Claudia's Place

BY

A. R. BUCKLAND
 

 'What I feel,' said Claudia Haberton, sitting up with a movement of indignation, 'is the miserable lack of purpose in one's life.'

'Nothing to do?' said Mary Windsor.

'To do! Yes, of a kind; common, insignificant work about which it is impossible to feel any enthusiasm.'

''The trivial round'?'

'Trivial enough. A thousand could do it as well or better than I can. I want more--to feel that I am in my place, and doing the very thing for which I am fitted.'

'Sure your liver is all right?'

'There you go; just like the others. One can't express a wish to be of more use in the world without people muttering about discontent, and telling you you are out of sorts.'

'Well, I had better go before I say worse.' And Mary went.

Perhaps it was as well; for Claudia's aspirations were so often expressed in terms like these that she began to bore her friends. One, in a moment of exasperation, had advised her to go out as a nursery governess. 'You would,' she said, 'have a wonderful opportunity of showing what is in you, and if you really succeed, you might make at least one mother happy.' But Claudia put the idea aside with scorn.

Another said it all came of being surrounded with comfort, and that if Claudia had been poorer, she would have been troubled with no such yearnings; the actual anxieties of life would have filled the vacuum. That, too, brought a cloud over their friendship. And the problem remained unsolved.

Mr. Haberton, immersed in affairs, had little time to consider his daughter's whims. Mrs. Haberton, long an invalid, was too much occupied in battling with her own ailments, and bearing the pain which was her daily lot, to feel acute sympathy with Claudia's woes.

'My dear,' she said one day, when her daughter had been more than commonly eloquent upon the want of purpose in her life, 'why don't you think of some occupation?'

'But what occupation?' said Claudia. 'Here I am at home, with everything around me, and no wants to supply----'

'That is something,' put in Mrs. Haberton.

'Oh, yes, people always tell you that; but after all, wouldn't it be better to have life to face, and to----'

'Poor dear!' said Mrs. Haberton, stroking her daughter's cheek with a thin hand.

'Please don't, mamma,' said Claudia; 'you know how I dislike being petted like a child.'

'My dear,' said Mrs. Haberton, 'I feel my pain again; do give me my medicine.'

She had asked for it a quarter of an hour before, but Claudia had forgotten so trivial a matter in the statement of her own woes. Now she looked keenly at her mother to see if this request was but an attempt to create a diversion. But the drawn look was sufficient. She hastily measured out the medicine, and as hastily left the room saying, 'I will send Pinsett to you at once.'

Pinsett was Mrs. Haberton's maid, who was speedily upon the spot to deal with the invalid.

But Claudia had withdrawn to her own room, where she was soon deep in a pamphlet upon the social position of Woman, her true Rights in the World, and the noble opportunities for Serving Mankind outside the home.

Wanted--a Career

'Ah,' said Claudia to herself, 'if I could only find some occupation which would give a purpose to existence--something which would make me really useful!'

After all, was there any reason why she should not? There was Eroica Baldwin, who had become a hospital nurse, and wore the neatest possible costume with quite inimitable grace. It might be worth while asking her a few questions. It was true she had never much cared for Eroica; she was so tall and strong, so absurdly healthy, and so intolerant of one's aspirations. Still, her experience might be of use.

There was Babette Irving--a foolish name, but it was her parents' fault; they had apparently thought she would always remain an infant in arms. Her father had married again, and Babette was keeping house with another woman of talent.

HER VERY YOUTH PLEADED FOR HER.

Babette had taken to the pen. Her very youth at first pleaded for her with editors, and she got some work. Then more came; but never quite enough. Now she wrote stories for children and for the 'young person,' conducted a 'Children's Column' in a weekly paper, supplied 'Answers to Correspondents' upon a startling variety of absurd questions, and just contrived to live thereby.

Babette's friend had been reared in the lap of luxury until a woeful year in the City made her father a bankrupt, and sent her to earn her living as a teacher of singing. They ought to have some advice to give.

Then there was Sarah Griffin--'plain Sarah,' as some of the unkind had chosen to call her at school. She was one of nine girls, and when her father died suddenly, and was found to have made but poor provision for his family, she had been thankful to find a place in a shop where an association of ladies endeavoured to get a sale for the work of 'distressed gentlewomen.'

She also ought to know something of the world. Perhaps, she, too, could offer some suggestion as to how the life of a poor aimless thing like Claudia Haberton might be animated by a purpose.

But they all lived in London, the very place, as Claudia felt, where women of spirit and of 'views' should be. If she could but have a few hours of chat with each! And, after all, no doubt, this could be arranged. It was but a little time since Aunt Jane and Aunt Ruth had asked when she was going to cheer them with another visit. Might not their invitation give her just the opportunity she sought?

Claudia reflected. She had not in the past cared much for her aunts' household. The elderly maiden ladies were 'the dearest creatures,' she told herself; but they were not interesting. Aunt Jane was always engaged in knitting with red wool, any fragments of attention which could be given from that task being devoted to Molossus, the toy terrier, who almost dwelt in her lap. Aunt Ruth was equally devoted in the matter of embroidery, and in the watchful eye she kept upon the movements of Scipio, a Persian cat of lofty lineage and austere mien.

Their other interests were few, and were mainly centred upon their pensioners amongst the poor. Their friends were of their own generation. Thus in the past Claudia had not felt any eager yearning for the house in St. John's Wood, where the sisters dwelt at peace. But it was otherwise now, because Claudia had new designs upon London.

She confided to her mother her readiness to accept the recent invitation.

'Go, my dear, by all means,' said the invalid; 'I am sure you must want a change, especially after so many weeks of looking after me.'

'Pinsett,' said Claudia, salving her own conscience, 'is so very careful and efficient.'

'And so good,' added Mrs. Haberton; 'you may be sure I shall be safe in her hands.'

For the moment Claudia was sensible of a little pang. Ought she to be so readily dispensed with? Were her services a quantity which could be neglected?

But, after all, this was nothing. She did not neglect her mother; that was out of the question.

Up to Town

So it was agreed that Claudia should go. Aunt Jane wrote a letter expressing her joy at the prospect, and Aunt Ruth added a postscript which was as long as the letter, confirming all that her sister had said.

So Claudia went up to town, and was received with open arms by her aunts.

       *       *       *       *       *

The placid household at St. John's Wood was all the brighter for Claudia's presence; but she could not suffer herself to remain for more than a day or two in the light of an ordinary visitor.

'I came this time, you know,' she early explained to Aunt Jane, 'on a voyage of exploration.'

'Of what, my dear?' said Aunt Jane, to whom great London was still a fearsome place, full of grievous peril.

'Of exploration, you know. I am going to look up a few old friends, and see how they live. They are working women, who----'

'But,' said Aunt Jane, 'do you think you ought to go amongst the poor alone?'

'Oh, they aren't poor in that sense, auntie; they are just single women, old acquaintances of mine--schoolfellows indeed--who have to work for their living. I want to see them again, and find out how they get on, whether they have found their place in life, and are happy.'

Aunt Jane was not wholly satisfied; but Claudia was not in her teens, nor was she a stranger to London. So the scheme was passed, and all the more readily because Claudia explained that she did not mean to make her calls at random.

Her first voyage was to the flat in which Babette Irving and her friend lived. It was in Bloomsbury, and not in a pile of new buildings. In old-fashioned phraseology, Miss Irving and her friend would have been said to have taken 'unfurnished apartments,' into which they had moved their own possessions. It was a dull house in a dull side street.

Babette said that Lord Macaulay in his younger days was a familiar figure in their region, since Zachary Macaulay had lived in a house hard by. That was interesting, but did not compensate for the dinginess of the surroundings.

Babette herself looked older.

'Worry, my dear, worry,' was the only explanation she offered of the fact. It seemed ample.

Her room was not decked out with all the prettiness Claudia, with a remembrance of other days, had looked for. Babette seemed to make the floor her waste-paper basket; and there was a shocking contempt for appearance in the way books and papers littered chairs and tables. Nor did Babette talk with enthusiasm of her work.

'Enjoy it?' she said, in answer to a question. 'I sometimes wish I might never see pen, ink, and paper again. That is why I am overdone. But I am ashamed to say it; for I magnify my office as a working woman, and am thankful to be independent.'

'But I thought literary people had such a pleasure in their gift,' said Claudia.

'Very likely--those eminent persons who tell the interviewers they never write more than five hundred words a day. But I am only a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, so to speak.'

'But the thought of being useful!'

'Yes, and the thought----but here is Susie.'

Susie was the friend who taught singing. Claudia thought she had never seen a woman look more exhausted; but Claudia knew so little of life.

'You have had a long day, my dear,' said Babette, as Susie threw herself into a chair; 'it is your journey to the poles, isn't it?'

'To the poles?' said Claudia.

'Yes; this is the day she has to be at a Hampstead school from 9.30 till 12.30, and at a Balham school from 2.30 till 4. It's rather a drive to do it, since they are as far as the poles asunder.'

'Still,' said Claudia, 'railway travelling must rest you.'

'Not very much,' said Susie, 'when you travel third class and the trains are crowded.'

'But it must be so nice to feel that you are really filling a useful position in the world.'

'I don't know that I am,' said Susie, rather wearily. 'A good many of my pupils have no ear, and had far better be employed at something else.'

'But your art!'

'I am afraid few of them think much about that, and what I have to do is to see that the parents are well enough pleased to keep their girls on at singing. I do my best for them; but one gets tired.'

Another Surprise

Claudia did not reply. This seemed a sadly mercenary view of work, and a little shocked her. But then Claudia had not to earn her own living.

Claudia's inquiries of Sarah Griffin were scarcely more cheerful. Sarah was at the shop from 8.30 until 7, and was unable, therefore, to see her friend during the day. Aunt Jane and Aunt Ruth insisted that Sarah should spend the evening at St. John's Wood, and promised that she should leave early in the morning.

She came. Again Claudia marvelled at the change in her friend. Already she seemed ten years older than her age; her clothes, if neat, cried aloud of a narrow purse. She had lost a good deal of the brightness which once marked her, and had gathered instead a patient, worn look which had a pathos of its own.

Sarah did not announce her poverty, but under the sympathetic hands of Aunt Ruth and Aunt Jane she in time poured out the history of her daily life.

She was thankful to be in work, even though it was poorly paid. When first in search of occupation, she had spent three weary weeks in going from one house of business to another. In some she was treated courteously, in a few kindly, in many coarsely, in some insultingly. But that was nothing; Sarah knew of girls, far more tenderly reared than she had been, whose experiences had been even sadder.

But Claudia hoped that now Sarah really was at work she was comfortable.

Sarah smiled a little wintry smile. Yes, she was comfortable, and very thankful to be at work.

Aunt Jane with many apologies wanted more detail.

Then it appeared that Sarah was living on 15s. a week. She lived at a home for young women in business; she fed chiefly on bread and butter. Her clothes depended upon occasional gifts from friends.

Claudia began to condemn the world for its hardness.

'But I am not clever,' said Sarah; 'I can do nothing in particular, and there are so many of us wanting work.'

'And do all these people really need it?'

'Yes; and we all think it hard when girls come and, for the mere pleasure of doing something, take such work at a lower wage than those can take who must live.'

'But look at me,' said Claudia; 'I don't want the money, but I want the occupation; I want to feel I have some definite duties, and some place of my own in the world.'

Sarah looked a little puzzled. Then she said, 'Perhaps Mrs. Warwick could help you.'

'Who is Mrs. Warwick?'

'Mrs. Warwick is the presiding genius of a ladies' club to which some of my friends go. I daresay one of them will be very glad to take us there.'

So they agreed to go. Claudia felt, it must be owned, a little disappointed at what she had heard from her friends, but was inclined to believe that between the old life at home and the drudgery for the bare means of existence there still lay many things which she could do. She revolved the subject in the course of a morning walk on the day they were to visit the club, and returned to the shelter of her aunts' home with something of her old confidence restored.

Despite their goodness--Claudia could not question that--how poor, she thought, looked their simple ways! Aunt Jane sat, as aforetime, at one side of the fireplace, Aunt Ruth at the other. Aunt Jane was knitting with red wool, as she had always knitted since Claudia had known her. Aunt Ruth, with an equal devotion to habit, was working her way through a piece of embroidery. Molossus, the toy terrier, was asleep in Aunt Jane's lap; Scipio reposed luxuriously at Aunt Ruth's feet.

Mild Excitement

It was a peaceful scene; yet it had its mild excitements. The two aunts began at once to explain.

'We are so glad you are come in,' said Aunt Jane.

'Because old Rooker has been,' said Aunt Ruth.

'And with such good news! He has heard from his boy----'

'His boy, you know, who ran away,' continued Aunt Ruth.

'He is coming home in a month or two, just to see his father, and is then going back again----'

'Back again to America, you know----'

'Where he is doing well----'

'And he sends his father five pounds----'

'And now the old man says he will not need our half-a-crown a week any longer----'

'So we can give it to old Mrs. Wimple, his neighbour----'

'A great sufferer, you know, and oh, so patient.'

'Really!' said Claudia, a little confused by this antiphonal kind of narrative.

'Yes,' continued Aunt Jane, 'and I see a letter has come in for you--from home, I think. So this has been quite an eventful morning.'

Claudia took the letter and went up to her own room, reflecting a little ungratefully upon the contentment which reigned below.

She opened her letter. It was, she saw, from her mother, written, apparently, at two or three sittings, for the last sheet contained a most voluminous postscript. She read the opening page of salutation, and then laid it down to prepare for luncheon. Musing as she went about her room, time slipped away, and the gong was rumbling out its call before she was quite ready to go down.

She hurried away, and the letter was left unfinished. It caught her eye in the afternoon; but again Claudia was hurried, and resolved that it could very well wait until she returned at night.

The club was amusing. Mrs. Warwick, its leading spirit, pleasantly mingled a certain motherly sympathy with an unconventional habit of manner and speech. There was an address or lecture during the evening by a middle-aged woman of great fluency, who rather astounded Claudia by the freest possible assumption, and by the most sweeping criticism of the established order of things as it affected women. The general conversation of the members seemed, however, no less frivolous, though much less restrained, than she had heard in drawing-rooms at home.

She parted from Sarah Griffin at the door of the club, and drove to St. John's Wood in a hansom. The repose of the house had not been stirred in her absence. Aunt Jane, Aunt Ruth, Molossus, and Scipio, all were in their accustomed places.

'And here is another letter for you, my dear,' said Aunt Jane. 'I hope the other brought good news?'

Claudia blushed a healthy, honest, old-fashioned blush. She had forgotten that letter. Its opening page or so had alone been glanced at.

Aunt Jane looked astonished at the confession, but with her placid good-nature added: 'Of course, my dear, it was the little excitement of this evening.'

'So natural to young heads,' said Aunt Ruth, with a shake of her curls.

But Claudia was ashamed of herself, and ran upstairs for the first letter.

Startling News

A hasty glance showed her that, whilst it began in ordinary gossip, the long postscript dealt with a more serious subject. Mr. Haberton was ill; he had driven home late at night from a distance, and had taken a chill. Mrs. Haberton hoped it would pass off; Claudia was not to feel alarmed; Pinsett had again proved herself invaluable, and between them they could nurse the patient comfortably.

Claudia hastened to the second letter. Her fears were justified. Her father was worse; pneumonia had set in; the doctor was anxious; they were trying to secure a trained nurse; perhaps Claudia would like to return as soon as she got the letter.

'When did this come?' asked Claudia eagerly.

'A very few moments after you left,' said Aunt Jane. 'Of course, if you had been here, you might just have caught the eight o'clock train--very late, my dear, for you to go by, but with your father so ill----' And Aunt Jane wiped a tear away.

Claudia also wept.

'Can nothing be done to-night?' she presently cried. 'Must I wait till to-morrow? He may be----' But she did not like to finish the sentence.

Aunt Ruth had risen to the occasion; she was already adjusting her spectacles with trembling hands in order to explore the _A B C Timetable_. A very brief examination of the book showed that Claudia could not get home that night. They could only wait until morning.

Claudia spent a sleepless night. She had come up to London to find a mission in life. The first great sorrow had fallen upon her home in her absence, and by an inexcusable preoccupation she had perhaps made it impossible to reach home before her father's death.

She knew that pneumonia often claimed its victims swiftly; she might reach home too late.

Her father had been good to her in his own rather stern way. He was not a small, weak, or peevish character. To have helped him in sickness would have seemed a pleasant duty even to Claudia, who had contrived to overlook her mother's frail health. And others were serving him--that weak mother; Pinsett, too; and perhaps a hired nurse. It was unbearable.

'My dear,' said Aunt Jane, as Claudia wept aloud, 'we are in our heavenly Father's hands; let us ask Him to keep your dear father at least until you see him.'

So those two old maids with difficulty adjusted their stiff knees to kneeling, and, as Aunt Jane lifted her quavering voice in a few sentences of simple prayer, she laid a trembling hand protectingly on Claudia.

Would that night never go? Its hours to Claudia seemed weeks. The shock of an impending loss would of itself have been hard enough to bear; but to remember that by her own indifference to home she had perhaps missed seeing her father again alive--that was worse than all.

And then, as she thought of the sick-room, she remembered her mother. How had she contrived for years not to see that in the daily care of that patient woman there lay the first call for a dutiful daughter?

It was noble to work; and there was a work for every one to do.

But why had she foolishly gone afield to look for occupation and a place in life, when an obvious duty and a post she alone could best fill lay at home? If God would only give her time to amend!

It was a limp, tear-stained, and humbled Claudia who reached home by the first train the next morning.

Her father was alive--that was granted to her. Her mother had borne up bravely, but the struggle was obvious.

A nurse was in possession of the sick-chamber, and Claudia could only look on where often she fain would have been the chief worker.

But the room for amendment was provided. Mr. Haberton recovered very slowly, and was warned always to use the utmost care. Mrs. Haberton, when the worst of her husband's illness was over, showed signs of collapse herself.

A New Ministry

Claudia gave herself up to a new ministry. Her mother no longer called for Pinsett; Mr. Haberton found an admirable successor to his trained nurse.

Claudia had found her place, and in gratitude to God resolved to give the fullest obedience to the ancient precept: 'If any have children . . . let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents.'