The Independence of Claire | Page 2

suffering.
At the present moment Mrs Gifford did, however, look really perturbed, for, after shutting her eyes to a disagreeable fact, and keeping them shut with much resolution and--it must be added--ease, for many years past, she was now driven to face the truth, and to break it to her daughter into the bargain.
"But I don't understand!" Claire repeated blankly. "How can the money be gone? We have spent no more this year than for years past. I should think we have spent less. I haven't been extravagant a bit. You offered me a new hat only last week, and I said I could do without--"
"Yes, yes, of course. It's quite true, cherie, you have been most good. But, you see, ours has not been a case of an income that goes on year after year--it never was, even from the beginning. There was not enough. And you did have a good education, didn't you? I spared nothing on it. It's folly to stint on a girl's education.--It was one of the best schools in Paris."
"It was, mother; but we are not talking about schools. Do let us get to the bottom of this horrid muddle! If it isn't a case of `income,' what can it be? I'm ignorant about money, for you have always managed business matters, but I can't see what else we can have been living upon?"
Mrs Gifford crinkled her delicate brows, and adopted an air of plaintive self-defence.
"I'm sure it's as great a shock to me as it is to you; but, under the circumstances, I do think I managed very well. It was only nine thousand pounds at the beginning, and I've made it last over thirteen years, with your education! And since we've been here, for the last three years, I've given you a good time, and taken you to everything that was going on. Naturally it all costs. Naturally money can't last for ever..."
The blood flooded the girl's face. Now at last she did understand, and the knowledge filled her with awe.
"Mother! Do you mean that we have been living all this time on capital?"
Mrs Gifford shrugged her shoulders, and extended her hands in an attitude typically French.
"What would you, ma chere? Interest is so ridiculously low. They offered me three per cent. Four was considered high. How could we have lived on less than three hundred a year? Your school bills came to nearly as much, and I had to live, too, and keep you in the holidays. I did what I thought was the best. We should both have been miserable in cheap pensions, stinting ourselves of everything we liked. The money has made us happy for thirteen years."
Claire rose from her seat and walked over to the window. The road into which she looked was wide and handsome, lined with a double row of trees. The sun shone on the high white houses with the green jalousies, which stood vis-a-vis with the Pension. Along the cobble-stoned path a dog was dragging a milk-cart, the gleaming brass cans clanking from side to side; through the open window came the faint indescribable scent which distinguishes a continental from a British city. Claire stared with unseeing eyes, her heart beating with heavy thuds. She conjured up the image of a man's face--a strong kindly face--a face which might well make the sunshine of some woman's life, but which made no appeal to her own heart. She set her lips, and two bright spots of colour showed suddenly in her cheeks. So smooth and uneventful had been her life that this was the first time that she had found herself face to face with serious difficulty, and, after the first shock of realisation, her spirit rose to meet it. She straightened her shoulders as if throwing off a weight, and her heart cried valiantly, "It's my own life, and I will not be forced! There must be some other way. It's for me to find it!"
Suddenly she whirled round, and walked back to her mother.
"Mother, if you knew how little money was left, why wouldn't you let me accept Miss Farnborough's offer at Christmas!"
For a moment Mrs Gifford's face expressed nothing but bewilderment. Then comprehension dawned.
"You mean the school-mistress from London? What was it she suggested? That you should go to her as a teacher? It was only a suggestion, so far as I remember. She made no definite offer."
"Oh, yes, she did. She said that she had everlasting difficulty with her French mistresses, and that I was the very person for whom she'd been looking. Virtually French, yet really English in temperament. She made me a definite offer of a hundred and ten pounds a year."
Mrs Gifford laughed, and shrugged her graceful shoulders. She appeared to find the proposal supremely ridiculous, yet when people