Gifts and Weirds

Chapter I. Emit

Avas Miss Harland's day "at home." eE_! Miss Harland Avas rich, clever, good-looking, and had (it might perhaps be said, had consequently) a large circle of acquaintances. The afternoon being fine and the season advanced, every one of her guests had just come from somewhere, and was just going on somewhere else, so that there was little time for more than the hurried exchange of a few brief remarks with each. After two or three hours of this form of social pleasure, Miss Harland sighed a sigh of relief when the last visitor departed, and almost before the door had closed threw r herself into the easiest of her very easy chairs, remarking composedly to her cousin and companion, Miss Anstruther — " Joan, I think I am going mad." "Why do you think so, Claudia?" Miss Anstruther inquired in a matter-of-fact way, not seeming in the least degree agitated by the statement.

Claudia did not reply immediately. She picked up a smooth ivory paper-cutter and drew it through her fingers, then laid the cool thin edge against her soft throat. " How easy it would be to cut one's throat," she said ; " and how difficult it is to live sometimes." " What nonsense you do talk ! Go on, if it is any relief to your feelings, but pray get it over soon. You are bored by all those people, and tired with shopping this morning. When the wedding is over you will be all right." Claudia turned impatiently, and threw down the paper-cutter. " All right ! Will one ever be all right in this extraordinary world ? I thought getting married would interest me, but it doesn't in the least. I declare to you solemnly, Joan, that instead of enjoying being congratulated, I felt if another person spoke of it I would break off my engagement to-morrow morning."

" Why not to-night ? " " Well, poor Wilmot might be dining out, and it would be a pity to spoil his dinner. In the morning he would have plenty of time to get over it. Not that I suppose he cares any more than I do. Only a man who is jilted is like a glove that is split. It's all there, and you may mend it, but only a needy person will take the trouble." " I think some one who was here this afternoon would gladly undertake the repair." " I wonder, Joan, if you know what an exceedingly immoral person you are ? " said Claudia, stopping in her walk up and down the luxurious room, and standing in front of her cousin. " Do you know that when I have my glimmerings of a desire towards doing right, you bring me back to doing the things, I ought not to do, by appealing to my meanest motives ? Envy, jealousy, vanity — you don't care ; you rouse them up to fight on your side if you think they will help."

" Indeed, Claudia, it is only your own side I am taking against your mood of the moment. You no more mean or wish to break off your engagement than to cut your throat or go mad. It is just your perversity of nature that makes you hate everything when you have promised to do it." "Oh, how I hate it!" Claudia Harland sat down and looked all round her drawing room with a despairing glance, as though hoping the charmingly decorated walls would divide to show her a way of escape. " I think, Joan, it shall be to-night. I will write now." " Don't be absurd, dear. How would you like your position afterwards ? It is not very likely you will marry any one else if you were to throw over Wilmot Alsager. Women os your age cannot behave like girls of nineteen. Only a month ago you declared it would be insufferable to be an old maid.

What do you want ? You are not in love with any one, and of all men in London he is exactly the man for you. He will give you everything you want and never worry you." " Yes, Joan, you speak words of wisdom, doubtless. One half of me agrees with you utterly. Everything I want — that is, that half of me wants. At present one might say I have everything I want, but that other half of me is always so grasping — never satisfied. On reflection I decided that the thing lacking was matrimony. An un married woman is such an incomplete creature. Socially, we have no position, we are only old girls, and young girls have the advantage over us. If we assert a right to a certain respect by individual character, we are classed as being 'so strong-minded,' and people expect us to have ' views ' on woman's suffrage and kindred subjects ; if we are weak and yielding, our relations sit upon us ; if we are good, we are expected to become semi-professional philanthropists ; and if we are original, we become 'so odd, you know — very clever, but peculiar.' No, it is a fatal mistake to be a single woman ; I felt that fact growing plainly clearer and clearer after I was thirty.

That was four years ago, as you know, though I still make a point of being a woman of thirty." " And having made up your mind to marry, you have succeeded, as you always do, in your intentions, Claudia. There is the advantage of being handsome. I might have made up my mind to the same course without having much chance of effecting my purpose." Claudia smiled. " Never mind, Joan, I could not possibly have done without you. You are just a necessity of life to me. To whom else could I say everything that comes into my head as I do to you ? Even you don't understand — I don't understand myself. I can scarcely possess any undeveloped characteristics at my age, yet I some times think, Joan, there must be something that would fill the gap, if one only did understand one's own character. I want freedom, Joan, and air and light.

Life stifles me. Deadly ennui sickens my very soul, and here I am putting on more chains, more fetters, by way of making life larger. I cannot — I cannot. I will not. Joan, help me ; tell me what to do." Claudia suddenly dropped her indifferent manner, her bantering tone. She stood up straight, and looked at her friend with quivering lips, dilated nostrils, and flashing, appealing eyes, like a creature at bay before its pursuers. Miss Anstruther knitted hastily on to the end of her row (she was knitting a coloured rug, and was anxious not to lose the pattern), then she put her work down and looked dubiously at her cousin. Before she had made up her mind what to say, the servant came in with a small neat parcel, which he handed to his mistress. " From Lady Deane, ma'am, with her com pliments," he said demurely, but a glimmer of a smile lurked round his mouth.

He knew it was the first dropping of the shower of wedding - presents which would rain graciously upon the house in the next six weeks. Claudia tossed it contemptuously into Joan's lap. " Shall I open it ? ' " If you like." The unfolding revealed a costly ornament of diamonds. Joan held it up with an exclamation of admiration. Claudia turned away with a shiver of repugnance. " Fetters ! — chains for the slave " Nonsense. I will tell you what it is, Claudia, you are nervous and overdone ; all this excitement lately has tried you. Let us go away somewhere for a few days, other wise you will do something rash, and repent afterwards bitterly. Fancy having to return your wedding-presents, and all the talk there would be." Claudia picked up the bracelet and looked at it. A hard look settled over her face.

"Yes, Joan, you are quite right. 'The talk ' is the thing above all others to be avoided. Besides, it would be mean to back out of my bargain now ; so I accept my fetters, but I will take a holiday before I wear them. I shall meet Wilmot to-night at the Lanes', and will tell him the first present has arrived already. But tell the maids to pack our travelling frocks, for I will find a place ' far from the madding crowd,' and be alone and free till the time arrives. It may be my last chance." " There is that little fishing place Keith told me of in Orkney. How would you like to go there ? " Joan suggested. " The very place, Joan. What a woman of resource you are ! " cried Claudia. So Claudia surprised her friend that even ing by telling her intention to visit a remote spot in those far-away and little-run-over islands, declaring that it was exactly the place she required for rest.

Her nerves were overdone, she said, and silenced Wilmot Alsager's protest, which, to say the truth, was not a too fervent one, by this plea. Claudia's fiance' was a florid, well-pre served man, somewhere between forty and fifty, calling himself the former, but pro bably inclining towards the latter age. He was immensely rich, fond of shooting, yacht inga good dinner, good wine, and pretty women. Having lived his life as a popular bachelor about town, he now decided, for the reasons which are apt to appeal to men about that age, that it was time to marry. And, having decided to marry, it appeared to him wise to take to wife a woman of the world, whose formed character and brilliant social qualities would enable her to take her place at once as equal in social diplomacy with the wives of men of his own standing, who had married earlier in life.

He had seen the experiment of " forming a girl " carried out too often to espouse a guileless maiden. In Claudia Harland he found the woman he wanted. She fitted his standard perfectly, and his engagement brought him entire satisfaction. As for romantic love, ideal happiness, or intellectual companionship, as he had no belief in the romantic, ideal, or intellectual side of life, the lack of these things was little likely to trouble him. Some six or eight weeks had to pass before the time fixed for their wedding, fixed rather indefinitely by Claudia, and the exigencies of life — the end of the season, and claims of Cowes and Scotland — so that Claudia's suggestion of absenting; herself for a few of those weeks seemed, on the whole, very sensible. Engaged people are apt to look a little foolish when not in the first bloom of youth.

It is a situation which requires sentiment to carry it off; while, luckily, after marriage sentiment is out of place, as it is absurd in the eye of the world. " You will not mind my leaving town for a few weeks," she said, as he brought her an ice. She spoke with the easy coolness she always adopted towards him, and which he greatly admired. Yet, in her dark-grey eyes, as she lifted them under their fringe of black lashes, there was a certain wistfulness, instead of their usual brilliant audacity. " Of course I am sorry you feel done up ; but your plan, like all your plans, seems to me an excellent one. Eardly wants me to take a run in his yacht over to Holland, so this will just leave me free. Pity the Sea Foam isn't handy just now ; you could have had her to run up to Orkney, if you feel inclined for that remote spot.

No ? Well, the train is very good — sleeping-carriage through to Perth. Gets you there before you remember having started. I might bring the old thing up, and all come down together if you like. When you are tired of being there I can have her put in order for the trip. My new Salt Spray will be ready in time for the Cowes week. You ought to have been here to christen her for me." Claudia's eyes were cast down now, looking at her ice, but her smile hardened a little round the corners of her mouth. Wilmot watched her gloved hand as it toyed with the tiny spoon. Then his glance followed the line of her well-modelled arm, her white shoulders, the set of her small head and delicate little ear, and the curve of the long dark lashes on her cheek. It did not escape his notice that threads of silver showed here and there in her auburn hair, and lines, not exactly those of youth, around her mouth, especially when her smile set into hardness, as at present.

" But one can't have everything," he re flected philosophically. And, taking her all round, she was a wonderfully good-looking woman. "You are not going already?" he asked, as Claudia looked round for Miss Anstruther. " Yes ; I only came here to see you. Lady Deane has lent me her box at the opera to-night. I want to hear Ravogli once more. Would you care to come ? " " Thanks. I am awfully sorry ; but you see " Don't make excuses. I know you hate music." Claudia smiled graciously upon him. "You are not bound to be bored by me yet. We are taking Joan's cousin, Lionel Archer, and his wife, so we shall really be too many for one box." "And you leave soon ? " he asked, as he folded his fiancde's cloak around her. "To-morrow night." " Then I shall come in to-morrow after noon. Good night, Claudia."

" Good night, Wilmot." He pressed her hand as it lay lightly on his arm, stood uncovered till her brougham drove away, and walked off congratulating himself on his approaching marriage. He would have been much surprised had any one suggested to him that Claudia had mis givings on the subject. Miss Harland drove in silence through the gas-lit streets, and Joan, who knew her moods, did not attempt to disturb her reverie. With the same hard, fixed expression she sat through the opera, only now and then changing, with a movement of impatience, from one graceful pose to another as she listened to the liquid, lovely tones of the great singer's voice in her exquisite impersonation of " Orfeo." Generally Claudia was a keen, remorseless critic, but to-night somehow she forgot the mechanism, the footlights, lime-lights, and musical technicalities.

Something in that superb voice chiming in with her mood touched her soul. The music spoke to her a hidden message deeper than itself, as sweet church bells heard over sunlit meadows on a summer's eve will touch a chord within us finer and more remote than that reached merely by the sound striking pleasurably upon the ear. Orpheus wandering through the dim, dreadful shades of the under-world unaffrighted, roaming the pleasant plains of Elysium, careless of their delights, possessed by one idea — to do and dare aught or all, if only he may once more meet his Eurydice — -was a sudden revelation to her of what men have thought and felt of the power of love. Like most of us, Claudia had loved in her time — a foolish, romantic, impossible attachment ; a love stifled in its infancy by worldly prudence and wisdom.

She said to herself sensibly that it was a pleasant dream to remember, and in moments of emotion she had often extracted a good deal of delicious melancholy from recollections of those girlish days. But as realities, she had long ago banished belief in any kind of sentiment, fervour, or heroism. On the whole, she found life satisfactory. Her time was well filled with social engage ments. She was an accomplished musician, and took a leading part in one of those admirable societies where aristocratic ama teurs display their skill for the entertainment of dwellers in slums, thus supplying the need for definite work, which is part of the neces sary outfit of a woman of society in the present age. Her varied engagements im plied constant occupation ; she was thoroughly (to use an expressive vulgarism) " in the swim," while the perfection of her material surroundings afforded a pleasant satisfaction to her sensitive perceptions.

Left by the death of her father entirely mistress of her own life at five and twenty, she had spent ten years in enjoying all her opportunities for pleasure and amusement. She had refused, of course, many offers of marriage. The idea of marriage was rather repugnant than attractive, while she could avail herself of her freedom, with her plain, obliging cousin at hand as companion ready to obey her whims. But lately a shade of discontent had mingled with her satisfaction. At five and thirty, be she ever so well preserved, a woman's attractiveness begins to fail. By no stretch of courtesy can she be called a girl any longer. The younger generation look upon her as contemporary with their mothers, and the incense of admiration no longer rises up with a sweetsmelling savour before her. It is the age when ambition takes the place of amuse ment, and Miss Harland felt it was time to begin a more definite career.

Looked at in this light, marriage had its advantages. Wilmot Alsager's proposal found her in the right mood, and she congratulated herself on the prospect of becoming his wife. It seemed the very position it would please her to occupy. Only now and then mis givings assailed her composure. Little incidents sometimes recalled the memory of her girlhood's dreams. To-night, when at the conclusion of that song of passionate grief and tender love, " Che faro senz, Eurydice," the house thrilled with emotion, showered applause and bouquets upon the artist whose art had touched their souls, moving them into fine accord and sympathy, Claudia suddenly found her eyes moist with unaccustomed tears. She drew herself to gether in horror at her own emotion. " Decidedly, my nerves need bracing. I think the sight of the great North Sea will be a splendid tonic," she remarked suddenly to Joan. And Joan agreed, as she always did when Claudia made a discovery.

Chapter II

" ;p| OW amazing! Just listen to this SMÆ note, Joan. Could anything be more tiresome ? It is enough to make one throw up the journey altogether. " ' Dearest Claudia, " ' Knowing your wonderful good nature, I venture to trespass upon it in the most unpardonable manner.' " Quite so, my dear Julia ; but you know I am not in the least good-natured, and that you would be surprised if / called your pro ceedings unpardonable." '"Will you help me out of this perplexity about Eldred's affairs by taking her with you to Orkney for the few weeks you are there ? I would not trouble you so far, but it seems to me the only hope of persuading her to break off this horrid entanglement is in sending her out of the way for a time, and it is impossible for me to take her myself. I cannot but hope that if removed from the people who have influenced her, and in the com panionship of a sensible woman like yourself, she might be persuaded to view matters in a rational manner, and see the dreadful mistake she is making.

It is terrible for a mother to feel she has no influence over her child, but you know what my occupations are, and how little time I have had for personal intercourse with my children. I trust to you, dear Claudia, in this emergency, and to your sympathy. Eldred will be at the station to meet you this evening, and will wait with Parker in the entrance near the booking-office till you arrive. Excuse haste, as there is much to be done to-day. " ' Your attached and grateful cousin, "'Julia Mowbray. " ' P.S. — Pray say a word when you can to influence my misguided girl. This marriage would be a terrible calamity to us all as a family.' " " Impertinence ! " Claudia threw down the note on the breakfast-table with a gesture of disgust. " As if it mattered to me if her girls choose to marry chimney-sweeps !

" "Julia was always one for putting her own burden on some one else's shoulders," said Joan, rubbing her long, cold nose meditatively as she eyed the offending letter. " What will you do ? " " Do ? Oh, nothing. I cannot leave the girl standing near the booking-office with Parker, I suppose, and I certainly cannot spend the day in arguing with Julia, so she must just come with us. But I shall not interfere or try to influence her. If Julia leaves her children to make their own friends, and pick up all sorts of low Radical notions she must take the consequences. Not that Eldred's a bad sort of girl. I used to be fond of the child, but the way she talks now is insufferable, and the way she dresses is only to be compared with the way she talks when she gets on her pet hobby. She will have to leave that steed in his stable, and not prance about the northern wilds on his back ; and, luckily, there will be no one to see her frocks and her Jaeger clothing, and her square-toed boots and her spectacles.

Good gracious ! Joan, I wonder what society is coming to that can produce such specimens amongst well-bred girls. Fancy what granny would have thought, and dear old Aunt Jeanie, with their snowy hair and delicate lace, and careful ideas of what young girls should do and not do, if they could have seen their great-granddaughter and niece running about London alone in thick, hideous boots, making acquaintances amongst a set of Radicals of whom her mother knows nothing, and getting mixed up with — if not actually engaged to — a young man. What is he ? A carpenter, or a gas fitter, or some trades-person whom one might call in any day to do some repairs about the house. However, it is Julia's own fault, and I am not going to interfere. She has shirked her responsibilities. People should not have children if they don't mean to look after them."

So saying, Claudia tossed the note into the waste-paper basket, and gave her atten tion to her own letters. Soon she was deep in discussions of millinery and gowns. Her engagement did not weigh so heavily upon her mind this morning, her spirits were brighter, and she even felt interest in the orders which must be given concerning details of her trousseau, to be carried out during her absence. Yet she had no thought of giving up her project. Probably the prospect of temporary freedom was what made matters more endurable. It is so easy to some natures not to think of unwelcome subjects when there is no need for immediate action. When in the evening they drove to the station and found Eldred Mowbray duly waiting under the care of a dragon-like maid, Claudia cast quite a kindly eye even upon the young relative thus thrust into her care, and deigned to remark that she really looked quite decent for once, in a tweed suit and sailor hat.

" I hope it is not a bore to you to take me, Cousin Claudia, but mother insisted on my coming. I'll go home in a minute if you think I shall be in your way." " Nonsense, child. It is you who will be bored, for I am going to a heathenish little place, where you will see no one to speak to but a seal or a sea-gull. I am not even taking a maid. I want to be alone, so you and Joan must do the best you can to amuse yourselves. But pray don't call me Cousin Claudia." " Oh, I shall be quite content. Don't let me worry you in any way. I have a lot of reading to get through, and I have been longing for leisure to write out some lectures which I hope to begin my career with next year. So I am really glad of the oppor tunity. Only it's very tiresome to leave one's work so suddenly. Still I prefer not to go against mother in everything, so I consented to come to please her.

Naturally she does not understand my objections to leaving my work." "Your work! Gracious ! child, one would think you were a dressmaker to hear you. But come, we must find our carriage, there is no time to lose. Joan, where is Pepper going ? Look — you are letting him get all entangled with people's legs. Oh, I must carry him, poor dear." Claudia, bearing her Dandy Dinmont carefully, swept along the platform, followed by her companions and servants and porters, making quite a little commotion in the busy station. Eldred settled herself in a corner with a book. Joan fidgeted about arranging things in their places, and convulsively inquiring if their most cherished treasures were not left behind on the platform, search ing her bag thoroughly, and making the harrowing discovery that her keys were not in it ; remembering suddenly that she had put them in her pocket, she then searched that receptacle and missed her purse ; which, however, happily reappeared at the bottom of the bag, where she had expected to find her keys.

"When you have quite finished looking for things, Joan, you might make a bed for poor Pepper," Claudia suggested suavely ; and Joan, hurriedly restoring the few things which might be useful to her capacious bag, bestowed her attentions on the suspicious Pepper, who, not sure whether some indignity was intended, preferred selecting any other rug to lie upon rather than the one arranged for his especial comfort. And Claudia from her corner looked out of her window and watched the sun set in glory over the fat green country, and realized, as the twilight deepened and the shades of night gathered like a sombre veil over sky and land, that she was running away — running away from this thing which she had undertaken, which should be life's crowning point and highest joy, to get a brief respite and forgetfulness.

"And it is my own doing. I am not forced to marry," she said to herself. " I could give it up now if I choose, and I do not choose. It would be more impossible to give it up than to do it, yet that seems impossible too." She sighed and watched the darkness deepen over fields and trees as they flew past in endless succession. The western glow faded, the rose in the sky turned to tender lilac, then paled to coldest grey. A little wind passed over the land, and the trees trembled before it. Darker and darker fell the night. Claudia shivered a little. " Is it fate ? " she asked herself with a sigh, and concluded that probably it was. Why she of all people, the brilliant, self-dependent, unsentimental woman of the world, should have brought her life to this point of perplexity was so inexplicable that she, as mankind has done all through the long dim centuries, invented a power, a being external to herself, to account for her own actions.

For, in most — perhaps in all — of us there is a second self — call it a tendency of development, a spark of the divine nature, or what we will — which will not rest, but cries out within us when we are in danger, by indulging the other self, of stifling its voice, and leaving the necessities of its existence unfulfilled. Alas ! for those who still refuse to hear. They wander through a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, and the mirage of satisfaction which tempts them on is never reached. No place of freshness, of green trees or running waters, is theirs, wherein to lie down and rest ; no way but over the parched sands of disappointed desire for their weary pilgrimage. The train stopped at Grantham for a few moments after its long run, and Joan suggested they should settle themselves for the night.

Eldred had already given up the attempt to read by the dim light of the lamp, and darkness blotted out the landscape, so the suggestion seemed a sensible one. Claudia enveloped herself in a soft, luxurious cloak, drawing the becoming silk-lined hood over her hair. She looked, with her usual graceful way of adapting herself to her surroundings, picturesquely suited to the occasion. Joan wrapped up her head in a brown shawl of her own knitting, and supplemented her pillow with a red down cushion, which she first offered to the others with a self sacrificing air. From the depths of her bag she produced a button-hook, a comb, a piece of soap, some sal-volatile, a medi cine glass, a needle and thread, a pair of GIFTS AND UEIRDS. 29 scissors, some plaster, and a tiny flask of brandy. " One never knows what may be useful on a long journey," she said apologetically.

"If either of you are cold, I have plenty of little wraps." " Oh yes," said Claudia, good-humouredly, " we will ask you for anything we want, Joan, but don't, pray, offer me anything till morning. I am going to sleep till daylight." Joan carefully unlaced her boots, and laced them up again on a pair of boot-trees, and, settling her feet in thick woollen slippers, rolled herself with a huge shawl into a brown mummy-like package. Eldred looked on with much inward disdain. "How fussy women are!" she reflected ; and, putting her spectacles in her pocket, she threw her hat into the rack, and lay down with a boyish indifference to ap pearances, draughts, smuts, or any other in conveniences apt to disturb the feminine mind. Claudia, glancing across at her young cousin, thought how pretty the girl looked, with her face slightly flushed, and her fair hair, in loosened confusion, showing like a silken halo in the dim light, but, fortunately, was not able to make her remark to any one, as both her companions slept soundly.