CHAPTER IV
A chance acquaintance may, under favourable circumstances, developfaster than one brought about by formal introduction, because neitherparty has been previously led to expect anything of the other. There isno surer way of making friendship impossible than telling two peoplethat they are sure to be such good friends, and are just suited to eachother. The law of natural selection applies to almost everything we wantin the world, from food and climate to a wife.
When Clare and her mother had established themselves as usual on theterrace under the vines that afternoon, Brook came and sat beside themfor a while. Mrs. Bowring liked him and talked easily with him, butClare was silent and seemed absent-minded. The young man looked at herfrom time to time with curiosity, for he was not used to being treatedwith such perfect indifference as she showed to him. He was not spoilt,as the phrase goes, but he had always been accustomed to a certainamount of attention, when he met new people, and, without being in theleast annoyed, he thought it strange that this particular young ladyshould seem not even to listen to what he said.
Mrs. Bowring, on the other hand, scarcely took her eyes from his faceafter the first ten minutes, and not a word he spoke escaped her. Bycontrast with her daughter's behaviour, her earnest attention was verynoticeable. By degrees she began to ask him questions about himself.
"Do you expect your people to-morrow?" she inquired.
Clare looked up quickly. It was very unlike her mother to show even thatsmall amount of curiosity about a stranger. It was clear that Mrs.Bowring had conceived a sudden liking for the young man.
"They were to have been here to-day," he answered indifferently. "Theymay come this evening, I suppose, but they have not even ordered rooms.I asked the man there--the owner of the place, I suppose he is."
"Then of course you will wait for them," suggested Mrs. Bowring.
"Yes. It's an awful bore, too. That is--" he corrected himselfhastily--"I mean, if I were to be here without a soul to speak to, youknow. Of course, it's different, this way."
"How?" asked Mrs. Bowring, with a brighter smile than Clare had seen onher face for a long time.
"Oh, because you are so kind as to let me talk to you," answered theyoung man, without the least embarrassment.
"Then you are a social person?" Mrs. Bowring laughed a little. "Youdon't like to be alone?"
"Oh no! Not when I can be with nice people. Of course not. I don'tbelieve anybody does. Unless I'm doing something, you know--shooting, orgoing up a hill, or fishing. Then I don't mind. But of course I wouldmuch rather be alone than with bores, don't you know? Or--or--well, theother kind of people."
"What kind?" asked Mrs. Bowring.
"There are only two kinds," answered Brook, gravely. "There is ourkind--and then there is the other kind. I don't know what to call them,do you? All the people who never seem to understand exactly what we aretalking about nor why we do things--and all that. I call them 'the otherkind.' But then I haven't a great command of language. What should youcall them?"
"Cads, perhaps," suggested Clare, who had not spoken for a long time.
"Oh no, not exactly," answered the young man, looking at her. "Besides,'cads' doesn't include women, does it? A gentleman's son sometimesturns out a most awful cad, a regular 'bounder.' It's rare, but it doeshappen sometimes. A mere cad may know, and understand all right, buthe's got the wrong sort of feeling inside of him about most things. Forinstance--you don't mind? A cad may know perfectly well that he oughtnot to 'kiss and tell'--but he will all the same. The 'other kind,' as Icall them, don't even know. That makes them awfully hard to get onwith."
"Then, of the two, you prefer the cad?" inquired Clare coolly.
"No. I don't know. They are both pretty bad. But a cad may be veryamusing, sometimes."
"When he kisses and tells?" asked the young girl viciously.
Brook looked at her, in quick surprise at her tone.
"No," he answered quietly. "I didn't mean that. The clowns in the circusrepresent amusing cads. Some of them are awfully clever, too," he added,turning the subject. "Some of those fiddling fellows are extraordinary.They really play very decently. They must have a lot of talent, when youthink of all the different things they do besides their feats ofstrength--they act, and play the fiddle, and sing, and dance--"
"You seem to have a great admiration for clowns," observed Clare in anindifferent tone.
"Well--they are amusing, aren't they? Of course, it isn't high art, andthat sort of thing, but one laughs at them, and sometimes they do verypretty things. One can't be always on one's hind legs, doing Hamlet, canone? There's a limit to the amount of tragedy one can stand during life.After all, it is better to laugh than to cry."
"When one can," said Mrs. Bowring thoughtfully.
"Some people always can, whatever happens," said the young girl.
"Perhaps they are right," answered the young man. "Things are not oftenso serious as they are supposed to be. It's like being in a house that'ssupposed to be haunted--on All Hallow E'en, for instance--it's awfullygruesome and creepy at night when the wind moans and the owls screech.And then, the next morning, one wonders how one could have been such anidiot. Other things are often like that. You think the world's coming toan end--and then it doesn't, you know. It goes on just the same. You arerather surprised at first, but you soon get used to it. I suppose thatis what is meant by losing one's illusions."
"Sometimes the world stops for an individual and doesn't go on again,"said Mrs. Bowring, with a faint smile.
"Oh, I suppose people do break their hearts sometimes," returned Brook,somewhat thoughtfully. "But it must be something tremendously serious,"he added with instant cheerfulness. "I don't believe it happens often.Most people just have a queer sensation in their throat for a minute,and they smoke a cigarette for their nerves, and go away and think ofsomething else."
Clare looked at him, and her eyes flashed angrily, for she rememberedLady Fan's cigarette and the preceding evening. He remembered it too,and was thinking of it, for he smiled as he spoke and looked away at thehorizon as though he saw something in the air. For the first time in herlife the young girl had a cruel impulse. She wished that she were agreat beauty, or that she possessed infinite charm, that she mightrevenge the little lady in white and make the man suffer as he deserved.At one moment she was ashamed of the wish, and then again it returned,and she smiled as she thought of it.
She was vaguely aware, too, that the man attracted her in a way whichdid not interfere with her resentment against him. She would certainlynot have admitted that he was interesting to her on account of LadyFan--but there was in her a feminine willingness to play with the fireat which another woman had burned her wings. Almost all women feel that,until they have once felt too much themselves. The more innocent andinexperienced they are, the more sure they are, as a rule, of their ownperfect safety, and the more ready to run any risk.
Neither of the women answered the young man's rather frivolous assertionfor some moments. Then Mrs. Bowring looked at him kindly, but with afar-away expression, as though she were thinking of some one else.
"You are young," she said gently.
"It's true that I'm not very old," he answered. "I was five-and-twentyon my last birthday."
"Five-and-twenty," repeated Mrs. Bowring very slowly, and looking at thedistance, with the air of a person who is making a mental calculation.
"Are you surprised?" asked the young man, watching her.
She started a little.
"Surprised? Oh dear no! Why should I be?"
And again she looked at him earnestly, until, realising what she wasdoing, she suddenly shut her eyes, shook herself almost imperceptibly,and took out some work which she had brought out with her.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "I thought you might fancy I was a good deal olderor younger. But I'm always told that I look just my age."
"I think you do," answered Mrs. Bowring, without looking up.
Clare glanced at his face again. It was natur
al, under thecircumstances, though she knew his features by heart already. She methis eyes, and for a moment she could not look away from them. It was asthough they fixed her against her will, after she had once met them.There was nothing extraordinary about them, except that they were verybright and clear. With an effort she turned away, and the faint colourrose in her face.
"I am nineteen," she said quietly, as though she were answering aquestion.
"Indeed?" exclaimed Brook, not thinking of anything else to say.
Mrs. Bowring looked at her daughter in considerable surprise. Then Clareblushed painfully, realising that she had spoken without any intentionof speaking, and had volunteered a piece of information which hadcertainly not been asked. It was very well, being but nineteen yearsold; but she was oddly conscious that if she had been forty she shouldhave said so in just the same absent-minded way, at that moment.
"Nineteen and six are twenty-five, aren't they?" asked Mrs. Bowringsuddenly.
"Yes, I believe so," answered the young man, with a laugh, but a gooddeal surprised in his turn, for the question seemed irrelevant andabsurd in the extreme. "But I'm not good at sums," he added. "I was anawful idiot at school. They used to call me Log. That was short forlogarithm, you know, because I was such a log at arithmetic. A fellowgave me the nickname one day. It wasn't very funny, so I punched hishead. But the name stuck to me. Awfully appropriate, anyhow, as itturned out."
"Did you punch his head because it wasn't funny?" asked Clare, glad ofthe turn in the conversation.
"Oh--I don't know--on general principles. He was a diabolically cleverlittle chap, though he wasn't very witty. He came out Senior Wrangler atCambridge. I heard he had gone mad last year. Lots of those clever chapsdo, you know. Or else they turn parsons and take pupils for a living.I'd much rather be stupid, myself. There's more to live for, when youdon't know everything. Don't you think so?"
Both women laughed, and felt that the man was tactful. They were alsoboth reflecting, of themselves and of each other, that they were notgenerally silly women, and they wondered how they had both managed tosay such foolish things, speaking out irrelevantly what was passing intheir minds.
"I think I shall go for a walk," said Brook, rising rather abruptly."I'll go up the hill for a change. Thanks awfully. Good-bye!"
He lifted his hat and went off towards the hotel. Mrs. Bowring lookedafter him, but Clare leaned back in her seat and opened a book she hadwith her. The colour rose and fell in her cheeks, and she kept her eyesresolutely bent down.
"What a nice fellow!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring when the young man was outof hearing. "I wonder who he is."
"What difference can it make, what his name is?" asked Clare, stilllooking down.
"What is the matter with you, child?" Mrs. Bowring asked. "You talk sostrangely to-day!"
"So do you, mother. Fancy asking him whether nineteen and six aretwenty-five!"
"For that matter, my dear, I thought it very strange that you shouldtell him your age, like that."
"I suppose I was absent-minded. Yes! I know it was silly, I don't knowwhy I said it. Do you want to know his name? I'll go and see. It must beon the board by this time, as he is stopping here."
She rose and was going, when her mother called her back.
"Clare! Wait till he is gone, at all events! Fancy, if he saw you!"
"Oh! He won't see me! If he comes that way I'll go into the office andbuy stamps."
Clare went in and looked over the square board with its many littleslips for the names of the guests. Some were on visiting cards and somewere written in the large, scrawling, illiterate hand of the headwaiter. Some belonged to people who were already gone. It looked well,in the little hotel, to have a great many names on the list. Someseconds passed before Clare found that of the new-comer.
"Mr. Brook Johnstone."
Brook was his first name, then. It was uncommon. She looked at itfixedly. There was no address on the small, neatly engraved card. Whileshe was looking at it a door opened quietly behind her, in the oppositeside of the corridor. She paid no attention to it for a moment; then,hearing no footsteps, she instinctively turned. Brook Johnstone wasstanding on the threshold watching her. She blushed violently, in herannoyance, for he could not doubt but that she was looking for his name.He saw and understood, and came forward naturally, with a smile. He hada stick in his hand.
"That's me," he said, with a little laugh, tapping his card on theboard with the head of his stick. "If I'd had an ounce of manners Ishould have managed to tell you who I was by this time. Won't you excuseme, and take this for an introduction? Johnstone--with an E at theend--Scotch, you know."
"Thanks," answered Clare, recovering from her embarrassment. "I'll tellmy mother." She hesitated a moment. "And that's us," she added, laughingrather nervously and pointing out one of the cards. "How grammatical weare, aren't we?" she laughed, while he stooped and read the name whichchanced to be at the bottom of the board.
"Well--what should one say? 'That's we.' It sounds just as badly. Andyou can't say 'we are that,' can you? Besides, there's no one to hearus, so it makes no difference. I don't suppose that you--you and Mrs.Bowring--would care to go for a walk, would you?"
"No," answered Clare, with sudden coldness. "I don't think so, thankyou. We are not great walkers."
They went as far as the door together. Johnstone bowed and walked off,and Clare went back to her mother.
"He caught me," she said, in a tone of annoyance. "You were quite right.Then he showed me his name himself, on the board. It's Johnstone--Mr.Brook Johnstone, with an E--he says that he is Scotch. Why--mother!Johnstone! How odd! That was the name of--"
She stopped short and looked at her mother, who had grown unnaturallypale during the last few seconds.
"Yes, dear. That was the name of my first husband."
Mrs. Bowring spoke in a low voice, looking down at her work. But herhands trembled violently, and she was clearly making a great effort tocontrol herself. Clare watched her anxiously, not at all understanding.
"Mother dear, what is it?" she asked. "The name is only acoincidence--it's not such an uncommon name, after all--and besides--"
"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Bowring, in a dull tone. "It's a merecoincidence--probably no relation. I'm nervous, to-day."
Her manner seemed unaccountable to her daughter, except on thesupposition that she was ill. She very rarely spoke of her firsthusband, by whom she had no children. When she did, she mentioned hisname gravely, as one speaks of dead persons who have been dear, but thatwas all. She had never shown anything like emotion in connection withthe subject, and the young girl avoided it instinctively, as mostchildren, of whose parents the one has been twice married, avoid themention of the first husband or wife, who was not their father ormother.
"I wish I understood you!" exclaimed Clare.
"There's nothing to understand, dear," said Mrs. Bowring, still verypale. "I'm nervous--that's all."
Before long she left Clare by herself and went indoors, and lockedherself into her room. The rooms in the old hotel were once the cells ofthe monks, small vaulted chambers in which there is barely space for themost necessary furniture. During nearly an hour Mrs. Bowring paced upand down, a beat of fourteen feet between the low window and the lockeddoor. At last she stopped before the little glass, and looked atherself, and smoothed her streaked hair.
"Nineteen and six--are twenty-five," she said slowly in a low voice, andher eyes stared into their own reflection rather wildly.