# Madame Claire/Chapter 23

Judy knocked on Noel's bedroom door before dinner the following evening, and was invited to enter.
"What's up?" asked Noel, who was sorting ties and socks.
"This," she answered, displaying a letter. "The most disgusting thing's happened."
"What is it? It looks like Chip's writing."
"It is. I told you he called on Claire yesterday when I was there, and met Mr. Colebridge."
"Yes."
"Well, he seems to have jumped to conclusions. Listen to this. I'll read it to you.
"'Dear Miss Pendleton,
"'I think I told you about a cottage my mother owned in Cornwall. It's a very remote, quiet little place, and I've found it very useful at different times. I think it will exactly suit my present mood, and I'm going down there by an early train to-morrow. I hope to be able to finish the book there. I don't seem to have been able to get on with it lately.
​"'I want to thank you again for all your kindness to me, kindness that few people would have shown to a careless individual who got in the way of their car. I shall never forget it. There was a time——'
"Then," she broke off, "he goes on to say something about having been foolish enough to hope something or other—I'll skip that. Then:
"'I think that your days of freedom and happiness are just beginning, and I hope with all my heart that you may find in your marriage all that you have so far missed in life. You will be marrying a man who can give you everything—all the good things that are so obviously yours by right.
"'Will you say good-by to your brother for me? He has given me his address in Germany, and I mean to write to him there.
"'This is a stupid, stilted letter, but I feel confident that you will understand the much that it fails to say, and forgive it its shortcomings.
"'Always yours sincerely,
"'Andrew Crosby."
"Dated yesterday," she added. She put the letter back into its envelope. "He must have left for Cornwall early this morning."
Noel whistled.
​"Mr. Colebridge must have been a bit forthcoming yesterday."
"Forthcoming isn't the word for it. He talked about the money he would give his wife, and looked straight at me—oh, isn't it maddening! I wouldn't have had this happen for anything!"
"Have you told Claire?"
"Yes. I took the letter there as soon as it came."
"What did she say?"
"A good deal, but I don't see how I can possibly act on her advice. She says that if I don't go to Cornwall and straighten things out with him, I'm a fool. She has a horror of misunderstandings. She begged me to go."
"But, hang it all! You can't go alone. If it weren't for this German trip, I——" He broke off, frowning. "So she thinks you ought to go down there?"
"She was most emphatic about it."
"Let's see—what day is to-day? By Jove, Judy! There's time if we go to-morrow. What do you say? Shall we?"
"Oh, Noel! I don't know what to say. I do want to talk to him. I couldn't write anything—that would mean anything. I'd have to see him. What do you think?"
​"I think old Claire's pretty generally right."
"Then—shall we go?"
"I'm ready if you are," he replied. "I'd like to see old Chip again myself. It means the ten-thirty from Paddington, you know."
"What will the family say?" Judy asked him. "Oh, well, let them say it! I knew I could count on you, Noel!" ****** Once in the swift and inexorable train, Judy was assailed with doubts. What was she doing? Should she have let things take their own course? Would it have been wiser to have stayed at home, and to have written Chip a letter?
Noel, observing her restlessness and guessing the cause, told her he had won five pounds at bridge the day before, and that if she wanted to pull the emergency cord and get out, he'd pay. But when she asked him point blank, "Tell me, do you think I'm acting like a fool?" he replied, "No, like a human being," and she felt calmer then and read her magazine.
But panic overwhelmed her once more in the jolting Ford with flapping side curtains that took them from the inn in West Perranpool to Cliff Cottage, where Chip lived.
"Why did we come?" she cried.
​"Because," said Noel, the comforter, "I wanted to see Chip again before I went to Germany, and I brought you with me. And besides, I saw his doctor again the other day, and he said that what Chip needed more than anything was cheering up. He said he'd been rather depressed since the accident. So stop agonizing about it."
She stopped agonizing after that, and watched the thin rain of early spring that slanted steadily down from a darkening sky. The bleak landscape had a peculiar charm. So, too, had the lonely, white cottages they passed, their undrawn curtains showing fiery painted walls, for dusk was upon them. They climbed a little hill and pulled up sharply at the door of a low house that looked at the sea from its dormer windows. Lights burned there, too. The driver of the Ford had assured them that Major Crosby would be in, because, he said, there was never anything to go out for. They told him to wait, and knocked at the door.
Chip opened it himself. It was just dark enough to make it difficult for him to recognize them, but when he did he was almost overcome with surprise and pleasure. He stammered. He shook hands twice over. He shut the door too quickly behind them—as though, Judy thought, ​he were afraid they might go out again—and caught her skirt in it, at which they all laughed. He pushed every chair in the room toward the fire, as if they were capable of sitting in more than one apiece.
"This is glorious!" he cried. "I can hardly believe it! I never dreamed of it. You must stay to supper. No, I'm not my own cook; I'd starve if I were. There's a Cornish char here somewhere. I'll tell her."
He rushed off, and they heard him giving excited and confused directions in the kitchen. Then he rushed back.
"I'm going to send the car away. It's only a mile to the inn. I'll walk back with you after supper. You're angels from heaven, both of you. There's only fish and eggs and cheese. Can you bear that?"
Judy saw a new Chip—a happy, hopeful one. Excitement and wholly unexpected pleasure gave him confidence. He asked a hundred questions. He made Judy take off her hat and coat and carried them away into his room. He replenished the fire and hurled into it some papers that had been lying on the table.
"I was trying to write a letter," he explained. Judy thought she saw her name on a blackening ​sheet before it puffed into flame. Another letter, to her? Was he dissatisfied, perhaps, with the letter he had written her before leaving London? How little he had guessed, while writing it, that he would be interrupted half way through it, and by her. His eyes shone, and his undisciplined hair stood up at the back like a schoolboy's. He didn't know or care. He was happy.
There in that cottage room, Judy felt the influence of the woman who had furnished it. She had put into it all the little personal odds and ends that she had loved. There was her work table, there her favorite chair. There was the writing table where she had sat penning the novels that had educated her son. Novels, Chip had said, that she would have hated. But he was wrong. There, on the mantelpiece with its tasseled, red velvet draping, were pictures of Chip as a baby, as a schoolboy, as a youth at Sandhurst, where he had acquired that absurd nickname of his, and as a First Lieutenant about to take his part in the South African war, from which campaign he had returned to find her gone. He had left everything as she had left it, and Judy was disposed to love him for it. Books were scattered about the room, and it had the air of being much lived in and much worked in.
​It was easy enough for him to talk to-day. His reserve seemed to have melted away from him. Had he heard anything more from Helen about meeting influential people, Judy asked? No, he hadn't. She had forgotten all about it, no doubt. He was rather relieved that she had.
"People have no time for failures," Chip said, "and quite right too. A man who has reached the age of forty-four without accomplishing anything is a failure."
"That's tosh!" said Noel. "Every one's a failure at some time of their lives. The thing is to see that it isn't chronic."
The old Cornish woman came in and laid the table for supper, bringing with her an extra lamp. She seemed very pleased that the Major had company, and looked approvingly at Judy. They sat down presently to a savory meal, and she waited on them with enthusiasm, putting in a word now and then.
Chip talked of the country round about.
"It's beautiful," he said, "if you happen to like these rather bleak and open places. I do, myself."
"So do I," agreed Judy. "But I love trees, too; although I think treeless places are better for one. I always imagine I can think better ​where there aren't many trees. Perhaps they have thoughts of their own, and they get mixed up with our thoughts."
"Well, one can think here," Chip said. "There are some fine walks, too. I'll take you for a walk over the cliffs to-morrow, if it's not too cold and windy."
"We'll come over after breakfast," said Noel. "You might walk half way and meet us, Chip."
"Right!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "I'll start out at about half-past nine."
After supper they sat by the fire and talked until Judy grew so sleepy that she said she'd never be able to get to the inn if they didn't start at once.
When they went out they found it had stopped raining, but there was a high wind blowing. It roared high up over their heads most of the time, every now and then swooping down upon them and shaking their clothes, then going crazily off to roar above their heads again. The moon looked out occasionally through gaps in the flying clouds. A wild night that made the blood go faster. The road was rough and stony and in order to be guided better, Judy passed one arm through Chip's and the other through Noel's, and they walked abreast. She felt Chip straighten ​suddenly when she put her arm through his, and for some moments he walked without speaking, holding her arm rigidly as though he were abnormally conscious of her touch.
He said good night to them at the door of the inn—a mere whitewashed cottage, much added on to—and Judy marveled at the change in his face when the light fell on it from the open door—the change wrought in it by a few hours of happiness. It seemed to her that it was a different being who had stared out at them from his own door earlier that evening.
"Good night," he said for the third time. "I won't try to thank you for coming. I can't."
And he vanished abruptly into the darkness. ****** "The question before the house," said Noel the next morning at breakfast, "is this: how am I going to lose myself to-day?"
"Oh, no!" cried Judy in a panic at the thought. "You're not to, Noel. Please don't leave me. I've quite changed my mind. I think it's much better to let things take their own course."
"All right, let them," he agreed. "All I mean to do is to clear the course a bit. It's going to be rather difficult. I think I'd better leave it to the inspiration of the moment."
​He said no more about it, and promptly at half-past nine they left the inn together and made their way toward Cliff Cottage. They had gone less than half way, however, when they met Chip walking toward them with long strides.
"Good morning!" he called out. "Did you sleep well?"
"We never slept better," answered Judy, "and I feel as if I could walk twenty miles."
"So do I," said Noel, "but all the walking I shall do this morning will be to the post office and back."
"Why?" exclaimed the other two.
"It's my own fault. I never sent the Chief word that I wouldn't be in town to-day. Clean forgot it. I'll send him a wire to say what time I'll be back to-morrow. Then I must write one or two letters I won't have another chance to write before I go off on Thursday. Anyhow, I'll meet you at the inn at one. You're lunching with us to-day, Chip. Well," as he turned to leave them, "have a good walk. So long!"
They stood watching his thin, upright figure. That empty sleeve of his, tucked into the pocket of his coat, did not affect his easy, swinging walk. He ignored it himself so utterly that he made other people ignore it too. They waited until he ​looked back and waved at them, and then they started on their way.
"I almost believed him myself," thought Judy, admiring the ease with which he had taken himself off.
"Your brother Noel," said Chip, "is the best fellow I've ever known."
Appreciation of Noel always touched Judy to the quick.
"You don't know how that pleases me!" she cried. "I'm so glad you feel that. There's no one like him."
"You are like him," said Chip quietly.
"I wish I were more like him."
For a while they walked on without speaking.
"Chip," said Judy at last, "I'm going to call you that. I have for a long time in my own mind and to Noel. Please treat me like an old friend and tell me about yourself and your plans. Don't let's be reserved with each other. There's so much I want to know about you. I promise you there's nothing I would hesitate to tell you about myself, and I wish you would feel that you could discuss anything with me."
"I will," he replied. "I do."
They still had with them the high wind of the night before. It was fresh and bracing, but not ​cold, and it carried with it a smell of the sea and of the turf, wet with yesterday's rain.
"Tell me, then. What do you mean to do now?"
"Finish the book, first of all. Beyond that I've no plans at all. The worst of it is, I've rather lost faith in it lately. I suppose one is apt to feel like that, after working on a thing for twelve years. Now that it's nearly done, I want to chuck the whole blessed thing into the fire. It would give me a queer sort of satisfaction to see it burn. Remorse and despair would follow, of course."
"Kindly resist any such impulse," she said.
"Oh, I shan't give in to it, I promise you."
"It's all wrong for you to live alone as you do," Judy told him. "Only people who are very socially inclined ought to live alone, for they'd take good care not to be alone any more than they could help. I think loneliness is paralyzing."
"I believe it is," he agreed.
"Very well then. You must stop living this hermit's life."
"That," he said smiling, "isn't as easy as it sounds."
"It's fairly easy, I think. You must marry."
Chip had no reply to make to that for some ​time. They walked on, along a path that bordered the turfy cliff. The sea, its grayness whipped by the wind into lines of white foam that advanced and retreated, was worrying the rocks below them. Gulls flashed silver white against a low and frowning sky. The day suited her mood. She felt bold, braced by the wind and the sea. The high cliffs gave her courage. The space gave her freedom.
"For that," Chip said at last, "two things are necessary. The first is love; the second is the means to keep that love from perishing."
"Once you possess the first," said Judy, "you have more power to gain the second."
"But I don't possess it."
"Do you mean that you have never loved any one?"
"I mean that no one does or could care for me."
"I wish you hadn't said that," she told him, turning her head to meet his eyes.
"Why? It's the truth."
"No, it isn't the truth. Besides, no man ought to be as humble as that. It's all wrong. You have never tried to make any one love you. Have you?"
"No."
"Then how can you possibly know?"
​"I have no right to try."
"As much right as any other man. More than most."
"No, no! You don't understand. You're forgetting that——"
"I wonder," interrupted Judy, "how many other men and women have had this same argument? The woman putting love first, the man money. Or vice versa. You, evidently, put money first."
This was more than he could bear.
"Don't say that!" he broke out. "Say that I put love first, every time, and that I would sacrifice everything for it and to it, rather than do it less than justice. A man has no right to snatch at love, regardless of the consequences. To put it first is sometimes the supremest selfishness. It's putting oneself first, one's own gain and good first."
"You're perfectly right, Chip," she answered. "I know you're right. Only, if by putting it first you were adding to some one else's happiness . . . instead of taking away from it . . ."
She saw his lips tighten.
"I am only hurting him," she thought. "It would be better to speak out."
"Chip," she said at last, "I want to talk to ​you about your letter. The one you wrote before coming down here. You evidently took it for granted I was going to marry Mr. Colebridge, and that soon. Don't you think you rather jumped to conclusions? Because I've no intention of marrying Mr. Colebridge, now or later. What made you think I had?"
"He did."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there he was—rich, successful, influential. A man of standing and power . . . and in love with you . . . as any one could see. He had followed you from the South of France . . . you were together at Lady Gregory's . . . it all seemed so perfectly natural . . . and suitable . . ."
"You think it would have been suitable?"
"From a worldly point of view, yes. Though I prefer not to say what was going on in my mind. . . ."
"And you think my point of view is a wholly worldly one?"
"I never said that!"
"You practically did. You must have thought it. I thought you knew me better than that."
"I saw no reason to suppose that you would have chosen him merely from worldly motives. ​I judged him to be kind, generous, honest—a man a woman might be very fond of——"
"What sort of a woman? My sort?"
"I didn't argue about it. I accepted it. There it was. I believed you had decided to marry him. I knew that if you had done so, you must have had good reasons for it. I was prepared to believe you were acting for . . . for the best."
"What else was going on in your mind as you sat there? You were very quiet."
"I would rather not say."
"You understand that I am not going to marry him?"
"I do, and I—selfishly and unreasonably—I can't help being thankful. That's only human, I suppose. But even if I had known it that day, I think I would have made up my mind to come here just the same."
"But why?"
"I think you must know why."
Very gently and quietly said. One might speak so to a child who asks foolish and tactless questions. Oh, Claire! It's all very well, thought Judy, to say, have it out with him, but what would you do yourself, if you were gently put aside like that, and chidden a little? "I think you must know why." As if to say, "And now let's hear ​no more about it." Claire had spoken as if it were going to be the easiest thing in the world to have it out with him! . . .
They rounded a curve in the path then and Judy cried out at the beauty of the view. Far below them the sea pounded and foamed. The cliffs fell away with a sheer drop that gave her an uneasy sensation of falling, for an instant, and the wind buffeted them with such violence that Chip took her by the arm and drew her back from the path that ran dangerously close to the edge. For a moment, speech was impossible.
"Can't we sit somewhere," she cried, when she could get her breath, "out of the wind?"
He pointed to a great bowlder that overhung the path a dozen yards ahead, and they struggled toward it and crept into its shelter. There the wind rushed by them but did not disturb them.
"That's better," she said. "I can talk now without shouting."
"And I can smoke," said Chip, filling a pipe, "which is a great help."
"I said a few minutes ago," she told him quietly, "that there was nothing I would hesitate to tell you about myself. I mean to prove, now, that I'm as good as my word. I can't see that we gain anything by . . . not speaking out to ​each other. We're both very inclined to be reserved, and to-day . . . to-day that sort of thing seems to me very petty and artificial."
He turned and looked at her, smiling.
"You could never be either petty or artificial."
"Yes, I could. I have been. But I don't mean to be so with you. What will you think of me, Chip, if I tell you that I know . . . yes, I know . . . that you need me . . . badly, and that I believe . . . I know . . . that I need you."
Her voice was unsteady, in spite of her courage.
"I think," he answered in a low voice, "that it is your divine kindness that makes you say that to me. I think you say it because you know well enough that there's nothing on earth I would rather hear."
But he did not dare to look at her, and stared out at the sea with his pipe between his teeth.
Judy laughed. A rather helpless laugh, with something of exasperation in it.
"Kindness! Oh, no. It's not that at all. I'll tell you what it is. I'm telling you this because I'm one of those women who are possessed of an insatiable vanity. I'm trying to make you say things of the same sort to me. I exact it from every man. I like being made love to, on general principles. I took the trouble to come down to ​Cornwall to see you because I hoped to sit with you under this rock and be made love to. Do you believe me?"
"Not in the least."
"Well, it's quite as true as that I said what I did just now out of kindness. Kindness! I . . . I could shake you!"
His face was very troubled.
"Don't you see that I cannot—I dare not—put any other interpretation on it? You still feel an interest in the man who nearly fell under your wheels that night. You want to know that he is not . . . not too unhappy. You want to leave him feeling that he can count on your friendship—and he does, and will. And that is all. It is a great deal."
"I think you are the most annoying, insulting, irritating of men! I don't know why I came all this way to see you and talk to you . . . except that I had to, Chip. Do you hear me? I had to!"
"Judy," he said, looking at her with eyes that seemed not to see her, "I am perfectly certain of one thing. And that is, that if by some miracle you could, that you must not . . . you must not . . . care for me. But you cannot, you cannot!"
He put out his hand toward her, gropingly, and she took it.
​"And I am equally certain of one thing, and that is that you care for me. And I tell you, Chip, I don't care twopence for your self-respect, or whatever you call it, that you think so much of. And I care even less for my own, at the moment. And I am tired of your loneliness—your awful loneliness—and I am tired to death of my own loneliness. And I am tired of hearing you call yourself a failure, and I am frightened of being a failure myself—and only you can save me from it. Only you! And if you talk any more nonsense about my kindness now . . ."
"Judy!" he cried, in a voice that was like a warning. "Judy!"
"Yes. I've done a dreadful thing. I know I have. And I don't care. I want you to tell me all the things you haven't dared to tell me yet. I want to hear them all . . . now. Are you going to tell me, Chip? Are you?"
She was half frightened when she saw the look of exaltation on his face. It was his great—his supreme moment. The moment that comes once to nearly every man, of awe and ecstasy.
"God forgive me!" he cried. "I will!"