Chapter FOUR: The Unabashed Outcast

§ i

Claudine waked up to the dull peace of a mountain Sunday. She could hear the grinding of the ice-cream freezer on the back porch, and far away the bell of the little Roman Catholic church. She rose and dressed while Gilbert still slept, and going out into the hall, knocked on the door of the girls’ room. Andrée was up and half dressed, combing her misty dark hair.

“Edna’s pretending to be asleep,” she said, scornfully.

“There’s no hurry,” said Claudine. “She can wait for Father and have breakfast with him. Finish dressing, and we’ll have time for a little walk.”

She sat down and watched her child with tender eyes. There was an awkward, impatient grace about her, in the hasty movements of her arms as she arranged her hair, something so immature, so touching. She slipped on a white frock, because her father was inordinately fond of seeing young girls in white, and announced herself ready. But Claudine saw untidinesses; she tucked in a stray lock of hair, straightened her collar, tightened her belt.

“Now!” she said. “You’re nice!”

They went out, closing the door quietly on the motionless Edna.

“What on earth is that row!” said Andrée.

They paused for a moment in the hall to listen. Some outrageous person was playing with vigour on the piano, and whistling, to accompany the vulgar air.

“And on Sunday morning, too!” said Claudine, with a frown, “when so many people want to sleep!”

They went on down; the dining-room was still quite empty at this early hour, and the veranda deserted. But every corner was permeated by that loud, shocking noise!

“Let’s see what it is!” said Andrée, and they looked cautiously in at the open door of the parlour.

“Oh, I know him!” said Andrée. “I saw him come last night, on the train with Father and Mr. MacGregor. Horrible, vulgar little wretch!”

Seated at the piano was a slight, fair-haired young man with a minute yellow mustache and a cheerful, impudent face. He wore a new black suit and white buckskin shoes and some awful sort of necktie; he had an air of being specially got up for Sunday. The place was a cheap and obscure one, but they had never before seen in it a guest like this. People of his kind found nothing to please them here.

Claudine was affronted.

“We can only hope he won’t stay long,” she said, as they turned away.

They went into breakfast, alone in the room, but their peace was destroyed by the playing and whistling; at first they frowned, and Claudine even suggested speaking to Mrs. Dewey; but in the end they were forced to laugh.

They went out for a walk, a carefully selected one, where no cows would be met with to terrify Andrée and a good view might be obtained for Claudine. They talked together in one of their few hours of perfect accord.

“I have some influence over her!” thought Claudine, happily. “If she ever contemplates anything foolish, I am sure I can dissuade her. She is mine! We are bound together by a thousand ties.”

Andrée broke into her meditation.

“You’re awfully pretty, Mother!” she said, suddenly. “I love the way you look.... There’s something--I don’t know how to describe it--something old-fashioned about you.”

Claudine was not greatly pleased.

“Old-fashioned?” she said, thinking of her new frock, her chic and becoming coiffure, every dainty detail of her costume.

“Yes. You haven’t the look other women have. You’re so distinguished and--mysterious. Have you had a very sad life, Mother?”

“Mercy, no, child!” said Claudine. She shrank at once from any invasion of her reserve; her dignity compelled her to maintain her aloofness, her air of slightly inhuman tranquillity.

But Andrée was insistent.

“But I do wish you’d tell me one thing!” she said. “Did you really mean to marry Cousin Lance, and were you parted by something?”

“Where did you get such a ridiculous idea?” asked her mother, frowning. “No one ever thought of such a thing.”

“Edna said she thought so.... Mother, I wish I knew you better!”

Claudine was startled and touched.

“My dear!” she cried. “But don’t you ...?”

She stopped.

“After all,” she went on. “I think it is better just to love people, and not to trouble about trying to know or to understand them.”

They had reached a little summer-house built out on a rock over a deep pool in a rocky basin. It had not at all the sinister aspect of that other pool; this was sunny, open and dark blue, with wild flowers growing about it, and ferns. From where they sat, they could see the line of mountains beyond. Andrée didn’t like mountains; the sombre and majestic environment exasperated her restless soul. She sighed, but grew quiet looking at her mother’s rapt face. She was drawing strength and assuagement from the hills. Poor mother, with her philosophers and her scenery! A phantom existence, Andrée reflected.

“Hope I don’t disturb you?” said a cheerful voice, and they both turned, to see with horror the common little man, with a great bundle of Sunday newspapers under his arm. He had politely taken off his hat and stood smiling at them.

“They told me down at the house that this was a pretty walk,” he said. “And it certainly is. Fine air to-day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Claudine, in her most distrait, affable way. “It’s a lovely day.”

“Would you like to see the papers?” he asked.

“No, thank you. We’re going back at once.... We just stopped for the view.”

He smiled.

“A tame little view!” he said. “I guess I’ll find something better than this before I’ve finished.”

“How?” asked Andrée, abruptly.

“I’m going to climb some of these peaks. I’ve done a lot of climbing in the Alps,” he said. “I’ve got the head for it, and the legs. Why, there wasn’t one of those millionaire sportsmen who could beat me at it. These peaks look like hills to me.”

His boasting was somehow ameliorated by his good-humour. And one couldn’t help believing that he actually had defeated millionaire sportsmen.

“I suppose you ladies don’t climb?” he asked.

“I haven’t,” said Andrée. “But perhaps I shall some time. It might be rather fun. I’d never thought of it.”

“We must go,” said Claudine, firmly. “Your father will be wondering what has become of us. Come, dear!”

She smiled politely at the dreadful little man, and they walked off. At a turn of the path Andrée, looking back, saw him spreading out his papers, his straw hat jauntily at the back of his head.

“I’m afraid he’s going to be a nuisance,” said Claudine.

“I guess you can dispose of him!” said Andrée, grimly. “Lord! How I do hate Sundays!”

Claudine felt obliged to remonstrate, but weakly, because she was quite in agreement with her child. They sauntered back with reluctant steps, each lost in her own incommunicable thought.

§ ii

The great mid-day dinner had been disposed of, the chicken, the ice-cream, and the other decent, traditional things, and the entire party went out on to the veranda and sat down, constrained, almost enraged with one another.

“Let’s take a walk, Father!” said Andrée, suddenly.

“Not on your life!” said Gilbert. “_I’m_ not nineteen, old girl!”

He took a bill from his pocket.

“See if you and Edna can’t find some place to buy yourselves a box of caramels,” he said. “I want a look at the papers.”

“I shouldn’t object to a walk,” said Mr. MacGregor.

“Then I’ll show you a nice, cool, after-dinner one,” said Claudine, brightly, “while the girls go for their candy. Run up and get me my sunshade, please, Edna!”

Gilbert looked up with a scowl; but he met so cold and steadfast a glance from his wife that he looked down again. Better let her alone; she was capable of the most alarming retaliations. Anyhow, she couldn’t do any real harm; love was not to be so easily discouraged. He pretended to be deep in his papers, but he was none the less well aware of his daughters going off in one direction and his wife and Mr. MacGregor in another. He was ready to laugh at the woman’s folly.

Claudine had started with the firm intention of approaching and utterly routing Mr. MacGregor. But, to be brief, she didn’t so much as mention Andrée’s name. She couldn’t! Instead they chatted affably as they strolled; Mr. MacGregor gave some information, more sentimental than scientific, regarding Scotch wild flowers. He was really very nice and flattering. She hadn’t for years met anyone who took so frank an interest in her. He was by no means a botanist, but he confessed to a love of Nature, and he admired her quite extensive knowledge. Moreover, he too was a reader of her beloved philosophers, and they had an interesting if somewhat superficial discussion of their theories of life. Claudine’s idea was that one should try to deny the reality of suffering; she had a pitiful hope that if she were to train her reason sufficiently she would in time be able to reason away her unhappiness. Mr. MacGregor, on the contrary, had a tinge of Calvinism in his philosophy, he thought it better to hug one’s pain, to rejoice in its cruel embrace, to be made strong by it.

Then they talked a little of music, Claudine’s old love. But Mr. MacGregor was so very practical. He looked upon a masterwork as a thing to be expressed through high technical perfection, he read no meanings, no sentiment into music, he had none of Claudine’s mystic delight in sound itself.

They both became mollified. Mr. MacGregor was able to forgive this charming and interesting woman her obvious interference in his love-making, and she was willing to admit that as a man he was strong, sensible, and rather likeable. She couldn’t help contrasting his ruggedness, his well-furnished mind, his varied interests, with the bilious and tiresome Gilbert. Here was a companion, who could walk, and who could talk.

They came leisurely home; Gilbert saw them crossing the sunny lawn, both of them annoyingly cool in spite of the midsummer weather. He himself was quite wretched from the heat, and irritated by the newspaper. He got up and went to meet them.

“Tell you what!” he said. “We’ll see if we can get a motor somewhere in the place and go for a drive in the cool of the afternoon--about five. The children will like it.”

It was of course unimaginable either to him or to Claudine that he should find the conveyance. He was a sort of Sultan; he never did things of that sort. He gave orders, and he paid. So Claudine found and despatched a fat youth belonging to Mrs. Dewey and the thing was done. They then retired to their rooms until five o’clock; Gilbert dozed and his wife gave her attention to her finger-nails.

“What have the children been doing?” she asked suddenly.

“Don’t know.... Haven’t seen them,” he muttered. “Good Lord! This room is _hot_! Can’t you find some way to keep the flies out? What good are the screens?”

Claudine didn’t answer; an alarming thought had entered her mind. Suppose those provoking girls weren’t back when the car arrived? Gilbert would be in a terrible rage; and there would certainly be a scene.... Where could they have gone, on this drowsy Sunday afternoon in that little village so devoid of resources?

Her fears were confirmed; they didn’t come back. Gilbert had got into the car, Mr. MacGregor was standing near.

“Call the girls!” said Gilbert, impatiently. “I suppose they’re making themselves sick with their caramels.”

But they were not in the house, not in the grounds. Mr. MacGregor went down the road to the hotel, and to the drug-store where they must have gone for their candy, but he did not find them. They wasted half an hour, and then went off without them.

Gilbert didn’t spare Claudine. He remonstrated all the time, in a manner which, if he had not been a man, would certainly have been called nagging. He said it was disgraceful; hadn’t she any control over her children? Didn’t she take any interest in them? Was she in the habit of neglecting them in this way? That was the way with women; they hadn’t a damned thing to do _but_ look after their children, and they didn’t even do that properly. And so on. Claudine endured it with a set smile; she scarcely heard him. Mr. MacGregor, however, did hear him; it was not a pleasant drive for him.

§ iii

They got back a little late for the meal known as Sunday night tea. She hurried upstairs to wash and brush her hair, and there in their room were her daughters, both stretched out on the bed.

“Edna!” she cried. “Andrée! Where have you been? Your father had a motor to take you out ... he was so disappointed. You have no right to worry and annoy him so.... Where have you been since dinner time?”

Edna raised herself on one elbow.

“Sorry, Mother darling! We went out with that funny little man. We ran across him as we were coming out of the drug-store and he began to talk. Said he was going to walk to a place called ‘The Brave’s Leap,’ and asked us if we didn’t want to go along, so we did. It was heavenly! Miles and miles.... We’re awfully tired, but it’s a nice tiredness.”

“What an outrageous thing to do! I’m surprised at you! The man’s a perfect stranger--and not a desirable person at all. I can’t tell you how annoyed I am. And your father’s plans all upset--”

“But we didn’t know about Father’s plans,” said Edna.

“We didn’t miss much,” said Andrée. “I hate those silly drives. As it was, we got a lot of splendid exercise and a lot of fun.”

“You mustn’t do such things without asking me! I thought you both knew better than to go off that way with a stranger. It was very wrong and inconsiderate. Naturally your father expects to see something of you in the little time he’s here--”

“But, Mother dear,” said Edna, patiently. “We’re not children. We couldn’t leave Mr. Stephens standing in the street while we ran home to ask mother. He’s a very nice little beast, and there was really absolutely no harm in taking a walk with him.”

“I have no control over them!” thought Claudine, bitterly. “Gilbert is right!”

Aloud she said, in a tone of great displeasure:

“There is no time to argue with you now. It’s late. Please get dressed at once for supper.”

“We don’t want any supper,” said Andrée. “The nice little beast had all sorts of things in his knapsack. We’ve been eating all afternoon.”

“And we stopped at a funny little inn somewhere on the road and had ginger ale and more sandwiches. Mother, I wish you’d been there! It was the only decent time we’ve had in this place. We saw the most beautiful waterfall, and a wonderful gorge that an Indian’s supposed to have jumped across. And the man’s really very nice. Of course he’s common, and all that sort of thing, but he’s the most cheerful creature!”

“He said he was ‘athaletic,’” said Andrée, “and he is! He showed off all the time, and it was very amusing.”

But Claudine was not listening; she was thinking with dread of what she should say to Gilbert.

And in the end she was certainly not candid.

“The girls went for a long walk in the mountains,” she told him. She didn’t mention the “nice little beast,” and neither did they, whether from dissimulation or carelessness she didn’t care to investigate.

On an early train the next morning Gilbert and Mr. MacGregor went back to the city, and she drew a breath of relief. Now she had only two adversaries to struggle against--and perhaps the common little man as well.