Chapter Five.
Misapprehension and Misgiving
Lady Campion’s drawing-room continued to fill – to fill and to empty – for as some went out, others came in. And everywhere and at all moments, Hertha Norreys was surrounded and eagerly greeted.
“It is wonderful how much she is made of,” thought Winifred from her corner. “Not, of course, that she does not deserve it, but I have so often been told that the best people are not the most appreciated by the common herd.”
The expression would scarcely have been deemed appropriate. If there was one thing Lady Campion prided herself on, it was that her “habitués” formed a very uncommon herd indeed. Her lions and lionesses must be well dressed and charming – perfectly well-bred and unexceptionable. And as Winifred heard the names – now and then mentioned to her in passing by her good-natured hostess, or by some of the friends she introduced the girl to, with the excuse that she was “a perfect stranger, never been in London before” – of men and women she had hitherto reverenced from afar, she began to allow to herself that if she had known it was to be so much of a party, she would have dressed better. “Though I never imagined people like ‘so-and-so’ cared about dressing at all,” she added to herself.
The rooms were thinning – indeed they had never been what to more experienced eyes would have seemed very full, when Mrs Balderson – followed by Celia, Eric bringing up the rear – came in.
“What a lovely girl!” said a voice beside Winifred; and turning with quick pleasure, she saw that the speaker was Miss Norreys’s Mr Montague. And close beside him, though Winifred had not been aware of her proximity, stood Hertha herself.
“Yes, indeed,” she replied, warmly. “She is like a beautiful lily.”
Celia was better – at least more becomingly – dressed than her sister, and her taller, more graceful figure showed whatever she wore to advantage.
Mrs Balderson had reviewed her before they went out, and Winifred had taken her usual interest in Celia’s appearance, attiring herself, later in the afternoon, with her customary indifference to everything but neatness.
A flush of gratification rose to her face at the words she overheard, and moving forward so as to approach Hertha a little more nearly, she said in a low voice:
“I am so glad you admire her: she is my sister, my younger sister.”
Miss Norreys turned. For a moment she half doubted if she herself was addressed. In the interest of meetings and talk she had almost forgotten Winifred’s existence. But now the face, looking up at her so brightly and eagerly, attracted her much more than before.
“Your sister, Miss Maryon!” she said, with a sunny smile on her face; “well, I need not repeat what I said, as you heard it. But it is certainly true.”
And she felt drawn to the girl as she had not hitherto done.
“May I, oh, may I introduce her to you?” Winifred went on, and encouraged by Miss Norreys’ “By all means, if you like.”
“Celia, Celia!” she said anxiously – for Celia at that moment was being monopolised by some friends of Mrs Balderson’s – “Celia,” when the girl at last heard her, “do come here. I want to introduce you to Miss Norreys.”
Celia was feeling profoundly shy, and her shyness, as usual, veiled itself by excessive stiffness. The impression she made upon Hertha was not of the most favourable.
“She is very pretty, very pretty,” thought Miss Norreys, “but evidently nothing more, and very spoilt. This poor dear elder sister denies herself, no doubt, to do all she can for her. Their very dress shows it. I must not be prejudiced. I daresay this girl is a noble character. I must be kind to her.”
And it was with increased cordiality she bade Winifred good-bye, having already got her address and promised to write to her.
“Is she not too delightful?” said Winifred, ecstatically, to her sister.
“She has evidently taken a great fancy to you,” replied Celia, evasively. “And that is the thing.” In her heart she felt a touch of disappointment. “Why did Miss Norreys look at me with a kind of disapproval?” she asked herself. “She surely can’t be stuck-up or capricious – she has such a good face.”
“Do you think she will really be able to help us – you?” she went on.
“I am sure of it. I had not time to tell her about you, Celia, but you see once I get an independent footing it will be all right for you. I managed to tell her a good deal. I am certain she sympathises with the position, the longing for emancipation – oh, yes, I feel that I have got my foot on the first rung of the ladder,” she concluded, enthusiastically.
Some days passed, nevertheless, without any more of the ladder appearing through the haze. Miss Norreys made no sign. The days passed pleasantly, however, so pleasantly that Winifred sometimes felt half guilty for enjoying them and making no further effort towards the realisation of those schemes for the future which had been the underlying “but” of her own and, indeed, of Celia’s visit to London. It was difficult to do anything, or to know what to do. Mrs Balderson, in her innocence of these girls having any thoughts or aspirations other than those she remembered in her own girlhood, exhausted herself in the endeavour to make them enjoy themselves, to “have a good time,” and she succeeded. They had never had a better – never, indeed, half so good!
They were scarcely free, however, to do anything but what was planned for them. Morning, noon, and night for the first two weeks of their stay, engagements of all kinds were the order of the day. Shoppings, exhibitions, concerts, plays, afternoon teas, occasional dinner-parties at home, or, more rarely, an invitation for one girl to accompany her host and hostess to dine elsewhere, one or two very mild winter dances even – what, in the old and less sophisticated days, would have been called “carpet-dances” – all these things followed each other in such quick rotation as to make life in London, even in November, seem to these country girls a sort of kaleidoscope.
“I suppose we are learning a good deal, even unconsciously. I suppose it is all a sort of experience it is well to go through,” said Winifred, dubiously. “But it is not what I expected. I see what it is, Celia; I shall have to come up again on my own account, really, to go into things and arrange something. Father and mother cannot object now that I have got friends here, and some one to advise me.”
“Do you mean Miss Norreys?” said Celia.
“Yes – and – I should not be very surprised if Lady Campion asked me to stay with her, do you know? She was quite interested the other day when I said a little to her – just a very little – of my wish to do something. She seemed quite struck by it, and said she would like to talk more about it.”
“Are you sure she understood what you mean? She may have thought you would like to help in her Decoration Guilds, or Shakespeare Recitals, or some of those things she has so many of,” said Celia. “There are heaps of those half-play, half-work things for girls who don’t need to work really, you know.”
Celia had guessed rightly. Lady Campion, though she had inadvertently conveyed to Miss Norreys a wrong impression of Miss Maryon’s position, had no thought of suggesting to the girl any work of the kind Winifred had set before herself.
Her face clouded over a little at Celia’s words.
“But I don’t want to be thought that sort of girl,” she said. “I don’t want to be thought rich, and I am not rich. I am dependent on papa. Besides, if I were – if I had been a son, I should not have been debarred from a profession because I was the heir to ‘White Turrets’ and Busheyreeds, and all the property. Why should a woman be treated differently in such a case? Why should her wings be clipped and she be restricted to a narrow, monotonous life any more than a man?”
Celia scented danger. She saw that Winifred was lashing herself up to one of her “revolts,” as she called them herself sometimes, and she knew that any, even the slightest suspicion of less full sympathy than she had hitherto been able to give would be sharply resented. Yet she was too honest to evade the possible discordance, painful though the smallest disagreement with her sister would be to her. For a moment or two she sat silent. Then she said boldly:
“I am not sure of that ground, Winifred. I have been seeing things a little differently lately. If you had been a son – placed as you are – I doubt if it would have been thought right for you to have a profession – outside work, so to say – when there is so much to do at home.”
“What nonsense!” said Winifred. “Do you mean to say that because a man had property to look after he would be debarred from cultivating his special gifts? Why, some, perhaps not many, but some of our greatest men – artists as well as statesmen and writers – have been rich men, men of property. No, it is only women who are always hedged-in with one excuse or another.”
“But you haven’t any special gifts,” said Celia, “at least you always say so. Your wish is to be of use, and – to be independent;” and in her heart she felt the latter should have been placed first. “You can’t be a statesman, and I don’t think even you would regret that for a woman. But you can be of any amount of use at home. And you could study all sorts of things about the management of property that would help you to be still more so.”
She felt half-frightened at her own daring, and her fears were not without foundation. Winifred stared at her, not quite sure if she were going to let herself get angry or not.
“What has come over you, Celia?” she said at last. “You are worse than Louise. Who has been talking to you and putting all these ideas into your head? Do you apply them to yourself too? What about your longing to paint – to have really good instruction?”
“I still long for it,” said Celia, “and I think I still believe it would be right for me to have it. I think I should test myself so as to find out if, I have a gift, a decided gift. For if so, I should cultivate it. In my case no definite responsibilities are before me in life, as is the case with you, yet – ”
“Rubbish!” said Winifred, crossly. “There are just as many before you and Louise as before me. I shall never marry, and you and she will be just as much concerned in the management of things some day as I.”
“Perhaps,” said Celia, “but not just yet, in any case. And yet – as I was going to say – I don’t quite see at present what is right for me to do. If there are many difficulties in the way, if it would cause unhappiness at home, perhaps it would be my duty to wait – to wait even for the testing myself,” and she sighed. “I don’t want to leave home for the sake of leaving home, but I do want to know if I am deceiving myself in thinking I have a gift. And father and mother are so kind and reasonable. I don’t think I need give up the idea.”
“You are very selfish, dreadfully selfish, though perhaps you don’t know it,” said Winifred. “You would make out that what you want is right just because you want it. But I, many years older than you, who have thought over these questions for the last ten years – ”
“You are not many years older than I, and ten years ago you were ever so much younger than I am now. You were a child,” interrupted Celia.
” – Who have thought about these questions ever since I could think at all,” Winifred resumed calmly – for, to do her justice, she was by no means bad-tempered, and seldom lost her self-control – “am to give up my deepest and most cherished hopes, because – no, I really can’t say why! Because I want to leave the beaten track, I suppose.”
“You won’t see things any other way,” said Celia, “so it’s no use talking about it. Perhaps it may be best for you to try the experiment, though in a different way from me. Anyway, don’t let us quarrel about it, whatever we do, dearest Winifred. Of course your coming to live in London would make it all infinitely nicer for me, if,” and a troubled expression crossed her face, “if it is really right for us both to leave home.”
“There is Louise at home. She asks nothing better than to jog-trot along for ever in the same monotonous way. She is an anachronism. She would have been perfectly happy a hundred years ago, or even longer ago than that, when it never occurred to any one that a woman could want anything more exciting than her spinning-wheel and her tapestry-frame.”
“Or her napery press and pot-pourri jars,” added Celia, with a smile. “Well, after all, there is to me a wonderful charm about those days; there must have been a great deal of tenderness and delicacy about a lady’s life, which get rubbed off nowadays. And there is a good deal of sense in what Louise says. Monotony is not the worst evil. Why, lots of married women have monotonous lives.”
“If they have, it has been of their own choice,” said Winifred. “What I complain of is the being condemned to narrowness and dullness if you don’t marry. Short of marriage, a girl is allowed no other possibility of outlet.”
“But,” protested Celia, “though that may be the case for some, or many even, when there are duties that you are born into, surely it is different? And even beyond that – is it not possible that what you call dull, narrow lives, filled with stupid little odds and ends of usefulness, that don’t seem usefulness at all, may be the very discipline needed by some – may be meant for them?”
“Oh,” said Winifred impatiently, “if you are going off to the very highest grounds of all, I suppose the being an old maid in an attic may be the best discipline for old maids in attics, but it is the system of narrowing down women’s lives that is wrong. And if in their girlhood some of the old maids had rebelled, and insisted on taking their stand as men do, things would have been better by now. There must be individual resistance. Think what Hertha Norreys’s life would have been if she had simply accepted things!”
“Ah, but it was different for her. She had a great talent, and she needed to work,” said Celia. “In a case like hers there could be no doubt. I really don’t pity girls who need to work so much as others in some ways. Not the rich – they can always, if they wish, find ways of being useful: the very conditions of their lives bring opportunities. But girls whose lives are very uninteresting, and yet not poor exactly, I pity them– girls who even can scarcely afford to get books to read.”
“They should throw nonsensical dignity to the winds, and work,” said Winifred.
“Yes, I think so too,” said Celia.
She had been thinking a great deal lately – more really and thoroughly and dispassionately than ever before in her life. She was coming to realise that, even to questions of apparently purely personal interest, there may be – there is – more than one side. And the starting-point of all these meditations had been the half-unconscious remarks of Eric Balderson the day he sat beside her at dinner and endeavoured to make amends for Mr Fancourt’s neglect.
The mention of Miss Norreys made Winifred determine to remain inactive no longer.
“I must write to her,” she decided. “I must beg her to let me see her once before I leave. We shall certainly not stay more than a week longer,” – their original three weeks had already expired – “and I must have some plan for the future before I go home, otherwise I shall really feel that the golden opportunity of this visit has been wasted. I must arrange something about where to stay when I come up again, to go into things more definitely. There is no chance now of Lady Campion’s asking me, unluckily.”
For Sir Hugh Campion had had a return of bronchitis, and was ordered abroad for the winter, his wife, of course, accompanying him. This had happened so suddenly that Lady Campion and Hertha had not met since the afternoon of Winifred’s introduction to the latter. No opportunity, therefore, had arisen of rectifying the mistaken impression Lady Campion had unintentionally conveyed to her friend of Miss Maryon’s position and circumstances.
And all these days the remembrance of the eager, bright-eyed girl, who had so abruptly appealed to her for advice and assistance, had clung to Hertha with almost annoying pertinacity. Winifred – though she did not think of her by that name, never having heard it – would be expecting to hear from her, she felt sure. Yet what could she say? She herself had heard nothing more from Mr Montague; there was no use in making appointments, or inviting the girl to come to see her, when she had absolutely nothing to tell her. And an appointment, or a “told-off” afternoon, in Hertha’s busy life, meant a great deal more than some people would find it easy to believe.
But, as often happens, the very first post after Winifred had despatched her own note to Miss Norreys, brought a letter to herself from Hertha – a letter that filled her with excitement and sanguine anticipations. It ran:
“Dear Miss Maryon – I have not forgotten your wish and my promise that we should meet again. But I have waited a few days in hopes of having something to tell you of which might make it more worth your while to come to see me. And to my great pleasure these hopes are to some extent fulfilled. By a lucky chance, just after you had spoken to me, I came across the very person the most able to help in such a case. Through his kindness, I have a proposal to make to you. I will tell you all particulars if you will call here to-morrow, Friday, at half-past four in the afternoon, when I shall be disengaged for a short time. The whole thing seems really a piece of good luck, for, as I told you, I have neither experience of, nor influence in, any line of life but my own. – Yours very truly, —
“Hertha Benedict Norreys.”
Winifred’s eyes gleamed. But she kept her delight to herself, merely dashing off a word of rapturous gratitude to her new friend, and eager acceptance of her invitation. She said nothing to either her sister or Mrs Balderson beyond announcing the fact that “to-morrow afternoon” she had an engagement which would prevent her going out with them.
Mrs Balderson was annoyed. She felt, with justice, that, having given herself so much trouble for her young guests, and to a great extent disorganised her usual arrangements in their behalf, she should at least have been consulted as to any independent engagements they wished to make.
“I do not understand Winifred,” she said to her son. “Her manners, at least her ways, are certainly rather like those of an advanced or ‘emancipated’ young woman of the day. Yet surely it is impossible that she can have got hold of any of those ideas in that quiet, sheltered, almost old-fashioned country life of theirs. And her mother is such a perfect model of good breeding.”
Eric shrugged his shoulders.
“Quien sabe,” he said. “Ideas are in the air, I suppose. You never can tell where they will crop up. Why, even Celia has her theories – only she is very different from her sister, both in character and temperament. But I wouldn’t worry about Winifred, my dear mother. You have been more than good to them both, and they know it – at any rate, Celia does – and they will be leaving very soon.”
“Yes, I shall be sorry for Celia to go. She is very sweet. But I could not take the responsibility of Winifred for long. As I said, I do not understand her. Don’t be afraid, however, of my making any fuss. I would not on any account spoil the last few days of their visit by beginning to find fault.”
So Winifred set off, uninterfered with, to call on Miss Norreys, while Celia accompanied Mrs Balderson to the large annual meeting of a charitable society, in which the kind-hearted and liberal woman was much interested.
Celia was interested too. She had the happy power of throwing herself very thoroughly into the surroundings of the moment, and her mind in the last two or three weeks had begun to open in several new directions.
But all through the speeches and reports which followed each other in rapid succession, and which she would have liked to listen to with an un-preoccupied mind, there kept rising the half-uneasy thought: “I wonder where Winifred has gone, and why she did not tell me all about it. Can it be on account of what I said the other day? I hope she won’t do anything rash.”
For some things, Celia felt she would not be sorry to be home again – “with mother and Louise” – yet the sense of disappointment that she had made no way towards the realisation of her own ardent wish was keen to her. And Winifred did not seem to sympathise in this as she used to do.
“She called me selfish,” thought Celia, “because I said that perhaps – perhaps it might be different for her and me. I wonder why we don’t seem quite as much at one as when we were at home.”