was a brooding shadow above her earnest face. But about Clare was nothing pale nor shadowy. Her vivid dress had caught all light and colour from the room, and held them, glowing with barbaric splendour. She stood, not stooping over her music like the Marshington young ladies, but by herself in front of the piano, her head lifted proudly with the triumphant power of undaunted youth.

The accompaniment paused. The last chord hung for a moment poised above the waiting stillness. Across the room Clare looked full into the expectant face of Godfrey Neale.

Then she sang.