“Ah, of course I can’t pretend to judge,” he repeated, and the modesty of his tone encouraged her to say a little more, to stifle her own misgivings as much as to keep up her sister’s dignity.
“Winifred is intended for a larger life altogether,” she said. “And there are three of us at home. People are beginning to see the facts about women’s lives differently. Why should we be condemned to trivial idleness? Look how some have thrown off the trammels! There is Miss Norreys, for instance. Could you imagine her spending her life in ordering legs of mutton and darning stockings?”
“No,” said Eric simply, “I couldn’t. And I don’t think any woman’s life need be, or should be, so dull and narrow. But still, Hertha Norreys is not a fair example. She has a gift, an undoubted gift. I think its greatness is scarcely yet recognised by herself or others; perhaps it never will be. But still she has not ignored it. She felt she had a talent and she was bound to cultivate it, and she has done so. In her case there was no choice.”
Celia looked interested.
“I am glad you allow that, at any rate,” she said, and glancing at her, the young man almost fancied that she blushed a little. “Of course I think cleverness like Winifred’s a gift, but I can understand ordinary people not looking upon it as if she had a great talent for music, or – or painting. It is easier when you have the one distinct power. Now there is Lady Campion. Your mother seems to think her so talented, but she has not concentrated her talents.”
“No,” said Eric, drily, “she certainly has not.”
“And,” pursued Celia, “she is married. She shouldn’t have married if she wanted to be something.”
“But perhaps she didn’t, or, at least, not what you call ‘something.’ She thinks herself very much ‘something’ or ‘somebody,’ and her marriage has certainly not stood in her light.” Celia hesitated.
“You don’t like Lady Campion?” she said, abruptly.
“Oh yes, I do,” he replied, lightly. “She’s by no means a bad sort of woman,” he went on, hastily. Celia was not the kind of girl to whom it seemed natural to talk slang. “But she wouldn’t have been half what she is if she hadn’t married. The best of her, in my humble opinion, comes out as a wife. I like to see her with her husband. She recognises his superiority.”
“Oh dear,” thought Celia, “what a man’s way of putting it!”
“For he really is a first-rate fellow in his own line. And she is not a genius, though she is – oh yes! she is – clever, though sometimes she makes herself just a little ridiculous.”
Celia did not speak. This was again a new light to her. She felt confused. She had pictured Lady Campion quite differently, somehow, and she felt sure Winifred had done the same, pitying her for having married and thus rashly clipped her wings.
“She – Lady Campion – admires Miss Norreys exceedingly,” said Celia, after a little silence. “That should be a bond between you, for I can see you admire her exceedingly too.”
Eric looked somewhat surprised. The young girl had more perception than he had given her credit for.
“Yes,” he said, “I do. I admire her very much indeed. As an artist, I place her more highly than might be generally thought reasonable, and, as a woman, yes, I admire her too, and respect her, except for – ”
“What?” asked Celia, eagerly.
“I cannot tell you,” he answered. “I was going to say that, as a woman, there is one direction in which I cannot admire her. But I cannot explain more fully, and perhaps I may have misjudged her. She is one in whom it would be difficult to believe there existed any of the weaknesses that one finds in smaller characters.”
This was high praise. Celia’s interest in Hertha grew with every word.
“I wish I knew her,” she said, earnestly. “I should so like to meet her.”
Her words reached the ears of her companion on the other side. Mr Fancourt was beginning to feel as if he had had about enough of the neighbour – a talkative woman of forty or thereabouts, well up in the topics of the day, and of his own small section of the world in particular – on his left, whom hitherto he had deliberately chosen in preference to the pretty young creature on his right. And now, with the calm insouciance of an experienced diner-out, he turned to Celia.
“There must be more in her than I suspected,” he said to himself. “She seems to have succeeded in making Balderson talk, and he can be pretty heavy in hand when it doesn’t suit him to be lively.”
“You are speaking of Miss Norreys, are you not?” he asked. The name had caught his attention, and, when Celia bowed in response – “Yes, she is charming,” he went on. “It is curious: I have found myself thinking of her two or three times during dinner. There is a certain something which I cannot define, which reminds me of her in that girl on the other side of the table – nearer our host – yes,” as he followed Celia’s eyes, “the girl next but one to my wife. You know her, Mrs Fancourt, by sight – in pale green? No?” (He thought everybody knew his wife.) “Ah, well, you know her now.”
“She is very pretty,” said Celia, simply.
“I cannot contradict you,” he said, with a well-pleased smile, which made Celia think that, after all, he must be rather a nice man – she liked husbands who thought their wives very pretty – and disposed her to question the truth of Winifred’s sweeping assertion that conjugal affection was never to be found among “smart” people. “But,” continued Mr Fancourt, “look at the girl I mentioned – the girl in black. Do you see the slight something – scarcely resemblance – about her, which recalls Miss Norreys?”
In her turn Celia now smiled with pleasure.
“She is my sister,” she replied. “She will be delighted when she hears what you say. No, I don’t think it would have struck me that there was any likeness. But I daresay there is some likeness in character. My sister is very self-reliant and – and – dauntless. And I should think there is something of that about Miss Norreys.”
Having found a topic of interest, the rest of the dinner passed pleasantly enough, and Mr Fancourt felt that doing his duty had not been the arduous task he had anticipated.
But it was her conversation with Eric Balderson which left its mark on Celia’s mind.
“Oh, Celia,” said Winifred, when she managed to get her sister to herself for a moment in the drawing-room, “I feel in a new world. Mr Sunningdale has been talking to me so delightfully, so perfectly. All my intuitions about the larger, wider life I should find in London are being realised. How narrow our small home-world seems in comparison! I told Mr Sunningdale something of what I am hoping to do, and I can see he sympathised in my longing to throw off the narrow trammels we have been brought up in. People here have much wider ideas!”
“You must have made friends very quickly,” said Celia.
In her tone there was not the complete and responsive sympathy which she was, as a rule, eagerly ready to give to her sister. She could not help it. A slight chill of doubt, of questioning of the perfect wisdom of Winifred’s theories, had been, though unintentionally, cast over her. But the elder Miss Maryon was too excited and enthusiastic to perceive it, and this Celia was glad to see. For, after all, the faintest idea of disagreement with Winifred’s opinions or judgment was extraordinary and unnatural to her.
“Yes,” said Winifred, “we did. But it does not need time to make friends when people are sympathetic. Mr Sunningdale has evidently thought out all the great questions of the day about women most thoroughly.”
She looked so bright and happy, so handsome and almost brilliant, that her younger sister gazed in loving admiration.
“Dear Winifred,” she said to herself. “No wonder Mr Sunningdale or Mr Anybody admires her when she looks like that. I do feel sorry for dear old Lennox though.”
Poor Mr Sunningdale! Much had been credited to him which he would have been greatly astonished to hear of. He was, as has been said, a kind-hearted and eminently good-natured man; a man, too, who not only had a special line of distinction, but was above the smallness of being ashamed of talking about what he really understood. And Winifred Maryon was certainly intelligent enough to be a good listener, all of which explains the two having “got on so well.” It was not, to do her justice, till towards the end of dinner that Winifred ventured to allude to her aspirations. And the great man, gratified, as even great men can be, by the enthusiastic admiration – or veneration – in the girl’s bright eyes, listened – how could he have done less? – to her confidences, with here and there a word or smile of kindly, half-amused encouragement. Though, truth to tell, the subject matter of these same confidences, if it did not go in at one ear to come out at the other, left but the vaguest and most fleeting impression behind it.
“Pretty girl – handsome rather than pretty – intelligent, too, but rather bitten by the advanced ideas of the day. She’ll settle down when she’s married,” was his commentary upon her to his hostess. “An heiress, did you say? All the better, if she falls into good hands.”
And if Mrs Balderson had begun to build air-castles as to the possible consequences of her introduction – Winifred being, as she expressed it, “just the sort of girl to prefer a man a good deal older than herself” – they speedily fell to the ground. Mr Sunningdale had a history: the not uncommon one of an adored girl-wife dead almost before he had realised she was his. And, despite the cynicism which many declared lay beneath his surface good-nature, there was something deeper down still. He was not the man to dream of a second marriage.
Nor, as we know, were Miss Maryon’s ideas likely to turn the least in such “commonplace” directions.
The results of this first taste of London society were, however, to all appearance, eminently satisfactory. Winifred, as she bade her kind hostess good-night, was profuse in her thanks for the delightful evening she had spent. And if Celia’s pretty eyes had a slight shadow over them, it could only have been that she was a little tired, thought the good woman.
“You took care of her at dinner, I hope, Eric?” she said to her son, who had been known to be afflicted with fits of absence on social occasions of the kind.
“Oh dear, yes. We got on capitally, like a house on fire,” he replied, cordially. “I was so much obliged to you for giving me Celia to look after instead of her sister. I can’t stand that other girl, and I think Lennox a lucky fellow to be out of it.”
“It is to be hoped he will come to see it in that light himself,” said Mrs Balderson. “Not that I agree with you about Winifred. I like and admire her extremely, and I can understand her feeling that poor Lennox is not enough for her. With her talents and strength of character she may aspire higher, not to speak of her – well – material advantages.”
Eric gave a little grunt.
Mrs Balderson sometimes found her son’s grunts irritating.
“Celia, of course, is a sweet little thing,” she proceeded; “but nothing in her.”
Mrs Balderson was not a worldly mother. Still she did not much want Eric to fall in love with Celia.
He grunted again.
“You are very uncivil, Eric,” she said, with a touch of asperity. “Can’t you say out what you mean? When you are like that, you make me feel you are influenced by nothing but commonplace, masculine contradiction.”
“Perhaps so,” he replied.
Chapter Four.
A First Step
“Winifred,” said Mrs Balderson, the next morning but one, at the breakfast-table, “here is something that will please you, I think,” and she held out to Miss Maryon a letter she had just opened.
It was from Lady Campion, asking them – the sisters and their hostess, or, if Mrs Balderson were otherwise engaged, the Maryon girls by themselves – to tea that same day, to meet Miss Norreys!
Winifred’s eyes sparkled.
“Oh, how delightful!” she said. “How kind of her to have remembered about it!”
But Mrs Balderson’s face had clouded over with an expression of perplexity.
“It is unlucky,” she said. “I had forgotten for the moment that we were engaged to go with my cousins, the Nestertons, to the Exhibition of Embroidery in Street, and to tea with them afterwards. It is a pity. Mrs Nesterton took some trouble to arrange it, and it is the last day of the Exhibition.”
“Oh, but it really doesn’t matter,” said Miss Maryon, and on Mrs Balderson’s looking up with some surprise – for she had supposed that Winifred was exceedingly anxious to meet the woman she had so admired – “I mean,” she went on calmly, “I don’t at all mind missing the Exhibition, and I really don’t know the Nestertons, you see, dear Mrs Balderson.”
Mrs Balderson did not feel very “dear” at that moment.
“There are other things to be considered,” she said, stiffly. “You were very eager to see the Exhibition, and I cannot be rude to my cousins, whether you know them or not, my dear Winifred. Besides, there is your sister as well as yourself. What do you say, Celia?”
It was new for Winifred to take in that Celia could have a voice of her own apart from hers; it was new for Celia to realise the fact. But she saw that Mrs Balderson was annoyed; she had infinitely greater power of putting herself in another’s place than was possessed by her elder sister.
“I should be very sorry not to see the embroidery,” she replied, quickly, her face flushing a little, “besides it would never do to be so rude to Mrs Nesterton.”
“I think Lady Campion deserves some consideration too,” said Winifred, unyieldingly. “She is a very busy person, and she has evidently planned this on purpose to please m – us. And Miss Norreys must be a still busier person. I don’t see that Mrs Nesterton could be offended if it were all explained to her.”
There was something in what she said as regarded Lady Campion and Miss Norreys. But Mrs Balderson, for once, was really vexed.
“Engagements are engagements,” she said, in a dry tone not usual with her.
Celia’s face was still flushed. If only she could give Winifred a hint to be more deferential! She was so used to taking the lead at home, thought Celia, she could not help that authoritative manner.
Eric Balderson had watched the breakfast-table drama with slightly cynical interest. It gratified him to see Miss Maryon showing herself to disadvantage. He did not like her. But he loved his mother, and he liked Celia. He did not wish them to be worried. And he was of a kindlier nature than he allowed to himself. So he came to the rescue.
“Can’t you make a compromise?” he said. “Supposing Miss Maryon goes to Lady Campion’s, and you, mother, and Miss Celia Maryon keep to the Nesterton engagement? You might call for Miss Maryon on your way back, which would give Ce – Miss Celia Maryon,” with a slight twinkle of amusement in his eyes at his own involuntary freedom, “a good chance of seeing Miss Norreys too. And,” – with an obtrusively ponderous sigh – “if it would smooth down Cousin Barbara, I certainly haven’t called there for an immense time. I might – there’s no saying to what lengths the spirit of self-sacrifice won’t carry me – I might meet you myself at the Exhibition, and go back to the Nestertons’ with you.”
Mrs Balderson’s face cleared. She hated being vexed with anybody; it was quite against her nature, if not her principles; she was already regretting her cold words to Winifred, and was pleased to find a consistent way out of the difficulty.
“That would be very nice,” she said, heartily. “The Nestertons would be so pleased to have you, Eric, that I daresay they would scarcely regret even Winifred.”
It was hardly in human nature to have refrained from this little hit.
“Exactly,” said Winifred, coolly. “They can’t miss me when they don’t know me. Very likely they will not even notice I am not there.”
Her coolness struck Celia as it had never done before. She would have given worlds to hint to her sister that something in the way of thanks for falling in with her wishes, to both her hostess and her son, would not have been unbecoming. But the suggestion would have been thrown away upon Miss Maryon, who was a striking example of the possibility of not seeing what she did not want to see. A word timidly hazarded by Celia on the subject, when they found themselves alone for a moment a short time afterwards, showed the younger sister that any such effort was better unmade.
The afternoon’s programme was adhered to, Celia setting off with Mrs Balderson to the “rendezvous” at the Exhibition, in apparently great content, for, if she were secretly disappointed at the small chance of her having more than a glimpse of Hertha Norreys, she was too unselfish and too sensible of what was due to her kind old friend to show it.
And at about a quarter to five, Winifred, in happy independence, and blissfully unconscious of having in any way fallen short in consideration of others or deference to their wishes, found herself making her way into Lady Campion’s drawing-room.
Her heart – for she was a girlish creature after all – beat considerably faster than usual: much faster, in all probability, than if she had been about to be introduced to some personage of exalted rank or social position. Her short-sightedness added somewhat also to her unusual embarrassment. For the room was fitfully, rather than dimly, lighted, after the fashion of drawing-rooms of the present day; and Winifred was used to old-fashioned lamps and white-panelled wainscoting, reflecting the clear, generally diffused radiance. And there seemed to her to be a whole crowd of people sitting or standing about, as somewhat awkwardly, only just avoiding a catastrophe of some kind, she threaded her way through the too abundant pretty things on every side to the lady of the house.
She was not annoyed or ashamed of herself, however. She was too much in earnest about meeting Miss Norreys to think about herself. So there was real simplicity in her bearing, though, for once in her life, she looked decidedly timid. And the look added wonderfully to her charm – in some eyes at least.
It is to be doubted if Hertha would ever have “taken to” the girl as she did, but for the gentleness and appeal about her, this first time they met.
For Lady Campion had found time to whisper a word or two to her friend when Miss Maryon’s name was announced.
“This is one of the little country girls —the one,” she said, “who fell so desperately in love with you the other day, as I was telling you. Be nice to her, poor dear, won’t you? Don’t be stuck-up and stand-off.”
For both these dreadful things Miss Norreys could be, said rumour – and rumour sometimes speaks truly, on occasion. But not when she was sorry for any one, not when her large, pitiful heart was touched; then no woman could be sweeter and gentler and less alarming than Hertha.
And her first glance at Winifred made her sorry for her. Lady Campion’s “poor dear” had misled Miss Norreys. She had no idea that the girl was one of the prosperous of the earth, and Winifred was plainly dressed. She was neat, but that was about all. Her morning attire left more to be desired than her evening toilettes, which, though a trifle heavy, perhaps, and on the outside of simplicity, were yet, as I said, of rich material, whereas her country ideas had not risen far as regarded the tailor-made tweeds and black or blue serges which were her usual winter garments.
And the room was imperfectly lighted. All that Miss Norreys saw was a girl of not more than average height and slightly square build, standing with perplexed eyes and an unmistakable air of strangeness, looking about for Lady Campion.
The face was a good one, good in form and pleasant in colouring; the eyes, despite their bewilderment, were clear and sweet; the whole was sweeter than Winifred’s face was wont to be, thanks to the passing touch of wistfulness and perplexity.
In a moment Lady Campion was greeting her, exerting the charm of manner on which she not unjustly prided herself, to make the girl feel at her ease.
And soon Winifred found herself replying, with her usual readiness, to her hostess’s inquiries as to what had become of Mrs Balderson and “your sister.”
“They are coming later,” said Miss Maryon. “They have gone first to the Lace Exhibition, in Street, and then to the Nestertons. It was an old engagement, but Mrs Balderson will certainly call here on her way home.”
“It was very good of you to come,” said Lady Campion. “It would have been too bad if you had all failed us.”
“I was only too delighted,” said Winifred. “I am so glad to see you again, and,” – with a not unbecoming hesitation and rising colour, as she glanced towards where she had, by this time, discovered Hertha – “you know I am so grateful to you for giving me the chance of meeting Miss Norreys. It was so very good of you to remember my wish.”
That Lady Campion was still remembering it she felt doubtful, as other guests came crowding round her, and she showed signs of moving away.
“I must say it right out, or she will forget to introduce me,” thought Winifred, with her customary determination.
But Lady Campion was not quite so flighty and unreliable as she got the credit of being. And she was really good-natured; she rather liked Winifred’s downrightness. With a hand on her arm, she gently drew the girl forward towards the couch where sat Miss Norreys, a not uninterested spectator of the little drama.
“Lady Campion is a kind woman,” she said to herself. For there had been times when she was inclined to judge the lady in question too severely. With all her gifts, Hertha did not possess the capricious power so often found where one could least expect it, so even more frequently absent where one would have made sure of it – of correct, almost unfailing discernment of character. She was often mistaken, and being by nature much more enthusiastic than she allowed to appear, she had often been disappointed. And this had resulted in a certain hardening of her sympathies, which one felt to be perplexing. Sometimes, too, she had found herself obliged to reverse an unfavourable impression – a demand of honesty which brings with it some sting of mortification, interfering with the softening effect of what should be a gratifying discovery.
But hers was a character to mellow as she grew older. And with her a spark of pity was at all times, enough to ensure a glow of kindly interest.
This was what happened just now. She rose from her seat as Lady Campion and Winifred approached, and held out her hand with ready graciousness to the – as she imagined – somewhat shrinking girl, who was feeling herself, no doubt, strange and out of her element.
“It would have been kinder to have asked her by herself – or at least not among quite such a crowd,” she thought.
And to any one knowing Winifred, there would have been something almost amusing in the half-protecting tone with which Miss Norreys at once addressed her. But if love is blind, so is youthful enthusiasm, and Winifred was truly enthusiastic about the young singer. More than this, that any one could by any possibility look upon her as an object of protection or pity had never dawned upon the girl, whose self-confidence and matter-of-fact preoccupation with her own ideas often dulled her perceptions. If she noticed any special warmth in Miss Norreys’ greeting, she put it down, though perhaps scarcely in so many words, to the favourable impression she herself made on her new acquaintance.
“We took to each other from the first moment,” she said to Celia afterwards in describing the meeting.
“Will you come and sit down by me for a little – there is plenty of room on the sofa?” said Hertha, and Winifred delightedly obeyed. “Lady Campion tells me,” she went on, “that this is, practically, almost your first visit to London. I think I envy you.”
“Do you?” said Winifred, not quite sure of her meaning. “I – I really don’t know. We live quite, quite in the country, you see. It is, of course, very interesting to see London for the first time when one is old enough to take it in better, but – ”
“That is what I meant,” interrupted Miss Norreys, pleased at being understood. “I did not mean – at least I was not just then thinking of the other side – the delights of true country life, of ‘quite, quite in the country’ life,” with a little smile.
