The first time Sir Edwin rang up the newspaper office after the memorable Sunday it happened that Hal had gone into the country to report an opening ceremony, graced by Royalty, so she was saved the necessity of framing a reply.
One of the usual reporters being il , the news editor had asked her if she would like to take his place, and she had eagerly accepted the chance. It meant a day in the country, travel ing by special train, and the writing of the report did not worry her at all, as she had already served her apprenticeship to journalism, and knew how to seize on the most interesting points and condense them into a smal space.
She had a genius for making friends also, and after an excel ent champagne lunch, and a cup of tea captured for her by a pleasant-faced man whom she afterwards discovered to be the Earl of Roxley, she motored back to the railway station with a well-known aeronaut, who promised to take her for a "fly" some day. They travel ed up to town in the same compartment, and as Hal had to have her article ready for press when she reached the office, it was necessary to write it in the train.
The "flying man" wished to turn his hand to journalism too, and attempted to help her, without much success, though with a good deal of entertainment for himself. He was specially amused at her determination to lay considerable stress on the fact that one of the horses in the royal carriage fell down between the station and the park.
"What's the good of putting that in?" he argued; "it is of no importance."
"Why, it's almost the most important thing of all," she declared. "You evidently don't know much about journalism. The Public will not be half as interested in the King's speech as in the information that one of the horses fel down, and that the King then put his hands on the Queen's, and told her not to be frightened."
"But he didn't; and the horse only slipped."
"But you're too dense!" she cried, "and, anyhow, you can't be certain that he didn't. It's what he ought to have done, and the British Public will be awful y pleased to know that he did. They'll be frightful y interested in the horse fal ing down, too. I suppose you would leave it out, and give dated of the building of the edifice, and the different styles of architecture, and the names of illustrious people connected with it. As if any one wanted to know that! The horse wil make far better reading, though I daresay I ought to work in a few costs of things. The B.P. loves to know what a thing costs."
"Well, why not value the horse, as you think so much of it? or say that it snapped a trace in half which cost two guineas, and was bought in Bond Street?"
They both laughed, and then Hal said seriously:
"I think I'll make it kick over the centre pole, only then perhaps some of the other reporters wil catch it for not having seen the kick also.
I once wrote an account of a garden party, and left out that the horses of the Prime Minister's carriage shied and swerved, and one wheel caught against the gate-post. As a matter of fact, it did not do much more than graze it, but some journalist wrote a thrilling account of how the carriage nearly turned over; and I've never forgotten the chief's face when he asked me why I hadn't mentioned the accident to the Prime Minister's carriage. I said there wasn't an accident, and he snapped: 'Well you'd better have turned them al in a heap in the road than left it out altogether!'
"I've never made the same mistake since," she finished, "and now, if the chief sees my paragraphs, he has to ring some one up occasional y, and make sure I haven't gone out of bounds altogether."
"Well, if you're quite determined to lie... I mean romance... why not do it thouroughly? Let the King leap out of the carriage, with the Queen in his arms, and the royal coachman fal backwards off the box -
and - and - both the horses burst out laughing?"
"I'd get the sack for that," Hal spluttered, busily plying her pencil,
"and then I'd break my heart, because I'm in love with the chief."
"Oh" - with a low laugh, "and is it quite hopeless?"
"Quite. The most hopeless _grande passion_ that ever was. He's been married twice already, and the second is stil very much alive. Did the Queen wear a black hat, or a dark purple one?"
"Dark purple, of course, like her dress. Why, I could write the thing better than you."
"I'm sure you could, if you might have half the newspaper. I don't know where you'd be in thirty-six lines!"
"By Jove! Have you got to squeeze it all into thirty-six lines?"
"Less, if possible. There's been a row in Berlin, and we have to al ow for thrilling developments, which may crowd out lots of other paragraphs."
"And supposing you want it a few lines longer?"
"Then the compiler will add a bit on about the weather, or throw in another dress description, or something. I'm putting you in now,"
scribbling on; "but I don't know your name?"
"And I'm not going to tel it to you for your precious paragraph, so you'll have to cross that bit out again."
"Not at al ," airily: "a well-known aeronaut, who has recently beaten the distance-record, and is looking remarkably wel in spite of his advanced years, was among the distinguished guests!"
He had to cry "pax" then.
"I give you up," he said; "you're too much for me! But I'll take your for a fly the first opportunity I get. Wil you come?"
"Wil I come!..." in eager tones. "Oh, won't I?"
And he promised to arrange it.
When they reached Euston, Hal had to dash for the first taxi, and tear to the office with her report, and it was not until she was leaving that the cal boy told her a gentleman had asked for her on the telephone in the afternoon.
"Did he give any name?" she asked.
"Yes, Mr. Crathie."
Hal suppressed a smile. "I suppose you told him I was out."
"Yes, miss. He wanted to know when you would be back, and I asked Mr.
Watson, and he told me to say 'Not before evening.'"
Hal climbed to the top of a bus, and journeyed homewards with a thoughtful air. Of course he would ring her up again the next day, and then what was she to say?
In the meantime, looming big in her immediate horizon was the visit to be paid to Hol oway that evening. She was going up without Dudley, having expressed a wish to do so, with which he had wil ingly complied.
She felt it would be easier not to appear forced without him, and would be fairer on Doris also. Yet she dreaded the visit very much, and longed that it was over.
Ethel opened the door to her, as she happened to be in the little kitchen close beside it, and Hal thought she looked very ill as she grasped her hand with warm friendliness, saying:
"How nice of you to come and see Doris so soon."
"What are you doing in the kitchen?" said Hal. "I want to come and help."
"I'm only making a salad, and shall not be long. You must go to the parlour"; and she laughed at the quaint, old-fashioned word.
"No, I'm coming to help," and Hal walked past her, through the open door. "How's Basil? Dudley spoke as if he was not quite so wel just now."
"I'm afraid he isn't," with sudden, hardly veiled anxiety; "but it may only be the foggy weather."
To any one else Ethel would probably have asserted that he was wel as usual, and changed the subject; but she liked Hal special y, and showed it by being quite honest with her. She also knew perfectly wel that Dudley's engagement must have been a great shock to his only sister, not solely because she had nothing whatever in common with Doris, but because she herself must love him; and her heart felt very tender and friendly over her.
Although Hal had come to see Doris, she did not refrain from following her inclination, and seating herself on the kitchen table to chat to Ethel while she made the salad. Doris would keep, was her rapid mental conclusion, and they two might not get another chance of a few words alone.
Chatting thus, it was interesting to note the similarity that existed between these wielders of the pen, each daily immersed in a City office.
Each had the same clear, frank eyes, the same independent poise of head, the same air of capable energy and self-dependence. Each, too, had the same rather colourless skin, from lack of fresh air, though whereas Ethel looked tired and worn, Hal seemed strong and fresh and wore no air of delicacy.
Then Doris came, with her pink-and-white daintiness, and spoke to them both with a little triumphant air of condescension; for was not she engaged to be married, whereas clever, working women usually became
"old maids"?
Hal tried not to seem too offhand, but it was quite impossible for her to gush, and she could not pretend a sudden affection just because of the engagement. So she just said something about Dudley being very happy, and hoped they would have good luck, and then went to the sitting-room to talk to Basil, entertaining him immensely with her account of the day's ceremony, and her haphazard friendship with the
"flying man", who was going to take her in his aeroplane.
"Who was he?" Basil asked. "Has he won any prizes?"
"I don't know. He dit not tel me. I did not discover his name either, but he was some relation of the 'Lord-of-the-Manor' person who received the King."
"You don't know his name?" asked Doris in a shocked voice. "Weren't you introduced?"
"Never a bit of it," laughed Hal. "I was left behind when the last fly had gone to the station, and he heard me asking anxiously how soon one would get back again, and immediately offered me a seat in the motor he was going in. Another man was with him, a much be-medalled officer, who was somewhat heavy in hand to talk to, and at the station we gave him the slip."
"How can he take you for a fly if you don't know who he is?"
"Well, I dare say he won't; quite likely he didn't mean it; but if he did, he can easily find me at the office. He knew my name, and what paper I was there for. They bot knew, which probably accounts for the gentleman with the medals being somewhat ponderous - soldiers are usual y snobbish - and he may not have liked having to ride to the station with a newspaper woman."
"But if the other man was the Lord of the Manor's brother?"
"Oh, that wouldn't make any difference. He might very well be less self-important than anything in a bit of scarlet and medals if he had been the Lord of the Manor himself. Why, the Earl of Roxley got tea for me, and was most attentive."
Doris's eyes opened wider. She had always secretly entertained rather a superior attitude towards Hal and her sister, and was glad she was not an office clerk. The big, breezy, working world, where the individual is taken on his or her merits apart from birth, or standing, or occupation, was quite unknown to her; and that Hal's original, attractive personality might open doors for ever shut to her mediocre, pretty young-ladyhood, would never enter her mind.
"I don't think I should care to talk to any one without being introduced," she remarked a little affectedly, to which Hal shrugged her shoulders and commented:
"It's just as well you haven't to knock about in the world, then. Any one with an ounce of common sense and perspicacity knows when it is safe, and when it is sheer fol y."
Basil watched her with an amused air.
"I'm sure you do," he said.
"Yes." She smiled infectiously. "I've only once been spoken to unpleasantly in London, after knocking about for seven years, and then I offered the man a sixpence. I said: 'I'm sorry I haven't any more, and I can't spare that, but if you are hungry!...' He looked as if he would like to slay me, and vanished."
Doris stil looked slightly disapproving, and when at last Hal rose to go, she half-unconsciously asked Ethel with her eyes to accompany her to get her hat, instead of her prospective sister-in-law. And when they were alone, Ethel looked into Hal's expressive face, and guessing something of what she carefully hid, said sympathetically:
"You and Dudley have always been so much to each other; I am afraid you must feel it a little having to share him already with another."
Suddenly and inexplicably Hal's eyes fil ed with tears, and she turned away quite unable to answer.
Ethel pretended not to notice, but her heart bled for her, knowing how much worse it was than just the fact of the engagement.
"I'm so wrapped up in Basil," she went on, "that if it had happened to me I should have felt quite heartbroken, however much I told myself I wanted his happiness."
Hal dabbed her eyes a little viciously.
"Of course I want him to be happy," she managed to say; "but it is nice of you to understand."
"There's one thing," Ethel continued, "you will become a sort of relation, and you've no idea how pleased Basil and I wil be about that."
"Wil you?" Hal smiled through her tears, "I rather wonder at it."
"Of course we shall. Basil and I think you are one of the finest characters we have ever known. You've no idea how proud we are when you come to see us," which proved Ethel's understanding heart, for a little generous praise is a kind healer to a sore spirit.
Hal looked into her eyes, with a pleased light in her own.
"You are too generous, but it's nice to be thought well of by any one like you and Basil. I shall remember it when I am silly enough to be downhearted, and it wil cheer me up."
She had to hurry away then to catch a train, and as she went her mind was full of the thought:
"Why, oh why, had Dudley, in his blindness, wooed the younger sister?"
"Well?" he said, as she entered their sitting-room, where he was reading over the fire. "How did you get on?"
"Oh, splendidly" - trying to throw a little enthusiasm into her voice.
"Doris looked amazingly pretty."
She show a soft light in his eyes, and because it rather maddened her, she hastened to add: "But I see a great change in Basil."
"Yes?... I wondered if you would. I was afraid he did not seem so wel ."
"Dudley" - with sudden seriousness - "when Basil dies, it wil just about break Ethel up. She idolises him."
"I know; but she can hardly wish him to live on if he continues to grow worse."
"I suppose not; but it's rather awful to think of what it will mean to her to lose him. And she's so sympathetic and tender-hearted." Hal stood a moment looking gravely at the fire - "you know, I think she's the most splendid person I've ever known."
"Splendid!... " a trifle testily. "Why? Splendid seems an odd word to use."
"It's the one that suits Ethel Hayward best of all. Anything else would be too commonplace. When I think what her life is - the endless struggle to make both ends meet - work morning, noon, and night - and on the top of it all the brother she adores a helpless, suffering invalid, it quite overawes me. If she were bitter and complaining it would be different, but she is nearly always cheerful and hopeful and ready to think of some one else's troubles. And yet she isn't goody-goody - nor what one describes as "worthy'; she's just human through and through."
"She sometimes seems to me a little severe," he said.
"Severe!... Oh, Dudley, she is the kindest soul alive."
"Perhaps she was tired; but it seemed to me, considering Doris's youth, she expected rather a lot of her."
"Ah!..."
Hal turned away, and picked up an evening paper. The exclamation might have meant anything, yet Dudley half knew it meant that in some way Hal believed Doris had wilful y misrepresented her sister, and, naturally resenting the inference, he returned to his book and said no more.
Hal lingered a little longer, passed one or two remarks on the evening news, told him of her day in the country, and then went to bed.
Yet, in spite of her soreness towards Doris, something in her evening with Ethel had unaccountably cheered and refreshed her - the kindly praise, the warm-hearted affection, the sight of the strong, womanly face, unembittered by its heavy sorrow.
Hal stood at her window, and glanced out over the City, and felt renewed in her determination to withstand Sir Edwin Crathie's advances.
She knew that he was treating her with a lack of respect he would not have dared to show a woman in his own circle.
He was treating her as a City typist; and however much she wished to prolong it, she knew she owed it to herself to cut it adrift.
And the next day, when the anticipated telephone cal came, her resolution was firm and unshaken.
"Tel the gentleman I am engaged," she told the cal boy.
He came back again a moment later to know what time she would be disengaged, and she gave the message: "It is quite impossible to say.
I have some most important work on hand."
The small boy grinned in a way that made Hal long to box his ears, but she returned to her work, and pretended not to see.
At the other end of the wire the speaker sat back in his chair and muttered an oath; then for some moments he stared gloomily at his desk.
"Damn it! I like her pluck," ran his thoughts; "but I don't mean to be put off like that. I've got to see her again somehow, if it's only to prove I'm not the cad she thinks me."