Читать книгу The Career of Claudia - Frances Mary Peard - Страница 4

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She was, it must be owned, rather surprised that no one had come to meet her at the station. Certainly she had assured them in her last letter that it was unnecessary, and that she could manage very well by herself; but, in spite of assurances, she had hardly expected to be taken at her word, and when the train stopped, looked questioningly up and down the platform for the faces of her cousins. No one, however, whom she had ever seen before, presented herself, and Claudia found that she was thrust upon her own resources. They were fully equal to the strain, the arrival offered no difficulty and required no assistance; it was merely that she had pictured its causing some thrill of excitement in her new home, since it is not every day that a young cousin, so much in advance of the world, as she could not help believing herself to be, comes to live with three elderly, and, therefore, from sheer necessity of circumstance, commonplace sisters. Put into words the thought smacks of conceit, but nothing would have shocked Claudia more than to have seen it in words: it was not even sufficiently formed to deserve to be called a thought, and was, rather, a vague impression, a shadowy groundwork for the surprise.

Still, it existed sufficiently to impel her to look out of the window of the fly, after having assured herself that her bicycle was safe, and to wonder whether, even yet, some unpunctual feminine figure might not be seen hurrying along the street, all excuses and welcome. She looked also critically at the rows of houses on either side, such as are common enough in every country town, and at the grey towers of the cathedral rising beyond the roofs. Roads branched away, she passed a church, defiant in the ugliness of some sixty years ago, the rows of houses changed to lower walls with tall trees feathering over them, and at last the fly turned at an iron gate, and drove towards a white house, with a door set squarely on the western side, and a blaze of colour about it which Claudia dismissed with contempt as “bedding-out stuff.” It was likely, she felt, that the door would be hospitably open, and an expectant flutter of draperies prove that she was eagerly watched for; when nothing of the sort was visible, Claudia philosophically withdrew her head, convinced that urgent engagements stood in the way of her cousins’ welcome, and, although still surprised, she was not in the least affronted.

The few moments which remained she spent in a flying wonder as to what her future life would be like, if wonder is not too strong a word, for to herself she had pictured it as clearly as she ever pictured anything, being a young woman who held that definite outlines savoured of Philistinism, and that in order to receive impressions truthfully, the mind should be in the condition of blotting-paper. She wished to begin her new life in this recipient state, and she piqued herself upon her powers of adaptation, which, to say the truth, had not as yet been much exercised. Possibly it was to prove their strength that she had chosen to run counter to the prognostications of the world—her world—and when her mother died, and a dozen relations opened their doors to receive her, at the end of a year which she spent at a college, preferred to write to the three sisters who had made no sign, and ask them to admit her into their home—for the present. She was careful to make that reservation.

Claudia took this step from choice, not from disgust, feeling nothing but kindliness in the opening of the dozen doors, to her and her fortune. She flattered herself that she was a cynic, but her nature was really frankly unsuspicious, and, finding no difficulty in believing that her society might add a pleasantness to life, it did not surprise her that her relations should wish to enjoy it. But something—it is difficult to say what—drew her imagination to fasten upon the prosaic aspect of the three cousins, living in a remote county, near a quiet cathedral city. She had reasons for the step which she considered sufficient, but perhaps it was the very prose of the situation which chiefly attracted her, for she loved poetry so passionately that she would be certain to do prosaic things.

The fly stopped, and the bell was rung, without a head appearing at either window, and though the maid who opened the door looked agreeably expectant, it appeared that neither of the Miss Cartwrights was at home. Miss Philippa, however, had left a message that if she were not in she hoped to be back very shortly, and Miss Hamilton must have tea without waiting.

Claudia accordingly went through the hall into the drawing-room, smiling, but a little disappointed that the house in which she found herself was not more like what she had expected, a home in which she might have worked a beneficent revolution. There was a good-sized, if rather dark, hall, hung with fine prints, and the drawing-room was almost too bright and cheerful. Flowers, books, and china, she might have expected, but there was grouping on which her eye fell with some surprise. She reflected with a sigh for which she might have found it difficult to account, that fashion now penetrated everywhere. Then she sat down in an extremely easy-chair, took off her hat, took up a book, and waited.

Seen thus, Claudia’s beauty was more striking than when the hat hid a small dark head, and to some extent shadowed eyes which were at once sweet and eager. Her nose was rather piquante than classical, and her cheek had a charming dimpled roundness. Her figure was both small and slight, and her clothes fitted admirably. Altogether, when Philippa Cartwright came hurriedly in, her eyes fell upon a pretty picture of a young girl lying in a deep chair, her dark hair flung into strong relief by the red silk cushion in which it was buried, and on which slanted the rays of an afternoon sun.

“My dear Claudia,” she exclaimed, “how inhospitable you must think us! And why didn’t you have your tea? I told Jane to insist upon it. Anne and Emily are in the town with Harry Hilton, and I intended to have been at home long ago. I might have known better. But you shall have tea at once. Here it comes, and plenty of scones, I hope. Sugar?”

“Please. But let me pour it out,” said the girl, pleasantly. “I dare say you are much more tired than I am.”

Miss Philippa laughed.

“I? Oh, I am never tired,” she said. “I haven’t the time. Let me see, Claudia, I quite forget if you know our country?”

“Not at all. And I thought it lovely as I came along, though one couldn’t say much for the farming.” Her voice changed, and she said more shyly, “It is very good of you to have me in this way.”

“Well, it is simply an experiment on either side,” returned her cousin, giving her a comprehensive look. “We don’t in the least know whether you will be able to do with us, and of course it will take you a little time to discover, so that no one is to feel at all bound in the matter. That is my one stipulation. And we have agreed that from the very beginning—unless you dislike it—you are not to be treated as a visitor, but as if you lived here, and had all the independence of home. I began, you see, by coming back too late to receive you,” added Miss Philippa, with twinkling eyes. “Otherwise it doesn’t seem to me as if you could judge fairly whether you like the position or not. What do you think about it?”

Claudia was looking straight at her and evidently considering.

“Yes,” she said, with a little nod, “I agree with you. There is a good deal I have to explain, but that can wait. Yes. That will leave us freedom on both sides, for I warn you, you are very likely to disapprove of me. I hardly liked to use the word experiment, but I should have had to get at it somehow. You see, my sympathies are very much with what I suppose you call the new woman.”

“When you’re my age, my dear,” said Philippa, bluntly, “you will have discovered that there’s nothing new under the sun. However, you can be as new as you like here, and you will charm Emily—so long as you don’t consider it a part of your mission to call for brandies and sodas. She is a blue-ribboner, and so is Jane, the parlourmaid.”

Claudia detected ridicule, and flushed.

“I think teetotalers are extraordinarily ill-balanced, though I respect them,” she returned stiffly.

“Yes, please respect them,” said Philippa, with a laugh. “Now, will you come to your room?”

Claudia got up and went to the window.

She turned with easier excitement.

“A river! Is that really a river? Oh, delightful!”

“Yes, we can provide you with that, and it is a very tidy river for fish, I believe—at least Harry Hilton says so,” said her cousin, following her. “He will be able to tell you more about it.”

“Oh, I don’t care about fishing,” the girl said hastily. “I was thinking of its capabilities, and how splendidly one can utilise them.”

“Its capabilities?” repeated Philippa, puzzled. “Well, whatever they are, your window commands them, for we have given you the south room on account of the view, otherwise there is a larger one to the west. But come and see for yourself, for if you prefer the other, it is quite easy to change. Jane will help you to unpack.”

“No, thank you,”—Claudia spoke firmly—“I like to do everything for myself.”

“Well, you know best, only don’t crowd your experiments. Here is your room,” went on Miss Cartwright, opening a door at the end of a passage; “your room, that is, unless you like the other better. I hope they have brought up all your things. Dinner is at seven, because Emily has a meeting to-night. You will have to accommodate yourself to meetings. By the way, Harry Hilton is staying with us, and he says he once met you at the Grants’.”

“I dare say,” returned Claudia, indifferently. “I don’t remember.”

“Well, he is a cousin on the other side of the house, one of the Hiltons of Thornbury, you know—or perhaps you don’t know—and is here a good deal—on and off. Now I will leave you in peace.”

She was gone, and Claudia, barely glancing at her pretty room, sat down on the window-seat, and stared enthusiastically at the strip of silver light which marked the course of the river.

It gave a charm and variety which would otherwise have been wanting, for though the country round was fertile and smiling, it had neither breadth nor distinctive features. At one point, indeed, there was a tantalising peep of vanishing blue hills, but the foliage of the elms was heavy, and the trees themselves stiff with the cutting which deprived them of their lower branches. After a long silent gaze, Claudia broke out into an exclamation—

“Oh, how one could improve it!” she cried, leaning forward, and eagerly tracing lines and curves in the air with a sweeping finger. “What opportunities they have thrown away! To raise the ground there by a long beautiful slope of grass, to plant out those hideous chimneys, and cut, cut, cut! They will—they must—let me do it, and then one could get the most splendid effects of light out of the water. Emily and her meetings and her blue ribbons may be an infliction, but I could bear almost anything for the sake of having a river to study.”

She jumped up eagerly, unlocked a bag, and took out a book full of blank pages, in which she was presently alternately writing and drawing, not pausing so much as to look at the garden below when she heard voices beneath her window.

Meanwhile Philippa Cartwright ran downstairs to a small morning-room where she wrote notes with vigour until her sister, Anne, the eldest of the three, a woman rather heavily built, and with a kindly sympathetic face, looked in upon her.

“Is Claudia come?”

“Yes—and—unfortunately—I—was—not—home—in time,” said Philippa, speaking more slowly as she wrote more hastily. “There!” She folded and flattened the note, addressed it, and began another. “Where’s Harry?”

“Matthews has got hold of him about the vines. Can’t I help you?”

“Bless you, my dear Anne, haven’t you yet learned to keep in your own sphere? Notes belong to mine. By the way, talking of spheres, I think you may as well enlarge yours and take in Claudia.”

“Why? Isn’t she nice?”

“Very! Charming! And I don’t deserve that speech when I am presenting her to you just because I think she will be such an effective charge. See if she doesn’t distinguish our house!”

Anne shook her head gravely. “You don’t like her.”

“I do, I do, I do! Don’t you know me well enough to see that I am at this moment dying of jealousy? It is such a splendid thing to be young, as one only finds out too late. Her dark eyes are so pretty, and her figure is so pretty, and her frock fits so well! One oughtn’t to have such contrasts forced upon one if one is expected to keep amiable. Why, up to to-day, I had fancied that because Emily had so few grey hairs, she was quite a young thing! It is all very well to pretend to be philosophical. I say straight out that I hate growing old.”

“Is that all you have against Claudia?” asked Anne, smiling.

“Oh, it’s enough! It means that you will lose your heart to her, and so will Harry.”

“Harry?”

“Yes. I am not sure he did not do so a little the first time that he met her. Well—he must take his chance. You and his mother are always fussing about his marrying, and here’s his opportunity. I don’t know that even you can wish for anything better. An extremely good-looking girl, and a pretty fortune.” Philippa began to laugh.

“What is it?”

“Only something she told me. Never mind. She will tell you all without loss of time.”

“Well, as to Harry, I give my consent—if you do; for, in spite of jeers, you will be quite as particular as I. I wonder whether there is really any chance of his taking a fancy?” questioned the elder sister, with a touch of wistfulness behind her words to which Philippa at once became responsive.

“He is a very good fellow, bless him!” she declared heartily, “a very good fellow indeed, even if he has a few more faults than you and Minnie will admit, and I must see a great deal more of Miss Claudia before I give my consent—which has so much to do with the matter!” she added, falling back on her usual manner.

“Harry thinks a great deal of your judgment.”

“That’s an appreciation apt to be tucked on one side in the great affairs of life. Still, I’m very much obliged to Harry for the compliment, and it will certainly make me careful to avoid rash counsels.”

Claudia came down to dinner in excellent time. Her black dress was well cut, and set off the small dark head, and the eager eyes; if she were at all shy, she did not show it, and she kissed her cousins and shook hands with Mr Hilton without a trace of the new manners for which Philippa was amusedly watching.

“I remember you now,” she said to Harry; “at least I think it was you who told me about a fox-terrier?”

“I have her here,” said Harry, flushing with pleasure.

He was a young man with, as she decided at once, an excellent face, although both in face and figure there was a wasteful inclination to breadth. The eyes were grey and honest, however, and would have redeemed worse faults. He laughed readily and happily, and Claudia reflected further that if he were never likely to set the Thames on fire, he was certain to be a popular man in his own neighbourhood. He did not interest her, but inwardly she gave him a half-contemptuous credit for a dozen safe and good qualities, which she reflected were probably allowed to run idly to seed. Claudia was in the first ferment of life, in which she required that every one’s work should be spread before them, parcelled out as distinctly as any allotment ground.

Yet her cousin Emily, the youngest of the three sisters, whose views ran in the same direction if in a different groove, roused in her an immediate antagonism. Emily was the useful woman of the town; secretary to two or three societies, warden, committee woman, what not! To her turned the thoughts of all the clergy when a new work had to be started, or an old one revived. She knew exactly how many pounds of butter and pots of jam were necessary for a parish tea; she slaved at school-treats, and did the work of two curates in her district. Claudia, whose schemes swept to the regeneration of mankind, and a general equalisation of things in the world, was partly contemptuous of, and partly irritated by Emily’s absorption in what she regarded as miserable make-shifts, unworthy of the consideration of any one who had passed a course in political economy, and whose papers had been favourably annotated by the examiner.

She spent her evening in garnering observations, telling herself that she was naturally curious about her new surroundings; what, however, continued to surprise her most, was that she herself appeared to excite less interest. Her cousins, Anne especially, accepted her with kindly goodwill, but when Philippa had said that from the first she was to be treated as one of the family, it was evident that she was not using a figure of speech. No one was in the least overwhelmed by her arrival, nor did it cause any divergence in the currents of interest which flowed strongly. Claudia listened, wondering whether under any circumstances of life could she be carried along by such currents; she hoped that would never be expected of her, but meanwhile could not doubt that expectations of some sort existed, and began to have an unacknowledged desire to say something which should astonish her hostesses. She had no such wish as to Harry Hilton, perhaps instinctively aware that she could impress him by simpler means, and she talked chiefly to him, suiting her remarks to his capacity, while listening as attentively as she could to the remarks which dropped from the others.

“Well, Emily,” Philippa was saying, “I warn you that if you’re going to trust to Mr Helmore’s eloquence, your meeting will be a dismal failure. He’s a stick. You had better get some one sent down from head-quarters, even if it does increase the expenses.”

“I really must try to avoid that,” said her sister, nervously; “and I assure you I haven’t come to the end of my resources yet.”

“You’re a wonderful woman.”

“Here’s Harry,” put in Anne. “Harry has done nothing for a long while.”

“They know my jests by heart. No, no: here is Miss Hamilton.”

“To make a speech?” asked Claudia, smiling.

She was careful to express no surprise, for, so far as she knew, there was no possible reason why she should not make a speech. But Harry was evidently of another opinion.

“Good gracious, no!” he protested. “Only to help in the entertainment.”

“Don’t ask her,” interrupted Philippa. “She’s a Radical.”

“Of course,” said Claudia, calmly; “and a Socialist. I don’t see how one can be anything else—that is to say, any one who takes the least interest in his fellow-creatures.”

She was a little disappointed at the effect upon her listeners. Harry, it is true, became rather redder, and Emily uttered a protesting “Oh!” but Philippa and Anne showed no signs of having received a shock.

They were smiling. It was Harry who hastened to say—

“Oh, you’ll be converted. You’ve come to the right house.”

“I don’t think I ever converted any one in my life except old Pentecost, who you all vow is half-witted,” said Philippa, shaking her head. “In these days no one is converted. He or she grows up with an idea, and takes in the newspaper which supports it. But I am rather glad about Claudia, and I think she shall make a speech after all.”

“Just as you like,” said Claudia, easily.

“Do you speak yourself?”

“Oh no; I have never been young enough.”

“Debating clubs do that for one, at any rate,” went on the girl, unheeding. “They take away all fear of one’s own voice. But I haven’t gone in for them much, because, of course, that sort of thing is not required in my profession.”

This time she was more successful in moving her audience. Emily said eagerly—“Your profession? Oh, Claudia, this is very interesting! What is it?”

“I am a landscape gardener. Didn’t you know that I had been studying at the college?”

“Yes, but we thought—well, we did not realise that you were actually working there.” She assured them that this had been the case, keenly enjoying their surprise. Philippa, however, asked at once—

“Well, but the result, the outcome? Shall you practice?”

“Certainly.”

“And take pay?”

“If I did not, I should have no right to enter the market at all. I go into the ranks, to be treated exactly like the others.”

“Only what is play to you is living to them,” remarked Philippa. “You can never place yourself on the same footing. However, as Emily says, this is interesting. Had you a particular fondness for gardening?” Claudia could not say that she had. “But one had to choose something. I could not have been idle. I did think of shop-dressing.”

“Shop-dressing?”

“Yes; a girl I know has taken to that. She starts very early every morning in order to arrange the things in certain shop-windows. It is pleasant work enough, and she gets three hundred a year. But it is rather a bore having to go out at such an unearthly hour, and on the whole I thought landscape gardening preferable.”

“But what is it? How do you do it?” asked Anne, leaning forward and smiling. She was the softest of the sisters, large and fair.

“I lay out gardens for people,” said Claudia. She scented ridicule, and was determined to speak simply.

“Gardens? Gardens on a great scale, I suppose?” put in Philippa. “A landscape means something vast.”

“Oh, not necessarily. Of course one might have to rearrange a park; but your garden, for instance, is a delightful size. And now you know why your river enchanted me. I always wanted to try my hand upon a river.”

“Did I not tell you she was a Radical?” asked Philippa, addressing the others. “Imagine our good, respectable, steady-going river turned out of his centuries-old groove! No, Claudia, we are not going to deliver him up to your tender mercies, and could not if we would. A river—a real river—is a more important personage than you conceive; not to be trifled with even so much as the government of a country.”

“That is what I say,” returned Claudia, smiling. “England is so full of absurd restrictions that, do what you will, you run your head against them.”

“You will have to try the colonies,” said Anne.

“Or a thousand miles or so of prairies.”

Claudia coloured. She had an uncomfortable conviction that her cousin Philippa was mocking.

“It is opportunity I want—not size,” she said with dignity, and as she spoke she looked at Harry, who had been listening to the conversation in amazement—mute, except for an occasional muttered “By Jove!” But to her look he answered at once.

“Of course,” he said boldly. “There must be dozens of people who want their places set to rights. Would Thornbury do to begin with? If you would come to Thornbury, you could have a free hand, and lots of flowers to do anything with.”

Claudia turned her face towards him with a sigh.

“I am not a florist, and I know nothing whatever about flowers, because they don’t in the least enter into my scheme. But as to grouping and re-arranging trees, if I can be of any use I shall be happy to do all I can.”

“The Thornbury trees!” murmured Philippa.

“And transplanting is so easily managed now,” the girl went on, “that really I can’t conceive why people are not more enterprising in trying new effects. If you think of it, how should the planting at haphazard which went on everywhere, produce the best combinations? Whereas, bring art to bear, and the whole falls into a beautiful unity.”

He agreed enthusiastically.

“Exactly. I never thought of it before, but now you speak of it, it does seem extraordinary that we should leave so much to chance, I believe ours may be very much improved.”

Philippa, with an amused twinkle in her eyes, inquired whether Claudia had found an opportunity of trying her powers.

“At the college, of course. But I am hoping for larger work,” said Claudia, eagerly. “It is like everything else, one has to begin in a small way, and get known by degrees.”

And, as she spoke, vague shadows floated before Harry Hilton’s eyes. He saw a girl’s light figure flitting along the grassy rides at Thornbury, transformations, golden sunshine everywhere. The evening was touched to him with a strange strong delight which marked it out from all the other evenings he had ever known.

Claudia herself awoke to enthusiasm and plans. From her window she saw food for both in a stretch of fair wooded country lying in a morning haze, with the silver arrow of the river flashing through the green. Her thoughts immediately busied themselves with planting, thinning, and grouping, and Harry Hilton’s cheerful whistle to his dog under her window only suggested a hope that he would carry out his proposal of getting her a free hand at Thornbury. She resolved to talk to her cousins that day, and explain fully how she was desirous of making their house her head-quarters, holding herself absolutely at liberty to go and come as her calling required. She expected argument and disapproval, since it was unlikely that three sisters living on the outskirts of a provincial town, should have sufficiently caught the spirit of the age, and the new development of woman, not to detect strong objections in any career which offered independence to a girl of her age. But against argument she felt herself duly fortified, even thirsted for it as a young soldier might thirst for the first brush of battle. She was the least little bit in the world therefore disappointed that her announcement of the evening before had not shocked them into stiffer protest, but she told herself that they had not been alone, and that the struggle would be in private.

“You see, Philippa,” she found herself saying with eagerness, when after several vain attempts to capture her cousin, she had run her to the earth in the small morning-room which was called the den, “I should be simply wretched if I had nothing to do, and in these days everything is over-stocked. I dare say you feel that it would be more useful to undertake something in the philanthropic line, but I haven’t the least inclination for that sort of thing—I should hate to go about collecting rents from poor creatures who can’t pay, and oughtn’t to be made to; or dragging girls into clubs. I couldn’t, indeed!”

“My dear,” said Philippa, “please don’t set me up as an imaginary nine-pin in order to knock me down flat. I assure you you will discover I haven’t nearly so many opinions as you have, for as I grow older, I find a privilege of age consists in putting away pre-conceived notions, and possessing one’s self of a receptive mind.”

Claudia glanced quickly at her.

“Most people,” murmured the girl, “rather object.”

“We shan’t try you in that way. So long as we ourselves are not improved upon by force, nobody here will interfere with your improving other people. And really I thought Harry’s a handsome offer last night.”

“Oh,” said Claudia, carelessly, “it didn’t come from conviction. He thought I was a girl and not bad-looking, and that I didn’t mean actual business.”

Miss Cartwright smiled behind a newspaper; but Claudia’s tone was quite frank and free from self-consciousness.

“He’s not very brilliant, is he?” she went on. “You like him, I can see, and I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but of course his must be a terribly deteriorating sort of life. Imagine a man caring to knock about with no particular object! I don’t myself understand how any man could stand such an existence, or woman either. Of course that is now getting to be recognised, only we unfortunate women, having been in the groove for centuries, find it hard to emancipate ourselves; while men have had all the advantages of action and movement, so that, luckily for them, a dilly-dallying life strikes lookers-on as a failure, and public opinion forces them into some sort of exertion. That’s the secret of their success, and it is horribly unfair upon women, but it’s going to be different now!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Philippa groaned.

“If that means we are to have more than ever to do, what will become of us?”

“Oh, this will be work worth the doing!” cried Claudia.

“I see. Well, my dear, do it. As I said before, no one here will say you nay, provided their own liberties are guaranteed to them. Do you begin at once, or is this to be an off day?”

“I am going on the bicycle to try a new brake, and then I may draw out some plans in the garden.”

“You will find a comfortable seat under the great beech.”

And there, some hour later, Philippa, having finished her accounts and written letters, beheld Claudia established, surrounded by fluttering papers and pencil sketches, which Harry Hilton carefully guarded from the wind. Miss Cartwright, to tell the truth, was not best pleased at the sight. She bit her lip, and rubbed her left ear.

“Now, is she good enough for him, or is she going to make ducks and drakes of the honestest heart in the county? Which, I wonder? And what an old fool I am to suppose that anything I can do will affect either of them! No, my dear Harry, you must manage for yourself, and if Miss Claudia despises you, you will have to put up with it. She is a great deal too narrow-minded at present to fall in love, and, bless her, with all that fine sweeping scorn of grooves, how little she understands what a broad outlook means! Well, well, it’s natural enough, and I am sure the rising generation is delightfully in earnest in views and reforms; only, when it sets to work to reform one’s self, human nature is disposed to be nasty. You will be a wiser woman, Philippa Cartwright, if you step on one side, and accept the position. Is that you, Anne? You have come just in time to assist in an act of abdication.”

“Who is ironic to abdicate?”

“I. From to-day I take a back seat.”

“Claudia again, I suppose?” said her sister, with a laugh. “My dear Philippa, you will not stay there long. Now, I am deeply interested in Claudia.”

“Oh, so am I, and so is Harry. Look under the big beech and see for yourself.” Anne looked, and was silent.

“Well?”

“Well,”—slowly—“I suppose the old story is too strong for the new woman.”

“Of course it is—mercifully,” retorted Philippa with impatience, “and, if it comes to that, I say nothing; but my impression is that the new woman by no means shuts out love of admiration, though she calls it by another name, and I don’t want Harry to be its victim.”

“Oh, she will get over that sort of thing. She is very young.”

“There is just one tiresome point in your character, Anne. You can never hear a person found fault with but you must stand up for him or her. Consequence. Sinners like myself can’t rest till we have proved our case. Claudia has come here with the intention of setting us all to rights, and educating us up to her standard; and if you don’t call that conceited—I do.”

“I dare say we were all conceited at her age.”

“No, I wasn’t; nor were you. We should have been put into our proper places quickly enough. However, you have sent my good resolutions to flight with your exasperating charity, for when you arrived I was thinking most piously about our cousin, and had made my mind up to see Harry make a fool of himself, yet say nothing. Now I am all prickles again.”

Anne laughed and said no more.